by Roz Southey
She laughed. “I break the law frequently. The only reason more people do not do so is because they fear they will be caught. But when you can escape to another world – why, what is there to stop you?”
We were walking down a hill; I did not recognise the street from my own world but the wisps of smoke that came drifting up to us told me we were heading towards the Key. A gaggle of whores passed us, giggling, three-quarters drunk. They looked once at us and were instantly silent, hurrying past as if they were children trying to get out of the reach of schoolteachers. A hundred yards further on, they burst into giggling again.
“There, sir,” said Lady Anne, gazing back at them, “go a considerable source of my income. In return for my protection and organisation, they give me a proportion of their profits. A large proportion, of course. And those gentlemen we passed, who are light-fingered in the extreme, need someone to buy their newly acquired property and dispose of it for them.”
I was startled. “But your inheritance –”
“Insufficient, sir. How many gowns do you think it pays for? How many horses? No, I must also have my… business interests.” She caressed my arm. “In my world I earn money and in your world I spend it. A most excellent arrangement, do you not think?”
I found it impossible to speak. On to a road I knew – Westgate. I looked up at the houses as we passed and saw windows brightly lit. A cat-fiddle screeched out a jig. I recognised Demsey’s school-room.
“The differences between our two worlds fascinate me,” Lady Anne mused. “You are uncommonly like your counterpart here, sir, but that is not the case with everyone. Your friend Demsey, for instance, in this world is twenty years older, a fussy and choleric man, not much liked.”
I looked up at the house again. Strange to know that a man lived and worked there whom I did and did not know. A man very different from my friend who, for all I knew, lay dead in my world. I opened my mouth to call out but shut it again. Lady Anne murmured, “Most wise,” and pushed the knife against my flesh.
“I cannot understand why I co-operate with you,” I burst out. “I go peaceably to prevent your injuring me, yet I know full well you intend to kill me in the end.”
“Think of Mr Demsey,” she recommended.
We walked cautiously on, down the Side, through the pools of light cast by the flaring lanterns. “If you kill me,” I said, “my absence will be noted. In my own world.”
“I have made provision for that.”
“Provision?” I echoed.
“Come, sir,” she chided. “Do you not see that I have planned everything from the start?” She was apparently agreeably occupied in studying the windows of the shops. “After our first contretemps in the coffee-house – do you remember that, sir? – it occurred to me that you might be useful. You are known to be violently jealous of Le Sac.”
“Am I?” I said with some gloom, reflecting that perhaps I had been quite as obvious and foolish as Demsey had been over Nichols.
“I therefore fomented the argument between you and Le Sac by arranging the theft of his violin. I had that idea after the loss of the music – or its mislaying, I should say. You know he found the book later at the house of a pupil?”
“I guessed as much.”
“I forged your writing on the violin’s label to incriminate you, and encouraged poor Henri to think of you as the culprit. You can imagine I was not well pleased when Esther proved more perceptive that I had believed her to be and retrieved the instrument. She does not suspect half the truth, of course. She merely thinks me mixed up in something shady – but that has made her meddling enough!”
I thought back to my encounter with Esther Jerdoun on the bridge. I had thought she was accusing me of stealing the instrument when in fact she had been trying to reassure me that Lady Anne’s plottings would not affect me. Her manner, which I had put down to condemnation, must have been a natural embarrassment and anger at the conduct of her cousin.
“Then,” Lady Anne continued, “to incite your hatred of Henri, I sent those ruffians to attack you. You are my plan of last resort, sir.”
I frowned. “In what respect, my lady?”
“It was possible that Le Sac’s –‘suicide’ would not be convincing. I required an alternative solution to the mystery, in case his death was questioned. In short, sir, I will manufacture evidence which suggests that you killed the boy yourself, out of a belief that he had been conspiring with his old master against you – indeed, a belief that Le Sac never cast off the boy at all but used him as a conspirator to get inside your household. Le Sac found out and confronted you, so you killed him too.”
“You will not get Le Sac’s spirit to support that story.”
“Come, come, sir. You spoke to him yourself. He will do anything to torment me. I have simply to persuade him it is to my disadvantage that he keeps quiet and he will do it. Bear in mind, sir, that you will disappear, which will itself suggest your guilt. It will be assumed you fled for fear of being discovered.”
“Demsey knows what happened,” I pointed out.
She laughed softly. “The dancing master may not survive, sir. And as for my cousin …”
With fear squeezing my heart, I stopped. “What of her?”
“You must see, sir, that I must be rid of her. In a little while, when it will not look too suspicious.”
I fell silent. We walked on, on to the Key. Torches burned outside the shops and brothels, and on the low keels at rest along the wharves. I smelt the acrid dryness of the high piles of coal and heard a dog barking. And I knew now that only I stood between Lady Anne and the success of her ruthless plans. Only I could save Hugh and Esther. And I could only save them if I first saved myself.
We walked on. High on the hill across the river, a light flickered around St Mary’s church in Gateshead. Ahead, I saw the bulk of the building that in my world was Thomas Saint’s printing office. In this world, it stood empty and derelict, a shell with rafters gaping. Around the ruined walls lay a great litter of slates and laths, fragments of stone and brick. A dog sniffed and pawed at the rubble.
The pressure of Lady Anne’s arm on mine halted me. We stood looking across to the trees and hidden buildings on Gateshead Bank. Overhead, stars swam in a thin stream of smoke; below, water slapped gently against the wharves. The tide was at its highest, perhaps beginning to ebb. Lady Anne glanced back along the torchlit Key and I saw that the nearest bystanders were some distance off. Whores, by the look of it.
I shifted uneasily, but Lady Anne was already pulling away from me. The dog was pattering towards us in idle curiosity.
“I have a problem, Mr Patterson.”
“Indeed?” I said dryly.
“Oh, indeed.” She laughed. “Think of it. Mr Charles Patterson, the respected organist and composer, is called upon to examine a body which looks uncannily like his own. So alike indeed that it might be a twin. I do not want to avoid a scandal in one world to create another in a second.”
“You seem to be making life difficult for yourself in both,” I said.
She shook her head. “A momentary difficulty. Simply, Mr Patterson, I need to ensure that your body is never found.”
Instinctively, I knew her plans and, without thinking, protested. “The river – no!”
“The tide is just turning, and will carry your body out to sea.”
The memory of the spirits weeping and wailing in the billows of smoke rose up before me. Not that, I thought in panic, and took a step back. The dog hesitated, then padded on.
“Remember what I told you,” Lady Anne said. “There are few spirits in this world. Perhaps you will follow the general custom here and go straight to some heavenly paradise.” I caught the glint of amusement in her eyes. “Or perhaps, like the boy, you will find yourself alone and unheard.” She lifted her hand, the light gleaming on the knife.
The dog barked.
Startled, Lady Anne cast the dog a quick glance. In that instant I brought up my arm violently, knock
ing her hand away. The knife clattered to the ground. I threw myself against her, and my weight sent us crashing to the cobbles. The fall knocked the breath out of me, and as the dog skittered away in alarm I gasped for air.
In the flare of the lanterns I saw Lady Anne, on hands and knees, scrabbling for the knife. I struggled up, threw myself at her again. But she had the knife in her hand and swung her arm wildly. I staggered back out of reach.
I needed a weapon. My eyes set on the litter surrounding the derelict printing office. The dog was standing, legs braced, barking its loudest. Gasping still, I ran towards the building. Behind me, I heard Lady Anne swear.
Nothing. No weapon. Just a clutter of roof slates and tumbled stone. I swung round the corner of the printing office – into darkness. No lamps, only the glimmer of the river in the thin moonlight. I saw enigmatic humps of debris, rotting coils of rope, a haphazard pile – of baskets? I heard Lady Anne swear again. I flattened myself against the wall in a deep shadow and tried to still my breathing. The dog must have run off; I heard its barking in the distance.
Lady Anne lingered at the corner. Was she conscious that the outline of her body was visible against the faint moonlit shimmer of the river? She moved against the wall, into darkness. She was coming towards me. I strained to see her, to catch the glint of the knife…
Metal flashed in the moonlight. I flung out an arm to fend off the blow, felt pain, the warmth of blood. I stumbled, twisting away from her second lunge. My foot caught in something – a twist of rope? An unravelled basket? I staggered, threw out my arms to keep my balance, heard her laugh. Then I went down, landing upon my injured arm and crying out.
Rolling over, I tried to crawl away, knocked against something, heard boxes clatter down. My foot was caught fast and when I tried to pull away, pain near blinded me. Lady Anne lunged, stabbing down like a bird from a great darkness. Her ragged breath was loud in my ears…
Out of the darkness a second figure loomed above me. I felt a rush of air and over my head swung a thick plank of wood. The sharp ends of nails glinted in the moonlight. The plank struck Lady Anne in the stomach; a rib crunched and she screamed, flinging up her hands. The knife clattered on to stone as she staggered backwards, doubled over, screaming. And the plank swung again, crashing into her shoulder as she tried to turn away from the blow, then again upon her back as she went down in a crumpled heap.
Over her, vengeful hate flaring in his wild face, stood Claudius Heron.
38
FINALE
He leaned down to help me up. I grasped a hand that was cold and dry, and left it stained with the blood that ran down my own arm. He steadied me, said urgently, “Patterson? Are you hurt?”
I was in no mood to be polite. “How the devil did you come here?”
“That boy of yours. His spirit told me the woman was taking you out of the servants’ door and I managed to catch sight of you as you walked off.” The wildness was dying out of his face but there was a darkness in his eyes still, an anger that burned deep. “I would have reached you sooner but I was accosted upon the Side by a man who claimed he knew me, and kept talking of people I had never heard of. Patterson, where in heaven’s name is this place?”
“How did you reach it?”
His lean cheeks reddened. “I have been following you, whenever I could, since the boy’s inquest. I was close behind you in the square and somehow… Damn it, will you believe now that you are in danger!”
His hand was upon my shoulder and his cool voice quite returned. “We must get you to a surgeon.” He tore off his cravat and wrapped it around the wound in my arm. “I could have prevented this.”
A cool voice and cool hands, yet the vengeful look upon his face as he hit out at Lady Anne haunted me. I had not imagined he could feel so strongly. What had caused that rage?
But at that moment I glimpsed movement behind him, shouted, pulled myself from his hands. Lady Anne had dragged herself up and was stumbling round the corner of the derelict building, back to the Key. I ran after her, heart thumping, head reeling, arm aching abominably. Behind me, Heron cried out.
Round the corner of the printing office I was suddenly in the middle of a gaggle of women, a crowd of whores in ragged gowns with bared breasts and hooked-up skirts showing grimy legs. They pawed at me, dragged at my clothes, tugged at my hair. I yelled, tried to pull away, swung my fist and connected with the face of one of the women. Her head snapped sideways; she crumpled, dragging down her neighbour. I hooked a foot under a dirty ankle and uptipped another, who went down in a flurry of skirts and curses. Heron was close behind me, swinging wildly so that the whores scattered in alarm and we were free and running.
But Lady Anne was nowhere to be seen. Her whores had protected their protectress.
“The house,” I yelled as we raced along the Key. “We must get back to the house.” That house, and that house alone, could afford us passage back to our own world. If we did not catch Lady Anne, and she stepped through to our world, Demsey and Esther Jerdoun were at her mercy.
I came to the Sandhill, glimpsed a movement, glanced up the hill into Butcher Bank. A woman was loading up a cart. I ran up to the cart, snatched up the reins and urged the horse into action. The woman shrieked and the horse damn near bolted. But I got the cart turned and back on to the Sandhill where Heron was waiting. He leapt for the box and clambered up. The cart was filled with offal and stank of blood and urine; livers, hearts and guts spilled from a great pile and hung down behind us.
Pain throbbed in my arm as the horse galloped on; we raced across the Sandhill, scattering a group of drunken sailors. On to the Side, where I flogged the labouring horse mercilessly up the steep road. At St Nicholas’s Church, the horse got a second wind and galloped off again. The cart bumped and jolted, throwing us from side to side so that Heron gripped tight hold of the seat.
“We must stop Lady Anne getting back to our world,” I shouted. “She will kill Demsey and Mrs Jerdoun.”
“I understand none of this!” Heron shouted back. “But I trust your judgment, Patterson.”
I hoped he was right to do so. We turned up a new street and only then did I recognise our surroundings. A slow-moving brewer’s dray blocked the street halfway down; I vaulted from the cart and ran for the house.
As I came up to the front door, it opened and a gentleman came out. Young, well-dressed, self-assured, laughing at something. Meeting on the doorstep we stared at one another – and I saw my own face, astonished and startled, perhaps even fearful…
Heron seized my arm and pulled me past him, up the steps. We barged into the house, stumbled to a halt in the hallway with servants hurrying forward to intercept us. I raised my voice. “George!”
A distant cry. “The attic, master!”
We ran for the stairs. The servants caught at us. “Get rid of them!” I cried to Heron. He tripped one footman, shouldered another as they seized him. One caught at the skirts of my coat; I swung a fist, pulled free.
I took the stairs two at a time, leaping round the angles in the flights, slipping on the blood that was dripping from my arm, trying to work out where the servants’ stair was – for this public stair would certainly not go up to the attics. Below, I heard shouting and a call for the watch. Had Heron been overcome? I ran on.
George’s voice, close by, said, “The second door, master.” An elegant sitting room. “Under the picture of the lady.” I flung open a door on to the shabby servants’ stair.
As I scrambled up the wooden steps, I could hear movement above. George’s voice urged me on. “Quick, master, quick!” Up ever narrower stairs. Surely Lady Anne must have gone by now? Why should she delay? A last flight; giddy and exhausted, I fell into a large room, scattered with low beds…
Lady Anne was crouched over a bucket on the floor, spewing out vomit mixed with blood. She stared at me with lips stained scarlet and hands clutching at her stomach. I stumbled to a halt. Claudius Heron had done more damage than he had anticipated, with th
e nails in that plank he had wielded.
She screeched at me in a spray of blood. “I’ll kill you, damn you!”
I glimpsed metal in her hand. That damned knife again. As she lunged at me I snatched at the blanket on the nearest bed, swung it through the air. The knife sliced into it, her hand tangling in the folds. She screamed as I seized her wrist, felt the flesh chill and bloodless, took hold of her other hand to restrain her…
I saw a light in her eyes, an expression in her face. She seemed to dim, to become momentarily translucent. In astonishment, I almost let her go. She was stepping through. And then I saw my own hand, stained with blood, begin also to become thin and transparent. I heard George cry out, and Heron too from just behind me, and felt a great dizziness…
I came to myself upon cold damp cobbles. A thin drizzle dampened my face. Raising myself, I saw with relief the familiar shape of Caroline Square around me, the darkness-shrouded gardens, a thin curve of moon behind the leaves.
Above, on the open door of the house, I saw a sheen of light. George, excitedly calling to the servants within for help.
Upon the doorstep, Claudius Heron sat and stared out into the night.
39
TRIO AFTER THE CONCERT
The clamour of the coffee-house folded around us. Heron sat back in his chair, one arm stretched out to the dish upon the table, his eyes fixed upon the design. He wore still the neat sober clothes he had worn for the inquest when he had sat in charge of the inquiry into the death of Lady Anne, whose fatal injuries he had himself inflicted.
He had looked upon his own handiwork with, as far as I could judge, no emotion, either of horror or remorse. The eight jurymen had heard how Mrs Jerdoun had heard her cousin call out and hurried upstairs to find her dead of … Of what? Claudius Heron had listened to the evidence, persuaded the jury it would be immodest to look upon the body of Lady Anne, informed them there were no visible wounds, suggested to the few witnesses – the cousin, the surgeon, the servants – the word apoplexy. And the eight reputable and honest tradesmen had decided that the lady had been struck down by the hand of God.