by Roz Southey
I repressed a feeling of impatience. After all that had happened – was happening – Balfour could think of nothing but himself. ‘Like your father, no doubt?’
‘He insulted my mother all the time – allowed her no peace at all. And I was constantly told in no uncertain terms what a fool I was and how I’d never amount to anything! Yet, if anyone called, he’d be the most courteous and gracious of hosts. I think that was the worst thing – that no one else understood what it was like.’
I was shivering violently in the cold. ‘Go home,’ I recommended.
‘What time is it?’
‘Gone midnight.’
He laughed in amazement. ‘I’d no idea I’d been here so long! Did you come to look at the house?’
I wasn’t sure what I was doing. Perhaps I had deliberately come here without realizing it. I remembered Ned saying Alice had been eager to look at Gregson’s letter book, into which he’d copied his letters to the lawyers in London. If there’d been a lover in the offing, perhaps something might have been said about him. I fished the key out of my pocket and whispered for Ned. The spirit came at once and was pathetically pleased for the company. ‘He’s still upstairs,’ he whispered. ‘Hasn’t said a word for hours.’
He was less happy about the idea of my coming in but I promised to be as quick and quiet as possible. I lifted down one of the lanterns, so I didn’t have to spend time lighting the candles in the shop, and gave it to Balfour to hold as I fumbled the key with my cold fingers.
‘Do you think there’ll be something about the accomplice’s identity in the letters?’ Balfour whispered.
‘I know his identity,’ I whispered back, ‘but some solid evidence would be helpful.’
‘You know who he is!’ He started at the sound of his own voice, and guiltily lowered it again. ‘Who?’
I pushed the door open. ‘The thief-taker from London.’
His mouth formed a soundless whistle. ‘Have the Watch got him?’
‘Unfortunately he’s run off.’
The room was like an ice-house; light from the lantern flickered over the shutters, the pale walls and the battered once-elegant furniture, reflected from the fragments of glass that still littered the floor. Ned’s spirit was on the counter, just sliding over the other edge.
There were no sounds from upstairs.
I wasn’t going to linger here any longer than I had to. I hurried round the counter and saw the spirit hovering on one of the thick ledgers on the shelf below. ‘This one!’ it whispered. The book was at the bottom of a pile of three ledgers; I lifted them off, opened the letter book at random on the top of the counter. ‘Bring the lantern closer.’
Obediently, Balfour held the lantern over my head and peered at the book with me. ‘That’s dated last year – January.’
I rifled through more pages: April, June, September. When was any correspondence likely to have taken place? I turned to the last entries in the book and started to work my way backwards. Most of the letters were to customers, dealing with the cost of wallpaper and fabrics, of shipping furniture from London. References to orders and payments. Ned’s spirit hung on the edge of one of the ledgers and I wondered whether to say anything about Fowler. The lad was bound to hear of it sooner or later from the spirits’ network; if I told him now I could at least reassure him that Fowler wasn’t badly hurt.
If only I knew that for certain. Even flesh wounds can turn bad.
I found a letter to the lawyers at last but it was uninformative.
Further to my letter of 21st inst. November, I agree to your terms. Under protest. Send the wench home.
Balfour muttered in protest. ‘How can any man write that of his own daughter?’
The letter of 21st November was not much better.
I have received your letter of the 10th inst. and your enclosures. I’am not surprised to hear that her aunt will not have her to stay any longer; she’s an expensive fool. I am not made of money, sir – she’ll have board and lodging, why should she want an allowance as well? I won’t do it and you may tell her so.
I had to go back to September to find another letter about Alice, and this was even briefer and less sympathetic.
So my brother’s dead, is he? Well, I suppose his wife will have some peace now.
‘He didn’t like his brother,’ Ned explained unnecessarily.
I shut the book up and walked away. ‘This is useless!’
‘No, no.’ Balfour opened the book again. ‘There must be something here!’
He leafed through the pages. I paced about the room, rubbing my arms against the cold. Gregson had been uncompromising in his dismissal of his daughter’s expensive habits – surely he’d have said something equally cutting if an unsuitable lover had been in the offing. It would be a rare father who would forgive his daughter an illicit alliance, and Gregson was not that father. Moreover, he had another daughter on the verge of making a good match; he’d not want anything to reflect badly on her.
The broken shutter was hanging loose and I went across to anchor it more firmly. The door had been left ajar and I opened it. The snow blew in. ‘We’d better go.’
‘No!’ Ned whispered piteously. ‘It’s so lonely here!’
And then it happened again. One moment, it was pitch black outside, the next it was daylight – a thin strained light under heavy cloud. As I shivered, I saw a man driving three sheep across the bridge, a dog dancing at their heels to keep them moving; outside the house opposite, a carter was loosely holding the reins of his horse and chatting to an attractive young maid. I was in the other world again. And watching a woman trying to negotiate the narrow gap between cart and sheep, apparently in a hurry.
I only saw her from behind but I was certain it was the same woman. Tall, elegant, dark hair dressed fashionably. I called out, ‘Miss Gregson! Alice!’
The woman hesitated, then hurried on. The carter turned to give me a knowing look. I started after her, feeling a sense of time repeating itself. This was how it had been on Sunday, when I’d walked out of the shop. I called again, tried to dodge the sheep. Another woman was waiting at the end of the bridge: a slighter woman, with white skirts showing beneath her cloak. Blonde hair in ringlets, with ribbons and lace threaded through the curls. The other Alice – our Alice – and she had the audacity to raise a hand and wave cheerfully at me!
The sheepdog snapped at my feet; I was ready to kick it out of the way but its master called it off.
When I looked up, the women had gone.
Cursing, I rubbed my eyes. It was clearly afternoon in this world, but it was the early hours of the morning in my own world, and I’d been up too long. I needed sleep. Tomorrow I’d get up early and see if I could get through the snow to Shields. If I could confront Kane with what I already knew, perhaps I could get a true story out of him.
I straightened, aware of a smell of burning. Smoke seemed to drift around me. If there was a fire, chaos would break out and I certainly didn’t want to get involved in something like that. Not in this world. I took a step back, reaching for my own world. Night folded around me; snow drifted into my face . . .
Someone violently knocked me aside. I slipped, grabbed at the wall of Fleming’s shop. There was chaos here, in this world, people milling around, shouting, yelling for action. Buckets of water were being tossed from man to man – one slopped its contents over my feet. Smoke billowed over me. I started choking and coughing—
The Gregsons’ shop was on fire.
A furnace of heat blew out of the open door; flame belched from the windows. A woman yelled a warning; we all scattered. Someone grabbed my arm. Hugh. I yelled above the roar of the fire and the shouts of the firefighters. ‘Balfour was in there!’
Hugh shook his head. ‘Behind you!’
I glanced round. Balfour was hanging over the edge of the bridge, coughing and spluttering, gasping for breath. ‘Spirits told me where he was!’ Hugh shouted. ‘He was already out of the shop when I got here.’
/> Balfour saw me, started gesticulating wildly, still coughing. Tears streamed down his cheeks; soot streaked his face. ‘Greg— Greg—’
‘Gregson did this?’
He nodded and hung over the edge of the bridge, retching.
All the neighbours had turned out and were ferrying buckets of water in chains along the bridge. Fleming, in his nightshirt, was directing operations, no doubt afraid the fire was going to spread to his shop. Women shepherded excited children out of danger.
I grabbed a bucket of water from a boy and threw it over the fire, reached for another. Then there was a great shrieking, rising above the shouting of the crowd. A woman’s scream. A roar so loud it seemed to come from hell itself. Everyone froze in panic; Fleming shouted, ‘The spirits. On the roof!’ We all stared up.
Two spirits clung to the roof slates. Flames leapt up around them; they looked like stars fading in the face of a full moon. The screaming went on and on, the roar seemed to merge with a great rumble—
Hugh hauled me back. An empty bucket clattered in his hand. ‘The house is going to go!’
He was right. The walls were leaning at an alarming angle, tilting back, away from the road, over the drop to the river. Roof slates started to slip. Great cracks shot down the façade of the building; a chunk of masonry fell in a flare of flame. The crowd scattered.
Two spirits on the roof – where were the other two? I scanned the facade of the house, yelled for Ned. Then I saw him, a faint gleam, low down, on a brick to the side of the door. The door was ablaze and the frame around it; old mortar crumbled, bricks flaked and blackened in the heat. The flames leapt up and for the moment I couldn’t see the spirit.
Slates cascaded down, bricks exploded and burst out at us. Then the walls toppled backwards and we heard a roar as the back of the house tumbled over the edge of the bridge. Water slapped up, drenching the crowd. Steam fountained. Then the rest of the house went, smashing down as the crowd scattered for safety. I heard the spirits scream.
And at the last moment, I leapt forward, wrapping my hand in the skirts of my greatcoat, and grabbed up a fragmenting brick and the pale gleam on it.
Thirty-Four
The night is almost as busy as the day!
[Letter from Louis de Glabre to his friend Philippe
Froidevaux, 23 January 1737]
Even through the thickness of my greatcoat, I felt the scald of the brick and almost dropped it. Fleming seized a bucket of water from a neighbour; I dropped the brick in. The water fizzed and sizzled; steam blossomed.
The top corner of the brick poked out of the water. The spirit slid to the dry point. ‘He did it!’ he yelled. ‘He did it.’
‘The others are gone,’ Fleming said, staring at the ruins of the house.
The fire began to die down, smoke billowing and intermingling with the falling snow. The crowd formed chains again to throw water on what remained. Fleming was right – I could see nothing of the other spirits. At best they were amongst the wreckage at the bottom of the river, but I suspected that they’d evaporated in the flames. Fire is one of the few ways to be rid of a spirit before its natural dissolution takes it eighty or a hundred years after death; in a way, Gregson had just committed suicide, and taken his wife and daughter with him.
At least Ned had survived. Fleming was giving his apprentice instructions to keep the brick and bucket safe, but as soon as the lad tried to walk into Fleming’s shop with it, he staggered and almost dropped it. ‘It’s got heavier! I can’t carry it!’
Fleming took it from him and could barely lift it. I seized the handle too and between us, we dragged it back towards the burning house. It grew lighter with every step. We put it down on the street, in contact with one of the fallen piles of bricks from the shop.
‘A spirit can’t leave the place the living man died,’ Fleming said, in a low voice so Ned couldn’t hear. ‘But I thought the brick would suffice to represent the whole, so to speak. What are we to do?’
‘Build the brick into the wall of the new building, I suppose. Do you know what happened?’
Fleming shook his head. ‘My apprentice woke me. He’d heard Ned shouting for help. Between them, they probably saved the entire bridge.’
I pushed through the crowds to Balfour. He was still hanging over the edge of the bridge, hacking and retching, bent double with his hands at his throat, white as the ice on the river, with smudges of soot across his cheeks. One hand was scorched and reddened. He whispered, ‘The door handle was hot . . .’
I gave Hugh a look and, between us, we got Balfour off the bridge and out of the crowd. Even the movement of walking made him cough and by the time we reached the end of the bridge, it was obvious he couldn’t get to his lodgings. We sat him down on the step of a house and waited until the coughing eased.
‘What happened?’ I asked when I thought he could answer.
‘The moment you were out the door.’ Balfour retched, dragged his handkerchief to his lips. ‘Came shrieking in.’
‘Gregson?’
He nodded. ‘Told the boy off for bringing in strangers – shouted – the boy was scared. I said I’d go . . .’
‘But he didn’t let you?’
‘Ranted and . . . raved.’ He was recovering. ‘Knocked the lantern over. It broke. The oil flooded on to the books. Went up—’
‘The place was full of paper,’ I said. ‘Ledgers, letters, wallpaper samples. Cloth too.’ And one of the shutters had been broken and letting in a strong draught to fan the flames.
‘I saw the spirits,’ Balfour said, ‘in the flames, burning . . .’ He buried his head in his hands. Hugh gave me an exasperated look which I thought was unfair. ‘All of them lost . . .’
At least I could reassure him on that point. ‘We managed to save the apprentice’s spirit.’
He stared at me, obviously confused. ‘The boy was saved?’ He seemed to slump. ‘That’s something, I suppose.’
Exhaustion abruptly overwhelmed me. Men milled around us, shouting for more water. One of the church clocks struck a single resounding note. ‘We all need some sleep.’
‘I couldn’t,’ Balfour protested.
‘I could,’ Hugh muttered.
‘I couldn’t sleep,’ Balfour repeated. ‘I can’t stop thinking . . .’
He couldn’t let anything go, worried at every detail like a terrier at a rat. But I saw salvation approaching: Gale, obviously dressed in a hurry and bearing his bag. He spotted us at once, frowned at Balfour’s coughing, and headed our way in a businesslike manner. ‘Smoke,’ he said briskly. ‘It gets inside you and clogs you up. Now—’ And he opened his bag and started sorting through the powders and potions.
Hugh and I took our chance to escape, Hugh sniffing at his greatcoat. ‘Damn it, my clothes will stink of smoke for weeks.’
‘I’m going home,’ I said wearily. ‘Walk with me up Westgate.’
We trudged together through the silent snow, hearing it crunch beneath our feet. We passed St John’s church; Hugh said, ‘It’s been a trying day.’
‘Balfour?’
‘He’s refusing to do anything with the plans. Says they’ll have to be accepted as they are, or not at all. Walked out of a meeting with the Directors this evening. I had to spend hours calming them, then more time tracking him down.’
We were the only people in the street; behind the dancing snowflakes, the house windows were dark.
‘Fowler was shot,’ I said. ‘Heron shot him. And the intruder got away.’
Hugh stopped to stare at me. He shook his head. ‘No, I’m too tired for this. Tell me tomorrow. Is Fowler dead?’
‘Shoulder wound.’
I left Hugh at his rooms and went on home alone. The house was silent as I let myself in but George slid down the banister, whispering, ‘Is the fire out, Master?’
Of course he knew already; given the efficiency of the spirits’ message system, every spirit in town would know by now.
‘Nearly.’
‘An
d the spirits are dead?’
‘All but one.’
‘Yes, the apprentice. I’m glad about that, Master. People say all sorts of things about apprentices and it’s unkind.’
Having been an apprentice himself when he died, George knew what he was talking about.
I heard a footstep and looked up. Esther, in her nightgown and robe, hair loose about her shoulders, stood at the top of the stairs. She looked both anxious and relieved at the same time. George made a strangled, embarrassed noise and slid away into the inner recesses of the servants’ quarters. I went up the stairs; Esther cupped her hand against my cheek and kissed me softly. The weariness slipped out of me; I sighed with relief.
In the bedroom, I stripped off my filthy coat and related everything that had happened, from the disaster at Heron’s house to the fire on the bridge. In the light of a single candle, Esther propped herself up against the pillows in bed and listened carefully, occasionally posing a question or two when I was too terse.
‘You never saw the face of the intruder?’ she said at last.
I shook my head.
‘A pity. So still all you have is Alice’s word that this accomplice is Kane.’
‘Not even that,’ I admitted. ‘That’s merely my supposition, although in view of the fact he’s left town, I think it’s a good one.’
She trimmed the guttering candle. ‘Oh, for an independent witness!’
I was about to pull off my shirt – I paused, stared at her. ‘An independent witness?’ In the way that often happens when you’re tired, my mind skittered off in quite a different direction. Those antiquities. Hugh’s ring had been stolen and the widow living below had seen the fellow, even though she didn’t know what he’d done. I myself had seen the intruder at Heron’s house; I had my own evidence that I’d been attacked in the street.
But what evidence was there of the theft in Balfour’s room?
Esther said, ‘Charles? What is it?’
I cursed. ‘I should have known there was something wrong – how could a casual thief find his way through that warren of rooms and passageways in the George! And nothing belonging to the George was damaged – the fellow didn’t even turn the mattress over. What kind of thief leaves the mattress untouched? More than that, we only have Balfour’s word there was a coin to steal!’