Storm and Silence

by Thier, Robert

  ‘I…’ He stared at me, searching for words - then he abruptly let go and stumbled backwards, the momentary fury that had taken hold of him gone, his demeanour back to cool, calm self-possession.

  I just leaned against the wall, too weak-kneed to stand on my own.

  For a moment or two, there was silence between us. Then he took a deep breath.

  ‘I… am sorry if I acted inappropriately. I should not have touched you.’

  Part of me wasn’t so sure about that. For some strange reason, being touched by him, touched that roughly and demandingly, had felt exciting. But I nodded anyway, accepting his words. To get an apology out of Rikkard Ambrose was such a rare opportunity that you simply had to take it.

  My mouth felt dry - too dry for speaking. Yet I had to ask a very important question. I wet my lips, not taking my eyes of Mr Ambrose.

  ‘So what about it?’ I asked.

  ‘About what?’ he shot back.

  He had to be joking. Surely he couldn’t have forgotten what we were talking about, could he? But he was looking at me so oddly that I almost thought he might. What on earth could he be thinking about instead right now?

  ‘Am I still one of your employees?’ I clarified.

  That brought him back down to earth. His mouth thinned into a line. ‘No!’

  It was no more than I had expected. But I dug my heels into the ground. I was not prepared to give up yet!

  ‘I told you,’ I repeated, crossing my arms defiantly in front of me, ‘I was not disobeying your orders! I did exactly what you told me to do. You cannot dismiss me for that!’

  ‘Don’t you play the innocent! You deliberately interpreted my words in such a way as to humiliate me!’

  ‘Oh yes? And you, you didn’t try to humiliate me? To hurt me in the worst way you could imagine, by making me speak up against what I believed in?’

  I felt scalding hot moisture at the corners of my eyes. Driving it away by pure force of will, I took a step forward, making my voice strong and steady.

  ‘You tricked me! You made me believe that you had accepted me, only to spring your worst attempt ever on me in your accursed quest to get rid of me! So don't you dare be angry at me now just because I was cleverer than you and came out on top!’

  Silence. Well, at least he didn’t deny it.

  ‘Why did you do it, anyway?’ I asked after a moment, my voice quieter. ‘Why did you drag me up on that podium? Why are you so desperate to send me packing?’

  Silence.

  ‘Tell me! Why? Am I that bad a secretary?’

  To my surprise, after a moment, he shook his head.

  ‘No,’ he told me. ‘In fact, your work so far has been quite acceptable. For a female, you have an astonishingly unmuddled mind.’

  ‘Well, thank you very much for that ringing endorsement! If it’s not my work that’s the problem, then what is it? Is it…’ I hesitated. We were back to the old subject. The old battleground. ‘Is it that I am a girl?’

  He nodded.

  ‘You bastard! I’d like to throw something at your head!’ I told him.

  ‘Be my guest,’ he said, ‘and you’ll be out of here faster than you can say “assault charges”.’

  I was seething with fury. But behind his cold words I could sense something - something that wasn’t clearly expressed, and yet I felt it, in his eyes, his voice…

  He wanted to get rid of me because I was a girl? But he had said that I did my work well enough. So why would he still want to get rid of me? Why did men think women shouldn’t work? Because they were a distraction, because it was unbecoming, because they were in too much danger-

  My thoughts screeched to a halt.

  ‘It’s because of him, isn’t it?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Him! This mystery-man behind the theft of that all-important file! You said he was dangerous, and that you wouldn’t let me be in on the chase, because you couldn’t put a lady in harm’s way!’ I loaded the word ‘lady’ with as much disgust as I could manage. ‘It is because of him, isn’t it?’

  Silence. But this time, the silence told me all. Yes. It was because of him.

  ‘Who is he?’ I demanded. ‘What is in the file? Who is this mysterious mastermind that makes even you think twice about taking him on? Tell me!’

  Silence. Thickening silence.

  ‘I just don't understand!’ I exclaimed, shaking my head. ‘Who could be that powerful, that evil, that he would give even you pause? He would have to be a king, a ruthless killer or… or…’

  It was only a flicker of movement, but I noticed it: Mr Ambrose’s head turned, almost imperceptibly, for just a split second to look out of the window, across the street - and at the façade of East India House.

  …or a man who owned an entire subcontinent and his own private army.

  ‘No,’ I whispered. ‘No. It couldn’t be!’

  I Realize I Danced with a Criminal Mastermind

  His head jerked up and around to look at me, but I didn’t see him. Instead I saw a dozen images, whirling in my head, connecting together for the first time:

  Mr Ambrose shaking Lord Dalgliesh’s hand with enough force to whiten his knuckles.

  Mr Ambrose staring across the ballroom to a table where only two people stood - Miss Hamilton and Lord Dalgliesh.

  Mr Ambrose cutting a lock of hair from Simmons' head in the dark cellar beneath Empire House.

  Lord Dalgliesh opening the envelope that contained a single lock of golden hair - hair of exactly the same shade and texture as that on Simmons' head.

  ‘But…’ I steadied myself against the wall. ‘But he’s one of the peers[45] of England! One of the most wealthy and respected gentlemen of the Empire! He wouldn’t be involved in something like this!’

  ‘He?’ Mr Ambrose asked, his face expressionless. ‘Who?’

  ‘Don’t play dumb with me!’

  ‘Mind your language, Mr Linton!’

  ‘Fine! Don’t play dumb with me, Sir! You know exactly who I am talking about.’

  The only answer to this was silence. That is, outside of my head. Inside, a multitude of voices and pictures were clamouring for attention. Rapidly, I went through everything I had seen that night at the ball, when I had first met Lord Dalgliesh.

  ‘You went there to meet with him,’ I whispered. ‘That’s why you came to the ball! To meet with him and let him know that you knew what he was up to. To warn him off!’

  ‘I went to the ball to court Miss Hamilton,’ he said with a facial expression that was about as passionate as a piece of dried cod. ‘I went to be with the pearl of my heart, the girl for whom I feel the most ardent love which ever a man has experi-’

  ‘Oh, put a sock in it!’ I cut him off with a hand gesture. ‘We both know you have no romantic interests whatsoever!’

  ‘Do we indeed?

  ‘Yes! They would waste too much of your precious time and money.’

  He almost nodded in agreement but caught himself and suggested, almost defiantly: ‘Love could have overwhelmed my defences and made me weak with longing.’

  ‘No it couldn’t.’

  ‘Yes it could!’

  ‘No it couldn’t!’

  ‘You don't know that for certain. I could feel the most ardent passion-’

  ‘No you bloody well couldn’t! Not for her, anyway!’

  His eyes narrowed infinitesimally. ‘And why is that, Mr Linton?’

  ‘Well… she… she… she’s obviously not the right girl for you! Much too impractical and time-wasting. She’s probably after your money, too.’

  ‘Thank you for the warning.’ I might have been mistaken, but I thought I saw the corner of his mouth twitch. It wasn’t a smile. It wasn’t even half a smile. He was far too miserly with his facial expressions for that. It was about a quarter of a smile, at the most, but it was there. ‘Though I seem to remember that back at the ball, Mr Linton, you seemed quite convinced of my attachment to Miss Hamilton, in spite of her many defects. If m
y memory serves me right, it was even you who originally suggested the idea that I might have feelings for her.’

  I flushed guiltily.

  ‘In fact,’ he continued, ‘you seemed quite extraordinarily interested in the subject - and not very pleased by it. Very interested indeed…’

  ‘I wasn’t interested!’ I snapped. ‘I was being impolite and nosy, which is normal for me!’

  ‘That is certainly true.’

  Wishing desperately to get off this subject as quickly as possible, I made a dismissive hand gesture.

  ‘Anyway, we weren’t talking about Miss Hamilton! We were talking about your reason for going to the ball!’

  ‘She was the reason.’

  ‘No!’

  His eyes narrowed another fraction of an inch. Impressive! Together with the miniscule motion of his mouth, this was the closest he had come to having a facial expression since I had known him. He had to be boiling inside.

  ‘Strange, Mr Linton, how you seem to know my motives and feelings better than I.’

  ‘Yes it is, isn’t it? But if you don't know them, somebody has to. You went to the ball to confront Lord Dalgliesh. It was you who sent him that letter!’

  ‘What letter?’ His voice was so smooth, so cool, I could almost have believed he didn’t know what I was talking about. Almost.

  ‘That letter. It had a lock of Simmons' hair in it, as a sign that his man had been caught. Remember? You cut off a lock of hair from Simmons' head when we were down in the cellar with him. I didn’t understand that at the time, but now I do.’

  Silence. Frozen, ice-hard silence from the centre of the arctic wasteland.

  His eyes were dark, the dark green-blue of the sea, and totally unreadable. Still, I had a feeling he knew exactly what I was talking about. I, for my part, hovered somewhere between exhilaration, doubt and fear. I had figured it out, finally! I knew who was behind the theft, without a doubt. Everything fit together.

  And yet… and yet… it couldn’t be. It was insane. Lord Daniel Eugene Dalgliesh was, by all accounts, one of the wealthiest men of the British Empire. He didn’t have need of petty theft. He had armies at his command, an entire subcontinent under his control. What would he want with one miserable piece of paper?

  ‘The only thing I don't understand,’ I continued, my eyes lit still by my epiphany, ‘is why the lock? Why send him a lock of hair, not just a simple letter warning him off?’

  I expected him to deny it again or to once again be silent. He actually was silent for some time. But then, just as I opened my mouth for the next attack, he raised his chin and said:

  ‘A letter could have incriminated me. A paper in which I accused him of theft, even in the vaguest terms? He would have found some way to use it against me! A lock of hair on the other hand - that was a message only he would understand. A message that needed no words or signature.’

  A wave of cold swept over me. He had admitted it. He had finally admitted it. My exciting theory was no longer just a theory.

  ‘It can’t be him.’ How come my voice suddenly sounded so small? ‘It simply can’t. I mean… He’s so wealthy. So powerful. And it’s just a piece of paper. It’s not important.’

  He regarded me coolly. Not for the first time, I had the feeling that he was assessing me. And not for the first time, I had no idea what the result was.

  ‘The American Declaration of Independence was just a piece of paper, Mr Linton. It lost us most of our American colonies. In retrospect, do you think it was “unimportant”?’

  ‘Um… well… no, I suppose not.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  I lifted an eyebrow. ‘The pen is mightier than the sword? Is that what you’re driving at?’

  ‘It very much depends on the context. I would prefer a sword to fight a duel, but a pen to plan a war.’

  He said ‘to plan a war’ as if it were something he did on a regular basis. Looking into his calm, emotionless face, I could believe he did. Another shudder ran down my back. But it was no shudder of revulsion. Oh no. I remembered his powerful body pressed into me, all that tightly contained energy only a fraction of an inch away. What could he unleash, if he wanted to?

  More importantly: what would be unleashed when he pitted himself against his arch enemy?

  ‘Lord Dalgliesh,’ I muttered. ‘Lord Dalgliesh is a thief.’

  Before I could blink, Mr Ambrose had crossed the distance between us. He didn’t grab me this time. He just stood very close in front of me, one finger touching my lips. The feeling was electric, sending tingles from my mouth all through my body.

  ‘Don’t ever,’ he mouthed, ‘say that aloud again. Not ever. Not if you want to live to see your next birthday. Do you understand me?’

  That did it. Anger welled up inside me, pushing my fear to the side.

  ‘No, I don't understand!’ I snapped, nearly biting off his finger. ‘You two are businessmen, or financiers or whatever you call yourselves - not cold-blooded killers! If he is guilty of this theft, why should I be afraid of him? Why shouldn’t I simply go to the police and tell them what I know!’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘That he’s guilty!’

  ‘Based on what evidence?’

  ‘Based on… well…’ For a moment I floundered, but it wasn’t long. ‘Based on Simmons' word, for one. We could make him a witness!’

  In answer, Mr Ambrose simply turned and walked away from me. I was about to protest, when he stopped and snatched up a newspaper from his desk. A paper? I frowned. What did he want a paper for?

  He came back and held out the paper, opened at a particular page. One section was outlined in blue ink.

  ‘Read it.’

  ‘What is this?’

  ‘Read it, Mr Linton!’

  Grumbling to myself, I took a closer look at the paper. It was open to the obituaries page. My eyes travelled to the outlined section.

  Died, at London, 15 September 1839

  Mr Walter Simmons

  After having been most brutally attacked by two members of the criminal classes and robbed of all he possessed, he succumbed to severe wounds in St Christopher’s Hospital. Our hearts go out to his poor parents, whose only child he was.

  I read it, and I read it again. Then I read it a third time. Still, I couldn’t quite process it.

  ‘Dead?’ I whispered. ‘Simmons is dead?’

  ‘Why so surprised, Mr Linton? I told you this would happen.’

  ‘But how… how did this happen? Why did two people attack him? You took his money away, why would they want to rob him?’

  His steady, cool gaze was unnerving.

  ‘Do you really need to ask that question?’

  The way he said it, it sounded like there was an ‘I had thought you were cleverer than that!’ attached at the end - which was silly, of course. Mr Ambrose didn’t think me clever at all! He thought I was a girl, and that all girls were stupid and weak.

  Well, my bones certainly agreed with him on the last part right now. Stumbling over to the chair in front of the desk, I fell into it and put my arms around me in an unusually vulnerable gesture.

  ‘And if we went to the police…’ I managed to say.

  ‘… they would probably not be very eager to investigate a personal friend of the home secretary and relative of Her Majesty the Queen on an unsubstantiated allegation of murder,’ he finished my sentence. ‘In fact, one might even say they would be strongly averse to the idea.’

  ‘And if we just brought up the theft, Sir?’

  ‘The one for which you’ve just lost your only witness, Mr Linton?’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Quite.’ Mr Ambrose shook his head, looking down at me. ‘You have to believe me when I tell you that there’s more to business in the British Empire than signing papers and building machines. Oh, here in the metropolis it’s all glamour, smiles and handshakes. But behind the façade, things are not so pretty.’

  ‘So… what will we do now?’

  ‘
We?’ He gave a little derisive noise. ‘We will return to our original discussion: the subject of your impending dismissal.’

  My head shot up, and I stared into his eyes disbelievingly.

  ‘What? You really meant that?’

  His eyes were very dark.

  ‘I do not say things I do not mean, Mr Linton! You made a fool of me in front of the entire city. I do not take such things likely. And you’re mistaken if you think you can sidetrack me. Who stole the file, whether it was Lord Dalgliesh or Queen Victoria or Father Christmas for that matter is no concern of yours!’

  There were noises from outside the room - the footsteps of a heavy man, coming closer. But neither of us paid attention to them. We were too intent on each other.

  ‘But… of course it is of concern to me if I’m going to help in the search for the file,’ I protested.

  He made a move towards me - then stopped himself in mid-movement. Slowly, as if he had to drag himself back, he removed himself from my vicinity and retreated behind his desk, where he sat down so he was on a level with me and could stare directly into my eyes.

  ‘No.’

  The footsteps were still coming closer. They were as loud as drumbeats now, pounding down the hallway outside. But still, neither of us cared.

  ‘Yes, Sir, I will!’

  ‘No, you won’t.’

  Behind Mr Ambrose, over the city, the sun was setting. Its last red remnants of light streamed directly into the room, casting Mr Ambrose’s shadow towards me and making him look more like a stony, sinister statue.

  ‘You,’ he said, slowly and precisely, ‘will not have anything to do with the search for the file, whether you stay or go, and let me tell you, at the moment the latter is far more likely. You will not come within a hundred leagues of Lord Dalgliesh! You won’t even hear a whisper of any trail or clue my men and I will discover! I’ll make sure to keep you far, far away!’

  The footsteps outside came to a sudden halt and the door was thrown open. We both turned to stare. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a rebuke form on Mr Ambrose’s lips about how anyone could dare to disturb him without knocking - but his lips froze when he saw who stood in the doorway.