‘My thanks, Butter,’ said Quaint exhaustedly, examining the state of his gouged arm through his ripped sleeve. Large patches of red blood seeped through the dark-grey material. ‘This coat is pure Mongolian Kashmir. A second longer and that beast would have cost me an arm and a leg.’
‘Or perhaps just an arm,’ said Butter, his face a roadmap of craggy wrinkles as a smile breached his worn features.
‘I shall have to have a word with Jeremiah about teaching you his sense of humour,’ Quaint said. He removed his scarf and tied it firmly around his wound. ‘Come on, let’s move on. I’ve no wish to explain to that dog’s owner the circumstances of its demise—especially as I’m about to thieve one of his rowing boats as recompense.’
A minute later—passengers in a small pale-orange boat—Quaint and Butter pushed away at the wharf with the long oars, and the Inuit set about rowing them along the River Thames towards Blythesgate fish market. The afternoon fog was drawing in up the river, and visibility was getting steadily worse. Quaint produced a tinder-box from his coat pocket, striking a flint next to a small, oil-burning lantern. The wan flame flickered into life, albeit reluctantly, as Quaint hung the lantern on its pole at the fore of the boat. It gave them scant light, but hopefully enough for them to be seen through the fog should there be any other boats drifting nearby.
‘Take it steady, Butter,’ Quaint said. ‘We don’t want this peasouper to be our undoing. Let’s hope we can still see Blythesgate; we can barely be seen ourselves!’
But Quaint was mistaken.
They had been seen.
They were seen very clearly indeed by a set of piercing eyes that had been watching them with obsessed intensity from the entrance of Barter’s Boatyard. The scruffy young lad wiped his mouth with a moth-eaten sleeve, and smiled.
‘Off t’Blythesgate market are we, boss?’ said the urchin of a boy, his thick matted black hair brushing against his eye line. ‘Mr Reynolds will pay ’andsomely fer that little titbit.’
CHAPTER XXII
The Snare
THE WINTER SKY was as dark as soot by late afternoon, with formless tufts of grey cloud obscuring the smattering of stars. Butter slowed the rowing boat to a crawl, as Quaint spied the docks through a pocket-sized pair of opera glasses. The fog had obviously put off other sailors and this stretch of the Thames was silent as a tomb, with visibility down to a minimum. Butter scanned around him, anxiously waiting for a sign that would indicate their destination.
‘We should be coming up to Blythesgate pretty soon, Butter; I recognise the wharf’s buildings. There’s the Chinese textile emporium, and there’s Arlow’s mill,’ said Quaint. ‘There! Just ahead, that’s it. That’s Blythesgate!’
A short time later, Cornelius Quaint and Butter were standing in front of a vast warehouse. Its walls were a hotchpotch of colours and mismatched materials, from corrugated tin and iron, to large sheets of wood and salvaged planks. Trickles of rust seeped like gunshot wounds from the various bolts and nails holding the building together. Quaint stared up as far as the fog would permit him, and he raised the lantern to the door. A battered sign hung loosely from two hooks just above his eye level, creaking in the wind.
‘Blythesgate fish market,’ Quaint said. ‘Shall we go inside and take a look?’
‘But it is tight-up locked, Mr Quaint,’ said Butter, eyeing the massive chain wrapped around the warehouse door.
‘Don’t worry, old chap,’ said Quaint, with a devilish glint in his eyes. ‘We’ll no doubt find a more suitable entrance around the rear of the premises.’
As Quaint and Butter walked to the end of the warehouse, they pushed past a collection of large wooden delivery crates, not unlike tiny coffins. Each one of the crates was damp, stained white from the salty seawater, and reeking of fish from that day’s catch. The trawlers would arrive early in the morning in Blythesgate, eager to sell their wares from the long, arduous day at sea and, to ensure their goods were kept fresh, they were packed in crates and covered in ice. The stench from the crates was fairly strong, and Quaint was pleased to move into the shadows of the alleyway that ran along the side of the market warehouse.
The buildings along the docks were positioned closely to each other to make the most of their highly sought after dockland location. Huge, narrow tenements nestled next to storage warehouses, taverns to entice the seamen, as well as a variety of other more questionable pursuits. The entire stretch along the docks was virtually a different world from the rest of London, designed to cater to the needs of the passing traveller, or sailor, but as time had progressed, a more sinister element had taken up residence there, and more and more buildings had been built to accommodate the rash of interest in sea-faring commerce. Brothels were conveniently tucked away down every alleyway, and opium dens were even easier to find. Taverns were scattered about to pick up the flotsam and jetsam that wanted to empty neither their purses nor their minds on illicit sex or opiate distractions. The wharf was a disturbing, dark place once night fell, but Quaint moved confidently about with either ignorance or arrogance as his guide. The alleyway still presented potential for danger even at that time of day, and the wary traveller never dropped his guard. Not yet night—it was almost dark, and soon the local populace would be crawling from wherever they hid themselves during daylight hours.
Soon Butter and Quaint were in a much wider alleyway, bereft of light, save the slow-rising moon in the sky, barely visible through the crevices of the alleys. The fog was less evident now; the warmth between the buildings keeping it at bay, and Quaint was able to see the rear of the fish market more clearly. An array of large boxes were scattered about, containing the remnants of melted ice, and the same strong smell of fish as the crates at the front of the building. Quaint eyed the crates, his gaze drifting up the warehouse, to a small window above.
‘These boxes have been intentionally placed here. They look as if they’ve been dragged from the front, according to these tracks in the dirt,’ said Quaint to Butter, as he bent down onto his haunches and placed his hand into a crate, pulling out a handful of crushed ice. ‘And not too long ago, by the looks of it.’
‘Are you sure, boss?’ asked Butter. His eyes travelled up the marketplace wall, past the patchwork slates of iron and wood, to the open window. ‘It seem a lot of effort. Why he not just go to train, avoid police there?’
‘I’m banking on Madame Destine’s visions being correct, and that Prometheus was being pursued, so he went to ground,’ surmised Quaint, as he pulled at his bottom lip between thumb and forefinger. ‘Destine smelled fish, and this place is just about as good a place to start looking as anywhere. Come on, I’ll hoist you up.’
‘Me, boss? Up there, boss?’ asked Butter.
‘Of course, man!’ said Quaint indignantly. ‘Unless you think a little shrimp like you could lift a man my size?’
‘Little shrimp? Boss, back home I slay a walrus of eight feet long, after tremendous battle lasted all of day and all of night. It was a spectacle!’
‘My offence at the walrus reference notwithstanding, Butter, we don’t have much choice, so let’s just get going, shall we?’ said Quaint, squatting down, and linking his hands together to form a stirrup. ‘Allez-oop!’
Around the front of the building, their shadows flitting like tomcats in the night, a collection of assorted ruffians arrived unannounced. Mr Reynolds’s little urchin spy had earned himself a hot meal for informing the man of Quaint’s intended destination, and with the Bishop’s money paying for the hired muscle, the men had congregated outside Blythesgate fish market with the sole intention of causing Cornelius Quaint some grievous bodily harm…
CHAPTER XXIII
The Fish Net
CORNELIUS QUAINT WAS totally oblivious to the gathering that had quietly and speedily accumulated outside the market’s main doors. Each of the men was armed with an assortment of knives, chains, metal poles and wooden truncheons, and their faces entertained expressions of people who enjoyed inflicting harm on
others. They were not a highly polished mob, these men, hired more for their ferocity than their adeptness with skilled weaponry. They were a means to a very sticky end for Quaint. Grunting like pigs hunting truffles, they held their cauliflower ears and scarred cheeks up against the corrugated metal doors, desperately trying to learn more about their mysterious target.
The man in question was busy climbing down from the open window, inside the market onto the slatted, wooden roof and through a skylight into a dank and dreary office. Many small tables were arranged throughout the room, littered with seafaring charts, bills of sale, maps, scraps of paper and discarded rubbish, and three large cabinets lined up against the far wall. This was the main hub of the marketplace, the manager’s office. A small gas lamp had been left alight, giving Quaint and his associate Butter a faint sense of comfort.
‘It’s going to be murder getting the smell out of my clothes,’ said Quaint, giving the lapels of his long dark-grey coat a sniff. ‘I daresay Mae-Li at the Chinese laundry in Wapping will want extra for this stench!’
‘Boss, look-see here,’ exclaimed Butter, who had exited the small office and walked out onto a metal staircase that ran along the side of the office, leading down to the far corner of the building.
From their vantage point, they had a bird’s eye view of the whole place. The warehouse below was a vast, desolate area. Used primarily as a place for selling fish goods, it was basically just a skeleton of a building with weight-bearing metal struts placed at various intervals. Wooden beams formed the structure inside, looking just as randomly stitched together as the front of the market. Pools of water, a mixture of seawater and melted ice, covered most of the stone floor, but the warehouse was virtually empty, save a huge, iron container positioned at the far end of the room, and a couple of metal storage sheds, nestled into the shadows of the corners. Great wooden pillar supports were holding a patchwork tin roof upon the building, and a vague semblance of stilted early evening dusk-light seeped between the cracks and gaps of the misplaced wall panels.
The market was frenetic with life the moment the sun came up, with hundreds of tradesmen vying for the best deal on the best catch of the day. Now, it was silent, damp and dark, and the perfect place to disappear. There was an endless amount of hiding places in the vast warehouse, and Prometheus could theoretically be in any one of them, if indeed he was there at all. An incessant hum made itself evident from the dark centre of the room.
‘Boss, what is the noise I hear?’ asked Butter.
‘It’s coming from that metal container down there. Seeing as we’re in a fish market, it must be some kind of cold storage area; it’s difficult to say from up here, but there do seem to be steam emissions spouting from the top.’
‘Hiding place?’ offered Butter.
‘Perhaps. Let me call out and see what happens.’ Quaint yelled through cupped hands, his booming voice echoing around the warehouse. ‘Prometheus, it’s me! It’s Cornelius! Are you in here?’
There was no sound, save a gentle drip falling from the roof onto the stone floor.
‘Prometheus, if you’re here, show yourself,’ Quaint tried again. ‘Damn it, Butter, I felt so sure he’d be here…Destine’s premonition said so.’
‘Perhaps he goes elsewhere?’ Butter asked Quaint, who was busy scouring the darkness seeking a sign that they were at least looking in the right place.
‘I just want some kind of noise, a tap, a rap, something along those lines,’ he said.
Down within the dark, prevalent shadows of the warehouse, a metallic clang suddenly resounded. A clear beat of metal against stone.
Quaint and Butter exchanged surprised looks.
‘Like that?’ asked Butter.
‘Uncannily so, my friend…just like that,’ answered Quaint.
They both raced as fast as they could to the rickety metal staircase that led from the small office on the second level, down to the ground floor. The darkness enclosed around them instantly, and Quaint suddenly wished that he’d brought the lantern down with him. Now they were on ground level the warehouse seemed to open up in size tenfold, and it was impossible to isolate where the noise had originated from.
‘Hello?’ Quaint called. ‘Prometheus, are you here? Is that you?’
The metal clang sounded out again, this time fainter, located behind Quaint.
‘Boss, you think we make better splitting up?’ whispered Butter.
‘Hmm. Maybe so. The darkness is blinding us. We need to distance ourselves from its grasp. Why don’t you take a look down that way,’ offered Quaint. ‘Go and check that large metal ice box door, see if it’s unlocked. It may just be the machinery making a noise, settling itself, for all we know. I’ll investigate these sheds at the back here. That’s where the noise just came from.’
‘No, boss, clang comes from this direction…ahead.’
‘You’re mistaken, Butter. I think you’ll find that it most definitely came from the area near those sheds over there.’
A faint clink of metal came from the direction that Butter was pointing in.
‘See, boss?’ said Butter. ‘It is this way!’
But then another clang reverberated around the warehouse’s ground floor, this time coming from the location of the metal sheds, directly behind Quaint.
‘These sounds are all around us,’ said Quaint bemusedly, squinting into the dark as he walked slowly into the shadowed corner of the warehouse. ‘I don’t know how that’s possible, but I do know it can’t be good news.’
‘Not for you, it ain’t,’ said a grizzled voice from the shadows, as its owner brought a heavy wooden stake down onto Quaint’s shoulder-blades. With a yell of pain, Quaint hit the ground like a ton of bricks. He rolled over onto his back, scowling into the shadows in the direction of his attacker.
‘Who the devil just hit me?’ he snarled, as Butter helped him to his feet.
‘That’d be me, mate,’ said the gruff voice from the darkness, as a man with a grubby face stepped forth into the hazy light. ‘My first blow might not ’ve done the trick—but I guarantee you, my second one will,’ the man roared, as he slashed at the air with his wooden pole.
It came down in an arc, narrowly missing Quaint, striking the stone ground. Quaint quickly stepped towards the man, and stamped all his weight upon the tip of the wooden pole pulling it from the man’s hand onto the ground. As the shadowed man tried in vain to wrest it from under Quaint’s heel, the conjuror kicked up with his boot as hard as he could, and the metal cap on his heel made contact with the man’s face. Quaint watched with a certain sense of satisfaction as the bridge of the man’s nose split in half, spraying a saturated curtain of bright red blood into the air. Quaint towered over the man, brandishing the wooden stave.
‘Now listen to me, my good man, I’m sorry about all that, but you attacked me first…I was merely defending myself,’ he said, apologetically. ‘We don’t wish for any trouble, we’re only searching for a friend of ours—a big, tall gentleman with a beard—about so high.’ Quaint held his hand about a foot above his head. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve seen him about anywhere have you?’
‘Course I ain’t!’ spat the bloodied man.
‘Worth a try, I suppose.’
‘I don’t give a rat’s arse why you’re here, mate,’ said the bull of a man. ‘You ain’t gonna be around for much longer—you’re dead meat!’
‘Be reasonable, there’s a good fellow. If we’ve stumbled upon your sleeping place, we apologise,’ exclaimed Quaint, holding his hands up in appeal. ‘We’ll just be on our way, and no harm done, eh?’
‘You ain’t goin’ nowhere—I ain’t finished with you yet,’ the bull yelled, as he pulled a small switchblade from his rear pocket. He cut the air, inches from Quaint’s face. ‘By the time I’m done with you, Quaint, you’ll be pickin’ up your teeth with broken fingers!’
‘I won’t, if it’s all the same to you,’ said Quaint.
‘Boss,’ said Butter into Quaint’s ear. ‘How d
oes he know your name?’
Quaint froze. ‘That’s a thoroughly good question.’
‘All you need to know, old man, is that my boss has paid me to make sure you don’t walk out’ve this marketplace in one piece,’ the man brandished the knife menacingly. ‘And I’m going to make sure I earn every damn penny of it!’
‘Good for you. Although, I feel it only fair to warn you; I used to box at county level, and was unbeaten for eight consecutive years! If it’s a fight you’re looking for, then congratulations—you just found one,’ Quaint clenched his jaw, and pulled off his overcoat, throwing it aside onto the sodden floor. He pushed his curly, grey-brown fringe away from his eyes, and raised his fists. ‘You’ll last about three minutes by the looks of you.’
‘Yeah? Then you’ll have plenty of time to take on the rest of that lot then,’ said the rough-voiced man, pointing the far entrance as the main doors opened.
Quaint’s eyes were naturally drawn to the sight at the end of the market. Early evening moonlight flooded in through the open doors, framing the silhouettes of a large group of grunting men approaching him at pace. They sneered, they jeered, and they cursed—each one with a fixed intention—to exact violence upon their target.
The Equivoque Principle Page 11