Underworld

by Oliver Bowden

  By now they were back at City Road, like they had never left, and Abberline strode inside while Aubrey stood in the doorway, one hand on the door frame, almost doubled over as he tried to get his breath.

  From the kitchen came the sounds of Abberline muttering then an exclamation. “What is it?” said Aubrey, holding his side as he joined the other peeler in the kitchen.

  Abberline stood at the far end of the room beneath the comprehensively broken window. Triumphantly he indicated the disturbed crockery table.

  “Here,” he said, “what do you see here?”

  Whatever it was he was pointing out looked very much to Aubrey like a smudge of blood, and he said so.

  “Right, a bloodstain left by whoever it was who dived through the window, right? You’d expect that, wouldn’t you?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Blood from that Indian geezer we’ve just seen standing in Cavanagh’s office like butter wouldn’t melt, I would wager,” said Abberline.

  “That’s an assumption, Freddie. Haven’t we always been taught—look for evidence never assume, look for evidence.”

  “How about if you formulate theories then find the evidence to back it up?” asked Abberline with a glint in his eye. You had to give it to him, thought Aubrey. When he was on a roll . . .

  “Go on . . .” said Aubrey.

  “See the Indian geezer? He had bare feet, didn’t he?”

  “I know. Bloody hell, must save a few bob on boot leather . . .”

  “Bear that fact in mind, and now take another look at your smudge of blood.”

  Aubrey did as he was told and Abberline watched as the light slowly dawned on his companion’s face.

  “Christ Almighty, you’re right, it’s a footprint.”

  “That’s right. That’s bloody right, Aubrey. A footprint. Now, look, you and I was standing over here.” He pulled the other man over to where they were the previous evening, when they’d been remonstrating with the permanently indignant Mrs. Waugh. “Now, you have to imagine the window is intact. That makes it like a mirror, right? Like a black mirror. Well, I’m telling you, about half a second before that black mirror smashed and seven years of bad luck came in at us all at once, I saw a movement in it.”

  “You saw the assailant before he came smashing through?”

  “Except now we think the Indian geezer was the assailant, don’t we? But it wasn’t the Indian geezer I saw. Who I saw was much bigger than that. So now I’m wondering . . . now I’m wondering if what I saw was a reflection.” He pressed a hand to his forehead as though to try and massage a solution out of his brain. “Okay, what about this, Aubrey? What if one or maybe even two of those security geezers from the rail works were standing behind us? What would you say to that?”

  “I’d say we bolted the door so how did they get in?”

  “Here.” Abberline dragged Aubrey out of the kitchen and toward the coal-cellar door. It was ajar. There was nothing suspicious about that, but inside was the coal with a distinct man-sized groove running through its middle, from the stone floor of the coal hole, right up to the hatch at street level.

  “Gotcha!” exclaimed Abberline. “Now . . .” He returned Aubrey to the kitchen, where they resumed their positions. “We’re standing here, right? Now say if we’re right and I saw the reflection of a bugger who stood right behind us, just waiting to knock us out or worse. I saw how close he was. And we had our backs to him, don’t forget. What I’m saying is that he had us, Aubrey. He had us, Aubrey, like a pair of sitting ducks, fattened up and ready for the slaughter. Could have knocked our block off with a truncheon. Could have slit our throats with a knife . . .

  “And yet, for some reason, even though his mate was in position, the Indian fellow comes crashing through the window.”

  Abberline looked at Aubrey.

  “Now why would that be, Aubrey? What the bloody hell was he doing coming in through the window?”

  PART II

  LOST CITY

  THIRTY-THREE

  Fifteen-year-old Evie Frye, the daughter of Ethan and the late Cecily, had developed a new habit. She wasn’t especially proud of it, but still, it had developed anyway, as habits have a way of doing. She had taken to listening at her father’s door during his meetings with George Westhouse.

  Well, why not? After all, wasn’t her father always saying she’d soon be joining “the fight,” as he called it? Wasn’t another of his favored expressions that there’s no time like the present?

  For years now Evie and her twin brother, Jacob, had been learning Assassincraft, and the two of them were enthusiastic students. Jacob, the more athletic of the pair, had taken to combat like a fish to water; he loved it, despite lacking the natural gift that his sister possessed. At nights, sharing a bedroom, the siblings would talk excitedly of the day that they would be introduced to the fabled hidden blade.

  Nevertheless, Evie found her interest wandering. What came naturally to her didn’t quite engross her the way it did her brother. While Jacob would spend his days in the yard of their home in Crawley, whirling like a dervish to practice moves taught by Father that morning, Evie would often creep away, declaring herself bored with the constant repetition of sword practice, and make her way to her father’s study, where he kept his books.

  Learning was what fired the imagination of Evie Frye. The writings of Assassin elders, chronicles of legendary Assassins: Altaïr Ibn-La’Ahad, whose name meant “the flying eagle,” the handsome and dashing Ezio Auditore da Firenze, Edward Kenway, Arno Dorian, Adewale, Aveline de Grandpré and, of course, Arbaaz Mir, with whom her father had spent so much time when they were younger men.

  All of them had joined the fight to hold the Templar scourge at bay, fighting for freedom in whatever time and territory they plied their trade; most had at one time or another become involved in helping to locate what were known as artifacts. No museum pieces, these. The artifacts that preoccupied Assassins and Templars were materials left by Those Who Came Before. Of them all, the most important were the Pieces of Eden. The power they harnessed was said to be biblical and the knowledge supposedly coded into them was said to be the learning of all ages, past, present and future. There were others, Altaïr Ibn-La’Ahad, for example—Evie had pored over a transcription of his codex—who had expressed doubt about them, wondering if they were mere trinkets. Evie wasn’t sure, and perhaps that formed part of the appeal. She wanted to see these artifacts for herself. She wanted to hold them and feel a connection with a society that existed before her own. She wanted to know the unknowable powers that helped shape mankind.

  Thus, when she overheard the word “artifacts” from inside her father’s study one night, she had lingered to listen further. And listened again the next time George Westhouse visited and the time after that.

  Sometimes she asked herself if Father knew there were eavesdroppers present. It would be just like him to say nothing. What mitigated her guilt was the feeling that he wouldn’t necessarily disapprove. After all, she was merely harvesting early the information she’d be gathering later anyway.

  “He’s a brave one, this man of yours,” George Westhouse was saying now.

  “Indeed he is, and essential to any chance we have of one day taking back our city. The Templars believe us to be reduced to just you and me, George. Let them think that. Having an agent in their midst gives us a crucial advantage.”

  “Only if he learns something of use to us. Has he?”

  Evie’s father sighed. “Sadly not. We know that Cavanagh is regularly visited by Crawford, and in particular we know that Lucy Thorne spends a great deal of time at the dig . . .”

  “Lucy Thorne, probably the Templars’ greatest expert on the occult. Her very presence at the site indicates we’re on the right track.”

  “Indeed. I never doubted it.”

  “But there’s nothing to suggest when the
Templars hope to find what they’re looking for?”

  “Not yet, but when they do, The Ghost is in place to snatch it for us.”

  “And if they already have?”

  “Then at some point, as he continues to gain their trust, he will learn that and, again, be in the right place to retrieve the artifact and put it into our hands.”

  From behind Evie came a whisper. “What are you doing there?”

  Startled and straightening with a slight cracking of her legs, Evie turned to find Jacob behind her, grinning as usual. She put a finger to her lips then ushered him away from the door and to the stairs so they should retire for bed.

  Evie would tell Jacob what she had learned, knowing full well that for all he would insist on every little detail, he wouldn’t really bother listening. Assassin history, tactics, policy, the artifacts—these were all aspects of the Assassin life that Jacob was happy to leave for a later date, when their father was good and ready to teach them.

  Not for Evie, though. Evie was thirsty to learn.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Months had passed since the events at the Waughs’ home, and during those months, Abberline had brooded. Occasionally he brooded alone. Occasionally he had help, in the form of Aubrey who, while not quite as broody as Abberline, did a little out of sympathy, as well as being glad of an ale or two in The Green Man.

  During these occasions, despondently hunched over a table in the pub and trying not to stand out like two truant-playing bobbies, Aubrey would attempt to lighten the mood with one of the best new music-hall jokes.

  “I say, I say, I say, Freddie, when is a boat smaller than a bonnet?”

  “I don’t know, when is a boat smaller than a bonnet?”

  “When it’s capsized.”

  And sometimes he would try to lighten the mood with one of the worst.

  “I say, I say, I say, Freddie. Why do tailors always please their customers?”

  “I don’t know, why?”

  “Because it is their business to suit people.”

  And other times he would try to engage Abberline in more profound and philosophical discussion.

  “It’s just one of those things,” he said one day.

  “But it’s not, though, is it?” Abberline, who had long since forgone his no-drinking-on-duty rule, drained the rest of his pint. “If it was just one of those things, I wouldn’t be so bothered. Because you know what really irks me, Aubrey? It’s the not knowing. It’s the fact that liars and murderers are walking around out there, thinking they got one over on the peelers. No, what am I talking about? Not the peelers, because no bugger else apart from you and me could give two hoots about robed men and missing bodies. Thinking they got one over on you and me is what it is.”

  Aubrey shook his head sadly. “You know what your problem is, Freddie? You want everything to be black-and-white. You want answers all the time. And sometimes, you know, there just ain’t no answers, and there ain’t no black-and-white, there’s just different shades of gray, which is to say that things are as murky as the bottom of the Thames and just as rotten-smelling, but there ain’t nothing you can do about the Thames and there ain’t nothing you can do about that either.”

  “No, you’re wrong.” Abberline stopped himself and reconsidered. “Well, all right, maybe you’re only half-right. There are shades of gray when it comes to right and wrong. I’ll give you that and stand you a pint for your insights”—he held up two fingers and was rewarded with a response from across the room—“but you’re wrong about answers. There are answers. And I want to know those answers.”

  Aubrey nodded, tried to dredge up another joke, but the only one he could think of was one whose last line was, “No noose is good noose,” and he didn’t think that was appropriate in the circumstances. So instead they drank their next pint in silence and did some more brooding.

  * * *

  Outside they went their separate ways along Regent Street, and Abberline wondered if a man from the pub who had seemed to be taking an inordinate interest in them would follow either him or Aubrey.

  Glancing in the reflection of the shop window, he saw that he was the lucky one.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  “So, how about you tell me why you’ve been following me these past few days?”

  It was an especially vexed Abberline who had led his shadow up an alleyway on the New Road in order to confront him. Especially vexed because that very morning he had been called into the division sergeant’s office and given a telling-off. No, not just a telling-off, but a severe reprimand. And why? Because apparently a certain Mr. Cavanagh of the Metropolitan Railway—that dead-eyed bastard—had made a complaint about him. According to him, Constable Abberline was spending a disproportionate amount of time at the site. Making something of a nuisance of himself, he was, what with his insinuations that Cavanagh and five of his employees were involved with a murder.

  And he was to stop that at once.

  So, yes, an especially vexed Abberline, given strength by his vexation, was watching the man’s face turn purple above the blue serge of his forearm. The man wore a dark suit, and a bowler hat, a little tatty, but was otherwise fairly respectable-looking. In fact, thought Abberline, he was dressed not unlike one of the detectives from the division.

  Except, Abberline knew all the detectives from the division. He knew all the detectives for miles around, and this bloke wasn’t one of them, which had made him wonder if it was a different kind of detective altogether. With his other hand he frisked the man and came up with a small leather truncheon that he slipped into his own tunic pocket.

  “Private dick, are we?” said Abberline.

  In response the man nodded furiously. “Gak, gak, gak,” he tried.

  Abberline relaxed his grip.

  “Yes, Constable Abberline, a private detective is what I am, and one who might be of benefit to you if you were to let me speak,” gasped the man against the wall.

  Cautious but curious, Abberline let him go. “What’s your name?” he demanded.

  “Leonard. Leonard Hazlewood.”

  “Right, now state your case, Mr. Hazlewood, and make it a good one.”

  Hazlewood straightened himself up first, adjusting his hat and his suit and his collar before he went on. “You’re right, I’m a private detective in the employ of a member of the aristocracy, a viscount, if you please, who pays well and doesn’t mind who he pays it to, if you know what I mean.”

  “Yes, I know exactly what you mean. How about I take you in for attempting to bribe a member of Her Majesty’s constabulary?”

  “Who’s bribing anyone, Constable? I know my business, and I know that the other men at the division call you Fresh-faced Freddie, and that you like to do things by the book, and that you don’t even take a drink on duty . . .”

  Abberline cleared his throat guiltily. Yeah, mate, if only you knew. “What of it?”

  “So I reckon you’d be just as interested in solving a crime as you would be in lining your own pocket. Maybe even more so. And that if I can help you do one, while maybe also doing the other, then maybe that isn’t a bribe so much as a gift in recognition of your sterling police work, such as a benefactor might bestow.”

  “Just say what you have to say and say it outright.”

  “This viscount of mine. Him and his mate were set upon not far from here, in the Marylebone Churchyard. His mate was so viciously attacked that he lost his life there in the graveyard.”

  “He didn’t have far to travel for his burial, then, did he?”

  “A somewhat off-color joke, if you don’t mind my saying so, Constable.”

  “It’s an off-color joke because I know a load of drivel when I hear it, and I’m hearing it now. If two members of the aristocracy had been set upon in a graveyard and one of them killed right here in the division, I think I’d have known about it, don’t you
?”

  “Both my employer and the family of the murdered man preferred not to report the matter, in a bid to keep out of the public spotlight.”

  Abberline curled a lip. “Oh yes? Up to no good, were they?”

  “I didn’t ask. I’ve simply been appointed to find and detain their attacker.”

  “Detain, is it? And then what? Deliver him into the hands of the police? Don’t make me laugh. Do him down or top him completely is what you’ve got in mind.”

  Hazlewood pulled a face. “Does it matter? The fact is that justice will be served.”

  “Justice is served by the courts,” said Abberline—although these days he wondered if he still believed it.

  “Not always.”

  “You’re right. Not always. Not on young nobles who get drunk, take a trollop or two into a graveyard then find themselves being rolled over by the ladies’ pimps, am I right? I mean, unless you’re trying to tell me they was in there putting poppies on a grave? One thing you can always depend on the aristocracy to do is get their jollies at the expense of the lower orders. Maybe the tables got turned for once.”

  The detective shrugged. “It wasn’t a pimp. No simple cash carrier attacked my employer and killed his friend and disabled two of his bodyguards . . .”

  Abberline’s eyebrows shot up. “They had bodyguards, eh? Bloody hell, you really know how to play on a man’s sympathies, you do, don’t you?”

  Hazlewood frowned and tugged at his collar again. His neck had reddened. This wasn’t going well. “This was a dangerous man, Constable. Hardly even a man, they say, and it would be in all of our best interests if he were to be off the streets for good.”

  Abberline was thinking of Aubrey’s different shades of gray. He was thinking about justice and how that fitted into the picture when two aristocrats took bodyguards for drunken jaunts into the less salubrious parts of town. Why should he care if a lone man taught the little bastards a lesson by giving them a good hiding—in other words, a really nasty thrashing. Abberline knew what Aubrey would say. Good luck to the fella. More power to his bloody elbow.