The Lost Plot

by Genevieve Cogman

  They’d reached North Union Station in Boston without being caught by their pursuers. Unfortunately there hadn’t been many people catching a train at that hour of the morning, so there was no way to get lost in the crowds. On the positive side, Irene thought determinedly, it also meant that if someone had been following them, she or Kai should have spotted him. So with any luck, Hu would have lost their trail for the moment—whatever he wanted with them.

  A few hours of sleep had dramatically improved her mood. Admittedly she wasn’t properly awake yet, and she needed coffee, breakfast, and a bathroom. And she still didn’t know what was going on, only that it might be immeasurably bad. And yet . . .

  Tunnels loomed ahead of the train, dipping down under the city of New York. The train rattled into them with a whoosh and a deep chuckle of wheels, and abruptly the carriage was darker, lit only by the electrical lamps along the ceiling. It was a setting that invited paranoia. There was no way to get off now. Irene found her perspective shifting: previously she’d been journeying into a city of possibility, but now it felt as if she was being delivered into the darkness to an inescapable destination.

  Irene took a deep breath. The situation would not be improved by mental nail-biting. Instead she nudged Kai gently in the ribs. “We’re coming into Grand Central Terminal,” she murmured. “Time to wake up.”

  Kai raised his hand to tilt his hat and inspect the world around him. “Not for another few minutes yet, surely,” he said hopefully.

  “We’re closer than that, I think.” Irene edged her own powder compact out of her handbag and checked her face in the mirror. She looked passable. Certainly not worth anyone’s interest. Which was exactly what she wanted. “Hopefully we can get our business out of the way and be heading home as soon as possible.”

  The train finally jolted into the station, bursting out from the darkness of the tunnel to come to a stop next to a platform walled in white tiles, with GRAND CENTRAL inset mosaic-style. Kai got to his feet and reached their suitcase down from the overhead rack, then offered Irene a hand to help her rise. “Any priorities?” he asked.

  “Breakfast and coffee.”

  Kai nodded. They let a few of the carriage’s other occupants go ahead of them—Irene didn’t intend to be the first person onto an empty platform—and then stepped off the train and headed for the stairs.

  With a nasty shock of surprise, Irene saw that there were police waiting. A dozen or so blue-uniformed men were checking passengers as they filed past, and behind them crowded an entourage of men waving cameras and brandishing notebooks. “I have a bad feeling about this,” she muttered.

  “It could be coincidence.” Kai sounded as if he was trying to convince himself, and failing. Irene would have been worried that their sudden low-voiced conversation might look suspicious, but fortunately—if that was the word for it—other passengers were suddenly slowing and eyeing the waiting cops. It was a Horatius-at-the-bridge situation, with those at the back trying to push forward, and quite a few of those at the front doing their best to move back.

  Irene’s own good mood was dropping like a barometer faced with an oncoming storm. But there was nowhere to go, except back on the train. And retreating down the platform would be useless: they’d run out of platform. “If we get closer, perhaps we can hear who they’re waiting for—”

  “That’s her!” one of the cops yelled.

  He was pointing at Irene.

  Irene’s first impulse was to shrink back into the crowd or hide behind something. Unfortunately the crowd (apart from Kai) was shrinking back from her, and hiding behind Kai wasn’t a viable long-term strategy. She tried to look as falsely accused as possible.

  The police came driving towards her and Kai in a flying wedge through the crowd, trailed by the newspaper reporters in a sea of fedora hats and cheap sharp suits. A couple of them were already snapping photographs, the flash-bulbs on their cameras flaring brightly. Irene raised a hand to shield her eyes, and cursed the fact that she couldn’t use the Language to break all their damned cameras. But it would attract more trouble than it was worth.

  The leader of the group of policemen—an overweight man with thick glasses, displaying noticeable extra braid on his cap and jacket—held up one hand as he approached. “Excuse me, ma’am. NYPD, Captain Venner. Would you be Miss Jeanette Smith from England?” His accent was pure New York.

  A chill made its way down Irene’s spine and settled in her stomach. Somehow she didn’t think this would end with And as our millionth visitor, you’ve won a thousand dollars! She and Kai had just walked into trouble.

  “Well, I am English,” she said. She knew that her American accent wasn’t very convincing. “But my name is Rosalie Jones.” So said her identity papers, at least.

  The cop turned to a colleague. “Make a note—the accused denied being Miss Jeanette Smith.” In the background, reporters scribbled. More cameras flashed.

  “And who is Jeanette Smith, anyhow?” Irene demanded.

  “In a moment, ma’am,” the cop said. “In a moment. Would you mind if I see your identity papers? And your friend’s papers too?”

  Irene cursed mentally. Kai wasn’t going to be able to slip away. She fished in her handbag, rather unnerved when all the cops tensed as she pulled out the papers. She’d retrieved them from the bank and “updated” them later, so she hoped they’d pass muster.

  The cop gave them a professional once-over. “According to these, ma’am, you’re thirty-eight.”

  Irene smiled sweetly. “Is that a crime?”

  That evoked a laugh from the crowd. Though not from the police. The lead cop folded the papers and tucked them into his jacket, pointedly not returning them. “And you claim that you’re not Jeanette Smith?”

  “I’ve never heard of her.”

  The cop turned slightly, presenting his best profile to the newspaper cameras. “Since you’re claiming ignorance, ma’am, Jeanette Smith is one of England’s most notorious mobsters. Which makes us all kind of curious what you’re doing in New York.”

  Irene stared at him in shock. “I am not a mobster!”

  “The biggest protection-racket woman in Great Britain!” one of the reporters yelled.

  “Smuggles brandy from the Continent!” another called.

  “The Girl with a Gun in her Garter!” a third chimed in.

  Suddenly they were all taking photos again. Irene backed against Kai, barely able to see through the hurricane of flashes.

  “This could have gone better,” Kai murmured, barely audible through the noise of the crowd. He’d pulled his hat down to shield his face.

  “Think of something,” Irene said, a little desperately. She’d been accused of a lot of things, but being a mob boss was a new low. And while she’d certainly committed crimes in the Library’s service, she’d generally avoided arrest. And she hadn’t even had her coffee. “You’re the one with the dubious past. What do you do in this sort of situation?”

  “Deny everything, keep your mouth shut, and demand a lawyer,” Kai said with the quick certainty of experience.

  Their exchange had gone unheard under the noise of the crowd, but the cops had certainly noticed it. “Something to tell us, ma’am?”

  “I don’t know anything,” Irene said firmly. “I’ve only just got here. If you’re going to be accusing me, then I want a lawyer.”

  “We can arrange that for you just fine, ma’am.” The cop gestured, and the other policemen moved to surround Irene and Kai. “You and your friend here will be coming down to the precinct with us.”

  Irene would have been willing to agree to almost anything if it would get her away from the mob of reporters. “Will you be able to sort this out once we get there? There’s been some sort of mistake, and we simply want to get on with our holiday.”

  “It’s exactly as she says,” Kai said, backing her up. “I don’t k
now what sort of police system you have here, but this certainly wouldn’t happen in England.” He did outraged well, Irene thought.

  Captain Venner snorted. “Yeah, sure, whatever. Let’s move it—unless you really want to stand around and give interviews.”

  Irene and Kai were hustled through the mob. She vaguely regretted not seeing more of Grand Central Terminal as they were rushed through it. One of the cops took custody of their luggage, and Irene suspected it would shortly be inspected for hidden . . . well, hidden whatever was carried by the biggest protection-racket woman in Great Britain. Guns? Brandy? Money for bribes? It was going to be awkward if she had to explain the large roll of high-value bills in her handbag. She resisted the urge to touch the heavy locket around her throat. The paper with Evariste’s name on it was the only thing she couldn’t afford to lose.

  “I understand that you call these paddy wagons Black Marias in England,” one of the cops said helpfully, as he assisted Irene into the back of a police vehicle. A heavy metal partition separated the cell area from the front seats, and the walls were reinforced with thick steel plates. He clambered in to join her, and when Kai followed, he also had his very own attendant cop.

  “We do,” Irene agreed. “But I’ve never been in one before.” She looked around nervously, shrinking closer to Kai on the plank seat.

  He put an arm round her shoulders on cue, glowering at the cops. “I won’t have any of you bullying my girl like this,” he said arrogantly.

  “Seems to me your girl was doing just fine sticking up for herself back there,” the other cop said. “Now, don’t you give us no trouble and we’ll have a nice quiet trip.”

  The police van jolted into motion. There were no windows, but the regular bursts of high speed followed by jarring stops gave Irene some idea of their progression through traffic, and the sound of offended car horns provided the rest. Prisoner transport vehicles were similar, whatever the culture or time period.

  She patted Kai’s hand. “I’m sure that we can get this sorted out once we get to the police station, dear.”

  “Station house, ma’am,” the first cop said. “That’s what we call them over here. Don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it in no time.”

  “Thank you,” Irene said. “Will they have a lawyer at the station house?”

  “Not unless you’re planning to call one in,” the second cop said. “But I suppose a lady like yourself has the numbers of all the local law firms, mm?”

  Irene was forced to accept that Hu’s frame-up job on her must have been really good. These two cops weren’t even considering that she might be an innocent victim of circumstances. “I’m just here on vacation,” she said helplessly. “With my boyfriend. I’m just a secretary.”

  “Sure you are, ma’am,” the cop agreed. “And you can have a nice long chat with the captain about it, real soon now.”

  Irene and Kai exchanged glances. She could read her own impatience and frustration in his eyes. They couldn’t afford to be delayed. The contest would be over in a few days, and if Evariste was up to something, then he had to be stopped before that deadline. But running would just confirm any police suspicions, and being hunted by the police would hamper their attempts to locate Evariste.

  All too soon the police van screeched to a stop. They were hustled out of the vehicle and into a heavy building that had clearly been built for security. It tried to look impressive but merely succeeded in looking monolithic and forbidding. It was faced with sandstone and—to Irene’s hasty glance—marked with recent bullet scars. “Has someone been shooting at this place?” she asked her escort.

  He followed her gaze. “Oh yeah, that was last year. Don’t you worry about it, ma’am. The gangs have been quiet lately. And we’re all hoping they stay that way.”

  Captain Venner caught up with their group in the main entrance-hall. The gaggle of reporters who’d followed from the station eddied and flowed round the edge of the group, notebooks at the ready. The place was clearly warming up to the day’s work. Cops strode briskly from place to place, their voices echoing under the high ceiling. Hard-bitten men and women seated behind heavy desks listened to visitors—lawyers, reporters, relatives, or arrestees waiting to be booked in—with the air of cops who’d heard it all before. A janitor pushed her mop across the floor, leaving a streak of clean tiles behind her. The place smelled of sweat, dust, and coffee.

  “I’ll be talking to Miss Smith in my office,” the captain said. “Barnes, why don’t you have a little chat with her friend here. What’s your name?”

  “Robert Pearce,” Kai said helpfully. “Shouldn’t you be reading us our rights?”

  “Oh, we’ve got a smart one here. For your information, Mr. Pearce, that only happens when we’re arresting you, and we haven’t arrested you . . . yet.”

  Irene and Kai exchanged a loaded glance. It certainly felt like an arrest. Sadly, while insulting the police captain in front of all his men would be extremely satisfying, it would bias any future conversation. But a genuinely innocent person would be saying something at this point . . .

  “Your uncle’s going to be furious if he hears about this,” she said to Kai, letting a wobble enter her voice. “Do you suppose he’ll think it’s one of those slice-of-life moments? Visitors to New York getting mistaken for famous mobsters and hauled off by the police . . .”

  “I hope he doesn’t hear about it in the first place.” Kai took her hand and squeezed it. “Chin up, Rosalie. Stiff upper lip. We’ll be out of here in no time.”

  “And the sooner we have that talk, the sooner it might be,” Captain Venner said. He stalked off down a side corridor, his belly swaying under his uniform.

  Irene didn’t bother hiding a last, lingering look at Kai as the two of them were led away in opposite directions. After all, it fitted the part she was playing.

  In the captain’s office the smell of cigarettes was overlaid with one of more expensive pipe tobacco. Captain Venner sat down behind his desk with a grunt of relief, adjusting his glasses. He noticeably didn’t offer Irene a chair.

  Irene took the opportunity to look around while she waited. The window had a view overlooking the street below, and it was already full of morning traffic. Iron bars across the window provided an incongruous note—precautions against theft, or against more direct assault? She remembered the bullet-marks on the building’s exterior. Photos of the captain shaking hands with various expensively dressed people hung on the walls. The filing cabinets were heavy steel, and looked proof against anything up to dynamite. The captain’s own desk was good-quality wood, with the sheen that came from regular polishing. Political connections, expensive office furniture, and a private interview . . . he’s looking for a pay-off, Irene suspected.

  The room held only her, the captain, and another cop on guard at the door. And she was willing to bet the cop at the door would have a very selective memory about this interview. Her odds had just improved.

  Captain Venner finally fixed his gaze on her. “For a woman who’s supposed to be innocent, Miss Smith, you’re taking all this very calmly.”

  “I trust the police,” Irene said. “We went along with you because of all those reporters, but surely now that you can check up on things here, you can see there’s been some sort of mistake. And I’m not Miss Smith,” she added stubbornly.

  The captain leaned over and extracted a folder from one of the desk drawers. He slapped it on the desk in front of him. “Some sort of mistake, you say.”

  “Yes.” Irene spread her hands. “I mean, really, do I look like a woman who runs a protection racket?”

  “And how would you know what a woman who runs a protection racket would look like, ma’am?”

  “Well, I’m sure she’d be better dressed than I am,” Irene snapped. “I demand to know what sort of evidence you have against me!”

  Captain Venner tapped the folder. “This m
orning, ma’am, the New York Police Department received an urgent message from the Boston police. They’d received evidence that Miss Jeanette Smith had come over from England, and they confirmed she’d been in their vicinity and talking business with some of the local gangs. However, they’d also tracked her to the railway station, and they knew that she’d gotten a ticket to New York. I think you can probably see where I’m coming from.”

  Irene folded her arms. “That’s all well and good, but it still doesn’t label me as this Jeanette Smith woman. If she was on the train, she probably escaped while you were wasting your time with me.”

  He flipped open the folder. “That’s a curious thing, ma’am. Because from where I’m standing . . .” He extracted a piece of paper and turned it so that Irene could see it. “She surely looks a lot like you.”

  It was a pen-and-ink drawing of Irene, head and shoulders. While it showed her with her previous long hair, it was quite definitely her.

  Irene mentally sorted through appropriate reactions and settled on horrified disbelief, which wasn’t that far from her current emotional state in any case. “That’s—how—where did you get that?”

  “By fast car from Boston this morning.” He settled back in his chair again. “So, Miss Smith, perhaps you’d like to explain a few things. Or would you rather sit in the cells while you think about it? I’ll tell you flat out that I’m more interested in local individuals than foreign imports. So if you’re willing to talk, then I’m willing to listen.”

  Denying everything wasn’t working. Admitting everything would be even worse.

  Waiting in the cells wasn’t acceptable. And what if Hu’s plans to detain them turned into something more lethal?

  “May I get something out of my handbag?” she said, priming the captain for a bribe. “And is the gentleman behind me . . . reliable?”

  Captain Venner relaxed. “Surely you can, ma’am,” he said. “And surely he is. I’m glad to see we’re on the same page now.”