The doll with the cracked face, that Persephone had offloaded onto Larkin.
“He was very angry,” Hedwig commented. “He even mentioned the Paid Mourner when he was shouting at Conrad. And it crossed my mind that he may have had a house key.”
“There you are then. But the bastard’s alibied by that daughter of his, and he’s destroyed the evidence. Hard to arrest him without it.”
Hedwig let the water from the tap play over her fingers. She was in two minds about Briar’s guilt. The assailant had neither the smell nor the posture of a drunken man; but her impression may have been mistaken, given how distressed she was. As for the alibi – Persephone wasn’t a liar, in the ordinary way of things, and yet she had shown strange loyalty to Briar over the years. She still lived with him, when her mother had offered her an escape. Perhaps that loyalty would lead her to fake an alibi, too.
“Do you want to get in this bath with me?” Hedwig called.
“No, love. I’ll go after you.”
She lowered herself into the water, washing Stanley’s sweat from her skin. Her status on the eyot was waning already, without Conrad. She needed to secure her position again urgently. Her hopes had been pinned on the police finding the thief, and returning the doll to its proper place. Were that to happen, Conrad would likely be mollified, as no long-term harm could be attributed to Hedwig… but if Briar had destroyed the Paid Mourner, Hedwig could see no end in sight to Conrad’s resentment.
“This business has been tremendously draining for everyone,” Hedwig said. “If you don’t have enough evidence to arrest Briar, is the case at a dead end?”
“It’ll stay open. For completion we have to pursue a few other lines of enquiry, before we stop actively seeking the culprit.” He appeared in the doorway, pallidly naked. Confident in his appeal for her, he smiled. “When the case does wrap up that won’t make a difference to us. I can see you whenever.”
Hedwig squeezed a sponge over her shoulder, to rinse the soap away. It wouldn’t do any harm to stay on Stanley’s good side.
“That would be nice,” she lied.
*
The letterbox clattered, five minutes after Stanley had gone, and Hedwig assumed he had forgotten something; but it was only the postman, delivering two letters for Conrad. Hedwig’s secretarial duties included opening mail addressed to her employer. She took both items of post into the study so she could file or shred the contents as soon as she’d checked their importance.
The first was an invoice from the private investigator; she transferred the payment to the man’s account there and then. The second envelope came from Conrad’s financial advisors, and contained a statement of accounts for the quarter.
She paused. With a lick of the finger, she turned the pages. Conrad’s investments had gone from strength to strength under Hedwig’s discreet supervision. He could afford to buy many dolls of the Paid Mourner’s worth, if only he believed she was replaceable. No doubt he would pay a great deal for her return. Had Briar more sense and less temper, he could have made a pretty penny by stealing the doll and holding her to ransom. Whatever resentment Briar nurtured for being left out of his father’s will, Hedwig thought a two million pound payment would be better salve than a few moments’ wanton destruction. Fools with money needed someone like Hedwig to suggest these things to them. Clearly Persephone acted as Briar’s caretaker, but Hedwig didn’t think she was canny enough to look after his interests in the way Hedwig relished doing for Conrad. And should Stanley’s theory one day be confirmed, everyone would suffer from Briar’s lack of guidance. Conrad would be devastated by the loss of his doll. Briar would be ousted as a vandal; Persephone as his abetter. Hedwig would be fired because her failure to stop the thief led to the doll’s destruction.
At this bleak set of prospects Hedwig tucked the statement in the correct section of the filing cabinet, and pushed the drawer shut.
17
Nearly two weeks after the Paid Mourner was stolen, on a clear Thursday evening, Persephone walked home from work in the twilight. Larkin was sitting on the doorstep.
“What are you doing there?” She glanced at the illuminated windows. “You didn’t need to chaperone my dad from a ditch, I hope?”
“No. I was waiting for you.”
To be pursued was novel, and unsure of the appropriate response, Persephone said nothing.
“How were things in the shop today?” he asked.
“The end of capitalism can’t come soon enough.”
Larkin stifled a laugh. She’d noticed before that he seemed to find the things she said amusing and she wasn’t sure why.
He said: “Good to know, Persephone.”
“I hate the current stock. Why must so many of the dolls be twee young girls? It’s what you get when you have a bunch of old men making them.”
“You don’t think dolls should be beautiful?”
“Those men don’t want to look at beauty. They want to look at something made for them, to confirm their desire is the most important thing in the world; they want their dolls like they want their women, a painted smile, no internal life of her own and you can blame her for your passions. Japanese doll lore is different, you know. In Japan their dolls have souls.”
“I expect there’s a market for that.”
“There’s a market for everything,” she said sourly. She remembered a point that would interest him. “Someone took a fancy to your iron doll. They’re going to think about it.”
Better not to add that she’d steered them to another purchase, because she liked surreptitiously holding the iron girl, with her queer, intense enchantment of Determined Perseverance, and wasn’t ready to see her go.
“I’m surprised,” Larkin said. “Alastair was convinced no one would take her.”
“Alastair doesn’t know everything.”
“That’s why I’ve come to you. I was hoping you could help me with some sleuthing.”
He took a postcard from his coat pocket, and gave it to her. She recognised the photograph of Lucy Kendrick. The original hung upon Conrad’s landing wall.
“I bought it in town,” Larkin said. “Do you see the necklace? I was wondering – does it mean anything to you? I thought you might know, if it had some special significance.”
She did in fact know. The disc Lucy Kendrick wore round her neck was the same as the discs used for their hexes. According to family legend, it had once borne a hex for Lightheartedness. When Jemima died, Lucy sanded the hex away, and fashioned a pendant from the disc, in constant testimony to her grief.
“It’s mourning jewellery,” Persephone said.
“That’s all?” Larkin prompted. “Nothing to do with sorcery?”
“You’re playing spies again. I told you before, you need to be careful. If anyone overheard you, they’d tell Conrad you were asking questions you shouldn’t.”
“No one’s listening. Tell me everything. I’d be willing to do something for you in return.”
The offer intrigued her. “Say that again?”
“You can have whatever you like – if it’s in my means, of course.”
His expansiveness was hard to resist. From curiosity, she ventured: “Do you have any tools I could use? Say, a mechanical lathe?”
His expression grew quizzical. “You turn wood?”
“I try, with my own hand tools, but a mechanical lathe gives so much more control – if I could borrow—”
“I’m afraid I don’t have my own lathe; I use the Sorcerers’ equipment.”
“So you do.” Persephone handed him back the postcard, feeling foolish. Now he would guess she tried to make dolls; if he hadn’t before, when she took the jig. He probably imagined her attempts were amateurish. Her attempts were amateurish.
“But I could buy you a lathe,” he said. “If that’s your price.”
Persephone scowled. “Don’t be silly. They cost three thousand pounds.”
“I know.”
Was three thousand pounds so
little to him? Or did he want her information so much he would pay more than he could afford? His confidence that she’d comply, with the right offer, irritated her. “Discussing sorcery with you is forbidden. You’re so impatient. Conrad’s promised you sorcery eventually. Why can’t you wait?”
“Why should I wait? I’m a descendant of Ramsay; that entitles me to know. In any case, I’m bad at waiting.”
“It shows.” Men were bad at many things, and yet they evaded blame. She had the unpleasant premonition that if she broke Conrad’s rules, as Larkin wished, all the blame would fall to her, and Larkin would evade any negative consequences; just as friends and neighbours implicated her in Briar’s drunkenness. The thought of Briar reminded her she must check to see if he was inside, and still breathing, wherever he had happened to collapse. She addressed Larkin abruptly: “Move out of the way. I need to let myself in.”
“A lathe isn’t your heart’s desire. If it were, you’d do as I ask.”
“We’re at a dead end then, aren’t we?” Persephone put her key in the lock.
“Until I work out what you want,” he said.
But he couldn’t grant her heart’s desire: his own easy autonomy, the assurance that any demands he made to develop his talent would eventually be met without penalty. She stepped into the hallway, and turned to close the door on Larkin. He was already walking away.
*
The cottage, when Persephone entered, was full of light and the scent of stew. Her father was in the kitchen, and she could tell at a glance – from his posture, and expression – that he was sober. This didn’t mean Persephone could relax, because he was always capable of volatility. But it would mean he made fewer demands on her attention. She sat down to eat, her feet throbbing from a day standing in the shop and her father joined her. They ate in silence but there was as little tension as there could ever be between them. At the other end of the table, she noticed he had been constructing a wooden model of a spiral staircase. It must be the first bit of miniature architecture she’d seen him undertake in years. Ordinarily his hands shook too badly.
He resumed his woodwork when he’d cleared the plates. Persephone noted that his hands were, indeed, shaking, but he was intent – his tongue pinched between his teeth in concentration as he tried to balance a bead on the head of a tiny newel post. The effort he was investing in a work of beauty made Persephone’s eyes prickle.
She stood up rapidly, blinking her tears away, because she didn’t want to have a conversation with her father about why she was crying. Her haste disturbed his much strived-for focus. The bead slipped from his grasp, and rolled beneath the cooker. He tutted.
“I’ll get it,” she said quickly. She didn’t want his frustration to turn to anger. “It’s my fault it’s under there.”
She edged past him to the cooker. Gripping it on either side, Persephone shuffled it forward on the lino. The bead was dislodged from the grease it had settled in, and rolled to her father’s foot, where he picked it up with a smile and a nod. He turned back to his newel post.
Persephone grasped the sides of the cooker again, to manoeuvre it back. Without warning, she felt a shock of Adrenaline-fuelled Fear. She let go with a gasp, and the fear ebbed.
“It’s not still hot is it?” her father asked absently, his eyes trained on his work. “Did you burn yourself?”
“No,” Persephone said. “No, I was just clumsy.”
She surreptitiously ran her hand down the side of the cooker again. She didn’t find the right spot immediately. But then the feeling was back, as sudden as it had been before. Fear. She craned to take a look. A rivulet of translucent wax was barely visible among the food stains. It was solid, and about six inches in length.
Why was there a line of enchanted wax on the cooker?
Someone melted wax on the hob, she thought, and it spilt or spattered in shaking hands. Enchanted wax. Persephone envisioned her father melting the Paid Mourner’s pretty head in a saucepan.
Her options took on clarity. She could turn the evidence in to the police; Briar had made his bed, so perhaps he should lie in it. But he also still had her hex, and she would never get it if she betrayed him.
She scratched at the wax with her nail, allowing the dust to be lost on the air. She restored the cooker to its original position. No one, now, would know.
18
Larkin was drinking in the Eyot Tavern, which was moderately busy, it being Saturday evening. Briar Kendrick was among the customers. Despite Briar’s fondness for beer, he was a rare patron. From word of mouth, Larkin had gathered he usually frequented the Wetherspoons on Castle Street, or else drank at home. This was a chance for Larkin to observe him, and he wanted to observe him, because most people still thought Briar was the chief suspect and that made him compelling. How odd that Persephone would choose to live with such a disaster of a man. She clearly found him a strain, but he must have some hold on her.
That night Briar initially seemed in good cheer, laughing along with some of the other architects at crude jokes, which somehow sounded worse in his Oxford accent. “A woman saw a funny little man at the end of her garden,” Briar was saying. “And she thinks, well the little folk have magic powers and they have to grant you your wishes when you catch them. So she lassos him with a hose and says she won’t free him till he’s given her three. ‘Fair enough,’ he says, ‘what’s your first wish?’ She has a think and says, ‘I want a bigger house.’ He says, ‘Bigger house, rightio. Second wish?’ Then she gives it a bit of thought and tells him, ‘I want a bigger bank balance.’ ‘All right, a million pounds should do the trick, eh? You’ve one wish left.’ And she says, ‘I want bigger tits.’ He tells her, ‘Whatever you want. But to make your wishes come true you have to have sex all night with me.’ And she weighs it up and says, ‘I can live with that.’ Next morning he asks her in bed, ‘How old are you then?’ She says, ‘Twenty-four!’ ‘Fucking hell,’ he tells her. ‘Twenty-four and you still believe in magic.’”
The architects all had a laugh at this and Briar fell off his bar stool. When he got up, he ordered another beer; but Mrs Mayhew declined to serve him, because he’d had enough. And then he turned.
“You’d know about bigger tits,” he told her. “Only yours aren’t magic. They’re fucking plastic.”
One of the other architects tried to steer him out, but he resisted and broke a glass. They finally got him through the door, and left him sitting on the smoking bench. Mrs Mayhew telephoned Persephone to come collect him. Larkin took a step outside to watch from the shadows. Briar was singing by then, one fragment of a lewd folk song after another.
Persephone approached, from the darkness, without seeing Larkin.
“Come on, Dad,” she said to Briar, gently. It was the most placatory Larkin had ever heard her. “Home, eh?”
“You don’t tell me what to do,” Briar said.
“I’m not telling you what to do. It’s more comfortable at home.” She placed a hand on his shoulder, as though to steer him.
“I’m your father. You should have respect for me. You giving me orders. I don’t take orders.”
“I wish you would,” she said, with more of the sharpness Larkin recognised. “You fight with people at every turn. Fight with them, steal their things, steal from your own brother!”
He reared, and swung his fist at her. Larkin heard the impact – the thud of his knuckles on her cheekbone – and she fell to the floor. Briar was breathing heavily. Now his anger had peaked he appeared as shaken as she did.
“Back off, Briar,” Larkin said, stepping into the light from the pub window. “I think it’s time I called the police.”
“No,” Persephone called out. “Don’t. I’m all right.”
Larkin approached and offered her his hand. Her temple had caught a jagged stone on the ground, creating a thin line of blood along the side of her face.
She placed her hand in his, and stood, unsteady.
“Go away,” she said thickly to Bria
r. “You’ve done enough for today.”
He nodded; meek now. He shot Larkin a look of some wariness, before weaving up the path. Persephone watched him take the road home.
“Let’s get you to the John Radcliffe,” Larkin said, meaning the nearest hospital.
“I don’t want to. They’ll ask questions.”
“Has he done this before?”
“No. I mean, I’ve always got out of his way if he tries. You can, you know, when you know somebody’s body language well enough.” She repeated: “I should have managed him better.”
“That’s not true,” Larkin said. “You shouldn’t have to.”
They stood alone for a moment more. She made a move to leave, and Larkin took her hand, again, to delay her.
“You can’t follow him,” Larkin said.
“I have to. I live with him, Larkin. And I can’t move out.” She closed her eyes.
“Do you worry he can’t look after himself? Is that why you stay there?”
“No. I’m not responsible for him.” She sniffed. “But if I move out, he might – look, it’s very complicated. You don’t have to worry about me going back, Larkin. I do know how to handle him. I’ve lived alone with him since I was thirteen.”
“That was when your mother left?”
She nodded. “She wanted to take me with her – and I – and I refused. I want to be a Sorcerer. I couldn’t do that if I left.”
So she had ambition. That explained a lot. And she had probably surmised correctly; there was no route into sorcery except on the eyot. But it didn’t quite account for Persephone’s dogged insistence on staying with Briar. Surely he didn’t get power of veto on who became a Sorcerer, and who didn’t? She could work at Kendricks while living in any other eyot property. This was a point he could press home.
“The Tavern is available, Persephone. Let me do some first aid if the hospital’s out of the question. And then I’ll talk to Mrs Mayhew about you taking a room.”
“Mrs Mayhew doesn’t like me.” But she was wavering, Larkin could see it.
The Thief on the Winged Horse Page 11