The Obsidian Dagger (Horatio Lyle) Page 9

  ‘When will you pay me?’ say the bells of Old Bailey.

  ‘When I grow rich,’ say the bells of Shoreditch.

  Thomas lies on his side and dreams of flying away from it all, of making the sky his world, the clouds his cushions, a kingdom far below to call his own, a home in the winds and above the lights, of escaping to another and a better place, of watching the land drop away and seeing possibility spread, inviting, all around; and he smiles, and rolls over in his sleep to dream again.

  And Horatio Lyle lies in his bed and stares at the sky, and does not sleep, and does not dream, but instead feels the cold terror of uncertainty in his heart, and knows with the crudity of instinct and surmise that something is wrong, something that cannot be explained away with logic or science, something terribly irrational, cruel and real. And though he tells himself that there is no proof to give credence to his fears, nothing on which to base the instinct which says that everything about this is wrong, from the merest fact that Lord Lincoln was involved, to the stone coffin that contained a living being which scratched at the stone with sharp nails and had no air holes - though he tells himself all this, Horatio Lyle lies awake, and is afraid of what the morning may bring.

  And somewhere, where the windows are high and the walls are thick, and nothing but stone and iron decorates the plain walls, Lord Lincoln turns from his contemplation of the city, puts his hands, fists down, on a large, round iron table and says quietly, ‘Where is he?’

  ‘We are still investigating.’

  ‘You are investigating, xiansheng. You are investigating, father. The whole police force is investigating, my agents are investigating, Lyle is investigating. So I ask myself, with such powers at our disposal, where is he? Why haven’t we found his grace yet?’

  There is an embarrassed silence.

  A nervous voice chirrups, ‘It’s possible that they are helping to hide -’

  ‘They are weak. Their power in this city was damaged when they were defeated at St Paul’s. I do not fear the Tseiqin’s involvement at this time and, besides, his grace threatens their welfare just as much as ours. If he finds Selene, and if he finds the blade, his power will extend beyond all measure. They would not risk freeing his grace from Isalia. It is a madman’s ploy. Why have we not found a madman yet, gentlemen?’

  ‘Lord Lincoln,’ says a voice heavy with a foreign accent that isn’t happy with English sounds, ‘we know that it would take a priest to have authority to free his grace from Isalia. And priests are easy to find.’

  ‘We have already investigated that possibility, Mr Lingdao. If a priest has indeed so broken with his masters and his covenant to free his grace, he must have a powerful friend to hide him from our eyes.’

  ‘My lord, I fail to see -’ the weak voice, the kind of voice that always meant to take exercise, but kept on losing its socks on the way out ‘- why this is such a threat. Perhaps he can control part of the city; but without the blade the ultimate power remains beyond his grasp. As we still have . . .’

  A sharp interruption from Lord Lincoln - the anger of an intelligent man impatient with a fool. ‘He can destroy the city without the blade, father. You made the stone coffin that held him, you should know his power and why we have always dreaded the day he was set free. London is the heart of Empire. If this city falls, it will be as though the Empire falls, and everything we have been working towards will be as if for nothing.’

  ‘Wars encourage progress, my lord, and this Empire is old -’

  ‘It is also the future, father. A future your people have been reluctant to embrace.’

  ‘Forgive me, my lord. I spoke out of turn.’

  Lord Lincoln turns his attention elsewhere, with an almost audible snort of displeasure. ‘Mr Lingdao?’

  ‘Lord Lincoln.’ The foreign voice of a purring tiger.

  ‘What is your agent doing?’

  ‘Trailing Lyle.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Lyle finds things. But he does not necessarily report his findings. I know he was useful in opposing them when they tried to take control at St Paul’s. But I have often stressed how unreliable he is, how unpredictable, and I feel that -’

  ‘You have a better suggestion, xiansheng?’

  ‘There are other options. Havelock, I believe, is willing to -’

  ‘Havelock is a useful associate, but lacks Lyle’s professional flair. We take a risk on Lyle, and hope that Lyle finds his grace before his grace finds us or the blade.’

  ‘My lord.’

  ‘I have nothing more to say to you. Find his grace. Find the Marquis. When you do, spare no effort in his destruction.’ Lord Lincoln’s voice is edged with ice. ‘I will not have all that we have worked for threatened by this man. Not any more.’

  And last, in the side of a large house, shrouded in the darkness of night and cold and fog, a small door opens and a woman sidles out, breathing deeply the cool night air. By her clothes she is a cook, and she is accompanied through the kitchen door by a blast of hot air that disappears at once in the freezing night. She leans against the icy wall of the house for a long minute, breathing deeply of the night air, and sighs. Inside, someone calls out, ‘Ellen? Damn it, where is Ellen?’

  The cook rolls her eyes and slips away from the door, sliding like a thief into the darkness. She walks idly through the night, picks up a handful of snow, rolls it into a ball and throws it against the wall with a sense of childish glee, enjoying the security that the dark offers. Turning to pick up another handful of snow, she stumbles against something, unseen in the dark, stubbing her toe. With a hiss of pain, hopping clumsily, she sits down heavily on the unseen something, which is hard and slightly warm under her; unlikely in the cold. She runs her hand over it, feels stone under her fingers. Frowning, she feels around her, fumbling in the dark. Her hands brush dusty sandstone, hard, smooth marble, worn Portland stone, sticky clay, dusty clay, rough granite, cracked limestone. Her fingers pause, running over the edge of the stone. Each one is carrying an impression, roughly the same in each material. She feels each mark with the pads of her fingers, the cold suddenly starting to bite down to her bones. She runs her fingers along it, then down, brushing every indentation. She starts to shake. From the distant doorway, a voice rolls out. ‘Ellen? Ellen, where are you?’

  She kneels down in front of the nearest stone and tries to see in the dark, squinting at the shadows. She tells herself that it’s clearly the work of some deranged carver, that her imagination is getting the better of her.

  ‘Ellen? Ellen, when I find you, you are in so much trouble!’

  She stands up, turns and runs back towards the house, suddenly pale and shaken. Behind her, the stones sit as they had sat before, piled up loosely against the wall, the regular teeth marks in each one all but invisible to the naked eye, unless it already knew that they were there.

  Below, but not that far below Ellen’s feet, a man who weighs sixteen stone if you can trust the depth of impressions a bare foot leaves in snow, is at least six foot three by the length of his stride and may just be almost unnaturally strong, considers the taste of stone in his mouth, and closes his eyes, and tries to hear a sound that only he can hear, something ancient, just on the edge of perception. He tilts his head like a man with water in his ear and hears it, for a moment, strains to catch the sound again, remembers the taste of the city, the press of the city in his mind, the smell of it, the sound of it, all the old songs of the city, and for an instant is aware of every footfall tapping against stone, every skulking barefoot child and every nail-heeled collier, every iron-shoed horse and every clattering wooden cart, and maybe, just maybe, a humming that might have run, London’s burning, London’s burning, Fetch the engines, fetch the engines, before the feeling is lost.

  He sits, and doesn’t care. It will get stronger soon; he knows this from experience. Until it does, he will sit and listen and wait. He is very good at waiting.

  CHAPTER 7

  Witnesses

  The knock on
the door was short and quick. The open door revealed Constable Charles, red-faced and breathless, standing in three inches of fresh snow. ‘Horatio,’ he gasped between wheezes, ‘what’s the worst thing you could imagine?’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t begin a greeting like that, Charles. It fills my mind with thoughts of falling from great heights on to hard surfaces, and things that go bang in the night. Why don’t you offer a suggestion, and I’ll tell you whether I could have imagined it?’

  ‘Have you seen the morning papers?’

  ‘No, I was woken up instead by someone knocking on the door.’

  ‘Someone talked to The Times about the case. The papers are carrying every detail, from time of death to possible witnesses.’

  ‘Have you stationed constables at the scene?’

  ‘It’s already too late for that.’

  Lyle saw the look in Charles’s face, then turned white. ‘How were they killed?’

  ‘She was. Neck broken. We’re still looking for Edgar. No witnesses. No footprints - the snow was falling too heavily. Single blow to the neck.’

  ‘I want to see the body. Now.’

  ‘Thomas?’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘Thomas, come on, wake up.’

  Thomas blearily opened his eyes. ‘Father?’ He opened his eyes a little bit further. ‘Mister Lyle?’ He opened his eyes all the way. ‘Why are you in your coat? Is something the matter?’

  ‘I’m just nipping out for a bit. No - don’t get up. I want you to look after Teresa and Tate while I’m gone. You know where the breakfast things are. Will you be all right?’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘It’s not important.’ Then, slightly more uncertainly, ‘Will you be all right?’

  ‘Yes, Mister Lyle.’

  ‘Good. Now go back to sleep.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  It took almost half an hour to reach the morgue. Three bodies were lined up next to each other in the ice-cold basement, which smelt of formaldehyde, soap and something horrible and sharp which Lyle didn’t want to speculate about. He walked past Captain Fabrio, Stanlaw and Mrs Milner, and said not a word on his processional. Charles, hovering in the background, opened his mouth several times to speak, then saw Lyle’s frown of pained concentration. Outside, a large and rather out of place grandfather clock ticked on through the hour. Lyle leant in until his face was inches from the white mask of Mrs Milner, studying it, hands tightening up into fists at his side, the only sign of anger that managed to escape him. He looked at her wrists, her hands, her fingers, then finally, under her nails. He dug into his pocket and came out with a thin metal file. He ran it under a nail and peered at the substance that came with it. ‘Clay,’ he murmured to himself absently. ‘White clay.’ A frown began on his face, a little thought trying to be heard.

  Footsteps were heard outside. The grandfather clock ticked on. The door opened. Inspector Vellum stood in the doorway. ‘Mister Lyle.’

  Lyle straightened up, but didn’t turn to look at the Inspector. Something hard and tight settled over his face. ‘Inspector Vellum.’

  ‘I see you’re still playing detective, Mister Lyle.’

  ‘This,’ snapped Lyle, indicating the bodies, ‘is a stupid, pointless, humiliating travesty.’

  ‘I concur.’

  ‘Since when, Inspector, was it the policy of the Metropolitan Police to reveal to anyone what witnesses there were to a crime?’

  ‘Come now, Mister Lyle, it hardly seems a matter of great difficulty; the Captain’s housekeeper was well known. The murderer clearly waited at the scene and observed who the police talked to, and who you talked to, Mister Lyle, and when they were alone, killed Mrs Milner in the night.’

  ‘And whom did you talk to, Inspector?’

  ‘Mister Lyle, I’m a -’

  ‘I’ve seen the papers, Inspector Vellum; don’t take me for a fool!’

  The vehemence that leapt out of Lyle’s voice and lashed across the room took the Inspector by surprise. He leant back, paling. Lyle bore down on him, a finger stabbing accusingly across the room. ‘You couldn’t resist it, could you, the chance to show what a wonderful detective you were, how you were the essence of mature, incisive investigation? You just had to talk to the press and let them see how good you were at your job, didn’t you? And now someone else has found out and the witness is dead, for nothing , a stupid, pointless act to prevent people telling us everything, every dirty little secret that might hint this way or that!’

  Vellum’s lips trembled as he tried to answer in his steadiest nasal voice, ‘On the contrary, I have reasons to believe that no one told the police every -’

  ‘They didn’t tell you because you are a pompous little wart, a fungal eruption on the hayfever-ridden nose of a deranged anteater bitten once too often by its supper, and for knowing anything and being able to say anything they are now dead and . . . and . . .’ Lyle grabbed the Inspector by the scruff of the shirt, trembling with fury, and a little yelp escaped the Inspector, who screwed up his eyes tightly. Lyle hesitated. For a second he teetered on the edge, then let out a long breath and let go, stepping away and turning his back on the Inspector who, breathless and pale, slumped with relief.

  Lyle stared morosely at the three bodies, hands buried in his pockets, head bowed.

  Finally the Inspector said, in his more normal, grating voice, ‘You were in a passion, Mister Lyle. I am very understanding of weak men.’

  Lyle didn’t move.

  ‘There is, I believe as you might say, a silver lining to this situation. ’

  The only answer was a sour grunt.

  Vellum’s voice rang out with more confidence. He was aware of making almost a formal address to an audience, and was proud of his insight. ‘The murderer has felt forced to show his hand again. I believe that we can deduce much from this new occurrence, and continue with renewed vigour to pursue this perpetrator of no less than three confirmed . . .’

  ‘Two.’

  Vellum floundered, not used to being interrupted. ‘Mister Lyle, you can count?’

  ‘Two murders. The murderer who came up from inside the Pegasus and breaks necks with a single blow has killed two people for certain. Not three.’

  ‘Mister Lyle, are you quite well? Or is this a misconceived attempt at humour?’

  Lyle sighed and said in an unnaturally calm voice, ‘Look at the way their necks have been broken, Inspector, and do try to draw a few conclusive insights of your own. The murderer of Fabrio and Stanlaw on the Pegasus was right-handed and broke their necks with a single blow of incredible strength. The murderer of Mrs Milner has also broken her neck with a single blow of incredible strength, but from the opposite side. Look at the bruising - Mrs Milner has broken skin on her neck where nails have dug in, unlike Fabrio and Stanlaw. And whoever killed her was left-handed, Inspector Vellum. Left-handed, not right-handed. You’re looking for two killers now, not one. And if you don’t find Edgar soon, you’ll probably have another corpse to prove that the lining really is silver. Good morning to you.’

  And Lyle turned, not looking once at Vellum’s face, and swept out in silence.

  ‘Mister Lyle, where you been?’

  ‘Nowhere, Teresa. Erm ... what exactly has been happening here?’

  ‘Well, the bigwig here said how he was goin’ to make breakfast ’cos of how he was in charge, an’ I said . . .’

  ‘For goodness’ sake, open a window!’

  ‘That’d be how he went and burnt . . .’

  Thomas’s indignant voice. ‘It’s crispy!’

  ‘. . . burnt the bacon an’ then . . .’

  An outraged squeak from Lyle. ‘Why is there flour everywhere? ’

  ‘I was comin’ to that . . .’

  ‘Sir, I can explain everything . . .’

  ‘And what the hell is that?’

  ‘Eggs, sir.’

  ‘Eggs? Eggs? Is it chemically possible or even probable that something that cruel, unnatural and unlikely cou
ld possibly have befallen an egg in this modern age of Newtonian science?’

  ‘Sir, I can explain about them too . . .’

  ‘I mean, what can you conceivably have done to an egg with the equipment available to create something so ... so . . . biological ?’

  ‘. . . an’, an’, an’ then he tried addin’ flour an’ he slipped ’cos it were high on the shelf, Mister Lyle, an’, I wanna have breakfast an’ it went everywhere an’ then Tate slipped on it and tripped over his own ear an’ . . .’

  ‘How do you even begin to dispose of eggs like that? I’m not sure if ordinary processes of decay even apply to something quite so . . .’

  ‘So I says how about a bit of bread ’cos I’m thinkin’ by now maybe I don’t want to be pushin’ my luck with breakfast this morning an’ I wanna have breakfast an’, then he says do I want to have it all hot an’ -’

  ‘Perhaps we could develop the eggs into a potential biomass energy generator? A few electrodes and a suitably deep pit somewhere where no noses dare sniff, or sell to crackpot alchemists as the missing link in Darwin’s evolutionary chain . . .’

  And a cry rends the air, full of pain and desperation. ‘I don’t know how to cook! No one ever told me how!’

  Silence, as the flour settles. ‘Well, lad,’ says Lyle kindly, ‘why didn’t you just say so?’

  There were people walking on the Thames. Snow had fallen on the thick ice that covered the river, the only really white snow of the city, everything else already made mucky by the passage of too many carts, boots and horses. Children played around boats that were trapped in the middle of the river like statues frozen in the ground: a maze of barges and yachts and even a few small frigates that had crawled upriver as far as London Bridge. Some enthusiastic soul had already begun sweeping away the snow below Westminster Bridge to create a small ice rink between the boats where braver souls skated on bone, and very occasionally iron, skates.