TAKING A RICKSHAW OUT of Stepney Green might be considered a dangerously public way to travel, but Brian was barely able to walk down the back stairs, never mind negotiate his way onto a train platform. I worried that the walk through Chen’s shop would be a dangerous one and I could see that Brian’s eyes were everywhere, looking for something to fight his pain. But Chen, understanding her patient better than either of us, had covered her shelves with curtains so that neither a pill nor a plant was visible. Though he promised to master his emotions as best he could, his pain was palpable in how carefully he walked and the tears in his eyes every time we went over a bump in the road. I did my best to cushion him, but he seemed to be regaining some of his natural stubbornness, attempting to hold himself upright between bouts of heaving out the side of the rickshaw. I tipped very generously when we finally alighted from our transportation, hoping that the young bicyclist who had carried us here would not find himself questioned anytime soon.
“Where are we?” Brian said, leaning heavily against a brick wall.
“That pub over there is where we’re meeting Lancaster,” I said, pointing at The Wool and Weaver. It was closed because it was far too early for patrons, but I wanted the opportunity to scope the place out before the spy arrived. “We’re going to wait for him at the fabric shop across the way.”
I had been in this shop on several occasions, so I knew that the upstairs was a quiet spot that the elderly owner rarely visited — his knees were weak and made loud creaky noises when he attempted stairs. I peeked through the shop window to ascertain that no one was in yet, and then we made our way around to the back of the shop where deliveries were made. It took a few minutes, but I managed to pick the lock. I pushed Brian in, grabbed a rusty bin from the alleyway, and followed him up the stairs. He wheezed when he got to the top, but I led him over to sit at the window that overlooked the street. I handed him the rusty bin in case his stomach rebelled again and then strategically moved boxes of ribbons and yarn to hide him from sight. Once that was accomplished, I made my way to the basement of the shop (wherein I had seen the owner disappear for his cup of tea) to find a small kitchen, and boiled some water to steep Chen’s tea in. Leaving the teapot in case it was missed, I filled a ceramic pot with the tea, ran the boiling pot under some water to cool it, and then carried the tea and a mug up to Brian.
He had been digging through various boxes, no doubt looking for something to alleviate his pain like a half-empty bottle of liquor, but had come up empty.
“His name is Lancaster?” Brian asked, trying to replace things in boxes.
“The man who helped me escape Box 850? That’s what he says his name is,” I answered, helping him to put things right.
Brian took a sip of the tea before speaking again. “You think he lied about his name?”
“Spies lie for a living,” I replied, sitting down so we were shoulder-to-shoulder looking out on the street, to Brian’s right so I could hear him better.
“But you trusted him enough to go on the run with him? To wait for him here?”
“We’re waiting for him across the street to see that he comes alone and does not give me away,” I said. “That’s how much I trust him.”
Brian seemed buoyed by that admission and I found myself remembering a passionate kiss in an alleyway not far from here. Trust did not trump chemistry it seemed. I pushed that guilt away, refocusing on my boyfriend’s face. The stubble did nothing to detract from his features but his eyes looked sunken and the ever-present half moon bruising under them hadn’t receded overnight.
“Milk delivery,” he commented, causing me to glance back out the window to see the truck that had pulled up outside the pub.
“Brian, Gavin is back in London,” I said, as the milk truck drove away a few bottles lighter. “I haven’t seen him yet, but I saw his photo in the newspaper. Has the Yard been pursuing him?”
Brian shook his head ruefully. “I haven’t been at the Yard in … I don’t know. How long have you been gone?”
“Never mind,” I said, not wanting to upset him again. “Can I see your glove? Where did you get it?”
He looked at his glove in surprise, as if having forgotten it was on his hand. “Why?”
“It just doesn’t look like something you would wear … or buy.”
“I didn’t,” he admitted, gingerly unwrapping the glove from his injured hand, wincing the entire time. I hated to put him through the pain, but I had a suspicion that needed to be satisfied. He finally worked the thin silk off the burned appendage and I held in the gasp that tried to escape me. The burn scars on the back of his hand were light compared to the deep scars on his palm. I wanted to touch him so badly, but I knew that I couldn’t. Instead I took the glove he extended my way and focused on it.
As I’d suspected, a monogram of a lion and a trident revealed itself once I stretched the material out.
“What is it?”
“This monogram. I’ve seen it before. Gavin was wearing this same icon on a pin on his jacket. In the photo I told you about.”
“What?”
“He wants us to know he’s back and he wants us to know he has his eyes on you,” I replied, turning the glove over to see if there were any other distinguishing features. Other than the richness of the material and the fineness of the stitching, this was the only clue, but it sufficed.
Brian turned away to retch into his rusty bucket and I dug through my satchel for a handkerchief.
Brian grasped my wrist with his good hand, “Portia, it’s worse than that. When I ran out of money to buy more medication, I found this glove and a note with an address on it in the hallway of our flat — on the telephone table.”
“Gavin directed you to the drug den?” I asked, horrified at his level of manipulation.
“As long as I wore this glove, the drugs kept flowing, no matter how little money I had,” Brian explained. “Now it seems insane that I just accepted that, no questions asked … but at the time, it was like a gift from heaven.”
I handed Brian the kerchief, my mind whirring. “He drugged you. He may have been drugging you from the beginning. Brian did you notice any change in the pills you were taking? From when you left the hospital to the ones that got delivered to Baker Street with mine?”
Brian patted at his face and mouth and then said, “Now that you mention it, yes, but I thought maybe your Dr. Watson had changed the prescription to be more cost-effective. Wasn’t he involved in the pill delivery?”
“He was, but he didn’t deliver them himself,” I replied, understanding the level of Gavin’s interference now and kicking myself that I hadn’t seen it sooner. Chen had all but laid it out for me when I first met her. “I never saw who made the deliveries. It was always when we weren’t home.”
“He was drugging me?” Brian repeated incredulously. “Trying to get me addicted?”
“He was,” I replied. “And I think he was drugging me too.”
Brian’s stopped rubbing at his mouth, his eyes wide.
“When I first met Chen, she wanted to examine my pills and she said I needed to stop taking them,” I explained. “I think the hearing loss is damage from the accident. But my speech confusion, that may have been caused by the drugs or enhanced by them. Gavin minored in chemistry in his studies, remember, and he was an expert on poisons — it’s why he was so sought-after as a coroner for the Yard. I think he took advantage of our injuries to take us out of service.”
“He’s up to something that he needs us sidelined to accomplish,” Brian said, shaking his head, anger pushing his shock aside. “You don’t think he’s behind the bombings …”
“I wouldn’t put anything past him at this point, but if I thought I had tenuous motives for Ilsa, I don’t see anything for Gavin to gain other than creating wanton panic to distract from a more financially-motivated plot. He’s here with a delegation from Austria, supposedly to negotiate between the Germans and the Brits,” I said, my eyes back on the street where two people were approaching The Wool and Weaver. “But we have two more pressing questions to tackle right now.”
The two people, one of whom was most assuredly the man I knew as Lancaster, approached the building from the back, and disappeared, most likely into the pub.
“I can go,” I started to say.
“There’s no way I’m leaving you alone with him again,” Brian interrupted. “Plus, if you mean to listen in on them rather than confront them, you’re going to need me. Unless your hearing is back to normal.”
He slurped down the last of his tea and we made our way out of the shop the way we had come in. I left the back door unlocked in case we needed to come back in here today. The shopkeeper would be in within the hour and would probably think he had forgotten to lock up last night.
I led Brian down the block behind the shops and then we stole across the street from an angle Lancaster would not be able to see us should he be looking out the windows at the pub, and made our way back to The Wool and Weaver from the alley behind it. Like all the shops on this side of the street, this one was a three-storey, with the pub on the main level, storage or sleeping quarters on top and a short basement that could be accessed through a pair of barn doors. I dismissed the basement because of the chain and lock on them. If they were down there, I didn’t have the equipment to pick that lock and they would surely hear us when we came down the stairs. I’d have to rely on Brian’s ears to help us sneak up on them.
He put his hand on the doorknob to the back of the shop, but I stopped him. Something smelled wrong — literally. In addition to Lancaster’s favoured cigarette brand I smelled something else I recognized.
“Shalimar,” I whispered at Brian, pulling him away from the door, which swung open, extinguishing any hopes of escape.