Chapter Seven

FELIX HUNG HIS damp coat on the rack by the lift. He had braced himself for an argument with Mr Tassiter but found the bar unoccupied. He twitched at the muffled voices coming from the next floor and climbed the stairs to find Dahlia sitting with a man, in one of the curtained booths, engaged in serious conversation.

“Lucky, this is Mr Marwood,” Dahlia said. Her black military jacket hung off her bare shoulders, and she held herself tightly. “He’s come to make a very generous offer.”

“What sort of offer?”

“On the Star,” said Mr Marwood, a man of slight build with protruding ears, a balding head, and hugger-mugger eyes he never once opened fully. “It’s a shame how your uncle has let the place fall to ruin over the last few years. I offered to buy it from him, but he turned me down. I thought perhaps the new landlord might be more amenable.” He turned back to Dahlia.

“I tried to tell him,” Dahlia said, “but dear old Gregory was never much of a listener.”

Felix’s face flushed, and he clasped his fists. “Dahlia is not the landlord. I am. Get out.”

Mr Marwood’s eyes grew smaller still, and he slid out of the booth, taking a step closer to Felix. “I’m dreadfully sorry; it appears I was misinformed. I had thought Ms Diamond here said she was the new owner. As a matter of fact, I’m absolutely certain she did.” He shot Dahlia with a most peculiar look. “Still, there’s no reason you and I cannot do business. The offer stands with whichever of you is the rightful owner. But perhaps we can discuss this some other time.” He held the baggy sleeve of Felix’s shirt. “You’re a touch too damp to negotiate. I’ll leave you to think about it. Good to meet you, Mr Diamond. I’ll see myself out.”

When he had gone, Felix slammed his palms on the table, startling Dahlia.

“So this is why you broke in,” he said. “You had to be in here to have your little meeting. You can’t sell the Star because despite what you’ve obviously been telling people, it isn’t yours.” His whole body quivered.

Dahlia recovered quickly. “I’m the closest thing Gregory has to a daughter,” she said, teeth bared. “I’ve worked here my whole life. Did you know that? Did you even think to ask? I tread those boards; I mop up spilt ale and vomit every night; I deal with the wandering hands of drunken customers.”

Felix studied her face to see if she was lying. She wasn’t, of course. It would have been a stupid lie, easily disproved. He hadn’t considered that Dahlia might still have a connection to the Star.

“Gregory is dead, Lucky. He’s dead, and he’s not coming back. He was going to leave the place to me, so I will decide what’s to be done with it.”

Felix’s legs turned cold, and his stomach heaved. “How do you know? How do you know he was going to leave it to you?”

“He said as much, plenty of times. Ask Dick Tassiter. You didn’t really think he was going to give it to you, did you? I don’t know why you think this is any of your concern; you haven’t set foot in this place for ten years. You’re going to disappear back to the sea soon, aren’t you? So what does it matter? I’m selling it, Lucky. I’m selling it before it collapses around our ears.”

“I won’t let you.”

Dahlia spat out a curt, sharp laugh. “Let me?”

“Uncle Gregory sent for me,” Felix said. “He must have had a reason.”

“He probably did, but I don’t see how it’s relevant now.”

“Maybe he sent for me to stop you from doing anything foolish.” Felix immediately regretted saying it.

“Ah, there we have it.” She narrowed her smokey eyes. “Big, brave Lucky come to save his poor cousin from self-inflicted ruin.” She gathered her dark jacket closer about her gaunt, pale frame. “Do whatever you think is best, cousin dear. When your sailor’s pennies run dry and you’re left without a souse, let Mr Marwood tell you his offer and we’ll see how quick you are to reject it then.” She stomped off downstairs and out of the Star, slamming the front doors as she left.

Felix walked out onto the sailboat balcony and watched her go until she disappeared around a corner. He gripped the edge of the sailboat and took some deep breaths of the briny air. It is the waves which break—not I.

This was the reason he’d stayed away for so long. Not Dahlia, specifically, but this weight, this tension that always came with family interactions. Nothing he ever did was right; nothing he ever said was suitable; no move he made was ever the correct one. Feelings lay scattered about like eggshells on the floor; one wrong step would crush them. For a family so steeped in criminality, so keen on fighting, collectively the Diamond clan had surprising thin skin. Though perhaps such was the way with all families. We are all born with weapons capable of piercing armour otherwise unbreakable to those not of our blood.

In the kitchen, Felix took a bucket and filled it with hot water. The pipes rattled and clanged as the bucket filled. He found soap and an old scrubbing brush and set them at the front door of the bar. Then he knelt down, dipped the brush into the water, rubbed it fiercely with soap, and set about scrubbing the floor for, he suspected, the first time in quite some years.

PROGRESS WAS SLOW but steady. After some time—he didn’t know how long—he became aware of the sound of a brush behind him. Dahlia swept under tables, making a neat pile in the centre of the room. He assumed she’d come in through the back door again. He caught her gaze, just for a moment, and then they both returned to their work. The argument would be swept away, the harsh words forgotten. Such was the way with family.

One of the front doors of the Star creaked open slowly.

“Get out, Mr Tassiter!” Felix shouted. “We’re not open yet!”

A puzzled head poked around the door. “It’s not Mr Tassiter; it’s Iron Huxham. I’ve come about the repairs?” He blinked hard, over and over.

Felix leaned back on his ankles. “Oh, my apologies, I thought you were someone else. Do come in, please.”

Mr Huxham entered, removed his cap, and nodded to Dahlia. Then he looked at the wet floor and lifted his boots. “I’ve trodden on your nice clean floor…”

“Don’t worry,” Felix said, rising to his feet. “I could scrub this floor for a hundred years, and it would never be what one would call clean.”

He showed Mr Huxham, who now stepped like a cat to avoid the wettest parts of the wooden floor, to the broken lift. Mr Huxham had brought with him a case which he set on the floor. It opened to reveal many levered trays filled with the delicate tools and instruments of the horological trade. From his overcoat pocket, he drew a long pole with flat edges. He stepped inside the lift, opening panels and generally poking about, muttering to himself all the while. “This old thing always sticks.”

“Oh, you’ve been here before?” Felix asked.

“Um, no,” Mr Huxham said. “I’ve worked on these types of lifts before. I installed one in the Blackrabbit Courant offices. And this particular one is somewhat…infamous. I have heard many a person with a sore—or missing—leg complain about it. Lots of people who work near me drink here. It’s the closest alehouse.”

“Playhouse,” Felix said without thinking.

“Forgive me,” Mr Huxham said, smiling. He removed his coat and rolled up his sleeves to reveal smooth, bulky forearms. He lay on the floor of the lift and thrust his hands into the guts of the machinery. He grunted as he worked, his eyes focusing on nothing in particular as he funnelled all his concentration into the unseen parts deep within the lift. He turned onto his side, tugging his shirttail free from his breeches and exposing the underside of his belly. “Can you pass me the long screwdriver, please?”

“The what?” Felix asked, trying not to stare.

Mr Huxham pointed to a heavy, flat-edged pole. When he had it in his wide hands, he twisted the end and a thin chiselled head popped out of the tip. He worked it into the gap, feeling around for the correct spot. “Perfect,” he said. “Would you mind terribly holding this just as it is? That’s it, try not to move it at all. I had to make this tool specially because whoever designed these things didn’t think to make a hatch for the mechanism. This saves me from having to dismantle the entire frame.”

Felix knelt down and did as he was asked. Mr Huxham took another instrument from his bag—a sort of spring with some weights on either end—and pushed it in through the gap. He nudged closer to Felix for a better angle, pressing the bare flesh of their forearms together. The warmth of Mr Huxham’s skin flowed through Felix’s arm. He tried not to notice but wondered if Mr Huxham had.

“No, it’s no good,” Mr Huxham said. He withdrew his oily hands from the mechanism and wiped them on a rag he took from his case. “The whole section will have to come out.”

Felix pulled out the screwdriver and handed it to him. “How long will it take?”

“I should have enough parts to build a replacement,” he said. “It shouldn’t take more than a couple of days.”

“That sounds expensive,” Felix said. “I don’t know if we have the funds to pay for all the work just now.”

Mr Huxham pursed his lips together and looked to one side.

“I can pay you in drink,” Felix said. “At least some of it? Or hot meals, maybe? I’m a cook, and I have to make meals for myself anyway. You could…come by of an evening?”

Mr Huxham smiled and nodded. “I would like that very much, Mr Diamond.”

“Felix. Call me Felix,” he said as he handed the long screwdriver over.

Mr Huxham turned the handle, retracting the tip. “Iron,” he said with a smile.

VINCE REACHED INTO his pocket for his pipe and found the tip had snapped clean off. A common hazard with clay pipes which is why he always kept spares dotted about his house. As part of his role in the Watch, Vince had been given a little cottage next to the Watch house. He found the rooms wholly too small and the beamed ceilings far too low, and thus spent much of his time hunched over so as not to bang his head. The world didn’t build houses with men like him in mind. Still, he had no better options just then.

His tiny bedroom window looked out across the sea and he found the sound of the waves soothing. Regardless, he’d had another restless night, and it had nothing to do with the narrow bed.

He stomped into his kitchen and prepared himself a breakfast of four eggs, four sausages, and a hunk of bread with lashings of butter. Sorcha had taken it upon herself to ensure his larder was always stocked with food from the market. She must have feared he’d waste away without her supervision.

He caught his reflection in the kitchen window and turned to the side, holding in his round, hard belly. He had lost some weight, he noticed. Though it would be some ways before he was anything less than the hulking brute he’d always been.

His nose wrinkled from the sizzling sausages, and he wasn’t alone in that. By his feet, Crabmeat sat patient as could be, mouth drooling and paw raised in courteous pleading.

Vince remembered the day one of his men, Penhallow, won Crabmeat by cheating in a game of dice. He’d only been a week old then, sired by a notorious fighting dog. Penhallow spent a few months training him to become a ferocious attack animal. Vince had taken a shine to Crabmeat but never let on to anyone. He secretly fed Crabmeat when no one was around and trained him to obey his commands. Partially out of fondness but also as a precaution. Penhallow had always been an ambitious wretch, and Vince knew one day he risked being on the receiving end of Crabmeat’s slobbery jaws. He never did learn how the dog had ended up with such an odd name. He resolved to one day visit the gaolhouse and ask Penhallow about it.

Vince picked a sausage from the pan and blew on it. “Don’t want you burning yourself.” He dropped it to the floor. Crabmeat leapt on it, picking it up in his mouth and dropping it over and over again as it was still too hot to eat. Vince laughed and rubbed him behind his ear, making the dog’s back leg wobble. “Good boy.” After washing and dressing in his uniform, Vince left his cottage for the Watch House.

At that time of the morning, the night shift were just preparing to leave for home. As he scraped dirt from the brass casing of his clockwork lower leg, Clive Hext caught Vince up on the goings-on. Apart from a tussle outside the town hall, and a few disgruntled spectators at a boxing match, it had been a quiet night.

Sorcha sauntered into his office through the open door. “We’re back.” She rubbed a green apple on her sleeve.

“Didn’t take long,” Vince said.

Sorcha sat on the edge of his desk. “There wasn’t much to look at,” she said. “We sailed right inside the cave. There’s a little post to moor at and a tunnel leading up to the door in the Star’s cellar.” She took a bite of the apple and wiped juice from her chin.

“Find anything useful?”

Sorcha shook her head. “Not a thing. No blood, no clothes, nothing at all. Whatever happened to Gregory Diamond, it didn’t happen in the caves.”

Vince slumped into his chair. It creaked. He grunted a little under his breath. “Shouldn’t speak with your mouth full.”

She set the half-eaten apple on his desk. “Never mind me, you look like you woke up in a hedge. Have you no looking glass at home? Come here to me.” She licked her hand and smoothed down the top of Vince’s hair.

“Give over,” he said ducking out of her way.

She tutted loudly and went back to her apple. “You’re making me wish Captain Godgrave was still here. You made more of an effort when he was about.”

Without another word, he grabbed his tricorne cap from a hook on the wall and marched out of the Watch House alone. Crabmeat used to follow him around everywhere, but since Vince started working from the new Watch House, Crabmeat was content to remain near his warm bed. Vince missed his company, not that he’d ever admit it to anyone. Of course, no one would ever think to ask, except maybe for Sorcha. He stopped outside a shop window and checked his reflection. He ran his fingers through his snowy white hair and smoothed some strays in his short beard.

He marched deeper into the docklands. The sun had burst through the grey clouds long enough to dry the roads. He passed through the market where some of the stallholders stared at him and some did their very best not to. He knew some of the merchants by name and those were the ones who were quickest to hide their wares. It wasn’t uncommon for stolen goods to make their way through market stalls and into the hands of an unsuspecting public.

He wondered how angry the proximity of the new Watch House had made those unscrupulous traders. He would certainly have hated it, back when he was concerned with such matters and likely would have set fire to it long before now. In fact, he’d briefed the Watch on his preferred arson methods so they could be on the lookout for any attempts to attack the Watch House.

A packet ship bobbed in the water, laden with sacks and parcels. The C.T.C. ran an efficient postal service. It had to. The C.T.C. had many outposts spread across places as far-flung as the Province of Quebec and the East Indies and thus required a vast amount of administrating. It also asked a lot of its sailors, deploying them to far corners of the globe, often for months or years on end. The least the company could do was provide a reliable lifeline to their families back home.

Vince marched along the nearest pier and sure enough, that’s where he found his target, standing halfway along it and pulling on one of a number of wet ropes. Seaweed hung from it like garlands at Midwinter.

“Need to talk,” he said.

Briony Underhay ignored him and kept pulling, her strong arms bulging from the short sleeves of her shirt.

“About Gregory Diamond,” he said.

“Have you lot found him yet?” She worked hand over hand, pulling and pulling on the rough rope. It coiled by her feet, soaking the knotted wood of the wide pier.

“Not yet,” Vince said. “Thought you might have some idea where he might have gone.”

She stopped and pushed a strand of reddish blonde hair from her large, dark eyes. Vince knew of her, though they’d never met. She wasn’t the sort to take kindly to any underhanded dealings and had run off any of his gang members who had tried to recruit her. “Why? I don’t really know him. I just drink in the Star sometimes. And not very often, as it happens.”

“Heard you two were close is all,” Vince said.

She started pulling again and an empty lobster pot broke the surface. Miniature waterfalls poured out from its mesh walls. “And who told you that? That niece of his?”

Vince didn’t correct her.

She wrinkled her sharp nose at the mention of Dahlia. “She’s useless, that one. Spends her days in bed and her nights in the opium den.”

“Expensive pastime,” Vince said.

“Very.” She finally pulled the last of the lobster pots free. She dropped the heavy rope and wiped her hands on the legs of her coarse trousers. “You know she has debts? Dahlia? She begged Gregory to help her pay them off. He wouldn’t. He told her she had to make her own way in the world.” A gull landed nearby, and she kicked at it, sending it on its way.

Vince squinted at her. “Close enough with Gregory to talk about his family problems, then?”

She stood stony-faced, then laughed. “Well, you’ve got me there, I suppose. Look, I don’t know Gregory very well. We had some fun at Samhain and had a little pillow talk. There’s nothing more to it. He’s a nice man, for a Diamond, and a good lover. Gifted in certain ways, if you follow me. But too scrawny for my liking. I prefer a man who’s wider in the boughs.” She eyed Vince from the sole of his boots to the tip of his tricorne.

“That so?” There was a time when Vince would have considered taking her up on her not-so-subtle offer but the older he got, the more he preferred the company of men in his bedchamber. “Mentioned Dahila has debts?”

“Are you not even going to buy me a drink? Butter me up before you ask for sensitive information?”

Vince didn’t move; didn’t speak.

“She’s quite fond of her opium is Dahlia Diamond. She’s been promising to pay her bills for quite a while now. I can’t imagine the den owner will wait too much longer.”

Vince nodded and left Briony Underhay to her work.

She stood with her hands on her hips and called after him. “Come by any time, big man.”