I couldn’t dig, not yet. It would make too much noise. I had to wait in an agony of dread until the footman came back, spitting curses, and slammed the door shut.
My heart was beating so fast I feared it would tear itself apart.
I scrabbled frantically with my hands, scooping the earth and stones to either side, uncaring of my clothes, wiping my face with grubby fingers, barely able to see in the dimness. I knew the grave must be recent because the level of the soil was raised. Older corpses form a dip in the ground as the flesh is eaten away and dirt falls between the bones.
It wasn’t long before I touched woven material. I pulled on it, and it was a jacket lapel. Further and further down I went, scraping the dirt from his arms, his shoulders, his neck. When his face emerged from the earth, I stopped, and sat cross-legged beside him.
‘Thank God,’ I whispered.
How heartless I was. It took several seconds for my elation to be tinged with shame. He was only twenty-seven years old or thereabouts. Not yet half a life.
‘Damn it, John.’
I touched something else, cold and metallic, buried next to him. I pulled at it and withdrew a short sword, or perhaps a long dagger, eighteen inches of tapered steel with a leather-covered hilt and ornate guard.
I brushed more earth away, lower down his torso, and found what I’d expected: a gash in his waistcoat, through his shirt and vest, and into his skin. I didn’t doubt that it emerged on the other side.
I had been through the routine many times before. I examined his eyelids and fingernails, wiggled his teeth and manipulated his jaw. It was difficult to say exactly how long he’d been dead; a few days, I estimated. Almost certainly before the children were taken.
I heard a sound and nearly jumped out of my shoes, but it was only Rosie.
‘Leo! Where are you?’
‘Here,’ I called quietly. ‘In the timberyard. I’ve found John Thackery. He’s dead.’
She came through the gap in the fence, and gasped when she saw what I had dug up. I remembered how, in my earliest days at the hospital, I’d been sick at the sight and stench of a decaying corpse.
‘Oh no,’ she muttered, looking back in the direction of the mews as if intending to rush away and raise the alarm.
‘Rosie, we can’t tell anyone. We might draw the attention of the murderer and end up being buried next to him.’
‘We can’t leave him there to be found, though,’ she said. ‘It’s not right. It’s not the Christian thing to do. He has a mother. We have to tell the police.’
‘We can’t. They’ll be even more curious about me than they already are.’
She lowered her head, and I thought she might be praying, or perhaps deciding between her loyalty to me and her Christian duty to the dead.
‘So, what’s to be done?’ she murmured.
I looked at his face, grey and still, and tried to remember the boy I’d known. He had been clever and kind, imagining a fairer world even before the seeds of his dogma had taken root. He would’ve hated the thought of ending up here, so close to his father’s home. I shut my eyes and sent a message of solace to him across the miles and years: I’m sorry, John. You don’t deserve what I’m about to do.
‘We have to leave him and the sword here. Someone will find him tomorrow. The smell will get stronger.’
‘Mother of God, Leo.’
‘I know.’
I crossed his arms over his chest, smoothed his hair from his forehead and put his hat over his face.
That was how we left him, lying on the ground as if he was worn out from digging a hole and had decided to take a nap under the stars.
Once we were safely among the crowds on Gower Street, I brushed the soil from my hands and clothes.
‘That poor, poor man,’ said Rosie, shaking her head. ‘You were close to joining him too. Where did that footman spring from?’
‘There must be a tunnel from the basement of the house. I think I heard him open it. Sir Reginald doesn’t want his servants traipsing across his garden to get to the stable. He doesn’t even want them looking out on to his garden. Did you notice, there’s no door or window on that side of the stable, just a sheer wall.’
Rosie whistled. ‘How the rich live.’
For a little while she was silent, but I could tell her thoughts were brewing. Eventually, she said ‘yes’, quite firmly, as if ending an argument we had never had.
‘What?’
‘We should go to the police anyway,’ she said.
‘I thought we agreed—’
‘Not about John. They must’ve been searching for the children since they were kidnapped. Constable Pallett will tell us if they’ve discovered anything useful.’
I grunted and pointed at my eyebrow. ‘It was a policeman who did this to me. They’ll do nothing to help us after that article in the Daily Chronicle. My guess is they’re not even looking. Why would they? Two missing children in all of London.’
‘I still think—’
‘No, we should go back to the pharmacy. Aiden is resourceful. If they manage to escape their captor, that’s where they’ll go.’
I imagined them sitting at the table in the back room, guzzling porridge. But another thought kept intruding, no matter how hard I tried to keep it out: their faces scrunched up with fear, somewhere in the dark.
If they were still alive.
When we arrived at the pharmacy, Constance was frying a turbot, suffusing the whole room with a rich, fishy tang. The table was laid for three: Alfie, Constance and Mrs Gower, who was sitting at the end, mashing parsnips with a fork.
‘Mrs Flowers!’ exclaimed Constance. ‘How lovely! Father, Mrs Gower, this is Mrs Flowers who I told you about. She has her own pie shop.’
Pleasantries were duly exchanged, though Rosie appeared unusually subdued. Perhaps she had noticed Alfie’s wink at me, or perhaps she found Mrs Gower’s serrated courtesy annoying.
‘Did you find those two kids?’ Alfie asked, eyeing the stitches on my forehead but choosing not to comment on them.
‘Not yet. I was hoping they might have come here.’
‘No, they haven’t,’ replied Constance. She had her back to me as she cooked, but I could hear the concern in her voice. ‘My God, I do hope they’re all right.’
Mrs Gower looked sternly at her stepdaughter-to-be. ‘What language! And you a girl of eleven.’
‘Twelve,’ Constance corrected her, as if it made any difference.
‘I owe you the week’s rent,’ I said to Alfie. ‘I promise I’ll pay before I leave. I’m sorry, it’s just that—’
He waved me aside. ‘I know you’re good for it. Tell us if there’s anything we can do to find those children, won’t you?’
‘Thank you.’
He pointed at the table. ‘There’s a letter for you, by the way. A boy came with it a few minutes ago.’
I ripped open the envelope.
It was brutally short.
Stop asking after the dead lady an looking for the orfans rite now or therell be trubble there lives are at stake Im watching you
I must have made a sound because Alfie and Constance both stood up, and Rosie’s face went white. I showed her the note, rereading it over her shoulder. The spelling and grammar were rotten, but the lettering was good: big, round and legible.
It reminded me of something.
I felt a sting of blood in my cheeks.
I was sure. Or almost sure. But I couldn’t check, not while Rosie was with me. I had to persuade her to leave. I hated lying to her, but the alternative was far, far worse.
I took back the note.
‘This is perfectly clear, Rosie,’ I said. ‘We need to stop looking for them, like it says.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t want something bad to happen.’
She looked confused. ‘After all we’ve done, you’ll let it go, as easy as that? Don’t you think whoever sent this might be lying?’
‘Please, Rosie.’ I was firm. I needed her to accept my argument. ‘It’s too great a risk. Whoever it is has already committed two murders. Imagine if we continued investigating and the children were harmed. We wouldn’t be able to live with ourselves.’
‘I know but …’ She frowned at the piece of paper in my hand. ‘How will the kidnapper even know what we’re doing? We’ll be cautious from now on. Careful. No more …’
No more breaking into stables, she had been going to say, but she glanced at Alfie and stopped herself.
‘What would you do if they were your children?’ I asked her. ‘Please, you have to trust me. Go back to your shop and we’ll talk soon.’
‘They can spare me for another day or two.’
She was keeping her voice composed for the sake of the others, but I could tell she was annoyed.
‘I’ll come to your shop tomorrow or the next day. I promise.’
I ushered her towards the front door and almost pushed her out on to the pavement.
‘Leo—’
I shut the door and rushed upstairs to my room. In my top drawer, I found Ciara’s picture, with Aiden’s handwriting at the bottom: Ciaras mayd up liyon.
I compared it with the note I’d received from the kidnapper. The lettering matched.
They had both been written by Aiden.