October 7th
There is truth to be found in the mouths of liars, and lies in the mouths of truthful men, though they set out only to deceive themselves.
The Bullet-Catcher’s Handbook
Fabulo’s anger quickly turned to remorse. Seeing the intensity of his emotion, I sent the others away.
“Would you like me to go also?” I asked.
“Go,” he said. And then, “What am I to do?”
“You’ll think of something.”
“It can’t be done without the locksmith.”
“You have the key,” I said.
“That would get us through the gate. But then we’d just be stuck in an empty plaza, waiting for the soldiers to come and get us.”
“Then you must go to Jeremiah and apologise.”
“I will not!” he snapped.
We were both outsiders, Fabulo and I. But the difference that set me apart from polite society could be disguised. For him, it would always be the first and last thing that anyone saw. I supposed he grew his armour to deflect the glances that saw him as something less than human. His prickly temper. His immunity to insult. His indifference to emotion. He had always seemed indestructible to me. But in that, perhaps I, too, had been blind to his humanity. How many cares can one pair of shoulders carry? One worry at a time was the way he had described his role in leading our enterprise.
He sat on his bedroll. Then he lay down and turned over so that his face was pressed into the blanket.
I didn’t bother to cover the hole in the wall when I left. In the room downstairs I found Lara, Ellie, Yan and Tinker sitting on the two beds, their faces long.
“Do we have wine?” I asked.
“I’ll get some,” said Ellie, jumping to her feet.
“Let me do it,” said Yan.
“You can all go. And what else does he like? Tobacco? Hashish?”
Lara shook her head. “He’s careful with his lungs.”
I beckoned her out of the room so that I could speak to her alone and unheard by the others. “Does he like anything else in particular? I mean to say, if we had money enough, there might be women in these parts who could… cheer him up.”
“I don’t think so,” she whispered. “He’ll flirt if the humour takes him. But I’ve never seen him… you know. There’s once we boarded in a knocking house. He had the money. But he never did.”
Having bought four bottles of wine and gathered all the gossip they could pick up, the crew returned to the tenement. The information was little enough. I should have liked to talk to whoever it was had been paid to secure our safety. But none of us except Fabulo knew the name. And he hadn’t been in a mood to answer questions.
In brief the news was this: the men-at-arms who’d been terrorising Back Church Lane had left when night fell. During daylight, they’d worked their way from the thoroughfare of Cable Street up to the junction with Ellen Street. No one could say what they’d been searching for. But two men had been beaten senseless for resisting and a quantity of untaxed gin had been seized. No one had been charged with excise fraud, so the locals thought the drink not so much destined for the pound as the soldiers’ stomachs.
None of the residents could remember such a raid. One woman said it was a good thing the soldiers had gone before dark, since some lads had been talking about getting a gun. And if one hothead took a pot shot, they’d have every door in the parish kicked in. But another said that seeing as the doors were being kicked in anyway, it might make sense to spill some blood. The soldiers needed to be told it wasn’t them that ruled St John’s. There had to be raids, everyone agreed. But those raids should be for show, so that the wealthy and the powerful of London could go on believing they were in control.
“That’s it?” I asked.
“That’s it,” said Lara.
“It’s not enough.”
“How’s the dwarf?” asked Yan.
“That’s what I’m going to find out,” I said, taking two drinking glasses and placing them over the top of two of the bottles, one of which had been opened already and was missing a couple of inches of wine.
Lara, Ellie, Yan and Tinker were all looking up at me. There was relief in their expressions, just as there’d been panic before, when their leader had shown his weakness. It gave me an uncomfortable feeling.
We were like a ship wallowing in heavy seas. We’d surely sink if we didn’t move forward. They might think of me as a substitute captain, but it was a job I couldn’t do. Half the soldiers in the Kingdom were searching for me and I didn’t even know what Fabulo had planned.
“Have a bottle for yourselves,” I said. “You’ve earned it. But not too much for the boy.”
There was no answer to my knock as I approached the attic room. The silence set the skin on the back of my neck tingling. Placing the bottles on the floor, I got down on my hands and knees and crawled through. The room would have been pitch black but for the missing slates, which allowed beams of blue-white moonlight to lance down to the floorboards.
“Hello?” I spoke the word softly.
At first I’d been certain that our endeavour was a work of madness. But, as the aspects of the plan had been revealed, I’d started to see it as logical, and then as possible. In that moment of silence, as I contemplated an empty attic room, a terrible thought came to me. The man who had brought us together had chosen now to walk away. I could not lead the others. The endeavour would be over. And my future would be blank again.
“Hello?” I called again, louder this time.
The glasses clinked against their bottles as I advanced.
“Go away,” came a gruff voice from the darkness.
“I’ve brought wine.”
Fabulo’s shape sat up from his sleeping roll.
Feeling a wash of relief, I knelt near him and poured two half glasses. He accepted his only after I’d placed it in his hand and wrapped his fingers around it. Then he lay back against his bag, which kept him propped high enough to drink.
I raised my glass. “To Harry Timpson.”
I wet my lips but didn’t swallow. Fabulo sipped and coughed.
I toasted again: “To all his tricks and dreams.”
This time Fabulo drained the glass and I refilled it.
“What would that old rascal think if he saw us here?” I asked.
“He wasn’t a rascal.”
“No?”
“No.” Then, after taking another drink, he said, “He’d have known what to do.”
I raised my glass again. “Here’s to knowing what to do.”
He downed his in one. This time he sat up and gestured for me to give him more. I emptied the bottle into his glass.
“This was Harry’s dream,” he said. “What have I done? We’ll not get back from here. Locksmiths! They think they’re so…” He drained his glass. “All that secret knowledge makes them proud. And then there’s me – can’t hold my temper.”
Picking up the other bottle, I realised my mistake. “The corkscrew’s downstairs.”
“You’re useless!” he grumbled.
“No more than you!”
“Pah!”
He lurched up onto his feet and grabbed the bottle from me. I saw him silhouetted against a beam of light, wobbling slightly. He unsheathed his knife, held it out level with the bottle, as if comparing the two unlike objects. Then he swiped. There was a crack of breaking glass and the neck fell to the floor, complete with cork still in place. Then he lifted the bottle above his head and poured a stream of wine from the jagged end directly into his open mouth.
After he’d swallowed a goodly amount, he belched and said, “Never try that yourself, Elizabeth.”
It was an act so perfectly characteristic of the man that I laughed.
This time I allowed the wine to pass my own lips. It was vinegary and strong. I winced as I swallowed. “It’s good to have you back,” I said.
“I was never gone.”
That was a lie, but I let it pass.
“So,” I said. “The locksmith – do you think we should go and talk to him?”
The morning came, and with it the heat and stink returned. None of which was pleasant through the fog of a hangover, or so it seemed to judge by the reactions of the others. I’d drunk only the half glass, and was feeling as fresh as any Londoner could. The worst of us was Tinker, despite my admonition for him not to be given too much. Yan seemed not so bad, perhaps due to his size. As for Fabulo, who was smallest and had drunk the most, only the pallor gave him away.
“I’m going to get Jeremiah,” he announced.
“We should come,” said Ellie.
Though she and Lara had complained of nausea, they’d cheered up on seeing their leader back on his feet.
“It’s me and Lizzy on this trip,” Fabulo said. “You keep an eye on those men-at-arms. Careful, though. I don’t want no trouble.”
Tower Bridge was raised when we reached the river, so we were obliged to wait. I watched as a flotilla of tall cargo steamers passed beneath. Fabulo leaned his back against the parapet and stared in the other direction.
Out of nothing, he remarked, “Thanks for the wine.”
“It was more like vinegar,” I said.
“It was sweetly given.”
I glanced down at him. “How are we going to persuade our locksmith back?”
“Don’t know.”
“Will you apologise?”
“I’d kiss his filthy boots if it’d help, but I don’t think it will.”
“You may have to.”
An engine clattered into gear within the nearest tower of the bridge and the two sections of roadway began to swing down once more.
“You should watch this,” I said. “It’s good.”
“I might if I could see over the damn wall!”
From the bridge we continued south for a mile or so. As the heat grew, Fabulo declared himself gripped by a powerful thirst, so we stopped in a public house on the Walworth Road. Fabulo’s temper was tested again when the landlord attempted a joke by serving him a half and me a pint. But once I’d swapped and the drink was in his belly, a more sanguine humour returned.
The landlord waved to us as we left. “Good day to you.”
Fabulo grumbled under his breath. “If I’d a shilling for every time someone’s thought that funny…”
“You will be tactful when we talk to Jeremiah,” I said.
“Tact is my middle name!”
We approached the locksmith’s home via a yard lying behind a row of terraced houses on Cambria Road. Wheel ruts in the flagstones suggested centuries of wear. Accommodation seemed to be upstairs, with a workshop on the ground level. A giant key hung on chains below a bracket on the wall, announcing his trade to anyone who didn’t already know.
The workshop doors being closed and the downstairs windows shuttered, Fabulo knocked and we stood back to wait.
“Maybe he’s out on a call,” I said.
Fabulo knocked again. “Maybe he doesn’t want to talk.”
“Well, if a locksmith wants to keep us out, there’ll be no way…” I pulled on the handle and the door swung outwards.
Fabulo glanced over his shoulder and then stepped inside. I followed, peering into the dark corners of the workshop. The air felt stuffy and smelled powerfully of machine oil. I could make out a small steam engine from which belts ran to a lathe and a pillar drill. Row upon row of keys hung from a rack on the wall. Stepping closer I could see that each of the bits was a blank rectangle of metal.
“Why get our key specially forged when he had all these ready?” I asked.
“He just wanted to sound clever,” said Fabulo.
“I expect he had good reason.”
A creaking floorboard made me jump and turn. Jeremiah stood, framed in a doorway on the other side of the room.
“I know why you’re here,” he said, “but you’ve wasted your journey.”
“Hear us out first,” said Fabulo.
“I did hear you, Mr Dwarf. I had the key forged to sound clever, did I? You came all this way to flatter me?”
“You should’ve locked your door.”
“And why would I do that?”
“You’re a locksmith. A locksmith should lock his own house!”
“Well, that’s how little you know!”
“Look,” said Fabulo. “Arguing is for fools – of which I’ll admit I’m one.”
Jeremiah sighed and stepped into the room. “Maybe that’s the both of us.”
“Will you not talk? Away from that stinking attic, I mean.”
“I’ll talk. But it won’t change nothing. “
Jeremiah pushed back a window shutter. Light spilled onto an uneven workbench surrounded by high stools. We all sat.
“It’s the heat made us quarrel,” said Fabulo.
Jeremiah stared down at the wood of the workbench, which was scratched and grooved. “Maybe you’re right,” he said.
“In a day or two, it’ll pass. Things’ll look different. It was a mistake having you make the key away from your workshop, I can see that now. But it’s done. The key you made – it’s a fine thing.
“You know how long Harry Timpson spent planning this? The last ten years of his life he was thinking of it. Then Elizabeth’s machine comes to us. We see it make a beam of light hot enough to cut through iron. But it was only later, after they took it and we found out where it had been stored – that’s when Harry sees what can be done.
“And then we find you, Jeremiah. The finest locksmith in the land – and with the knowledge of that place. I tell you, even in his prison cell, he was happy. And why? Because of what treasures are hidden there. He knew we could get to them. All we have to do is take your key and Elizabeth here and you, with all your skills. It’ll all be ours, my friend. All those treasures will belong to you and me.”
Jeremiah shook his head. “Have the men-at-arms stopped searching St John’s?”
“Didn’t see them this morning,” said Fabulo.
“That’s not an answer.”
“Are you scared then?”
“I shouldn’t have said those things about Elizabeth last night. I’m sorry for that. But the meat of it hasn’t changed. All it takes is a word in the wrong ear and you’re all of you swinging on the end of a rope. Am I scared? Yes. Are you not?”
“You knew all that before you agreed,” said Fabulo. “What’s changed?”
“Too many people,” he said.
“I trust every one of them,” said Fabulo.
“But my share’s being cut with every new one you bring into the circle.”
“You’re worried about money?”
“There’s only a handful of locksmiths could do it. If I was still here after it’s done, the guild will come asking questions of me. Or I could go into hiding. Either way I couldn’t be working again. Not in this trade. I’d need money enough to last. And with six of us, you’re cutting the cake too thin.”
“So, is it the money or the risk?” Fabulo asked.
“It’s the money.”
“Then you can have a bigger cut. Yes, that’d be fair. We couldn’t do it without you. I see that now. Instead of a sixth share, you can have a fifth.”
But Jeremiah was shaking his head. “It’s not enough.”
“There’s going to be fortunes for all of us!”
“You’re asking me to give up my craft.”
“Then we’ll make it more,” said Fabulo, though his eyes had narrowed and his voice had dropped to a rumble. “A quarter share. I’ll talk the others round.”
“I want a half,” said the locksmith, getting to his feet.
“A half!” Fabulo didn’t hide his outrage.
“I’ll take that and no less!”
“You think your neck worth more than mine? Than Elizabeth’s?”
“I think you can’t do it without me!”
“Nor Elizabeth! Nor me! Nor any of us!”
“Take it or leave it, dwarf!”
The stool fell as Fabulo climbed off it. Then he kicked out at the one Jeremiah had been sitting on, sending it clattering. He was reaching for his knife when I pulled him back.
“I hope you burn in hell!” he growled.
“Get out!” shouted the locksmith.
The door to the workshop clattered closed behind us as we marched out into the yard.
The first mile of our journey back we walked at double speed, driven by Fabulo’s mood.
“We’ll get another locksmith,” he said.
“I thought you spent ten years looking for this one.”
“Once we’ve got your machine in our hands, we can melt through any of the doors.”
“Could we use gunpowder?” I asked.
“But think of the guards! They’d hear us.”
By the time we caught sight of Tower Bridge, our mood and our pace had dropped. Fabulo had remembered something that he and Timpson had once mooted. A mixture of concentrated acids dripped into the lock might eat it away from within.
“If that would work, why use a locksmith at all?”
“Because… the lock may be needed to pull back the bolt. If we leave it in ruins, the door may open, or it may be locked forever.”
“So this is no answer at all,” I said.
“But we only need to get through two doors! Then we’ll have your machine. It’s a risk. Maybe…”
“If it’s true for acid, it’s true for the light machine. Unless you know what you’re doing, we could be locking the doors forever rather than opening them.”
“You’re not being helpful,” he growled.
After he’d been silent for a time, I asked, “Did you believe him?”
“Believe what?”
“That he wants money.”
“Everyone wants money.”
“So that’s why you’re doing this?”
“Yes.”
The towers of the bridge loomed above us in the hazy air. A thought had come to me and was growing in my mind. I slowed as we started to cross the first section. At first Fabulo pulled ahead. But at the midpoint he stopped and turned, waiting for me.
“I don’t believe you either,” I said. “You’re not doing this for money.”
“You’ve done things for gold,” he said. “Taken risks, I mean. Put your life in fate’s hands.”
“No. I’ve taken risks for what gold could buy. But that’s different. Jeremiah can earn money. He’s in a guild. He has a job. It’s the other way around. He said this would stop him earning.”
Fabulo spat over the parapet. “You’re thinking too much.”
“Give me some money,” I said.
“There you go!” He brushed his hands against each other, as if I’d proved his point and the argument was over.
“I mean give me a few shillings. I’ve got a long walk to do and I’ll need to eat later.”
“You’re not thinking of going back!”
I held out my hand, palm upwards. Fabulo let out a growl of irritation. But he dug coins from his pocket nonetheless.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t make things worse!”
“I’ll try to be as tactful as you, shall I?”
He pulled a face. “Be careful. Feels as if the weather’s going to turn.”
Fabulo was right. Heat still radiated from the paving stones, but my shadow had become indistinct. A haze of cloud had turned the sun into a pale disc. At one point on my walk I thought I felt a heavy raindrop landing on my arm. I found myself looking up into the sky, hoping the weather would break. But the cloying air pressed in on me with even greater intensity.
The streets began to empty. A few coaches and steamcars rattled past at speed, as if hurrying to be somewhere else. It’s easy to be unseen in a crowd. But I was now the only person walking that stretch of road.
The duke was pouring his resources into the hunt. I risked capture each time I stepped out of the tenement. But with soldiers searching the rookery, staying put wasn’t an option. Neither was running. I hadn’t even the money to buy lunch without begging it from Fabulo. My only hope was to get our mad enterprise rolling once more. And for that, I needed the locksmith.
By the time I reached Cambria Street, I could see no other pedestrians. My legs ached from the miles and my inner garments were sodden with sweat.
Jeremiah’s workshop seemed untenanted as before. Though this time the main door had been left a few inches ajar. I called through into the darkened room: “Are you there? It’s me, Elizabeth.”
I waited and presently heard the creak of someone descending wooden stairs. Jeremiah’s face appeared at the door.
“I’m alone,” I said.
He stepped aside to let me through. “The weather’s going to turn,” he said.
At first I thought he was going to take me back to the workbench where we’d spoken earlier. Indeed, he paused there before leading me on through a doorway and up to the floor above.
The room that we entered showed no sign of order. Clothes lay draped over the furniture. Empty beer bottles clustered on the floor near the fire. Jeremiah scooped up some shirts and long johns from one leather armchair and laid them on another.
“Please sit,” he said.
“Did you never marry?” I asked.
“The dwarf sent you to propose?”
“I’m just trying to understand.”
“Maybe I don’t want to be understood.”
The armchair was firm and comfortable. It must once have been expensive, though there were signs of wear. My finger found a small burn mark on the right armrest. Jeremiah cleared a wooden chair for himself, dragging it so that he could sit directly opposite me. The legs screeched on the floorboards.
“Fabulo didn’t send me. I came back so you could tell me the truth. I thought it might be easier without him listening in.”
A patter of soot falling from the chimney into the fireplace made me turn my head. The temperature in the room had dropped.
“I need to get it swept,” he said.
“Great craftsmen don’t make great housekeepers,” I said. “I’ve seen that before. They put so much into their work, there’s nothing left for taking bottles back to the shop. Seeing you make the key – it was a thing of beauty.”
He sighed. “I had a wife used to arrange things. I don’t even know which sweep she used. She died last year. She was a little whirlwind with her cleaning and her sorting. And never sick. The rest of London might be coughing up their lungs but nothing ever touched her. Then I come up here and find her sitting perfectly still. And just like that she’s gone.”
“You could get someone in,” I said.
“You’re not the first to say it. And I will. I just don’t feel ready.”
We were both quiet after that. I couldn’t think of what to say next and he seemed content to stare into the empty fireplace. Before, I had thought he’d been lying to us. But now it seemed that perhaps he had been lying to himself.
One of the window shutters swung free and clattered against the wall outside. A breath of rain-scented air wafted into the room. Jeremiah heaved himself out of the chair and went to hook the shutter in place. For a moment he leaned his arms on the windowsill and stared out.
“Is that enough?” he asked. “Do you understand me now?”
“How’s your business faring?”
“There’s work if I want to take it. But I can’t get interested.”
“You’re an artist.”
“I used to be.”
“There are paintings in the National Gallery less works of art than that key you made us.”
“Well, thank you for that.”
“You see,” I said, “that’s my problem. I’ve never known an artist do anything for money. That’s why I don’t believe you’re telling the truth when you say you need a half share or you won’t help.”
The world beyond Jeremiah’s room had grown still as we spoke. London’s bee-swarm-hum, never noticed because it’s always present, had dropped away. Into the new quiet, a dog began to bark. As if the sky were responding to the call, a growl of thunder formed in the far distance, boomed then faded.
Jeremiah glanced back over his shoulder at me. “If I tell you the truth, will you go away?” When I didn’t answer he said, “I’d better go secure the doors downstairs. This is going to be a big one.”
Off he went. I listened to the sounds of him moving around – the clack of bolts being slotted home on the shutters. The front door clattered. From the window, I could see him in the yard, working the pump to fill a bucket, which he carried back inside. The daylight had a sickly hue. Thunder rumbled around the horizon once more.
“Filth gets in the water when it floods,” he said, returning with the bucket, which he placed near the wall.
“Will it flood?”
“Maybe. We’ll see soon enough.”
He joined me at the window. The sky in the distance was streaked with falling rain.
“I hate politics,” he said. “What I mean to say is, I’m no good at it. In the guild, if you want to get on, you have to have friends. That means doing stuff for people higher up. And then if they like you, you’ll get put forward for the examinations. That’s when your skill is supposed to show. Four candidates go for each examination. Only one gets through. And once you get through, you’re into the next circle. And the further in towards the middle you are, the bigger the presents you get from them further out. The one in the centre – the Grand Master – he’d never need to work again if he didn’t want.
“I’ve been slow to progress. Too much time greasing locks and not enough time greasing palms. That’s what my wife used to say. She said any other locksmith with my skill would have gone faster.”
“Did she mind that?”
“She said it would’ve been better if we were further in. But she said that wasn’t the man she married. And she didn’t want any other.”
A sudden breeze shifted my hair. I inhaled the smell of the rain and heard it hissing towards us, a grey veil sweeping across the courtyard. In an instant everything outside was wet. Lightning flashed. I counted twelve seconds until the thunder. The wind was blowing the rain inside. I stepped back from the window, into the dry, but Jeremiah remained.
“Did you pass examinations?” I asked.
“Many. In the first few years it was easy. Your master puts you through the first, at the end of your apprenticeship. And there are plenty enough places in the outer circles of the guild. But once you get further in – a master locksmith – each circle has less seats than the last. And one Grand Master appoints the next. They say big money changes hands for that. Or it’s a family member who gets the place.
“So I’ve been in my circle three years and no chance of sitting an examination. Then one of the High Masters comes to me – came to my very workshop – and he says there’s a chance he can get me examined in the autumn. One of the candidates had withdrawn. I thought my life was about to change. One circle further in and it would be me people came to for advancement. So I agreed. He had the papers with him, which I signed there and then.
“After he left, my wife came rushing down to the workshop to ask whose coach it had been in the courtyard. I told her. She kissed me and said that it seemed justice was to be done and how proud she was.
“A locksmith should always be looking for false keyholes. You can see a hundred locks and they’ll all be simple. Then one comes along that looks as if it was bought for three shillings. But when you try to pick it, you find, underneath the cheap iron, a thing of craft and cunning. Maybe it sets off a time lock or an alarm, or a knife springs out to cut your hand.
“Three days after I signed the papers, a friend comes to me and says did I know the High Master’s nephew is to be examined in the autumn. None of the other candidates would have a chance, he said. Then I saw what he’d done, that High Master. Because only one candidate goes through. And at this level, once you’re examined, if you fail you can never be examined again. The test would be fixed. The High Master’s nephew couldn’t be allowed to fail.”
The rain had been falling fast and heavy. It gurgled in the gutters. It rushed, white, from the bottom of the downpipes, bubbling onto the cobblestones and away into drains. Jeremiah’s sleeves dripped. The floorboards under the window had darkened. Thunder rumbled around the city and the clouds flickered with lightning.
“Hadn’t you better close the shutters?” I asked.
“I want to see it,” he said.
Abruptly, the rain intensified. Water began to cascade directly from the roof. I could no longer see the cobblestones in the yard. All was a mass of dancing water. The scene flickered brilliant white and for a blink Jeremiah became a silhouette. The house shook with the impact of the thunder.
“Come away from the window!”
I pulled at his arm, dragging him back so that he was standing on the dry floorboards. More flashes lit the window. I unhooked the shutters and swung them closed, then led him to the armchair. He sat, but only when I pushed him back.
“I’m angry,” he said, his voice soft.
“And with good reason – if they marked his paper unfairly.”
“There is no paper. Only locks to be opened.”
“Then they gave the easiest lock to him?”
Jeremiah shook his head. “They’re all the same. The first candidate to complete the task is the one who passes to the next circle.”
“Then how was the contest fixed?”
“They would have shown him the locks beforehand. He would have been schooled in them. I was cheated and now must remain outside.”
“Then your motive is revenge?” I asked.
“What use are oaths sworn to people who have no honour?”
I became aware of water dripping on the floor next to my foot. The slates were letting the rain through. The roof space would be sodden.
“You have your answer,” said Jeremiah. “Now go. Tell the dwarf if you must. But no one else.”
I found two more leaks on my way to the stairs. Water was pooling on the stone floor of the workshop, though I couldn’t see where it was coming from. I started to push the door open and felt the storm battering it back. Rain lashed at my face through the gap. Water lapped over my shoes. I looked down and saw that it was flooding in from the courtyard. Stepping out, I found myself ankle deep. After two paces it was up to my calf muscles. I jumped back inside and closed the door. Water still flowed in underneath, though not as fast.
Retreating, I sat on the lowest stair. My hair and sleeves dripped. If inches of water stood in the yard, it would surely be deeper on the road, which lay below it. I shivered, partly from the cold and partly from the thought of the filth that must be rising from the sewers.
Water was inching over the flagstones. I backed up another couple of steps and watched as it crept towards me. In half an hour the entire floor would be covered. Yet such was Jeremiah’s distress, I didn’t want to go back up to him. Therefore, I climbed to the turn of the stairs, where there was more room, and curled up as best I could.
Since I could not sleep, I thought about the story Jeremiah had told me. It was the undoubted truth. Money would never be sufficient motive for such an artist to give up on his craft. But the guild had betrayed him. That he would turn against them was no surprise. He had taken his oaths believing the guild to be a thing of high ideals. When he discovered the truth, how sour those oaths would have tasted.
There was corruption in the guild and corruption also in the Patent Office. The two institutions had become deeply intertwined.
The Patent Office had rewritten history. In doing so, they’d created secrets that would become more toxic the longer they were held. I remembered the fear in Professor Ferdinand’s eyes as he told me what he’d discovered. A little revolution isn’t always a bad thing, he’d said. But if these secrets escaped, it could trigger a revolution that might sweep away the order of the world.
The biggest secrets require the best locks and the most skilled of locksmiths. But what happens when one of those locksmiths believes himself betrayed?
Fabulo’s offer must have seemed like the perfect opportunity to Jeremiah. The only way the court building could be broken into would be with the guild’s secret knowledge. The Patent Office would know that. Whatever special privileges the locksmiths had enjoyed might well be pulled away.
A satisfying revenge.
One niggling doubt remained. I didn’t understand why Jeremiah had held back his true story from Fabulo. With that question on my mind, I slipped into a fitful sleep.
I awoke in near darkness, aware that something had changed outside. Thunder still rumbled, but it was distant. The shutters no longer rattled. The steady rhythm of dripping water inside the house sounded louder than before. Realising that I was sitting in water, panic touched me. But looking down, I could make out the flood level in the workshop, not much deeper than it had been. The puddle at the top of the stairs must have over-spilled and cascaded down to where I slept.
It was as I stood, dripping, that the answer to the question came to me. I found myself climbing the stairs.
The shutters had been opened. Moonlight caught the side of Jeremiah’s face as he stared out. He did not turn as I stepped across to join him. Stars shone in half the sky.
“I couldn’t get through the flood,” I said.
“I know.”
He pointed towards the south where a column of smoke was rising. “Lightning strike.”
“Will the fire spread?”
“I doubt it.”
“Your workshop’s flooded. And your roof leaks.”
“I do know that.”
“When will the water go down?” I asked.
“It’s going down already. Might be a couple of hours before you can get through.”
For a minute we stood in silence. Perhaps he was thinking of his lost wife. It would surely have been her who arranged for such details as the fixing of roofs.
I had a question to ask. It had come to me out of nothing. Perhaps I’d dreamed it. But I could see no way of phrasing it that wouldn’t cause him pain.
“I think your story about the examination was true,” I said.
He did glance at me then, annoyed. “Well, thank you!”
“But you were still deceiving.”
“I was not!”
“I think you’ve been deceiving yourself.”
“I think you’d better go!”
“I will. But first tell me why you hid your real motive from Fabulo. You say you wanted revenge on the guild? Revenge should be made of stronger stuff.”
He flinched. “I just didn’t want him to know.”
“You told me you were angry the High Master cheated, that he helped his nephew win.”
“Yes!”
“I think it’s the other way around. Somewhere deep in your mind you’re afraid he didn’t cheat. Because if the test was fair, it’d mean you just weren’t good enough to pass it.”
Jeremiah shook his head, but didn’t speak. The annoyance on his face had turned to pain.
I pressed on, though it felt cruel. “The thought that you’d failed in a fair test was so terrible, you couldn’t admit it. And you couldn’t talk to Fabulo about the examination, because it was too close to the real truth.”
“You’re wrong,” he said, but with no conviction.
“It was easy for you to agree to the plan when it seemed impossible. But with each barrier that’s been removed, it’s become more real to you. And that fear, which you can’t admit to – it’s grown stronger. It wasn’t the men-at-arms that frightened you off. It was the bit of you that thinks you’re not good enough to crack the locks we’ll find once we get inside.”
“Why… why are you saying this?”
“To remind you of the reason that made you agree in the first place. If you could break into the International Patent Court, if you cracked the locks that your rank in the guild hasn’t let you see – it’d prove you were good enough to pass the exam. And that would prove they cheated.”
“You’re taunting me.”
“No. I’m trying to save you. I’ve been running from a monster since as long as I can remember. I kept running because there was always somewhere I might escape to. But the faster I went, the closer he followed. Then – it was a few days ago – I needed to run and there were no more roads. So I turned to face him. That was when I started to understand. I’d been carrying him around in my head all those years. The fear of him. That’s why I could never escape. But when I looked him square in the face, he wasn’t inside me anymore.
“He’s still a monster. And he’s still chasing. More than ever. I’d be a fool if I wasn’t afraid. But I feel lighter because I’m not carrying him with me.
“You have it the same, but worse. Because your fear’s different. There’s always going to be another road for you to run down. That means you’ll carry it with you to your grave. Unless you turn around and stare it in the face.”
It seemed he had aged ten years as I’d been speaking. “So-be-it,” he said. “Now please go. I want to be alone.”
The walk back to St John’s was long. Mud and slime coated the cobblestones, making every step a challenge. Several times I had to detour to avoid roads still flooded. The sun rose into a sky washed clear. The oppressive heat had mercifully gone with the storm, but there was warmth enough for my clothes to dry on me. Mud began to cake on my shoes and ankles. My feet seemed twice their size and more than twice their weight.
Wanting to delay my meeting with the others, I found a cafe in which to spend my coins. The ground floor was thick with filth, but the upper storey was open. I sat for an hour, nursing a pot of Ceylon tea. The scones were stale and there was no cream to go with them, because of the flood, the manager said. But I hadn’t eaten since the previous morning so they tasted delicious, particularly when heaped with strawberry preserve.
The direct route being closed to me, I crossed the river at London Bridge and then cut east along Lower Thames Street until I was back on familiar ground. With heavy feet, I climbed the steps of our tenement. The bedroom was empty, so I continued up to the attic where I knocked on a roof beam, two times light and three times heavy. The answering knock came back. Light shone from the hole in the end wall. Ellie and Lara came scrambling out and took turns to throw their arms around me.
“You’re safe!”
“We worried for you, Lizzy!”
“When the rain came… we were all aflood.”
“Them holes we’d made in the roof!”
“We put the slates back, but still it came!”
“And we thought you’d be drowned for sure!”
“I need to talk to Fabulo,” I said, extricating myself from their embrace.
“He’s inside,” said Lara. “Talking to the locksmith.”
“You’ve found a new locksmith?” I asked.
“Whyever would we do that?”
At which point I turned and saw Jeremiah crawling out through the hole in the wall.
“You took your time,” he said.