by Angela Misri
“More than ten, yes, and I tried — I swear I did — to clean up my act, but Val, she wouldn’t hear of it,” he replied, taking another swig of his moonshine, as I leaned closer with my left ear. “I got a job and started sending them money. And then, all of a sudden, the money was getting sent back.”
“When was that?” I wrote.
“She left me in … must have been ’22,” Digby said. “The money started coming back about five years later I think. I don’t know. Those are hazy days to be honest.”
“Val moved?” Lancaster asked.
Digby shook his head, “No, Val needed my money, couldn’t work after the war and all, because of her German family. Val must have died poor thing. Because next thing I know, our little girl’s left at the orphanage. Except by the time I found that out, Ilsa wasn’t there. She’d run away. And everywhere I looked, she wasn’t.”
“How did you find her then?” I wrote on my notepad.
“She found me,” he answered, his eyes going wide at the memory. “Just showed up at the train yard, bold as brass, looking just like my Val when I met her. Wanted to know why I abandoned her and where her mother was.”
I bumped my glass with my knuckles and cursed, reaching for some old newspapers on the table to absorb the spilled liquid. “Does your daughter have two different coloured eyes, Digby?”
“Yes, just like my Val,” he replied.
“But what happened when you finally spoke to Ilsa?” Lancaster pressed.
“She was so angry, so … unforgiving,” Digby replied, wringing his hands. “I couldn’t make her understand that Val had left me and that I had tried to find her. I would never have left her at an orphanage.”
Lancaster gave me an I-told-you-so look before asking, “What did she want?”
“Nothing, as far as I could tell,” Digby said. “And she wouldn’t take anything from me, not a thing.”
He refilled his glass and Lancaster’s. I put my hand over my own glass and through the clear bottom of my glass I noticed a photo in the wet newspaper. Was that … Gavin? I dragged the paper out from the wetness, trying to smooth the paper down. It was The Scotsman, a newspaper I didn’t usually read. Digby must have gotten a copy on his train travels and it was a month old.
The caption was hard to read, but it was about the arrival of a new Austrian ambassador in Edinburgh. Yes, my former boyfriend had returned. He had left two years ago on a teaching tour sponsored by the Austrians and now he was travelling with an ambassador? This must be the Austrian delegation Annie was referring to. Why hadn’t this been reported in the London newspapers?
Lancaster put a hand on my arm and I glanced up at him, my brain full of questions.
“The night before the explosion at the train station,” I wrote, refocusing with difficulty, “you had a drink.”
He eyed his glass of homebrew before answering, as if negotiating with himself, and then pushed it aside.
“I was nervous. I thought I’d gotten rid of all my hooch, but I found a bottle under the driver’s seat that night. Must have been one of the other boys’. Barely half left, but I drank it down, to give myself a bit of courage. I shouldn’t have.”
“What happened when Ilsa got there?” Lancaster asked.
“She didn’t,” Digby said, shaking his head. “She never showed up, though I stayed all night and fell asleep where I sat. I only woke up when the train car started moving and then it hit the platform and I was thrown clear.”
“Did you see anyone else?” Lancaster pressed. “A man? Early forties? Muttonchops too long to be fashionable? He might have been with a few mates.”
Digby shook his head, “I woulda said something if I had. Would have gotten me out of the Yard sooner if I’d had someone to name, but there was no one, I swear.”
“What about tonight?” I asked, tapping the notebook.
“My Ilsa, she sent this note this morning,” Digby said, digging in his pants pocket and pulling out a crumpled piece of paper. “Said I was to meet her tonight. That she needed money and that I owed her for ruining her life. And now, you’ve gone and scared her off.”
“If she needs money, she’ll be back,” Lancaster said as I reached for the note, holding it to my nose and recognizing a faint chemical smell. I read it, then handed it to the spy so I could write my final words for Digby.
“We need you to tell us when she reaches out again, Digby.”
“Why should I?” he replied, his answer clear on his lips and the way his shoulders came up, defensive and suspicious.
“Because the first time you met she didn’t want money and suddenly now she does. She’s not coming to you for money,” I wrote. “She’s coming to finish what she started. To kill you.”
CHAPTER 19
“SHE’S NOT THE BOMBER,” Lancaster said, leaning against the doorframe.
I had spent the last five minutes circling the single bed in the room, ending up by the window where I could look out and see Digby smoking on his stoop. Nerissa had the opposite reaction, jumping onto the bed and curling up as if she had solved the world’s problems and could now rest easy. I guess the dried sausage Digby had scrounged up really did solve all canine worries.
“Portia,” Lancaster said, coming over to stand beside me, causing my bloodhound’s eyes to narrow slightly. “We can’t waste time on this girl. Nor the lady’s maid. This bomber is not who you think it is.”
“WE don’t have to waste time at all,” I wrote. “As always, the door is right there, and you are welcome to take it. I have a lead, I conveniently have bait standing out there smoking his heart out, and once I have her in custody, I will be able to get back to my normal life.”
Lancaster took the notebook and pen out of my hand. “Normal life?”
I dropped my eyes at the reminder, reaching into my satchel for my pills. “My new normal,” I muttered, popping the pills into my mouth. It reminded me that I still needed to get Brian’s medicine back to him, but I couldn’t risk doing it myself because of the posters Kell had up all around London and I couldn’t let Digby out of my sight for fear that he’d either escape us or be killed by his vengeful daughter. I still didn’t know why she was sending bomb threats to places like Downing Street or Parliament, or how Grey Hall had become a target, but I intended to ask her first chance I got. O’Duffy had the better motive based on the targets, but Ilsa had the better opportunity. I threw down The Scotsman in the rubbish bin. I’d read it front to back and found no more mention of Gavin save that caption. What was he doing here?
Digby tossed down his cigarette and came back in the house. I believed him when he said that his daughter sent the two notes she’d written to his townhouse, so as long as he stayed here, waiting for her contact, we were all on the same side. The shit might hit the fan once she’d made contact and he had to decide if he believed me as to her intentions.
I needed a disguise. And I needed this spy to watch Digby. For some reason, I was starting to trust him and according to Nerissa’s lack of reaction when he spread his large frame next to hers on the bed, so was my bloodhound.
I kicked off my shoes and joined them, the dog lying between us, facing the door.
“Why are you still trying to get rid of me?” Lancaster said, turning on his side so I could see his lips.
“You’re a spy,” I answered, via my notebook.
“I’ve never lied to you,” he countered.
“If you were trying to gain my trust, this is exactly the type of scenario that Box 850 would construct. You isolate me from my allies. You demonstrate a willingness to take my side against your employer. You risk your life to save me. It’s all a little too convenient.”
He read the note and then said, “I could say the same about you. You risked your life to save me in the river. Why didn’t you just leave me to die from my wounds? I would have either drowned or bled to death, bu
t in either case, I was in no condition to stop you from escaping.”
I glanced down at his wound, visible again now that he’d unbuttoned his borrowed shirt. The bandages had a slight stain of blood, the colour hovering between ochre and red.
“Morality trumps distrust. Or at least it should.”
“Is that all it was?” he said slowly, putting his hand on my arm, testing both me and the dog between us. When neither of us bit it off he started rubbing it gently up and down from shoulder to elbow.
Instead of tensing up, I found myself relaxing to his touch, unexpectedly. Drawn into his deep brown eyes almost against my will.
“You shouldn’t,” I said, knowing that it was a useless statement both in understanding my garbled speech and as a deterrent to what was happening.
Nerissa sat up suddenly between us and leapt to the window to peer down. I rolled that way too and saw Digby steal out of his own backyard.
He’d decided to go it alone. Damn the man!
I grabbed my satchel and ran down the stairs after him, Nerissa leading the way, Lancaster close behind.
I leashed Nerissa as soon as we were able to see the man’s back in the moonlight as he ran down the empty London streets. He didn’t seem to be trying to hide his escape, in fact, as we turned another corner onto a longer street with working streetlamps, it became clear to me that we were headed to the nearest train yard: Paddington.
Nerissa desperately pulled at her leash. She wanted to overtake the huffing man. I pulled her back. I didn’t want to spook the girl again, but I wished Brian was with me instead of Lancaster. I knew Brian’s style and he knew mine, we wouldn’t need to communicate this intention, but Lancaster … he was as unpredictable as my bloodhound in this situation.
We made it to the train yard and the three of us stayed in the shadows while Digby fumbled with keys to the main ticket office.
“What if the building is wired to explode?” Lancaster said, on the balls of his feet.
“Unlikely,” I said, and then wrote quickly. “Paddington is a busy station and police patrols have been increased at all tube spots since the last explosion. But Ilsa could be waiting to confront her father inside.”
“That’s a Cardiff goods train waiting at the station, if she’s going to make an escape, we need to stop her now,” Lancaster said, stepping over to the police call box. I nodded; we were going to be brought in for questioning as well, but as long as that girl was coming with us, I considered that a win. Especially if we were taken in by Scotland Yard where (I hoped) I still had friends.
He made the call, as I watched Digby finally find the right key and apply it to the door. Lancaster had stepped back over to my side when I heard a terrible cry of pain. We ran in unison to the ticket office. I got there last to see Digby holding his daughter’s body in his arms, his mouth open as he wailed against what was obvious, the blood around her body and her grey pallor marking that she was well past aid. I forced my eyes away from his despair to survey the ticket room, its benches and ticket booths unremarkable and undisturbed.
Nerissa was sniffing all around the room and Lancaster had stepped to Digby’s side, perhaps to console him or more likely to assess the body beside him. I purposefully focused on the body, noting that she been shot at close range if the powder burns on her back were to be believed, her belly a mess of blood and entrails, marking the bullet’s trajectory. Her fingers on her left hand looked stained and scratched, but I’d have to get closer to assess them and Digby did not look open to my approach. The fact that she had been shot from behind indicated that she had been surprised by her attacker or that her attacker couldn’t look the girl in the face. Nerissa caught my attention hovering in one corner, where I picked up the cartridge she’d been so focused on. It was not a cartridge size I was familiar with, the words PARABELLUM 9MM stamped on the base. The train whistle cut through my observations, as I popped the cartridge in my pocket and checked the door handle, finding no evidence of forced entry. So, either Digby’s daughter had her own key or her murderer did.
I turned back to see Digby violently push Lancaster away. He was still cradling his daughter in his right arm and the extent of his grief made it harder to understand him as he slurred and spat curses at us. Lancaster tried to reach for them again and Digby pulled an old service revolver out of his jacket and fired wildly, the sound as loud as I remembered gunfire being. I recoiled, diving left at Nerissa and saw Lancaster dive to the right out of the corner of my eye. When I looked behind me to see where the bullet hit, to my horror, I saw a uniformed officer stagger through the open door.
A sergeant from the local constabulary by the pips on his jacket, he clutched at his throat, the blood already flowing rapidly. His eyes rolled back in his head as Lancaster caught him and lowered him to the ground. I quickly undid the man’s collar, but the rush of slick blood stymied my work and the man convulsed twice and lay still.
I pressed both hands to the man’s throat, feeling for a pulse, but his throat was a mangle of muscle and bloody tissue. I couldn’t feel any pulse through my hands. We had called him here. This was our fault. I closed his nose and breathed air into his mouth but it just whistled wetly out of his throat cavity, not even reaching his chest, which remained still. I looked up at Lancaster desperately, but another sound of a slap snapped our eyes back to Digby.
The carnage was complete. Seeing his daughter dead and then causing the death of an officer must have been too much for the old man. He had pressed the gun to his head and ended this tragedy with a final bullet.
Covered in blood, I looked from body to body to the spy who knelt beside me and knew what we had to do.
CHAPTER 20
HE HAD JUST TURNED the corner in time to watch them leave together, stepping over a uniformed body in the doorway, the dog following close behind. He wanted to stop them, but he knew that impulse had nothing to do with justice. It was an entirely jealous impulse. Portia led the way to the train, which had started its departure from the station, and he stepped forward, out of the shadows. Could he really let her leave like a thief in the night? She leapt onto the train and he saw something large fall out of her coat pocket. Multiple whistles signalled the arrival of constables at the ticket station, surrounding the body in the doorway, making his decision for him. She had made her bed. She would have to sleep in it without him.
THE RHYTHMIC MOVEMENT OF the train did nothing to alleviate the tension in my body. Lancaster looked just as bad, sitting on the opposite end of the train car, as far away from Nerissa and me as possible. My bloodhound kept trying to lick my hands, but I couldn’t bring myself to let her, so she settled for licking her own paws clean of the blood that had soaked that horrible scene.
I held my hands in front of me, palms up, the blood red drying to maroon that marked me up to my wrists. Almost against mywill, I looked down at my dress and satchel, finding with relief that the darkness of both hid the worst of the stains. This wasn’t my first murder scene — or my first bloody suicide — so I recognized the adrenaline that had carried me here, but the shock was fading to be replaced by cold calculation. I cast my eyes around the train car, pushing myself up to examine the barrel closest to me. I wrested the top off to find it filled with flour. I dismissed it, opening the next one. This one was filled with what smelled like beer. I scooped handfuls of the liquid, rubbing my hands and wrists to get rid of as much blood as I could. I then tipped over the barrel so no one would be subjected to the dirtied alcohol. Lancaster hadn’t moved at all, his arms wrapped around himself defensively. I squatted down beside him.
“What a cock up,” he said, turning his dark eyes my way. “SIS will never deal with me now.”
“We didn’t kill anyone, Lancaster,” I said, filing away that admission and speaking with more confidence than I actually felt. “Our mistake was not understanding the stakes. The bomber is feeling boxed in and is acting more and more desperately
.”
“Bomber?” Lancaster repeated, affirming that at least one of my words had been the one I meant to say and looking down at his bloody hands. “Neither of them were the bomber. We’re back at square one and two people are dead.”
“If they’re not involved, why are they dead?” I challenged him. I pulled out the bullet cartridge I had picked up at the scene. “Do you recognize this? It’s not a company I’ve come across before.”
“If you’re asking if I’ve seen it before, sure. It’s German, from the war,” he replied dismissively. “Common enough amongst our enemies.”
Digby was married to a German woman who left him — Val, Ilsa’s mother — but he was carrying a British gun. The Digbys are involved, though perhaps not how I originally thought. I needed to write an ad for Annie right away. The death of the sergeant meant that we were on the run until we had the real bomber. I would not be meeting her at Charing Cross.
I sat down and opened my notepad, creating an ad for a nanny, as Annie and I had agreed, incorporating a message about the scene we had just left and encouraging her to write back with news about the queen’s lady-in-waiting and whether Parabellum ammunition was part of the weapons story she was writing. Annie and I favoured a modified skip code; the actual message was the first word and then every fourth word of a sentence. Wilans’ involvement seemed like even more of a long shot given the murder scene, but my leads were drying up faster than this blood on my dress. Surely Scotland Yard could pursue Éamon O’Duffy in my absence. I added a line about an Irish leader to the ad just in case. Lancaster leaned against me, snoring remarkably for a man who had seemed so troubled moments ago, and Nerissa curled up at my feet. I hesitated and then added a final line about Gavin returning to town, referring to him as Mr. Whitt and hoping Annie would understand whom I was referring to. Whitaker was the smartest person I knew (besides Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler) and as odd as it would be for him to look for a code in The Lady, I wouldn’t put it past him. His return couldn’t have anything to do with the bombings though. What possible agenda of his could it satisfy? Gavin was driven by power and money, two things that had evaded him growing up in the worst orphanages in London. Other than the power to terrorize, these bombings seemed to hold no power that he would be interested in. Thoughts of his criminal pursuits naturally brought up feelings about my grandmother. Irene Adler had spent five decades stealing from and blackmailing the rich and powerful, evading the law, including my grandfathers. The sooner she found me, the sooner she could help me. It was just a matter of time. Wasn’t it?
