Edmund was convinced they could make some money out of worms. He always said ‘We’ when he wanted her help. Kitty didn’t care about money anyway; she was more interested in colours. It was autumn so the woods were full of golden trees, but she still preferred the yellow a buttercup made if you held it against your forearm. Edmund said he liked gold, too, so long as it was real. He didn’t have any of his own yet, but he would, because he was a businessman. Their father laughed when he called himself that. ‘You mean busybody,’ he said.
Anyway, Edmund knew you could pull worms out of the mudflats when the river was low. They could sell them to fishermen. It wasn’t the money Kitty was interested in, but the walk through the woods at sunset. That was when low tide was today, so that was when they went, and the yellow leaves and red rocks she’d seen on the way down the side of the gorge had been like looking through your fingers at a fire.
Which didn’t make up for the fact that she was knee deep in grey mud now, with a bucket digging into the crook of her forearm, wet and bored and cold and tired.
‘I’m going home,’ Kitty said.
‘Just five more minutes.’
‘You said that twice already.’
‘Yes, well. It’s an investment. We came all the way down here and we can’t go back until we’ve made it pay. It’s a golden opportunity …’
‘It’s sludge and worms,’ Kitty replied.
‘You need to envision.’ Edmund squatted to prod at the mud again with his special stick. There was an oval of slime on his backside. Kitty had an urge to kick it.
‘Well, I’m going even if you’re not,’ she said. ‘It’ll be dark soon anyway.’
As she said this she realised Edmund would know that she didn’t want to walk back up through the woods in the dark alone, and sure enough he turned to grin at her. He was infuriating. ‘How do you think that lot got where they are?’ he asked her, jerking his thumb at the fine buildings which crested the other side of the gorge.
‘I don’t care.’
‘Well I do and I can tell you it wasn’t from going home early. A proper merchant doesn’t give up on his profits when they’re already half made.’
‘I’m not a merchant. I’m cold and I’m covered in mud.’
‘That’s exactly it. You can’t be afraid of getting your hands dirty if you want to succeed in business. Just a few worms more and that will do. The tide is coming back in anyway.’
‘I’m going,’ she said, and although they both knew it wasn’t true, she walked off along the curve of the river bank to make it seem like it might be. The glimmer had gone out of the water, now; it looked the same flat grey colour as the slime. Only it wasn’t entirely flat because up there was something half afloat nudging the mud-bank a little way round the curve. Maybe it was something worth having. Kitty was filthy and sopping wet anyway, so she decided she might as well wade out to investigate, and that seemed a good idea right up until it turned into a bad idea, and by then it was too late, because by then she knew what the thing was, and even though it made her want to turn and run back to Edmund, her legs kept taking her towards it, daring it to change into a valuable sea-trunk or a rotten log or anything normal; it didn’t have to be anything good any more, just so long as it wasn’t a drowned body.
At first Kitty thought the darkness cloaking the corpse was the fault of the river or the approaching night, but by the time Edmund had reached her – he had heard her shouting although she hadn’t heard herself – she realised it wasn’t silt or the dusk that had turned the woman black. Edmund drew her away and told her to mind the buckets, which was maddening, since worms couldn’t matter now. Then he astonished her further by dragging the body, inch by horrid inch, clear of the high water mark. When she asked him why he’d done that, he said that even though it was a blackamoor there might still be a reward.
Fifteen
The springs on Carthy’s coach were definitely shot. Even the worst of the town’s hackney carriages gave a smoother ride. I had tried to persuade my employer to walk the short distance to the Dock Company’s headquarters, but Carthy, whose attachment to his carriage is as unwavering as it is unfathomable, insisted otherwise. The man is cross-stitched with perverse streaks. Although the cobbles were relatively smooth, the coach gave them square edges. Carthy used the journey as an excuse to update me about Anne’s ‘frankly phenomenal’ progress with her reading; I signalled my awe with a grunt. By keeping my mouth shut, I hoped to stop my teeth from jolting loose in my head.
‘What are you going to tell Orton?’ I asked when the carriage finally jerked to a stop.
‘Me? Nothing. I’ve done my share of the talking this morning.’ Carthy folded the step back on to the running board with ridiculous care. ‘You tell him what’s what.’
I ground my teeth, but said nothing. Although I hadn’t had a chance to plan what I’d say, the uncertainty principle by which Carthy generally led meant I was prepared to feel unprepared.
We were shown into a room with tall, grand windows, whose grimy panes admitted little light. Our client, John Orton, was already seated behind a French-polished table. His face shone dully in its surface. Two heads. The facsimile was smoother than the original. Although in his early middle years, the real Orton was creased as an old man. When he rose to shake hands his palm felt papery. There was something the matter with his skin, I saw: it wasn’t wrinkles so much as cracks that crazed Orton’s brow and cheeks.
Before he’d finished greeting me, Orton was addressing my master. ‘Adam. A pleasure. You’re in good health I trust?’
‘I’m bearing up well enough. As, I hope … How are the … rocks?’
Orton gave what passed for a smile. ‘Multiplying. I was out collecting just this weekend. Down towards Dorset. These fossils are God’s own fingerprints. They will afford us a view of life as far back as the flood.’
Carthy’s ‘Fascinating!’ was warm enough to convince the Dock Company official to go on, but to my ear it rang hollow. Prod a man along a route he’s already set upon travelling, however, and he’ll continue well beyond the next milestone. Orton began expounding about sediment and alluvial deposits and natural history’s own picture-book as the three of us took seats around the big table, and he continued to talk long enough for me to collect myself in advance of presenting our findings. A tongue of fire, tiny in the yawning mouth of a grand hearth, underscored the room’s chill. It was warmer than this outside. Fossils: dry bones. There was an odd smell in this room, of lemon zest cut with something noisome. Finally, the man’s droning stopped.
‘So, how have you got on?’ he asked Carthy after a pause, with what sounded like a note of resignation in his voice.
My master turned to me.
‘Well, we’ve made progress …’ I began. And on I went, carefully outlining the work we had done, the sound of my voice in my head measured and professional and, it appeared, of no interest at all to my client. As soon as I began speaking, Orton started picking at his fingernails, absently at first, but with increasing intent. He was soon ripping off bits of cuticle and flicking them under the table. The conviction drained from my voice. With a look of relief, Orton turned back to Carthy.
‘And your conclusions?’
‘Oh, Inigo’s drawn those,’ Carthy said lightly. He nodded at me again. ‘Such as we’ve been able to make.’
Although my master’s flippant tone unsettled me further, I had no choice but to continue. Yet the discrepancies in the Western Trading Company’s duty payments seemed suddenly petty as I spelled them out, and in the deadening quiet of the meeting room my deeper misgivings about the Belsize came across as more or less groundless. Orton just sat there scratching at his wrists. If the matter was of this little consequence to our client, then why was I allowing it to trouble me? Three faces stood reflected in the sheen of the table, ghosts swimming beneath ghosts. What in God’s name was I doing here? There was a whole world of flesh and blood beyond this one. I had a sudden vision of Mary, the waitres
s from Thunderbolts, her rounded forearm and the swell of her hip. I was still giving my metronomic account of the matter, but what I wanted to do was shout an obscenity, kick a hole in the table, and walk out. If I was going to have such thoughts about a woman, then oughtn’t Lilly to be the one to spring to mind? I stopped talking.
‘Very interesting. Thoroughly … thorough. Thank you.’ Orton’s palms, turned up on the tabletop, were a raw pink. ‘And you’ve nothing further to add, Adam?’ he deferred to Carthy again.
‘No. There’s the matter of the Company’s backers, which I can detail if you so wish …’ Carthy’s knowing look made my heart quicken. I did not want to have to concede Bright & Co.’s involvement. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the seat of an occasional chair beside the fireplace bulge and settle with the shape of a tortoiseshell cat. That was what the lemon zest was intended to mask, the smell of cat piss. Mercifully, Orton’s lack of interest extended to those who had shares in the Western Trading Company. He waved away Carthy’s suggestion with a flick of his flayed hands.
‘A summary for the file, with your … findings set down, will suffice,’ he said quickly, and then, visibly more animated again, he began regaling Carthy with a further account of his weekend’s fossicking for rocks. Ammonites were the new old thing, he explained, his hands fluttering at one another with pleasure.
My temper wasn’t improved by Carthy’s insistence that we climb into his wretched coach again for the return journey. To avoid the appearance of fuming in silence, I eventually asked, ‘What was all that about?’
‘I know!’ Carthy shook his head. ‘Frittering his time away in the mud. I once made the mistake of telling him I’d collected shells as a boy. But that’s a world away from a grown man, of his authority …’
‘That’s not what I’m talking about.’
‘No?’ replied Carthy disingenuously.
‘No. What’s really going on?’
Carthy took a long look at the shop-fronts rattling past. ‘Hard to say. This job seemed like a perfect opportunity to make a difference. Heaven knows the mess the Dock Company presides over needs clearing up, for the good of the city. That’s why Orton instructed us, I assumed. He’s the new man there. I understood we were to present him with results he could act upon. There was no mention of the wretched fossils when he dropped off the documents. Evidently, I misjudged the man’s intentions. He needs something on the file, but it certainly doesn’t look like he’s planning on waving it in anyone’s face. Insurance of some sort, I’ll wager that’s what he’s after. A note of our findings will give him leverage to shore up his position within the Company. It’s a missed opportunity.’
The coach had slowed up in the throng of Corn Street. A horse’s head, hanging momentarily beside the open window, exploded in a sneeze: tendrils of snot swayed from its nostrils just inches from my face. I flinched; the apparition drifted from view.
‘But it doesn’t make any difference,’ Carthy went on. ‘Though Orton’s softened for now, our brief is unchanged. You must finish your analysis and write it up and send it over for the man to file. Who knows, maybe the wind will shift again and he will enjoy a change of heart.’
I nodded, placated by the note of confidence in Carthy’s voice, even if what he was saying oppressed me further. That’s the trouble with lawyering. Though it gives the appearance of being necessary, vital even, too often the work is adding braces to belted trousers, or is entirely for show. I hung on to the sill of the carriage as it slewed and clattered over a rutted stretch of road.
‘Keep digging,’ Carthy muttered. ‘But carefully. Orton told me he uses a brush to uncover his precious fossils. We must be as subtle. Now’s not the time for a spade.’
Sixteen
Noises filter in from the outside world, and the repetition of these noises creates patterns, and familiarity, and the creeping threat that this place will start to make sense. The same thing happened on the ship. Human resourcefulness and adaptability are a curse: despite everything, they will normalise hell.
So, the fact that there is a bucket with water here, and one for them to fill, because it is an improvement on the filth-flooded hold, becomes a privilege. The same is true of the straw. The cows at home sleep on a softer bed, but it is better than the dark planks she had grown used to during the first voyage, and when the man comes to spread a fresh sheaf on the ground she has to fight a sickening gratitude. Yesterday, after he had kicked clean straw around the cellar, he took a key from his pocket and unchained Idowu and took her away. There were no tears left in the sick girl, but Abeni and Oni held each other and sobbed for her, which changed nothing.
Oni thinks about the insult of this clean straw and gathers an armful and pushes it away as far as she can, and then she clears all the straw from within the circumference of her chain, exposing a half circle of bare dirt. You can taste the damp in it, the mould. She starts digging with her fingers. She’s not trying to escape, she’s digging because the futility of it is an antidote to the fake normality.
She has no way of protecting herself when she’s asleep. There’s no such thing as a good dream. She can sleep through the happiest memories – a kingfisher arrowing into the mirrored lake-surface beside her father’s canoe; the pink instep of her brother’s foot held warm against her lips – and still wake up screaming. In some ways nightmares are easier. The rat gnawing at the base of her skull, the gag and rope and weight of him forcing her apart.
She’s still scraping at the floor. They took Idowu away. She cannot allow herself to imagine where, or what has happened to the sick girl since. There are pebbles in the dirt which she digs free, and then further into the hole her fingers close over a knot that won’t budge. She picks at the soil around it, uncovering a length of tree-root as thick as her wrist. That this root feeds a living tree is momentarily comforting. But though its roots share Oni’s cell, the tree’s leaves must reach up into the light. She pushes the earth back into the hole and drags a clump of straw across it with her heel.
Suddenly, there’s the birdsong again, whose faint melodies are as terrifying as the smile of a snake.
Seventeen
The light was fading in Queen Square. Shadows cast by the plane trees stretched in long diagonals, streaks of tar thrown across a dirt floor. I paused outside Lilly’s house. I brushed myself down and attempted to rearrange the flowers. A bouquet had seemed the right thing when I bought it from the flower-girl outside the Exchange at lunchtime, but the thing had a limp, doomed air about it now. I was looking forward to seeing Lilly again, of course. The twinge of uncertainty in my belly had nothing to do with my fiancée, and everything to do with my prospective father-in-law. The invitation I had accepted for this evening came from Heston Alexander himself. If I found myself talking nonsense to brush over the awkwardness between myself and Lilly’s mother from time to time, my confusion before her father welled up into ridiculousness. I took a deep breath and set my jaw and raised my hand to the lion’s head mounted high on the big front door … which opened before I had a chance to knock upon it.
The footman, Spenser, had either intuited my loitering on the steps or spotted me from a window. His bow was an inch or two deeper than necessary. A pianoforte was playing somewhere within. I followed the man further into the hall and allowed myself to be steered towards the music, into the drawing room.
‘Here he is, let’s ask him,’ Heston’s voice boomed, before I was quite through the door. I had already determined to greet Mrs Alexander first, and pressed on despite her husband’s interjection. She took my offering with a smile that told me I should have trusted my instincts and consigned the flowers to the waters of St Augustine’s Reach.
‘Why thank you, Inigo. Very kind.’
I scrambled up the rope of Heston’s question. ‘Ask me what, Sir? I’ll do my best to answer.’
‘Of course you will.’ Mr Alexander leaned back in his seat and drummed his fingers on the expanse of fine cotton between the splayed lapels of his fr
ock coat. ‘Say your good father began making mistakes. Taking bad decisions, giving voice to inappropriate utterances, issuing idiotic decrees. And say these mistakes had consequences for the whole family, and that they were born of a failure of his reason which everyone could see but nobody felt they could mention. Wouldn’t you, as his son and heir, have a duty to intervene?’
Suspecting a trick, I bought time, nodding thoughtfully before crossing the room to kiss Lilly’s hand. It seemed this had been wise when her father continued.
‘Mind you, mistakes or no, the old man is still in charge. He holds the whip hand. You’d be challenging his authority, etcetera.’
Lilly’s younger sister, Abigail, had risen from her seat at the pianoforte. I took her hand, too. Addressing my response to the back of it seemed the safe thing to do. ‘I suppose,’ I said, ‘it would depend upon the extent of his failure of reason. It would be a matter of degree.’
‘Pah! The lawyer in you gave that answer. Swing both legs one side of the fence. Would you have a duty to intervene?’
Mrs Alexander was making no attempt to hide her pleasure at my discomfort; Abigail had already returned her attention to the sheet-music on the piano; an accomplished musician, she now began playing something I can best describe as explicitly saccharine. I turned to Lilly. Her smile of encouragement was girlish.
Heston Alexander himself came to my rescue. ‘I’ll give you a clue. It’s the King to whom I refer. Farmer George. From what I hear he no longer has the wit to steer a plough straight, much less an empire. And with the French threatening …’
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