Black Mercury (The Drifting Isle Chronicles)

by Charlotte E. English

  Worse, the prospect of the police stamping about getting in everyone’s way, interviewing and taking notes when Clara’s team needed to be busy searching the city—that was a daunting prospect as well. It didn’t seem likely that their first action would be to pay the ransom. That would be a last resort, and perhaps too late for Cas. Nobody wanted to spend two days watching the police investigation and merely hoping for the best.

  Once Hildy had finished checking Til for lasting injury, and reassuring herself as to his continuing ability to produce coherent sentences, she sat down on the edge of his bed and looked around at her gathered friends. “The question to resolve with all due urgency is: where would Cas hide a store of black mercury?”

  “And that’s not at all like asking where a normal person would hide a store of black mercury,” Clara interjected. “Cas will have found some method that makes perfect sense to him and, most likely, none at all to anyone else.”

  Hildy’s grim face relaxed momentarily into a wry smile. “Which is probably what got him into this mess—he hid it too well for them to find. But can we do any better?”

  “How much of it does he have?” Til asked from his recumbent posture on the bed.

  That silenced the room. Clara looked blankly at Hildy, who stared blankly back.

  “Two cartons,” Lukas said. “I’d say there were two gallons there easily, and more.”

  Clara blinked at him. “How do you know that?”

  “Because I was there when he took it.”

  “You don’t know what he did with it afterwards?”

  Luk shook his head. “No idea. I’m sorry.”

  “All right, two gallons and more,” Hildy interjected. “He’d need a fairly big hiding place for that much.”

  Lukas nodded. “And we can rule out his old house and mine, because they were searched already—and I believe Cas hid the mercury after that.”

  “The track,” said Til vaguely.

  “That seems too obvious,” Clara said, “but we’d better check it.”

  “And what about that house he was squatting in?” Hildy suggested.

  “Also pretty obvious,” Lukas replied. “It wouldn’t make sense for him to hide out somewhere he’d previously stashed the mercury, when he knew he might be under observation.”

  “True,” Hildy nodded. “Other houses in that area, perhaps. More ideas?”

  Clara thought. She readily came up with three or four places that she would hide two gallons of black mercury in, but quickly dismissed them all as unlikely to occur to Cas. So what would occur to him?

  Her taxed brain came up with nothing. Judging from the heavy silence, nobody else could think of anything either.

  “Well,” Hildy sighed. “At least we have two places to start. Let’s split up. Clarry and Luk, would you take the track? Til and I will try those charming houses. First thing in the morning, mind.”

  Clara opened her mouth to object, but Hildy fixed her with her gimlet stare. “Answer me this, Miss Koh: how much use are you going to be to Cas if you’re dropping with exhaustion?”

  Clara glared back. “How am I supposed to sleep knowing Cas is in trouble?”

  “Because you’re a woman of good sense and you’re of most use when you’re sharp.”

  Clara folded her arms. “What if we find the mercury tonight? We could have Cas out and free by morning.”

  “Til isn’t released until the morning, and I don’t think it’s a good idea for two unaccompanied women to be roaming the streets around Cas’s derelict building at night.”

  Clara thought about Lukas, but in his crippled state he was hardly an answer to that problem. “You’re probably right,” she relented, “but we can go look at the track. It might be there.”

  “Fine,” Hildy said briskly. “But if it’s not at the track, we go straight home and to bed. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.”

  “Um,” came a high, tentative voice from behind Hildy. “What are we doing?”

  “Top?” said Clara, edging around Hildy. “Where’s Min?”

  Top and Bunce stood side-by-side on Til’s bedside table. Next to them stood Min, with Hildy’s thumb and index finger clamped tightly around her beak.

  “Ah,” said Clara. “I wondered why she was so quiet.”

  Min glared ferociously at her.

  “You’d better come with us,” Clara decided. “All of you, please.” Top seemed like he had a little more than the average intelligence for a pigeon, but Bunce would definitely need supervision. Min would keep him in line.

  Or kill him. One or the other.

  Hildy released Min’s beak and the pigeon instantly shot up to the ceiling, wings flapping, squawking her indignation.

  Clara noticed Til wince at the sudden racket. “Quiet, Min!” she said sharply. “You’re upsetting Til.”

  Surprisingly—or perhaps not—Min instantly quietened down. She had a soft spot for Til, though she’d never admit it. He was free with the food and tolerant of her nonsense, and that made him virtually perfect in Min’s eyes.

  Hildy bent over Til, concern evident in the gentle way she smoothed back his hair and peered into his face. “A few hours,” she said, “and I’ll be back.”

  Til grinned, his gaze still a little unfocused. “Off with you.”

  “Right.” Hildy tugged her coat straight—more a gesture of resolve than because the garment really needed it—and strode to the door. Clara helped Luk to his feet and followed along behind him, the pigeons forming up around her.

  “Pray for some luck, chaps,” said Hildy, already on her way out of the door.

  Clara prayed.

  ***

  Hildy was becoming adept at driving too fast; so much so that Clara couldn’t help wondering what kind of racing driver she would have made, had she shared her nephew’s passion for it. Probably a terrific one: her combination of intelligence and cunning, her feel for machines and her ability to be fearless without being (entirely) reckless all promised much.

  Perhaps some of that ran in the family.

  They reached the track much more quickly than Clara had expected, but on arriving they encountered a new problem. The notion of “searching the track” had seemed simple enough when they were standing in the hospital talking it over with Til. But once they were actually standing in the track complex, they realised how enormous it was.

  “Well,” said Clara after a moment. “Obviously we need to narrow it down.”

  For some reason she found herself looking at Lukas. Hildy was too.

  Luk blinked back at them. “I… yes. All right. Let’s pretend we’re Cas.” He laboriously turned himself around in a circle, looking out over the darkened track, then faced the route that led further into the complex. “We came here carrying two gallons of black mercury. We weren’t very calm because our house was searched and our best friend hit over the head. This was also the day of the ball, so we were in a hurry—not wishing to miss the festivities no matter what else might be happening—and we weren’t sure whether we were being followed. Where do we go?”

  “Are there lockers?” Clara asked.

  “Yes, but they aren’t very big. I don’t see how it could be possible to fit a whole carton into one of them. Also, it’s another obvious place to stash things; Cas would try to be wily, only without being particularly inventive.”

  “Storage areas?” Clara suggested.

  “Plenty, but I doubt Cas has ready access to any of them. They’re for engineers, mechanics and track staff, not drivers.”

  “Maybe he buried it,” Min said brightly. “Squirrels do that. It’s great because they’re crap at it. I get loads of free nuts that way.”

  “Squirrels aren’t crap at it,” Hildy said absently. “They bury things pretty neatly.”

  “Yes, but they’re so obvious about it when they’re doing it.” Min landed on Clara’s shoulder and dug in her claws. “I follow them, wait ‘til they’re done, and thieve. Easy.”

  “You know,”
Clara said slowly, “something about that sounds very… Cas-ish.”

  Hildy glanced at her. “So blindingly obvious that it’s actually a little bit wily? Only Cas would be simplistic enough to grab a spade and dig? You have a point.”

  Clara turned to Lukas. “Where can I find a spade?” she smiled.

  Lukas looked nonplussed for a minute, then his face cleared. “They’ve been building a new feature in the centre, in time for the Cup races. There might be some tools around there.”

  “How far away is that?” Hildy asked, eyeing Luk’s crutches.

  “Far enough,” he said ruefully. “Why don’t you fetch the tools? I’ll stand here and try to figure out where Cas might have been digging.”

  Hildy nodded once. “Pigeons, with me!” she called, and strode off in the direction Luk had pointed out.

  Clara hesitated, torn between going with Hildy and staying with Lukas. He gave her a sideways look. “You can go too.”

  “Um. No,” Clara replied uncomfortably. “She can manage. So, what’s in your mind?”

  Lukas looked away. “Cas would need to be able to go back for the stuff later, so he’d need a clear landmark somewhere. He might have buried it near the centre of the track, where he (possibly) found the tools, as that would’ve been the quickest and easiest way.”

  “But that supposes that Cas deals in plain, basic logic,” Clara said, shaking her head. “He’s probably more likely to do something complicated and ‘clever’, even if it was harder or more time-consuming for him. Perhaps especially so.”

  Lukas nodded and stood in silence for several moments, deep in thought. Clara tried to think, too. What would be a landmark for Cas? He’d spent so many hours at the track, over so many years; it could be anything at all.

  What was on his mind recently? Perhaps that was the way to approach the question. The ban from the Autocarriage Racing Association was on his mind—and the crash that led to it.

  “Perhaps where your car was wrecked?” she suggested. “Or his, after.”

  Lukas nodded. “I was thinking that, too. Finding that spot in the dark might be difficult, though.”

  “Really? Too difficult for Cas to have done it before, do you think?”

  “No. Cas has a weird memory for things like that. He can find his way to anywhere, from anywhere. I really think you could drop him in the middle of Eisenstadt blindfold and he’d find his way home—and then be able to find his way back, later, to the precise spot you dropped him in.”

  “You can’t do that?”

  Lukas shot her a look of irritation. “No.”

  “Sorry,” she murmured. She hadn’t meant to accuse him of anything, but he was becoming uncharacteristically touchy. Perhaps it was the injury; being crippled would be particularly hard for someone like Luk, who prided himself on his capability.

  He closed his eyes in thought, and Clara stayed quiet while he struggled with his recollections of the crash. “I think I can find it,” he said at last, and began to hobble off.

  “Shouldn’t we wait for Hildy?” Clara queried.

  “We aren’t going to get far before she catches up with us,” he said bitterly. “And the pigeons can track us down if that’s not the case.”

  Clara nodded, though with his back to her he couldn’t see, and followed after him. She couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t irritate him further, so she stayed quiet as he hobbled as fast as he could away down the track.

  They went through two bends and had passed down most of the first long stretch when Hildy caught up with them. She was carrying two shovels.

  “Sorry,” she panted. “They’ve almost finished over there, and I had to hunt for these.” She passed one to Clara and kept a firm hold of the other. Clara watched Luk’s eyes follow the progress of the shovels and another expression of acute irritation crossed his face.

  She sighed inwardly. Yes, it was hard for Luk to be sidelined under such circumstances when he wanted to be active. But they were all worried about Cas. Couldn’t he be a bit less bitter about it?

  Lukas got himself back under control, his irritation vanishing under a passable impression of his usual cool demeanour. “We aren’t far away now,” he said, and proceeded onwards again.

  Perhaps another ten minutes passed before Lukas stopped and looked around. “The crash was over there,” he said, pointing to a spot perhaps twenty feet away. “Cas fetched up a bit further on.”

  “Pigeons,” Hildy said, coming to a halt. “Up with you. Look for signs of disturbed ground.”

  “Yes, Captain!” yelled Min, and took flight. Top and Bunce followed her.

  Hildy walked off towards the place where Lukas had broken his leg, and Clara followed. “Let’s work in half-circles,” Hildy said. “I’ll take this side, you take the other.”

  Clara obeyed, starting at the grassy verge to the right of Lukas’s crash point while Hildy strode away to the left of the track. She worked outwards steadily, her eyes combing the ground for any signs of digging.

  She found nothing. Eventually she realised she’d wandered too far from the original crash site; it was unlikely Cas had gone this far from the landmark.

  She returned to Luk to find Hildy already there. “Nothing much,” Hildy reported.

  “Me neither. Pigeons?”

  “They’re still out.”

  “Let’s try Cas’s crash site,” Clara said. She fell in beside Luk as they moved on, not wanting to leave him behind alone. This time, she was rewarded with a quick smile, and on an impulse she kissed his cheek.

  “This one’s harder,” Lukas said after a few minutes, stopping to stare around himself. “I was pretty out of it when Cas hit Mik Hass. Do you remember, Clarry?”

  “Moment,” she said, and veered away to the right. She’d seen everything from the spectator stands and she needed that perspective to recall exactly where Cas had ended up. It took her a few minutes to climb into the stands and work her way up to approximately where she’d been sitting.

  From there she could easily spot the right place, but it was too dark to point it out to Hildy. She couldn’t even see her or Lukas anymore. So she fixed it in her mind as best she could and clambered back down again.

  “I think I’ve got it,” she said when she reached Hildy and Luk. She led the way, her heart beating a quick, anxious rhythm. Please, let it be here, she said silently to herself, over and over.

  It wasn’t. A repeat of their earlier search pattern revealed nothing. The three of them met together again twenty minutes later, dejected, the atmosphere growing tense.

  “There’s one more place to try,” Hildy said. “When I was testing the black mercury, Cas’s carriage went off the track altogether and hit the wall. He might’ve chosen that spot. And there might still be a mark or a dent in the wall to show us where.”

  “Where was that?” Lukas asked.

  “Um…” Hildy paused. “On the other side of the track,” she said with a sigh.

  Lukas sighed too. “Right. Off we go.” He stepped off resolutely, and Clara tried not to notice the way his arms were shaking with the fatigue of carrying much of his weight.

  “Go on ahead,” Lukas said wearily. “I’ll catch up.”

  Clara wanted to be able to reject that suggestion, but anxiety and fear were gnawing at her and she couldn’t bear the agonisingly slow pace any more. She said nothing while Hildy passed instructions to Luk about where they were going. Then, with a swift kiss for Lukas, she followed Hildy as her mentor lengthened her stride and began to make up some ground.

  At the new pace, it took only a little over ten minutes to reach the place where Hildy had been using Cas’s autocarriage for her experiments. She broke into a run and Clara with her; they sprinted down to the section where Cas had gone off the track. Hildy produced a handful of matches from a pocket, lit one, and handed it to Clara. She then lit another, gesturing to Clara to begin further down the wall.

  Between them they scoured the wall for signs of Cas’s c
ollision. Clara had to work hard to keep her movements slow and sure, so as not to miss anything; she wanted to rush through, find it sooner so Cas could be liberated earlier. But that wouldn’t help.

  She was so busy focusing on her need to be slow and methodical that she almost missed it —a dent in the track wall with streaks of scratched and smudged paint. “Here!” she called.

  Hildy came at a run. “Right,” she said after a quick investigation of her own. “I haven’t seen any patches of bare earth, have you?”

  Clara shook her head. “Cas being clever again? He peeled off the turf and then put it back down.”

  Hildy sighed. “That boy needs a smack in the head.”

  A snort of laughter emerged before Clara could stop it, and after that a brief fit of giggles. Hysteria, she thought tiredly. Stop it.

  She dropped her shovel and got down on her hands and knees. It was too dark to see where the turf might have been disturbed; she’d have to feel for it. Hildy followed her example and the two of them spent a few minutes patting the grass around the crash site, hoping to feel a bump in the earth.

  Clara was just beginning to despair when Hildy gave a shout of triumph. She jumped to her feet and began digging furiously. Clara quickly followed suit, noticing peripherally that Lukas was finally catching up to them.

  “Found it?” he called.

  “Not yet, but maybe!” she called back.

  They didn’t have to dig far. Clara had been hoping for that; being pressed for time, Cas hadn’t had the leisure to dig a really deep hiding place. After a couple of minutes of ferocious digging, her shovel hit something hard.

  “Yes,” she hissed. Soon something could be seen in the emerging hole, glinting dull white in the moonlight. Hildy dropped to her knees and grabbed at it, hauling it out of the hole.

  Clara stared at it in disbelief. “That,” she said slowly, “is not big enough.”

  Hildy held up a compact container. It was a flagon, the larger sort that beer was often stored in. The opening had been hastily bound up with cloth. When Hildy shook it, something sloshed inside. She held the container to her nose and grimaced. “That’s the mercury all right.”