Persephone reflected on how little she knew of him. She supposed that should alarm her, but she suspected it was part of his appeal. He was the stranger on the eyot – with its suggestion of new ways of doing things – and would remain so as long as he deflected personal questions.
“I believe you put the police on my tail,” Professor Madoc said to Persephone.
“It wasn’t anything personal. They checked all our regular customers.”
“I was flattered. A theft of that nature surely takes ingenuity. But how goes the investigation? Are they any closer to finding the thief?”
“I don’t know.” Persephone flushed, thinking of the wax she had scraped from the cooker. “Nobody updates me. My rank isn’t high enough.”
“Ah, Kendricks, with its old hierarchies and gate keepers. They’ve systematically ignored talent in favour of proprietorial cronyism. Which isn’t without its own kind of sense – their customers value the sorcery more than the rendering of the doll – but it comes with risks. They’ve traded this long on their sorcery, but one day someone will leak how it works, and then they’ll wish they invested more in craft.”
“My hope is that Persephone will strike out on her own,” Larkin said. “She has craft, and an incipient understanding of sorcery, too.”
The compliment filled Persephone’s head. She didn’t hear the Professor’s reply, but it was something that made him and Larkin laugh. She smiled, to disguise her inattention.
“It was very nice to meet you in person, Miss Kendrick,” the Professor said. “Larkin, we’ll talk soon. Ave atque vale!”
He retreated into the assembly of tourists.
“What was he saying in Latin?” Persephone asked.
“Just goodbye, I think. Have we seen enough?” Larkin gestured at the house.
“Yes.”
They started their own walk towards the exit.
“I’m not going to start my own business,” Persephone said. “I’m a Kendrick. I belong on the eyot. But do you really think I could succeed on my own?”
“Of course. Your dolls are better than Alastair’s, you know. Not as good as mine, but—”
She hit him on the arm, with more force than was necessary.
“Ow,” he complained.
“Sorry. I will be as good as you, though.”
“I know.” Larkin added: “There’s something I’ve not told you.”
“What kind of thing?”
“Don’t worry! Nothing scandalous. Maybe a bit underhand, but in the least offensive of ways. And it might change your mind about starting a business.”
“OK. Tell me.”
“I’ll do better than that – I’ll show you, when we get back to the Tavern.”
“This is very mysterious.”
“I think you’ll be pleased. You might even want to tell me how hexes work.”
Persephone doubted that, but her curiosity was piqued. They would have all the afternoon for her to speculate what he had in store.
33
Since Persephone had commenced lessons with Larkin, he had been thinking that the balance between them had tipped, ever so slightly towards him. A teacher always holds some power over their student. He felt able to make a tactical gamble: that, by allowing her to see the wallhanging, she would be encouraged to share more again in turn.
And so, when they’d returned to the Tavern, he took the wallhanging from the wardrobe and unwrapped it. She grasped its significance immediately.
“These are hexes,” she confirmed.
“Yes. Do you recognise what they stand for?”
“No. But I do know how to work out their meaning, given a bit of time.”
“Do you see, with these, you’d be effective competition for Alastair?”
“I don’t want to set up a business.”
“So you keep saying. But what is all this work for? Stop kidding yourself.”
“There’s so many of them,” she said wonderingly. “Look at the woodworm. I wonder how old they are. Maybe as old as the Paid Mourner.”
“Maybe. If they are, imagine how excited the customers would be. Any new dolls with these old emotions would be much sought after.”
She was touching the patina on each disc. “You thought, if you gave me these, I’d tell you how they’re used?”
“I hoped you might, yes.”
“I need to think about that, Larkin.”
He longed to shout: what is there to think about? It couldn’t be that silly anxiety about losing his interest. Maybe she was stuck on the Sorcerers giving her a job, and she feared they never would, if they learnt she’d leaked their secrets.
She stood. “Thank you for showing me this. Can I take it to my room? I’d like to start translating them there.”
The thought of losing sight of it troubled him; but he had already photographed every hex with his phone. He nodded.
She didn’t say anything further, and retreated to her own room for the rest of the evening.
*
That night, Larkin couldn’t sleep. To curb his wakefulness he dressed, and left the Tavern for a walk. Just as he reached the terrace, he saw Hedwig leaving Briar Kendrick’s cottage. It was clearly her, by light of the hallway. The two of them conferred briefly on the step. Their conversation was out of Larkin’s hearing but they had the air of plotters.
Briar closed the door, and Hedwig set off down the lane, towards Larkin. She was carrying a wicker basket.
“Being a good neighbour, Hedwig?” he asked her when their paths crossed.
“Briar was the worse for wear,” Hedwig explained. “He banged on our door, believing he still lived there, so I walked him back to his house.”
Kindly of Hedwig, at half three in the morning. Larkin’s eyes fell to her basket, which was empty. It wasn’t the first thing you’d grab when escorting a drunkard home.
“He seemed to have sobered up, at any rate,” Larkin pointed out. “By the time he said goodbye.”
Hedwig tilted her head to one side. Then she laughed, conceding the ruse was up. “All right, Larkin. I’d appreciate it if you don’t mention to anyone that you saw me there.”
“Don’t worry. If I do, I’ll just say the pair of you are having a torrid affair.”
She shuddered in distaste and laughed again.
Larkin checked up and down the lane that no one was near, then whispered: “I’d been meaning to ask, when I got a moment alone with you. Did my contact’s work satisfy you?”
“Very much; thank you, Larkin.”
“I hope she wasn’t too expensive. The butcher haggles hard, on her behalf.”
“Not at all.”
“Only, your mother mentioned you were experiencing some financial difficulties.”
Hedwig corrected him: “No difficulties – Scarlotta’s payment simply took priority over my mother’s. I am, in any case, about to be recompensed.”
She insisted that she must return home then, for Conrad’s flight arrived early in the morning. Larkin continued on his own way. The culmination of her plan must be afoot. He might try to wheedle a detail or two more from her. Or, if not from her, Briar, whose house she crept from in the middle of the night.
34
Hedwig and Conrad stood in the garden, watching the small armoured boat progress along the river. When it came to a stop, they walked to the river’s edge in greeting.
Montgomery Delderfield, Conrad’s accountant, emerged from the cabin. Hedwig had always thought him blandly nondescript in appearance: you could exchange him for any number of middle managers across the land. His fair hair was thin and his eyes pale. He wore a navy blue polyester suit. But today he was guarding valuable cargo, and that leant him significance.
“Mr Kendrick. Miss Mayhew,” he acknowledged with a nod.
“Is everything in order?” Conrad asked.
“It is.” A shadowy figure inside the cabin – Hedwig assumed one of Delderfield’s employees – passed Delderfield a cash strong box, which he handed t
o Hedwig; then a second, which he gave to Conrad. The third he carried himself.
“Let’s get these inside as quickly as possible, shall we?”
They began the walk up the slope. The shadowy figure remained behind them in the boat, and Hedwig believed she could feel his stare on her neck. It needled her to think someone was party to the transfer of gold and she didn’t know who they were.
“Thank you so much for acting swiftly,” Hedwig said to Delderfield. The box weighed as much as a young, well-fed child. Her arm strained, but the adrenaline of carrying the gold for her plan sustained her. “I imagine all hands were on deck at the firm to get it? A few people must have helped? I would so like to send my thanks.”
Delderfield said: “For administrative purposes, some of my colleagues are aware Mr Kendrick required an immediate release of funds. Obviously they observe confidentiality as they do for any client.”
“And that’s true of your friend in the boat, is it?”
“He knows only what he needs to,” Delderfield said.
They heard the sound of the boat’s engine as it finally departed. They walked past the burnt ground of the masquerade bonfire. The gardener, at Hedwig’s request, had left a set of spades for her to commence digging. Soon they were at the house, and entered by the side door.
Conrad led the way to his drawing room. On arrival, they placed the strong boxes upon the table. Out of breath from the exertion, Conrad tottered to his seat. Delderfield unlocked the boxes one after the other to reveal layer upon layer of gold bars. The surface, yellow and black, shone softly.
He counted out the bars, placing each one on the table as he did so. When he had reached sixty-six, silence fell upon the room.
“There’s so much of it,” Hedwig breathed.
“I believe you have duties to start in the garden,” Conrad replied. “I will remain here and discuss the rest of my affairs with Mr Delderfield.”
Thus dismissed, Hedwig first went to her room, to change into jeans and a tired shirt and sweater; then in the dusk she proceeded to the bonfire site, where the spades lay. She took the largest and began to dig. The activity warmed her and soon her hands began to chafe on the handle. Her shoulders and lower back began to ache when she was almost halfway down. One by one her fingernails chipped. She wiped her forehead, and kept going, until the hole was six foot deep.
She had envisioned an oblong, as if for a grave. Instead the hole resembled a funnel. It would do. She fetched a wheelbarrow from the head gardener’s shed and ran it all the way back to Conrad’s drawing room.
Mr Delderfield had seemingly departed, and Conrad was asleep upright in his chair. He was still jet-lagged. The gold lay undisturbed. Hedwig transferred it, piece by piece, to the wheelbarrow. By the time it was full it was unwieldy and her return trip was slow.
She took one of the golden bricks and laid it in the grass, before upending the wheelbarrow into the hole. The clash of one bar falling upon another was tremendous. After allowing herself a few minutes to catch her breath, she retrieved the spade, and shovelled soil over Conrad’s wealth. Hedwig regarded it as a type of pension. It would satisfy her to know it lay there, undisturbed and safe from spending, year after year, until she might have need of it – perhaps after Conrad’s death. Who else would even know the money lay there? Only Conrad; and Briar, who, if he outlived his brother, might well be silenced with a payment of his own.
The moon had fully risen now. She patted the earth with the spade tip till it was level. She wrapped the remaining bar in her sweater. This would settle her debts nicely and create a comfortable nest egg, too.
*
This time, when she re-entered the drawing room, Conrad was neither asleep nor alone. Inspector Naidu was with him.
Hedwig cradled the wrapped gold. It resembled nothing more than a tattered jumper, but she still drew it closer to her body with a shiver as the Inspector turned to look at her.
“My sweetness,” Conrad said in greeting, apparently unruffled by the presence of the police. “I’ve just been discussing how you held the fort in my absence. A true Dobermann, an Alsatian in the guarding of all I hold dear.”
“It was nothing,” Hedwig said. “Forgive me for not shaking your hand Inspector; I’ve been working in the garden. I must have forgotten you were visiting.”
The Inspector maintained eye contact. Hedwig refused to be disquieted. Following her last discussion with Stanley, she had been waiting for questions from Naidu about the vandalism at the workshop. But they never came – and Hedwig had begun to relax again, thinking that perhaps the wet-lipped man had rethought his accusations, or was otherwise found unreliable. It was the most abominable timing that Naidu should come now, at a critical point in the execution of Hedwig’s plan. What if the Inspector had seen Hedwig burying gold? Or her eyes happened upon the ransom letter, which Hedwig could see from the doorway, face upwards on the bureau? Stanley would deride the very thought of ransoms from the fae folk; he’d snoop till he knew who’d really written it.
“I was terribly naughty,” Conrad said. “It slipped my mind to notify the Inspector I was coming home! She rang my Fiji hotel, and they said I wasn’t available.”
“They said that Mr Kendrick had vacated his room several days earlier than intended, without checking out,” corrected the Inspector. “No one knew his whereabouts.”
This was what happened when Conrad travelled alone. Without Hedwig necessities escaped him.
“Conrad’s back where he belongs,” Hedwig remarked. “I’d offer tea, Inspector, only as you can see I’m not dressed for entertaining guests.”
“I’m not here for entertainment. Mr Kendrick’s house, and more recently his business, have been the target of serious attacks. As a matter of safety we should be informed of his location – or at least that he’s in the country. I’m surprised I have to explain this to you, Miss Mayhew. I’d have thought, given your own encounter with the armed assailant, you’d appreciate a degree of risk assessment.”
“Very sensible.” Hedwig’s arms, full of gold, ached. “We so appreciate your protection, and the seriousness with which you’ve handled everything. It must be frustrating to get here and find everything so very normal. I do apologise for not alerting you myself that Conrad was here.”
The Inspector stood up. “If you could keep us informed in future. No need to follow, Miss Mayhew; I’ll see myself out.”
She did so. Hedwig waited for the slam of the front door, and watched, through the window, until the policewoman had left the garden.
“I don’t believe for one minute she was worried about my safety,” Conrad said. “She thought I’d done a moonlight flit! For the insurance, I shouldn’t wonder – stolen the doll myself, then hotfooted it to Fiji before disappearing into the night!”
“Maybe.” If Naidu thought Conrad was the bigger catch and Hedwig was merely doing his bidding, it would explain why Hedwig hadn’t been called back for questioning. “Whatever she was looking for, she didn’t find it. Please, Conrad, please tell me you didn’t show her the ransom note?”
“I wouldn’t dream of it. I told them once before this was the Thief’s work – and they dismissed me, the scoundrels! I won’t give them that opportunity again.”
“You gave them a fair chance at solving things, Conrad. No one could ask for more. But it’s time we took matters into our own hands again, isn’t it?”
“That it is, Hedwig.”
With Naidu’s departure a disaster had been narrowly averted. In a few short hours, Briar would bring the magic doll and lay her upon the earth, ready for Conrad to come at dawn. Until then Hedwig would sleep. She would bathe the blisters on her hands, and creep between the covers, with her gold bar stowed beneath the bed.
35
That evening Persephone was working patiently in her room; she started with the first hex on the wallhanging, and licked its duo of symbols on a maquette. Her fingertips stroked the newly magic doll, tenderly. Justified Aggravation. She wrote i
t down, and moved on to the next. Caring Exasperation. A third. Righteous Outrage. The feelings arrived, pulsed through her, and disappeared. Vengeful Loathing. Uncovered Grief. Languid Nostalgia. Remorseful Dismay. The next row. Dejected Defeat. Wistful Yearning. Docile Acquiescence. Existential Dread. She paused, dizzy. Then the final row. The purity of the hexes astounded her. Affection; Exhilaration; Adoration; Longing; Cheer; Contentment; Pride; Rapture; Optimism; Love. Persephone was giddy with sentiment. She didn’t have to wait for Briar to complete her own hex. She had deciphered these treasures without him. And she could not keep that knowledge from Larkin; not any longer. She’d show him how hexes were laid. He wouldn’t lose interest in her. They would be bound by their knowledge.
As soon as she’d finished, she went to Larkin’s room. He had a finished artwork to show her, and invited her verdict. All the copies he had made of the Paid Mourner were arranged within a type of zoetrope. He had posed them in subtly different stances so that when the zoetrope was spun, and you looked through the sight gaps, it appeared as though the Paid Mourner was running.
“She has escaped.” Larkin sipped from an iced glass with misted sides, before pointing at the dolls. “And she won’t be caught.”
This didn’t seem right to Persephone. The doll was running endlessly, but in a circle. You couldn’t escape if you were continually returning to the same spot.
She reached out to touch one of the dolls, stopping their motion in the process. It was devoid of feeling.
“Laying an enchantment is simple,” Persephone said softly. “You trace the hex on the doll with the tip of your tongue.”
Larkin’s eyes widened at the suddenness of this revelation. “But that’s ridiculously simple!”
“Anyone can lick a hex, it’s true. If you know that’s how the symbols work. If you are allowed to see the symbols at all. Why do you think the Sorcerers are so secretive? It’s because you don’t have to be special to do what they do. You just have to have their privileges.”
Larkin picked up one of his dolls from the zoetrope. He peeled back the dress and licked the rosewood beneath. Persephone wondered how long he had pored over his wallhanging of hexes, to recall, without checking, the shapes he had seen there.
The Thief on the Winged Horse Page 19
