“I hear you carry a calling card,” he said. “Mind if I see it?”
Scarlett held up the token. “Here. I suppose you got your authority too?”
The man smiled. “Some.” He held up his left hand, showing the lopped stump of the smallest finger. “My name is Ives. How can I help you?”
“OK.” Scarlett put the token away. “I need to contact the Brothers in Stow on an urgent business matter. Contact them today. You got means of doing that?”
“We’ve got pigeons,” the man said. “It can be arranged, Miss Oakley. You are Miss Jane Oakley, I take it?” he added. “Do I have the honor and privilege of addressing the aforementioned? Or is it Jenny Blackwood?” The smile lingered; he regarded her with pale gray eyes. “There’s a fair few names out there for you.”
“Yeah,” Scarlett said carelessly. “As it happens, I’m going by Alice Cardew today.”
“Oh, indeed? It’s easy to lose track. So many names, so many exploits. Safes cracked, vaults burgled, banks broken into…You’re practically a celebrity among the Lechlade outfit, Miss Cardew. The young freelancer who does everything we do, only faster, better, with a bit of real panache.” The eyes narrowed; the smile faded. “Though the word is lately you’ve been a naughty girl. Stepped out of line. Killed people you shouldn’t have. You’re trying to pay off a blood debt now. That’s what I heard. Is it so?”
Scarlett held his gaze. She took a sip of beer. “I need a bird,” she said. “That’s all.”
“No, what you need,” Ives said mildly, “is to answer my questions. Here’s another. You robbed the Cheltenham bank yesterday. That news came through to us by messenger pigeon too. All well and good. You were due in Stow town this afternoon to hand it over to our friends there, as you promised. Nice and easy. Yet you show up here in Lechlade instead. Why?”
“I ran into a spot of trouble. I got diverted.”
“What kind of trouble?”
She held up her bandaged hand. “Circumstances got in the way.”
“I see. But you’ve got the money with you, of course?”
“No.”
The young man became still. “No? What does that mean?”
“It means I don’t have it. I lost it when I jumped in a river.”
Ives ran a pale, thin hand back through his hair, up and over his scalp, all the way down to the base of his neck. He whistled. “I don’t care what name you go by, that doesn’t sound so good.”
It didn’t sound so good to Scarlett either, but she wasn’t going to let him see that. She shrugged, kept her face blankly unconcerned. “I’m here, aren’t I? I’ve come to square it with them. That’s why I need to send a message. I’ll find a way of getting the money. It’s no problem.”
Ives’s silence was eloquence enough. He sat watching her for a moment. “Thing is,” he said finally, “Soames and Teach, they’re impatient men…. They’ve got standards. The last freelancer who reneged on a deal, they fed him to their owls.”
“Which is why I’m not crossing them.”
“And the one before that, buried alive under the market cross at Stow.”
“Precisely. So—”
“If memory serves, the one before that was found in pieces in—”
“Look, have you got a bloody messenger bird or haven’t you?” Scarlett’s composure had cracked just a little. Glowering, putting a penny in her cuss-box, she watched Ives rise and, smiling blandly, gesture her to follow him. They passed through the inn and out to a shady side alley beyond. Here a dozen small mesh crates had been stacked against the wall. Feathered shapes hopped and fluttered in the shadows of their prison, and there was a soft and constant cooing. A young servant girl in gray overalls was scrubbing at an empty crate. At the sight of Ives, she dropped her brush and stood to smart attention.
“This lady wishes to send a message,” Ives said. “Arrange it, will you?” He turned to Scarlett. “I’ll leave you to it, Miss Cardew. We’ll see what answer comes back. If I were you, though, I’d seek inventive ways to remedy this situation. In the meantime, don’t leave town.”
The young man departed in a swirl of violets and cinnamon. Scarlett went to a writing desk beside the crates, took a pen and sheet of airmail paper, and wrote out a note of explanation to certain persons at Stow. She folded the letter, sealed it, then rolled it up and placed it in a tiny plastic cylinder, which she carefully addressed. In the meantime, the servant girl had put on a leather glove and extricated an enormous and ill-favored pigeon from its crate. It was a Cornish Brawler, with dirty white plumage, hot red eyes, and metal tooth spurs fixed to its yellow beak. It wore an iron helmet and spiked greaves on its lower legs for protection in its flight. A chain fixed it to the glove. The bird hissed at them and lashed out with its claws. The girl fed it live mealworms from a plastic box, and it subsided.
Scarlett handed her the cylinder; the girl clipped it to a leg clasp.
“This is Raqi,” the girl said. “He’s vicious, mean-tempered, and the victor of a dozen aerial battles. He always gets through. Do you wish to hang a holy charm on his leg to guarantee safe passage?”
“No.”
“It has been blessed by the town Mentors and immersed in the well at the Faith House. And it is only a negligible extra charge.”
“No.”
The girl nodded. “The men usually do it. They are silly fools. As if it makes a difference to Raqi. All right, darling, off you go.”
She lifted her gloved hand and loosed the chain; with a crack of pinions, the bird took off. Scarlett felt the force of its wingbeats as it passed directly over her head. Ascending swiftly between the houses, it banked to the left and disappeared among the rooftops.
“How long is the flight to Stow?” Scarlett asked.
“An hour. He will be there at nightfall.”
Scarlett nodded. “Good. A reply will come. I will be back for it tomorrow.” She paused. “What is your name?”
The girl seemed surprised to be asked the question. “Greta.”
“This is for you, Greta.” Scarlett unscrewed a bung at the corner of her cuss-box, tipped out a handful of coins, and gave them to the girl. “Thank you for your work.” Leaving the dumbfounded girl staring after her, she hoisted her rucksack into position and walked back onto the streets of Lechlade.
* * *
—
The evening crowds were out, taking their promenades up and down the high street in their suits and straw boaters, their blouses and pretty hats. On the marble steps of the Faith House, beaming Mentors watched the people strolling by. Posters on the walls showed smiling couples with their perfect babies. Not a deformity, not a blemish to be seen. The posters acted both as encouragement for aspiring parents and as a reminder of the standard that had to be maintained. There were no posters of the fate that awaited babies who fell short. It was everything Scarlett loathed about the towns. She walked amidst it all wearing a bland and easy face, and with her stomach folded tight with the old, dull pain.
Before going to find Albert, she visited a gunsmith and, with some of her last pound notes, bought a fresh supply of cartridges for her revolver. At a hardware store, she bought a sharp new knife. A few yards farther on, she happened to pass the Lechlade bank. It was clearly a notable highlight of the town, and Scarlett, as a tourist, paused to inspect it. It seemed a solid construction, with stout iron doors, a leathery gunman on guard by day, and iron grilles to swing over the ground-floor windows by night. She strolled down a side alley, squinting up at its higher windows and noting the decorative brickwork protruding here and there. Returning to the main doors, she nipped into the vestibule, browsing through pamphlets and looking idly around. The cashiers worked behind thick glass screens, with strong doors barring entry to the interior of the bank. You could see a staircase descending beyond the screens, and clerks passing up and down it with metal bo
xes, presumably to a safe in the basement. It was a different category of institution from Mr. Appleby’s place in Cheltenham, and annoyingly secure. Scarlett tucked the pamphlets back in their racks, nodded at the guy with the mustache standing at the entrance, and, deep in thought, continued on.
The trucks and rickshaws had gone when she reached the end of the high street. The turning circle was deserted, the river gate closed. Dusk was falling. The punishment cage dangled silently between its metal posts, its lone occupant as motionless as before. Just another poor wretch who had fallen foul of some cruel and arbitrary Faith House law. Scarlett arrived at the bench outside the butcher’s—
And found it empty. Albert was nowhere to be seen.
Why had she even expected him to keep a simple rendezvous? He was such an idiot! Probably he’d got lost, or had fallen into the river, or had found some shop with pretty lights and was staring at them, mesmerized. Or he’d simply left her and gone away…. Scarlett was dimly aware of a pang inside her. Not disappointment, obviously! Just exasperation.
Well, who cared? It would be a whole lot simpler if he just vanished from her life. Really, this was an opportunity. The best thing was to abandon him and go. Yep, Scarlett was about to do precisely this. She was off to get a bath, food, and some much-needed shut-eye. She wouldn’t hang around. Before going, though, she took one last look along the sidewalks….
And saw Albert Browne sitting on another bench, farther down the street.
He was hunched over, with his hands in the pockets of his trousers, his black hair drooping jaggedly over his brow. His face was oddly shadowed, so for a moment he looked gaunter and harsher than Scarlett remembered, almost like someone else. Then he raised his head, and the light fell on him, and he was his familiar cheerful self.
“Hello, Scarlett! How’s your hand?”
“Sore, but sewn up. Why are you on this bench? We said that one over there.”
“I know. I didn’t want to be by the butcher’s. I didn’t like all that meat.” His voice was tired, his movements slow. “You’ve been rather a time,” he went on. “I was beside myself just now.”
“I got here by dusk, as I said I would. What have you been doing?”
“Oh, just wandering about. I went shopping and bought a cake and sweets, and I saw a pretty park.” He clapped his hands together. “But what a joy it is to see you again, Scarlett! Now we should go to the Heart of England inn. I hear it’s the best in Lechlade, though we need to watch for urchins who climb through the ceiling to rob us in the night.”
Scarlett stared at him. Not for the first time with Albert, she felt events were running away from her. “Hold on. No. What’s this about inns? It’s answers I want from you, not hotel advice.”
“Yes, but surely you’d love a bath first, and somewhere to eat, sleep, and wash your clothes.” He smiled at her. “And, after all, where are we going to talk? In the road?”
Scarlett rubbed uncertainly at the back of her neck. It was true there wasn’t much to be said for hanging out in the dark. Besides, she could hear a hubbub starting at the far end of town. Screams and shouting in the high street; running feet and piercing militia whistles…some kind of trouble. She didn’t want to get involved with anything like that. She hesitated, conscious of Albert gazing at her in that way he had. Sappy, doe-eyed, but oddly precise and intense. She groaned inwardly. Well, he was right about one thing. She did need to get a room. There remained the question of payment, but something would occur to her.
“OK,” she said gruffly. “Where’s this Heart of England?”
Now he was beaming. “Thank you, Scarlett. That’s just what I thought you’d say.”
* * *
—
Heart of England proved to be a rambling, white-washed inn with a roof of thatch, situated on a quiet side street not far from Lechlade’s park. It was a more salubrious outfit than the Toad. To one side was a garden of neat grass, fringed with apple trees and borders of geraniums. As the night fell and the generators powered up, an electric light flickered on above its sign. The picture showed a playing card with a single blood-red heart. Scarlett could see it shining through her window.
It was a simple room, but it suited her requirements. There was a bed, a cabinet, plaster walls, wood paneling across the ceiling, dark green wallpaper of uncounted age. On the wall hung old-style prints in golden frames: the Seven Wonders of Wessex—the Skeleton Road, the Buried City, and the rest. She had a key to the communal shower room. If needed, a hasty exit could be made via the porch roof directly below her window. It was as well to be prepared.
The landlord had accepted a small deposit for two rooms and hadn’t asked for evidence that they could pay the rest. This was lucky, as Scarlett was now out of money. He had then shown them to their chambers on the upper floor. Albert, feathery with exhaustion, as feeble now as when she’d found him on the bus, had scarcely managed to climb the stairs. He’d agreed to meet her in the bar two hours later and had tottered away, leaving Scarlett on her own.
She showered, changed what clothes she could, took the others to be laundered by the inn. Then, stiff and weary, she lowered herself onto the prayer mat and tried to assimilate the day. It was tough going. Two or three men killed, the money lost, pleading with the Brothers for more time. Not her best work. And all because of Albert. He was messing up her meditations too, because whenever she tried to focus on solutions, she found herself thinking of the danger and mystery that hung about him. Thinking also of his calm, clear face.
Scowling, she gave it up. She could hear laughter echoing up through the floorboards from the public rooms, together with the smells of tobacco, beer, and food. It was distracting, particularly the food. Scarlett left the mat and turned to practical matters. She emptied out the contents of her rucksack on the bed, assessing her losses, hanging damper items out to dry. The things she’d stolen from the wrecked bus—the tins, the torch, and books—were in a waterproof pouch and had survived unharmed. Good. She could sell these tomorrow.
Then there was the little padlocked briefcase, still dangling from the back of the rucksack. Perhaps that would contain money, or something to be sold.
Taking a jimmy from her bag, Scarlett snapped the lock and forced the case open. She had been expecting papers, pens, documents of business…And the contents did relate to someone’s line of work. She sat on the bed, gazing at the collection in surprise. There was a neatly coiled set of chains, a pair of handcuffs, coils of restraining wire. There was a plastic vial of sleeping pills. There were two packets of cartridges for a handgun. There was also a battered copy of Tompkins’s Complete Bus Timetable, covering Wessex, Mercia, and Anglia. Most curiously, there was a slim, curved iron band. It was hinged halfway along and had a set of locks and clips at each end, so that it could be formed into a head-sized oval ring. Scarlett stared at the band in puzzlement. It reminded her of a leg manacle—its presence, alongside the chains and handcuffs, suggested a coercive function. But it was very light. She could not see what it could possibly do.
The final item in the case was a folded piece of paper, which Scarlett looked at last. She took it out, flipped it open—
And froze.
Printed on the paper was a black-and-white photograph.
A boy with a mess of black hair.
It was a close-up photo, a mug shot, a head-and-shoulders job, like the ones of outlaws pasted outside the militia stations all over Wessex and Mercia. And not some hairy wild man, not some chicken-necked sheep stealer or sagging-crotched road thief. A boy. The boy. The same spiked hair stack, same all-too-slappable face; the same big, dreamy eyes gazing out at her.
There were a few words typed below the photograph too.
WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE
ALBERT BROWNE
By the order of the High Council, in accordance with the gravity of his crimes and the nature of past incid
ents, a REWARD is offered to all Faith House operatives for the CAPTURE or EXECUTION of the fugitive, ALBERT BROWNE.
(This reward being payable on receipt of PROOF, and according to the following conditions: Alive: £20,000; Dead: £10,000.)
Scarlett sat on the bed, in the light of a solitary bulb, tilting the paper slowly in her hand. She read the words again, carefully, several times. She looked at the pills and the metal band. She thought of where she’d found the case, in the bloody wreckage of the bus. And she went on tilting the paper, so the light played on its surface. Sometimes the face was in shadow and sometimes it wasn’t. It looked no different from the face she’d had mooning around her the last two days. Except Albert wasn’t smiling in the picture. The black eyes were staring at the camera and he wasn’t smiling at all.
Dusk deepened and night settled over Lechlade. Church bells and calls to prayer rang out from the spires and minarets of the Faith House. Warm lights shone in the windows of the Heart of England, where the taproom had filled with its evening clientele. A diminutive serving boy bustled among the crowd with trays of beer and olives. The smell of frying fish issued from the kitchen.
Scarlett, entering shortly before eight, took a table in the corner. Albert was not yet there.
With practiced eyes, she scanned the room for militiamen or other dangers, but all seemed well. Just traders and fishermen up from the jetties, drinking beer at tables or standing in groups beside the bar. Two young women played dominoes; a third threw darts at a pitted board. At a table close to Scarlett, an old man and a child shared a meal. They were a curious couple. The man was very dark, with a tumult of gray hair. The little girl had fair skin, a round stomach, and a truculent expression. She had no plate of her own. On finishing each mouthful, she stared intently at the man, who sawed at his steak, elbows out, wearing an expression of supreme disinterest. Eventually the child would open her mouth and point. At this, the man flipped a chip or chunk of meat over the table with his fork. The child snatched it up, chewed it in a flash, and so the process began again. Scarlett watched them in fascination until a movement by the door distracted her. Albert was in the room.
The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne Page 11
