by Alex Pheby
Gam strolled down the middle of the street, unbowed and unrepentant, the loose soles of his boots slapping on the cobbles, head and shoulders back as if he owned the place, and even if the others didn’t know what he was playing at, they came behind him regardless. ‘Needed to visit Padge, anyway,’ Gam said. ‘And you’ve got a candlestick to fence, haven’t you, Prissy? Jewels.’
‘I’m not going in there.’
‘Well, hand it over then.’
She slipped her stash out of her bodice and tossed it over.
‘Your gold?’
Nathan gave it to him without a word.
‘No need to sulk. Did you have something better to do today? We go to Padge’s, we fence the gear, we buy some medicine, buy your girlfriend’s freedom, and back to the hideout to work out a new plan. If you want to give me the third degree then, feel free. What’s so terrible about that? You rather slink off home and watch your mum at work?’
The Merchant City, which for all its flaws had felt so different to the filth of the slums, crowded in on Nathan now, and its high solid walls loomed dark over him.
XXIX
Gam made for the back alley, but Prissy grabbed his sleeve. ‘There he is.’
In the front, where the roped-off plaza with the fountain was, the waiters delivered salvers of meat to the restaurant’s well-dressed patrons. Amongst them sat Padge at a table decorated with a purple silk tablecloth. He was with friends, all very prettily dressed. They were not like his usual crowd – faces like fighting dogs, noses flattened, ears swollen, eyes like slits in a side of bacon – these men were delicate, beautiful even. They sat around eating grapes with dainty iron forks, and dabbing the corners of their mouths, and when they laughed, they attracted the jealous attention of people sitting at nearby tables.
Gam stopped, unsure seemingly whether their presence would be tolerated front of house. ‘Those are his assassins. You don’t see them about much.’
Padge leaned forward and drained a bottle into his glass. When he pulled up the silk to put the empty bottle under the table, there were six or seven there already, and this latest joined its companions with a clatter that threatened to send them all rolling across the floor. Padge didn’t seem to notice and raised a toast. When the glass came down to the table, he wiped his mouth on his sleeve, took his hand-mirror from his jacket to check his lips, and then he spied them. Without faltering, he cried out, ‘Ah, Master Halliday, and the incomparable Prissy. Come. Come, join us. And who is this, bringing up the rear? Young Nathan Treeves, is it? Well, well! You find time aside from your exploits, I see, to call on old friends. A delightful surprise, given your commitments elsewhere.’
‘What commitments?’
‘What commitments?’ Padge said to his guests, who did not smile but fixed Nathan with stares. ‘Why, being on the tip of everyone’s tongue, of course. Occupying the centre of everyone’s tales. Being the only name spoken in underworld society. Nathan Treeves has appeared at this soirée or that. Nathan Treeves has made a splash here or there. Nathan, you light up proceedings wherever you go. You are quite the talk of the town amongst the cognoscenti, aren’t you? And lucky old me, to have you as a friend.’ He gave himself a congratulatory glance in his mirror and put it back in his pocket.
‘You aren’t my friend,’ Nathan said.
‘Your creditor, then. Perhaps that is better anyway… for me at least.’ Before Nathan could argue, Padge turned to Gam. ‘So, you have come when you were called, and there is business to our mutual advantage.’
‘Will we talk about it here?’
Padge looked puzzled. ‘Why not here? This is my milieu, is it not? Our work, my métier. Where else but here?’ Padge indicated the restaurant with a sweep of the arm that knocked over a new bottle, where it was immediately caught and righted by the man to his left.
‘Very good, Mr Padge. What is it that you need us for?’
‘How workmanlike of you to cut straight to business. Still, I don’t suppose you are as comfortable as we are in this place, being, as you are, demonstrably scum. Not you, Prissy dear. You are merely a slut.’ Padge smiled and took another deep drink. Nathan stepped forward, but Gam held his arm.
‘Save yourself, Nathan,’ Padge said. ‘There is no need to get excited over mere insults when you might need your energies to punish something more injurious.’
‘What does he mean?’
Gam gripped Nathan’s elbow as tightly as he could and Nathan flinched, the threads of rot from the bite objecting to the contact. ‘Very wise, Mr Padge, and we don’t mean to spoil your meal with tedious talk of practicalities, but if you need us to attend to something, then we’d be best be after it sooner rather than later, if you understand me.’
‘I understand you very well, Gam.’ Padge reached first into his right jacket pocket, and then into his left. Not finding what it was he was after, he tried his waistcoat, and then the pockets in his trousers. Still lacking whatever it was he sought, he returned to his right pocket, and there it was, where it had been all along. He took out an envelope sealed in red wax and handed it to Gam. ‘Take it. Don’t open it here.’
‘Thank you, Mr Padge.’ Gam took the envelope and, though he meant to hide the swap, passed him something in return. Nathan couldn’t see what it was.
‘Anything else I can do for you?’ Padge said.
‘We have some… items… things that might be of interest…’
‘Take them to the Dawlishes in the yard, they can accommodate you.’
‘Yes, Mr Padge.’
‘Goodbye then.’
‘Goodbye.’
Nathan turned to leave, and Gam and Prissy were close behind.
‘One more thing,’ Padge said, leaning back in his chair, loosening his belt, taking out his mirror, smiling into it. ‘Nathan, just to let you know that, perhaps, you might want to stay out playing with your friends tomorrow. It’s only that, since your new-found notoriety, it is becoming very much the thing to do – for men of a certain class at least, for men without reservations about where they put this or that object and who don’t worry as much as I certainly would as to the risks involved to their health of such a thing – it’s quite à la mode to spend some time imposing on your mother’s hospitality. Where you are a very difficult fellow to pin down, as it were, the same cannot be said of her. She makes herself much more freely available to guests. I hear that she is “at home” all day tomorrow. And two… three… all of the gentlemen of my employ, in fact, are due some leave from their work. Indeed, I have declared a holiday for them all, and will give them a single brass each, which I believe is the going rate. No, two! In case they wish to avail themselves of any of her more “specialist” services.’
Gam edged between them and put his hand on Nathan’s trembling shoulder. ‘You make a move towards him, and you’ll be ripped to pieces, Spark or no Spark.’
‘Goodbye, and Nathan, don’t forget: you still owe me a favour.’
XXX
As they walked round to the yard, Prissy came up to Nathan and drew him away. She took his hand in hers. When she looked up at him her eyes were full of sympathy and sisterly feeling. ‘You going home tomorrow then?’
Her mouth was a little open, her lips framing her chipped front teeth. The tip of her tongue played across the jagged line they made.
‘Why?’
Prissy frowned. ‘To stop them men having it off with your mum, of course.’
Nathan looked away. ‘I tried that once before, just when she started up on it. I was a lot littler then, but perhaps I had more spirit than I do now, I don’t know. It didn’t work anyway.’
‘What happened?’
‘I came in and caught one at it. I tried to drag him off, thinking he was killing her.’
‘He didn’t take any notice?’
‘No, he got off her. Left in fact. Said he couldn’t concentrate on his business with all that going on.’
‘So? That’s good, isn’t it?’
Nat
han sighed. ‘No. She went crackers. Started hitting me all over. When the next one knocked, she kicked me out the back and lashed the door shut.’
Prissy nodded. ‘Right. Same thing happened to me with my sis… almost. Nathan, I don’t want dirty blokes all over me.’
‘I don’t want it either.’
‘Right. Will you promise me you won’t let it happen? Gam says he won’t, but I see how he looks at Padge, and I’m not sure he’d keep his word when it comes to it. He’s scared of him. More scared than he is of what might happen to me.’
‘Prissy,’ Nathan said, ‘if you don’t want it, you don’t have to have it. I’ll see to that.’
She took the lapels of his jacket in her hands. She held them until the fabric bunched up in her hands and she stared up at him. For a second Nathan thought that he might lean over and kiss her, but just as he made up his mind to do it, she put her head against his chest. ‘You’re like a brother to me, aren’t you? I had one once – a brother – he looked a bit like you, only darker. He went to work for the Master, and we never heard from him again. You’ll look after me, won’t you?’
Nathan put his arm around her and pulled her close to him. ‘I’ll try.’
Prissy went to the Temple to see her sister and pay her indenture, Joes disappeared into the slums, and Nathan and Gam went to a nearby gin-house to open the letter. The proprietress pulled across a loose plank, and Gam dragged Nathan through the tightly packed and braying crowd to the only free table at the back.
‘What does it say?’
‘Hold on.’ Gam went back into the sweating scrum. His shortness was a definite advantage here, allowing him to squeeze through at waist height to the ragged, dogged drinkers. He returned with a bottle and two glasses, paid for with money from fencing the gear to Padge.
‘The medicine!’ Nathan got up, but Gam put his hand on his shoulder.
‘Don’t fret. You said your dad was feeling better, right? He’s lasted this long; he’ll make it a while longer. Anyway, remember what Padge said? Probably best to wait until the queue dies down.’ Gam lay the letter on the table and smoothed it flat. At the top there was a map and a picture of a townhouse. Off to the side was the Fountain. ‘I know where that is. It’s high up near the Pleasaunce, under the Glass Road. This must be the house alongside – the Spire. Jeweller owns it.’
And sure enough, beneath the map there was a picture of a locket – a simple teardrop, smudged in gold, and beneath that instructions Nathan couldn’t read.
‘He wants us to get that locket. Easy enough.’
Gam checked the other side of the paper, which was blank. ‘Right then, who’s doing what?’
‘I’ll take the safe,’ Nathan said.
Gam raised his eyebrows. ‘Right? Sure that’s wise? Last time was… unusual.’
‘You want to talk about last time?’
A short old man, his face extensively veined, his eyes yellow at the whites, barged into the table. He stared, both hands steadying him, and when his eyes uncrossed, he started to laugh – what were two young lads like this doing in his gin-house? Nathan turned him a stare, and the man’s laugh curdled in his throat. He backed off, palms up, smiling, and stumbled into the throng.
Gam nodded. ‘It’s all yours.’
‘And when it comes to handing the locket over, I’m doing it.’
‘Padge’ll never allow it.’
‘I’m not going to ask him for permission, Gam. Anyway, whose side are you on? I saw you pass him something. You were trying to keep it secret, but I saw you.’
At first Gam looked like he was going to cut up, but then he didn’t. He pursed his lips, gave a little smile and nodded. ‘You know he’s my boss. I never said he wasn’t. That’s how we get all this work. He asks for things, I get them. I gave him the scroll from the palace safe, if that satisfies your curiosity. Anyway, if you don’t like how I do things, then why don’t you try? Why don’t you take this one? Run the whole thing? Then you can do it how you like and perhaps you’ll get some idea how this all fits together?’ Gam leant back in his chair and peered at Nathan with his good eye.
Nathan turned the paper, flipped it over, flipped it back. Why not? What was stopping him? ‘We’ll need everyone. No going in through the ground floor again – too risky. We want to get in and out without being seen. If he’s a jeweller he’ll have a shop, and a safe in his shop, and guards for that safe. But if this is at home it’ll be the wife’s. She’ll keep it upstairs, so she can wear it while she combs out her hair and whatnot.’
‘I’m impressed. So, what then? Ladder up to the window?’
‘We’d never get into the grounds. Let’s go and recce in the morning.’
XXXI
The Spire was set into gardens, and around those were fences and gates. The groundsman kept the place tidy, so it was easy to map the layout, but it was so close to the foundations of the Glass Road that the sun was altered, the place awash in light affected by the movements of magic in the black jet. The place rippled with otherworldly shadows.
Nothing grew there; the only decoration was stone – stone trees, gravel where grass would be, and men and women, nude in granite, standing about. The shadows animated the lot of them, casting them into strange shapes and making them alive, seemingly, with unusual gestures and dispositions.
The house itself was high, the top floor fifty feet up, its distance from the ground only limited by the underside of the Glass Road, which hovered eerily above it.
Gam, Nathan, Prissy and Joes made like they were arguing over a scrap of leather while they took turns to peek, each shifting into a good spot in turn, pushing each other’s shoulders and mucking about.
‘That puts the mockers on your ladder plan,’ Gam said, ‘it’s too high, too far, and there’s no way we’d get in through that fence.’
‘I never said I was going to use a ladder.’
‘What then?’
Nathan turned his back, as if he’d had enough of squabbling, and went on a circuit of the building’s grounds. Prissy and Joes made to have a conversation, while Gam took a book from his pocket and looked at it earnestly, as if he was a student of architecture, or statuary.
The grounds formed a square, roughly one hundred paces to a side. There were no abutting properties, and nothing to obstruct access all round, but Nathan wasn’t paying attention to what was happening at ground level. He was looking up, at the Glass Road.
He completed his circuit and went over to Gam. They both looked at the book, examining an imaginary diagram in it, jabbing it, then turning the pages forward to the index, and then backward to whatever page they were supposed to be consulting.
‘You got it worked out, or what?’
‘Think so.’
‘Need any more time?’
‘No.’
Gam whistled, as if in exasperation, and Joes and Prissy recognised this as the signal to leave, but when they all turned, up the road was strolling a gentleman, neither old nor young, but definitely wealthy – his clothes were entirely white, except for a triangle of red in his breast pocket, and on his head was a hat of straw. He carried a cane, but he didn’t use it to put his weight on, instead he made it swing in and out, up in an arc to head height, twisted it, and then swooped it back as far as his arm would allow. ‘Hallo,’ he called.
The gang nodded, reached for their hats, but did not reply. While Nathan was not the leader, Gam deferred to him in regard to tactics on this job and communicated that fact with a hand in the small of his back that urged him to deal with this, and quickly. ‘Good morning,’ Nathan said.
Under stress, the mind can run quickly, and Nathan was weighing his options. He could Scratch, but that would cause him more pain than this might be worth. He could slash, or stab, but then this man looked pleasant, harmless. They could run, but flight implies guilt, and they had, as yet, done nothing wrong. If he spoke further, then the man would hear at once that Nathan wasn’t where he belonged.
‘Good morni
ng,’ replied the man, ‘Lovely day, isn’t it?’
Nathan nodded. ‘Very.’
The man stopped, propped the cane in front of him, and rested both hands on it. ‘On a day out? To the Zoological Gardens?’
It was as good an idea as any, and Nathan was about to reply that they were, when Prissy rushed forward.
‘That’s it! We’re off there. Got a bit lost, though. Any idea where we might have gone wrong?’
The man looked a little puzzled. He took off his hat, pulled a handkerchief from inside the bowl and blew his nose, loudly. ‘Certainly,’ he said, when he’d finished. ‘They’re just over there, into the Pleasaunce.’ He replaced the handkerchief in his hat, put the hat on his head, and then pointed with the cane at two towers no more than fifty yards to their right.
‘Much obliged to you,’ Prissy said, and she pulled Joes past where Nathan was standing, and he and Gam followed, nodding at the man.
When they were out of sight, Prissy jumped up and down, excited. ‘Nat! Can we go and see the animals? Go on! They’re right here; my sis came with one of her gentlemen. Please? There’s this place – what that bloke said, Zoo something – and it’s got horses with necks twenty feet long, and tiny little birds all green and blue, and ones that can swear, and huge cows with snouts as long as a man’s arm with a hand on the end that’ll take the hat off your head and eat an apple.’
Nathan turned to Gam.
‘I’m not lying! Joes, you’ve seen ’em, haven’t you?’
‘What?’
‘Alifonjers. With the snouts.’
‘Alifonjers? We’ve seen a picture of one. Never seen a living one.’
‘Well, there are them. I know it. My sis told me, so it must be true.’
‘This the same sister that wants to put you on the game?’ Gam said. ‘The one riddled with the clap?’
‘Get stuffed, Gam.’
‘Get stuffed is it now?’ Gam looked at Prissy and Nathan, and spat at his feet. ‘Methinks my authority in this gang is getting undermined somewhat. It’s Nathan’s job, so he decides.’
