freakish … like the poor wretches exhibited in travelling shows. The thought that speared its way into Sawney’s brain was that they did not look like men. They looked like monsters.
As Sawney stepped back he came up against the side of the next pallet. Instinctively, Sawney flinched but he was too slow. The hand that reached out from beneath the blanket was too quick for him. Strong fingers clamped themselves around his wrist and began to squeeze. Caught in an immovable grip, Sawney began to struggle. As the scream dropped away, the whispers rose again out of the darkness.
“
“Rufus.”
Sawney came out of the dream, fists clenched, forehead beaded with sweat, to find Maggett looming over him, his simian brow furrowed with concern. For one awful moment Sawney thought he was still in the cellar. He shrank away from his lieutenant’s touch.
Maggett reached out a meaty hand. “Rufus? It’s me, Maggsie.”
At the mention of the name, Sawney blinked. He looked around. No dark cellar, no pallets, no blood. Although it hadn’t been the darkness or the blood that had disturbed Sawney so much as the faces. In each case, the face he had looked down upon had been his own. It had been like looking in a mirror.
“Maggsie?” Sawney said, trying to keep the relief out of his voice. He wiped a hand across his face, took it away and saw the bright sheen of moisture on his palm. He closed the hand quickly and sat up. “What the bleedin’ ’ell is it?”
The big man stepped away. His lieutenant’s eyes, Sawney saw, were bright with excitement.
“Jesus, Maggsie, what?”
“It’s Sal,” Maggett said. “She’s got one.”
The girl lay bound on the bed. Her clothing was in disarray. Her skirt and petticoat, which were riding high on her thighs, were torn and stained, as were her once-white stockings. Her bodice had been pulled apart, leaving her breasts exposed. There were bruises on her face and a smear of blood on her chin, and a look of abject fear in her eyes as she stared mutely at the four men standing at the foot of the bed and the woman seated next to her, who was gently stroking her arm and smiling.
“There, there, darlin’, quiet now. Don’t you fret none; Sal’s here.”
The girl cringed at the touch. Tears coated her cheeks.
“Daft girl,” Sal murmured soothingly, tracing a tearstain with the tip of her finger. “None of this would’ve happened if you ’adn’t kicked up such a fuss. I don’t know, I really don’t. Shame on you, Molly. That’s all I can say.”
Maggett eyed the girl’s breasts. “What do you reckon, Rufus? Think she’ll do?”
“Oh, she’ll do, all right.” Lemuel Ragg’s thin features split into a weasel grin. “In fact, she’ll do better than all right. Ain’t that so, Sammy?”
Samuel Ragg sniggered. “You ain’t wrong there, Lemmy. Sweet as sugar, she was. You did real good, Sal. Didn’t she, Rufus?”
Sawney said nothing. He stared down at the girl, remembering the colonel’s stipulations. The first, Sawney recalled, had applied to the dead women. The colonel had wanted their teeth left intact. Hopefully the ruling didn’t apply to this one’s virginity, he thought, although given the girl’s vocation, it was doubtless too late for that. He wondered idly if there would ever come a time when the Raggs would be capable of keeping their cocks in their breeches for longer than it took to drain a mug of grog. As far as the colonel’s other requirements were concerned, however, the woman on the bed fit precisely: she was young and she was alive.
“Cover her bleedin’ tits,” Sawney said.
Sal tugged together the two halves of the girl’s bodice and patted her on the arm. “There you go, darlin’.” Sal jerked her head in the direction of the brothers. “Don’t want to give them two any more fancy ideas, do we?”
The girl’s eyes widened with panic at the possibility. A low moan broke from her lips. It reminded Sawney of the sounds he’d heard in his dream. He turned away from the girl’s despairing gaze.
“She’ll do,” he said.
It was late afternoon. As he turned on to Water Lane and the path that would lead him to the Blackbird Inn, Hawkwood’s thoughts were not of the warm, welcoming hearth only a few narrow streets away, but the words of Apothecary Robert Locke.
The chill Hawkwood felt had nothing to do with the cold wind seeping down the alleyway behind him.
Both Locke and Eden Carslow had referred to Hyde’s daughter, though neither had been expansive on the subject. Hawkwood had therefore assumed she must have died years earlier, in childhood. He’d been wrong on both counts.
She’d fallen victim to a fever, Locke had informed him, and had passed away only three months ago, at the age of eighteen. Hawkwood recalled his conversation with Eden Carslow. The surgeon had spoken of Hyde’s involvement with the mother as a brief liaison, intimating that Hyde had not learned of the child’s existence until after her death. Obviously, that could not have been the case. Which prompted the question: when and by what means had the colonel been informed of his daughter’s existence and death?
“Find out,” Hawkwood had told the apothecary.
Whether the information would prove significant remained to be seen, but, given the revelations concerning the colonel’s history, Hawkwood knew it was imperative that every avenue be explored.
Hawkwood had returned to Bow Street and directed Ezra Twigg to find out where Hyde’s daughter was buried. Once the clerk had located the grave, it would be opened. But what then? What if the exhumation did reveal another missing body? The colonel didn’t seriously believe he could raise the dead, did he? The question had been eating away at Hawkwood like a worm in an apple since leaving the hospital. It was beyond possibility, surely? Nothing more than his imagination getting the better of him, brought on by wild speculation following his conversation with an equally imaginative Robert Locke. That’s all it was. It had to be.
He had begun to wonder if the itch between his shoulder blades might be his imagination too. He’d had it since leaving the Public Office; not continuously, but every now and then. It wasn’t anything he’d have been able to explain and it wasn’t as if the sensation was anything new. As an agent operating behind enemy lines, and as a Runner walking a thin line between light and shadow in and around London’s reeking slums, it was a condition he’d come to accept, a reminder to be always on his guard.
Suddenly, he heard a scraping sound; metal against stone. He unbuttoned his coat.
“Captain Hawkwood.”
Hawkwood turned.
The dark, solitary figure was standing behind him, several paces away, but remained motionless in the shelter of the wall.
It was difficult to make out features. Hawkwood could see that the person was tall and lean, and there was a nonchalance in his stance that suggested an easy confidence.
“It’s a cold end to the day, Captain.”
“I’ve known colder,” Hawkwood said, instinctively placing the wall of the alleyway at his back.
“Indeed. The Spanish air can be deceptively chilly, especially in the mountains.”
Hawkwood threw a quick glance to both right and left. There was no one else in sight. It was as if he and the speaker in the shadows had the alley to themselves. “Do I know you, cully?”
“You know
The speaker stepped away from the wall. His footsteps were light and almost silent. The small patch of fading daylight into which he stepped revealed his face. The dark hair was drawn back from the forehead, accentuating the sharply angled cheekbones and jawline, while the pale skin served to make the dark eyes even darker.
And Hawkwood knew then, even before the words were spoken.
“My name is Hyde. Colonel Titus Hyde.”
Instinctively, Hawkwood searched the colonel’s hands for a weapon. There was nothing overt; no pistol, no knife or cudgel, nothing that posed a serious threat, though he saw immediately what had made the scraping sound he’d heard. He exhaled slowly. The colonel was leaning on a brass-tipped walking cane.
“Come to save me the bother, have you, Colonel?”
