Storm and Silence(182)

And still, the thought of him being in love with that Hamilton wench…!

I shook my head, trying to ignore the heat that was rising in my cheeks.

Still I had gotten no answer.

‘Well, Sir?’ I repeated my question. ‘Are you interested in her?’

This time, I hadn’t sounded angry. For some reason, my voice had been low, and softer than I had ever heard it.

Slowly, he began to turn towards me. His sea-coloured eyes met mine, and they seemed darker than usual, the colour of storm.

‘Not in her, no.’

What? What was that supposed to mean?

Wetting my lips, I opened my mouth. It suddenly felt very dry. ‘Mr Ambrose… Sir…’

‘Sahib?’

Karim’s face appeared only inches away from us. Let me tell you, it’s rather disturbing to be staring into Mr Ambrose’s eyes and then suddenly have a bushy black beard shoved into your face.

‘It’s rude to interrupt!’ I snapped. ‘Can’t you see we’re having a conversation?’

Karim didn’t seem perturbed. ‘Yes, I can. I just thought you would like to know…’

The Mohammedan pointed straight ahead. Only then did I realize something which I hadn’t noticed before because I had been so intent on Mr Ambrose: the coach had stopped moving.

‘We’ve arrived,’ Karim said. As he swung down from the chaise, I could see he had his hand at his belt, around the hilt of his sabre. ‘Shall we go?’





I Mash and Bend Myself


‘This is it?’ I stared incredulously at the building down the road which Karim had pointed out. ‘This is where the wealthiest man of the British Empire keeps a document that is so important he has killed people for it?’

‘Second-wealthiest,’ Mr Ambrose commented coolly. ‘I am the wealthiest man of the British Empire, not that reprehensible individual who calls himself a lord.’

‘Oh, who cares?’

‘I do.’

Rolling my eyes, I turned to Karim, ignoring my employer. ‘This is it?’

With both hands, I gestured towards the house. It was a two-story brick building, slightly slanted, with dark stains on the front wall. The noise of cheap piano music came from inside, and over the door hung a sign which designated the establishment to be The Plough and Anchor.

Karim simply shrugged. Lord, I just had it up to here with men who couldn’t open their mouths to give me a straight answer!

Looking around again, I got a fuller impression of my surroundings. The place might not look like what I expected Lord Dalgliesh’s fancy headquarters to look like, but it certainly seemed evil enough to be the lair of a lord of the criminal underworld. The houses around us were dilapidated. Black smoke hung over the area, although none of it actually came from the houses' chimneys, which were cold empty. Washing lines criss-crossed between the roofs, or at least I assumed they were washing lines. The things that hung from them didn’t look much like clothes to me, but I didn’t think anybody would bother hanging old rags up to dry.

In a doorway not too far down the street sat a thin figure, wrapped in just such rags. It didn’t move. I shivered.

‘Where are we?’

My voice wasn’t nearly as forceful as before.

Mr Ambrose looked around, his eyes coolly assessing the neighbourhood. Nobody’s eyes were better for cool assessment than his.

‘Norfolk Street,’ he said finally, pointing to a dirty street sign I couldn’t for the life of me decipher.

‘Where’s that, Sir? I’ve never heard of such a street before.’

‘It’s only natural that you wouldn’t have. It’s near the docks - in the East End.’

The East End.

Every child in London knew that name. The worst fear of every wealthy citizen of London was to get lost and end up right here: in the stinking, rotting liver of London, where all the refuse its heart didn’t want to deal with was dumped until further notice. It was a labyrinth of small streets and dirty houses where poor people crowded together because they had no money to go anywhere else. They looked for work at the docks or at one of the numerous factories. The smoke, unending hard labour and poisonous food slowly killed them off, one by one.

And when they happened to stumble across some unlucky member of the upper classes in their home territory, they weren’t shy about expressing their displeasure at these circumstances. Sometimes with the help of knives and cudgels.[46]

Shuddering, I took in my bleak surroundings once more, then looked back the way we had come. Maybe…

‘Do you wish to return to Empire House?’ Mr Ambrose asked curtly. ‘Karim can drive you back, Mr Linton.’

I hesitated. A scream sounded in the distance. It wasn’t the kind of harmless little scream that came from a sleepwalker just having put his foot in a puddle of water, either. Wind howled through the street, driving the fog past us. It seemed thicker here, somehow, than in the rest of the city. Darker. As if a thousand sinister things were hiding in its depths.