Pandora(110)

Very slowly Hezekiah lifts his hand from his pocket. In it he holds a folded piece of paper, the edge ripped at the bottom. It is creased, yellow with age, but Dora knows what it is.

‘The note,’ she murmurs.

Hezekiah looks down at it, runs a dirty thumb across its yellowed side. ‘“For the care of Sir William Hamilton on behalf of our daughter, Pandora Blake,”’ he reads. He unfolds the note, looks up once more. ‘Tell me, Dora. What is the gold-and-black key?’

The emphasis on the last four words takes her off guard. She stares at him in confusion.

‘The gold-and-black key?’

‘You heard me.’

Dora shakes her head. ‘I don’t know. The safe is black and gold …’

‘It isn’t that. I’ve already tried.’

She says nothing. For a long moment Hezekiah stares at her.

‘This note was meant for you. Helen says to use the gold-and-black key. She must have thought that meant something to you.’

Her heart drums heavily in her chest, she does not understand what he wants from her. She looks at Lottie tied so cruelly behind her, the looming pithos, the rubble on the floor, and in confusion Dora shakes her head.

‘But it means nothing to me,’ she whispers.

Again, Hezekiah stares. Then he raises his arm, holds the note out in front of him like a prayer.

‘Well, then. If I can’t have their fortune, neither can you. I still have the pithos, after all. Think how much money I’ll make from that alone.’

Hezekiah is smiling, a smug, knowing smile that makes her stomach turn, and it takes Dora a moment to understand what he means to do. But then he is moving the candle, is touching a corner of the paper to the flame …

‘No!’

The note catches. Hezekiah smiles widely as he watches the paper burn and begins, manically, to laugh. But then, after a moment, his laughter pitches higher, higher, and to Dora’s horror she realises that Hezekiah is not laughing any more.

He is screaming.

The flames travel up his arm with unnatural speed. The fire catches to his chest, snakes down his legs. In desperation Hezekiah pulls at his shirt but his hands are engulfed in fire and he cannot find purchase. He seems to realise the futility of it, tries to run, but his wounded leg prevents him and when he collapses hard onto his knees Dora is unable to look away.

Paralysed, she watches. Hezekiah’s skin has blistered, and the smell of burning flesh is so strong Dora starts to gag. The smoke begins to rise from him in plumes and as the flames lick his face Hezekiah holds a scorched and trembling hand out to her. For one spun-out second their eyes meet, but then the flames overwhelm him completely and Hezekiah screams wildly, over and over, a flailing bank of fire.

Behind her Dora hears Lottie’s muffled cries. Coming to herself Dora turns from the horrific sight of him and rushes to the housekeeper, pulls down the gag.

‘Missum!’

‘Shush, Lottie, I know. We need to get away.’

‘No,’ she gasps as Dora looses the ties at her feet. ‘Your young man. He’s in the safe!’

Dora stares. Behind her, Hezekiah has stopped screaming. There is only the sharp spit and crack of flame, the scent of burnt flesh and smoke.

‘What do you mean?’

‘There’s no time to explain!’ Lottie cries. ‘Look.’

And Dora looks. The wooden banister has caught on fire.

‘Theé mou …’ Fingers shaking, Dora unties the twine at Lottie’s wrists. ‘The key, Lottie! Where is the key?’

‘Still in the lock!’

Heart in her mouth Dora rushes to the Bramah safe, twists the key, and Edward falls out, collapsing into her arms.

‘Edward, I’m sorry! I didn’t know, I—’

Dora tries to take his weight but he is too heavy, she cannot manage it alone.

‘Lottie!’ Dora shouts over the roar of flames, but Lottie is already on Edward’s other side.

‘I have him,’ she huffs, and between them Edward stirs.

‘Dora …’

‘Edward, wake up,’ Dora urges as she and Lottie manoeuvre him past the pithos, and she is relieved to see him reach out, use the pithos itself to pull himself up.

At the basement stairs the flames threaten to set them alight but somehow – somehow – they manage to break free of them and up the steps they go, stumble out through the shop, and together they fall into Ludgate Street, gasping into the cool morning air.





CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT





They sit against the wall of a cobbler’s and watch as six men carry Hezekiah’s body out of the shop. The men buckle under the charred heft of him, and Dora turns her face into the cushion of Edward’s shoulder.

He brings her knuckles to his, kissing them. With his other hand Edward touches the tender wound on the back of his head. When he lowers his hand again his fingers are crusted with blood.

‘Let me see that,’ Lottie murmurs beside him, and he lets her push his head forward to prod at his skull. Her touch is neither rough nor gentle – somewhere in between – but she does not hurt, and with a loud tsk she releases him.

‘The blood makes it seem worse than it is,’ she says. ‘It’s a small cut, will heal well enough. Might have a nasty bump for a few days.’