Pandora(36)

She hesitates. ‘It was extremely peculiar, completely out of character for him. As soon as I put the key in the lock he seemed restless, agitated. And when I began to examine the vase he just …’ Thinking on it now Dora still cannot fathom the change in the bird. She shakes her head. ‘Well, he flew out of the basement as if a cat were after him. But when I returned to my room there he was, sound asleep.’

‘How strange.’

‘It was, rather.’

‘And where is the key now?’

‘In my desk.’

‘Are you sure it’s safe there?’

Dora shakes her head. ‘My uncle has not set foot in my room for as long as I can remember.’

‘Even so,’ Mr Lawrence says, running his thumb over the scab on his hand, Hermes’ sharp scissor-kiss. ‘I would be on your guard nonetheless.’





CHAPTER SIXTEEN





Hezekiah often wonders why it is his lot to be subjected to the rot and filth of London’s putrefied bowels, why the winds of luck insist on eluding him, always.

He was meant for more than this, more than squeezing his corpulent satin-clad belly down dark, dank alleys that smell of rat piss and the teeming unwashed. He was meant for more than sidestepping between questionable sludge-filled puddles – his poor shoes! – with his nose pinched tightly between finger and thumb. More, more, more, yet here he is, forced from his work (if one can call agonising over ancient pottery work) to degrade himself in the company of Matthew bloody Coombe.

What nerve, Hezekiah thinks, the lout’s barely legible note scrunched up tightly in his fist. To demand that he, Hezekiah Blake, come to him, a mere shore-lackey, a no-brain! As he negotiates some abandoned crates spilling mouldy gut-split pears – his sore leg making the movement all the more difficult – he chooses to ignore that the Coombe brothers have a right to their money, that he promised a small fortune (to them, at least) and he is yet to deliver it. He chooses not to think that Matthew’s fist is as big as his head and that the man could snap his neck in two like a stick with barely a blink of his milky blue eye. No, Hezekiah thinks, climbing the rotten wooden steps to the Coombes’ loft, such thoughts are beneath him. He is master here, and there are plenty other ways to skin a cat.

The loft – a room above the docks of Pickle Herring Stairs on the south side of the river – smells strongly of decay. Hezekiah’s nose wrinkles as he steps over the threshold and his host leaves the door open, for which Hezekiah cannot decide whether to be grateful. The stench from below or the stench from within; neither makes much difference. Foul air, foulness, all of it. He breathes through his mouth, longs desperately for his bed and one of Lottie’s soothing teas.

‘You’d best be quick,’ Hezekiah says tersely, looking around the room with distaste. He notes the small soot-covered stove in the corner, the ugly battered bureau next to it, and wrinkles his nose. ‘I’ve had to leave the housekeeper in charge of the shop. My niece, she hasn’t come home yet.’

He should not have let Dora go, Hezekiah thinks. He does not like her going where he cannot keep an eye on her. This new sense of freedom of hers worries him. But stopping her will arouse her suspicions even more. So he will allow it. For now.

Matthew Coombe lowers himself into one of the three small wooden chairs standing around a crude table made from an upturned crate. He cradles a tin mug in his hand. Hezekiah notes that Matthew’s wrist is thickly bound with a bandage. Behind him, a dirty sheet separates one part of the room.

‘I don’t think you got grounds for such talk,’ the younger man says now, sitting back into the chair so it lifts at the front. ‘It’s already been a week.’

Hezekiah wishes Matthew would offer him a seat. His leg is agony.

‘There has been a delay. A … complication.’

‘I thought perhaps there might be.’

Matthew’s voice is hard. Despite his best intentions Hezekiah feels his cheeks burn and to hide his face he turns away, limps over to the small uneven window. Across the water the great Tower of London peeks eerily through the mist.

‘The vase … It won’t open.’

‘It won’t open?’

‘That’s what I said, isn’t it?’

Matthew clears his throat. Hezekiah turns to him again once he is sure his cheeks have cooled, notes Matthew’s own cheeks are pale, clammy looking.

A low, breathy noise comes from behind the sheet.

Matthew examines the mug, turns it slowly in his hands. ‘I think it would interest you to know,’ he says in a measured tone, ‘I’ve kept a record of every transaction I’ve carried out on your behalf over the years.’ He inclines his head toward the bureau behind him. ‘It would be nothing for me to report you to the appropriate authorities.’

Hezekiah’s throat goes dry. He did not think Matthew Coombe bright enough to display such foresight. He did not think Matthew Coombe to have much thought in him at all. Hezekiah curls his fingers into his sweating palms.

‘Are you threatening me?’

‘I am.’

Matthew puts the mug down. Hezekiah stares. When the younger man had asked – no, told – him to come here he had not expected to be presented with threats. Rather, he had expected pitiable grovelling which could easily be rebuffed, and for a moment Hezekiah is struck quite speechless.