Pandora(89)

Everything is coated with a repellent gloom. Loose cobbles skip where he upends them with his toe, sending flicks of mud up his trousers. His heel sinks deeply into wet earth. He pulls it free with a sickening sucking noise and still, even now, when there are other more pressing matters with which to concern himself, he worries about the stain.

He tries to ignore the beggars who watch from peeling doorways, pulls his coat tighter together, reels when he sees what he thinks is a body lying at the foot of a three-storey facade. Ironic, really, considering where he has just been.

What he has just done.

Hezekiah keeps his head down. He will not think on that. No, he will think of other things, what waits for him back in the bowels of the shop.

The long-sought note sits nestled in his waistcoat pocket – close to his heart – crumpled and ripped and stained with bird shit, but he has it. He pats the pocket, thinks gleefully on what the note has revealed. The fortune under his nose, all this time! And the key to the Bramah safe – the key he keeps hidden within the globe in the dining room – will unlock it! How has he not noticed? How did he not realise? It was Helen’s idea, it must have been, conniving wench that she was. She played him like a fool from the very start. But he has won. Finally, after twelve years of waiting, he has won!

He will burn the note when he is through. And Dora, Hezekiah thinks with vindictive pleasure as he steps out from Hedge Lane into St Martin’s Street, will never even know. He will ship her off to the whorehouse and be done with her. She will never bother him again.

The Horse and Dolphin is a forbidding-looking tavern with dirty bricks and low-hanging eaves above the door. Loud, unruly laughter trickles into the street and the lowlight from the panelled windows shines sickly yellow on the uneven cobbles. A cluster of doxies loiter at the corner, tiredly calling for sport, and briefly Hezekiah considers it, teases a coin in his pocket.

No, he thinks. There will be time aplenty for that.

The tavern is deep and rambling, with high wooden beams, a marigold-stained ceiling. Smoke claws irritatingly at his throat and Hezekiah coughs, slips a finger into his collar to loosen the material at his neck. Nervously he licks his lips and – furtive – looks around.

There.

Hezekiah limps to a table concealed within an alcove to the left of the entrance. A greying man in shabby, genteel black rises from his seat, eyebrows lifting in surprise. The man holds out an age-spotted hand for him to shake.

‘Blake,’ the man greets as Hezekiah seats himself. The cushion of Hezekiah’s belly presses uncomfortably against the wooden table. ‘I did not expect to see you here at this hour.’ A pause. ‘What happened to your leg?’

‘I have a job for you,’ Hezekiah says, ignoring the question, and the man sits back into his seat, squinting at him.

‘A job for me, is it? Best watch your tone, Blake. Remember,’ he says, pointing at Hezekiah’s belly with his eyes, ‘without me you would not be so comfortably fed.’ Another pause. ‘There’s blood on your cuff.’

Hezekiah pushes down his coat sleeve to hide it.

‘What I mean to say is that I have a prize, something really rather marvellous. Your buyers will not be disappointed.’

‘Hmm.’

The man lifts a small leather book from his pocket, opens it near the back. From his other he brings a pencil and a knife. With slow, considered care he begins to sharpen the lead.

‘And what is this prize? I’m afraid our clients are becoming rather bored with your Grecian pots. They’re getting harder to sell. How many do you have kept in stock now? Sixty? Eighty?’

Hezekiah shifts on the hard bench. It scratches against his buttocks.

‘It is Greek, I grant you,’ he says, and his tablemate stops his cutting, a pencil shaving dropping from the knife. ‘But it’s nothing like you’ve ever seen before.’

‘Convince me.’

Hezekiah takes a breath. ‘What if I told you that I had acquired a large vase in immaculate condition? One that has immeasurable historical value?’

‘I would say I’ve heard it all before.’

‘But this truly is. You see, I have it on good authority the vase predates all known history.’

Not quite true, he thinks. It is Dora’s claim, and what can she know? Still, what difference does it make now – its worth will always be great, no matter its true age.

The man is placing his knife very deliberately on the table. The blade glints in the half-light. He closes the book.

‘It is too early to play games with me, Hezekiah Blake.’

‘I do not play games with you.’

Hezekiah bites his tongue. He must be careful. Must not overreach. To speak to a trader is to speak to a client in the shop. Think of the sale, dazzle them with show.

Gently, gently.

Hezekiah sits forward, tries to hide a wince as a spasm shoots up his leg. He forces a smile.

‘Let me tell you a story. A story that goes back twenty years. Imagine a young man, a cartographer. Idealistic, impressionable. One day he meets an artist, an historian, a Grecian woman who thrills him with tales of ancient myth and magic.’ He pauses for effect, is disappointed to see his companion frowning, a look of mock-patience on his features, but Hezekiah takes a breath. ‘She was named after Helena, the most beautiful woman the Greek Empire had ever seen and she embodied the namesake like no woman he had ever known, then or since. A man would die for her. Kill for her, she was so alluring. So the man meant to prove himself, helped her in her research. He even brought in his brother to help, because the brother knew things he did not.’ Hezekiah clenches his fist. ‘Together, the three of them investigated the possibility that an artefact described in ancient legend might actually exist. Years later, after the woman rejected this poor man’s suit and married the brother instead, they discover its location. An excavation is organised. An artefact is found. But then, a great tragedy. There is a cave-in. Both the woman and the man’s brother are lost. More tragically, so is the artefact.’