“What about the takings?”
“Banked on Monday, sir.”
“Hmm. You’ve been exceptionally efficient lately, Jacobs.”
“Thank you, sir.” The boy radiated keenness... and was in the damn way.
“Take a half day,” Stug said. “You appear to have earned it.”
“A half day, sir?”
“A half day, boy, a half day. You have heard of such a thing, I presume?”
“Sir. But there’s the documents for the Shoreham properties, sir.”
“It will wait. Go... go to a horse-race or whatever it is you young men do.”
“Do you want me to come back and finish off these papers, Mr Stug?”
“I told you it will wait!” Stug saw the boy flinch and moderated his tone. “I’m trying to give you some time off, boy. Don’t act like a beaten dog who’s not sure the chain’s off. Stand up. Take life by the throat. Now get out of here.”
Jacobs scurried away. Stug shook his head. What a sorry creature the boy was! His son would be different. Sturdy, bold, a man. He would have a clean and untroubled life, with no need to know what his father had gone through, the things he had been forced to.
But certain things had to be got out of the way first.
“Sir?”
“I thought you’d gone. What is it?”
“That woman’s due to come back today, sir. Sparrow’s Nest Security. At three.”
“Yes, yes, I’m quite capable of reading a calendar. Do get on, boy, the day’ll be gone.”
“Sir.”
Jacobs was useful, but Stug hoped he wasn’t getting too curious about things that were none of his business. Although he would be easy enough to get rid of with a word in the right ear and an offer of another higher-paying position. It was Stug’s experience that most people could be bought off. Even the Queen of the Folk. If you had something they wanted.
The girl turned up on the dot of three, just as Stug’s watch pinged the hour.
Stug ushered her in, glancing up and down the street.
Simms.
Simms was there, watching from the shadows. He made sure Stug saw him, tipped his hat to an even-more-insolent angle, and strolled away.
He was
definitely
going to have to do something about Simms. And he couldn’t trust him with this. He was too sure of himself, too cocky – and far too obvious.
But now, he had an alternative.
“M
R
S
TUG
.”
“Miss... Sparrow, isn’t it? Do sit down.” Stug gestured her to the hard, narrow supplicant’s chair in front of his desk, and sat himself in the expansive and comfortable leather one behind it. “Sparrow... Sparrow...” He tapped the tips of his fingers together. “Now, that doesn’t seem right, you know.”
The girl looked up from extracting papers from her bag. “What doesn’t seem right, Mr Stug?”
“The name. It doesn’t quite
fit.
I’m sure another would suit you better. Something of French origin, perhaps?”
The girl smiled. “I’ve never thought of myself as particularly French in appearance, Mr Stug, but if you are complimenting me on my style, then thank you.”
“So the name Duchen means nothing to you?”
“Duchen?” She looked mildly surprised. “It’s not a particularly common one, but I can’t recall having heard it before.”
“Really? How about Simms?”
She put the papers neatly together on his desk. If her hands were shaking, he couldn’t see it.
“Should it? Are they perhaps business rivals, that you fear might be after something? I can investigate further, if you wish.”
“Now really, miss. Let us not beat around the bush any further.”
“I was not aware of doing any beating around any bushes, Mr Stug.”
“You are a wanted criminal, Miss... it isn’t really Sparrow, is it? Perhaps it isn’t Duchen either, but I shall call you that. A wanted criminal, Miss Duchen.”
She folded her hands in her lap.
“Am I? How very exciting. What am I supposed to have done?”
“You and I both know that you are a wanted criminal by the name of Eveline Duchen, a common thief and pickpocket.”
“I am not aware of there being any police warrant out for anyone of that name, Mr Stug.”
Dammit! He had not checked. He should have checked. But Simms was a criminal, and there was no outstanding warrant for him, either.
“You are also of interest to the government.”
“Really?”
“Do you remember a Mr Holmforth?”
“I can’t say I do.”
“A most unfortunate business. There are those in government who are still wondering what happened to Mr Holmforth – and to his female companion.”
“Really.”
“These people might...
might...
be prepared to lose interest.”
“Might they indeed.”
“In return for certain activities which you, Miss... Sparrow, should be more than capable of performing.”
“And what might those be?”
“Why, nothing more than the sort of activities you have already performed. Breaking. Entering. Illegal activities.”
“Are you suggesting Her Majesty’s Government might wish someone to become involved in illegal activities, Mr Stug?”
“Only in the cause of the greater good.”
“I see.”
“The plain fact of it is that the Russian ambassador has come under suspicion. He may be, in fact, working against the interests of the British Empire. It is necessary to put him under pressure. And for this, your particular talents are required.”
“What would you need me for? Hasn’t the government got people for that? Seems to me they’re a bit desperate if they’re dragging innocent women in off the street.”
Stug leaned forward, searching her face. She still looked utterly calm, even mildly amused.
Could
Simms have been wrong? Or playing some game of his own? He felt a shudder in his stomach. If that was the case, then he would be in so deep he’d never climb out. She would know his name, his place of business.
But he was committed. He couldn’t back off now.
And he could deal with Simms... or have him dealt with. He could do the same with her, a sight more easily.
“On the night of the fifteenth,” he said, “there will be a ball at the embassy. That should provide a more than sufficient distraction. It has been decided that you, Miss... Sparrow, will on that night find the ambassador’s baby daughter, remove her from the embassy, and bring her to me.”
“What?”
“You will take the ambassador’s daughter and bring her to me.”
“But why?”
“It is not your place to question that. You see, Miss Sparrow, this would be by way of... a conclusion,” Stug said.
“A conclusion, Mr Stug?”
“Once it is done it may allow certain past indiscretions of yours to be wiped from the record.”
Her face went still. “I see. So, you’re a government man, Mr Stug?”
He smiled, and said nothing.
Nor did she.
“Are we agreed?” he said.
“On conditions.”
“Oh, I hardly think you’re in a situation to make conditions.”
“Perhaps you’re right. Tell me, did they say anything about Mr Fordyce?” She was looking at him with a peculiar, anxious intensity, suddenly – her hands no longer in her lap but gripped together on the papers on the desk, crumpling the top layer.
Fordyce, Fordyce...
Delaney had not mentioned anything, but obviously the name had meaning, a distressing one, for her. It might be the other fellow who had disappeared.
“Oh really, I don’t think you want me to go into that, do you?” he said. “Rather unpleasant, don’t you think?”
She sat back, and slumped. “If I’m to do this,” she said, “I’ll need details. Of the embassy.”
“I’m sure you can find all that out. Isn’t that supposed to be your business?”
“But it’s only two days... I’ll do my best, but... Oh, Mr Stug,” she said. “Please put in a good word for me! With whoever it is you’re dealing with, please, I never done nothing bad that I wasn’t put up to! I bin led astray, that’s what it is.”
“Hah.”
Women,
Stug thought. Weak-minded, that’s what they were. “You will bring the child here, at midnight on the fifteenth. I will meet you.”
“Yes, Mr Stug.”
“And no mentioning this to anyone else. Government business, you know.”
“I shan’t, Mr Stug.”
“Be sure you don’t. You wouldn’t wish for anything to happen to... anyone, would you?” This, he told himself, was the only kind of thing a creature like this would understand. It wouldn’t be necessary, if the little beast did as she was told.
“And the child – I shall know, if it is some street brat. I want proof. Something that shows she is who I have asked for.”
“Yes, Mr Stug.”
She looked, finally, cowed, when she left. Stug sat back in his chair, his chest expanding behind his waistcoat. Things were finally back under his control. He would get what he wanted, then he need never deal with the Folk – or such street-scum as Bartholomew Simms or Eveline Duchen – ever again.
E
VELINE MADE IT
around the corner before her knees gave and she leant against the wall, shaking, every swearword she knew and some she’d made up on the spot running through her head. When she was sure she wasn’t going to fall, and that she wasn’t still in sight of Stug’s windows, she went straight to the nearest sausage-stall. Bags o’mystery they might be – but who cared what was in them. When she was shook up, what she wanted was sausage and bread and a cup of tea, and nothing else would do.
She paid for her portion and went and stood in a doorway, chewing, watching the street without really seeing it, the comforting weight of greasy meat and coarse bread gradually calming her clenched stomach.
Panic was no good. Panic threw you off, made you do stupid things. Panic was one of the things that got you caught.
Stug knew something, that was obvious enough. The fact that her name was still floating around in government circles, however little actual information might be attached to it, that was unpleasant, though hardly surprising. But the name Fordyce meant nothing. She’d made it up on the spot, trying to catch him out... and it had worked. Whatever Stug knew about that business, it wasn’t much. He was trying the flimflam artist trick of making it seem like he knew everything about you, and failing.
Someone
knew something, though. And the other name he’d mentioned... Simms. Bloody Bartholomew Simms. She’d bet a horse and carriage that Simms was the one who’d peached on her. He’d always been a nasty piece of work and it looked as though he’d decided to throw her to the wolves – though why, she wasn’t sure. She’d done her best to stay out of his way, while she was at Ma’s... she would have to ask Ma.
The memory of that last argument dropped into her stomach on top of the sausage. Dammit, Ma! After all the years they’d spent together... she’d been too thrown to react properly. She shouldn’t have to play-act with Ma. All right, maybe she should have told her – Ma hated not knowing things, information was her guiding light, she loved it like some people loved gin or opium.
And like them, she got real narky if she was deprived of it.
Now what? She could not –
would
not – burden her mother with this, not now she was looking so much better, and besides – Mama knew about as much of the underside of the world as a newborn babe, despite what her brother had put her through. It was all his fault, horrible man, if he hadn’t come into their lives...
Never mind. That was of no matter now. What mattered was what she was going to do.
And the first thing was to find out what Stug was really after. He was no more government than she was a dancer at the opera, she was convinced of it. But he
was
involved in something underhand and nasty. Those children... that little battered shoe...
it’s children. Always the children,
Juicy Peg had said
... the devil’s red right hand...
Bowler-hat.
“Oh, Eveline, you
numbskull
.”
It was Simms. Mr Stug’s bowler-hatted companion, the one who laid the heavy on the tenants, that was Bartholomew Simms sure as eggs.
And he must have seen her. Why he’d peached on her to Stug she didn’t know. But Simms knew what Stug was up to.
So what could it be, and could she use Simms to find out?
Simms was dangerous. More dangerous than Stug, that she was sure of. Simms didn’t have a front to keep up. Stug, with his charity pen-set, his certificates, his carefully arranged office that jarred so with the room upstairs, would only do what he could keep at arm’s length. Simms would cheerfully murder and go for a pint of porter with the blood fresh on him, knowing that in the places he drank, it would only act as a warning that Simms was a born thatchgallows, a thoroughgoing villain, and you didn’t mess in his business.
Not Simms, then, unless she had to. Stug. She had to find out what Stug was really up to, otherwise she’d have no leverage at all.
Knowledge, and the means to use it.
Ma was right about that, whatever else she might be wrong about.
I
T’S GOTTA BE
you, Evvie Duchen, Evvie the Sparrow. Lady Sparrow, Liu calls you. Don’t think of Liu, it hurts. You gotta do it all, because when it comes down to it, you’re the only person... not the only person you got, that’s not fair to Mama or to Beth. But the only person you got a right to ask it of.
If only Liu was here.
But Liu wasn’t here, and it was down to Eveline. She took a deep breath. There was a bit from a play she’d heard, working pockets at the theatre. She’d liked the plays and almost let herself be distracted. Some fella in shiny armour, saying, “Once more unto the breach,” and lots of stuff about it piling up with dead. Of course, him being the king, he wasn’t that likely to get dead – kings on the battlefield didn’t, so far as she could tell. It was the poor buggers without the fancy armour that got dead.
“Once more unto the breeches, eh, Eveline,” she said, tugging on her working trousers, and managing a small, lonely snort of laughter at her own joke.
Hair pulled back, pinned, tucked under the cap. Boots that looked too big but actually fitted well – Evvie, having done without decent footwear for so long, loved her various boots with a fierce passion. These were padded, flexible, and soft-soled, excellent for night-time work but scruffy looking to go with her starveling appearance.