The Immorality Engine (15 page)

Unbeknownst to Veronica, a pair of cool blue eyes watched her progress from behind a porcelain mask as she darted from tree to tree, moving with practised ease, looking for an easy way into the building.

*   *   *

A balding butler in a black suit with watery, pale eyes, was waiting for Newbury in the doorway of the old manor house. Newbury smiled as he mounted the steps and the elderly man gave a brief unnecessary bow. “Good day to you, sir. My name is Carrs. Can I be of assistance?” He had a broad East End accent, although he was clearly doing his best to hide it.

Newbury tried to seem jovial, although he wasn’t feeling it. His stomach was clenched and he was sweating under his collar. The dose of laudanum he’d taken that morning was already starting to wear off, and he felt his cravings returning with a vengeance. “Thank you, Carrs. I was hoping to speak with Dr. Fabian. It is an urgent matter, the Queen’s business, and I seek his advice.”

Carrs inclined his head. “Very good, sir. If you would care to follow me, I will show you where to wait while I attempt to locate Dr. Fabian.”

Newbury realised as he ducked his head beneath the lintel of the old house how diminutive the old butler really was. He could barely have reached Newbury’s shoulder, and he walked with a slight stoop. Newbury wondered if he were another of Dr. Fabian’s waifs and strays, an old soldier, or agent, or serviceman of some kind who had been rehabilitated at the institute and then kept on in service in recognition of the debt that was owed to him by his country.

Newbury would have liked to imagine so. But the cynic in him wondered if it were simply that Dr. Fabian did not like to surround himself with people who were either younger or taller than he was. It wouldn’t have surprised Newbury to discover that was the case: Everything he knew of the good doctor, from both hearsay and his own brief encounter with the man, suggested Dr. Fabian had an ego large enough to match his reputation.

Newbury followed Carrs through a number of winding passageways that branched off from the reception hall until they came to a chamber that had been set out in the fashion of a drawing room. Dark oak panels lined the walls, and a portrait of a seventeenth-century cavalier, replete with plumed hat and close-cropped beard, hung upon the chimney breast. His face was intent and regal, and Newbury couldn’t help but feel the painting was somehow watching him.

The room had a musty smell about it, of age and underuse. A bookcase on the far wall was filled with leather-bound books, their spines adorned with gilt titling in Latin, French, and Italian.

A jug of water was set out on a small occasional table beside the fireplace, alongside two glass goblets that looked like they might have belonged to the era of the house itself.

Carrs bade him to take a seat in an armchair, also arranged before the fireplace. Newbury lowered himself into it cautiously, feeling the brittle leather creak beneath his weight. Clearly, everything in the room was an antique. He wondered if it were reserved for visitors. It clearly didn’t receive a great deal of regular use.

Seeing that Newbury was settled, Carrs took his leave, promising that he would return shortly with news of Dr. Fabian.

Newbury leaned back in the chair. God, he was tired. He fought to prevent his eyelids from closing. Now was not the time to let his attention drift. He had a job to do, and with Charles tied up with the situation at the palace, he’d have to deal with the Sykes case on his own. Besides, he had seen the way in which Veronica had looked at him that morning, her eyes full of hope. It broke his heart that he had let her down, and more than once. But there was still, at the back of his mind, a nagging doubt regarding her motives. He didn’t doubt her affections were real, but his trust in her had been eroded by the realization that she was working secretly for the Queen.

For months now, he had observed her movements and he no longer had any doubt that she was reporting on him to the monarch. Just the thought of it was like a knife twisting in his gut. How
could
she? It was a betrayal of the worst kind. He could think of no way to justify it. He’d tried to think the best of Veronica, tried to reconcile it with himself by assuming she was doing it for the best reasons. But he could not. He could not fathom her reasons. And it hurt doubly so because he knew, deep down, that he was utterly in love with her.

Charles had told him that the Queen was worried that Newbury would be too easily drawn towards the darkness. She feared the allure of it would become too strong, that he would give in and choose the same path as his predecessor, Aubrey Knox, losing himself to the occult. Newbury knew that was poppycock. But he presumed that was the motivation behind Veronica’s betrayal.

So, unsure what else to do, he had retreated from her, hiding himself away in Johnny Chang’s and other, less salubrious establishments. He had toured the seedier side of London society and lost himself to its vices. He had ignored the summons from the palace, the note cards brought by courier and then later footmen from the palace rapping loudly on the door. He had turned them all away. Even Mrs. Bradshaw had gone. But Veronica had stayed. Throughout it all, she had stayed, a constant in his life.

Newbury only wished he did not doubt her reasons.

*   *   *

Veronica stood in the shade of a large oak tree, close to the old manor house. She had the trunk of the gnarly old tree between herself and the building, and she was confident she had not been seen as she’d skirted the building, sticking to the flowerbeds along the perimeter wall, ducking behind evergreen bushes and trees.

From where she was hiding, she could see the extensive gardens at the rear of the property, with their impressive topiary sculptures and water features. It seemed very serene, quite unlike the previous establishments in which Veronica’s parents had interred Amelia. In fact, she felt faintly ridiculous attempting to break in like this, and the thought had crossed her mind more than once that if she’d just decided to walk up to the front door and
ask
to see her sister, she could hardly be refused.

Newbury was right, though. She’d been warned to stay away—in the nicest possible way—and if she did turn up at the door, surely she would simply be reminded of this fact and asked to leave. And if she were actually lucky enough to talk her way into the institute, there was no way she would be granted any time alone with Amelia to talk candidly. She would be chaperoned by Dr. Fabian throughout her visit, with no liberty to talk frankly.

So … she had settled upon this. Breaking and entering. She supposed it wasn’t as if she hadn’t done it before, on more than one occasion. In fact, she was fairly experienced when it came to forcing an entry. Not that anyone other than the Queen was aware of it. Even Newbury only knew of a handful of occasions when she’d had to demonstrate such skills.

The thought gave her a pang of sudden anxiety. She’d been thinking for some time about telling him the truth. Ever since their recent battle with Aubrey Knox, when she’d blurted out her understanding of the case and accidentally hinted at a deeper knowledge of the situation, and therefore also at her affiliation to the Queen. But she needed to remain focused. Now was not the time for thoughts such as those.

Veronica studied the rear of the Institute. There were a number of—six, she counted—French doors, at intervals along the back of the house. She presumed that Newbury was right and each set of doors must open out from one of the patients’ rooms onto the gardens. All she would have to do was find the room that contained Amelia, and then hopefully her sister would be able to let her in from the other side.

It sounded simple. But if anyone else happened to be in any of the other rooms looking out, then her cover would be blown and she’d be out in the open when the alarm was raised. It was far too much of a risk.

Instead, Veronica had settled on obtaining entry via a window. She had spotted her target almost as soon as she emerged from the foliage to take her place behind the ancient oak: a large sash that had been propped open and left, presumably, to allow the room on the other side to air. It wouldn’t be the most elegant of entrances, and from what she had been able to gather about the layout of the house, she was likely to end up in the scullery or kitchen, but it would do as well as any other. Provided, of course, there was no one waiting for her on the other side.

She was confident that, once inside, she’d be able to head in the other direction and find Amelia’s room. Admittedly, she was likely to have to try a few doors, and she still ran the risk of opening one on someone who was going to bring the house down screaming, but she favoured her chances this way more than the other.

Now it was a matter of timing. She’d been observing the window for a few minutes and had seen no one pass by inside. She knew, in the end, that she was just going to have to risk it. Rather than stand around thinking about it any longer and risk missing her chance, she simply leapt out from behind the cover of the tree and bolted toward the window. Her feet slipped on the damp grass as she hurtled across the lawn, and for a moment she thought she was going to go over, but then she was at the window with her leg up over the windowsill, and then she was standing, a bit disheveled, in the kitchens.

She glanced around quickly, trying to establish whether she needed to run, hide, or tackle someone with a rolling pin in order to ensure their silence. But the path was clear. The place was deserted. She allowed herself a short sigh of relief.

The kitchen smelled of beef broth and onions. Large vats of food were simmering on the range, the lids rattling on the pans as they built up a head of steam. Veronica realised she didn’t have long. Someone would be back shortly to check on the pots. That might also mean she’d have to find an alternative way out of the institute later.

There was only one other way in or out of the room, a door in the opposite wall. Veronica walked carefully around a large wooden table that was littered with kitchen implements and dusty with spilt flour, past the bubbling pans, and then hesitated on the threshold of the doorway. Someone’s footsteps were coming in her direction from the corridor outside. She listened carefully to try to ascertain how much time she had. Were they actually footsteps? They sounded more like a persistent rhythm of metal striking stone, accompanied by the wheeze and sigh of firing pistons. Was it some sort of security automaton, perhaps? No matter—they were definitely getting louder, which meant they were getting closer.

She glanced back at the kitchen. Was there anywhere she could hide? She supposed she could try to scramble into the dumbwaiter in the far corner, but other than that …

She’d have to run. Out into the corridor, take a left, and put as much distance between herself and whatever it was that was coming from the other direction. She just had to hope they were still far enough away that they wouldn’t see her.

Veronica closed her eyes, took a big gulp of air, and threw herself out into the passageway. She glanced quickly in both directions. To the right, the path was still clear. But the sound of the mechanical footsteps was growing ever closer, a steady, ominous clanking. To the left, the passage came almost immediately to a T. She ran over to it, hopeful that the coast would be clear. It was. But which direction to take? Where would Amelia’s room be located?

Thud, thud, thud
. The footsteps were rounding the bend behind her. She had to commit. Right, then. She guessed that would lead her deeper into the house.

Veronica dashed along the passageway, her feet scuffing against the ancient flagstones. The walls and ceiling here were paneled in dark oak, giving everything an oppressive air. Roughly hewn wooden faces loomed down at her from above, their blank eyes judging her from their little nooks in the walls. She guessed they must have been there since the house had been built. She wondered what they must have witnessed in their time.

Another T-junction. Veronica groaned in frustration. Whichever direction she took now, she was heading farther away from the gardens and the rooms where she expected Amelia to be. But she had little choice. She couldn’t very well double back, not with that thing, whatever it was, blundering around the corridors behind her. She took the passageway on the right again, listening carefully for any signs of movement or voices from up ahead.

Everything seemed to be quiet. It was a far cry from the asylum at Wandsworth, where Amelia had previously been a patient. When she visited there Veronica would regularly hear the wailing of the other inmates, the cries of the insane, the harrowing calls for help issued by people too sick to understand their own conditions. By contrast, the Grayling Institute appeared to retain the trappings of a fine country home, a manor house fit for nobility. It was an odd sort of place, and given Dr. Fabian’s reputation as a master engineer, the idea of him living and working there felt entirely incongruous to Veronica. She had expected more modern surroundings: laboratories, workshops, that sort of thing. Or perhaps something clean and clinical, like a hospital. But not this.

Veronica pressed on. Soon she had lost track of the winding passageways and had given up on trying to remember how to backtrack. Instead she simply followed her instinct, delving deeper into the large house and trying any number of doors, all painted a glossy white and securely locked. It wasn’t long before she had shaken off the sound of the footsteps. The whole building seemed as if it were practically deserted. She hadn’t seen a living soul since her rather impressive entrance through the window: no patients, no nurses, no servants. She cursed herself, assuming that somewhere, in her haste, she had taken a wrong turn and had wandered into a disused part of the building.

She was just about to turn back and start trying to retrace her steps when she heard a noise from up ahead and started. It had sounded like a muffled scream. She felt the hairs on the nape of her neck prickle as they stood on end. The noise had seemed chillingly familiar. Had it been Amelia? Surely not.