The Lion's Courtship: An Anna Kronberg Mystery (19 page)

But what scares him so? What happened at Drury Lane? Garret and Nate seem to know details that shock both enough to try to shield her. Garret had been worried about her before. But so far, he had not tried to stop her. He had even helped obtain information. All there is now, is a wall of silence, and something must be brewing behind it.

‘Very well, then,’ she says aloud and decides to pay Poppy’s attic at Drury Lane a visit, but not before observing Fat Annie’s for a little while to see if Butcher was involved somehow. After all, he didn’t intervene when Poppy was injured. She hopes he has a hand in this, for it will surely be easier to press information from a man as dull as him. The overprotective Garret and the extra-wise Nate have obviously decided that she’s too delicate to know a thing.

Anna locks the door to her room. Her knees feel a little softer than usual, her heart rumbles faster, her hands are clammy. The long knife she keeps in her kitchen drawer is now tied to her thigh and reachable through a cut in her skirts. She has practiced slipping her hand through the opening she made and extracting the weapon without its handle catching on the fabric. In and out, out and in; it took approximately half a second from lowering her hand to pulling the knife through the slit.

Her teeth find her cheek and she bites down on the soft flesh to stop herself from trembling. Then she steps out onto the street and turns towards Clark’s Mews.
 

When she’s passing Fat Annie’s, Butcher gifts her a friendly smile.
As suspected
, she thinks, crinkling her brow. A few more steps, then she reaches her destination and slips into the shadows.

It’s the same corridor she was pushed into. The same creaky door, the same scrunching underneath her soles. Only the odours of expensive soap, wool, and silk are lacking. Fat Annie’s — just across the street — is in full view. Anna opens her senses wide.

She doesn’t have to wait long. Her breath hurts in her throat when she sees Garret stepping out of the brothel.
 

She tells herself to stay put. She tells herself that he is not why she had come here. And yet, the mix of anxiety that he might get hurt and frustration that he didn’t think her trustworthy enough makes her jaw clench.

All of a sudden, Butcher is pointing in her direction, and Garret is racing faster than she’d ever expect of a man his build. She takes a step back, pushing farther into the dark just before the rotten door slams against the corridor wall.

‘Come out at once so I can give ya a good spankin’!’

She doesn’t reply, so he steps through the door and grabs her arm.

‘Sod off, Garret!’ She kicks at his shin.

‘What’s that? A fly fart?’

He doesn’t let go of her arm, so she kicks again and again, making him more furious yet. He wraps an arm around her and hoists her onto his shoulder.
 

‘What the blazes? Put me down! Put me down, for Christ’s sake!’ Her knees push against his chest without effect, her fists pummelling his back seem to leave him untroubled.

‘Wha’ the dickens’s
tha’?
’ he exclaims when something sharp pokes the bend of his elbow. He fumbles through the layers of her skirt, perfectly aware of how inappropriate that is, and extracts a long knife. Shock holds his tongue for a moment, then he chucks the weapon towards Butcher and calls, ‘Keep that for me, will ya?’

He stomps along Church Lane, muttering, ‘Dammit, woman!’ and not listening to her protests at all. When she grows silents, he asks, ‘Are you alright?’

She doesn’t answer.

‘Well,’ he says. ‘Is alright if ya hate me, as long as ya don’t get yerself killed.’

‘Put me down, Garret,’ she says hoarsely.
 

The resigned tone makes him stumble. He has never heard her speak like this. ‘I’ll bring you home first, so you can’t run away before I get to say my part.’

She hides her face in her hand, for she doesn’t want to see the giggling and pointing neighbours. They must all believe that Garret is finally taking his pigheaded girlfriend to bed.

He forces the lock of the door to her house, then the one to her room. Once inside, he sets her onto her feet. ‘Sit,’ he commands and points to a chair.

She walks to the window instead and leans her forehead against the glass.

‘Anna,’ he pleads, pushing the door shut. ‘Look at me.’

She rubs the moisture from her eyes and turns to face him.

‘
What
did you plan to do?’ he asks.

‘What happened at Drury Lane? What do you, Butcher, and Nate know?’

‘Why the knife?’ It takes Garret a moment to realise that she knows more than she should.

‘Just in case…’

‘Just in case?’ Garret’s eyebrows reach a mocking angle, but he calls them to order soon enough. ‘I simply grabbed you, Anna. You didn’t reach for your knife, because you wouldn’t stab
me
. But I swear, your kicks and punches did nothing to me. You’ll need more force to run a knife through a grown man. I thought
you
, with all that medical knowledge, should know this. That fella might be smaller than me, but he can surely hurt you bad. Either he does it in some dark alley where no one can see you and no one can help you, or he simply walks into your room. The lock here…’ He points behind him. ‘…is so weak I only
leaned
against it to open it! It didn’t even make much noise. The same crap is installed down there.’ He waves towards the entrance door to the house.

Her jaws are working and she knows that he’s correct. ‘There is one thing that hurts more than anything else,’ she whispers. ‘Helplessness. I feel like dying when I’m helpless.’ She looks up at him. ‘Never do this again.’

She sees his face gaining the colour of a very ripe tomato. ‘I know you helped me, Garret. I know you want to protect me. By tomorrow, I’ll forget how it felt to be dragged away against my will, because you did it not for yourself, but for me. But this man…If I don’t do anything, I’m helpless.’

‘And what am I then? An idiot? Are you the only one who cares? Don’t you think it’s insulting? Do not treat me like a bystander. I do have my pride.’

She sees the bulging blood vessels on his temples and decides to be quiet for a moment.
 

‘I talked with Butcher and Fat Annie tonight,’ he says.
 
‘That man will never again enter St Giles.’

‘What are you planning?’

He snorts and crosses his arms over his chest. ‘You have so many secrets, Anna. This one will be mine.’

She frowns, and Garret’s patience fails him yet again. ‘Should I see you at Clark’s before I tell you it’s safe to go there, I’ll drag you away just as I did today. And this time, I
will
give you a spanking!’

He rubs his scalp and his lightning-struck mop of orange hair is sticking out every which way. She suppresses a smile, knowing he’d never even hurt a fly.

‘I promise I’ll stay away,’ she says, and means it. There are other ways to obtain information.

The Lion

H
e paces along the wall, past the window and back, again and again. His eyes don’t register what’s on the other side of his pupils. A decomposing body is burned on his retinae. When a knock disturbs his restlessness walking, his heart stumbles. He opens the door and looks down at a boy of probably eight years of age.
 

‘Sixpence first, information second,’ the boy says and holds out his left palm.
 

‘Butcher gave it to you already,’ Garret grumbles in warning.
 

The small hand hides in a patched-up trouser’s pocket. ‘Balls,’ mutters the boy. ‘Butcher said it’s time. He didn’t say what time, though. But the church bells—’

‘Nothing to do with
that
time, Will,’ interrupts Garret and fetches a bundle from the mattress. ‘You go home now. Oh! Wait. You can earn another sixpence.’

The boy, Will, grins and holds out his hand once more. Garret fumbles through his pockets and extracts a coin. ‘Keep an eye on the nurse for me tonight. And that boy she’s dragging around. Barry is his name. Make sure they stay far away from Clark’s, and take care they doesn’t spot you.’

‘Done,’ Will says, hides the coin in his fist, and dashes off.

Garret waits, protected by darkness and a sheet of rain. He feels as though his rage makes him glow bright scarlet. His hand begins to hurt, so he slackens his iron grip on the mallet. Deep breath in, deep breath out. It won’t help to lose reason before the time has come.

Yet, he cannot wipe away the images of a sharp blade pressing against Anna’s throat. Not knowing what had happened in the dark, his imagination wants to go rampant. He cannot fathom why Anna never told him about it and why she never asked for help. Real help. Not that visit to the brothel the other night. She won’t even tell him when she’s scared or hurt or in danger! What’s wrong with this woman?

Garret growls, then pulls himself together and focusses his attention back to Fat Annie’s.
Perhaps I’m not trustworthy,
he thinks. The mallet in his hand agrees, as does the clasp-knife in his breast pocket.

The brothel door opens and light pours onto the wet pavement. A well-dressed man steps out, opens his umbrella, and turns down Clark’s Buildings. Garret locks eyes with Butcher, who gives him a small and affirmative nod in return.

Garret hurriedly sets his feet in motion, pressing his body into every shadow large enough to hide his bulk.

The man turns onto High Street, then onto Arthur Street. He doesn’t seem to notice the large cart blocking the view to New Oxford Street, with its many omnibuses, cabs, and people. The three men smoking next to the vehicle go unnoticed as well.

In a moment, it will be too late. Garret’s mind shows him Drury Lane, the knee-deep cow manure with a girl’s bloated body half buried in it, the maggots, the gashes. When the dead girl’s face begins to look too much like Anna’s, shock and fury burn in his guts, pushing him to the edge of madness.
 

Garret has to force himself to recall Baylis’ last words when he left his cook-shop a few nights ago.
Whatever you do, speed and silence, Garret. Speed and silence.

In the corner of his vision, the three men close in, their rain-soaked smokes forgotten, their hands balled to fists in their trouser pockets, their cold gaze attached to the stranger.

Garret leaps, swings his arm with as much force as he can muster, and brings the mallet down on the man’s skull.