Witch Hunt (Witch Finder 2) (30 page)

‘So that’s how it is then, is it?’ He let his club drop to the floor and pulled a knife from a sheath at his belt. It was a long wicked thing, sharpened to a stabbing point. Luke looked down at his own knife, grabbed at random from the block. It was a skinning knife, long and curved, sharpened along the blade for slicing, not stabbing. But it had a point, albeit a blunt one, and it would slice a tendon, or an artery, or cut a throat as well as any.

Leadingham crouched with his blade held out in front of him, and Luke was reminded of that night, months before, when Leadingham had taught him how to wield a knife.

Pulmonary artery, kidney, Achilles . . . Stick ’em as hard and fast as you can, and get out
.

The words rang in Luke’s head as he circled cautiously in the lamplight, watching their shadows dance against the wall, watching John Leadingham’s little grinning face opposite him, his eyes glittering like polished stones in the candlelight.

He felt the knife slip in his sweating hand and the exhaustion in his shaking muscles. His heart beat fast and shakily, and he knew he didn’t have much strength left. If he didn’t bring this to a close quickly he would stand no chance at all.

He lunged, striking for Leadingham’s knife arm, but the little man jerked his arm up, parrying the blow with his forearm before the blade could make contact, and then twisting in so that his own knife sliced along Luke’s wrist and up his arm, through the material of his greatcoat.

Luke twisted himself away and staggered back, clutching with his free hand for the place Leadingham had hit. For a minute he felt nothing at all. And then the spreading warmth of blood blossomed sticky beneath his palm and he heard the first
splat
as a fat drop fell on the floor.

They carried on circling, the blood dripping steadily from Luke’s arm. He tried to keep his knife hand up, to try to stem the flow, and to keep the blood from running over his hand and making it slip on the hilt of the knife. There was nothing he could do about his sweating palms, but it would be fatal to add blood to the mix.

‘Give it up, lad,’ Leadingham said, and his voice was that hoarse, friendly rasp that Luke had known since his childhood. It was a voice that had croaked out songs and nursery rhymes, had joked and praised and taught. It was hard to remember that this circling figure was trying to kill him, and not just teasing him in play as they’d done so often. Could he really do it? Could he kill Leadingham, a man who’d dandled him on his knee and slipped him pear drops before bed?

A man who’s trying to kill you
.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Minna pressed against the wall, her eyes fierce with hate, and it came to him that it should have been her, here, wielding the knife. She would’ve killed, stuck it home with a good will. She was more of a fighter, more of a man than he’d ever be.

Leadingham struck, taking advantage of his distraction. The knife flashed before Luke’s face, going for his throat, and he was grappling for Leadingham’s arm, trying to turn the blade away.

There was a long, long eternity as they both struggled, with no sound but their gasping breaths and the splat of Luke’s blood on the floor, and then Luke’s foot slipped in a splash of his own blood and his feet went out from under him.

He fell, taking Leadingham with him, his knife clutched to his breast. His head cracked on to concrete, sending a blaze of pain roaring through him, and then they were rolling in the blood and sawdust, locked in each other’s arms, too close to stab. Luke was imprisoned in Leadingham’s grip, and somewhere in between their two chests was his knife, but where?

There was a clatter as something fell to the floor; he could not see if it was his knife or Leadingham’s, but there was something hard against his pelvis, something that felt like a hilt, digging into his gut, wedged between them.

He strained one hand down between their tight-locked bodies, trying to reach it, and then there was a sudden searing pain in his cheek and he pulled back, roaring with fury, to see Leadingham laughing at him with bloodstained teeth.

‘You bit me, you bloody animal!’ Luke shouted, and Leadingham laughed again, Luke’s blood running down his chin.

‘All’s fair in love and war, lad! There ain’t no Queensberry Rules here!’

Through the hot, red haze of pain and rage, his hand closed on the knife. Leadingham pulled back to go for a punch and Luke brought it up, hot and slippery in his grip, and suddenly the point was at Leadingham’s throat.

Leadingham went very still. He was on top of Luke, but his right arm was trapped beneath Luke’s spine, and his own knife was far away across the floor.

‘Go on then, lad,’ he whispered. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘I’ll kill you!’ Luke panted. There was blood in on his face and in his eyes. He felt the tearing of his own heart and breath, and the force of Leadingham’s life pounding through the body pressed against his own. ‘I’ll kill you, you bastard!’

‘Go on then!’ Leadingham snarled. ‘Do it, lad! Don’t just lie there prating at me.
Do it!
’

Luke clenched his fingers on the knife.

Do it.
Do it
.

Leadingham’s face above his, his eyes bright with life and the thrill of the fight.

His heart pounding next to Luke’s.

The heat of his breath on Luke’s face. His voice in his ear.

‘
Do it!
’

The point of Luke’s knife was against Leadingham’s throat – and he could not do it. He could not drive it home.

He shut his eyes. He gritted his teeth . . .

And then suddenly there was a deafening crack and Leadingham’s body jerked down on top of his, driving all the breath out of him.

Luke opened his eyes wide, panicking.

Leadingham lay on top of him, heavy and limp. The tip of Luke’s knife had gone clean through his throat.

Above them both stood Minna, a club in her hand, and her face was white as bleached bone.

‘I done it, Luke,’ she whispered. ‘Gawd help me, I done it.’

She let the club fall from her hand with a crash, and fell to her knees in the blood and the muck.

‘I killed him.’

L
uke pushed with all his strength and the heavy, limp body of Leadingham rolled off him and fell to the concrete floor with a thud. He struggled to sit up, but as he did so he felt a sharp stabbing pain in his upper chest, and when he looked down he was covered in blood. His own, or Leadingham’s?

At first he wasn’t sure, but when he pulled open his shirt, he could see no breaks in his own skin, just a huge spreading bruise across the right side of his chest, below his shoulder. He put his hand to his ribs; something creaked ominously and it hurt to breathe.

For a minute he could not work out what had happened. Had Leadingham hit him? But when? Then he realized – the knife that he’d held in his right hand must have been driven back against his own body by Leadingham’s weight. The hilt had smacked into his chest with all the force of Minna’s blow, driving the blade through Leadingham’s throat and breaking his own ribs.

He drew an experimental breath. It hurt. But not so much that he couldn’t stand.

He dragged himself to his feet and staggered past John’s sprawled body, past Minna slumped white-faced and frozen where she had let the club fall, to where William lay on his side in a pool of thickening blood.

‘William!’ he croaked, falling to his knees at his side. ‘Uncle!’

‘Luke . . .’ It was a whisper, the smallest, softest whisper, so different from William’s deep, booming voice that it brought a sob to Luke’s throat, but his uncle was alive – and that was all that mattered.

‘Uncle! Oh, thank God, thank God . . .’ The words tumbled out and he was crying, the tears falling hot on William’s shoulder and arm, but he did not care. He bent and kissed his uncle’s stubble-rough cheek, feeling William’s breath come faint against his own blood splashed face.

‘You’ll be all right, you understand?’ He blinked furiously against the blurring tears. ‘I’ll get a doctor. Minna will stay with you, won’t you, Minna? Won’t you!’ he shouted, when she did not respond, and she jumped, and stumbled across the floor to kneel beside them.

‘A’course. I’m sorry Luke, I can’t . . . I didn’t . . . Oh God, I killed him. I killed a man.’

‘Listen, stay with William while I go for a doctor.’ He tried to stand, his rib creaking painfully, but he felt something pluck at his hand as he did, and he looked down to see William shaking his head, the smallest movement, but just visible in the gloom.

‘No . . .’ It was a croaking whisper, barely audible. ‘Don’t go.’

‘I must.’ It broke Luke’s heart to try to pull his fingers from his uncle’s grip, but he had to, he had to try to get help. But William only closed his eyes, and held fast.

‘I’m dying, Luke . . .’ His breath wheezed, painful and shallow. ‘You don’t . . . don’t recover . . . wound like this. Stay wi’ me.’

‘No!’ It broke out of him like a shout, a cry of sheer agony in the echoing warehouse. For a minute all he could think of was Rosa and Sebastian’s mother, and he longed to have even an ounce of her power to bring someone back from a mortal injury. Surely,
surely
if William could hold on for just a few hours longer . . . ‘William, no! For Christ’s sake, please. Please, you can’t do this . . .’ There were tears in his eyes, running down his face, mixing with the blood and sweat. ‘Please don’t leave me, William.’

But William said nothing. He only lay, his hand in Luke’s, his eyes closed, and there was an expression of peace on his face that Luke could hardly bear, for he knew that it meant that his uncle had given up, that he was no longer fighting, that his struggle was done.

‘No!’ he sobbed. ‘God damn you, no! No!’

William’s chest rose and fell, rose and fell.

‘Let me go, Uncle,’ he pleaded. ‘Let me go for the doctor. Please, I’m begging you. Don’t give up.’

But William lay in peaceful silence. Only the sound of his slow, shallow breaths, and his fingers clenched on Luke’s, showed he was still alive.

‘Let me go,’ Luke begged again, but he did not move. He knew he would not move, could not leave his uncle like this, not without his blessing, and William would not give it now, that much was plain. He was almost beyond speech.

His blood was pooling warm and wet beneath his body, and his face had grown very white – even his lips were white. His hand in Luke’s was cold – soft and malleable as clay.

‘Good . . . lad . . .’ His lips tried to form more words, but no sound came out, just the clicking of his tongue, as it tried to make the words.

‘No!’ Luke sobbed. ‘No!’

There was nothing he could do but watch in the silence and the darkness as William’s life slipped from his body and his fingers grew cold and limp in Luke’s. The only sound was Luke and Minna’s sobs, and the almost imperceptible flutter of William’s breath, growing fainter and fainter . . . and then at last there was just Luke and Minna, and William was gone, his unblinking eyes fixed on some point beyond them both.

Luke wanted to bellow and scream and rage, but he did not. He knelt in his uncle’s blood, on the abattoir floor, and his tears mingled with his uncle’s spent life on the concrete slab. He knelt there while Minna’s harsh sobs grew quiet and the only sound was of blood running into the central drain where it would flow into the sewers and at last into the great, dirty life-force of the Thames and away.

‘Luke,’ Minna croaked at last. ‘Luke. What we gonna do?’

Luke looked up. The blood and tears had dried on his face leaving their stiff, salty tracks, he could feel it as he passed his hand across his skin, and he felt too the pull of the wound on his arm, where Leadingham had slashed at him, and the scrape and grate of the broken ribs.

‘You need to get out of here,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Don’t tell anyone what you did – understood? If people knew—’

‘I don’t want to stand trial for murder. But we can’t just leave ’em – what’re people gonna think?’

‘They’ll think they had a fight,’ Luke said. He got to his feet, his ribs screaming in protest, and looked down at the two bodies on the floor. ‘And in a way it’s true. Maybe it’s best we leave it at that.’

His heart was near breaking at the idea of leaving William lying in his own blood on the floor of the abattoir. Who would take care of him, wash his body, keep the vigil while he waited for burial? William had no one but him. But he couldn’t stay.

‘Listen, Minna.’ He took her hands. ‘There’s something I’ve got to do. And I don’t know if I’m coming back.’

‘What d’you mean?’ Her small, pale face was a mix of fear and outrage. ‘You ain’t gonna go after her, are you? Me and William, we didn’t save you from the frying pan for you to throw yourself into the fire!’

‘I’ve got to do it.’ He felt tears prick again at the back of his lids, though he should have cried himself dry. ‘I can’t leave her. It’s because of me she’s here, they came for
me
, not her. If she hadn’t come after me, looking for me, they’d never have caught her.

‘What are you sayin’ then?’

‘I’m going after her. And I want you to go back to the forge and then tomorrow I want you to report William missing to the coppers.’