Anne Perry - Dark Assassin

"And to his own ambition," Hester retorted. She saw lights along the road and prayed it was the omnibus at last. Her teeth were chattering with the cold.

"How will we ever know?" Rose said desperately. "I absolutely refuse to let them get away with it, whatever it costs!"

The omnibus stopped and they climbed on, being obliged to stand jammed between tired workmen and women with bags of shopping followed by exhausted children with loud voices and sticky hands.

At the changeover to the second omnibus Rose gave a wry, blisteringly honest smile as she climbed onto the next platform and inside. "I shall never be rude to a coachman again!" she whispered fiercely. "I shall never insult the cook, outrage the maids, or argue with the butler. And above all, I shall never let the fire go out, even if I have to carry the coal in myself!"

Hester swallowed a laugh that was a little on the edge of hysteria.

"What are we going to do?" Rose demanded.

Hester's mind raced, struggling between the practical and the safe. Safety won, at least for Rose. "You are going to see what chances there are of passing some kind of law to help the injured. Mary might have thought of that. It was probably why she approached Mr. Applegate in the first place. I'll attempt to locate the toshers Mary spoke to and see what they told her. If anyone knows where the old sunken rivers are, or if anything s changed course, it'll be them."

"Be careful!" Rose warned.

"I will," Hester assured her.

But she did not tell Monk anything other than that she had visited some of those injured in past cave-ins and other machine accidents. She certainly did not reveal her plans. And she lost no time in composing a brief letter to Sutton, telling him of her need to learn more from the toshers who knew the old system best. Only after she had sent it did she realize that she had no idea whether Sutton could read or not! He did all his business in cash. Perhaps even the best houses did not wish a bill or a receipt from a ratcatcher.

She waited all day for an answer, busying herself with chores, cleaning up after the plasterer.

Sutton came just after dark, at about half past four.

"Yer sure?" he asked carefully, studying her face in the kitchen gaslight. He sipped a steaming cup of tea, and had accepted a piece of fruitcake. He was scrupulous to give Snoot a tiny portion, just so he felt included. It probably amounted to no more than a couple of raisins. Snoot took them delicately and licked his chops, waiting hopefully for more.

"That's yer lot!" Sutton told him, shaking his head, then turned back to Hester.

"Well if yer sure yer really want ter know wot's 'appened, someone as'll tell yer the truth, we'd best go under the Thames Tunnel an' find some o' the folks wot's not still 'opin' fer work, or got loyalties to them as is." He looked her up and down anxiously. "But yer can't come like that. If I take yer with me, yer gotta look like yer belong. If I bring yer the clothes, can yer come as me lad wot I'm teachin'?"

She was taken aback for a moment, amusement replaced by the sudden jar of reality. "Yes," she said soberly. "Of course I can. I'll tie my hair back and put a cap on." It was an unreasonably displeasing thought that with a change of attire she could be taken for a ratcatcher's apprentice. And yet had she been more buxomly built, with a rounder, more womanly face, then she would not have been able to go at all.

Then she thought of the faces of the women she had seen yesterday, worn out and old long before their time, color and softness taken from them. Suddenly self-regard seemed not only ridiculous but disgusting. "I'll be ready," she said firmly. "What time shall we begin?"

"I'll come 'ere," he said, still uncertain of himself. "At breakfast. We'll start early. Not as it makes much difference under the… ground."

She knew he had been going to say river but stopped himself at the last moment, in case the thought should be too much for her, especially since they had been talking of cave-ins, floods, and gas.

"I'll be here," she said with a smile, catching his eye and seeing the answering humor in it, and a flicker of admiration that pleased her quite unreasonably.

He nodded and rose to his feet.

By the next morning the clothes that Sutton provided had been laundered. They were still shabby and badly patched; however, Hester found them more comfortable than she had expected. It was an oddly naked feeling to have no skirts. Even on the battlefield she had been used to the nuisance of skirts around her legs, making striding difficult, especially in wind or rain. Trousers were marvelous, even if she did feel indecent.

Scraping her hair back into a knot and clipping it tight so it appeared short was not difficult, but it was certainly unflattering. But there was no help for it. A flat cap on her head covered most of it anyway, even down over her ears. Sutton had been thoughtful enough to provide a thick woollen muffler that made her feel considerably warmer. The coat, which came almost to her knees, was the last item, apart from a pair of weather-beaten and awkwardly fitting men's boots.

She left the room where she had changed and walked self-consciously along the passage towards the staircase.

"Yer done wonders," Sutton said approvingly. "Come on, Snoot! We got business."

She explained to him as they walked what she and Rose had learned about Mary Havilland.

"That's funny," he said, considering it carefully. "Were she lookin' fer streams an' the like, or trying ter find out wot 'er pa knew, if 'e knew sum-mink ter kill 'im for? But why fer? Streams in't no secret, leastways if they cross one an' it makes a cave-in, the 'ole world's gonna know!"

"It doesn't make any sense," she agreed, walking quickly in order to keep up with him. "There's something major in this that we don't know. Either that, or somebody is very stupid."

They traveled by omnibus again, until they reached the northern entrance at Wapping. Hester was startled to see that the building in which it was situated was large and very handsome, so much so that she felt as if she were entering the hall of some concert chamber. She glanced sideways at Sutton, who bent and picked up Snoot, then solemnly carried him down the long, circular steps to the level below, where the tunnel itself opened onto something rather like a hallway. With a dawning of amazement she realized that no vehicle could get out into the open air. The only way up or down was the great stair.

Sutton put Snoot down and the little dog trotted obediently at his heels across the paved floor to the tunnel entrance. Because of the many windows there was plenty of light in this part, but Hester realized that as soon as they were any distance inside, there would be only such light as was afforded by gas jets.

"Stay close to me," Sutton warned. "There's lots o' folk down 'ere, an' most is 'armless enough, but the livin' is 'ard an' people fight for a scrap o' food or a yard o' space, so don't do nothin' but look."

She kept pace with him obediently. The light became dimmer as they progressed. The air took on a hazy quality, and she was acutely aware of the damp on her skin and the changed smell. The ceiling was far higher than she had expected and after a few yards it was lost from sight, giving a sensation of being closed in that was felt rather than seen. She knew that only a little farther on above it was the teeming, filthy water of the Thames. She refused to dwell on how the arch resisted the weight of earth and then the river itself, not to mention the currents and the tides.

The air smelled stale and was bitterly cold. But then one would hardly heat the tunnel with fires. There was no possible ventilation here. To create any sort of outlet to the open air would undermine the safety of the tunnel. If it fell in, they would be entombed here forever!