Charles Stross - The Hidden Family

Something flickered at the edge of Miriam’s vision. She focused past his shoulder, saw the door open and Roland standing there with a leveled pistol. The gunman turned, and something made a noise like a sewing machine, awfully loudly. Hot metal rain, cartridge cases falling. A scream. Miriam kicked out, catching him on one leg. Then the back of his head vanished in a red mist, and he collapsed on top of her.

“Oh Miriam, you really are no good at this!” trilled Olga, “but thank you for drawing his attention! That creep, he makes me so angry…” Then her voice changed: “Dear Lightning Child! What’s happened to Roland?”

“I—” Miriam tried to sit up, but something was pinning her down. Everything was gray. “Where is he?”

“Oh dear.” Olga knelt in the doorway, beside something. Someone. “Are you wounded?” she asked urgently, standing up and coming toward Miriam. “It was his idea to follow you-—”

Miriam finally sat up, shoving the deadweight aside. Strangely, her stomach wasn’t rebelling. “Get. Others. Go across and finish off. I’ll look after him.” Somehow she found herself on the other side of the room, cradling Roland. “He’ll be alright.”

“But he’s—”

She blinked, and forced herself to focus as Olga leaned over her, face white. “He’ll be alright in a minute,” Miriam heard herself explain. “Scalp wounds are always bloody, aren’t they?” Somewhere a door opened and she heard Olga explaining something to someone in urgent tones, something about shock. “Aren’t they?” she asked, still confused but frightened by Olga’s tone. She tried to rub her sore eyes, rendered clumsy by her tied hands, but they were covered in blood. Then Brill rolled up her sleeve and slid a needle into her arm.

“What a mess,” Brill told someone else, before the blessed darkness stifled her screams.

“Fourteen of them, you say?” said Inspector Smith, raising an eyebrow.

“Yessir. Nine coves and five queans all went into the shop mob-handed, like.”

“Fourteen.” The other eyebrow rose to join it. “Jobson never reported back.”

“There’s no sign of blood, sir, or even a struggle,” the inspector’s visitor said apologetically. “And they wasn’t in the premises when me and my squad went in, ten minutes later. Weren’t in the basement, neither. Nor any of the tunnels we’ve explored.”

“Fourteen,” Smith said with a tone of increasing disbelief.

“Sir, we took fingerprints.” The visitor sounded annoyed. “None of them except the Fletcher woman are in our files, and her prints were old. But we had a spook watching as they went in. The count is reliable: fourteen in and none of them came out again! It’s a very rum do, I’ll agree, but unless you have reason to suspect that a crime has been committed—”

“I have, dammit! Where’s Jobson?” Smith stood up, visibly annoyed. “Are you telling me that one of my agents has disappeared and the people responsible aren’t to be found? Because if so, that sounds like a pretty bad sign to me, too.”

“I’ll stand by it, sir.” The regular thief-taker stood firm. “We took the entire block apart, brick by brick. You had the pawnbroker in custody at the time, need I remind you? And his lawyer muttering about habeas corpus all the while. There is, I repeat, no evidence of anything—except fourteen disappearing persons unknown, and a constable of the Defense Bureau who’s nowhere to be seen. Which is not entirely unprecedented, I hope you’ll concede.”

“Bah!” The inspector snorted. “Did you take the cellar walls apart?” His eye gleamed, as if he expected to hear word of an anarchist cell crouched beneath every block.

“We used Mister Moore’s new sound-echo apparatus.” The thief-taker stood up. “There are no hollow chambers, sir. You can have my hat and my badge if you uncover any, as I stand by my word.”

“Bah. Get out. ” Smith glared at the superintendent of thief-takers. “I have a call to make.” He waited for the door to bang shut behind the other man before he added, “Sir Roderick is going to be very annoyed. But I’ll make sure that damned woman gets her comeuppance soon enough …”

Weeks passed: days of pain, days of loss, days of mourning. Finally, an evening clear of snow beneath the winter skies over New London found Miriam standing in the foyer of the Brighton Hotel, dressed to the nines in black, smiling at the guests with a sweet solicitude she hardly felt. “ Hello, Lord Macy! And hello to you too, Mrs. Macy! How have you been? Well, I trust?” The line seemed to stretch around the block, although the red carpet stopped at the curb—many of the visitors were making a point of showing up in new Otto cars, the ones the Durant Motor Company was fitting with the new safety brakes.

“Hello, my dear lady! You’re looking fine.”

Her smile relaxed a bit, losing its grim determination. “I think I am, indeed,” she admitted. “And yourself? Is this to your satisfaction?”

“I think—” Sir Durant raised one eyebrow—”it will do, yes.” He grinned, faintly amused. “It’s your party: Best enjoy it as much as you can. Or are you going to stand by your widowhood forever and a day?”

He tipped his hat to her and ambled inside, to the dining room that Miriam’s money had taken over for a night of glittering celebration, and she managed to keep on smiling, holding the line against desolation and guilt. The party was indeed glittering, packed with the high and the mighty of the New London motor trade, and their wives and sons and daughters, and half the board of trade to boot.

Miriam sighed quietly as the carpet emptied and the doors stopped revolving for a moment. “Busy, isn’t it?” Brill remarked cheerfully behind her.

“I’ll say.” Miriam turned to face her. “You’re looking beautiful tonight,” she mimicked, and pulled a face. “Anyone would think I was selling them pin-up calendars, not brake shoes.”

Brill grinned at her cheekily. “Oh, I don’t know,” she began. “If you put out a calendar with yourself on it, that might improve sales—” She held out a full glass of something sparkling.

“Here, give me that. It’s not suitable for young ladies!” Miriam took it and raised it. “To … something or other.” Her daringly bare shoulders slumped tiredly. “Success.”

Brill raised the other glass: “Success. Hey, this isn’t bad.” She took a big mouthful, then wiped her lips with the back of one lace glove. “Do you think they’re enjoying it?”

“They will.” Miriam looked at the dining room doors, then back at the front: It was almost time for the meal to begin. “Or else,” she added bitterly.

“You haven’t seen Lady Olga yet?” asked Brill.

“No—” Miriam caught her eye. “Why?”

“Oh, nothing. It was meant to be her surprise, that’s all. I shan’t give it away.” Brill did her best impression of an innocent at large, nose in the air and glass in hand. “Success,” she muttered. “ Most women would be after true love or a rich husband, but this one wants to own skyscrapers.”

“True love and a helmet will stop bullets,” Miriam said bitterly.

“You weren’t to know.” Brill looked at her askance. “Was it really true love?”

“How the fuck should I know?” Miriam drained her glass in one gulp, so that she wouldn’t have to explain. Was it? she wondered, confused. Damn it, he should be here, now. We had so much to talk about.

“Owning skyscrapers makes the need for a rich husband irrelevant,” Brill pointed out. “And anyway, you’re still young. True love is bound to—” She stopped. Another car was pulling up outside, and a small crowd of partygoers was climbing out.