Bernard Cornwell - Gallows Thief

Sally giggled at the picture, then turned on Berrigan. 'You worked in an academy, Sam Berrigan.'

'It's a club!'

'Bleeding academy is what it is,' Sally said scornfully.

'I left it, didn't I?' Berrigan protested. 'Besides, it weren't an academy for us servants. Only for the members.'

'What members?' Sally asked, and laughed at her own jest.

Berrigan hushed her, not because she was being coarse, but because there were footsteps in the corridor outside. They came close to the door, passed on, faded.

'It doesn't really help us being up here,' Sandman said.

'We'll wait for things to quiet down,' Berrigan said, 'and then we'll slip back down to the yard.'

The door handle rattled. Berrigan quickly stepped behind a folding screen that hid a chamberpot and Sandman froze. The footsteps had seemed to pass on down the passage, but the person now trying the handle must have heard the voices and crept back, and suddenly the door was pushed open and a girl walked in. She was tall, slender and her black hair was prettily piled on her head and held in place with long pins with mother of pearl heads. Her shoes had mother of pearl heels, she sported pearl earrings and had a string of pearls strung twice about her elegant, swan-like neck, but otherwise she was quite naked. She took no notice of Sandman, who had half drawn his pistol, but smiled at Sally. 'I didn't know you worked here, Sal!'

'I'm not really working, Flossie,' Sally said.

Sandman recognised the girl then. It was the opera dancer who had called herself Sacharissa Lasorda and who now turned and stared at Sandman and somehow, though she was stark naked and he was fully dressed, she made him feel out of place. She looked him up and down, then smiled at Sally. 'You got the good-looking one, didn't you? But he's taking his time, ain't he?' Then her eyes widened as Berrigan stepped from behind the screen. 'You having a threesome?' she asked, then recognised the sergeant.

'I ain't here, Flossie,' Berrigan growled, 'so close the door when you leave and you ain't seen me. I thought you'd left for higher things?'

'Didn't work out, Sam,' she said, closing the door but staying inside the room.

'What happened to Spofforth?' Sally asked.

'Faked off this morning, didn't he?' She sniffed. 'The bastard! And I need the bleeding rhino, don't I? And this place is always worth a few quid.' She sat on the bed. 'So what the hell are you doing here?' she asked Berrigan.

'What the hell are you doing?' he demanded in return.

'We sneak in here for a rest,' Flossie said, 'on account that no one looks in here in summer.'

'Well just you remember that we ain't here,' Berrigan said fiercely. 'We ain't here, you ain't seen us and don't ask us no questions.'

'Bloody hell!' Flossie gave Berrigan a very level look. 'Pardon me for bloody breathing.'

'And who are you supposed to be with?' Berrigan asked.

'Tollemere. Only he's drunk and snoring.' She sniffed again and looked at Sally. 'You working here?'

'No.'

'Rhino's good,' Flossie said. She eased off a shoe and massaged her foot. 'So what happens if I go downstairs and tell them you're here?' she asked Berrigan.

'Next time I see you,' Berrigan said, 'you get a thorough bloody kicking.'

'Sergeant!' Sandman remonstrated, though he noticed that Flossie seemed remarkably unmoved by the threat.

'She bloody well will get a kicking!' Berrigan said.

'It's all bulge and no bang with you, Sam,' Flossie said, grinning.

'We ain't going to hurt no one,' Sally said earnestly, 'and we're only trying to help someone.

'I won't tell anyone you're here,' Flossie promised. 'Why should I?'

'So who's here tonight?' Berrigan asked.

She rattled off a list of names, none of which was of interest to Sandman, for neither the Marquess of Skavadale nor Lord Robin Holloway were included. Flossie was certain neither man was in the club. 'I don't mind the Marquess,' she said, ''cos he's a proper gentlemen, but Lord bleeding Robin, he's a bastard.' She pulled her shoe back on, yawned and stood up. 'I'd better go and make sure his lordship ain't missing me. He'll want his supper soon.' She frowned. 'I don't mind working here,' she went on, 'the rhino's good, it's comfortable, but I bloody hate sitting down to supper naked. Makes you feel queer, it does, all the men dressed bang up and us skinned to nothing.' She opened the door and shook her head. 'And I always spill the bloody soup.'

'You will keep mum, Flossie?' Berrigan asked anxiously.

She blew him a kiss. 'For you, Sam, anything,' she said, and was gone.

'For you, Sam, anything?' Sally asked.

'She don't mean nothing,' Berrigan said hastily.

'Mister Spofforth was right,' Sandman interrupted them.

'Right about what?' Sally wanted to know.

'She does have good legs.'

'Captain!' Sally was shocked.

'I've seen better,' Sergeant Berrigan said gallantly, and Sandman was pleased to see Sally blush.

'Out of interest,' Sandman asked as he went to the door, 'what does it cost to be a member here?' He opened the door a crack and peered out, but the corridor was empty.

'Two thousand to join, that's if you're invited, and a hundred a year,' Berrigan said.

The privileges of wealth, Sandman thought, and if the Countess of Avebury had been blackmailing one of the members, or even two or three of the members, then would they not kill her to preserve their place in this hedonistic mansion? He glanced back at the window. It was dark outside now, but it was the luminous dark of a summer night in a gas-lit town. 'Shall we find our coachman?' he asked Berrigan.

They went back down the servants' stairs and crossed the yard. The coach still glistened wetly on the cobbles, though the buckets were gone. Horses stamped in the stables as Berrigan went to the side door of the carriage house. He listened there for a few seconds, then raised two fingers to indicate that he thought there were two men on the door's far side. Sandman pulled the pistol from his coat pocket. He decided not to cock it for he did not want the gun to fire accidentally, but he checked it was primed then he edged Berrigan aside, opened the door and walked inside.

The room was a kitchen, tack room and store. A pot of water bubbled over a fire and a pair of candles burnt on the mantel and more stood on the table where two men, one young and one middle-aged, sat with tankards of ale and plates of bread, cheese and cold beef. They turned and stared when Sandman came in, and the older man, opening his mouth in astonishment, let his clay pipe drop so that its stem broke on the table's edge. Sally followed Sandman into the room, then Berrigan came in and closed the door.

'Introduce me,' Sandman said. He was not pointing the pistol at either man, but it was very obvious and the two could not take their eyes from it.

'The youngster's a stable hand,' Berrigan said, 'and he's called Billy, while the one with the jaw in his lap is Mister Michael Mackeson. He's one of the club's two coachmen. Where's Percy, Mack?'

'Sam?' Mackeson said faintly. He was a burly man, red-faced, with a fine waxed moustache and a shock of black hair that was turning grey at the temples. He was dressed well and could doubtless afford to be, for good drivers were paid extravagantly. Sandman had heard of a driver earning over two hundred pounds a year, and all of them were considered the possessors of an enviable skill, so enviable that every young gentleman wanted to be like them. Lordlings wore the same caped coats as the professionals and learnt to carry the whip in one hand and the bunched reins in the other, and there were so many aristocrats aspiring to be coachmen that no one could be sure whether any particular carriage was driven by a duke or a paid driver. Now, despite his elevated status, Mackeson just gaped at Berrigan who, like Sandman, had a pistol.