Jonathan Stroud - The Creeping Shadow

“The last time I came to Clerkenwell you saw the skull in the jar, Harold. I know you did. Then you told somebody about it. Who?”

He struggled a bit then, so I increased the pressure on his windpipe. It was probably a mistake, since he coughed all over me, but I’d never beaten anyone up before.

“So what if I saw the jar?” he croaked when I relented. “Why would I care what weird stuff you had? Why would it mean anything to me?”

“Oh, but haunted relics mean a lot to you, don’t they?” I said. “More than you let on. Let me ask you something else. Three nights ago I brought you a mummified head. You took it and gave me a receipt. What did you do with it then?”

“The head? I burned it! You saw me!”

“No, Harold. No, you didn’t. You kept it. You sold it. And I know that, because it was bought up at a black market auction the very same day.”

“What? You’re mad!”

“Am I? I saw it there.”

That was a bit of a lie, but what can you do? Harold Mailer would just have gone on denying it, which would have wasted my time. Besides, Flo had seen it, and she was reliable.

He moistened his lips. “What were you doing at a black market sale?”

“What are you doing selling forbidden artifacts, Harold? You know the penalties for black market trade. You know how seriously Barnes takes this—or you will very soon, when I go to see him.”

“This is so mad, Lucy. You’re insane.”

“Who do you sell this stuff to, Harold? For the last time: Who did you tell about my skull?”

Close-up, I could see that his eyes were greenish, flecked with yellow-brown. Something changed in them then; defiance turned to fear, and I knew I had him.

“Can’t tell you,” he gasped. “I can’t. Upon my life. The walls have ears.”

“We’re in an alley, Harold. No one’s here. The only ears littering the place”—I brought my rapier slowly into view—“are going to be yours, if you don’t start being helpful.”

Since I’d collared him, one of his knobbly hands had been scrabbling at my wrist. For a moment, just for a moment, I felt the quality of the pressure change and knew he was considering fighting back. What would have happened then, I don’t know; he was as tall as me, and not much weaker, and I wouldn’t really have been able to cut off his ears or any other part of him. But he was a coward, physically as well as morally, and the moment passed.

“All right, all right, give me a little space.” He blew out his lips as I moved back a step, holding my rapier at the ready. He flexed his shoulders, a small, scared teen in an oversized coat, trying to rustle up some courage. “I need time to think. I need time….What’s that rank smell, anyway? Is it your coat?”

“No, Harold, it’s the alley.”

“Smells like stale sweat.”

“Are we going to argue about odors now? I want answers.”

“Okay.” He was looking up the alley, twitchy as a jackrabbit, and at first I thought he was thinking of making a bolt for it; but it was a different kind of twitchiness—he was frightened of who else might be near. A few yards away, in the sunlit street, furnace workers were strolling past in ones and twos, but none of them looked our way.

“Okay,” Harold Mailer said again, “I’ll tell you—not that I know that much. Some men made contact with me three months ago. Black marketeers, I guess—I don’t know. They offered me money if I could slip them the best Sources that came in. Since the rules were tightened, the market for artifacts has gotten so hot; there are some people who’ll do anything for them. I needed the cash, Lucy. You don’t know what it’s like, working here; you get paid peanuts, and the Fittes bosses treat you like scum. It’s not like being an agent—”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “Skip the sob story. So you pass them the Sources, and burn substitutes in their place.”

“Only the best ones, the most powerful pieces. It’s easy enough; no one ever looks closely at what we roll into the fire.” He tried a weak grin. “I mean, where’s the harm in it, really? Doesn’t hurt no one.”

I pressed the rapier against his belly. “Is that so? You forget, they stole my property. Because you told them about it. You gave them the tip. Why?”

“I’m sorry, I know that was wrong. It’s just, they’re getting impatient for good stuff, Lucy. It’s like they can’t get enough of it. Sometimes I don’t have anything good, and they get angry….But they like information, too, see? You have to keep them happy.”

“So who are these men? What do they want the Sources for ?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, what are they like? Describe them.”

“I don’t know who they are.”

I stepped away from him. “That’s useless, Harold. You’ve given me nothing. I’m going to Barnes now. Get off my arm.”

He lurched forward with a cry, and caught at my sleeve. “You don’t understand. They’re not nice people, Luce! You don’t spend time staring at them. You transfer the stuff and leave. Everything’s done after dark. Listen, I can help you. I’m giving them a package tonight. You could be there. You could watch—see them, follow them maybe, I don’t know, as long as you keep me out of it. What do you think? I could do that for you. I could do that, Lucy, if you don’t…What? Why are you laughing?”

“I know just what would happen. You’d hand me over to them and run off.”

“No! I swear! I hate them! They’re bad news, Lucy. I should never have gotten in with them. Only the money was so good. Listen, they’re dropping off a message this afternoon, telling me the place. It’s different each time. Always somewhere in Clerkenwell, but I never know where. I could meet you, once my shift ends. Here, or in the churchyard. I could tell you what’s been arranged. Then you could wait tonight, maybe hide someplace. It’ll be fine as long as they don’t find out you’re there.”

Well, I could think of a thousand reasons why this was a bad idea, and all of them stemmed from Harold Mailer’s complete untrustworthiness. It seemed quite likely that he would prefer to see me dead than ruin his lucrative little trade, and letting him go would give him ample time to set up such an outcome. Having said that, I clearly wasn’t going to do much better here.

He was watching my face, sidelong. “I’ll make it worth your while,” he said.

“If anything happens to me tonight,” I said, after a long pause, “if you betray me in some way, I have friends who will hunt you down and make you pay. You’ll wish you’d thrown yourself into one of your furnaces instead of crossing me.” It was the best threat I could think of, but it sounded pretty weak, not to mention clichéd. Harold Mailer didn’t seem to care. He was nodding, white-faced, desperate to be gone.

“Dusk, then,” he said, “at St. James’s churchyard. There’s a bench in the center, where the four paths meet. I’ll be there. I’ll have the information you need. But they can’t know about you, Lucy. They can’t. You’ve got to believe me. You don’t know what they’ll do. Promise you won’t ever tell them that I spoke to you.”

“If you keep your word with me,” I said, “I’ll do the same. Otherwise…”

“Oh, you agents always play fair, I know that.” He was clutching for his lunch bag, lying abandoned on the ground. “Everyone loves the agencies.” Then he was sidling away from me, his coat scuffing against the bricks, his face a queasy stew of duplicity, dislike, and fear. He got to the corner and rounded it like a rat, pressed close to the edge, gathering speed. “At dusk,” he said again, and was gone.