Joanna Bourne - Rogue Spy

But no. She wasn’t in danger yet. She had an hour before she walked into the trap laid for her.

She turned away, not sharing her face with this man passing by, being careful. In the long, soft years since Paris, she hadn’t forgotten the rules.

She collected only a glimpse of him as he walked past her and continued down Meeks Street . . . a tall, long-limbed man, dressed in dark traveling clothes, somewhat dusty. He wore well-scuffed riding boots, riding gloves, and a soft, broad-brimmed felt hat that shaded his face. He carried a valise and moved fast, with the clean grace of an athlete. Something about him made her think of a man trudging uphill with no end in sight. If she hadn’t been supplied with a sufficiency of troubles of her own, she would have been curious.

Far down Meeks Street, her messenger boy delivered the letter, gave a cheeky salute to the house, and was down the stair before the door closed behind him.

That was done. Whatever happened to her in the Moravian church on Fetter Lane, that message was safe. There should be no repercussions. She’d timed its delivery so the men of Meeks Street would decode it only after she’d completed her business with the blackmailer.

She crossed Braddy Square in the direction of a godly church where an ungodly meeting would take place. She looked back once. She wasn’t really surprised to see the man with the valise climb the stairs of Number Seven Meeks Street.

Pax put one foot in front of the other for the last thousand steps, not letting himself slow down.

Meeks Street hadn’t changed. Ugly prosperous houses lined both sides of the street, the doorknobs polished and the steps well scrubbed. Some houses were shut up tight, keeping the air out, but most had the window sashes up. Muslin curtains rippled, lipping in and out over the sills. The linden trees were turning yellow. Gray smoke from the kitchen fires slanted off the chimneys and spread out to disappear.

Number Thirty-one was still ruled by the sleek black tomcat that played sentry on the garden wall. Number Twenty-three had added five stone urns along the front, carrying five yew trees shaved and clipped within an inch of their lives. At Nineteen, a dog stuck a yapping muzzle through a gap in the iron gate.

All familiar. He didn’t belong at Meeks Street anymore, but it felt like coming home.

Down the street, Sam had delivered that woman’s message to Number Seven.

He glanced back over his shoulder. The woman in the dark cloak was gone. She’d waited just long enough to see her letter delivered. Gone . . . and she left the air behind her shimmering with intention and planning.

I don’t like this.

Young Sam swung away from Number Seven, errand completed, and headed back to the square, running his fingers along the iron palings, whistling, pleased with himself.

Why didn’t she want to come to Number Seven? He took the steps fast. For the first time in two weeks, he had a reason to be in a hurry.

He pounded the knocker and left his hand spread flat on the door, willing it to open. The door was painted Prussian green with a little black in the base. The knocker was brass, in the shape of a rose. Forty years ago they’d picked the rose knocker out of the ruins of the old headquarters after it burned. The plate to the right of the door read, The Penumbral Walking Club.

He didn’t have a key. Nobody got past the front door of Number Seven unless somebody let him in.

He pounded again. Where was Giles?

The lock disengaged. Giles, a sturdy, open-faced sixteen-year-old, opened the door, letter in hand. He said, “Pax.” Nothing but surprise and pleasure in his voice. “You’re back. Hawker said you’d be here in a day or two. Grey’s landed in Dover—”

“Give me that.” He took the letter from Giles, dropped it on the table, and brushed his fingers on his coat.

“It just came,” Giles said. “Sam brought it. It’s addressed to Galba.”

The door on the other side of the ugly front parlor opened. Hawker, compact, dark haired, deadly as a snake, dressed like a gentleman, strolled in. “I didn’t think you’d be fool enough to show up. There’s still time to turn around and run.”

“No, there isn’t. Hawk, look at this. Don’t touch it.”

“I wasn’t going to.” Hawker approached, feline and inquisitive. “Communication from the greater world.”

The folded paper was addressed to Anson Jones. That was Galba’s real name, not the name he used when he was Head of Service. Mr. Anson Jones, Number Seven, Meeks Street.

“What’s wrong with it?” Hawker took his knife out, twitched the blade under the note, flipped it over.

“It’s from a woman.”

“Not, in itself, a bad thing.”

In fifty words he told Hawk how the note had been sent. “And . . . I know the handwriting. This e with the sharp corner, tilted up. The bar on the t slanted down. I’ve seen that.”

“Where?”

“Not recently. It’s . . .” He shook his head. “A long time ago. Somewhere.”

“Part of life’s eventful journey.”

“It’ll come to me.” He pulled his knife and helped himself to Hawker’s. He steadied the note and slit the seal without touching the paper at all. “Don’t breathe.” That was for Giles. Hawker had already stepped back.

Hawker murmured, “You do realize we’re prying into the private correspondence of the Head of Service.”

“I know.” He laid the page flat, using the knife point to push the edges back. On the paper, line after line of numbers and letters. “And we have code.”

“Do we?” Hawker bent forward. “How dramatic.”

“A Service code.”

“A Leyland code.” Hawk’s finger hovered over the inkblot that marked it as Leyland code. “I don’t recognize the identifier.”

“One of the old ones. Before you came to the Service.” Code. Something about code . . . and that handwriting.

Then he remembered. He’d been thirteen or fourteen, sitting at a long table in the cold, bare schoolroom of the Coach House, painstakingly disassembling a code. The dark-haired girl beside him leaned over her slate, scribbling down the sharp little e and the slanted t, deciphering as fast as she could write. None of them could touch her when it came to code breaking.

Vérité. Vérité’s handwriting. Ten years ago, when he’d had a different name and Vérité had been his best friend. “I know who she is. I knew her when she was a child.” A particularly deadly child.

Hawk said, “A French spy, then. One of you Cachés.”

“One of us. Yes.” He flipped Hawk’s knife to hold it by the blade and handed it back to him. “I have to find her. Giles, go wash your hands. Don’t touch the letter again. Don’t let anyone get close to it till I come back.”

Giles said, “Why not?”

Hawker answered for him. “Because Galba opens mail addressed to that name with his own hands. There could be poison in the paper. Or smallpox. I saw that done once. We may be playing host to a weapon of the assassin’s trade. The woman who sent it is Police Secrète.”

“At one time, she was. I don’t know what she is now.” He wondered what else to say and couldn’t think of anything. “Tell Galba I’ll be back.”

“Giles will tell him.” Hawk was already grabbing his hat from the hideous sideboard.

“Hawk, you can’t help me with this. You know why.”

“Because you’re Thomas Paxton, infamous French spy.” Hawker’s dark face was inscrutable, his eyes cool and assessing. “I’d better keep an eye on you.”

“You’re on the sick list. You have a bullet hole in you.”

“Not a large one. We’ll argue about it as we walk. Lead the way.”

The hell of it was, he needed Hawk. He made the only decision possible. Somehow he’d make it right with Galba when they got back. “Then come on.”

A dozen people dawdled their way around Braddy Square or sat on the benches. Vérité was gone. Pax swung in a circle, looking for any sign of her.

Hawker caught up with him. “She has five minutes’ head start. Will she break into a run?”

With her training? “She won’t even walk fast. She’s gone three or four hundred yards.”

He and Hawk had worked together so long they didn’t have to discuss strategy. Hawk took off to the left, following the perimeter of the square, clockwise.

One person in Braddy Square would have noticed which way Vérité had gone. Sam was back at his accustomed post in front of the mercer’s, meditating on the distant clouds. He was willing enough to point to the corner where the Dancing Dog did its trade. “She went down there. In a hurry, she was.”

Wouldn’t it be nice if life were that simple? He fumbled a half crown loose from his pocket and held it up. “There’s two of these if I catch up with her.”

He made to tuck the coin back in his pocket.

“Down there. Morte Road.” The boy’s eyes shifted east. “She give me shilling to say she gone t’other way.”

Now they had a chance. He flipped the coin to Sam and said, “If I catch her, come find two more of these tonight at Number Seven,” and left the boy with a grin on his face.

He ran east, hearing Hawk behind him. The first corner gave no sign of her. No dark cloak. No woman alone. No woman the right size and shape.

“This is exceptionally futile,” Hawk said. “Except for Sam, who had a profitable morning. You bribe large.”

“Always bribe large, close to home.”

“A rule to live by. What are we chasing?”

“Long, dark brown cloak with a hood. Dress under it is dark blue. The woman’s thin, medium height, a bit more than twenty. Brown eyes. Black hair, short and curly. She’s pretty.” He corrected that. “She’s probably pretty. I didn’t see her face.”

“You didn’t bother to angle over and get a good look. You are a waste of balls, Mr. Paxton.”

“I didn’t let a woman put a bullet in my shoulder, Mr. Hawkins. We go left.”

They ran the next street without a glimpse of Vérité. At the corner, this time, he chose the right hand. There were more people on the street in this direction. Then, sixty feet ahead . . .

He slowed. “You see?” He shifted aside to let Hawker get a good look.

“Do we follow her, or do we collect her now?”

“We follow. You take the lead. And keep your face covered. If she makes a habit of watching Meeks Street, she may know you.”

“A joy shared by feminine multitudes.” Hawk stripped off his neckcloth and stuffed it in his pocket. He pulled a thin black neckerchief from another pocket and tied it in place around his neck, a fashion for laborers and small tradesmen. “Who is she?”

“French.”

“Not precisely a crime. More what Doyle would be calling a social solecism.” Hawk unbuttoned his jacket. Crushed the lapels tight in his fists and let them hang rumpled and slightly crooked. What had been fashionable now looked like a cheap imitation. “Hold on to this for me.” Hawker handed his hat over and ran a rough hand through his hair, putting himself another step downward on the social ladder.

“She may be armed. Don’t get close.”

“I never take chances,” Hawk said. He probably even believed it.

“I’ll signal when we need to change places.”

Hawk nodded, his eyes on the dark flick of a cloak in the distance. He reset his coat on his shoulders and hunched in on himself, losing an inch in height. Unrecognizable, he faded into the crowd.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, inconspicuous behind a handcart stacked with bales of newsprint, Pax watched Vérité open the door of a small church on Fetter Lane, just off Fleet Street. He was fairly sure she hadn’t spotted him. Ten years ago she’d been skilled in the game of follow and be followed, but he and Hawker had used every trick in the book to stay invisible. They were skilled, too.

An empty church. This looked like she was meeting somebody.

He picked a rectangular slash of shade at the doorway of a stationer’s across the street from the church, a spot just made for a man to be patient in. Fetter Lane wasn’t as busy as Fleet Street, but it was full enough of printers and booksellers, newspaper offices and taverns, that a man might stand here awhile, waiting for a friend and an innocent meal of chops and ale. Playing his part, he pulled his watch out and checked it. Still well short of noon.