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‘What is this?’
‘Read it, Mr Linton!’
Grumbling to myself, I took a closer look at the paper. It was open to the obituaries page. My eyes travelled to the outlined section.
Died, at London, 15 September 1839
Mr Walter Simmons
After having been most brutally attacked by two members of the criminal classes and robbed of all he possessed, he succumbed to severe wounds in St Christopher’s Hospital. Our hearts go out to his poor parents, whose only child he was.
I read it, and I read it again. Then I read it a third time. Still, I couldn’t quite process it.
‘Dead?’ I whispered. ‘Simmons is dead?’
‘Why so surprised, Mr Linton? I told you this would happen.’
‘But how… how did this happen? Why did two people attack him? You took his money away, why would they want to rob him?’
His steady, cool gaze was unnerving.
‘Do you really need to ask that question?’
The way he said it, it sounded like there was an ‘I had thought you were cleverer than that!’ attached at the end - which was silly, of course. Mr Ambrose didn’t think me clever at all! He thought I was a girl, and that all girls were stupid and weak.
Well, my bones certainly agreed with him on the last part right now. Stumbling over to the chair in front of the desk, I fell into it and put my arms around me in an unusually vulnerable gesture.
‘And if we went to the police…’ I managed to say.
‘… they would probably not be very eager to investigate a personal friend of the home secretary and relative of Her Majesty the Queen on an unsubstantiated allegation of murder,’ he finished my sentence. ‘In fact, one might even say they would be strongly averse to the idea.’
‘And if we just brought up the theft, Sir?’
‘The one for which you’ve just lost your only witness, Mr Linton?’
‘Oh.’
‘Quite.’ Mr Ambrose shook his head, looking down at me. ‘You have to believe me when I tell you that there’s more to business in the British Empire than signing papers and building machines. Oh, here in the metropolis it’s all glamour, smiles and handshakes. But behind the façade, things are not so pretty.’
‘So… what will we do now?’
‘We?’ He gave a little derisive noise. ‘We will return to our original discussion: the subject of your impending dismissal.’
My head shot up, and I stared into his eyes disbelievingly.
‘What? You really meant that?’
His eyes were very dark.
‘I do not say things I do not mean, Mr Linton! You made a fool of me in front of the entire city. I do not take such things likely. And you’re mistaken if you think you can sidetrack me. Who stole the file, whether it was Lord Dalgliesh or Queen Victoria or Father Christmas for that matter is no concern of yours!’
There were noises from outside the room - the footsteps of a heavy man, coming closer. But neither of us paid attention to them. We were too intent on each other.
‘But… of course it is of concern to me if I’m going to help in the search for the file,’ I protested.
He made a move towards me - then stopped himself in mid-movement. Slowly, as if he had to drag himself back, he removed himself from my vicinity and retreated behind his desk, where he sat down so he was on a level with me and could stare directly into my eyes.
‘No.’
The footsteps were still coming closer. They were as loud as drumbeats now, pounding down the hallway outside. But still, neither of us cared.
‘Yes, Sir, I will!’
‘No, you won’t.’
Behind Mr Ambrose, over the city, the sun was setting. Its last red remnants of light streamed directly into the room, casting Mr Ambrose’s shadow towards me and making him look more like a stony, sinister statue.
‘You,’ he said, slowly and precisely, ‘will not have anything to do with the search for the file, whether you stay or go, and let me tell you, at the moment the latter is far more likely. You will not come within a hundred leagues of Lord Dalgliesh! You won’t even hear a whisper of any trail or clue my men and I will discover! I’ll make sure to keep you far, far away!’
The footsteps outside came to a sudden halt and the door was thrown open. We both turned to stare. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a rebuke form on Mr Ambrose’s lips about how anyone could dare to disturb him without knocking - but his lips froze when he saw who stood in the doorway.
Karim was breathing hard, leaning against the doorway, triumph flashing in his eyes.
‘We have found it!’ he exclaimed. ‘Sahib, we know where the file is!’
‘Why did you do it?’ I demanded. ‘Why did you try to make me believe that you were in love with Miss Hamilton?’
Silence. Icy silence, which filled the space around us completely and absolutely.
There wasn’t much space to fill, in any case. We were stuffed into a chaise, Karim, Mr Ambrose and I. Or rather, Mr Ambrose and I were actually in the chaise, while Karim’s huge form sat, perched precariously at the edge. He was propelling us forward, yelling and wielding the whip, making the little chaise jolt and swerve insanely.
Why? Why have we taken such a miserable little ride?
I had dared to ask that question before we got in, and it turned out that this, apparently, was the only coach actually owned by the unimaginably rich Mr Ambrose: a creaky old chaise, drawn by one shaggy little grey beast of a horse.
‘Why do you own this? Why not a proper coach?’ I had asked.
‘Because it’s cheap and fast. But if you prefer to wait for the Queen’s carriage, by all means, stay here.’
Ignoring him, I had clambered into the chaise and Karim, not paying the slightest attention to the light rain that had begun to fall, had swung himself onto the precarious strip of wood that, in a bigger coach, would have been a real box to sit on. Besides being his loyal bodyguard and sabre-carrying scarecrow, Karim appeared also to fulfil the function of Mr Ambrose’s coach driver.
Now we were rattling through the darkening streets of London at an alarming speed, swaying from right to left in a way that never let me forget we only had two wheels under us, and the beast of a horse at the front was all that was keeping us upright. I hoped with all my heart it wasn’t as mean as it looked.
The chaise swerved around a corner, and a shower of rain hit me in the face. I shuddered. The thing had only half a roof and one wall. It was meant for driving through the park on a nice Sunday, not racing through the pouring rain in the middle of the night! But did that stop Mr Thick-headed Stinginess Ambrose? Of course not!