Ava closed her eyes, the warm candlelight flickering behind her eyelids. ‘Why have you put cardboard upon all the windows?’
‘Because I couldn’t find wood slatting cheap enough.’
Ava had thought the house rather coffin-like already, and she dreaded to think what it would look like with wooden beams nailed into the wall.
‘And what does Mrs Moss think of all this? You know – our landlady? The one whoownsthe house you are turning into a mausoleum?’
There was a silence from behind the door. ‘She’s been in Manchester the past week with that damned club of hers.’
‘And when she comes back?’
‘She won’t notice.’
Ava straightened, feeling the exhaustion begin to tug at her. Considering Mrs Moss’ favourite business was knowing everyone else’s business, Ava foundthatrather unlikely. ‘Aren’t you going to come and greet me?’ she asked softly. ‘I haven’t seen you for months.’
‘You’re the one who left,’ her father said. There was no malice in his voice, no venom, but she felt his words like a paper cut – the painless swipe, and then the sting.
‘Well I’m back now,’ said Ava. ‘And I missed you. Don’t you wish to hear what I did in Edinburgh?’
There was no reply from behind her father’s door. Nothing but silence.
‘How did it go, Ava?’ she asked herself, lowering her voice into a crude impression of her father. ‘Did you reinvent yourself, as you wished? Did you get a job at the Empire, and rise to stardom there instead of here?’
She cleared her throat. ‘I suppose you already know the answer to that, for you’d have seen it in the papers, otherwise. Although I did manage to find Ma’s mentor – you remember her? The French lady?’
There was nothing but silence from behind the doorway, and she shook her head, the wood pressing into her forehead. ‘I thought perhaps if anyone could help me become even a fraction of what Ma was, it would be her. But things did not work out quite as neatly as that.’
She felt her breath catch in her throat.
‘Well, I suppose I should get to bed,’ she croaked, patting one hand against the wood. ‘Always nice talking to you.’
And then she turned, and padded her way back down the stairs, past the empty spaces on the wall, the places where her mother’s spark had been, and feeling the chill that hung there now instead.
Chapter Three
The day dawned bright and brilliant, the clear blue sky and cold wind threatening to freeze the puddles that had formed overnight. Damien Carter scowled up at the blinding sunshine, pulling his coat closed at the neck. What he wouldn’t give to curl up in a dark room and sleep, but instead he was walking towards Liverpool’s docks, last night’s rum still thudding in his veins, his coat still damp and heavy from standing out in the rain.
The beauty of being in a new city for only one night was that there was so much possibility, and so few consequences. He couldn’t trick someone into gambling away sums like that every evening – for that would raise suspicions. But for one night? He could blow in like an autumn storm, leave a trail of empty pockets behind him, and by the time anyone had even thought of looking to claw their coin back, he’d be gone.
Of course he was careful. His rules saw to that – and out of principle he only ever cheated those who cheated others. They hadn’t earned the coin filling their pockets, so why shouldn’t he relieve them of their ill-won gains? If deceit were a circle, then he was at the heart of it – spinning that same wheel, over and again.
Urgh.
Just the thought of spinning made his stomach clench. He needed to board a ship and be rocked back and forth by the waves like he needed another hole in his boots, but Damien had been through worse. In just seven days he’d be in New York City, and a whole new life would begin to unfold around him. One where he didn’t need to move from place to place.
One where his father would never find him.
There was a queue when he reached the docks, which surprised Damien, for the boarding time on his ticket read twelve o’clock, and it was only eight. He’d planned to steal an hour of sleep, and perhaps a morsel – but people were already climbing up the gangway of the great ship, dragging leather bags and canvas sacks, and so Damien reluctantly joined the snaking line of passengers shuffling forwards, eyes on the churning mass of water.
The river looked hungry. Muddied waves sucked greedily at the ship’s dark hull and slapped against the landing stage – turning the wooden walkway black. Damien disliked open water, even when it wore its intentions as plainly as the River Mersey, and he tried not to focus on how the walkway swayed with each smacking wave, nor how his own heart swayed with it.
When he finally reached the front of the queue, Damien handed his ticket to the large, unsmiling man in the ticket booth.
He glanced at it briefly, and then slid the ticket back to Damien.
‘This one’s in dry dock,’ he said. ‘Departure is delayed. Next!’
Damien frowned. ‘Doesn’t look like it’s delayed to me. Looks like people are getting on it.’
