Page 40

I stood in disbelief. There was only one other person who had a key to that room. Mr Benson. He hadn’t been at the front desk when I walked past. His quarters were down here in the basement, with the other staff bedrooms. I marched over to his door and knocked briskly. ‘Mr Benson?’

No reply.

‘Open up, please, Mr Benson. I need a word.’

Nothing. I frowned. If he wasn’t in his office and he wasn’t in his bedroom, where the heck was he?

‘Aaargh!’

I almost leapt a foot in the air. Someone had just screamed in pain – someone hiding around the corner, near the staff bedrooms. What’s more, I recognized their voice.

I peered around the corner and, lo and behold, there was Peter, hobbled on the floor and clutching his ankle.

‘Stephen! Thank Christ!’ he gasped. ‘Help me up, will you?’

He was in a terrible state – almost as bad as me. His nose was bloodied, and there was a bruise over the bridge, too. I heaved him to his feet, but he could barely stand. ‘You okay?’

‘My ankle,’ he grimaced. ‘I stepped backwards and something just went straight into it. Feels like flipping hot knives.’

‘What are you doing down here?’ I asked.

It was a reasonable question, given that he didn’t work here. But Peter snorted. ‘That’s a fine welcome! I was looking for you, you pillock. You’re a slippery figure when you want to be. Why don’t you have a bedroom down here?’

I blushed. ‘My quarters are upstairs. In Miss Decima’s apartment.’

Peter looked shocked. ‘Blimey. That doesn’t sound like much fun.’

‘Not always, no.’

Peter looked me up and down. ‘Speaking of which, you’re in a worse state than I am. The poitin!’ He shook his head. ‘Turns out Tommy makes it in a bucket in his boiler room. It’s written off half the manservants in the borough, that has. Your slide-tackle sorted the other half.’

I blushed. ‘Sorry. That’s not how you broke your nose, is it?’

Peter froze. ‘You … you don’t remember what happened? After the match?’

I shook my head. Peter glanced over his shoulder. There was a light sheen on his face now. ‘Look – about that. The stuff I said to you last night, on the steps … it’s not true. So let’s just forget I said any of it, yeah?’

My mind raced. I could remember Peter leaning in to whisper to me, could remember being shocked. But every time I’d tried to grip on to the words he’d said, they simply slipped away. ‘Er … which bit do you want me to forget, exactly?’

‘All of it,’ snapped Peter. ‘In fact … forget everything from last night. The stuff about Crace – the union stuff, too. It’s not going to happen and so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone. Not worth losing my job over, ha, ha, ha!’

I’m good at reading people – always have been. Peter didn’t look like a man who was worried about getting the sack. He looked like a man who was worried about something much, much worse.

‘See you around, then, Stephen,’ he said, clapping me on the back. ‘Maybe we can get a drink sometime, eh?’

With that, he limped off like a man walking across hot coals. I stood alone in the basement, listening to his footsteps disappear out of Number 89. I wondered about the policemen I’d seen on the steps that afternoon, about the eyes I’d felt watching me. I wondered if there was another reason Peter wanted me to forget everything he’d told me, if there was another reason he’d been hiding down here. If he was the reason I’d felt followed.

For the first time, I sensed there was something dark and secret prowling around me; something that had shown its face, just for a moment, before sinking back once more into the shadows.

29

Monday, 19 June, 6.51 p.m.

Most of Miss Decima’s belongings had been stacked floor to ceiling in the corridor of the basement. Thankfully the largest trunk was separate to the big stack, which meant I didn’t have to try to pull it free and get flattened by six smaller cases as a result. Even so, it took ages to drag it all the way to the lift and then to Miss Decima’s apartment. By the time I’d heaved it into her study, the sun was beginning to soften through the windows.

‘I went as fast as I could,’ I muttered. ‘I’m afraid someone’s emptied out your trunk room, Miss Decima.’

She snorted. ‘Do I detect the malign hand of Mr Benson? I imagine he’s searching for something incriminating about me to send to the freeholders to get rid of me. Good luck to him! He won’t find it in any of these cases.’ She flung open the lid to reveal a mess of old documents: letters, papers, journals. ‘They’re Conrad’s personal effects. I had them removed from this study when we moved in.’