Doktor Glass (34 page)

Mrs. Grizedale sat at a crooked table. “She won’t leave me alone.”

“Sarah?”

She nodded. “I keep having the same dream: trapped, no air, no room, the sides closing in all around me. It’s horrible. Horrible.”

Langton thought of the jar standing on the zinc table.

Mrs. Grizedale pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders and
said, “I’ve never suffered these visions before. Not like this. She must have been very strong willed, your wife. Very strong.”

“She was,” Langton said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen. I didn’t expect—”

Mrs. Grizedale stopped his words with her upturned palm. “The risk was mine to take. I knew what I was dealing with, but it’s never been this powerful before. She doesn’t want to leave.”

She stared straight into Langton’s eyes and said, almost as an accusation, “You must have loved each other very much.”

Langton sagged against the door frame. When he closed his eyes he saw Sarah laughing, running across a green lawn in her yellow dress. Sarah in his arms. Sarah lying there, pale and wan, looking so small in that great wooden bed.

Then he opened his eyes and saw Mrs. Grizedale slumped and tired, exhausted. He couldn’t put her through another ordeal. He couldn’t ask her to contact Sarah again.

He turned away. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come.”

“Wait.” She crossed the room and rested one hand on his arm. “You should know: She’s confused, like a child. I don’t think she knows what has happened. And her spirit is becoming tainted.”

“By what?”

“Every time someone connects with the jar, they take away a little of the energy within, but they also give a little of themselves. The transaction works both ways.”

How many “clients” had sampled Sarah’s essence, her memories? Had Sister Wright connected with her?

“Tell me what you’ve seen,” Langton said. “Please. Anything that seems out of place, or strange.”

Mrs. Grizedale smiled. “Strange? As if any of this is normal?”

“Please.”

“I’ll try.” She closed her eyes a moment, then spoke of mismatched fragments of memories, like images from a child’s scrapbook: forest
walks and candlelit parties; a dress billowing in a summer breeze; lazy Sunday breakfasts; the sting of cold rain. These were recognizably Sarah’s. Others were not: cigar-filled rooms; red and black cards on green baize tables; raucous music hall songs and lodge receptions.

And the strangest of all: “I see towers and a tall bridge dancing.”

“Dancing?”

Mrs. Grizedale, eyes still closed, struggled to find the words. “It was shifting…sort of rippling, twisting from side to side as well as up and down. Dancing.”

“Is it the Span?”

“I’m not sure…it could be, but…” She opened tired, bloodshot eyes. “Did I help?”

Langton didn’t know, but he thanked her anyway. On the way through the jerry-built shack, he wondered which of Sarah’s “clients” had passed on that image of a bridge in motion. Standing on the boardwalk, he looked up at the Span. Difficult to imagine that dancing.

As he turned back to say good-bye to Mrs. Grizedale, she spoke first: “I hope you find peace. Both of you.”

“So do I,” Langton said, wondering how she’d react if she knew of Sister Wright’s plans for bringing Sarah back. He hoped Mrs. Grizedale never found out.

Langton took a step toward Lloyd. At that moment, a snarl erupted behind him. He turned and stepped aside, narrowly avoiding the hissing, spitting whirlwind of Meera. Before she could attack again, Lloyd ducked beneath her arms and grabbed her waist.

“Why don’t you leave her alone?” Meera said, fighting Lloyd’s grip and trying to reach Langton with clawing hands. “You hurt her enough.”

“Meera, please,” Mrs. Grizedale said. “It’s all right.”

But Meera seemed intent; her hand slid inside her jacket and re-appeared with a short, fat, gleaming knife.

Lloyd knocked it from her grip and pulled her tight to him. “All right, my girl, less of that. You don’t want every copper in the city around our necks, do you? That’s right.”

Then, to Langton, “You’d better make yourself scarce, Inspector. She’s a right little bundle, this one.”

Langton hurried toward the main gate. Behind him, curses and oaths poured from Meera, some of them not in English but none the less meaningful for that. He paused outside the gate and looked around at the stalls waiting for customers, the lines of police, and the crowds lining the approach to the Span. The Queen would receive quite a reception.

Langton rubbed his eyes and tried to concentrate, but the noise of the practicing brass bands, the stallholders, the waiting crowds, and the traffic all combined to overwhelm him. Perhaps he should just return home. Climb into that big wooden bed and let sleep obliterate everything. Sister Wright would approve; he would be doing exactly what she’d wanted. Nothing.

And what would he find when he opened his eyes? If Sister Wright kept her promise, would Langton find a stranger standing beside him? A young woman with a stranger’s face but the eyes and soul that Langton had known for so many years? God forgive him.

No. Push that thought aside.
Langton knew he still had much to do. Check on McBride; cooperate with Fallows; go through the motions of Kepler’s investigation. What happened after today was another thing.

Then, as he started back to headquarters, Langton asked himself why Sister Wright wanted the Kepler case forgotten. McBride said that Purcell was his contact; if Sister Wright owned Purcell, there was no reason to silence Langton. She could simply tell Purcell to quash the case. Unless Purcell was not the problem.

Langton glanced back to the Span. Major Fallows? Was he the one?

Hesitating between headquarters and the Span, Langton turned for the city center. He’d been warned away from the Span; if he wanted to hold his wife again, he couldn’t go against Sister Wright’s orders. Just go through the motions. Do nothing. But Langton didn’t know how long he could resist.

A
FTER FIGHTING HIS
way up bedecked Victoria Street, Langton used the desk sergeant’s phone to call the Infirmary. Eventually, a nurse told him that McBride was still in surgery; no, she didn’t know which surgeon, or where Sister Wright was—did Langton wish to contact her? He set the phone down instead and climbed the stairs of a headquarters strangely quiet and empty; every officer must be out and on duty for the Queen’s visit. Apparently only the clerks and office boys remained.

Up in his own office, Langton sat behind the empty desk and stared straight ahead. Even though McBride had betrayed him, and unwittingly the force, he didn’t deserve to die. No, Purcell was to blame here. And, as yet, unpunished.

Harry opened the door and froze in surprise. “Sorry, sir. Didn’t expect you in. I’ll get you a pot of coffee.”

“Just a moment, Harry. Sit down.”

Already halfway through the door, Harry turned and shuffled to the desk. He stared at the visitor’s chair as if it might bite him. When
Langton motioned for him to sit, he perched on the very edge, as though about to take flight.

Langton said, “How much did the newspaper pay you?”

Harry blushed scarlet and opened his mouth to speak.

“I know it was you,” Langton said, raising his hand to stem Harry’s protest. “Too many times I found you at my desk. I have to take some of the blame, for leaving the case files in view, but I didn’t expect a spy in the office. How much?”

Conflicting emotions contorted the boy’s face. His hands gripped the chair. Then he looked down at his boots. “A pound for every piece, sir. I’m sorry.”

“So am I, Harry. So am I. At least you made good money out of it. A pound a go, eh? I suppose you have a good reason.”

Harry shook his head. “I just wanted the money, sir.”

Langton looked at the miserable boy, and any trace of anger disappeared. Harry’s betrayal dwindled when compared to Purcell’s or McBride’s. But it was still a betrayal. “What to do now, Harry?”

Glistening eyes glanced up. “Will I go to jail?”

“If you carry on like this, maybe,” Langton said. “Look on this as a warning and you might be all right.”

“You mean…You’re not telling on me?”

Langton almost smiled at the childhood expression. “No, I’m not ‘telling on you,’ but you can’t work for me anymore, Harry. I don’t like having to look over my shoulder.”

Harry stood up. His shoulders slumped and he still seemed about to cry as he said, “The fourth floor is looking for an office boy, sir. Do you think they’d have me? I promise I’d never do anything like this again. I swear, sir.”

“Go and ask them, Harry.”

“Thank you, sir. I won’t let you down.” The deep blush returned. “I mean, not again. Sir.”

As the office door closed behind Harry, Langton slumped in his chair, feeling suddenly very old and tired. He wondered if he’d been
too lenient. Half of the blame had to rest with him, though, and how could Langton lecture Harry on morals? Not after his agreement with Doktor Glass.

No, he had no right to lecture anyone.

He opened Kepler’s case file at the last page and unscrewed his fountain pen. What could he write? Certainly not the truth. No mention of Sister Wright, Purcell, McBride, or Sarah. Nothing that might point to Doktor Glass. In short, nothing.

What had happened to Kepler? Sister Wright said she murdered only when she had no choice. If Langton could believe her word—and he had to admit that he still did—then what had Kepler done to justify his death and mutilation? Yes, he bore the tattoos of the Orange Free State Irregulars, so Sister Wright could hate him for that. She said she’d recognized the tattoos only
after
Kepler’s death. So why had he died?

The fountain pen, almost touching the file sheet, leaked a jagged stain of ink. Langton cursed, blotted it, and glanced back through the earlier sheets. Here, where Langton and McBride had found the money and passports in Gloucester Road. Or here, where they’d found the destination address of so many of Kepler’s telegrams: the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Major Fallows worked for the FCO and tacitly admitted that he worked in the secret services, with Kepler and Durham his agents in Liverpool.

Despite himself, Langton arranged and rearranged facts, trying to fit them together. It would be child’s play for the government to place two of its agents inside the Span Company, either with or without Lord Salisbury’s knowledge. Then, Kepler and Durham had frequented the dockers’ pubs, asking around for hints of any Boers or malcontents. That made sense: Fallows would want them to sniff out anything that might endanger the Span.

Kepler had discovered more than he knew. Through either
accident or carelessness, Kepler must have tipped his hand. Doktor Glass had realized he was casting around for information and decided to silence him.

Doktor Glass; Sister Wright. If she had feared Kepler, it meant she had a plot that she hadn’t wanted him to discover. That business with his face, with the deliberate placing of his body where she knew it would be found, and quickly—they would have to be explained later. No, the main thing now was that plot. What had she wanted to hide?

The Span.

Langton looked through the window, along Victoria Street with its fluttering ribbons, garlands, and flags. He checked his pockets and desk drawers. Kepler had had a key from the Span; so had Jake. Kepler’s was part of his work, but Jake’s meant one thing: Sister Wright had a plot that concerned the transatlantic bridge. And she’d told Langton to avoid the Span. She’d been trying to save his life.

Then Langton remembered the words of the manager of Irving and Long: Doktor Glass had collected that massive copper coil, the component perhaps for an immense attractor. How many souls would that machine deal with? A hundred? A thousand? Two thousand?

Langton was already halfway up the stairs to Purcell’s office when he thought of Sarah. His steps slowed. He’d promised Sister Wright. If she knew he suspected her hand in a plot against the Span, he might lose the chance to be with his wife. Forever.

He stood there, clutching the stone balustrade, half-turned to go back to his office. Step by slow step he descended the stairs. What could he do, anyway? It was too late. If Fallows and all his teams of agents couldn’t identify a plot against the Span, what chance did Langton have?

He stood in his office, deliberately avoiding the window. All he had to do was go through the motions of his daily life. Pretend that nothing had changed. Then, tomorrow…

He couldn’t do it. He thought of the crowds waiting to see the
Queen; he thought of the workers on the Span, the electric trains packed full of hopeful passengers waiting to start out for America, for new lives.

Langton pocketed Kepler’s and Jake’s keys for the Span, grabbed his coat, and ran out. At the landing, he hesitated, then decided that Purcell would be of no use to him. He ran down the stairs and into the city’s noisy, festive atmosphere.

And Sarah? If he had to, how would he choose between her and the Span?

Langton pushed that thought to the very back of his mind and concentrated on forcing his way through the expectant crowds.

*  *  *

T
HOUSANDS OF PEOPLE
packed the Goree and the approach to the Pier Head. Water Street, the artery leading straight down to the river, remained open only because of the lines of constables keeping back the waiting onlookers. Time and again, Langton had to show his warrant card to get through. Eventually he filtered through the main gates leading to the site of the inauguration ceremony.

A guard in crisp uniform of red and gold returned Langton’s card. “No invitation, sir?”

“I need to see Major Fallows,” Langton said.

“Sorry, sir. The major’s too busy. Can’t let you through.”

As the guard turned away, Langton grabbed him by one gilded lapel. “If you don’t let me talk to Fallows, there won’t be any ceremony today. Or Span. Do you want to take that chance?”

The guard stared at Langton, then at the security guards waiting nearby. He pulled his lapel from Langton’s grip, smoothed the wrinkled material, and nodded toward the freshly painted guards’ hut. “Wait in there. Sir.”