The Journey: Illustrated Edition (An Anna Kronberg Thriller) (22 page)

— nineteen —

During peace time a scientist belongs to the world, but during war time he belongs to his country.

Dr F. Haber

I
boarded the ship on a sunny Thursday afternoon. The appearance of a pregnant woman without husband or maid, but with two pieces of luggage, a bandaged hand, and a battered face might have been remarkable had she looked wealthy. I made sure I remained invisible with my simple dress, the worn-out rucksack and old bag until I sneaked into the first-class cabin I had booked for myself and my fictional husband.

I pulled off my bonnet and shoes and extracted my new gun from the rucksack. It was a Webley Mark I, a standard issue service revolver with automatic extraction. I had bought it for its higher accuracy and lighter weight, compared to the old revolver I already owned. The self-extraction function of the Webley was of marginal importance to me. One shot was all I needed and all I could hope to fire.
 

I placed the gun on the bed and unwrapped the bandage. The cool air felt good on the aching wound. I pressed around the suture; clear liquid seeped from it, but I felt no abnormally sharp pains.

I dabbed more iodine on the wound, then began to gingerly flex my fingers. The middle finger was aching. Moran had cut it, too, but the injury wasn’t serious. Watson had made three small stitches there. I watched with fascination. The middle finger hurt when flexing it, which was expected, but the missing index finger was tingling. My brain believed it was still attached. How odd.

I opened the revolver, removed the bullets from the chamber, placed them on the bed, and snapped the gun closed. Holding my left arm out straight, I aimed at the doorknob and pulled the trigger repeatedly until my shoulder and fingers ached. The weakness and inaccuracy of my left hand and arm had to be exercised away, for using my right hand wouldn’t be possible for weeks. I wasn’t even sure whether I would ever be able to pull the trigger with my middle finger.

I practiced for another ten minutes, then wrapped a towel around my hand and began hitting the doorframe, softening the force behind my punches. I neither wanted to attract attention by producing noise, nor did I wish to cause damage to my one good hand.
 

Force wasn’t what I aimed for, anyway. I’d never incapacitate Moran with the little muscle power I had. Speed and accuracy was what I wanted. And so I spent the ensuing hour and a half exercising the shooting and punching muscles of my left arm until they ached and trembled. All the while, I wondered how I could possibly stop a man as well trained as Moran. Come October, I’d have to have a good idea and needed to be prepared. But time and circumstances worked against me. I’d be either very large and about to pop, or weak from having just given birth. Moran’s words kept ringing in my head:
I’ll come to harvest
.

Sweaty and exhausted, I wrapped clean gauze around my injured hand and left the cabin to catch fresh air.

Passengers littered the deck. A few children threw bits of bread at a swarm of gulls hovering alongside the boat. I sat on a chair, closed my eyes, and thought about anatomy. When it came to muscle power, I had no chance against Moran, or against most men, for that matter. I was small but quick, so I could escape if needed. But when the time came and I’d have to run from Moran, I’d be at my weakest and slowest. Besides, he was a good marksman and could easily shoot me in the back, no matter how quick I was. Yet again, I arrived at the conclusion that having been impregnated by James Moriarty was about the worst thing that could have happened to me.

I shook off that unhelpful sentiment and made a list of weaknesses any man had, no matter his strength. Testicles were always an excellent target for an angry knee. But an attacker might expect an assault there. What else? Kidneys, surely. The throat, eyes, solar plexus.
 

I imagined Moran attacking me. He had done so three times and he had always come suddenly and unexpectedly. All three times, he used his whole body to stop me from escaping, squirming, and protesting. Chances were high that next time he’d attack in a similar manner. I could run my knee into his groin. But what then? Use the confusion and pain to get hold of my revolver and shoot him? That would leave me with a three-step process to incapacitate or kill Moran — kick, grab gun, shoot. That plan had no room for flexibility.

I watched the people on deck, turning them all into potential targets. They walked about, chatted, joked, not knowing about the fictional danger my mind was brewing up. Knees, elbow bends, necks — joints always buckled, no matter how strong or weak a person was. Muscles were attached to bones via tendons. One could increase muscle mass through hard work and exercise, but tendons didn’t get any thicker. With acceleration and force, I could break a limb at the joint. A frontal kick at the knee when Moran stood before me, a hard punch against his elbow when he held me at arm’s length. But how could I be certain that my strength was enough to snap his joints? I neither knew how to punch effectively, nor was I quick enough for such a feat. I could as well attempt to stop a locomotive. One kick, one punch, one shot were the best I could hope for. When he would come to
harvest
…

When night fell and the ship’s gentle rolling weighed down my tired eyelids, I flipped through the pages Mycroft had given me. Together with Moran’s notes, I would need days to read it all. Whether I’d ever be able to connect the bits of information was an entirely different question.

From what my slow brain could understand of Mycroft’s and Sherlock’s notes, Whitman had provided information on the Kaiser’s favourite toy: battleships. Wilhelm II had shown peculiar interest in the British Navy and, for about two years now, he seemed to be planning an enlargement of the German Navy. However, these were mere rumours.

The British government was more concerned with impending conflicts in South Africa that could result in a cut of profits from gold mining. The other weary eye was directed towards the new railway Russia was building and which might, in a few years, be used to ship weaponry and soldiers close to the Indian colonies and hence make the British Navy inferior in this remote area.
 

If one were insanely paranoid, it might appear as though the world cooked up powers in order to swallow the British Empire. But wasn’t Europe connecting her countries with one another and the rest of the world? Railways and steamships linked even the most far-away places with Europe and America. The telegraph enabled everyone to send a message from London to New York and receive a reply within hours. And telephones! Such a wonderful invention that allowed us to talk with one another even when many miles separated us.
 

People of the modern world were confident that we were now too interconnected, too progressive, and too civilised to settle conflicts with brutal force. Everyone believed that Europe would never again see a war on her own territory.

— twenty —

La Grande Place, Brussels, 1890s. (13)

G
rey drizzle welcomed me to France. I didn’t give the rain time to soak my coat. A cab took me to the station, a train to Paris, and onward to Brussels.

I arrived late in the evening and rented a small room above the Café Metropole.
 
My hand hurt, my feet ached, and I wished I could have gone to bed the moment I dropped my luggage on the floor. But I couldn’t risk an infection.

I extracted the iodine bottle and a roll of fresh gauze from my bag, then made to the bathroom. I examined the stump and dabbed iodine on the wound. Should the thread keep irritating the flesh, I’d pull it, then re-do it with fresh material. I washed hastily, sneaked under my cover, and fell asleep with images of a lead-coloured sea pushing up against the fore, foam trailing along the ship’s hull, foam trailing across my skin, a soft caress…

I rose at dawn to eat and quickly re-read the notes I had written the previous days. At nine o’clock, I hailed a cab, passed the Jardin Botaniqe, turned right and right again, and came to a halt at the Rue Linnée.

Apartment buildings crammed the street on both sides. Number twelve had a large blue front door with patches here and there bleached by time and weather. It stood a crack open, and I squeezed through. The courtyard was decorated with two rusty bicycles, several sacks of potatoes sprouting long white shoots, and a pile of wood covered with oilskin. Where I had lived in London, these treasures would have been quickly taken hostage by many small and dirty hands.

I walked up a dark stairway until I found a sign with the name
Kinchin
. The bell knob had corroded and wouldn’t turn. A doormat was lacking, and a line of dirt was brushed up against the door. It appeared as though no one lived here. Or no one ever visited.

I knocked.

Shuffling of tired feet on carpet, then the clinking of a chain, the chirping of a key being turned.
 

A face showed in the frame, wrinkles trailing from the corners of his mouth down to his throat. The man eyed me from the top of my hat to the hem of my dress, then spoke in an extraordinarily soft voice. ‘Mrs Kronberg.’ He stepped aside and held the door open for me.