When the Devil Drives (10 page)

‘And drunk, I suppose.'

‘A bit. Somebody in the crowd says Gaffer's always seeing the devil at the bottom of a pint pot and they all laugh. So he walks off grumbling into a builder's yard next door. So I think I might as well follow him. He's got a bottle hidden in a woodpile there. I sit myself down beside him and ask what's all this about?'

I couldn't help sighing. Here was the best and worst of my apprentice. She was shameless and fearless and would talk to anyone anywhere, but when it came to everyday routine and following instructions, she was as unreliable as an untrained puppy. Yet she'd hooked me and I couldn't walk away from her story after all. I sat down on the bottom of the stairs and let her talk.

‘He says he was asleep in the yard there, only a stone's throw away from the Monument, when he hears wheels on the cobbles outside. Not the usual wheels, he says. He knows the carts that come and go, and this wasn't one of them. So he thinks about it for a while, then he gets up to look.'

‘What time was this?'

‘Late. He says he'd heard midnight strike, and it was a long time after that. Still dark, any road. So he looks out, and there's this carriage standing at the back of the Monument. Gentleman's carriage, he says.'

‘He can tell that in the dark?'

‘There was enough light to see the shape of it. Then two people come out of it. One's holding a lamp with the shutter mostly round it so there's not much light coming out, and the other's the devil.'

‘How did he know?'

‘Because he had horns. Gaffer thought he had a hunched back too, but then it turned out that was because he was carrying something over his shoulder. Then when they got to the Monument, the devil took his head off and went inside with what he was carrying.'

‘So devils can take off their heads?'

‘Gaffer said this one did.'

Tabby was entirely serious. I couldn't tell whether she really believed it herself or whether she was faithfully recording the old drunkard's story.

‘So what happened then?'

‘He stands there looking, then he hears a sound from the other side of the Monument, the side he can't see.'

‘What sort of sound?'

‘Like a body hitting the ground. I thought he might just be saying that because he knew what happened, so I asked him what a body hitting the ground sounds like. He said like a sack of cabbages falling off a wagon.'

‘No scream?'

‘No.'

‘Did he go round the Monument to see?'

‘No. He says next thing, the devil and the man with the lamp come running from the other side of the Monument. Then they jump in the carriage and away they go.'

She stood, head on one side, waiting for my opinion.

‘You don't really believe he saw a devil do you?' I said.

‘He saw summat that scared him, I know that much.'

‘Tabby, you know London's full of this devil nonsense. It's not surprising if it gets into an old drunkard's head.'

But was it possible that in his befogged state he really had heard something and embroidered the rest? Perhaps, if the policeman had been more patient, it might have helped to establish a time of death. Not that I intended to encourage Tabby's wild wanderings by admitting that. She looked down, disappointed.

‘So what are we going to do now?'

‘The work we're being paid for. Wait there while I go up and change.'

So we set off on a tour of police offices. By omnibus and on foot we trailed round offices from the territory of the City force in the east to Oxford Street in the west. At all of them I waited in a queue then asked the same question: was there any record of a young woman of my friend's description meeting with any kind of an accident in the past nine days? At all of them we drew a blank, sometimes given with a shrug but more usually after a careful examination of records. Knowing Tabby's attitude to the police, I'd forbidden her to utter a word, so she just stood beside me, glaring at the unfortunate officers as if they were maliciously concealing things from us.

‘Tabby, why in the world should they lie to us,' I said after one such episode.

‘Why does a dog bite?'

We took the omnibus home. I gave Tabby a shilling and told her she should take Sunday off.

‘But we're no nearer finding Miss Tilbury,' she objected.

‘It's like that sometimes.'

Too often for comfort.

Amos and I did not ride out on Sundays, so next morning I walked across the park to ask him to choose a horse for Monday, to suit a lightweight lady who fancied herself as a hussar. He promised to attend to it, but disappointed me by saying he wouldn't be there himself. He had to deliver a horse to Surrey, part of a complex piece of dealing, and expected to be away for two days. In the afternoon I walked over to Bloomsbury with Mrs Martley to visit my infant god-daughter, Miranda Liberty Suter. She kicked and gurgled in her wooden cradle while her parents glowed with content. When her mother Jenny took her away to feed her, attended by Mrs Martley, Daniel and I had the chance for a private talk. Daniel had been a family friend as long as I could remember and had stood by me in the sad and dangerous days after my father's death. At one time, I thought I might have married him, then he fell in love with Jenny, a dancer, when she was facing her own dark times. He was happy professionally as well as personally, composing again and in demand for directing and conducting at both Covent Garden and Drury Lane.

‘And how are you, Liberty? Not working too hard, I hope.'

I admitted that as far as results went, I was hardly working at all.

He then said something that had clearly been on his mind. ‘Liberty, you don't have to do this. I'm sure we could find some music teaching for you.'

‘I'm well enough, for the while at least.'

‘Now I'm on my feet again . . . if a few pounds would be of any help . . .?'

‘Daniel, don't worry about me. You'll need to save all your money for Miranda, even if she does turn out to be the greatest musical prodigy since Mozart.'

‘Jenny says she'll be a singer, from the way she gurgles in tune. I watch her kicking her little feet and say she'll be a dancer like Jenny.'

Besotted, the pair of them, as was right.

Robert came to meet us as we walked home along Grosvenor Street in the dusk. Mrs Martley approved of him, as far as she approved of any of my acquaintances, and walked a little ahead so that he and I could talk.

‘Stephen and I are leaving by the mail coach for Holyhead tonight, then the Irish boat,' he said.

Our hands touched and clasped. I could feel the pulse in his wrist beating, through the thickness of our two gloves. At the gateway to Abel Yard we kissed for an instant, before Mrs Martley turned round to see if we were still with her. At least, I think we managed it before she turned.

‘He looks thin. He needs looking after,' Mrs Martley said as he walked away.

I pretended not to hear.

That evening, I wrote two notes.

The other one was even shorter.

I signed both of them ‘your obedient servant' as was only businesslike. First thing in the morning, I'd give one to Tabby for the post, care of Mr James's friend at Islington. Suzette could deliver the other. Then I forgot about business and, in my mind, followed the Irish mail at the start of its long journey through the night.

SIX

‘
Y
our horse is better than mine,' the contessa said. She sounded like a child who'd been left with the smaller slice of cake.

‘Yours is a very good horse as well,' I consoled her.

One of the finest in the stables, a 15 hand chestnut mare called Bella, bright as a new penny with a sweet temperament. Amos had done us proud there. In his absence, the groom riding discreetly two horses' length behind us was young Wiggins, newly promoted from stable lad to the glory of a cockaded hat. It was strange to be riding in the park without Amos, even stranger to be there at the fashionable time of mid morning, rather than the crack of dawn. At this hour, riding was like being at an assembly or rout that went on hooves rather than on feet. The broad rides through the park were thronged with open landaus and riders: ladies showing off their latest horse or riding costume, cavalry officers in uniform, invalids out for their health on slow steady cobs, lovers riding side by side, so close that their horses' flanks were almost touching. It might be sociable, but it meant very dull riding. Every time we broke into a trot or a canter, there'd be somebody waving good morning and having to be acknowledged, or a group of people stopping for a conversation in the middle of the ride.

We were in Rotten Row, on the south side of the park. So far, the contessa had reined in her horse at least half a dozen times. It was amazing how many people she knew after a short time in London, in spite of her claim to be friendless. Quite a few of them were foreigners. Some of her conversations were in German, some in Italian, most in English. Invariably, she introduced me as her dear friend. I wondered if all these other people were friends of as short duration. Sometimes too we had to stop for my friends and acquaintances, so I'd introduce her. After every such meeting, as we rode out of earshot, she'd quiz me about these people: were they wealthy, powerful, well-connected? Her interest was entirely shameless and always with the same aim: were they received at court? Sometimes I had to tell her I had no idea. She didn't believe me.

‘You must know. Surely everybody knows.'

Something distracted her. She glanced towards a group of young men, lounging on their hunters on the far side of the Row then, without explanation or apology to me, started cantering towards them. I heard her call out a name.

‘Courtney.'

One of the young men turned and went cantering towards her. They met in mid ride and he raised his hat to her. He was a pleasant enough looking man, but had that callow look of some of the English nobility, as if he'd stayed in the nest too long. She asked him a question, urgently and without greeting or preamble. I couldn't hear what it was. His answer was short. When he'd given it, he looked down at his horse's withers, uneasy. She shot another question at him. He nodded, then watched her as she cantered back towards me.

I expected her to tell me who he was, but she said nothing. Whatever he'd told her had changed her mood. She was electric with excitement, so much so that the chestnut felt it and started dancing on her trim hooves.

‘Let's race,' the contessa said, and loosed the rein.

The chestnut shot off, scattering a group of invalids, bringing ironic cheers from some of the sporting gentlemen. I smiled, taking my time. Bella had a good turn of speed but was no stayer, nowhere near a match for my Rancie. When I'd given them about a furlong's start, I let Rancie flow into a canter, then pressed my heel gently against her side. She went like a swallow into her gallop that was the nearest thing I'd ever know to flying, her hooves touching the ground only as a courtesy to gravity. We overtook them long before the end of the Row and I drew rein to wait for them. The chestnut's flanks were heaving, but Rancie had hardly broken sweat. Poor Wiggins, on a slow cob, was trailing along behind. The contessa looked wonderful, lips parted, cheeks glowing. She'd acquired a small following of gentlemen, riding a few lengths behind her. They did not include the young man she'd called Courtney. From their laughter, they'd been betting on the result of our race.

‘I want to buy her,' the contessa said.

I just shook my head. Rancie wasn't for sale.

‘May I ride her, then?'

I considered it, and nodded. The contessa was a good rider, with the light hands that were essential for managing Rancie.

‘If you like. But no more than a canter. We're not racing again.'

Wiggins arrived and helped us change horses, making a step with his hands to lift us into our saddles. I had to admit, with a little envy, that the contessa looked very well on Rancie. We walked sedately back along the Row, pretending to ignore our following of gentlemen. Halfway along, a couple of rowdy young bloods were jumping their horses over a railing into a flower bed and out again.

‘Could you do that?' the contessa said to me, eyes bright.

I was starting to say that I had more respect for my horse's legs, and for the flower bed come to that, but before I could get out more than a few words she'd turned Rancie and was cantering fast towards the railings. There was no time even to shout stop, though it wouldn't have helped. The young rowdies looked on, amazed, as Rancie soared over the first railing, into the soft earth of the flower bed and out again on the other side. By that time, she was without her rider. In landing, Rancie had at once understood the danger of her situation and faced it with her usual courage and intelligence, taking off again immediately in a long leap that landed her safely on the turf on the far side. If I'd been on her back, I'd have known by instinct what she was going to do and kept my seat, but the contessa had expected her to take a short stride in between, as the men's horses had done, so was taken by surprise. She was lying there on her back, senseless, on the earth.