When the Devil Drives (26 page)

We went back down to the dock basin, then up the steps to the lock manager's office. I apologized for troubling him again, and asked if he could kindly tell us the date of the last shipment of ice up the canal from Limehouse basin. He didn't even have to consult his ledger.

‘It's always a Thursday. The last one would have been the tenth of this month.'

I thanked him and we went back down the steps. ‘I want to see inside that ice store,' I said.

Tabby and I discussed it while we waited for the coach back to the centre of town. We knew pretty well where it was, but not how to get into it. Then we thought that the ice carts would have to be loaded for their rounds, so it was simply a matter of watching for an empty one near Cumberland Market and seeing where it went. Tabby said that was a job for her. Normally, I would have accepted that. She was much more skilful at passing unnoticed in the early morning streets, especially in her urchin clothes. Now I was too scared for her.

‘We'll both watch,' I said.

‘Tonight?'

‘Yes, tonight.'

Before another girl was spirited away. Before another death in a public place.

When we arrived back in Mayfair, the light was going. I'd planned to walk across the park to the livery stables to see if there was any news of Amos. He'd been away for four days and normally he'd have managed to send some kind of message to me, even if only a few words on the back of a bill for horse-feed. In my heart, though, I was scared of walking across the park. The trees were silhouetted against a thin bar of sunset in the west, the colour of a burn on skin and nobody was walking under them. At the corner of Adam's Mews, a lad jumped at us with a hollowed out mangel-wurzel on a pole, a candle inside to show gaping eye sockets and mouth with pointed teeth. An ordinary boy's trick in the days leading up to Halloween, but Tabby gasped and caught at my cloak and it was all I could do not to scream.

With Mrs Martley still away in Bloomsbury, the coast was clear for Tabby to join me upstairs. We didn't talk much over our supper of beef pie from the bakers on the corner and potatoes baked in the fire. When we'd cleared up, I insisted that she should wrap herself in a blanket and catch a few hours' sleep on the sofa in front of the fire.

‘When are we going?'

‘Two o'clock. I'll wake you.'

I tried to read by lamplight, but mostly stared at the fire as it collapsed into cinders, going over things in my mind. The dates mattered, only I couldn't see why. The workhouse clock struck two. Tabby woke as soon as I stood up.

‘We going?'

‘Yes. Go and put on your warm jacket and your boots. Take the candle.'

I watched the small flame crossing the yard to her cabin, then went upstairs to sort out my own clothes and find a spare pair of gloves for Tabby. At that time of night, October was as cold as mid winter. I dressed for it in a thick woollen gown and stockings, a shawl under my cloak. Tabby and I walked along the mews and through Grosvenor Square, heading towards Oxford Street. Occasionally a figure walked towards us out of the darkness, then passed us without a look or word, no more anxious to be noticed than we were. In Oxford Street, two policemen patrolling the opposite pavement gave us curious looks, but decided not to ask questions. Further along, two drunk gentlemen were shouting at each other about welshing on a bet. A very few of the midnight sparrows and their customers were out and about, but it was too late for most of them, so we attracted less attention than I feared. It was past three o'clock by then and we were in the sunken hours when one day is over and daylight still a long time away.

We went on, up Portland Place, with no more than two or three lamplit windows showing on either side, the road between as dark as a river. Tabby had gone quiet. We crossed the Marylebone Road and walked with the railings of Regent's Park on our left. I knew where Cumberland Market was because I'd ridden out there one summer day with Amos when the owner of the livery stables had sent him to choose some loads of hay. He'd taken his time, walking from heap to heap, sometimes just looking, sometimes drawing out a handful and sniffing at it like a connoisseur. A couple of times he'd even chewed a blade or two, looking thoughtful. Once he'd simply kicked at a heap and shook his head.

‘What can you tell from kicking it,' I'd asked him.

‘Listen.'

He'd kicked again. A faint rustling came from the hay.

‘Thistles in there, look. You can hear them. Now listen to this one.' Another kick. This time the sound had been as soft as a breeze over standing grass. ‘That's what good hay sounds like.'

I remembered that, just as the smell of damp hay came into the cold air round us.

‘Nearly there,' I said to Tabby.

Cumberland Square was deserted with no lamp showing anywhere. A dark bulk that we bumped into turned out to be an empty haycart. We clambered up and sat on the end of it.

‘What do we do now?' Tabby said.

‘Wait for the ice cart.'

Something else happened first. Heavy steps sounded and a man walked past us. He was smoking strong tobacco. We followed his progress across the square by the red glow of his pipe. A door opened and closed and the scrape of a flint came clearly to where we were sitting. Gradually the outline of a building took shape from the lamplight inside it, an odd shape, like a stubby dome. Beside it was a smaller building, a workman's hut from the look of it, with more lamplight spilling from a half open door. Ten minutes or so after that, the sound of slow plodding hooves came from the direction of town. Eventually a cart appeared, drawn by a heavy cob, and lurched past us over the cobbles towards the building. The man with the pipe appeared from the hut and said something to the driver. I couldn't make out the words, but from the tone of it, he was grumbling.

The driver got down and the two men opened what sounded like a heavy door in the dome. Sure that nobody would hear our steps above the noise of it, I slid down off the haycart and signed to Tabby to follow. By the time we got to the dome, the horse and cart had gone through the door and disappeared inside. The hooves had a hollow sound, as if on a platform. The grumbling man swore and told the other man to make the horse stand.

‘He'll be down the pit cart and all otherwise.'

The next sound was a clanking of iron and rattle of a heavy chain.

‘Right, when I give the word, you turn that handle and winch 'em up,' the grumbling man said to the driver, who was evidently new to the job. ‘Then when you've got 'em up, swing it round and land them in the cart nice and gentle. Got that?'

I was near the door by then, and heard clearly the ringing sound as a pair of nailed boots went down what sounded like a long iron ladder. Soon after that, an echoing shout came up from the depths and the winch handle started grinding.

Knowing that both men were well occupied, I risked a glance round the door. The lamplight seemed very bright after the dark outside. The horse was standing on a wooden platform with a patience that suggested he at least was not new to the work. That was just as well, because a dark opening gaped a few feet away. As the winch ground on, a gleaming cube rose into the light, gripped in the jaws of a huge pair of pinchers. A twenty inch block of ice, just as Mrs Hobbes had said. The driver shoved the winch round so that it was above the cart and lowered it not quite carefully enough, so that the boards rattled and the horse twitched. Another grumble came up from the depths. The cart driver sent the giant pincers back down the shaft on their chain. They went rattling down a long way.

As they got into the rhythm of it, the gleaming cubes came up faster. There was a strange beauty to the process, with the ice blocks rising into the air against the dark silhouette of the man manouevring them, like a slow juggling act. As the cart filled up, I drew Tabby back from the doorway so that we could talk.

‘I want to get inside there. There may be a chance when the cart leaves.'

She nodded. It was too dark to see her face, but I could sense the tension in her. Tabby was afraid, and so was I. The last thing I wanted was to go down into that pit of ice, but having come so far, I had to try at least.

‘If I'm not out by daylight, I want you to go and tell—'

‘I'm coming with you.'

I'd been about to say ‘Mr Legge at the livery stables' until I remembered that Amos was not there. It made the hollow feeling inside me even worse, so I didn't argue.

Four o'clock had struck before they finished. We stayed outside, taking a glimpse now and then to see how things were going. The boots came ringing back up the ladder. By then it had struck me that there wasn't room to turn the horse and cart on the platform, so there must be another door on the opposite side. I watched as the driver shook the horse's bridle to wake it up. The other man, still grumbling about the time it had taken, stamped across the wooden platform and, just as I'd hoped, opened a door on the far side. Under cover of the trampling and creaking, we dashed inside. The cold struck like a blow. There was no concealment on the wooden platform, under the lantern light. I touched Tabby's hand and pointed down the shaft. The rungs of the iron ladder rose from what looked like a bottomless pit of glowing pearl. Forcing myself to grasp the top rung and lower my feet down was one of the worst things I'd ever done. My skirt and petticoats bunched round me and my knee grazed against cold iron as I fought for a foothold. As soon as I was as secure as possible and far enough down, I called to Tabby to follow me.

By now, the cart had gone and the iron door it had left by was closing. Any second now, the grumbling man would turn away from it and cross the platform to the other door. Tabby's boot came down heavily on my finger. I bit my lip and moved cautiously a couple of rungs further down. The man walked across the platform above us. The other door ground on its hinges and shut. He'd left the lamp burning, so that must mean he expected more trade before daylight. I took a deep breath and made myself look down. The steps went down and down, through the ice blocks and into darkness. I couldn't see the bottom of the pit, but guessed it must be fifty feet deep or more. At least there were stopping places on the way down. As my eyes adjusted to the half-light, I saw that the ice blocks were stacked in layers, with floors of rough planking in between. The first of those floors was only ten feet or so below us. I climbed down to it, slowly and cautiously, making as little sound as possible. Tabby followed me into a gleaming cave of ice.

SEVENTEEN

W
e crouched against a wall of ice blocks. More layers of ice glinted through gaps in the planks, far down. The cold was like being struck in the chest and my fingers felt immediately numb. There was no sound from the top platform, so the man must have gone back to his hut to wait for the next customer. I stood up cautiously and walked along a board, trying not to slip down the gap on either side. Sand scrunched under foot. I supposed the ice man had sprinkled it to give a better footing. The ice picked up and multiplied the lamplight from above, so we could see clearly enough. Tabby and I walked close to each other, peering into the blocks. Most of them were as clear as diamonds. A few had air bubbles and even leaves from their birthplace in the Norwegian lake. A childish and fearful part of my mind more than half expected to find a woman lying entombed, like Snow White in her glass coffin. Nothing.

By the far wall, we came to a gap in the ice, with nothing but sand-scuffed planks. There were marks on the sand as if several people had walked there. It seemed odd that there should be a space here, some way from the bottom of the winch. You'd have expected them to load the nearer blocks first. Tabby gave a gasp and went down on her knees. I thought she'd fallen, but she stood up holding something out to me. She mouthed, ‘Look'. I had to move nearer the light to see what it was. Of all things, violets. A spray of artificial violets, made not very skilfully of felt and wire, smelling of damp wool, the kind of cheap ornament a girl might wear on a hat or a belt. My mind went to the painted violets on the prayer card that Janet Priest's sister had given us. I was sure beyond reason that both had been made by the same hand. Janet and the girl we'd known as Dora had both lain in this gleaming cave.

I took another step and stumbled over something lying across the planks, pitched forward, dropping the violets through a gap, only just stopping myself from crying out. Tabby caught me by the coat sleeve. The smell of damp hessian was rising round us. The thing that had made me stumble was loosely wrapped in sacking dark with moisture. I waited until my heart steadied then kneeled down and put out a hand to touch the sacking, trying to find the resolution to pull it away from whatever was inside. Before I could manage it, wheels rumbled from outside and above us, echoing like thunder from wall to wall of the pit. Two horses, stepping more quickly than the first ice cart horse. With both doors shut, there was no chance of hearing what was being said, but it was a certainty that any minute now the door above us would slide back and the ice man come climbing down. Tabby caught my eye and pointed that we should climb down to a lower level. I nodded, but there was something that must be done first. I started folding the sacking back then pulled my hand away. I'd touched hair. Damp hair, just as my own felt after washing it. Damp, thick woman's hair.

When Tabby saw my face she kneeled down beside me. Her hand, more resolute than mine, pulled the sacking down further. When the pressure of it was released, something white surged out, so white that it seemed to carry a light of its own. When I touched it, it felt soft but springy, like the pelt of a healthy animal. My mind went back to a fitting room in Piccadilly.
This is what it must have. See.
The contessa, eyes bright, holding the fur of the Arctic fox against her cheek. My hand slid away from fur onto velvet, mulberry-coloured velvet, rich and new. When I drew velvet and fox fur aside, her skin was stretched tight over her cheekbones, pale as paper. The lids closed over her eyes looked so tight and thin that I half expected the amazing colour of them to shine through. I made myself touch her face, as if against all sense and reason there might be life there. It was colder than the ice itself. I folded the cloak hood back over her.