When the Devil Drives (27 page)

‘Another one,' Tabby said. Her voice was level and sounded calmer than I felt, but then she'd never met the contessa.

Above us, the door was grinding open. The ice man still had his pipe in his mouth and the whiff of tobacco hung round him as he began climbing down the steps. By then, I'd gripped Tabby's shoulder and pushed her towards the ladder, down to the second layer of ice. I went after her. Another set of footsteps followed the ice man down to the tier above us. They were making straight for the cleared space where the hessian bundle was lying. I let go of the ladder and moved towards the same space, but ten feet or so below.

‘Well, are you waiting for something? Pick it up.'

The voice came from the newcomer. He spoke drawlingly, like a man accustomed to giving orders. He had a foreign accent, but I couldn't place it in those few words. Looking up through a gap, I saw the jowly face of the ice man as he bent down, then straightened up. The woman in the sacking was a light weight and he carried her easily on his shoulders up the steps. The other man followed him, not hurrying. The horses above were less patient than the cart horse had been, trampling on the boards and snickering uneasily. They weren't used to this, any more than we were.

‘Up,' I said in Tabby's ear.

I went first, moving fast. It wouldn't take long to load that bundle and drive away. I hoped we could get ourselves outside when the ice man opened the opposite door and the noise of the vehicle departing hid our rush in the other direction. Up we went through the top layer of ice blocks, blinking as the pearly light changed to the glare of the oil lamp on the loading platform. I'd mistimed it. The vehicle was still there. Not an ice cart or anything like it. I was looking at the back of a gentleman's travelling chariot. As soon as I set eyes on it, it started moving. Knowing we might have no more than a second or two, I scrambled onto the platform, landing on my knees. Tabby was so close behind me that her head banged against my shoe soles. The chariot started moving, at a walk. I straightened up. We could do it, just. While the ice man was closing the exit door, we could get out the way we'd come in and . . .

And nothing. I was at the door but where Tabby's footsteps should have been behind me, there was silence. I turned, to see what was keeping her, and found the worst thing I could have imagined in the circumstances. She was there, on the back of the departing chariot, in the footman's place, if there'd been a footman, standing there wide-eyed, holding onto the strap with one hand. The other hand gestured to me to join her, urgently and impatiently as if I were the one who'd taken the wrong turning. In her terrier mind, there'd been nothing for it but to stick to a hot trail and she thought the same thing was in my mind. A terrier's human being goes where the terrier goes. I picked up my skirts, sprinted across the echoing boards, jumped up and joined her on the footmen's platform just as the chariot cleared the doors. Her hand closed round my wrist, steadying me. The ice man had turned away, to close and bolt the door. Alerted by my rush past him he turned, shouted something. Too late. As soon as we cleared the surrounds of the ice pit, the horses broke into a trot and we turned sharply into Cumberland Market and out towards Albany Street. The ice man was shouting behind us, but the shouts faded. Either he lacked the energy to follow, or whatever he'd been paid didn't cover the extra effort. Tabby kept hold of my wrist and guided my hand towards the second footman's strap.

‘Bleeding hell, what were you waiting for?'

Fine language from an apprentice to employer, but I said nothing, not having the breath.

Tabby was used to this. As soon as she could toddle, probably, she'd joined the urchins in the park, daring each other to cling to the backs of carriages. If I'd been able to speak, I'd have asked her why she'd thought it was a sound idea to cling like flies to a chariot, driven by somebody unknown but probably murderous with a dead body on board.

We were going at a fast trot, heading southwards towards the centre of town. No sooner had I worked that out than we turned right without slackening speed, going along the south side of Regent's Park. I cannoned against Tabby as we swung out to the left, but she kept her footing and nudged me back upright. The roads and pavements were deserted, so no reason for the chariot to slow down and no chance for us to jump off without serious injury. With that decided for the moment, I began to think that Tabby's reckless decision was not necessarily a bad thing. If the murderer were following the same pattern as with the Achilles statue, his intention would be to leave the body in some very public place, where she'd be found at daylight. What better proof could we have than to see him in the act of doing it? All we'd need to do was cling on to the end of the journey and stay there while the man, or men, unloaded the body and arranged it as required. He, or they, would be intent on their task and have no reason to look behind the chariot. The question was, how we'd get away once we'd seen what happened. An idea began to form.

‘We'll stay here until it stops,' I said to Tabby, not even bothering to whisper because of the noise of the chariot. ‘We'll watch what they do, then run out, get on the box and I'll drive us away.'

I'd driven various carts and carriages so had no doubt of my ability to manage this one. There was piquancy in the idea of arriving at some police station, not only with the case practically solved but in possession of the murderer's own vehicle. It would take a lot of influence in high places for the guilty ones to explain that away. Tabby simply nodded, as if I'd proposed a walk to the shops.

We turned sharp left into the New Road, then left again at Lisson Grove and down to Bayswater Road, past the Flora Tea Gardens, heading westwards at a canter. This area was familiar to me from rides on Rancie and I considered where they were likely to leave the body. We were well past the Achilles statue by now, heading for Kensington. If they intended to leave it in a place as prominent as the first two, there weren't many choices left. Only Kensington Gardens and Kensington Palace lay ahead before we were out into the country, heading for Kew and Richmond. Still at a canter, we passed Kensington Palace. A few lights were gleaming in its top windows. The working day had started, with the early servants getting out of bed in the attics to rake out grates, clean boots, set water to boil. It was cold, so cold that I felt as if my hand were frozen to the strap.

Once or twice we sped past slow carts creaking from the other direction. They were no more than shapes moving in the darkness, except for one pale, astonished face of a rustic carter who had just escaped being hit by us, head on. Farm carts, probably, with potatoes and cabbages for Covent Garden. We sped out of Kensington, towards Chiswick. A breeze blowing from the Thames brought the smell of water and mud. Could Kew Gardens be their chosen place? I doubted it. The previous two bodies had been left in places where all London would know and talk about them. At this time of year, a body might lie undiscovered in Kew Gardens for days. They wouldn't want that. There was a pattern to all this, and although I couldn't guess what it was, it depended on the bodies being found at a particular place and time. Besides, if we were making for Kew we'd have to cross the river. Our driver gave no sign of doing that and went on westwards, back to a trot now, but a fast one.

We were well outside London now, on the old coach road heading towards Hounslow. If we kept up this pace, we'd be in Hounslow before it was light. I began to think I was wrong about our driver planning to leave the body in a public place. Perhaps it was being taken to some house these people owned, in Hounslow or beyond. If so, Tabby and I were letting ourselves be carried into a trap. We should jump off after all, only not at this pace. Somewhere surely the driver would have to slow down. Even the best of horses couldn't keep up this pace for long. In the end, fate in the shape of another farm cart decided it for us. I only saw it after our near-accident had happened. The first thing we knew, the chariot's speed checked suddenly then it swerved violently to the right. Shouts and a splintering of wood sounded from the dark. When it happened, Tabby had taken her hand off the strap to push her hair out of her eyes. The change from a fast trot to a near halt was too much even for her sure-footedness. Without a word or a sound she plunged sideways onto the road. One moment she was beside me – the next moment, nothing but emptiness. Before the chariot could pick up speed again, I jumped off on the other side, landing on hands and knees in the dirt. The farm cart that had caused the trouble was in the middle of the road, one wheel hanging at an angle and the driver waving his whip in the direction the chariot had gone and cursing.

I ignored him and started looking for Tabby, no easy task in the darkness and dirt with the cart driver making such a racket. A low sound, like a hoarse cock crow, was coming from somewhere behind me. I followed it and found Tabby curled in a ditch. Dreading that she was badly injured, I knelt down beside her.

‘What's wrong? Can you tell me where you're hurt?'

No answer, except more harsh crowing. She was clasping her hands to her chest, head bent over them. I didn't dare try to move her for fear of making things worse. As far as I could make out in the darkness, there was nothing but fields on both sides of the road and no gleam of light anywhere. Certainly no help was to be expected from the cart driver, still cursing and, by the sound of it, freeing his horse from a tangle of harness.

The crowing sound grew fainter so that I feared Tabby was going to die here in the ditch, with me helpless to do anything about it. I put my hand gently on her shoulder. She was trying to say something.

‘Can't . . . can't . . .'

‘Don't try to talk. Lie still.'

Another long drawn-out crow, then a shuddering intake of breath and her whole body was trembling. Thinking it could hardly make things worse, I got my arms round her.

‘All right, Tabby. It's all right.'

Even though I feared it was anything but. Her head came up and her eyes opened.

‘Couldn't get my breath, that's all. Got it now.'

Her voice was shaky, but the tone matter-of-fact. I kept my arms round her until she stopped trembling then helped her sit up.

‘So what are we going to do now?' she said.

‘Never mind that. Are you hurt?'

‘Think I've done something to me wrist.'

‘Can you stand up?'

She could, so I got her out of the ditch. The carter and his horse were gone by then, though the disabled cart was still in the middle of the road. I guided her over to it so that she could lean against it and tried to make out how badly she was hurt. Her left wrist was swelling already but we decided it was sprained, not broken. I clambered up on the cart tail and tore strips from my petticoat for bandages. I had to tear pretty high up, because the bottom of it was soaked with mud from the ditch.

By the time we'd finished, there was that slight change in the texture of the darkness that means morning isn't far away. I sat on the cart tail and considered. We'd have to walk, no doubt about that. We were on a coach route out of London, so there must be an inn or a tollgate before long, whether we went back or forward. My first instinct was to go back towards London. At least there'd be safety there, and clean clothes. Then I could report what had happened to the police. But the more I thought about that, the less I liked it. We had no chariot now, no body, no evidence. We were simply two women with a very unlikely story. If there was indeed a determination in high places to hide what was happening, we were wasting our time, or even putting ourselves in danger.

The alternative was to walk on westwards. On the face of it, that made very little sense and yet I liked it better. That was, after all, the direction the chariot had gone with the contessa's body on board. But something stronger drew me westwards, and that was the thought of Amos Legge. The last thing I knew about him was the guess of the livery stable owner that he was heading for Egham in Surrey. Egham was in the same direction as Hounslow, only about half a day's ride further on. Amos had gone there for revenge on the men who had attacked him. I was certain now that his quarry and mine were the same. I slid down from the cart and asked Tabby if she felt capable of walking, if we took it slowly.

‘Doesn't need to be slow,' she said. ‘It's me feet I walk on, not me hands.' She was clearly recovering, so we set off at a good pace along the road towards Hounslow.

EIGHTEEN

W
hen you're tired, muddy and draggle-petticoated, it's no time to be humble. At the first inn we came to at Hounslow, I played the fine lady and explained that my maid and I had suffered an accident on the road. Our driver was dealing with the carriage and we'd decided to go on by stage coach. It was not so far from the truth and luckily I'd a few sovereigns in my pocket for emergencies, so we could pay for a room with a fire and several jugs of hot water. Once we'd made ourselves as respectable as we could, I ordered a breakfast of eggs, bacon and tea to be sent up to us. Tabby sat in a chair by the fire and set to with ravenous appetite, eating one-handed. Remembering the feel of that damp hair under my hand in the ice pit, I thought I'd never be hungry again, but gradually the smell of the bacon and the look of plump slices of white bread and butter twitched at my appetite and in the end I was eating as eagerly as Tabby.

When we'd eaten, I explained my plans, such as they were. We'd inquire at this inn and any other in Hounslow if a gentleman's chariot had stopped or changed horses at some time around five o'clock in the morning, or if anybody had seen such a vehicle. Supposing that we drew a blank there – which was likely – we'd take a stage coach on to Egham and hope to find Amos Legge.