The Housekeepers(98)

“I don’t forgive you,” Mrs. Bone said, digging her nails into his flesh, and sent him out of the room. Her men dealt with him outside in the yard.

On the last day of accounting she did something very important. She made a quiet adjustment to their books, the only little bit of skimming she ever did, and popped a banker’s order in an envelope. She put the envelope in her bag and took the omnibus to Lisson Grove.

Mrs. Bone knew how to find people. She did it her usual way, by instinct. Constable first, then the man running the pie shop. Then down the back lanes, where the girls were hanging out laundry. She could hear little voices chanting rhymes. Could smell the drains, a fractionally different scent here, as if the water were harder in this part of town.

These people stared at her, an oddity, a curio, but they sent her in the right direction. She located a dark and miserable house at the end of the road. The stairs were set at a worrying slant, as if the foundations were having a joke at the owner’s expense.

“Sue?” Mrs. Bone said, banging on the door.

There was a long wait. And then a footstep, a creak of the hinges. A face peered around.

Those eyes! Big and utterly scared.

“Here you go, little goose,” said Mrs. Bone, shoving her hand through the door, holding out an envelope. “Your fee.”

Sue goggled at her. “My what?” she said. Her voice was husky.

“You know what for,” Mrs. Bone said, folding her arms. “Don’t pretend you don’t. I pay well when people hold their tongues.” She nodded at the envelope. “Open it.”

Park Lane, at dusk.

“Aha.”

Mrs. King lowered her binoculars. “Seen him?”

“Upstairs window.”

She and Mrs. Bone took the ladder and scaled the garden wall. Midnight came. Then one o’clock. Then two. The world grew quiet, shifted its dimensions.

Mrs. Bone coughed into the crook of her elbow.

“You can still go home, Mrs. Bone.”

Mrs. Bone snuffled. “Look here, I need to say something. I thought… I thought they were pretending to be married—I never thought that Danny would have ever…”

“Don’t trouble yourself,” Mrs. King replied gently.

Mrs. Bone shook her head, closed her eyes. “You never should have gone into that house.”

There was a great deal Mrs. King could have said in response to that. Any number of people might have altered things for her. They didn’t: because Mr. de Vries was a rich man, and being rich was a virtue—it carried all before it. Even Mrs. Bone must have believed that, on some level.

“I daresay you’re right,” Mrs. King said. No need to cause a fuss. “Now look sharp. I’m going to get him.”

Mrs. King crossed the garden, made for the house. She guessed where Shepherd would be. In the master’s old room. She picked up a handful of stones, aimed for the balustrade on the second floor. Her aim was straight and true. One pebble. Then another.

It didn’t take long. She heard the scrape of wood. A window opening. Saw a pale and flickering light.

“Mr. Shepherd,” she called up. “It’s Mrs. King.”

The garden was dark and hollow all around her. The light wobbled above her, fearful. She wondered what it was like for Shepherd, living alone inside the house. Someone had to guard it till it could be sold. He was the most natural candidate. She wondered if he slept on the floor, his cheek against cold marble. She wondered if he licked the walls.

The window juddered closed. The lamplight died.

He was coming downstairs.

It took him a while. At last, she heard the distant click of the French doors, saw a lamplit figure in a greatcoat picking his way down the steps. He’d lost weight in the past few weeks.

He looked like a priest no longer. Nor even a butler. He looked more like what he was. A pimp, or a pimp’s agent, living on the underside of the world.

“Evening,” she said.

Mrs. Bone stayed in the shadows.

Mr. Shepherd wound his fingers together. His voice was as oily as it ever was. “Mrs. King,” he said. “What a pleasant surprise.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, picturing the darkest nights on Park Lane, imagining it as it must have been. Shepherd, bolting the garden door. Weak light spilling out of the mews house. A girl cutting through the dark garden, unsteady on her feet. The ghost-white gleam of her apron against the black.

“You’ve got something I want, Shepherd.”

The realization had come to Mrs. King when she was standing in the cemetery, thinking of her father. The mausoleum behind Alice was huge and vulgar, a festival of funereal gloom.

It had made her think at once of Park Lane.

A microscopic sneer came into Mr. Shepherd’s eyes. He shifted the lamp from one hand to another, light wobbling. “I doubt that.”

“You know where the letter is.”

Shepherd said nothing. His eyes blazed at her.

“I know my father gave it to you,” Mrs. King said. “Entrusted it to you, I should say. You were utterly loyal to him. You’re the only one who was.”

Shepherd lifted his chin. But he didn’t say, I don’t know what you’re talking about.

“But you didn’t do as you were told. You can’t have done. Because you didn’t give it to me. You must have been ordered to do so. But you disobeyed that order. You thought you knew best. You couldn’t possibly let me see any proof of my rights.”