The Housekeepers(99)

Shepherd had a belligerent look in his eyes. “I don’t have time for all this. I’ve a household to manage.”

“Doesn’t seem like it. No mistress. And, come to that, why doesn’t she have the letter? You should have gone straight to her when your old master died.”

The lamplight gleamed. Shepherd said nothing.

“Did you want to punish her? Did you feel her pushing you out?”

Shepherd pressed his lips together.

Mrs. King nodded. “So you hated me, you hated her, you hated both his daughters. What a sorry little creature you are, Shepherd.” She smiled. “I suppose you put that letter somewhere nobody would find it.”

It would be easy to get Shepherd by the scruff of his neck. They could shake him, the whole soggy mass of him, rattle his bones. Mrs. King could kick him to the ground, break his jaw. The temptation was very strong. She felt it galloping through her.

“I’ve been through every inch of this house,” she said. “I’ve opened every cupboard, knocked on every wall. This isn’t a castle. There are no secret passages. No hidden panels. No strongrooms, no vaults.”

Mrs. Bone emerged from the gloom. Shepherd’s eyes widened. “You wicked woman,” he said, recognizing her.

“Wicked is as wicked does, Mr. Shepherd,” said Mrs. Bone levelly.

“It’s in his coffin, isn’t it?” said Mrs. King.

There was a little flash of defiance in his eyes. He still didn’t respect her. He loathed her. It was his weakness. He flexed his hands, as if he meant to do something with them: push her away, punch her…

“I’ll break your fingers,” Mrs. King said. “You wouldn’t be able to use them again. Believe me.”

“I put it in his coat,” he said, at last.

Mrs. King felt the night yawning open around her. She was right. Of course, Shepherd had taken charge of the master, helped the undertakers to dress him. He did the most sensible thing in the world, inserting a flimsy little bit of paper into a pocket where nobody else could find it.

“And you can’t get it,” he added with a vicious little smile.

“Can’t I?” said Mrs. King.

Mrs. Bone put her fingers to her mouth, and whistled.

Movement at the foot of the garden. The clack of ladders being put against the walls. Figures scaling the mews house. Black shapes dropping to the ground. Men streaming up the path, encircling them. Hoods covering their faces, pickaxes and shovels in hand.

Body snatchers.

Fear dawned in Mr. Shepherd’s eyes.

“Keys please, Mr. Shepherd,” Mrs. King said.

The mausoleum seemed to tremble in the lamplight. Shepherd put his hand into his pocket. Just his everyday pocket, not a secret place, not the lining of his coat. He lifted out the little key, delicately ridged, like the edge of a tooth. “You wouldn’t,” he said.

Mrs. Bone plucked it from Shepherd’s grasp. “She won’t. You will. Give him a shovel, lads.”

The men had got him by the arms—they had him pinned to the spot. His mouth fell open.

Mrs. King took the key from Mrs. Bone, stepped into the little portico at the front of the mausoleum. She pressed her fingers to the cold metal door. Felt around for the keyhole.

The others waited at a distance, holding their breath.

The key clicked in the lock. Recently oiled.

The door swung open.

Cool air. She braced herself for a bad smell, but of course there wasn’t one. No leaves, no twigs on the ground. The crypt was undisturbed. Quiet and somber, with the gigantic marble tomb looming out of the darkness. She reached out and touched it. Angels, kneeling.

She felt a rush of fear in her gut. I’m going to see him again, she thought.

“Bring the ax,” she called.

Shepherd tried to run. She heard the scuffle, his grunt as he tripped, was knocked to the ground.

Mrs. King turned. She felt O’Flynn blood churning inside her. “Come,” she said.

They’d snatched the lamp from his hands. The light swayed violently, and she saw his shock, the desperation in his eyes. Mrs. Bone kicked him forward.

Mrs. King caught her eye. “How long will it take?”

Mrs. Bone peered in. “That’s a lot of marble.”

The men lifted their axes and chisels.

She could see it as it would be, grotesque and monstrous. The tomb smashed open, great hunks of marble scattered on the floor, the casket dragged onto the steps. Splintered wood. Hands avoiding flesh. Fiddling with a waistcoat, using a knife to open up the seams. Mrs. King still kept good knives upon her person.

All that, to find a scrap of paper.

She could guess what the letter would say. A few lines. Some formalities.

I write this on Friday the fifth of May, in the year nineteen hundred and five, in sound mind, and desirous only to promulgate the truth, that I did lawfully marry Catherine Mary Ashe in…

There would follow the name of the church, St. Anne’s in Limehouse, or Christ Church Spitalfields, or St. Mary’s in Whitechapel. And the date, and the names they used on the marriage register. The lawyers and courts could pick over it all they liked.

A scrap of paper.

Her father’s empire, not yet sold off, still intact…

The angels knelt before her. This was a dreadful place to be buried. Lonely, forgotten. It’s where they’d bury me, she realized, if I lived here. She pictured her own casket being placed into the family tomb. Family, she thought, feeling cold. She reached for the lamp and bent down, studying the brass plaque.