The Apothecary Page 0,47

be ending yet?”

“I’ll go check, sir,” Danby said, rising. He seemed anxious to be out of the office.

“Danby,” the general said.

“Yes, sir?”

“You’re sure your Kraut is entirely on our side?”

“Yes, sir,” Danby said. “And he’s quite ruthless.”

The general smiled to himself. “Good,” he said. “Wish we could bring him in here to do some interrogating. We could use some of that ruthlessness.”

Danby smiled uncomfortably.

“And do we know who killed the poor old gardener?” the general asked.

“Not yet, sir,” Danby said. “But we’ll find out.” I knew that he knew the Scar had done it, and thought what a very good liar he was. He sounded completely convincing.

“Strange business, that,” the general said. “Well, carry on.”

“Yes, sir.”

We followed Danby out and tiptoed behind him down the hallway. When I think now about how much eavesdropping we did, I realise that being fourteen had prepared us for it. To be a kid is to be invisible and to listen, and to interpret things that aren’t necessarily meant for you to hear—because how else do you find out about the world?

We passed an enormous telephone switchboard, with empty chairs waiting for operators to sit and make connections, and I wondered if the switchboard was meant to run all the calls of London in the case of an atomic bomb—and if there would be anyone left to make calls.

Further down the hall, Danby knocked at a door. A young woman in a neat green dress came out and closed the door behind her. She had wavy light-brown hair cut short around her ears.

“So?” Danby asked her.

“I’m so bored!” the girl complained. “I thought that stuff was meant to wear off. But we’re just sitting there staring at each other.”

“I’d think you’d like that,” Danby said. “You could talk all day, with no one to interrupt you.”

The girl pouted. “It’s no joke,” she said. “I need a coffee.”

“Go on then,” Danby said.

The girl flashed him a grateful smile and darted off down the hall.

Mr Danby went into the room, and we silently followed him in, ready to rescue Benjamin’s father—somehow. I was so busy finding a place to stand where I wouldn’t bump into Danby or anyone else that when I finally looked up at the prisoner, I was shocked.

It wasn’t the apothecary.

The prisoner was a woman, and she looked Chinese. She was young, maybe in her twenties, with her hair in a shiny black braid, and she wore a black shirt and black trousers. I could have sworn that she looked at my visible finger, but only for an instant, and then she fixed her eyes on Mr Danby. She was beautiful, in an austere way, and angry. She sat straight-backed in a chair at a metal table that was bolted to the floor.

Danby took a seat on the table, with one foot on the floor, affecting a casual stance. “Would you like a coffee?” he asked her. “Or tea?”

The prisoner shook her head.

He asked her something in a language I guessed was Chinese, and the woman gave him a look of contempt.

“My Mandarin’s rotten, I know,” Danby said. “But I’m curious—the muteness didn’t last this long on Shiskin. Perhaps it’s because you’re so much smaller?”

The woman shrugged.

“The things you wrote for me, in such elegant Chinese calligraphy, I had them translated,” he said, tapping his knuckles on the table. “Some of the curses were rather primitive—the ones about dogs and pigs, for example—but some were rather good. I liked the one insulting my ancestors to the eighteenth generation.”

The woman glared at him.

He reached forward and put a hand on her pale throat, as if he were a doctor, examining it. “It’s been suggested that I hurt you, to make you talk,” he said. “It isn’t my way, but I’m under a great deal of pressure.” He pressed his finger and thumb into the soft recesses of her neck in a way that seemed both very expert and very painful.

The woman’s eyes watered and she blinked, but she said nothing. I couldn’t believe I had ever found Danby dreamy. Now his handsomeness only made him more horrible.

He dropped his hand. “Amazing how long the pill has lasted,” he said. “But it’s only a matter of time before it wears off. I’ll be back.”

He left the room, and we heard the door lock behind him. The prisoner’s manner immediately changed, and she coughed and put a hand on her throat, then turned to where I was standing.

“Why you here?” she demanded hoarsely.

Pip already had his