The Body at the Tower - By Y. S. Lee Page 0,16

a cab in these parts.”

Difficult to find a taxi, in front of the blasted Houses of Parliament? His head swivelled sharply towards the coachman. “George told you to wait?”

Barker didn’t even have the grace to look sheepish. “Yes, sir.”

He sighed. There was no point in making a scene now. But once he got hold of his infernal, domineering, bleating nanny of a brother, he would create such a stinking row that no one would doubt he was entirely recovered. “I’ll be no more than half an hour.”

“Very good, sir.”

The young-old man stood on the pavement, taking in the scene. It was strange to be back on an English building site. In the smoggy London daylight the workmen looked pale and drawn, their tools dull. It was a chalky light, a light that greyed everything it touched. For a moment, despite all that had happened in India, he found himself longing for the hectic tropical sunshine that polished objects to brilliance and made colours glow. He hadn’t fully understood the meaning of “illumination” until he’d gone east.

He shivered automatically, then glanced over his shoulder to see if Barker had noticed. As well as being grey and sooty, London was damp. Although he would never admit it to George, he was perpetually cold these days, even in his winter suits. Never mind. He straightened, walked through the site gate with a firm, even step, and rapped twice on the door-frame of the flimsy office shed.

“Young James Easton! My dear fellow!” Philip Harkness sprang from his chair and shook his hand enthusiastically. “How absolutely delightful to see you once more. How long has it been?” He was talking very loudly, in the way people often do to the elderly.

James knew he was rather altered since he’d last seen Harkness, but the man’s look of pity was still disheartening. “Hello, Harkness. I believe it’s been a little more than two years.”

“Yes, yes – I believe you were engaged in an Oriental venture until quite recently!”

This was disingenuous; the man knew very well what had taken him abroad, and why he was back in England. It was probably why Harkness had asked him to call; everyone wanted to hear the tale first-hand. “For less than a year.”

“Then you’d had enough, hey?”

He’d not oblige. “They got what they needed from me.”

“I heard about the malarial fever. Bad luck, old chap – all that nasty swamp air, was it?”

“I don’t know, really. But I’m quite well now – fully recovered, in fact.” He paused. “You’re looking, ah, prosperous.” Since James had seen him last, Harkness had gone bald and grown distinctly fat. It wasn’t a rosy, jolly-country-squire type of fat, but a pasty, bloated look – a rim of extra face framed his features, and his neck overflowed his boiled collar. His complexion was as grey as the London sky. Stress, James supposed, from this cursed job. That intermittent twitch could be put down to the same cause.

Harkness laughed over-heartily and pushed the sole chair towards him. “Do sit down, dear boy. You’re looking rather peaky, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

He did mind. “I feel fine, thank you. I’ll lean on this desk.” Perhaps it had been a mistake to call upon his father’s old friend. In years past, Philip Harkness had been a regular visitor to the Easton household. But since their father’s death, James and George had rather lost touch with him. Harkness seemed awkward and blustering today, quite unlike the kind, competent man James remembered from his childhood.

“And how’s your dear brother?”

Awkwardly, they navigated the basics of the missing years: James’s education and apprenticeship, past projects, George’s interests, the brothers’ personal lives. James was eager to question Harkness about the site: how had he come to accept the job? What were its challenges? And, most tantalizingly, why the hell was it twenty-five years behind schedule? As soon as he turned the conversation, however, Harkness’s tension doubled. He stammered, talked around questions and fidgeted with his elegant new fountain-style pen until his fingers were stained with ink. The more James persisted, the more evasive Harkness became, until pity finally curbed James’s curiosity. Obviously, Harkness’s nervous condition was directly related to this disaster of a building site.

He checked his watch. He’d been with Harkness only a quarter of an hour, but it felt much longer. “I had better not keep you,” he murmured, taking a step towards the door.

Harkness jumped up eagerly, holding out a restraining hand. “So soon? Why, I’d expected to take