The Body at the Tower - By Y. S. Lee Page 0,19

be a straightforward one.

He shivered, then glanced over one shoulder to see if Barker had noticed. Just at that moment, a dark-haired lad ran lightly down the length of the yard. James’s eye followed him automatically – and then with deliberation. He frowned. The lad was oddly familiar. Was there something distinctive about the way he moved? No. Perhaps the profile – had he encountered the child before? But he was out of sight a few seconds later, and James blinked and shook his head. Impossible to pick out a twelve-year-old boy in a city of millions.

The only reasonable explanation was that the lad had something of Alfred Quigley about him. Ever since the murder of his young assistant over a year before, James had been haunted by echoes of the scrappy, resourceful boy wherever he went. The sharp treble of a boy’s voice; a thatch of mousy hair; that funny, bouncy way of walking particular to pre-adolescent boys. All these things followed James, and weighed on his conscience. They probably always would.

He shook his head again to clear the fog – and then realized the fog was all around him. Alfred Quigley was a memory that invariably led to another, one on which he couldn’t afford to dwell. Over the past year, he’d succeeded in thinking less and less about Mary Quinn. Yet even now, if he let his imagination stray…

Well. There was no point.

Absolutely none.

James climbed back into the carriage, waving off Barker’s helpful hand. But as he settled into the padded bench, he shivered once again.

Instinct.

Seven

Somebody was staring at her. Mary could feel it, like a warm patch of sunlight on the back of her neck. But when she turned to see who it might be, there was no one: only a tall, thin man departing the site. She frowned after him. Judging from the way he moved, he was elderly or an invalid of some sort. Apart from that, little distinguished him from the dozens of be-suited, be-hatted gentlemen outside the Houses of Parliament.

And yet.

Still frowning, she watched him climb into a carriage. There was something familiar about that, too, although she couldn’t place it. The driver was just another ordinary-looking middle-aged man. But she’d seen him before. She was still trying to remember where and when as the carriage disappeared into the stream of traffic, leaving her staring after it.

“Seed a ghost or something?” piped a voice in her ear.

She started and turned to find Jenkins smirking at her. “Yeah, the ghost of the clock tower.”

He snorted. “Ghost won’t help you shift them bricks.”

She sighed. “Yeah. It’s heavy work.”

“Carrying bricks? It’s easy-peasy. How many bricks you carry at a time?”

“Three.”

“Three! Delicate little girl, ain’t you?”

“You couldn’t take more.” She glanced about but the brickies were nowhere in sight. Good. Another minute’s banter with Jenkins and with luck she could lead him back to the subject of the dead man, Wick.

“Watch me!” He leaned the hod at a forty-five-degree angle against the nearest wall and loaded it with care, distributing the bricks so the weight fell evenly. “You ready?” he called when the hod was prepared.

“Six bricks is awfully heavy,” she said.

“It’s nothing, with this method,” he said grandly. “Easy-peasy, like I said.”

“Suit yourself.”

Jenkins braced himself beneath the hod and, with an enormous effort, lifted its cradle over one shoulder. In theory, it might have worked. In practice, however, he was much too short and weak: the length of the hod’s stick, intended for an adult, made the six-brick load teeter precariously above his head. Immediately, it began to waver.

Mary reached out to steady the hod.

“I can do it!” Jenkins insisted, his face already scarlet with exertion.

“Let me help you!”

“Let me alone!” He swatted away her outstretched hands and, in that moment, lost his last bit of control over the hod. Mary just had time to jump clear as the six bricks smashed to the ground.

“What the devil is going on here!” The roar came from a third party, a livid man some fifty yards behind them.

She froze guiltily.

Jenkins scrambled clear of the mess and made to scamper off, but Keenan was moving fast and almost upon them. A moment later, he seized each of them by an ear.

Jenkins yelped.

Mary sucked in a sharp breath, but made no sound.

“Hold this brat,” snarled Keenan, shoving Jenkins towards another man. Mary hadn’t the leisure to notice whom. Then he turned his full attention to her, shaking her like a particularly wet and wrinkled piece of washing. Her head