The Body at the Tower - By Y. S. Lee Page 0,27

the hammer like that, you won’t. What d’you think it is – a frying pan?” He showed her how to hold it. “Try again, now.”

She tried again. A little better.

“Can tell you ain’t used to proper work,” he said, pleasantly enough. “Got hands like a little princeling, you have. Try again.”

Mary flushed. The dirt beneath her fingernails was authentic enough, but she couldn’t hide her lack of calluses. She brought the hammer down firmly this time, and quite miraculously the nail unbent.

“That’s it. Now, here’s your lot,” said the joiner, jingling a leather pouch. Something about it appeared to disturb him and he peered inside. “But this ain’t the half of it. Cam! Where’s the rest of them nails?”

“In the pouch!” shouted a heavyset man.

“I got the pouch!”

“Then that’s all there is!”

The man frowned. “’S funny. I could have swore there was a fortnight’s worth in here.” He stared once again into the canvas pouch, his forehead wrinkled. Then, with a shrug, he handed the pouch to Mary. “Give us a shout when you’ve finished – maybe them other nails will have turned up by then.”

“Yes, sir.”

It was a fascinating insight into so-called “unskilled” labour. Her time was worth almost nothing – certainly less than the cost of the bent nails – but she still had much to learn, even in these most menial tasks. The joiners seemed content to ignore her and let her do her best. It was a pleasant change from yesterday and Mary was reminded, once again, of how dramatically the experience of work depended upon one’s employers. It was a sensation of helplessness that she disliked intensely, and she was called upon only to play at it; to tolerate bad behaviour for the sake of a larger purpose. What must it be like to be so powerless all the time?

The joiners were only a short distance away. As Mary worked, she picked up scraps of their conversation – mainly querying one another about supplies and passing idle comment as they organized their day’s work. At one point, she heard the man called Lemmon say, “Harky’s in a right tizz this morning.”

His friend smirked. “Ain’t a mystery why.”

“Sshh.” A third carpenter jerked his chin significantly in Mary’s direction.

Lemmon glanced over at Mary, who was frowning at a bent nail with great concentration. “You think…?”

He shrugged. “Maybe.”

The three men squinted at her for a long moment, then Lemmon shook his head decisively. “Nah. Just a kid.” But he was speaking in an undertone, now.

“Turned up two days ago? Harky’s pet? Don’t know his arse from his elbow?” The third man raised his eyebrows significantly, leaned in, and delivered the final, undeniable piece of evidence: “And don’t forget – Harky rescued him from Keenan, though the Jenkins kid got it bad enough.”

“Aw, no kid ought to be thrashed like that.”

“Yeah – Jenkins neither, for all he’s a nosy little whoreson.”

Lemmon snorted. “All right, then. What’s Harky want a pet for?”

The suspicious carpenter sighed in exasperation. “Don’t you lot notice anything? Harky’s lost control of this site. First that malarkey about the ghost. Then Wick. And yesterday, one of the glaziers said some bigwig’s coming to check on Harky’s work. It ain’t regular.”

Lemmon considered that for a moment. “But what’s that got to do with anything? What could a kid like that do for Harky?”

“Listen. Carry tales. Get a man sacked…” His voice trailed off suggestively.

The three men stared at Mary once more. She tried not to look self-conscious; to appear utterly absorbed in her task. When the joiners had begun muttering, her first worry had been about her gender. Could they possibly imagine that “Mark Quinn” was anything other than a twelve-year-old boy? Yet when talk switched to her being Harkness’s spy, she felt no relief. They were still too close to the truth.

The carpenters weren’t alone in their suspicion of her. This became clear as the morning wore on and Mary made the rounds, collecting money for the rum ration. The men paid up, of course, but with much less of the good-natured teasing she’d heard yesterday. Some trades simply found their pennies and handed them over, preserving a circumspect silence while she was within earshot. During the tea break, the men accepted refreshment from her but then retreated into their separate groups to talk. And was it her imagination, or were their voices more hushed than they had been yesterday? It wasn’t just Jenkins’s absence that dried them up. Of that she was increasingly certain.

Ten

James arrived