sucked in his breath sharply. Mary tensed – it sounded loud in her ear – but Keenan and Harkness continued, fully absorbed in their exchange.
“I did a few sums earlier today,” said Harkness conversationally. “D’you know how much you bled me for, Keenan? The total of what I’ve paid you and Wick both, these past ten months?” He didn’t wait for a reply. “It seemed quite manageable, at first, one pound a week. Then two. Even five. I could manage five, although I expect it was divided between you three, so to you it didn’t seem so splendid after a while. It was ten pounds – ten pounds a week! – that broke me. Such a paltry sum, really: a couple of new dresses for my daughters, the cost of a party given by my wife. But all told it came to more than two hundred pounds.
“And here’s what I’d like to know: I can see how I’d have spent it. I’ve a wife and family. Daughters are expensive and sons even more so. And I suppose Wick had a family, too – poor souls. But what did you do with your eighty pounds, Keenan? That’s what I can’t understand.”
“Go to hell,” snarled Keenan. “If you don’t pay up, you know what’ll happen to you.”
“The question of hell is in the hands of the Almighty. But you might have gathered by now, Keenan, that I’m no longer afraid of what you might do to me. In fact, I’m almost looking forward to it.”
There followed a long silence, during which Mary carefully leaned past the doorway at the top of the stairs. James did likewise. The two men were, as she’d imagined, in a far corner of the belfry. Harkness had his hands braced against the half-wall, as though he were admiring the effects of sunset over the London streets. His posture was deceptively casual but the set of his shoulders, hunched and stiff, revealed his underlying tension. In contrast Keenan, who stood facing him, leaned slightly forward, poised for a physical struggle. Yet there was a curious rigidity in his stance, as though he didn’t know how to manage the situation before him. Harkness’s desperate serenity robbed him of his most effective weapon: the threat of violence.
“Then why’d you call me here?” growled Keenan. He clenched and unclenched his fists as though he could feel Harkness’s soft, loose neck between his fingers.
“Why, to tell you of my decision, of course.”
“Up here? What’s wrong with the office?”
Harkness smiled and looked out over the city. “It’s a beautiful evening. I wanted to enjoy the view.”
“I don’t give a damn about the view.”
“You might, if you consider what your future holds.”
“What’s that, then?”
“Breaking stones, at best.”
For just a moment, Keenan blinked with surprise. Then, he gave a sudden bark of laughter. “You outdone yourself there, Harky. Don’t you know if I go to gaol, you’re going too? I’d lie myself black in the face to see you get more time than me.”
Harkness, too, was smiling – a curious bend of his lips that had as little to do with humour as Keenan’s laugh. “You’re not as clever as I’d expected, Keenan. I confess to a touch of disappointment. You know,” he went on, straightening now and leaning against the edge of the belfry, “you’ve a certain low, criminal cunning not uncommon to your class. But your problem, Keenan, is that you lack imagination. You can’t possibly imagine what I’m thinking or feeling right now. And that will be your downfall.”
“Rubbish,” growled Keenan, swinging away sullenly. “All rubbish. How the hell you going to get me in trouble while covering over your own part? You took half the profits; you fixed the bloody books.”
Harkness’s gaze, intent on the glowing horizon, never wavered. That intense serenity transformed his entire face, returned to it colour and even a little youth. And then Mary became aware of the greatest difference in his appearance: the twitch was gone. Harkness’s left cheek was entirely still and smooth. “I’ve no interest in covering my own guilt. Far from it: I’ve left a letter detailing the entire scheme.” He swung to meet Keenan’s surprised face. “Yes, everything from the time I caught you thieving. I’ve set out why I agreed to turn a blind eye and even falsify the accounts, in exchange for half the profits. Also how your friend Wick discovered our plan, and began to blackmail me. It took me a while to work out that you were behind