spent sidestepping around de Méritens and sweet-talking M. Saint-Marie, after coping with Kite, it was nothing. ‘He’s either mad or going mad. I understand why I was pressed, I can’t argue that and God knows I want a free England.’ The patriotic rubbish came easily after all the insanity the Saints spouted. God Save the King! ‘But I think he’s going to shoot me before I can get the job done.’ He inclined his head. ‘If I wanted to run away, sir, I could have done it right now. I don’t.’
Because if I go now then Kite will come after me like a prince of hell.
Lawrence nodded slowly. ‘You could have,’ he agreed. He watched him for a long time. ‘You are right about Missouri, naturally. Anyone could tell you that. But this doesn’t mean you’ll be freed for your trouble. I ought to put you in the gaol right now, in fact. He took you out without my permission.’
‘No, sir, I was hoping it would mean I would work under your supervision rather than his. As I say, I want to help.’ He shifted in what he hoped was an awkward way. ‘But you don’t seem the type to hold a pistol to a man’s kneecap.’
And you’re much stupider than Kite. Anyone with a temper like yours is a moron.
‘Oh, he is delightful, isn’t he,’ Lawrence said irritably. ‘It’s what comes of letting carpenters’ boys become captains – Agatha wouldn’t be told, of course. She paid for the commission. I hadn’t the heart to stop her.’ He snorted his breath out again. The longer Joe was with him, the more he seemed like a stunted buffalo. ‘I’m sure we can arrange something less ballistic. Have you made the machine I asked for yet?’
‘This morning. Two machines, they communicate with each other. One is on Agamemnon now, one is in Lord Howe’s office. They work. They’ll allow the navy to talk to the land without signal flags over about twenty miles.’
Lawrence lifted his peppery eyebrows. ‘Twenty miles. That’s quite something, lad.’
‘It’s standard,’ Joe said. ‘I’ve given Mr Kite the specifications.’
‘Good. Very good. And I hope you’ll be able to make us other things too?’
‘Yes, sir. I mean to.’ He held Lawrence’s eyes, clear and straight. ‘But if you put me in the prison, he’ll know I spoke to you. He doesn’t seem like the kind of man I’d like to give a warning to.’
‘Ah, how nice of you to be concerned about me.’
‘I’m not. I’m very concerned about me.’
Lawrence seemed to take that as the sign of an honest man. ‘Only sensible. Now, can I trust you to take yourself back?’
Lily had laid more sophisticated traps. ‘No.’ He made himself look worried. ‘I got a bit lost on the way here. If you’d send someone with me I’d be grateful.’
‘Good,’ Lawrence laughed. He shook Joe’s hand. He had warm dry palms, unscarred, and a firm handshake. ‘Very good. Now let me see you out. Under no circumstances tell him that you spoke to me, do you understand? He’d kill you.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good boy.’
See? Easy.
Joe went straight back to Kite’s rooms, where Lawrence’s men left him and where he could hear voices arguing through the door. When he opened it, Kite and the two marines looked around.
The towers of Robespierre Bridge were mostly taken up with the space required by the pivot of the bascules. When the bridge came up, counterweights swung down inside the towers in arcs, in twin chambers the size of concert halls. He’d been there once, on maintenance work. The bridge staff had forgotten about him and a tall ship came unexpectedly downriver. The bridge had begun to lift, and the bascules silent, had reached halfway down the room before Joe saw. They had already covered the door. There was a space of about four feet wide at the very far end of the chamber that was safe. Despite knowing that, he hadn’t trusted it and flattened himself to the wall, expecting to be crushed. He hadn’t been able to move for a while afterward.
This felt like that.
‘I lost you two,’ he said. ‘I’ve been looking for you for an hour, where did you go?’
‘You disappeared down through someone’s garden – sir, he was trying to—’
‘It was a girl selling apples. I went to get some and when I looked back out you two had buggered off.’
The older marine had turned red. ‘You didn’t come back out. We looked for you.’