Assassin's Creed: Underworld (17 page)

Abberline watched him come.

That morning he had stormed into the
sergeant’s office, with his new friend Hazlewood the private detective in tow, and told
the sergeant that he had something new on the Indian at the dig.

‘Tell him that what you told me,’ he
insisted to Hazlewood, who wore an expression that seemed to indicate things were quickly moving
away from him, like this wasn’t the way he had planned it. One minute, trading confidences
with a contact who might be of use in finding this Indian fellow, the next being hauled before
the division sergeant by an excitable Abberline.

Sure enough, the sergeant looked him up and down
before returning his attention to Abberline. ‘And who the bloody hell is this,
Freddie?’

‘He’s a private detective, is what he
is. He’s a private detective who happens to have information regarding our friends at the
rail works.’

‘Oh not the bloody rail works,’
sighed the sergeant. ‘Please not the bloody rail works,
again
.’

‘Now hold on, hold on a minute.’
Hazlewood had his hands held out to Abberline and the sergeant like a man trying to control a
small crowd. ‘I’ve been asked to locate a young thug involved in a brutal attack on
a
member of the aristocracy who wishes to see justice served. I don’t
know anything about any goings-on at the rail works.’

‘One and the same, mate, one and the
same,’ Abberline reassured him. ‘Now just tell him what you told me before I do it,
and, believe you me, I ain’t leaving anything out and I may even add a few bits and pieces
that won’t reflect at all well on either you or your employers.’

The detective shot him a furious look and then
directed himself to the sergeant. ‘As I was telling the –’ he paused, for
extra contempt – ‘
constable
here, I have been employed by a high-ranking
gentleman in order to help apprehend a very dangerous man.’

‘
A very dangerous man
,’
spoofed Abberline. ‘That’s a matter of opinion. You say that there was another
bodyguard there, apart from the two in the sanitorium?’

‘There was.’

‘Then he could identify the boy. We could
take him to the rail works and get him to identify the man who attacked him and your
employer.’

‘We could do that, I suppose …’
said Hazlewood cautiously.

‘And why
would
we do that?’
roared the sergeant from behind his desk. ‘I’ve already had Mr bloody Cavanagh of
the Metropolitan Railway giving me the bollocking to end all bollockings on account of your
behaviour, Abberline, and if you think I intend to risk another one – or worse still have
him talk to John Fowler or Charles Pearson and the next minute have the superintendent breathing
down my neck – you’ve got another think coming.’

Abberline winked. ‘Our
friend here can make it worth your while, sergeant.’

The sergeant narrowed his eyes. ‘Is this
true?’ he demanded of Hazlewood.

The detective admitted it was true. He could
indeed make it worth the sergeant’s while, and the sergeant did a little weighing-up.
True, there was the risk of another bollocking, but then again he had a scapegoat in Abberline.

What’s more, a little extra wedge would
come in handy, what with Mrs Sergeant’s birthday coming up.

So he’d agreed. He’d agreed that if
they could produce this bodyguard then they had enough of a reason to confront the Indian lad at
the dig, and now the Indian was coming over the mud towards them.

Bloody hell
, thought Abberline,
he’s gone up in the world
. Wearing a new pair of strides, he was, as well as
braces and a collarless shirt open at the neck. Still barefoot, mind, trousers flapping about
his calves as he came closer towards them. Everybody, it seemed, was fixed by his dark,
impenetrable gaze.

‘Bharat Singh?’ said Abberline.
‘I’m pleased to see all those cuts and bruises have healed since the last time I saw
you.’

Barely acknowledging them, The Ghost stood before
the group, holding files to his chest and looking quizzically from man to man. Abberline watched
as the lad’s gaze swept past the bodyguard, and he reminded himself that if even half of
what they said about this young man was true, then he might be a very slippery, not to mention
dangerous, customer indeed. He readied himself. For what, he wasn’t sure. But he did it
anyway.

‘Now,’ he said,
addressing The Ghost, ‘if you don’t mind, we have a matter to attend to.’
Surreptitiously, he felt for the handle of his truncheon, and then directed his next question to
the bodyguard. ‘Is this the man who set upon you and your two employers in the churchyard?
Have a good long look now. It’s been a while, and he’s spruced up a bit in the
meantime. But if you ask me, that’s not the kind of face you forget in a hurry, is it? So,
come on, is it him, or not?’

The Ghost turned his attention to the bodyguard,
meeting his eye. The man was tall, like the three punishers, but not cocky and arrogant like
they were. A reduced man; the encounter in the graveyard had left him changed but here was his
opportunity to recover some of that lost pride and dignity.

Abberline’s fingers flexed on the butt of
his truncheon; Aubrey was ready too, and the punishers stood with their eyes narrowed, hands
loose by their sides, ready to reach for whatever concealed weapons they carried as they awaited
their next set of orders and anticipated bloodshed.

And every single man there expected the bodyguard
to give the answer ‘yes’.

So it came as something of a surprise when he
shook his head and said, ‘No, this ain’t the man.’

‘So, what is the truth of it then?’
asked Abberline.

‘I don’t think I know what you
mean.’

The impromptu meeting at the rail works had
broken up and Abberline had left with his tail between his legs, and then, back at the station,
the sergeant had given him a flea in his ear, and then, with his tail between his legs and his
flea in his ear, Abberline had gone searching for the bodyguard.

Why? Because he’d seen the look on the
geezer’s face and he’d seen the look on Bharat Singh’s face into the bargain
and there was something there.
Non-recognition my arse, those two know each other
. They
had a … well, strange as it may sound, but Abberline would have said he’d witnessed
a kind of grudging, mutual respect pass between them.

So the next order of business was to find the
bodyguard, which wasn’t difficult. He’d done it with Hazlewood the previous day, and
this afternoon he found the bodyguard in the same place: the Ten Bells on Commercial Street in
Whitechapel, a favourite haunt of prostitutes and blaggers, the occasional police constable and
disgraced former bodyguards attempting to drown their sorrows.

‘You’re protecting him is what I
think,’ said Abberline.

Without a word the bodyguard picked up his drink
and moved to a table in the snug. Abberline followed and sat
opposite.
‘Someone paying you to protect him – is that it? Not a man in robes by any
chance?’

No answer.

‘Or perhaps you’re protecting him out
of the goodness of your own heart?’ said Abberline. Now the man looked up at him with
sorrowful eyes and Abberline knew he was on the right track. He pressed the point home.
‘What if I were to tell you that I had my own suspicions about this young Indian man? What
if I were to tell you that I think he might well have saved my life the other day, and that, in
fact, far from trying to put this fella in the clink I’m actually beginning to wonder if
he might be on the side of the angels.’

Another pause and then the bodyguard began to
speak in a voice that rumbled from between his hunched shoulders. ‘Well, then you would be
right, constable, because if you ask me, he is indeed on the side of the angels. He’s a
good man. A better man than either you or I will ever be.’

‘Speak for yourself. So he was in the
churchyard that night then?’

‘He was indeed and there wasn’t no
“setting upon” anyone being done. There was a wrong – a wrong with which I was
involved, to my shame – a wrong that he put right. My employers at the time, two nobs,
were doing down a dollymop, just for kicks, because they could. And me and my mates were looking
out for them. Ours not to reason why and all that.’

Abberline gave a thin smile of recognition.

‘And this young man turns up, the only
passer-by who did anything more than react to her screams with mild
puzzlement. And when the two nobs wouldn’t stop their game he stopped it for them.

‘I’ve never seen anything move so
fast, I’m telling you: boy, man or animal. He bested all of us, including yours truly. He
did it in the blink of an eye, and we deserved it; every last one of us, we had it coming.

‘So if you’re asking why I
didn’t identify him at the rail works, and if you’re sincere when you say he’s
a decent man, and as long as you’re asking me in the snug of the Ten Bells, knowing
I’ll deny it at the site, at the station or if I’m up before the beak, then yes, it
was the same man. And bloody good luck to him.’

‘Of course it was the same man.’

Marchant and Cavanagh had met Hazlewood at the
Travellers Club on Pall Mall, where they took him to the smoking room overlooking Carlton
Gardens.

Cavanagh was a member at the Traveller’s,
nominated by Colonel Walter Lavelle, shortly before Cavanagh had killed him; Marchant, as
Cavanagh’s right-hand man, was also familiar with the club. Hazlewood, on the other hand,
was agog or, as he’d later say to his wife, ‘as excited as a dog with two
cocks’. Men like him weren’t accustomed to being entertained in the Travellers Club
on Pall Mall, and he smelled money, as well as maybe the chance to solve this bloody case into
the bargain. And maybe, if he played his cards right, the chance to solve the case
and
make a bit of extra chink on the side.

Not forgetting, of course, the fact that it was a
swanky old place, and no mistake.

Around them was the laughter
and raised voices of drunken lords and gentlemen getting even drunker, but it was hard to
imagine Cavanagh participating. He sat in a voluminous leather armchair with his hands on the
armrests, wearing a smart black suit with flashes of white shirt at the collar and cuffs. But
even though he fitted in among the toffs and swells, Cavanagh radiated a certain danger, and it
was telling that when the occasional passing gentleman greeted him with a wave, their smiles
dipped momentarily, more as though they were paying their respects than saying hello.

‘You think the man who attacked your client
and my employee Bharat Singh are one and the same?’ he asked Hazlewood now.

‘I’m sure of it, sir.’

‘What makes you so sure?’

‘Because when I hear hooves I look for
horses, not zebras.’

Marchant looked confused but Cavanagh nodded.
‘In other words you think logic dictates it must be the same man.’

‘That I do – that and the fact that I
spoke to our friend the bodyguard afterwards and it was pretty obvious that for reasons best
known to his own self, he was keeping quiet about it.’

‘Then perhaps we need to persuade the
bodyguard,’ said Cavanagh, and Hazlewood thought ‘money’, and wondered if some
of it might be coming his way.

‘Tell me,’ said Cavanagh, ‘if
this young Indian man set upon the bodyguard, and – what? Four other men? – in an
unprovoked and vicious attack, then why would the bodyguard want to protect
him?’

Hazlewood looked shifty. At a nod from Cavanagh,
Marchant took folding money from his pocket and laid it on the table between them.

Here we go
, thought Hazelwood, palming
it. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I only know what I’ve been told, but it seems the
Indian lad took it upon himself to rescue a damsel in distress who was being used as a bit of a
plaything by the two toffs.’

Cavanagh nodded, eyes flitting around the
wood-panelled room. He knew the type. ‘Getting their jollies, were they?’

‘By the sounds of things. Your man, this
Indian boy, was quite the dervish, it seems. He took on the lot of them and won, and by all
accounts carried the poor tail they was doing down off into the night.’

‘I see,’ said Cavanagh. He paused for
nearby laughter to die down. ‘Well, Mr Hazlewood, I thank you for your honesty, and for
bringing this matter to our attention. If you leave it with us, we should like to conduct our
own investigations. Perhaps, when this process is complete, and assuming that our findings are
in accordance with your own suspicions, we can join forces, so that we can root out the bad
apple, and you can get your man.’

When Hazlewood had left, a happy man, Cavanagh
turned to his companion. ‘We shall be true to our word, Marchant. We shall look very
closely into our interesting Indian colleague.’

Early the next morning, as was quickly becoming
his custom, Abberline was staring at a dead body. Beside him stood Aubrey, and the two
constables took off their helmets as a mark of respect. They knew the man who lay sprawled on
the street, his face barely recognizable beneath eyes that had swelled shut, a face that was a
mixture of purple bruises and open cuts, and a broken jaw that hung at an obscene angle.

It was the bodyguard.

‘Someone wanted to shut him up,
obviously,’ said Aubrey.

‘No,’ replied Abberline thoughtfully,
staring at the corpse and wondering how many more had to die. ‘I don’t think they
were trying to shut him up. I think they were trying to make him talk.’

Across the city, Cavanagh sat behind his desk at
the rail works office, Marchant on one side, Hardy on the other.

In front of the desk, sitting on forbidding
straight-backed chairs and wearing expressions to match, were the Templar Grand Master Crawford
Starrick and Lucy Thorne. As usual, they wanted a report from Cavanagh, the man who had promised
to deliver them the artefact but who had so far conspicuously failed to do so, and as usual they
wanted that report to include encouraging news.

‘We’re
close,’ Cavanagh told them.

Lucy sighed and frowned and rearranged her
skirts. Starrick looked distinctly unimpressed. ‘This is what you said last time, and the
time before that.’

‘We’re closer,’ added Cavanagh,
unperturbed by his Grand Master’s irritation. ‘We have to be. We’re in the
immediate vicinity of the artefact’s location.’

There came a knock at the door and Other Hardy
showed his face. ‘Sir, sorry to disturb you, but Mr and Mrs Pearson have
arrived.’

Starrick rolled his eyes but Cavanagh held out a
hand to show it was a matter of no concern. ‘Ill as he is, Pearson prefers the company of
the navvies to the hospitality of the office. He’ll have his usual royal tour, don’t
worry.’

Other Hardy glanced back out of the door.
‘Seems all right, sir. Like you say, he’s making his way over to the
trench.’

‘Even so,’ said Starrick, ‘I
believe that concludes our business. Miss Thorne and I shall take our leave. See to it that the
next time we visit you have some more encouraging news for me.’

When they had gone Cavanagh looked at Marchant
with hooded eyes. ‘He’s a fool; he knows his time is short.’

‘He is the Templar Grand Master,
sir,’ said Marchant, and then added with an obsequious smile, ‘for the time
being.’

‘Exactly,’ said Cavanagh. ‘For
the moment. Until such time as I have the artefact.’

And he allowed himself a smile. The ghost of a
smile.

Meanwhile, as Cavanagh, Marchant and co. were
occupied with Starrick and Thorne – and with The Ghost yet
to begin
his shift – Pearson was doing just as Cavanagh said he would, and conducting a small tour
of the works, his wife Mary on his arm.

The men loved Pearson, and on this particular
occasion had cooked up a plan to show him just how much. At the office steps, with Starrick and
Thorne making their way to the gates, Marchant watched the men gather around Mr and Mrs Pearson,
and frowned, seeing that work seemed to have been abandoned for no good reason he could think
of. There was definitely something happening, though. He leaned on the rail to speak to Other
Hardy. ‘Get over there, would you? See what’s going on …’