The Death Collector (28 page)

Berry slammed a door behind him and it crashed into Eddie, knocking him into the wall. But he was up again in an instant. George caught the door before it closed, and pelted after them.

They charged through the foyer, but Berry was already disappearing through the main doors. Eddie was close on his heels. George, out of breath, was still too far back. He tried to forget that he could hardly breathe, tried to ignore the blood drumming in his ears, and raced after them – out of the doors, down the steps.

The fog was swirling in the black night, thickening the darkness. A figure solidified out of the air in front of George, and he grabbed at it.

But it was Eddie.

‘He's gone,' Eddie said. ‘I lost him in the fog. He's got away.'

After losing himself in the fog, Garfield Berry had no idea what to do next. He had no wish to find Mr Blade again, and he could not return to work at the Museum. People would be looking for him – Blade wanting details of what he had discovered. Or Protheroe. They would look for him at home, and while
he
wasn't there, his family was. Berry was not concerned about Sir William Protheroe confronting Lucy and the children. But Blade was a very different prospect. His men would be waiting for him.

He hurried home.

‘What is it? What's wrong?' Lucy asked him in the little hallway as soon as he came in.

‘Nothing,' he said quickly, the words coming out in a nervous rush. ‘Are you all right? What are you doing up, I thought you'd be asleep. I told you I would be late. Very late. Has anyone been looking for me?' He took her by the shoulders, looking deep into her eyes and trying not to cry at how lovely she looked.

‘There was a man,' she said slowly, pulling away confused. ‘It's the middle of the night – I told him you were out on business. But he said you would be on your way back here. I didn't believe him.' She turned away. ‘How did he know?' she asked quietly. ‘Are you in trouble?'

‘Did this man say that I was?'

She turned back, her cheeks damp. ‘He didn't say anything. Only that you would soon be back and he would wait.'

‘Wait? You mean he's still here?' Berry was unable to keep the fear out of his voice.

‘Something
is
wrong, isn't it?' Lucy said quietly. She clasped her hands together in front of her. ‘Oh why won't you tell me what it is?'

‘I …' What could he say? What could he tell her? He was so ashamed of himself already, without the burden of confession. Without her condemnation as well. She had been so proud when he got the job at the Museum. How could he tell her he had betrayed the man who was so generous to him? And for what? Money – money they desperately needed to keep the bailiffs from the door. But it was just money. The same thing that had seduced Judas.

She could tell he would say nothing more. She wiped her hands on her apron and nodded towards the door to the tiny sitting room. ‘He's in there. I'll be in the kitchen.' She walked briskly away without turning back.

He expected Sir William. Blade would have struck terror into Lucy merely by his appearance. In a way, Berry wished it was Blade – he would know where he stood, how to react. But what could he say to Sir William?

It was neither. Berry did not recognise the figure that stood by the fireplace, though he knew at once who it must be. The man was staring down into the glowing embers. He was tall and incredibly thin, his whole face and body apparently composed of sharp angles. He did not look up as Berry came in, and Berry gave a stammered account of what he had discovered at the Museum. He wasn't sure how he knew that this was Augustus Lorimore, but he was somehow certain of it.

‘I believe you owe me rather more of an explanation than that,' Lorimore said quietly. ‘You have provided information, told Mr Blade that they have what I want in the Museum with them. Yet you have been unable, or perhaps unwilling, to acquire it for me.' The man's voice was sharp and angular too. Still he did not look up from the fire. ‘You know these coals burn inside as well as out. When the fire around them has gone, they still burn within. It happens underground sometimes – a whole coal seam can burn under the ground. All it needs is a little air to breathe. Until it has exhausted all the inner fuel and burns itself out.'

He turned and fixed Berry with a startlingly fierce gaze. His eyes were themselves pin-pricks of coal that
burned deep inside. ‘Has your inner fire gone out, I wonder,' he said quietly. ‘Have you exhausted your usefulness, and declined to help me just when I need you most?'

He crossed the room in two rapid strides, spindly fingers suddenly clamped tight about Berry's throat, squeezing hard. ‘Because if that is the case, then you won't need that little air to breathe any more, now will you?'

The room blurred, running red as Berry tried to focus, tried to drag the hands away from his neck. He could feel himself sagging, his strength ebbing away. His inner fire going out …

Then suddenly he was sprawling, gasping on the threadbare carpet.

The man's voice was deadened by the rush of blood in his ears and the rasping of his breath. ‘Or could you perhaps summon the fire for one more simple task? Hmm?'

Berry's hands were rubbing at his throat, feeling the swelling and bruises. The man leaned down and pulled one of his hands away. Berry gave a hoarse cry of fright, but the man had pulled a plain white envelope from his inner jacket pocket, and he slapped it into Berry's palm.

‘I could entrust this to the post, but it is urgent and I am a generous man. I shall give you one last chance to redeem yourself.'

‘Thank you, Mr Lorimore,' Berry croaked.

‘I would like this delivered into Sir William Protheroe's hand this morning. Coming from you, he is more likely to accept it, and he will be sure it is genuine. In return I will pay you what I promised for this month. After that, our obligations to each other are ended. Is that clear?'

Berry nodded, his throat still burning inside.

Lorimore paused in the open doorway and looked back pityingly at the figure still sprawled on the floor. ‘It may be that Sir William wishes you to deliver a reply,' he said. ‘If so, you will bring it promptly to Mr Blade who will be waiting outside the Museum. If not …' His mouth twisted and turned as he considered this eventuality. ‘If not, then I suggest you tender your resignation and come straight home. No doubt your charming wife will be worried about you.'

The sound of a baby's crying came through the open door. Lorimore listened for a moment, then stepped out into the hall. His reedy voice floated back to Berry. ‘I hope you are less of a disappointment to your family than you are to me. I shall see myself out. Good day to you.'

The front door banged shut. Berry crawled to an armchair and climbed into it, collapsing exhausted. He closed his eyes, and rubbed at his throat with one hand, gripping the envelope tightly with the other. When he opened his eyes, Lucy was standing in front
of him. Little Davey was over her shoulder, quiet now as his mother patted his back.

‘I have to go out,' Berry said, his voice a dry croak. ‘I'll be back as soon as I can.'

Lucy said nothing. She watched him all the way to the door, followed him into the hallway.

‘I love you,' he said. She did not reply.

To his undisguised irritation, Eddie had been volunteered again – this time to keep watch at the main doors of the Museum. Not that it was actually possible to see very much through the foggy night. He could hear the sound of cautiously approaching footsteps long before he could see anyone, and he prepared to run.

He was surprised to see that it was Berry, who seemed even more nervous than Eddie. He stammered out an explanation, showing Eddie the envelope he had brought for Sir William, and Eddie waved him past. The man didn't seem much of a threat, so Eddie stayed where he was. On guard. In case Berry had brought any friends with him.

After Sir William had sent Berry away, declining to reply to Lorimore's letter but accepting Berry's sheepish offer of resignation, Liz and George crowded round to see what the letter said.

There were just two lines written on the thick cartridge paper:

You know what I want. You have one hour
from the receipt of this message.

It was unsigned.

‘Why does he still want the page from Glick's diary?' George wondered. ‘If Berry overheard us talking, then he can't learn any more from this.' He jabbed his finger at the slip of paper.

‘Perhaps Lorimore does not know that,' Sir William suggested. ‘Or perhaps he knows more than we do about it.'

‘Or he knows we have the previous volumes of the diary and wants those,' Liz suggested.

‘Whatever he wants,' George told them, ‘he is demanding it from a position of strength. He knows where we are, so I doubt we'd be allowed to just leave. And we have nothing.'

Sir William raised his finger. ‘Not true,' he insisted. ‘We have one hour, or slightly less. But that in itself proves that you are right, young man. They are watching, they must be to know when this was delivered. Watching and waiting.'

‘Which leaves us less than an hour, then,' Liz said.

‘Well,' Sir William continued, ‘we do have something he evidently wants very badly indeed. So the question is, does he want the slip of paper for himself,
or does he want to prevent us having it?'

‘But neither makes sense,' George said in frustration.

‘On the face of it that would indeed seem to be the case. So I can only assume we are still missing something here. Something important. Something that this paper means or would convey to Lorimore which we have so far failed to discern.'

Liz nodded. ‘And either he wants to know what that is, or he wants us to surrender the paper before we manage to work it out.'

‘Or both,' George added. ‘But what can it be?'

‘I was about to run some tests on this paper.' Sir William was examining the scrap again, as he had done an hour earlier. ‘It is possible that it was this that prompted Berry to reveal himself and try to steal it. Or, of course, it may be simply that he saw an opportunity.'

‘What tests did you have in mind?' George wondered.

‘It seemed rather tenuous and unlikely at the time, but I did wonder if Glick had perhaps written another version of events on the same diary pages, but in invisible ink.'

‘Invisible ink, is that possible?' Liz asked in astonishment.

‘My father showed me, when I was a boy,' George remembered, ‘how to write using lemon juice instead of ink. It dried so you couldn't see it.'

Sir William nodded enthusiastically. ‘Citric acid, a
very useful substance. It does as you say dry invisibly. Then the application of heat, from a smoothing iron or some such, will cause the writing to appear in a dark brown form.'

‘We used to toast pages of invisible writing in front of the fire,' George said quietly. He had a dreamy expression as he stared back fondly into the past.