Untitled (38 page)

   Popham perches forward to glance out the window. "Nearly there."

   His voice is taut with excitement, like a wire pulled tight. She looks at the houses they're passing. There's something furtive about them, the way their lights announce their presence yet seem not to be inviting. Of course—they're brothels. What had she expected? Those long kisses she'd allowed him all those years ago when she'd let him push his crotch hard against her leg and press his hand on the part of her corset that overlaid her breasts. That had been enough for him only because the way she let him hold her promised so much more, and she was to make good on that promise on their wedding night. The wedding night that never came because it was never meant to come, for it was merely the bait on the hook designed to reel him in.

   Or rather, she thinks, she was the bait and Flyte was the hook. Flyte, who is too cunning to be caught by the likes of Popham.

   Where is Robert now? She imagines him sitting with his legs crossed and his arms folded across his chest, his head a little tilted as he listens to the lecture; she imagines him in a sea of other men in dark jackets: her Robert, with his way of pulling his lips together when he thinks, the delicate, warm scent of his skin when she pushes her face into his neck.

   With a lurch the carriage stops. Popham lets out a sigh like a man about to indulge himself, and for a moment his grip loosens. Could she pull away and run? How far would she get before he caught up? Not far, she thinks. And the coachman is in his pay. He'd probably be more than willing to chase her down for a few shillings extra.

   The carriage door swings open and Popham gets down. Not for one moment does he let go, so that getting out of the carriage is a graceless dance, him stepping down first, his hand on her wrist and dragging her down after him.

   A cold wind is blowing, catching scraps of paper and spinning them down the gutter, pushing along an empty bottle that rattles jarringly as it rolls across the street.

   Popham pulls her up the front steps to a dark door where he knocks. It opens immediately. They are expected.

   A maid in cap and apron opens the door, looking for all the world like a maid in any respectable home, except for the scar that runs from her eyebrow to her chin and puckers the skin into a furrow.

   Along the walls hang pictures. There's a hat stand, an umbrella stand, a large mirror. All of it a little too grand for so mean a hallway.

   "Ah," says Popham. "Is everything ready?"

   "The red room, sir."

   "Very good."

   "Any refreshment, sir?"

   He pauses, looks at Mina as though she has any say in the matter, then purses his lips. "A bottle of champagne, if you please." Then he pushes her gently in the back towards the stairs.

   So this, she thinks, is the best he can come up with. To bed her in a place like this so as to add to her humiliation. It shows a little imagination—but only a little. This is not a trap for Flyte; this is revenge against her, that is all. He will heft himself on top of her and shove himself into her over and over for as long as he is able, and then will he feel satisfied? What, she thinks, will come after that? Is she to be left here? She keeps her hands crossed in front of her, any thing so as not to touch this place, not even the banister. The wallpaper is flocked and red, the light fittings brass, the pictures on the wall mostly of naked women chased by centaurs and satyrs. On the landing waits a pale statue of a girl entwined around a naked man, her cheek against his thigh, her head just obscuring his genitals.

   She looks away. The taste of Popham in her mouth—the thought of it brings the burning of bile into her throat.

   Along the corridor they go, his hands pushing her, finding their way down to her buttocks, though through the layers of her coat and dress and petticoats it must be more the idea of her body that excites him. She hears his breath—it rasps a little, and when he speaks his voice has a tremble to it. "In here," he tells her, and turns her to the right.

   He knows this place well.

   Of course, she thinks, a man like him.

   He reaches past her to open the door. A cacophony of color—red wallpaper, a carpet in reds, oranges, and yellows, curtains in a shade only slightly less bright than scarlet, and, in the center like a stage waiting for actors, a bed behind its four posts, closed in behind curtains. He sweeps the drapery to one side and there, in a vibrant shade of violet, waits a dress. A dress for her, she realizes, that will barely cover her breasts, that is trimmed with fur. A whore's dress.

   "Let me help you," he says, almost gently.

   She shivers as he pulls off her coat, then sets to work on the fasteners running down the back of her dress. It sinks to the floor, deflated, and he turns her around and stares without shame at the tops of her breasts. He can barely contain himself—she sees that. He reaches out and snatches at her crotch, squeezing it hard and shoving his face against hers. For a moment it seems he will forego the whore's dress—he lifts her petticoats and spreads his other hand over her buttocks to pull her close. Then he lets go. "I've waited too long," he says. "I'm going to have you the way I've imagined it."

   He nods to the dress, but when she doesn't move he picks it up and holds it out.

   "You ladies," he says, "are so helpless." He nudges her so that she will step out of the mourning dress still pooled around her feet and into the violet one. "But as you will notice, women who earn their own keep can get themselves dressed."

   This dress fastens down the front. Naturally it would. "I'll give you ten minutes. Don't forget"—he points to a dressing table in the corner—"to make yourself beautiful. I'm sure you'll get the idea."

   His smile flickers, then he turns away and hurries out of the room. A key squeals in the lock behind him and she's left alone to make of herself what she will.

   The curtains are drawn, but when she pulls them back she finds no window, only a blank expanse of wall. So she tries the door—it doesn't budge. She kneels down and spies the key left in the lock. Popham was never a man who managed details well. Over on the dressing table are powders and brushes and combs. With her fingers she snaps the teeth off one of the combs to make a sharp end, then she plucks one of the prints off the wall—a nymph covered only by a twist of ivy—and rips it out of its frame. She shoves it under the door, then pokes around in the keyhole with the end of the comb.

   Her hands are shaking. She must hurry. How many minutes have passed? Two? Three? She is still locked in here. If he should return—well, what would he do that is any worse than what he has already planned? She can't imagine, yet dread makes her hands stiff, and she has to stop and breathe slowly before working the comb in the lock again.

   The end of the comb slips. It slips again. At last it catches the side of the key just enough to straighten it. She peers into the lock, then, with one push, sends the comb back into it. With a dull clatter the key falls out on the other side of the door, onto the print.

   She hears footsteps.

   She tugs at the print, but it doesn't move.

   She waits.

   There's a creak of the floorboard, then a rustle. She presses her eye to the keyhole and sees a man's dark clothes. She starts to her feet. Her arms rise up across her chest to protect herself. She hears the clatter of the key going into the lock, its scrape as it turns, the slow swing of the door opening. She flings out her arm for the candlestick on the mantelpiece, grabs it and holds it high.

   For a moment there is only the doorway, empty, and she steps forward.

   Then he's around the door so fast that she has no time to bring the candlestick down. Her hands are in his. Even as they struggle he kicks the door closed with his foot. Then it's over. She's on the floor, the weight of him on top of her.

   "You?" she says.

   For it is not Popham who has her by the wrists now, but Flyte.

Chapter 34

A
long the corridor they run, to a door almost invisible under its coat of wallpaper. Flyte wrenches it open. No carpet here, just bare boards that resound with the hammering of their shoes. From the bottom a woman's face stares up at them, but he doesn't let that slow them down. Down the last flight of stairs they come, Flyte leading the way. He lets go of her wrist, draws back his hand, and lands it squarely in the woman's face. She staggers, then falls against the wall with her arms lifted to shield herself.

   But there are no more blows. The two of them take off, up the short corridor and out through the dank kitchen, leaving the door open in their wake.

   Behind them the woman, screams, "Mrs.
Ar
cher! Mrs.
Archer!
"

   The alley is as dark as a well. They dash blindly. He pulls her by the arm, hard, despite the fact that she is running as fast as she can on legs stiff with shock and cold. Behind them, voices and footsteps are coming fast.

   Flyte calls out, "Steiner? Where the hell are you?"

   Up ahead a man appears with a lantern. She stumbles, but Flyte wrenches her on. Her lungs are aching. She can barely fill them. Her foot catches on something—the edge of a paving stone? A foot stuck out to trip her? Flyte won't let go and she falls awkwardly, her temple smacking against the stones. She lies there. Her head is filled with the sound of bees. Then Flyte has his hands under her arms and is dragging her along. A lantern. Swinging. Shouts from close by. The smell of wine on Flyte's breath, for his face is close to hers. Someone grabbing her feet and lifting her. The echoing dark of a four-wheeler and she's lying on the floor. A lurch—Flyte climbing in.

   But there is trouble. A horse whinnies, and the carriage rolls back. Men's voices raised, then Flyte's. "Get out of here, Popham! Get back to your whores!" he's shouting.

   "She owes me—
you
owe me."

   "You got what you deserved, you fool." The carriage trembles. She lifts her head and sees Flyte kicking out, hands on the doorframe.

   Popham roars, "I'm going to teach her a lesson. And you. You're not going to prey on anyone else when I've finished with you."

   There's a gasp from close by and she sees Flyte hanging onto the frame by his fingers, his body hanging out of the carriage door. He yells, "Steiner! S
teiner!
" He is being pulled so hard that he groans, but he won't let go. His hat thuds to the floor next to her.

   The carriage pitches, and Flyte's gone. The doorway is empty. A moment later the shape of a man appears, hefting himself up. Outside Flyte is crying out, "Steiner—get him. Get the stupid bastard."

   She lets her head back down to the floor. Her future hangs there in front of her. She could pull back her legs and launch a kick at Popham, sending him flying if she's lucky, giving Flyte a chance to rescue her. Or she could go with Popham, for that way she may have a chance—there has to be a chance, doesn't there?—of getting back to Robert. Yet even if they fled to Paris, what chance would she have against Flyte?

   Popham can't help himself. Just when he is so close to victory he stands in the doorway and yells, "I've got your daughter, Flyte, and you're both going to be sorry now."

   She hears Flyte bellow, "She's not for you, Popham. She's my
wife
."

   Of course Popham has his back to her and doesn't see her raise her legs. He doesn't catch the swift motion of her feet coming at him until she has kicked him so hard on the buttocks that he stumbles.

   Hands reach towards him from outside, pull at him until he is plucked away. She hears the thud of bone hitting the ground, and a grunt of pain.

   Lifting herself on her elbows, she peers at the shadows outside. Someone is moaning, someone else getting to his feet—she hears the scrape of boots against stone, and Flyte calling again for Steiner.

   Steiner. She catches sight of him in the light of a lantern—whose lantern? She doesn't know. A broad man, a man with bow legs and a clean-shaven face. The man who has loitered in Cursitor Road all these weeks.

   Of course. Not Popham's man. Flyte's man.

   The awful thudding of fists and feet into flesh, then Flyte's head appears in the doorway. He's breathing hard, but he pulls himself up into the carriage, then drops onto the seat, though his legs have to arch over her where she lies on the floor. With one fist he knocks on the carriage ceiling, yells out, "Get moving, Steiner, get moving." The movement jolts her this way and that, and she closes her eyes.
Robert!
she wants to call out,
Robert! B
ut he is far away, back home by now most likely, and wondering where she could have got to.

   Flyte shifts his legs. "All right, Kitty?" he asks. "Persistent bugger, wasn't he? But then, he always was. Now, my love." He bends over her. "We need to have a little talk, don't we? There's that small matter of the money gone missing."

Chapter 35

H
e was in too much of a hurry to dress warmly, and the cold of the night soaks through his flesh into his bones and threatens to slow him. He's asked the servants, people on the street, everyone he's come across if they have seen her and they've pointed this way and that, and he's followed their fingers to these awful streets. He's in a part of town he's unfamiliar with. The streets are crooked and dark, the few streetlights dim against the night. Here there are no more clues. No one has seen her; it is as though she has sunk without a trace into this city.

   He has a dark lantern. He raises it when he sees a movement, slides open its panel and releases a shaft of light. Two small boys, filthy and shoeless, with newspapers spread over them. One of them spits at his boots. He doesn't bother to ask if they have seen her. She couldn't be here, could she? Why would she have come here? Maybe he has gone wrong.