“Oh, yes… I recall.”
“Prosecutor and Boulte want to dispatch me from the Yard altogether, and they're mucking about the garbage to do so…”
“Perhaps, then, you should confront your superiors.”
“That's bloody candyfloss, and you know it.”
“Candyfloss?”
“A flimsy idea. Look, the cat's among the pigeons, and if the powers that be wish to catch you out, then they will manufacture it, if they must. In my case, they needn't manufacture a thing.”
“Thanks to me,” she muttered.
He immediately grasped her hands and shook his head in a vigorous denial of this. “No, not at all. Certainly it's hurt Boulte's ego to learn that you and I, that we… However, there's no law says we can't fraternize in the fashion of two consenting adults. There's no standing rules in the Yard against it, either. We modernized along with the Catholic church recently, you see. So he can't touch me there.”
“But he could put it out for the court of public opinion.”
“Yes, well, he may save that up as his trump card, but I rather doubt he'll take that gamble.”
Jessica looked past him, her head spinning until she finally focused on a chimney pot, a pipe added to the top of chimneys. They were everywhere, all over London, ubiquitous for city dwellers whose homes spewed the remnants of their coal-burning fires, in shops and in homes. But this particular one had a red-legged crow sitting atop it, and at first Jessica thought it an ornamentation, but then it cocked an eye at her, flapped its wings and gracefully, thoughdessly eased skyward.
Sharpe followed her gaze as she watched the bird, now a black dot in the distance. “A chough, we call them,” he informed her. “So, where shall we go for a bite?”
“I thought you had a place selected?”
“I want to be democratic. That way is Fleet Street, where the pubs are filled with newspeople and photomakers. If we stay put, the pub we enter will be full of bankers. And that way”-he pointed in the opposite direction-”will take us to Grub Street. Just the opposite-where starving artists, actors, and writers live in garrets and fill the pubs by day. If we walk out of the City, this way”-again he pointed-”then we can go to where I had planned.”
“I'll risk your judgment.”
Jessica had learned that the City, as Londoners called the financial district, was roughly the equivalent of Wall Street in New York, with some five thousand residents during business hours scrunched into one square mile of territory.
“This is one hell of an unholy dog's breakfast. This thing with Copperwaite being sucked into becoming a stoolie for Boulte and our Miss Prosecutorial Bitch… A true unholy mess,” Sharpe muttered, as much to himself as to Jessica, as they picked their way through the crowd. He was holding her hand now, taking charge and going straight for the place of his choosing. “Doom perhaps for me and the case, unless you stand firm, Dr. Coran. Doom… how ironic. Did'ya know that the painting of the Last Judgment over here is called Doom!” He laughed hollowly at the thought. “Are you sure you want to be seen with me, Jessica?”
“Don't be silly.”
“He who sups with the Devil, must use a long spoon.”
They passed pedestrian walkways, went through lights, crossed into narrow lanes, rushing past fascinating, quaint little shops she would have loved to browse, until they found a lane so small that Jessica could not imagine how cars passed one another until she saw some do so.
Another step around a comer and they found a quiet, even peaceful shop-lined street with outdoor cafes and art galleries.
“Maybe it's Copperwaite that bothers me most. The fact someone you trust can so quickly be at your back with the cutlery.”
“I've had it happen to me. I know the feeling,” she commiserated, still wondering if it were true.
“Cupboard love's what we call it over here, Jessica-sucking up. Sucking one's way to the top. But perhaps the whole thing's a blessing in disguise, heh? A real curate's egg.”
She'd heard this expression before-something both good and bad at once.
“I'd been giving some thought to retirement anyway. Copperwaite can have the damned dead man's shoes. You know that's what Boulte feared most about me, that I'd run for his job. Well, now Copperwaite or some other fool can just wait to inherit it when Boulte kicks off.”
“Crumpet-getting any crumpet?” said a man lying in a vagrant's pose in a doorway to a vacant shop.
“Watch your vile tongue, rogue!” shouted Sharpe, just itching to thrash the man. Instead, he pulled Jessica past the hobo, saying, “Just a brainless come-day, go-day, that one. I pay him for information on the street from time to time, which explains his being so familiar.”
“Why would he take me for your whore, Richard?” she said and jabbed him in the ribs. “Lighten up, please,” she teased. “At least you are getting some crumpet.”
This made him laugh and kiss her there on the street.
Jessica felt the traffic in the small back lanes here lighter and more willing to give way to pedestrians. Something about London, its small streets and compact alleyways, made her feel comfortable and at home, made her feel like an oversized Alice in this wonderland, and even made her feel important, large, and of consequence. Jessica held on to Richard's arm as the traffic halted for them to cross.
“There's the pub. The one I think you'll find both quite colorful and authentic,” he said, pointing, but an entire array of pub signs stared back at Jessica from across the tiny street. They read: lion head, the silver cross, the roundtable INN, THE CAPTAIN'S GALLEY, and THE BOAR'S HEAD PUB. “I had thought Stuart a smart fellow, you know, and it's a shock to learn that a man you called friend turns out to be dim as a Toc-H lamp, which he is, but worse yet, he's betrayed our partnership.”
At the end of the street Jessica saw a flashing road sign which read in bold letters: DIVERSION, meaning detour. For some reason both sign and meaning stamped themselves on
BUND INSTINCT her brain with the force of a psychic vision, but she quickly dismissed the thought.
The unclean man who'd been lying in the street moments before suddenly limped up alongside them. “I got my leg banged up the other day, Inspector. Need some attention given it, but I got no green. I 'ave information for you. Can we do business? I got word on that Crucifier thing.”
This made Sharpe stop, and with him Jessica, who truly looked at the man for the first time.
“Dot'n Carry's what they call me, mum… Steve's the true name, Steve Savile. Family migrated here from Sweden. Made of me a Londoner without they give me a choice, what.”
“Whyever do they call you Dot and Carry?”
“Mostly on account-a-this game leg. When I walk, the wooden one goes dot, the other carries me. Got it in the war's what. It's why Sharpe and me can have some common ground, right, Colonel?”
Sharpe ground his teeth. “What've you got on the Crucifier, D.C.?”
But Dot'n Carry, or D.C., addressed Jessica instead, asking, “You must be that lady FBI woman Sharpe hired on for the case. Read about you in the papers. Think I can't read? I read good when I can find a paper left behind by somebody.”
Sharpe grabbed him up by the lapels, and he dropped a walking stick which had so become a part of the man that Jessica hadn't noticed it until it bounced on the sidewalk, making two distinct pings.
“Word is, the Crucifier's really a good guy, Sharpe. What they call a benign killer. Only kills people who are in suffering, kinna like Robinson Hood and Sherwood's Forest, you see. Only he don't rob from the rich and give to the poor, but takes troubled lives and frees 'em.”
“If that's so, then why hasn't he done a damned thing for your sorry ass, D.C.?”
“Must figure I don't 'ave it so bad. Still got my sense of humor. Ain't suicidal or depressed, Inspector.”
“Get outta here, D.C.”
“But Sharpe, Colonel, I need something. Please, man.” Sharpe tossed several bills down, grabbed Jessica's arm, and led her toward the Boar's Head, apologizing to her.