The sky in the east began to change color, turning for a few minutes the pale grey color of the American’s eyes, but he didn’t see it. He was asleep.
20
There was no key in the door. The innkeeper had left them vulnerable, with no easy means to lock themselves in. Walter Day checked under his bed and found that the chamber pot with Hammersmith’s vomit and the rest of the stew had been removed. A fresh basin had been left in its place. He set the small straw-filled box containing the baby bird on the vanity next to the washbasin. The ball of fluff was asleep, breathing heavily in and out. He imagined its heart beating under the soft feathers. He hoped that the little boy, Oliver, was sleeping somewhere and had made it through another night.
He was dressing for bed when he heard a small noise in the hall outside, a rustle of movement so faint as to go unnoticed if he hadn’t been on edge, half listening for it. He turned down the lamp, went to his door, and cracked it open. The flow of shadows among shadows at the end of the hall caught his eye and he closed the door again, pressed his cheek against it, and listened.
He could hear movement outside the next room, Hammersmith’s room. There was the faint sound of metal scraping against metal, then soft footsteps approached Day’s door. The inspector pulled back and looked around the room for his revolver. The doorknob jiggled and the lock turned over. Day stepped closer and put his ear back against the door and listened as muffled footsteps retreated down the stairs. He tried the doorknob. It turned a quarter of an inch each way, but wouldn’t budge farther. He had been locked in his room.
Day crossed to his bed and rummaged inside his open suitcase. He produced a flat black leather pouch and flipped it open to reveal an array of heavy-looking brass keys. He chose one and returned to the locked door, where he crouched and went to work. It took him less than a minute to draw back the lock and open the door.
He stepped into the hall and pulled the door shut behind him, then crept quietly to the stairs and down.
21
Day paused in the shadows of the inn’s common room. The twin fires were still blazing, but the lamps had been extinguished and no one was in sight. Bruised early sunlight filtered through the high windows, turning the room purple. From his vantage point on the stairs, Day would have seen anyone leaving the inn by the big front door, which meant that whoever had locked them in their rooms had gone out through the door behind the bar. Day crossed the room silently and poked his head through the door.
He saw a narrow dining room with an oak table and six chairs. A muddy brown tapestry with an embroidered family crest was hung behind the table, which was already set for breakfast. Day crossed to another door on the far side of the room and pushed it open with the tips of his fingers.
The kitchen was small and tidy. A medium-size range dominated most of the far wall, framed by a pair of wooden chairs with straw seats. A faded blue rug had been rolled out on the floor. The oven door was open, and Day could see a roasting pan inside, today’s breakfast slowly cooking. Turning his head, Day could see through a narrow doorway into the larder, which was hung with raw meats: rabbits, a suckling pig, and one quarter of a deer. There were no dishes in evidence, and Day assumed that, if the kitchen was here on the ground floor, the scullery must be in the basement. He moved quietly through the room and past the swinging animal carcasses to another open door. A cold breeze wafted through the larder, cooling the meat and leaving a thin coat of snow on the stone floor. He halted again, his back against the outside wall next to the door, and crouched down before looking out.
Outside, a low fence, designed to protect the larder from hungry animals, shielded the inn from the landscape. Day edged forward and gripped the top of the fence, then raised his head to look over it. Calvin Campbell was three feet away from him, looking in the opposite direction. He was squatting by the town well, hidden from the other side of the road by the big stone structure. Day ducked his head back down behind the fence. He was sure it was no coincidence that Campbell was out and about. It was the bird-watcher who had locked the other guests’ rooms before going out into the night.
A moment later, he heard footsteps and risked another peek over the fence. A loose formation of village men marched past, bleary-eyed and stooped, miners on their way to the new seam. There seemed to be fewer of them than Day had seen from the carriage the previous evening. Their clothing had been laundered and patched many times, but would never come close to being clean, and some of them wore soft caps pulled down low on their brows. One of them coughed and stumbled and fell to his knees beside the road. Two of the others hurried to him, lifted him under his armpits and, supporting their spasming friend between them, returned to the group. The men walked past the well and the inn’s short fence without noticing the inspector or the bird-watcher, both poorly hidden scant feet away from them. They followed the road around a high slag pile and an abandoned pit and then out of sight around the corner of a far building.
As soon as the miners were gone, Calvin Campbell jumped up from his spot behind the old well and hurried down the road in the direction the miners had come from. Day stood and followed from a discreet distance, trusting the light snowfall to keep him partially hidden.
The cobblestones of the town’s main road gleamed in the gaslight from streetlamps set every few yards, ice sparkling in the mud between the stones. The buildings along the main road through the center of town were tall and proud and architecturally similar, unlike everything that radiated out from them. Someone had once put thought and effort into planning and building this village, before haphazard growth had laid waste to their good intentions. Beyond the first few yards along the main street, there seemed to be no rhyme or reason remaining. Tudor-style dwellings nestled alongside split-rail cabins and ancient mud-daubed huts. It looked to him as though the place had come together in fits and starts, with no plan, and nothing had ever been torn down to make way for anything better. Next to the blacksmith was the telegraph office, closed and silent at this early hour. Day watched his shadow flow and change and grow as he crossed the road. He was alone and in a strange place and he missed his wife. He missed her terrible cooking. He missed the smell of her hair and the sound of her bare feet in the hall as she approached his bedroom door in the middle of the night. He wondered what she might make of the strange village, like some island far from London, populated by natives who refused to abandon their sinking homes. Or, perhaps, couldn’t leave if they wanted to.
But for all that it was doomed, he could still see the appeal of Blackhampton. It was small, but open, the houses and shops and community buildings spread out in a way that London was not. Day had come from Devon, where there was room to move about, and had lived the better part of the past year in London, where there was not. Blackhampton had a bit of the feel of Devon for him. He liked being able to walk without checking for horseshit at every step.
But the air here wasn’t filled with the river scent of Devon or the body odors of London. It was burnt and, even filtered through the heavy white snowflakes swirling around his face, it stung his nostrils. The great furnaces filled the sky with smoke, and there was nothing else to breathe. One would, he presumed, eventually become used to it, but after a single night in Blackhampton his throat was as raw as if he’d smoked a pipe the wrong way round. He felt he was choking on ashes. He cleared his throat quietly, aware that any noise would echo through the empty street and alert Calvin Campbell to his presence.