Of course, she did not really care to understand the motivations of her clients, nor the means by which they made peace with themselves after the event. Hers was not to question, but to act. She understood, however, that in accepting a commission from a man such as this, she also accepted that a role in a political game
This time, though, something was different. The demeanour of the man had changed. Whereas before he had adopted a business-like approach to their encounters, had refused to look her directly in the eye, now he sat staring at her across the table as if imploring her to understand.
He looked tired, with dark rings beneath his eyes, and she wondered if he, too, was plagued by demons. This thought piqued her insatiable curiosity. Was that what it was to feel? It had been so many years, she could no longer remember.
He took another sip of his whisky and cleared his throat, but did not speak. The room was silent, other than the steady ticking of a grandfather clock. It stood in the far corner monotonously checking off the minutes: a steady, mechanical heartbeat, measuring each second.
She found the sound of a clock deeply reassuring. To her it was as if the constant tick-tocking was an echo of the heartbeat at the centre of the universe. It reminded her that she was still alive, despite her inability to appreciate the joy that such a thing should inspire. Indeed, she surrounded herself with clocks wherever she went. Her own heartbeat had died long ago, but in the tiny mechanisms of stolen clocks-often removed from the homes of her victims-she found peace.
The man was ready to speak. She could sense his need to divest himself of his burden. She would listen with ambivalence, and then ask for her instructions. She had no interest in his reasons, or how he felt about them. She wished only to know the name of the person he wanted her to kill.
The man placed both of his palms upon the table, exhaling. When he spoke, it was with great gravitas and solemnity. “I have another task for you,” he said. “There has been an alteration in our circumstances.”
She nodded, but did not reply.
The man reached for a sheaf of papers that he had laid out on the desk earlier in preparation for their meeting. He withdrew a single sheet from amongst the others, cast his eye over it, and then, with a sigh, slid it across to her. She noticed his hand was trembling.
She glanced down at the name and address written on the page:
SIR MAURICE NEWBURY, 1 °CLEVELAND AVENUE, CHELSEA
She took the piece of paper, folded it twice, and slipped it carefully into a concealed pocket.
“It is with great reluctance that I ask you to do this,” he said. “I had, until recently, hoped to spare this particular agent from the fate which awaits his colleagues. However, his tenacity is such that he puts us at risk of exposure.” He paused, looking her directly in the eye. “I ask that you end things swiftly and efficiently, and that you do not, under any circumstances, deprive the body of its heart.”
This was new. He was asking her to alter her modus operandi, to break the habit of almost a century. She had not killed without opening a victim’s chest since she’d fled Montmartre in the 1820s, aside from an incident in Bruges almost twenty years ago, when she had been interrupted in the process of cracking a man’s breastbone and was forced to flee to avoid capture.
She thought she should be outraged by the man’s impertinence, but she looked inside herself and could find no spark of anger, no consternation. Only the perpetual void where her heart had once been.
Outwardly, she shrugged her agreement, and the man nodded, clearly relieved.
Inwardly, however, she decided that she would make her decision after the deed, when the man lay dead before her on the floorboards of his Chelsea home. Only then would she know if she were truly prepared to do it, if she could leave empty-handed, knowing that she was granting the dead man a privilege she had willingly granted no one since her father: allowing him to keep his heart.
“So-you will do it this evening?” asked the man.
“Yes,” she replied, pushing back her chair and standing. “I shall end his life before the night is out.”
CHAPTER 24
Veronica was relieved to discover, upon arrival at Newbury’s house, that Angelchrist had not been invited to join the evening’s conference. She’d half expected to discover the three men-Newbury, Bainbridge, and Angelchrist-already ensconced in the drawing room, deep in conversation. Instead, she found the two old friends hunkered down over a brandy, and couldn’t help but smile as she was instantly reminded of old times.
She stood in the doorway for a moment, leaning against the jamb. The two men looked dour and serious, yet it was the first time she had seen either of them so comfortable in each other’s presence for quite a while. Gone was Bainbridge’s blatant frustration over Newbury’s opium use, replaced by a shared concern that had rendered all other issues between them insubstantial. The way they sat together, brooding and silent, was reminiscent of the way they had acted when she’d first taken her post as Newbury’s assistant, just a year and a half earlier. So much had changed in the intervening months.
Newbury looked healthier than he had for some months, with colour in his cheeks and a gleam in his eyes, though his expression was dark and worrisome. She tried not to recall the sight of him curled up on the rug in the upstairs room, twitching and seizing as he suffered the repercussions from his treatment of her sister.
He must have sensed her standing there, for he looked up, smiling with evident relief. He placed his drink on the coffee table and stood to greet her.
Bainbridge followed suit, crossing the room to take her hand. “Good evening, Miss Hobbes,” he said.
“Good evening, Sir Charles,” she replied. She glanced at Newbury. “Sir Maurice.”
“We must talk,” said Newbury, hurriedly. He looked concerned, distracted.
“Yes, yes, Newbury. Let the woman get through the door,” said Bainbridge. He raised an eyebrow at Veronica, and she smiled. “Would you care for a drink, Miss Hobbes?” he continued.
“No, thank you,” she said, looking for a place to sit down. The sofa was still piled high with precarious towers of books. She decided she’d be better off perching on the footstool between the two armchairs than risk shifting anything. She’d only end up sending something priceless crashing to the floor. She settled herself on the low stool, enjoying the warmth of the fire at her back. “I take it, then, that you’ve had some success in obtaining the list of agents from the Prince?” she asked, searching Newbury’s face for any clue as to the nature of what was troubling him.
“Indeed,” he said, returning to his seat and producing an envelope from beneath his chair. He held it out to her. She took it and opened it, withdrawing the thin sheaf of papers from inside. As she’d anticipated, it was a long list of names and addresses, written in small print on around eight sheets of paper. “There are more names here than I’d anticipated,” she said. She passed half of them to Bainbridge, who took them and glanced through them eagerly.
“Quite,” said Newbury. “I doubt any one of us were aware of the extent of Her Majesty’s network of agents and spies.”