The Watchmaker Of Filigree Street Part 27

'A book. On your wedding night.'

'Horsehair couches are hard to sleep on.'

Williamson took a breath, then let it out again. 'I see. And where is Mr Mori tonight, then?'

'York. There's a clockwork fair.'

'He didn't come to the wedding?'

'No, it was only family.'

'How do they get on, he and your wife?'

'I think they've spoken twice.'

'I hear she's a clever woman. Scientist. I wouldn't put it past a girl like that to work out there was something not right about him. Or to ask him about it.'

Wrong, but not in the wrong field, he realised. She must have seen them. If she were angry enough with him, or even just scared enough of Mori to report it those cases never went through, but he saw suddenly that Williamson would latch on to it and d.a.m.n well make it go. There wasn't the evidence to convict Mori for the bombings but second best was to get him into a prison for something else. The sentences were long. He would have known the second Grace decided to go to the police station. She knew that too. Thaniel had to close both hands over the candleholder to keep himself from pus.h.i.+ng the left across his face.

'It wasn't him, Dolly. He doesn't make bombs.' His voice might have come from a very far-off phonograph.

'All this is nothing but a screaming coincidence? If you think that, then ... ' He stopped. In the garden, small lights flared and cast coloured shadows on the far window's frames. 'What's that?'

'I don't know.' Thaniel led the way to the back door and opened it. n.o.body was there, but the floating lights he had seen on his very first night had returned. They hovered over the snow, their glow more than enough to show the single set of footprints leading away from the door.

'So he was here,' Williamson said. He looked Thaniel over. 'Were you lying or didn't you know?'

'He wasn't-'

'Stay where you are,' he said, and set out to follow them around the house.

Thaniel crouched down to see the prints. Mori still had only that one pair of brown boots with the j.a.panese manufacturer's mark imprinted in the sole, and there was no mark in the impressed snow. Williamson came back a few minutes later and shook his head.

'They go out to the road, but I couldn't follow after that.' He looked hard at Thaniel. 'I'm going to arrest you, and then you might tell me something worthwhile.'

'These aren't his! His shoes have j.a.panese in the soles-'

'Thaniel. How many other small men live here?'

'None, but he won't buy English-made clothes.'

'Is it really beyond the realms of possibility that he might have bought new shoes without your noticing?' Williamson demanded.

'Arrest me, then, but I won't have anything different to say.'

'You're under house arrest. Constable Bloom will stay with you,' he said as the front door opened. An austere constable stopped just inside to shake the snow from his boots. Williamson must have seen his lantern coming through the workshop window.

'Find my wife, in the meantime. Please.'

Williamson shook his head, his hand on the door. 'What the h.e.l.l has he said to you to blinker you so much? He made the bomb and your wife found out, and now he's taken her. What did he do, when you first came here? Really, it would be magnificent to know. I can put it in a training manual.'

'I'll tell you after you find her.'

Lifting his hand helplessly, Williamson let himself out. Constable Bloom stopped Thaniel before he could close the door and did it for him. Thaniel went back to the piano, where he sat down for a while without touching anything before he turned to the back of Sullivan's score, where there were two spare pages, and started to reconstruct Griszt's piece from memory.

The next morning Lord Carrow came to the house. He said nothing, hit Thaniel in the face with his riding crop, then left again. Another officer came to relieve Constable Bloom. Nothing yet, he said. Thaniel left him in the kitchen with a good supply of tea and sat in the workshop to read.

When five o'clock came around, he said he was going upstairs to sleep, found his old coat in the cupboard the new one was still at the hotel and climbed through Mori's window and on to the small porch of the back door. He reached the snowy ground with nothing but a few sc.r.a.pes. Skirting behind the birches in order not to leave obvious tracks through the middle of the lawn, he found the stream along the back of the Filigree Street gardens and followed it north. It came out on the very edge of Hyde Park, so near the show village that he could hear voices and a singing violin as someone practised a strain from the operetta.

He went slowly, willing Mori to be waiting for him. The crowds and the twilight were safer than home, stocked as home was with policemen. Outside Osei's teahouse was a tight knot of people using it as a meeting spot. He wove through them, looking for a grey coat. Although he could cope with arrest and Lord Carrow's riding crop, and whatever had happened to Grace, he could feel himself going ragged at the edges. His ribs hurt with wanting Mori to come and be his ordinary self and explain it was not what he thought, but still there was no grey coat. He stilled and stilled as the hope seeped away, his hands loosening in his pockets in the same way Katsu did when his springs ran down.

Someone brushed his arm. It was only Osei. She bowed tinily and lifted her hand in the direction of the paG.o.da to show he ought, perhaps, to hurry up now.

He pulled himself together, although the ragged patches didn't line up as well as they should have. Osei's dark eyes had caught on the mark on his face. He went on ahead of her so that he wouldn't have to speak. He should have gone back to Filigree Street before the police noticed his absence but part of him clamoured to say that Mori was only late, and something might have happened, and he might still come during the performance. He had said he would. Only two days ago, he had said it. And that Katsu was going wrong proved it. He had meant to be here.

The paG.o.da was hung about with hundreds of paper lanterns. He had thought that the outdoor performance would be miserably cold, but in fact it was plenty warm enough. An open marquee protected the audience's seats, though there was no more snow yet tonight, and at the end of each row was a coal brazier. The heat waved out above the cus.h.i.+ons, distorting the lamplight. Even so, the women were wrapped in fur stoles, and some people had brought blankets. The glow and the white ground made it all seem like something put together on the whim of a musical czar, somewhere in the grounds of the Winter Palace. It was very far away from the silence at Filigree Street.

He found the orchestra to one side of the stage and only felt when he sat down and the gla.s.s plinked on the under-edge of the piano that the weather vials were still in his pocket. He moved them carefully, not sure what would happen if all of them broke at once. He slid them into his waistcoat pockets instead. There was no rush. The audience were still finding their seats. Musicians waxed strings and adjusted keys while stagehands fussed over the paper lamps. Outside, men hurried in and out of Nakamura's shop with rockets and lists, preparing for the firework spectacular after the show. It took a little while for Thaniel to notice a group of oriental men in immaculate clothes near the front. Most of them were young, but they surrounded an older man, benignly ugly. He sat in the same way Mori did in the cold, hands pushed under his coat sleeves. Thaniel glanced back at the orchestra, but it was still in relative disarray. He ghosted away and across to the front row, as yet unoccupied.

'Mr Ito?' he asked the ugly man.

He looked up with robin-bright eyes. 'Yes?'

'My name is Nathaniel Steepleton, I live with Keita Mori. I don't suppose he's spoken to you today?'

Ito's expression closed. 'What's going to happen?'

'Pardon?'

'Why are you here?' He had a delicate American accent.

'I'm playing in the orchestra. But Mori is missing. Have you heard anything from-'

'Is he supposed to be here?'

'Yes?'

Ito slipped through the s.p.a.ce between the front row seats and steered Thaniel to the side. He was a tiny man, much smaller than Mori. 'Then he sent you to do whatever he meant to here. Something must be going to happen tonight.'

'No, n.o.body sent me. I'm playing the piano, that's all.'

'Who arranged for you to do that?'

Thaniel opened his hands between them and had to clench them together tight to stifle the need to hit something. 'Yes. He did.'

'Indeed,' said Ito. 'Can you think of nothing ... ?'

'Oh, I don't b.l.o.o.d.y know, he makes a toy and then I'm working for the Foreign Office, it's not generally an obvious train of thought. Sorry,' he added, more quietly.

'No, it's quite all right. My feelings toward Mr Mori exactly.' Ito shook his head and cast a long look around the audience and the stage. 'Well. You had best get back to your piano. Watch for anything ... odd.' He flicked a look up at Thaniel. 'It is a pleasure to meet another trustee of the Mori Futures Preparation Society, of course,' he said, with no pleasure whatever. 'Although I had hoped I was an alumnus rather than an active member now.'

'I thought you two were friends?'

'Friends? I threw him out of j.a.pan,' Ito said. He drew his lower lip under his teeth to moisten it. Then, 'He could have killed my wife, you see.' There was a little silence. Thaniel couldn't fill it. 'Please excuse me,' Ito added, and returned to his aides.

When Thaniel sat down at the piano again, the oboe-player tapped him and said it was time to tune up. As the seaspray whine of tuning instruments sounded around the marquee, the audience stopped their rustling and settled. Sheet music clattered, and in the strings section, one of the rickety metal music stands collapsed and had to be repositioned. Thaniel watched the starry squeaks as somebody tightened the screw. The oboe-player touched his temple, looking faint. One of the violinists pa.s.sed him a flask and smiled. It smelled of coffee. Could have killed my wife. No one asked him if he wanted anything or if he was all right. It was Mori who asked those things.

Mr Sullivan sailed in and bowed to the audience, who clapped. Having rearranged his music, he waved at the orchestra and counted with his baton. Thaniel pushed his knee against the leg of the piano stool, trying distantly to think if anything seemed out of place, but nothing did. He didn't look too hard. If Mori had left him here to see to whatever it was, it would make itself obvious before long.

The operetta began and the actors swept on to the stage in glorious, floor-length kimono that made them seem to glide. He played watching the stage. Everything was just as it should be.

Nothing happened throughout the first half, except when Yuki kicked at the line of costumes just at a solemn moment. He thought that there might be something when the audience dispersed to stretch and buy tea from Osei's shop, but there was only the usual chatter, and an overlay of excitement, because the performance was going beautifully. He started to think that Ito was wrong and that there was no plan, and nothing would happen, but he was wary of the thought. The last time he had been convinced that nothing would happen was May, when he had nearly exploded.

Ito was staying near the second row's brazier instead of venturing out into the cold. One of the aides had been dispatched for tea. There was no sign of Mori.

Already aching, his neck started to hurt, and he stood up to stretch. He paused when he saw what he thought was a police uniform near the stage, but it was only one of the actors in costume. Even so, it made him nervous. He wanted to hope that if he was missed and if they found him here, then having escaped in order to play for an operetta would be a benign enough thing for them to waive a real arrest, but he doubted it. He tried to feel around the idea of prison. The edges of it were too sharp to touch.

Somebody b.u.mped into him. When he looked around, Mr Nakamura, the firework maker, ducked into one of his cringing bows.

'I'm sorry ... '

'Everything all right?' said Thaniel, thinking he looked even more worried than usual, but that was perhaps only because the lines on his face were clearer in light than in the dimness in his workshop. He carried the strong smell of gunpowder with him, and he shuffled away from the nearest brazier.

'Have you seen Yuki?' he said in a small voice. He sounded like an old man. It wasn't kind, but Thaniel felt a flash of impatience with him. He would have been going to nationalist meetings and picking fights with samurai too if he had had more of a dormouse than a father.

'He's around somewhere. Breaking things, I'd imagine.'

'There are some packets missing from the workshop, I need them for the display later. He must have moved them ... silly boy ... '

Thaniel caught his shoulder. 'What kind of packets?'

'I only know the j.a.panese names. Chemicals,' he said hopelessly. 'For fireworks. For the fire. Oh, there he is. Yuki! Yuki, what have you done with the-'

Yuki was at the edge of the stage, watching the audience. He usually stood with his arms folded, but they were by his sides now. He was holding a heavy revolver. Thaniel pulled Nakamura back by the belt of his kimono to a feebly surprised protest. It was time wasted, because Yuki had clicked back the safety catch. n.o.body else heard. From within the circle of braziers, the boy was invisible.

Thaniel tackled him and the gun went off. He had never been so close to a gunshot. The noise was like a lightning flash and for a moment he couldn't hear anything except a high, familiar whine.

As things came back into focus, silence filled the room. Nothing moved. Thaniel had his hand under the gun's hammer, the sharp point sinking into his skin because Yuki was still holding the trigger down in an effort to hurt him enough to make him let go. It was all he could do; he wasn't tall, and there was hardly any muscle across his shoulders.

'Put it down,' Thaniel said, beside the boy's ear. Usually his j.a.panese escaped him the moment he was faced with a j.a.panese person who was not Mori, but it came as easily as English did now. 'I don't want to hurt you.'

'I'll kill you,' Yuki said with a strange calm. 'That man will destroy j.a.pan.'

'We can talk about that later, but this is not honourable. These people are musicians, they've done nothing. Look, Mr Ito has gone.'

The boy looked to the side. Ito and his aides had melted away. Yuki went limp and Thaniel felt the sudden jerk of his ribs as he began to cry. The pressure on the hammer released. He skimmed the gun away from them. It skittered under the seats and came to rest when it b.u.mped into a cello, where the small impact made the strings sing.

Then there were other men, hauling Yuki up and pulling him outside. Someone was calling to the audience to leave as quickly as possible, although most of them didn't need telling; the marquee was almost empty already. Thaniel stepped back, away from them all, and retrieved his coat from the piano stool. His hands were steady, though there was a red graze from the gun hammer. The Yard bomb, he realised, had spoiled him for fright. Having lived through that, an unhappy boy with a revolver was not frightening, though he should have been. As he shrugged into his coat, stiffly because his neck hurt again, he couldn't help thinking that if there had been no chance he might have to save Ito today, he wouldn't have lived through the fire at the Rising Sun.

He turned to go, trying to construct a quiet way of getting back inside at home unseen, and walked straight into Mori.

TWENTY-SIX.

Off to the west, the Kensington churches chimed half past six and tinged things briefly blue. Mori was standing awkwardly. His clothes looked as though somebody had dragged him through a coal mine. With a backward glance to where the violinists had found a beat constable, Thaniel hauled him round to the other side of the stage out of sight, more roughly than he meant to. It made Mori stumble. Something had happened to his ankle.

'Where in G.o.d's name have you been? Where's Grace? Dolly Williamson is on the warpath, I was arrested-'

'There is going to be an explosion,' Mori said.

'Good, then. Delighted to be involved. Am I going to be in this one, or is there some chance of watching it from further away?' He checked himself when he saw Mori struggle with the sarcasm like the amba.s.sador sometimes did. On the tail of the thought came a little spark of dismay. He had never known Mori have any trouble with English before. He looked exhausted. 'Where is it?' he corrected himself.

'Over there. Nakamura's shop.'

'Better tell the police. They've already got Yuki, he'll tell them where it is. Nakamura said he was missing chemicals.'

'No,' he said. 'Mrs Steepleton is in Matsumoto's flat, on the balcony, she's waiting for the ... the ... fire, the hanabi-'

'What?' He looked up at the building and counted along to find Matsumoto's balcony. It was the only flat with lights inside, but the doors were closed and n.o.body inside would have heard a shout. He dug his fingernails into Mori's sleeve, wanting to shake him. 'Never mind. Come on,' he said. He pulled him toward the lamplit archway that led into Matsumoto's section of the tall townhouse. 'You did this, you can d.a.m.n well see it through. What happened to Grace?'

'I don't know,' Mori said, and there was something halting in the way he spoke. 'She was on the underground. I saw her this morning, but someone ... but I fell on the tracks and I think I did know who was there, but I can't remember now. I should never have but ... I don't think I knew she would come here.'

'Just go and take apart the bomb before it explodes.'

'I can't. I can't find it. It keeps ... ' He shook his head with frustration and swung his hand to and fro. 'Moving,' he said in j.a.panese.

'What do you mean, moving?'

He only shook his head, and then winced when his neck cracked.

Thaniel frowned. 'Did you say that you fell?'

'In the tunnel.' He looked lost. 'I don't know why I was there now. It took a long time to get out. And by then she was back on the ... the ... kisha.'

Trains. 'Mori, you're forgetting words. Did you hit your head?'

'No. I'm forgetting things I won't hear again.' He said it to the ground, and gave up on the English halfway. Because he was favouring his ankle, he was moving unevenly. 'I can't remember anything after five minutes from now.'

Thaniel stopped. They were at the door in the rounded trapezium of light from the expensive lamps. The need to frighten him snuffed out under a cold, creeping frost of an understanding that something had gone wrong. He saw him properly for the first time. There were grazes on his hands, and two parallel dark marks on the inside forearms of his coat. They would have lined up if he put his hands out in front of himself. He had fallen across a railway track and landed almost flat.

'Then you're going to leave here now and let me fetch her,' Thaniel said, and willed his English to come back.