An Unsuitable Heir Read online

  Lugtrout had got a bit too greedy; Moreton had paid to have him dealt with, and had set off a chain of events that—well, God knew how it was going to end, but so far there had been one burglary, an arson attack, a kidnapping, and two or maybe three murders.

  Moreton was one of those. Whether he’d put an end to himself once he’d realised that his bigamy could no longer be concealed, or whether it was the hired killer who had double-crossed him, Mark neither knew nor cared.

  He’d named the killer “the Fogman” for the man’s habit of using the fog as cover for his crimes and because they knew nothing else about him: not who he was, nor his motivation; only that he’d killed again after Moreton’s death, had made more attempts, and wasn’t bloody going away.

  What they did know—Mark, Clem, and their friend Nathaniel, who’d got dragged into this mess as well—was that everything that had happened was about the Moreton inheritance. Hiding the truth of the lost heir’s birth, controlling the evidence, maybe stopping him from ever claiming his rights. Once he was discovered and brought into the light, that would change the game for good, and that was what Mark had set out to do.

  He’d had little trouble pinning down the Flying Starlings as the missing Repentance and Regret, thanks to information Nathaniel had provided. They had the page from the marriage register, and a doctor’s letter to say that Emmeline Godfrey Taillefer had borne a son named Repentance. Everything Pen had so artlessly admitted yesterday fitted. The long-haired trapeze artist was an aristocrat, the heir was discovered, and Mark’s sole remaining task was to send a telegram and get Nathaniel and his dodgy witness back to London.

  Only he hadn’t done that, because he’d met Pen, forgot all about carefulness, and confirmation, and everything else, and got himself invited to Pen’s dressing room.

  God damn it. He shouldn’t have stopped thinking like an enquiry agent. He shouldn’t have got drawn into the conversation beyond fishing for facts, he shouldn’t have started picturing Pen in tights, he really shouldn’t have paid compliments. Unprofessional, it had been, and wrong, and stupid, too. What was he going to say now? Thanks for inviting me backstage, I’d have loved to get a look at your arse in one of those outfits, but unfortunately you’re an earl, so let’s forget that we both know what you came here to talk about.

  Not that being an earl changed anything; when it came to where you dipped your wick it didn’t matter who your father was. But Mark shouldn’t have complicated matters when he knew more than Pen did about his own identity. That hadn’t been fair. At least he’d pulled back when he still could, before anyone had committed himself.

  Time to go. He paid up, turned the corner down into Fox Court, nipped through the winding lanes to the Kitchen, and descended the narrow stairs to the cellar room. Pen was waiting for him, hair tied back again, which was a shame—no, which was a good thing. There was a bottle and a couple of glasses on the table.

  “All right,” Mark said, approaching, and couldn’t hold back a smile.

  “Hello there.” Pen’s eyes flicked behind him. “Are you on your own?”

  “Uh, yes.” Mark pulled out his chair and sat. “Were you expecting someone else?”

  “We thought Erasmus Potter,” said a hard female voice from the side.

  The woman glaring at him was unquestionably Pen’s sister. Mark would have said, except for a much less pleasant expression, but when he looked back at Pen, he didn’t see any liking on that face either.

  “Ah,” he said.

  “You’re a private enquiry agent.” Pen was trying for level, but there was a note in his voice that suggested hurt. “You’ve been looking for us, asking questions at the Grand Cirque. Pretending to be friendly. That wasn’t kind, Mark. If you wanted to find me, couldn’t you have said so?”

  Greta pulled out a stool with a scrape as Mark started to respond, and sat with a thump. “We’re not interested in being found by Erasmus Potter—Shut up.” She put her hand right in front of Mark’s face as he tried again to speak, a startlingly aggressive gesture. “And we’re not here to help you to line your pockets. You are going to leave us alone, and you’re going to tell your paymaster that if he comes near us we’ll kick him down every flight of stairs we can find. We’ve had enough of the Potters, and we’ve had enough of you.”

  “I’m not working for the Potters,” Mark finally got in. “Never was.”

  “Because there’s so many other people who want to find us.”

  “You have no idea, Miss Starling.” He turned to appeal to Pen, as the slightly less murderous-looking of the twins. “Look, you’re right, I was looking for you yesterday. And I didn’t say what I was after, because I wanted to confirm you were who I thought you were—”

  “Why didn’t you ask me, then?” Pen’s voice was tight and controlled.

  “Because there’s a lot at stake, and I had to be sure. Again: I’m not working for the Potters.”

  “But you know who they are,” Greta said swiftly.

  “I’ve heard about them. I know they’re bad news.” Mark decided to take a gamble. “But I’ve only seen one of them, and he was dead.”

  “Dead?” both twins said in chorus.

  “Erasmus. He died on Monday night.”

  “Oh, good. Did he finally choke on his own self-righteousness?” Greta asked.

  Pen’s smile was no more pleasant than hers. “Maybe he tripped on the steep and stony path to virtue and broke his neck.”

  “No, he was murdered,” Mark said. “I need to talk with you two about this.”

  “Murdered,” Pen repeated.

  “Head smashed in. He was pretty badly damaged.”

  “That was probably Nestor,” Pen said with disturbing equanimity. “Or maybe someone he’d spent his life bullying and preying on finally snapped. But probably Nestor.”

  “It wasn’t us, if that’s what you’re asking,” Greta added. “But if it had been, he’d have deserved it. Was this in London?”

  “Yeah. He and Nestor were here looking for you, because—”

  “Nestor? Is he in London?”

  “Oh God, it was him, wasn’t it?”

  “If it wasn’t, maybe someone will be trying to murder him.”

  “Here’s hoping. Where is he?”

  “I don’t know.” Mark felt slightly dizzy. The twins spoke over one another, as if neither had to wait for the end of the other’s sentence. “He was around on Monday, giving a man a beating to get information about you two.”

  “Who?”

  “Nobody you’d know,” Mark said, deciding not to embark on explanations that would only get complicated. “It wasn’t Nestor who killed Erasmus, I can tell you that. But Nestor’s out there, and—”

  “—he can stay there,” Greta cut in. “To the devil with him. If Erasmus is dead, Nestor won’t know what to do with himself. He’s no use without big brother.”

  “But if Erasmus is gone…We could go back,” Pen said. To her, not to Mark; Mark might as well not have existed. The twins’ eyes were locked on each other, and Greta’s lips moved slightly with Pen’s next words, almost as if she knew what he was going to say: “We could go back for Mother.”

  Both twins had a look of rising hope, and Mark did not want to be the one to break the news, but if he let them make plans he knew were a year too late…

  “Pen. Miss Starling,” he said. “You both need to listen to me.”

  “So why didn’t you talk to us?” Pen said. “You were waiting outside our house for me yesterday. Why didn’t you just knock on the door if there’s something you had to say?”

  “Because I needed to find the Godfrey twins, no room for mistakes. I had to make sure that was you.”

  “Nobody needs to find us,” Greta said. “If you want to see the Flying Starlings, we perform nightly at the Grand Cirque, two shows on Saturday.”

  This would have been a damn sight easier if their mother had given them a hint of who their father was. Whatever way Moreton had obtained her si
lence, it had clearly worked. “Did your mother not tell you anything?” Mark asked. “About your father?”

  Both twins went still. “Our mother,” Pen said.

  “What do you know about our mother?” Greta snapped.

  “I know about Emmeline Godfrey, mother of Repentance and Regret,” Mark said. “And if that’s you—”

  “I don’t want to play this game,” Pen said over him. “I don’t know what it is but I don’t want to play it.”

  “It’s not a game. I’d go as far as to say it’s life and death.”

  The twins both looked at him, then, as one, they rose.

  “Christ,” Mark muttered. “Look, I’m not trying to kite you. Erasmus Potter’s dead. Repentance and Regret Godfrey are in the middle of a lot of stuff. Why don’t you sit down and listen to me, and I’ll tell you what I know?”

  “Why would you tell us?” Greta asked. “You said you were working for somebody else. Why don’t you go and tell him?”

  “Or tell us who this mysterious person is? Or take us to him, if he’s so interested in us?” Pen added with quite a lot of sarcasm. “This person who’s hired a private detective to find a pair of music-hall flyers.”

  “His name’s Nathaniel Roy, and…it’s complicated,” Mark said. “Please, Pen. I just need you to listen to me for ten minutes.”

  “But we don’t trust you,” Pen said. “So we won’t.”

  On which they walked out, Greta swiping the bottle of gin off the table as she left. Mark propped his elbow on the table and his head on his hand.

  He’d made a pig’s ear of this. Of course he’d had to get it right, with an earldom at stake. Of course he hadn’t wanted to show his hand. “Hey, you, sir, want an earldom and a fortune? Say your name’s Repentance and it’s yours!” He’d had every reason to nose around a bit, to make certain sure, and Pen would have understood that if Mark hadn’t bloody started flirting with him.

  This was his fault, and meanwhile Nathaniel was stuck in the countryside with a worthless cheat, hiding from a murderer.

  The Potters, Erasmus and Nestor, had been self-appointed priests of the Norfolk sect in which Emmeline Godfrey had hidden, and from which her children had fled aged fourteen. The Potters had discovered Emmeline’s secret after her death and set out to find Pen with the aim of getting their hands on his inheritance.

  As it went, Emmeline Godfrey had tried to find her children too, a year or so past, only instead of hiring a private enquiry agent, she’d gone to a spiritualist. Mark had to wonder if the woman had made a good decision in her life; if she had, consulting Justin Lazarus, the Seer of London, hadn’t been it. He’d fed her a lot of lies about how her children were alive and well; the Potters, equally credulous, had believed Lazarus had some sort of magic access to information, and kidnapped and beaten him for it. Served him bloody right.

  Lazarus, as thoroughgoing a villain as any rustic prophet and a lot quicker, had stolen the Potters’ evidence of the twins’ birth and escaped, then sought help from Nathaniel, and that had introduced a whole new difficulty as Nathaniel appointed himself Lazarus’s knight, protector, and saviour.

  It was bloody typical, in Mark’s opinion. Nathaniel was overbred, overeducated, and had an overactive sense of responsibility which constantly got in everyone’s way. Lazarus was slippery, dishonest, and not the sort of character you’d think Nathaniel would mix with in a hundred years, but he was also bright as a button and sharp as a tack and, Mark had to admit, looked like a magnificently filthy fuck, so that probably explained Nathaniel’s attack of chivalry right there.

  Which was lucky for Lazarus, because the next things that had happened, in quick succession, were the Fogman murdering Erasmus Potter in the very room where he’d held Lazarus, then breaking into Lazarus’s house to wait for him, and damn near catching him and Nathaniel in the fog.

  Nathaniel had whisked Lazarus off to a bolthole in the country and they were hiding there now. Both their lives might depend on Mark finding the Godfrey twins before the Fogman found Lazarus, and look at the bloody awful mess he’d made of it.

  He wondered whether to go after the twins, and decided bothering them at home probably wouldn’t win him any more friends. The story he had to tell was sufficiently improbable and complicated that he needed a receptive and patient audience. Better to let them calm down a bit, he decided, let their curiosity build up until they were ready to listen. Nathaniel was safe in the country, he was sure. He’d just have to endure the spiritualist’s company one more day.

  —

  The Flying Starlings were performing Monday night. Mark could hardly miss it.

  He got a seat in the circle, squashing in uncomfortably. He wasn’t much of a music-hall goer, but he always enjoyed it when he was there, and the Grand Cirque put on a good show. The comic songs were filled with enough double meanings to raise a few guffaws, and the quick-change comedian had some good jokes. The patter-song man got groaned off the stage, not before time, then there were a couple of singers who were worth listening to, even if half the crowd didn’t bother.

  And then the Flying Starlings came on.

  They swung out from the sides of the hall, lower than Mark might have expected, causing a few shrieks. The trapezes went back and forth, slowly at first but in increasing arcs, the tension building with the near-hypnotic effect. One Starling took off, soaring through the air, and met the other’s hands with an audible slap and a little puff of powder. And then they got going.

  Mark had never seen anything like this. Tightrope walkers and tumblers, yes, and a lady who did a strip act seated on a trapeze in a less than reputable club, but nothing like this, not people who belonged in the air, flying back and forth as though it wasn’t possible to fall, folding and turning their bodies with such grace, strength, and fearlessness. Such perfect timing, too. Pen contorted himself to hang off the bar with his knees, impossibly elegant; Greta seemed to be on a different rhythm entirely as she swung, but he was there to catch her hands as she soared through space to meet him.

  The Starlings were dressed identically in blue tights and ruffle-trimmed costumes, with a skirt as a sop to modesty although the frilly folds would barely have covered either twin’s arse, and both had their hair pinned up in wide ringlets. You could tell one was larger when you looked at them together; when they were at opposite sides of the music hall, it was as if they were truly the same.

  Part of Mark’s mind made notes as he watched. They worked in near silence except for occasional wordless cries, evidently a code to keep their timing perfect. Pen caught Greta, not the other way around. No wonder his shoulders looked like that; he must be as strong as an ox. It wasn’t because he lacked flying prowess, though, because there was a sequence in which he swung back and forth alone, shifting and jackknifing with flowing ease that concealed what must have been intense effort. Greta, on the platform, let out a high call as she sent an empty trapeze swinging out to him, and he came soaring out on his own bar, high in the air, and simply let go, somersaulting forward, nothing to save him but a wooden bar with nobody controlling it—

  Pen’s hands met the empty trapeze as though the damn thing was a fixed point in space, as if he was casually taking hold of a banister rail. Mark’s own hand was clenched so tight it made his knuckles ache.

  The rhythm and flow of it reminded him of something, and after a moment he realised it was a planetarium device he’d seen at the Greenwich Observatory. It was a contraption of brass and wood, all angular sticking-out arms with metal balls on the end for the planets, but when it was set going, the various parts swung smoothly through one another in a complex, balanced, perfect dance. A curator chap had talked about “the harmony of the spheres,” which sounded right, somehow, even if Mark hadn’t been sure what it meant, and he hadn’t been able to look away. He couldn’t look away now. God knew how much work it took to make something look so simply natural.

  The Starlings finished on an impossibility, Greta rising high into the air and see
ming to stay there, unmoving, floating for a second before she tumbled down into Pen’s hands and was swung away. The audience broke into wild applause, many on their feet, shouting and whistling.

  Mark sat and stared. He didn’t applaud; he couldn’t. He sat through the next act, and wouldn’t have been able to say two minutes later if he’d watched a song or a juggler; then he squeezed and shoved through the crowds, out of the theatre, and worked his way round to the stage door, stationing himself on the other side of the road to wait. He was sure he wouldn’t be welcome if he tried to go backstage, but the narrow street wasn’t well lit and he reckoned he could lurk in a shadowed doorway unseen.

  It was about nine when Pen emerged, alone. He wore a long coat with a huge fur collar and a scarf over it, and buttoned boots with rather high heels under dark trousers. He looked intimidatingly large, which Mark thought good because his long hair was still pinned up woman-style under his hat, and though the gaslight made it hard to tell, Mark was fairly sure his face was painted. Perhaps stage paint, perhaps not.

  Pen exchanged a few words with the doorkeeper, then headed off down the narrow court, heels echoing on the stone. Mark slid out of the shadows as quietly as he could, and caught up within a few paces. “Hello, Pen.”

  Pen stopped and looked around. Those high boots put him a good two inches above Mark, and he didn’t look friendly. “Oh, it’s you. Why don’t you go away?”

  “Because I need to talk to you,” Mark said.

  “Unfortunately, I don’t need to talk to you.” Pen turned on his heel.

  “Mate, you do. I swear it’s important, and I owe you a drink. Come and have a quick one with me. Please?”

  Pen turned back to face him fully. There were a few dark ringlets framing his face; he was indeed painted, with his eyes darkened and, Mark suspected, reddened lips. He looked…