Rogue Spy

Twenty-one

“So that’s the Merchant.”

“A reasonable likeness.” Pax smudged white into the black line of the underjaw, pulling three dimensions out of the shadow. Then thin charcoal to define the chin. This was the seventh copy he’d made. He was fast now, sketching.

Hawker said, “I’ve seen him.”

“You chased him from the Moravian church.”

“Not that. I know the face from somewhere.”

The finished drawings were spread out over the tables, still damp from the fixative. Hawk studied the copies, then helped himself to one of the quills and stroked it back and forth between his fingers, pacing fireplace to window and back, crossing between two of the big, shabby leather chairs. Finally he stopped at the window and looked out, keeping well back so he couldn’t be seen from the street. “It’ll come to me.”

“France, maybe.”

Hawker shook his head. “Somewhere. He doesn’t look like a Frenchman anyhow.”

White chalk brought the bridge of the nose out. “He passed for French sometimes.” Making copies of a face meant catching the little tricks of the likeness again and again. Not easy. “I don’t know where he came from. He told different stories.”

“Handsome fellow.” Hawk came to stand behind him and watch him work, not blocking his light.

“People find him charming. He uses that.” He’d fought the temptation to reveal the monster. He’d forced himself to set down only the surface of the man. The shape of the eyebrows, the width of the nostrils. The face he drew was just a face, absent arrogance and cold disdain. Absent the evil.

He sharpened his lead and etched thin pencil lines at eye and mouth. Added a touch of white to the eyelids to show the first puffiness. He hadn’t seen these details in that glimpse in the Moravian church. This was his guess of how age had changed a monster.

Done. Anything else was just playing with it. With chalks, you had to know when to stop.

Hawk was right. This was a pleasant face. The Merchant smiled and smiled and was a villain. My mother wasn’t the only woman he destroyed.

Hawk leaned next to him, across the back of the chair. “You’re damn good. He almost breathes.” With one finger, not touching the surface of the paper, he circled the calm eyes, the mouth with the almost smile on it. “You think this Caché woman of yours finds him charming?”

“Not in the least.”

“She’s working for him,” Hawk said.

“If I thought that, I wouldn’t have let her get away.”

“Or else you would have.” Hawker shrugged. “We make mistakes about women.”

“I don’t.”

“You haven’t before. Doesn’t mean you won’t now.” Hawk shifted to view the sketch from a different angle. “The whole of the city of London’s full of women harmless and beautiful as kittens and you consort with Death’s Handmaiden.”

Laughter welled up out of his chest, surprising him. “Cami’s not a kitten, thank God.”

“More like . . .” Hawker frowned. “What was the name of that Greek chit who chased men down and drank their blood? Head of a woman, body of a snake. If Doyle weren’t downstairs organizing a search of Soho he’d provide the Classical allusion.”

“I cut that knife wound on myself. That’s not her work.”

“You are a man of deep mendacity and I already figured it out about the knife cut.”

Of course Hawk had known. Doyle probably did, too. “That’s only one of the lies I’m telling. Hawk, I’m going to . . .” He couldn’t finish that. “I’m in trouble with the Service already and it’s going to get worse. You will keep out of it.”

“I doubt that, somehow. It’s a novel experience, trying to keep you out of trouble instead of the other way around. You’ve annoyed Galba in ways even I don’t attempt. Hard to believe you’re being stupid over a woman. I thought you were an island of sanity in a sea of rutting dogs. You aren’t going to let go of her, are you?”

Nobody like Hawker for the delicate approach. “I’m using her to—”

“She’s using you. And you’re not going to see that till it’s too late.”

“We’re using each other.” But it didn’t feel like that. Nothing calculated had happened between them. Nothing wise and thin and careful. He’d swear she was no more able to stop what flared between them than he was.

He dropped the last chalks into the box and closed the lid.

Hawker went back to the window and pushed the curtain aside half an inch. “I was barely out of bed this morning when I got my orders. I’m supposed to see you don’t kill the Merchant when we get close to him. That and some other minor injunctions.” Hawk’s attention remained fixed on Meeks Street. “I am to be the voice of reason. I told Doyle that was not my forte.”

“That must have amazed him.”

“I’m supposed to follow you today when you leave, sticking to your trail through the byways and alleys of London. The theory is, you won’t do anything suicidally stupid if I’m there to be a good influence. Yes, I thought you’d find a chuckle in that.”

That was the deft hand of Doyle, ordering Hawker to do what he’d do anyway. Doyle sent a flanking column of artillery and the light infantry, when he sent Hawker after him.

He wiped his hands on the damp cloth, getting the last of the charcoal off, rolled his cuffs down, and buttoned them. He was stiff from sitting so long. He stood and linked his fingers and stretched.

A horse stopped outside the house. There was a low murmur of voices on the steps. Visitors.

“He’s back.” Hawker’s voice held relief and amusement in the two words. “Grey. And he’s brought his French spy with him, tra la. Just what we need, more French spies about the place.”

Grey, Hawker, and Doyle. All the men from that last mission were home now. “They were worried about you three, in Paris. When I left, they weren’t sure whether any of you were going to make it to England.” That was one last man to face and admit treason to. Grey, Head of Section for Britain. The man he’d worked for these last six years.

“Grey’s dallied and been lackadaisical in returning from France, for which no one shall blame him, considering the company he keeps.” Even before knocking sounded below, Hawk was away from the window and out the door of the study. At the top of the stairs he stopped short and held his arm out to block the path. “Wait.”

They stood overlooking the hall. Below, Giles came at a run and unlocked the door to the front parlor. A minute later, Grey came through, grimly determined, pushing a young, dark-haired girl ahead of him, protesting, lovely and panicked and fiercely courageous. The two passed without looking up, headed for the back of the house, toward Galba’s office.

“We got her away,” Hawker said under his breath. “And she has not given him the slip, despite having some skill in that activity. They’re safe. Both of them. Sometimes we get lucky.”

“Who is she?”

“Not one of your Cachés, so you don’t need to fabricate complicated lies for her. How nice to deal with French spies who aren’t Cachés.” Hawker spun on his heel and strode back down the hall, stripping off his coat as he went. “I have to get down there and see she isn’t bullied. The shirt’s good enough, but I need a different waistcoat. A different coat, too. I need clothes.” He swung into the second-floor staircase and took the steps two at a time.

“Hawk, if there were ever a man not in need of clothes—” He caught the coat Hawk threw at him from the top of the stairs.

“My baggage is strewn around the German countryside. Long story. That was my eventful July. I barely touched foot in England before they sent me to Paris. Then I escaped France with the clothes on my back, which were not improved by immersion in seawater, thank you very much. I’ve been borrowing from Giles, who dresses like a schoolboy.”

“He is a schoolboy.”

“No excuse. You, however, left a trunk of clothes up in the attic, in the slops chest. I recall one waistcoat and jacket. It’s not one of your usual shades of mud color, and it’s well cut.”

“I was pretending to be a very bad artist. Hawk, I hate to be the one to tell you this—”

“But they won’t fit?” Hawker turned back and grinned. For about ten seconds he looked his age. “They’re clothes from before you got so unnecessarily tall. Pax—” He stopped, hand on the newel post.

“What?”

Hawker’s face didn’t change at all. “I’ll be five minutes, getting into a waistcoat. Then I’ll go to Galba’s office. No telling how long I’ll be there. Plenty of time for you to just walk out of here.”

“You’re determined to get yourself into trouble, aren’t you?”

“I think of it as my area of expertise.”

If Cami goes to the Merchant alone, he’ll kill her. The Merchant didn’t leave witnesses alive behind him.

He stared at the wall for a minute, seeing the exact color, the tiny imperfections in the plasterwork, the hard, unbreakable reality of it. There was no way out of this choice he had to make. He said, “I’ll be in Berkeley Square at noon, meeting Cami. Follow her when she leaves. If I’m not there to keep her alive, it’s your job.”

“I’d just as soon not.”

“Hawk . . .”

“Yes. Yes. I’ll keep her breathing. I am continually doing work I don’t enjoy.”

And so he gave Cami to the Service and pulled Hawker neck deep into this mess. “If they ask you where I am, don’t lie.”

Hawker said, “I’ll make sure they don’t ask me.”