Reaching a small trough set into the wall of a church Cadbury told Deidre to wash off the make-up while he tried to work out what to do. The problem was one of time: it was like deciding when to leave the flats of an estuary as the tide turned – keeping just a few seconds ahead made the difference between strolling up on the foreshore in good time or being drowned.
He looked at Deidre. All the water had done was smear the rouge and black kohl and powder all over her face. She was a vision of something out of the eighth circle of hell.
‘Did you see anything of them – the Two Trevors?’
‘No.’
‘And that lout of theirs?’
‘No.’
He was trying to work out how to get to Cale at this time of night – presumably they wouldn’t just let you walk into a madhouse unannounced – but he was also considering where to hide Deidre. If the Two Trevors hadn’t murdered Cale when they had such an easy chance that morning they were hardly likely to try to get up to anything tonight. So he didn’t need Deidre with him, but finding somewhere to hide her where they could cut loose as soon as he’d finished warning Cale – he didn’t have time for that. And then the answer became clear: who looked more like a madwoman than Deidre?
Quick now, the tide is coming. Pulling Deidre behind him he made for the Priory, its tall clock tower dominating the edge of the town. In less than five minutes he was knocking on the heavy front door.
10
A small door within the Priory’s main gate opened up.
‘We’re closed. Come back tomorrow.’
‘Yes, I’m sorry I’m late,’ Cadbury said. ‘But it was … the wheel on the carriage broke … it was all arranged. She’s very ill.’
The gatekeeper opened a flap on the lamp he was holding and pointed it at Deidre who had her head bowed low. A shake on her sleeve from Cadbury made her look up. Familiar with the harrowing of the face that lunacy caused, still the man gasped at her staring eyes, black smears and mouth that looked as if it had melted too close to the fire.
‘Please,’ said Cadbury, and pressed a five-dollar piece into the man’s hand. ‘For pity’s sake.’
Compassion and greed melted the keeper’s heart. There was, after all, not so much to be wary of. This was a place people tried to break out of, not to break into. And the girl certainly looked like she needed to be locked up.
He let them in through the small door.
‘Have you got your letter?’
‘I’m afraid I left it in my travel bag. That’s why we don’t have any cases. The driver will bring them in the morning.’ It sounded horribly unconvincing.
But the gatekeeper seemed to have given up on questions. Except for one: ‘Who was the letter from?’
‘Ah … my memory … oh … Doctor … ah … Mr …’
‘Mr Butler? Because he’s still in his office over there. Lights still on.’
‘Yes,’ said a grateful Cadbury. ‘It was Mr Butler.’
‘Is she safe?’ the gatekeeper said quietly.
‘Safe?’
‘Do you need a guardian?’
‘Oh no. She’s very tender-hearted. Just … not right.’
‘Busy night tonight.’
‘Really?’ said Cadbury, not interested in anyone’s night but his own.
‘You’re the second unexpected arrival in the last ten minutes.’ Cadbury felt his ears begin to burn. ‘Two gentlemen from Spanish Leeds with a royal warrant.’ He looked up, having found the key to unlock the second gate allowing them into the Priory itself. ‘Sent them to Mr Butler, too – there’s nothing in the logbook, of course. The paperwork in this place couldn’t be any more bloody useless if the patients were in charge.’
The gatekeeper let them through and pointed over to the other side of the quadrangle and the one window still lit.
‘That’s Mr Butler’s office.’
Once they were through and the second gate locked behind them Cadbury stopped to think what to do next.
‘What’s the matter?’ said Deidre. It was rare for Deidre to begin a conversation but she had an animal talent for dangerous action and felt instinctively at ease now where normally she was on the edge of understanding what people were saying to her.
‘The Two Trevors are here looking to kill Thomas Cale.’
‘Where is he?’
‘Don’t know,’ he said, looking over at Butler’s window. ‘The man in that room could tell us but he’s dead.’
‘Then call out to Thomas Cale.’
‘What?’ He was still so surprised by her manner that he had trouble picking up on her line of thought.
‘Go up that,’ she said, pointing at the bell tower. ‘Ring it. Call out a warning.’
He had begun to suspect there was something witless about Deidre. But, predator-sharp, she’d seen the situation instantly and she was right. Wandering around a place with perhaps three hundred rooms, armed warders and unlit quadrangles was a sure way to get killed, especially with the Two Trevors waiting in the dark like a pair of ill-disposed spiders.
‘You hide down here,’ he said. She didn’t reply and, assuming her consent, he moved quickly through the shadowed side of the quad and into the unlocked bell tower. She waited to be sure he was out of sight and then, keeping to the shadows, made her way to the centre of the Priory.
Cadbury climbed the stairs, feeling his chest begin to rasp and worrying that in order to warn Cale he had to give away his own position, a position with only one exit. He was going to have to leave very quickly down two hundred steps in the dark. Once he was at the top he took two full minutes to recover for his escape. He pulled the bell rope four times. The deafening ring would get the attention of everyone within a mile. He let the ringing die away, took a deep breath and bellowed. ‘Thomas Cale! Thomas Cale! Two men are here to murder you!’ He rang the bell once more. ‘Thomas Cale! Two men are here to murder you!’
With that he went back down the stairs, hoping that the Two Trevors had more to worry about than him. If Cale really was the virtuoso roughneck he was cracked up to be then they were now in trouble. If that didn’t satisfy Kitty the Hare that he’d done his best, then Kitty could get stuffed. He’d collect Loopy-lou Plunkett and worry about what to do with her later.
Coming to the last few steps of the tower he stopped, took out a long knife and a short one, his preferred combination when fighting two people, and burst into the quad as if he’d been blasted by Hooke’s gunpowder. He was across the quad and into the safety of the shadows in a few seconds, desperately trying to control the wheezing he was suffering from his exertions as it treacherously called, or so it sounded to his ears, a deafening appeal to the two vengeful Trevors to find him and cut his throat. But they did not come and soon he was breathing almost silently. Slowly he began to feel his way to the point where he’d left Deidre. But Deidre was gone.
By now the quad was filling up with the curious mad, the wealthier and non-violent mad, at any rate, those who had access to the bulk of the Priory, all wanting to break their routine by coming out of their rooms to find out what all the fuss was about. Added to their number were alarmed doctors and nurses trying to usher them back to safety. Some of the more highly strung got the wrong end of the stick: ‘Help!’ they cried. ‘They’re coming to get me. Murderers! Assassins! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it! Help the poor struggler! Help the poor struggler!’