The coachman helped Charley down and into her wheelchair. All around them the pines seemed to whisper to each other, their dry branches creaking. No birds sang in this wood. No children played hide-and-seek here. The zebras seemed skittish and uneasy, whinnying and pawing the ground with their hooves.
Charley grabbed her wheels and propelled her chair forwards along the gravel path. Her arms were muscular and they needed to be. Her father had christened her Charlotte Fortitude Steel – strength really was her middle name.
Aching, Charley reached the front door and heaved down on the bell pull. A bell jangled somewhere inside the house but there were no other signs of life from within. Charley rang again, gave it another minute and then decided she would try the back entrance.
The gravel path extended right round the lonely old house and Charley made agonizing progress. Eventually she reached the rear entrance. There was no bell on the back door, so she banged on it with her knuckles. She spotted a flicker of movement at a window; a fat face looking out for a second, then it was gone.
“Open up,” Charley called. “Police!”
Footsteps reluctantly approached and the door opened. A round-faced woman stood there, her puffy cheeks full of annoyance. “What d’you want?”
“I am Charlotte Steel, S.C.R.E.A.M. squad, and I want to speak to the mistress of the house.”
“You can’t,” said the woman. “She’s out.”
“I’ll wait for her to get back,” said Charley, pushing herself into the house in defiance of this rude woman.
“You’ll have a long wait then, darling,” the woman purred. “She’s gone to London. I don’t expect to see her back for months.”
That explained a lot, Charley thought. With Lady Tiffin gone away, no doubt to rebuild her shattered nerves after her ordeal, the servants had the place to themselves. “Then I will have to talk with you,” said Charley, allowing an icy note into her voice.
“Me?”
“You are Mrs Whisker, aren’t you?” She studied the housekeeper; the fat face, the fuzz of hairs on her upper lip. “Violet Ermintrude Whisker? Thirty-nine years old, born in County Durham, previously employed as a housemaid to General Thaddeus Shermann, one previous conviction for theft.” Charley paused. “Left the General’s employment after some sort of scandal involving missing silver cutlery. You are that Mrs Whisker, aren’t you?”
The woman was flustered. “How do you know all that?”
“I’m a detective,” said Charley. “It is my business to know everything about everybody. Now let’s sit together and talk politely, but first I’d like a pot of Earl Grey with lemon, not milk. Run along and fetch it, would you?”
Now that the beauty parlour was deserted, Madame ZaZa abandoned her disguise completely. As Billy had suspected all along, Madame ZaZa was not Egyptian. And not a madame either. Madame ZaZa was Tosher Flint. One of Billy’s numerous cousins from the vast criminal clan of the Flint family.
Billy and Tosher sat opposite each other in stony silence. Tosher made for a strange companion. Without the wig and veil, he looked like a rugby player whose little sister had been using his face to practise her make-up skills. Not a pretty sight.
“Long time no see,” said Billy.
“Too soon for me,” grunted Tosher. “My mum always said that you were a bad ’un.”
“Oh yes,” said Billy. “I’m terrible me. Fancy going to church on a Sunday and joining the police! I’m a real embarrassment, aren’t I?”
Tosher shrugged. “You always did think you were better than the rest of us.”
“That’s not hard when most of your family is in the nick and the rest are busy trying to get themselves sent there.” Billy sighed. “I guess that’s why you and your boys have left London, Tosher. On the run from the law again?”
“This is a legitimate business,” said Tosher. “I ain’t done nothin’ wrong.”
“Mmmm,” said Billy doubtfully. “So your beauty treatments really work this time, do they?”
Tosher held his tongue.
“You mean they’re not like the ‘Arabian’ beauty treatments that you were selling in London when you called yourself ‘Madame Rachel’?” Billy got up and looked at the jars and bottles on the shelves. He picked up one labelled Nile River Elixir. “How much do you charge for this?”
“Five pounds,” said Tosher.
Billy whistled softly between his teeth. “Not cheap, is it?”
“These old girls can all afford it.”
“And it comes from the Nile, does it? I mean, it’s not just water with a bit of sand in it?”
Tosher said nothing.
“And your other beauty treatments,” Billy continued, “they are all genuine cosmetics, aren’t they? Not powders and pastes that you mix up yourself from arsenic, lead powder, carbolic soap and prussic acid like last time?”
“They remove wrinkles,” said Tosher defensively.
“They burn off skin,” said Billy. “That’s not really the same thing.”
Tosher at least had the decency to look embarrassed. “What do want, Billy?” he said.
“I need information,” said Billy. “I want the whispers from Edinburgh’s criminal underground. And you’re going to tell me everything I want to know…or I’m going straight to Inspector Diggins.”
“What about family honour?” said Tosher.
“What about family honour? I’m the copper, you’re the robber.”
“Yeah, but you wouldn’t tell on one of your own, would you?”
“Ask me again when we’ve finished this little chat,” said Billy. “Oh, and one more thing – no more acid in your remedies. Buy some real treatments and flog them at outrageous prices if you must.”
Tosher shrugged his broad shoulders and reached down the front of his dress. He pulled out an apple, leaving his chest oddly lopsided. He took a bite. “Want one?” he asked. “I’ve got a spare.”
“I’ll pass,” said Billy. “Right, first up, what do you know about these jewellery robberies? Is there a housebreaking gang in Edinburgh? Have the jewels come up on the black market?”
Tosher took another bite of his apple. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Really?” said Billy, stretching forward and snatching an unusual bird’s-claw kilt pin which was attached to Tosher’s dress. “Because this little beauty is an exact match for one that was stolen from Lady Lavinia Fitzpatrick. So let me ask you again: what do you know about it, Tosher?”
“I got the kilt pin from Razor – he’s the one you should be asking.”
Razor Flint. Not a name that Billy had been expecting to hear. Billy bit his lip. Razor Flint was not a nice man. “Where can I find him?” he said.
Every city has its forbidden streets. The dark alleys where terrible crimes are plotted by terrible people. That was where Billy went to meet Razor.
Tosher said that Razor could usually be found at the White Hart Inn. Billy could tell at a glance that the place was a den of thieves. He was sensitive to the stirrings of the spirit world but he knew that professional criminals were just as sensitive to the presence of a police officer. Before he went inside he turned up his collar and pulled a red scarf from his pocket, tying it loosely at his neck. It was the sort of scarf that “scuttlers” wore. A “scuttler” was a member of a ferocious street gang. It wasn’t his best disguise, but it would have to do.