Who Buries the Dead

Chapter 47

Pippa was filling three pewter tankards with ale when Sebastian pushed open the door to the Black Devil’s taproom.

The tavern was crowded with its usual evening assortment of tradesmen, apprentices, and laborers. The smell of spilled spirits hung heavy in the smoky air and bursts of hearty laughter punctuated the soft roar of men’s voices. As the door closed behind him, she looked up and saw him, and for a moment she froze. Then she swallowed hard and went back to her task.

“Is he dead, then?” she asked as Sebastian walked up to the counter, her attention seemingly all for the tankards of ale.

“Yes.”

He saw a quiver pass over her features, but she simply set her jaw and said nothing.

He said, “The boy-Knox’s son. If he should ever require anything, I want you to know that all you need do is ask.”

She looked up then, her eyes glazed with unshed tears, her face tight with anger. “What’s he to you, anyway?”

Sebastian met her furious gaze. “I honestly don’t know.”

She hefted the three tankards with practiced ease and carried them to the men at a nearby table. When she came back, she grabbed a cloth and set about wiping the surface of the bar as if indifferent to Sebastian’s presence.

He said, “What do you know of Knox’s family in Shropshire?”

She twitched one shoulder, her fist clenching on the cloth. “What’s there t’ know? His mum died when he was just a wee babe.”

“Who raised him?”

“His nana.”

“His grandmother? Is she still alive?”

“Last we heard. Just this afternoon, he was talkin’ about maybe goin’ t’ see her soon. Had somethin’ he wanted to give her.”

“What?”

She threw the cloth aside and disappeared into the back room to return in a moment with a gilded mechanical nightingale that she slammed down on the counter before him.

Sebastian picked it up with a hand that was not quite steady, the jewels in its collar flaming with color as they caught the firelight. “Where did this come from?”

“Got it off Priss Mulligan, he did. Said his nana was always partial to nightingales.”

“Knox went to Houndsditch this afternoon?”

He watched as a fearful light came into Pippa’s eyes. She said, “You know he did.”

He hadn’t known it. In fact, it made no sense, although he remembered the rifleman saying, She doesn’t know any more. “What can you tell me about a man named Diggory Flynn?”

Pippa wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “Ne’er heard of him.”

“Knox didn’t mention him?”

“No.”

He studied her closed, resentful face. She had always regarded him with both animosity and suspicion, instinctively knowing him for a threat even as his resemblance to Knox confused and frightened her. Now the father of her son was dead, and she held Sebastian responsible. And the truth was that if Sebastian had never come into their lives, Jamie Knox would still be alive.

He set the mechanical nightingale on the counter between them. “I’m sorry.”

She shoved the gilded bird toward him. “Take it. I don’t want it. I never want t’ see it again.”

“You could send it to his grandmother,” he suggested. Yet even as he said it, he knew she never would.

She stared at him, her eyes glittering with raw hatred.

He picked up the nightingale. “What’s her name?”

“Heddie. Heddie Kincaid. Lives in a village called Ayleswick, just outside o’ Ludlow.”

He slipped an envelope thick with banknotes from his pocket and laid it before her. No amount of money could compensate for the loss of her son’s father. But it would make her life-and the boy’s-easier. “I’ll let you know when the funeral arrangements have been made,” he said.

He thought she might object, might even throw his money in his face.

But she didn’t.

Sebastian was sitting beside the library fire, the mechanical nightingale in his hands, his gaze on the coals glowing on the hearth, when Hero came to stand in the room’s entrance.

“Did you kill him?” she asked, pausing with one hand on the doorframe beside her.

He looked up at her. “If you mean Diggory Flynn, the answer is no; I haven’t been able to find him. And if you mean Oliphant, I’m afraid the answer is still no. I’ll admit I came damned close, but you were right; I can’t be completely certain that Oliphant is the one controlling Flynn.”

“Still?”

“I know Flynn was an exploring officer under Oliphant and that both men were in Jamaica together, but. .” He held up the gilded bird. “I’m puzzled by this.”

“What is it?”

He wound the key and set the nightingale on the table beside him, the clear, heartbreakingly beautiful notes filling the air as the bird’s mechanical wings rose and fell. “It appears that Knox learned of Flynn’s identity from Priss Mulligan. According to Oliphant, Flynn has been using his talents in a variety of nefarious pursuits, from slave running to smuggling.”

“Smuggling? Well, you did first see him in Houndsditch.”

“I did.”

“So he could work for Priss Mulligan.”

“He could indeed.” He watched the mechanical toy slowly wind down and stop. “It seems as if just when I think I’m beginning to understand what happened to Preston and Sterling and Toop, everything shifts and I realize I don’t understand anything at all.”

Hero walked over to pick up the mechanical nightingale and wind the key. Then she set it on the table and together they watched the gilded wings beat slowly up and down in the glow of the firelight.