Why Mermaids Sing

Chapter 57

Sebastian found Felix Atkinson in the drawing room of his prosperous West End home. The East India Company man stood with his back to the room, his gaze fixed on the scene outside the window overlooking Portland Place. In a damask-covered chair off to one side, a pale-haired woman in her early thirties wept quietly into a handkerchief. As far as Sebastian could see, her husband was making no attempt to comfort her.

“I’d like a word with you,” Sebastian told Atkinson. “Alone.”

Atkinson swung to face him, all bluster and trembling affront. “Really, my lord. Now is hardly the time—”

Sebastian cut him off. “I don’t think you want Mrs. Atkinson to hear what I have to say.”

A rush of color darkened the other man’s cheeks. He cast a quick glance at his wife, then looked away. “We can speak in the morning room.”

They had barely crossed into the morning room before Sebastian’s hands closed over Atkinson’s shoulders and spun him around to slam his spine up against the nearest wall.

“You bloody, self-obsessed, lying son of a bitch,” said Sebastian, spitting out each word through gritted teeth.

Atkinson gasped and made as if to pull away. “How dare you? How dare you lay hands upon me in my own h—”

Sebastian pressed his forearm against the man’s throat, pinning him to the wall. “I know what happened on that ship. I know about Gideon Forbes, and I know what really happened to David Jarvis.”

Atkinson went utterly still. “You can’t.”

“I read the log.”

“The log? But the log was lost. Bellamy said the log was lost.”

“He lied.” Sebastian shoved his forearm up under the man’s chin harder. “You all lied. What did you do? Get together after Thornton’s and Carmichael’s sons were killed and swear one another to secrecy?”

“What choice did we have?”

“You could have told the truth.”

Atkinson’s tongue darted out to moisten his lips. “How could we? No one would have understood about the boy. You have no idea what it was like on that ship. The fear. The endless days and nights of hunger. That kind of hunger, it’s like a yawning pit of fire in your belly, consuming you. You’ll do anything when you’re hungry like that.”

“You might. Yet people starve to death on the streets of London all the time. They don’t kill and eat each other.”

Atkinson sucked in a breath that shook his entire frame. “The boy was dying. All we did was hasten the hour of his death. David Jarvis should never have tried to stop us.”

“Is that what you tell yourself? What about the Sovereign?”

“We didn’t know the frigate was out there! We thought we would die without seeing another ship. How could we have known?”

“That’s why men shouldn’t take it upon themselves to play God.” Sebastian shifted his grip. “I’m going to ask you a question, and I want you to think very hard before answering. After the crew mutinied and abandoned ship, were any of the men left aboard?”

“Crewmen, you mean? No. Only Bellamy, the three ship’s officers, and the boy. Why? Who do you think is doing this? You have some idea, don’t you? Who is it?” His voice rose. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Sebastian simply shook his head. “It hasn’t struck you as peculiar that this killer knows exactly which lots you each drew after the boy’s murder?”

The tic began to play at the edge of Atkinson’s mouth. “Peculiar? It’s terrifying! It’s as if he were there on the ship with us. But that’s impossible, isn’t it? Isn’t it?”

Sebastian gave the man a nasty smile. “You tell me.”

“I told you before. I don’t know who’s doing this. I don’t know.”

“It’s too late to save yourself. When Jarvis hears you murdered his son, you’re going to wish you did die on that ship.”

“It wasn’t me! I didn’t have a cutlass! It was one of the others.”

“You think that will make a difference to Jarvis?”

Atkinson’s entire face convulsed. “No. I know it won’t. We all know it won’t. Why else do you think we’ve kept silent?”

“Why? Because you value your own lives more than you value the lives of your sons.” Sebastian let the man go and stepped back. “When was your boy taken?”

Atkinson adjusted his cravat and gave the lapels of his coat a twitch. “This morning, early. He was gone from his bed when the household awakened.”

“He was taken from the house? I thought you had Bow Street Runners watching him.”

“Two of them. Someone broke the lock on the back door.”

“And where were your Runners while all this was happening?”

“One was watching the front of the house from across the street.”

“And the other?”

“Was found insensible in the garden.”

Sebastian suppressed an oath. If the killer followed his established pattern, the boy’s butchered body would be discovered in some prominent spot early tomorrow morning. It was still possible that the boy was alive someplace. But their chances of finding him before he was killed diminished with each passing minute.

“Let me see the boy’s room,” said Sebastian.

Atkinson stared at him. “What?”

“You heard me. I want to see the room from which the boy was taken. Quickly.”

Anthony Atkinson had occupied a chamber on the third floor, just off the schoolroom. It was a typical boy’s bedroom, its shelves crammed with books and birds’ nests and all manner of wondrous and special things.

Standing on the braided hearthrug, Sebastian thought about the towheaded lad he’d glimpsed in the Square, his cheeks flushed, his eyes bright with merriment. The boy might have been younger than the other victims, Sebastian realized, but he was a sturdy, healthy lad; he would not have been easy to subdue. Especially without waking either his family or the servants.

A small girl’s voice came from the doorway to the schoolroom. “Are you looking for Anthony? He’s not here.”

Sebastian turned to find young Miss Atkinson watching him with wide, solemn eyes. He went to hunker down before her.

“Did you hear Anthony leave this morning?”

She shook her head. “No. I didn’t hear anything.”

“Have you noticed anyone watching you the last few days? A man, perhaps? Or maybe a woman?”

Again, she shook her head.

Frustrated, Sebastian shoved to his feet. It was when he was turning to leave that he saw it: a glint of blue-and-white porcelain peeking out from beneath the counterpane. He knew what it was even before he stooped to pick it up.

It was a Chinese vial. An opium vial.