Why Mermaids Sing

Chapter 63

Crumbling and open to the sky, the medieval watch-tower stood on a rocky ridge overgrown with brambles and hawthorn.

Sebastian paused beside the broken entrance, now a gaping hole that showed only a tumble of weed-choked fallen stones within. The rain had slowed to a steady drizzle, the wind a lonesome thing that whistled through the old arrow slits and ruffled the Arab’s wet mane. The air was filled with mist and the smell of wet leaves and grass and a faint hint of woodsmoke that drifted up from below. But the tower was long deserted, the ancient stone walls blackened by the fires of centuries of vagrants who’d found shelter there.

Sebastian nudged the mare forward, to the edge of the ridge. Oak Hollow Farm lay just beyond the tower, in a shallow depression below the cusp of the hill overlooking the distant downs. A single line of smoke drifted up from a chimney at the far end of the farmhouse.

The house was a low, rambling structure, built of coursed rough stone with mullioned windows and a thatched roof. Once, the farm must have been prosperous, but signs of recent neglect lay everywhere: in the cottage garden of roses and lavender and marigolds left to run rampant, in the broken hinge of the wood house door that creaked slowly in the wind. Beyond the house, the farm’s cluster of stone outbuildings and wooden pens stood empty and silent beneath the gray sky.

Rather than come at the farm directly, from the open road, Sebastian cut through the copse of mingled chestnuts and oaks below the ridge. A few hundred yards uphill from the house, he dismounted, staggering slightly as an unexpected wave of light-headedness washed over him. Gritting his teeth, he looped his horse’s reins around a low branch and continued on foot.

At the edge of the wood he paused, watching for any movement, any sign of life beyond that pale line of drifting smoke. Nothing. He knew he was making a dangerous assumption—that Newman was in the room with the smoking chimney—but he tried not to think about that as he darted across the open field and ducked around the side of the house. Pressing his back against the wall, he paused for a moment and waited for his head to clear. Then he edged around until he was close enough to peer through the room’s heavy, leaded glass window.

He found himself looking at a kitchen, a big farm kitchen with a wide-mouthed, smoke-darkened stone hearth that stretched across most of the far wall with a clutch of dusty pots that dangled from a blackened beam. At the battered, scrubbed table in the center of the room sat Dr. Aaron Newman, his back to the window. As Sebastian watched, the doctor wrapped his fist around the neck of a brandy bottle and raised it to his lips to drink deeply. A well-kept fowling piece—an over-and-under flintlock shotgun with a brass butt cap and steel trigger guard—lay on the table just inches from his hand.

Anthony Atkinson was nowhere in sight.

Sebastian blew out a long, slow breath. The boy could be anywhere in the house or outbuildings, or he could be dead. But Sebastian had come to the conclusion there was a good chance the child still lived. Newman had planned each of his murders with a chilling degree of precision and ruthlessness. The man might be a physician rather than a surgeon, but he would still be familiar with the effects of time on a corpse. And anyone intending to drag a dead body into London in the dead of the night would want to avoid dealing with a cadaver in the full grip of rigor mortis.

With effort, Sebastian checked his first impulse, which was to burst into the kitchen and end it all right here, right now. Against that shotgun, he had only the knife in his boot. And while ordinarily that would have been enough, Sebastian knew he would be taking a terrible chance now. His left arm hung nearly useless at his side, and he was dangerously light-headed, whether from loss of blood or concussion, he had no way of knowing. Better to get the boy away by stealth, quickly and quietly. He could deal with Aaron Newman later.

Turning away from the window, Sebastian flattened his back against the house wall, the stones cold and sharp against his palms. His gaze swept the kitchen yard, with its wood house and smokehouse, and moved on to the buildings clustered around the farmyard, the henhouse and pigsty, wagon shed and stables, barn and calf pens. All appeared empty, the old manure heap in the center of the yard now blackened with age and rain. Neither the doctor’s gig nor his horse was anywhere to be seen.

Sebastian brought his gaze back to the stable. Constructed of the same coarse, rough stone as the other farm buildings, it had a thatched hipped roof with a central gable for the hayloft, and a wide set of double doors that doubtless gave access to a carriage room. The carriage doors were closed, but Sebastian could see freshly churned mud in the yard before them.

Sucking in a deep breath tinged with woodsmoke and the smell of damp stone, he eased away from the window and worked his way back toward the corner of the house. Wary of being seen if Newman should chance to stand and glance out the window, Sebastian approached the farmyard by swinging out in a wide arc, his boots squelching in the mud as he neared the abandoned pigsty.

It was raining harder now, big drops that pattered on the thatched roofs and ran down the back of Sebastian’s collar as he sprinted across the farm road to the carriage doors. The doors were old and warped, and slid apart with a harsh grating that was lost in the sound of trees bending in the wind and rain slapping into mud. Squeezing through the narrow opening, Sebastian quickly eased the doors shut behind him.

He found himself in a space some twenty feet deep and twelve feet wide. The air here was thick with the smell of dust and hay and fresh manure. A black gig, its padded leather seat still wet with that morning’s rain, stood in the dim light. Halfway down the wall to his right, an arched opening framed with dressed stone gave access to a darkened corridor.

Skirting the gig, Sebastian ducked through the arch to find himself in a cobbled passage. Beyond a narrow flight of stairs leading up to the hayloft stretched a row of three horse stalls, with a harness room and feed bin ranged along the opposite side of the passage. A Dutch door at the far end of the passage doubtless led to a fenced side yard.

“Anthony?” Sebastian called, the clatter of his bootheels on the cobbled floor echoing in the stillness. A big bay tethered in the first stall lifted its head, its ears flicking forward as it whinnied loudly. From the copse up the hill came a distant answering nicker.

“Bloody hell,” whispered Sebastian, slipping the knife from his boot. If Newman heard the horses and decided to investigate…

Sebastian moved quickly down the passage. The second stall stood empty in the dull light cast by its high cobwebbed window. Outside he could hear the rain pick up again, beating harder on the thatched roof overhead. His stomach clenching with the knowledge of what he might find, Sebastian moved on to the last stall.

The boy lay curled up against the thick planked walls of the third stall, his hands and feet bound, a gag prying his mouth open in an awkward rictus. His eyes were closed, his face pale and streaked with dirt and the tracks of dried tears. But Sebastian could see the shudder of his stained white nightshirt where it stretched across his chest.

“Anthony?” Sebastian hunkered down to touch the boy’s shoulder. “I’m here to take you home. Everything’s going to be all right.”

The boy’s eyes fluttered open, then closed again, his breath coming slow and shallow. Newman had obviously dosed the boy liberally with laudanum.

“Don’t be afraid of the knife. I’m going to use it to cut you loose.” His hand sweaty on the handle of the blade, Sebastian sliced through the ropes at the boy’s hands and feet, then loosed the gag at his mouth.

“You need to wake up for me, Anthony.” He grasped the boy’s shoulders to give him a little shake. “Can you stand?”

Anthony’s eyelids opened again, his eyes glassy, his head rolling on his neck.

“Come on then.” Slipping his hands beneath the boy’s armpits, Sebastian hauled him upright, staggering slightly as he took the boy’s weight. For one perilous moment, the barn’s dusty light dimmed, and Sebastian’s head swam.

“I don’t think I can carry you, lad.” Sebastian wrapped an arm around the boy’s waist. “You’ve got to at least hold on and try to walk. Can you do that?”

Anthony’s lips parted, his thin chest shuddering as he sucked in a deep breath and nodded.

“Good lad.” Sebastian lurched toward the passage. He wasn’t sure if he was holding the boy up, or if it was the other way around. The rain pounded on the roof, pattered against the high windows. He was concentrating so hard on putting one foot in front of the other that it wasn’t until they’d reached the arched entrance to the carriage room that Sebastian heard the slap of boots in the mud outside and the rasp of the carriage doors opening.