Chapter Thirty
London was always a hodgepodge of sights, sounds, and smells. Nowhere was this more apparent than the neighborhood in which Tiberius lived. From a tavern window, Gabriel watched the mix of affluence, poverty, and a distinct criminal element jostling together in the streets of Lincoln’s Fields Inn. It was nearing dusk, businessmen and laborers returning home from their day’s work just as pickpockets and thieves began to ply their trade. Already Gabriel had spotted two well-to-do merchants being relieved of their wallets.
Across the table from him, Pompeia smirked. “Easy pickings if I ever saw. Pigeons like that deserved to be plucked.”
It was easy to forget that she was a marchioness. A brassy wig, paint, and disreputable gown covered up any glimpse of the fashionable Lady Blackwood. She looked like someone who belonged in this smoky public house filled with the smell of roasting meat, the tables sticky with spilled ale.
Gabriel himself was also disguised. He’d darkened his hair, donned a moustache. His clothes were the kind one wore to convince a customer that the goods one was pimping were worth the price and wouldn’t give you the pox.
It was altogether strange to be on a mission with his one-time colleague. He didn’t entirely trust Pompeia, but the enemy of an enemy was a friend. At present, under the guise of pimp and prostitute trolling for the night’s work, he and Pompeia occupied a window seat at the tavern, keeping watch on the second-storey flat across the street. The light in the apartment window, the occasional shadow flitting behind the shade, told them the subject had not yet left the premises.
“It’s getting late. Why hasn’t Tiberius left?” Pompeia said under her breath.
An echo of his own thoughts. To lure Tiberius out from his lair, they’d laid out bait. Cicero had sent Tiberius a note, saying they had urgent business to discuss. Gabriel didn’t know what Cicero had planned, but whatever it was, it would be good. More than once, Cicero’s silver tongue had come in handy. Tonight, they were depending on him to keep Tiberius occupied whilst Gabriel and Pompeia performed the search.
“There’s still time.” Gabriel sipped his ale. It tasted like piss.
“I have until midnight. Blackwood expects me home when he returns from the club.”
“How domestic you’ve become.”
Her eyes had a dangerous spark. “Don’t mock me, Trajan. He’s the only reason I’m here. I couldn’t give a damn about spy business otherwise.”
“You proved that years ago,” he said coolly. “After all, you jumped ship right before it capsized. With the rest of us in it.”
“I owed you nothing. I gave years to Octavian, the obsessed bastard, and in return he bled me dry.” To an outsider, Pompeia’s expression was so bland she might have been discussing the quality of the beefsteak. “I wasn’t about to let him take what remained of my soul. You chose to stay—that was your problem, not mine. Don’t lay the consequences of your misguided loyalty at my door.”
He tore off a chunk of bread. “I wouldn’t expect you to know anything of loyalty.”
“Because you don’t know me.” Her smile was cold. “Amusing how with all your knowledge and experience you can’t understand the simplest facts. Unlike your little Miss Kent.”
“Don’t bring her into this.” Warning edged his words.
He didn’t like her even speaking Thea’s name. For an instant, the memory of Thea’s soft confession and their tempestuous lovemaking blazed; he snuffed it out just as quickly. Later, he would examine the damnable tangle of his feelings. For now, he needed to remain focused and in control. Sentiment had no place in the night’s work.
Or in your private life, you sod. One torturous marriage wasn’t enough for you?
“Touchy, are we?” Pompeia’s brows arched. “I don’t blame you. It’s not easy for people like us to fall in love.”
Why was the world so obsessed with the blasted emotion?
Before he could tell her to mind her own business, Heath’s disheveled figure emerged from the flat. Finally. Standing on the landing, Heath was dressed in the rough, casual clothes of an artist, his cravat carelessly knotted, his wild black curls completing the Byronic look. Gabriel angled his head away as Heath scanned the street. From the corner of his eye, he saw Heath descend the steps into the street.
“He’s headed west. On his way to Davenport.” Pompeia’s eyes were razor sharp.
“Let’s go in,” Gabriel said.
They exited the tavern, him with swagger and her with a saucy stride that made them blend with the crowd in the street. The cooling night air was a welcome change from the humidity of the tavern. They headed for the alleyway next to Tiberius’ building.
Kent and McLeod arrived moments later. The pair had been circling the neighborhood in a carriage, keeping an eye on things.
“Subject’s headed west on Holborn. Hackney,” McLeod said without preamble. “It’ll take him a half-hour just to get to Davenport’s club and back. Depending on how long your friend can hold him up, you’ll have an hour tops.”
“Let’s not dally,” Pompeia said.
“We’ll keep watch here.” Kent tapped the whistle he wore around his neck. “I’ll sound a signal if Heath returns.”
Once the coast was clear, Gabriel led the way up the creaking steps to Heath’s flat. On the landing, Gabriel took out a set of wires and set to work on the lock. Heath being Heath, the mechanism was absurdly complicated but finally yielded with a click.
He opened the door, motioning for Pompeia to stay behind him. He waited until his eyes adjusted to the gloom—and then pointed to the slightly raised floorboard to the right.
“Avoid that,” he said.
“Ah, yes. Tiberius always did like to surprise unwelcome visitors,” she drawled.
The surprise, as she put it, had tended to take the form of an explosive or other life-threatening device. Heath’s paranoia was trumped only by his creativity. With an eye for his former comrade’s old tricks, Gabriel crept cautiously into the room.
Pompeia found a lamp, lit it, and set it on the ground to keep the bulk of the light from the windows. It cast shadows over the floor and just enough of a glow to see the chaos of Heath’s apartment. Books, maps, and piles of paper littered most surfaces. The kitchen occupied a far corner, a pyramid of dishes standing precariously on a multipurpose table. In another corner stood an easel, several half-completed canvases lying around it. Finished paintings hung on the wall at crooked angles.
Gabriel followed a hallway to a single bedchamber. He searched the sleeping pallet, piles of strewn clothing, floorboards. For all that Heath was a man of means, he lived like a resident of Bedlam. Gabriel returned to the main room to find Pompeia gingerly picking through the pile of papers and oddities on Heath’s desk.
“How the devil are we going to find anything?” Gabriel muttered.
“I don’t know. But something just moved under here,” she said.
Rolling up his sleeves, Gabriel dug in. In silence, he and Pompeia methodically searched every filthy nook and cranny of the place… and found nothing.
“It’s been nearly an hour,” Pompeia said at last. “We don’t have much time left. Do you think it’s possible there’s nothing to find?”
“We’re missing something.” Gabriel circled the room, trying to see it from Heath’s eyes. “Tiberius always was a clever bastard. If he wanted something hidden, it wouldn’t be easy to find.”
Pompeia made her own loop around the cluttered chamber. “He’d hide evidence someplace accessible to him but not others. Someplace that might have some meaning to him.” Her eyes narrowed. “Someplace hiding in plain sight…”
They arrived at the easel at the same time. Gabriel examined the incomplete canvases piled on the floor; the agitated strokes of color could have been the beginnings of a flower field or a nightmare—memories of Normandy blazed through Gabriel’s brain. Perfect, now Heath’s madness was rubbing off on him. Grimly, he lifted the canvases and found nothing hidden behind them.
He joined Pompeia, who was staring at the paintings hung on the wall. Four in total, the small framed portraits all depicted the same pretty, doe-eyed woman. They were so radically different from the unfinished canvases that one would assume they’d been executed by a different artist. Yet Heath’s signature was upon each one.
“Do you know who she is?” Pompeia said.
“No.” Gabriel’s nape prickled. “But do you see what I see?”
“That these were painted with an affection that I did not think Tiberius capable of?”
He shook his head impatiently. “Look here. Along the edge of this one.” He stepped closer to the portrait in the middle, ran a finger down one side of the frame. “The paint on the wall here is darker.” As if it had been previously covered, shielded from the sun.
“The portrait has been moved,” Pompeia said.
When Gabriel tried to remove the portrait from the wall, it wouldn’t budge.
“It’s bolted.” He produced a blade.
“Wait, you’re going to cut it?” For an instant, he thought that she wanted him to spare the portrait out of sentimentality. But her next words proved her to be the Pompeia he knew. “If you destroy that painting, Heath will know for certain that someone has been in his flat.”
Gabriel was already running the tip of the blade along the seam where painting met frame. “If there’s nothing behind this painting, I’ll apologize to him personally.”
He cut along the top and sides, and the canvas peeled down.
A safe was embedded in the wall behind.
Gabriel quirked a brow at his former colleague.
“Iron boxes are my specialty, I believe.” Pompeia removed a pair of lock picks and set to work. Within moments, a click sounded, the door of the safe swinging open.
Papers, stacks of banknotes. And…
Pompeia reached in, withdrawing a string of sapphires. Even in the dim light, the stones glittered with dark fire. “My bracelet,” she said. “The one I gave to the Spectre.”
At that moment, a whistle sounded shrilly. Footsteps pounded up the stairwell. An instant later, Heath burst into the room, his hair and eyes wild.
“You bastards.” He waved a pistol. “Come to get me, have you? Not if I get you first.”
Gabriel was already running, tackling Heath before the other could take aim. They both hit the floor with a thud, the gun skittering out of reach. They grappled, rolling over papers and books, until Gabriel managed to get the upper hand. His fist cracked against Heath’s jaw. The other man groaned, his head lolling to the side, his grip on Gabriel slackening. Gabriel grabbed his opponent by the lapels.
“You bloody turncoat,” Gabriel snarled.
“I’m going to kill you.” Heath thrashed wildly.
Gabriel slammed the other’s head against the floor. Images exploded in his head. Marius falling. The smoke-choked interrogation chambers. Octavian bleeding out on the carpet. Control snapped, the need for vengeance roaring free. His fists made contact again and again. He gripped Heath’s windpipe, crushing…
Strong hands yanked at his shoulders. He shook them off, refusing to relinquish his prey.
“Tremont, let go. You’ll kill him.”
Kent’s calm voice cut through the haze. Gabriel looked down and saw his hands wrapped around Heath’s throat. Saw the other’s bulging eyes, bloodied face. With effort, he loosened his grip, and Heath’s head thudded to the ground. The other moaned, eyes closing. Unconscious but not dead.
Looking up, Gabriel saw the ring of faces. Pompeia was staring at Heath, her face hard with fury. McLeod had a pistol aimed at the man on the ground.
At Tiberius—the Spectre. The perpetrator of evil. A comrade who’d betrayed them all.
Numbly, Gabriel rose to his feet. His hands curled and uncurled, something sticky dripping from the knuckles. His senses were as acute as an animal’s; his mind was curiously blank. In some distant part of his brain, he remembered this sensation. It was as familiar as slipping into an old skin, watching it happen from the outside.
Rage hollowed him. Made him empty and cold.
“Rest easy, my lord,” Kent said. “We have him now.”
“Yes,” he said tonelessly.
He waited for the relief to come. To feel anything at all.