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There was no answer from inside the warehouse.
Irene stepped to one side and inspected the area in the way that Vale would have done. An arc of dirt on the pavement showed that the door had been opened recently, and the mark of twin wheel-tracks demonstrated that something heavy had been pushed or dragged in or out. It also suggested that Zayanna did indeed have minions in there, if this was her base. Zayanna was not the sort of person to push heavy trolleys herself.
She tested the handle, still standing to one side of the door. Locked. All right. This was manageable. ‘Warehouse door lock, open.’
It was quiet enough on the street at this hour of night that she could hear the tumblers in the lock click into place. She gave it a moment to see if anyone inside reacted, but there was no answering noise. Mentally crossing her fingers, she tugged the door open and peered into the room.
To her relief, there weren’t any shotguns or harpoons or axes, or whatever, wired up to the door. The room inside was an ordinary small office, an ether-lamp still burning on the wall in spite of the late hour, complete with chairs and desk. Another door in the far wall led further into the warehouse.
The thought of incriminating documents and invoices led Irene across to the desk, but she hesitated as she reached for the top drawer. For one thing, it was far too convenient a location for traps. And another thought had struck her. Why should the ether-lamp be on at this time of night? Either because someone had just been in here, or because someone – like Irene – was expected . . .
‘All right,’ she said, looking around. Her voice seemed too loud in the silent room. ‘Zayanna? I came to see you.’
For a long moment there was no answer, and Irene was able to consider all the ways in which she’d bollixed up the plan. Then Zayanna’s voice called from beyond the inner door, ‘In here, darling!’
Irene advanced cautiously, looking through into the room beyond. It was the heat that hit her first. The large space beyond the door, nearly one-third of the warehouse interior, was as warm as a greenhouse. Thick black cloth had been nailed up against the walls and across the ceiling, covering the windows and blocking draughts. Cages and terrariums stood at careful intervals, interspersed with large electrical-coil radiators and blazing ether-lamps. It all looked vastly unsafe. At the centre of the room were a couple of divans, with a small table between them. Zayanna had made herself comfortable on the further divan, leaning her chin on one hand as she contemplated Irene. She was in clinging black satin that trailed over the edge of the divan, giving her a serpentine air. ‘Do come in,’ she murmured, her eyes mocking. ‘My pets are all perfectly safe.’
‘I remember you used to look after snakes for your patron.’ Irene wasn’t quite certain that she wanted to walk between those cages to reach Zayanna. The scorpions in the closest terrarium looked too active for Irene to be comfortable anywhere near them. And far too big.
‘I do prefer snakes,’ Zayanna admitted. ‘But I like other pets, too.’
‘This many of them?’ Irene indicated the cages and terrariums with a gesture.
‘Oh well, I might have got a tiny bit carried away there. I just went to do a teeny bit of shopping, to get a few little ones to start with, and you know how it is.’ Zayanna shrugged. ‘Wasn’t it Oscar Wilde who said that nothing succeeds like excess? I thought I’d try it with giant hornets and see if it was true.’
‘Sadly – well, I suppose it’s sadly for you, not me – it didn’t quite work,’ Irene said. She ignored the impulse to ask exactly where Zayanna had read Oscar Wilde. ‘I’m here, after all.’
‘I did hope you’d make it, darling.’ Zayanna reached across to pick up one of the bottles that stood on the table. ‘Can I offer you something to drink? Strictly no obligations, my word on it.’
‘And no poison?’
‘My word on that, too,’ Zayanna promised. ‘Darling, I do realize you might be a tiny little bit suspicious of me at the moment, but we’re not going to have a proper conversation if we have to keep on shouting at each other across the room like this. Won’t you come and sit down? I’m not going to try to kill you while you’re walking over here – it’d spoil everything.’
It was the same logic that Irene herself had used, after all – she won’t kill me because she’ll want to gloat at me – but it was a little less comforting when she was face-to-face with it. ‘All right,’ she agreed, knowing that her caution was audible in her voice. ‘But you must understand that I’m rather annoyed with myself at the moment.’
‘Why?’ Zayanna asked. ‘And what would you like to drink?’
Irene began to walk carefully between the cages and heaters, holding her full skirts close to her legs. Her multiple layers of clothing – overcoat and ballgown – were swelteringly hot. ‘Well, I am supposed to be good at my job, rather than falling for the first sob story that comes along.’
‘But I was convincing,’ Zayanna said smugly. ‘And let’s be fair, darling, we had history and I was well prepared.’
‘Oh?’ Irene tried to make the question sound only mildly curious. ‘And do you have any brandy there?’
Zayanna shook her head vigorously, her dark curls tousled over her shoulders. ‘Brandy’s so dull. I’ve got tequila, absinthe, jenever, baijiu, vodka—’
‘Brandy is not dull,’ Irene protested. The feeling of time running through her hands like sand gave her a nagging ache of urgency. But the more Zayanna relaxed and focused on Irene, the easier it would be for the men to break in unobserved. Thinking of it as a military operation helped Irene suppress her own anger. ‘And aren’t you hitting the spirits a little bit heavily?’
‘Who needs a liver?’ Zayanna picked up a bottle whose label proclaimed it as Best-Quality Amsterdam Jenever and splashed clear liquid into two glasses. ‘Now then, darling. Sit down and we can talk. I’m sure you have lots of questions for me.’
Irene seated herself on the divan opposite Zayanna’s, with the table between the two of them. ‘I should probably get to the point. Zayanna, you are the person who’s been trying to kill me, am I right?’
‘I’m definitely one of them,’ Zayanna said. She pushed one of the glasses across the table to Irene. ‘There may be other people, too. I wouldn’t necessarily know.’
‘Why?’ Irene tried to keep her tone level, to treat the subject as casually and lightly as Zayanna, but the word twisted in her mouth and turned sharp. ‘Perhaps it was stupid of me, but I hadn’t realized we were on those terms.’
‘Which terms?’
‘The terms that involved trying to kill each other.’
