Page 114 of Thief Taker

So he stood, broken and aching, as the Lady Jane pushed out into the congested river, her lanterns swaying and glinting along her side, the moon washing her sails bone white.

“Does that mean I don’t get me guinea, sir?”

The lad peered at him from the top of the stairs, his face pinched by hunger and want. Perhaps Elias might have been able to feel something for the boy if his heart hadn’t lain broken and bleeding at his feet. Perhaps some part of him did, because he managed to climb back up the steps, reach into his pocket and press a gold coin into the lad’s hand. “Keep it safe,” he said. “Don’t buy gin.” He was astonished that his voice worked, that he still had the ability to speak past his grief.

The lad’s cold fingers closed around the coin and then it disappeared inside his ragged clothes. “Ta, sir,” he said, and was off, disappearing into the crowd and the dark.

Elias turned and stared after the Lady Jane—after Kit.

Goodbye, he said, lifting a hand in mute farewell. His vision blurred and he blinked away the tears. Goodbye, Kit. My love …

Chapter 43

The Brown Bear was quiet. At this early hour, the breakfast trade had not yet begun but the night’s business was long concluded. A fire burned in the grate and the smell of fresh bread drifted from somewhere at the back of the inn. Elias sat in Groves’s usual corner with a cup of coffee growing cold between his hands and tried to look like he’d slept.

He hadn’t slept.

He’d spent the night wondering instead, and finally he’d found himself in The St. Giles Bowl. As the fire burned low, he’d simmered for hours in his regret, guilt, and loss, trying in vain to find a way forward. Somewhere around four in the morning he’d given up and walked to Bow Street.

There was still business to be done, after all—the last act of Elias Cole, thief taker.

Groves arrived at his usual time, took one look at him and said nothing while he settled himself, hung his coat and hat, and signalled for coffee. Only when he’d sat down and examined Elias at close range did he speak. “You look like something the cat dragged in,” he said, “and then thought better of.”

“Thank you, Josiah.”

“When did you last sleep?”

“I’m fine.”

Groves heard this with obvious scepticism but said nothing further. He accepted his coffee from the girl with a smile, took a long swallow, and set it down. “Well,” he said. “It’s been quite a week.”

“It has.”

“Marlborough, then.”

“Marlborough,” Elias agreed.

Groves opened the leather satchel he carried everywhere and withdrew a sheaf of papers, setting them on the table between them. “The inquest returned a verdict of unlawful killing by a person or persons unknown. Which, as verdicts go, tells us very little. But what’s come out of his house in Berkeley Square tells us considerably more.” He tapped the papers. “His solicitor—a man very much wishing he hadn’t entangled himself with Lord Marlborough—has been rather forthcoming.”

Elias looked at the papers but didn’t reach for them. “What did he say?”

“That Marlborough had been acquiring interests in parliamentary boroughs across four counties. Ashbourne Abbey being the most recent and most flagrant.” Groves’s voice was dry. “The object being to place his own men in the Commons and protect his trading interests from any reform of the African trade. Which, as schemes go, was audacious enough. But it seems he was not working alone.”

“No?”

“There are letters. Names we recognise, some we don’t.” He paused. “Names that will need to be handled carefully.”

In other words, families of power and influence. “What about Hawker?”

“I give you credit, Elias; you observed it first. Hawker’s wounds appeared to have been made by something round and heavy, like the head of a cane. Groves the younger—my nephew just taken on at the court—made the connection himself, I’m pleased to say. A heavy-headed walking cane.” He gave Elias a level look. “Rather like the cane found beside Marlborough’s body at The George.”

“Rather like it.”

“The very same cane, in fact, as my nephew subsequently determined.”

A short silence.

“So,” Groves said, “Hawker’s murder is resolved, to the satisfaction of the magistrate. The papers will have a fine time with it.” He picked up his coffee. “And then there is the matter of the deeds to Ashbourne Abbey.”