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‘Read it, Mr Linton!’
Grumbling to myself, I took a closer look at the paper. It was open to the obituaries page. My eyes travelled to the outlined section.
Died, at London, 15 September 1839
Mr Walter Simmons
After having been most brutally attacked by two members of the criminal classes and robbed of all he possessed, he succumbed to severe wounds in St Christopher’s Hospital. Our hearts go out to his poor parents, whose only child he was.
I read it, and I read it again. Then I read it a third time. Still, I couldn’t quite process it.
‘Dead?’ I whispered. ‘Simmons is dead?’
‘Why so surprised, Mr Linton? I told you this would happen.’
‘But how… how did this happen? Why did two people attack him? You took his money away, why would they want to rob him?’
His steady, cool gaze was unnerving.
‘Do you really need to ask that question?’
The way he said it, it sounded like there was an ‘I had thought you were cleverer than that!’ attached at the end - which was silly, of course. Mr Ambrose didn’t think me clever at all! He thought I was a girl, and that all girls were stupid and weak.
Well, my bones certainly agreed with him on the last part right now. Stumbling over to the chair in front of the desk, I fell into it and put my arms around me in an unusually vulnerable gesture.
‘And if we went to the police…’ I managed to say.
‘… they would probably not be very eager to investigate a personal friend of the home secretary and relative of Her Majesty the Queen on an unsubstantiated allegation of murder,’ he finished my sentence. ‘In fact, one might even say they would be strongly averse to the idea.’
‘And if we just brought up the theft, Sir?’
‘The one for which you’ve just lost your only witness, Mr Linton?’
‘Oh.’
‘Quite.’ Mr Ambrose shook his head, looking down at me. ‘You have to believe me when I tell you that there’s more to business in the British Empire than signing papers and building machines. Oh, here in the metropolis it’s all glamour, smiles and handshakes. But behind the façade, things are not so pretty.’
‘So… what will we do now?’
‘
We?’ He gave a little derisive noise. ‘We will return to our original discussion: the subject of your impending dismissal.’
My head shot up, and I stared into his eyes disbelievingly.
‘What? You really meant that?’
His eyes were very dark.
‘I do not say things I do not mean, Mr Linton! You made a fool of me in front of the entire city. I do not take such things likely. And you’re mistaken if you think you can sidetrack me. Who stole the file, whether it was Lord Dalgliesh or Queen Victoria or Father Christmas for that matter is no concern of yours!’
There were noises from outside the room - the footsteps of a heavy man, coming closer. But neither of us paid attention to them. We were too intent on each other.
‘But… of course it is of concern to me if I’m going to help in the search for the file,’ I protested.
He made a move towards me - then stopped himself in mid-movement. Slowly, as if he had to drag himself back, he removed himself from my vicinity and retreated behind his desk, where he sat down so he was on a level with me and could stare directly into my eyes.
‘No.’
