The Devil's Workshop

The boy led them to a section of houses on Phoenix Street. He parked his bicycle next to a black wrought-iron fence, hopped off, and waited. A door behind him opened and a girl came outside and stood in her little garden behind the boy, watching their wagon pull up in the lane. All was quiet. The horse snorted. Inspector Blacker climbed out of the wagon first and looked up and down the street. Inspector Tiffany followed and stood beside him. They looked at the boy, who shrugged back at them. When Hammersmith, in his blue uniform, hopped down from the wagon, a door opened opposite the boy and his bike. An old lady ran out and waved them over. She pointed at the next house, with a red door and an untended garden in front.

“That’s where they’ve been,” she said. “I think one of them might still be there. The bald one.”

Cinderhouse, thought Hammersmith. The bald one is Cinderhouse.

“I’m Inspector Blacker, mum. And this is Inspector Tiffany, and this is Sergeant Hammersmith.”

“I apologize,” the lady said. “It’s been a strange day. I’m Mrs Pye. My husband was Giles Pye.” As if they should know who he was.

“What happened here?” Blacker said. He had automatically stepped into the role of communicator. Tiffany stood to one side, nervously staring at the red door.

“They’ve had Mr Michael in there, doing terrible things to him.”

“Who’s Mr Michael, mum?”

“The man who owns that house, of course.” She leaned in and whispered, “They cut his tongue right out of his mouth.” She drew back again and squared her shoulders, having accomplished the most distasteful bit of business she had to conduct. “I’ve sent for a doctor. He should be along.”

“I don’t suppose he can talk to us?”

“Not without a tongue, he can’t.”

“Of course. Can he write?”

“I think he can. One of them went out and hasn’t come back. I’ve been watching. That one’s the Devil himself.”

Hammersmith supposed she must mean the Harvest Man. They didn’t have a good description of him.

“But I haven’t seen the other one come out again. I was away from the window for a bit and I suppose he might have left the house then, but if he didn’t then he’s still in there.”

Blacker took a step away from Mrs Pye and looked over at Tiffany. They both drew their revolvers. Hammersmith took his truncheon from his belt and looked at the way the sun shone on its burnished black surface. He liked the weight of it in his hand and felt every bit as confident holding it as he would have felt with a gun. Maybe more so.

At that moment, a second wagon turned the corner at the end of the lane and rolled up next to their own. Both of the inspectors turned their guns toward it, but the boy up top was no older than their own driver was, and four constables piled out of the back of the new wagon before it was completely stopped.

“Name’s Bentley, sir,” one of the constables said. “Kett sent us. A boy came to the Yard. Said there was fugitives hereabouts somewhere.”

“You’re just in time,” Blacker said. “It’s the red door.”

“We’re ready, sir.”

“Then let’s go.”

Before he could finish his sentence, Tiffany was already pushing through the gate and across the garden to the door.

“It’s not latched,” he said.

All seven of the policemen funneled past the red door and into the house.

51

The coverlet was ruined.

Fiona stood in the upstairs hall and spread it out over her hands, let it drape down and pool on the floor. It was covered with blood and sticky mucus. She reeled it in and ran her fingers over the names that ran all around the outside of it, sewn in red thread and passed down from one generation to the next. The names of Claire Day’s female ancestors.

Margaret, Jean, Janet, Mary, another Margaret…

All of them had spent hours in front of their hearths sewing their daughters’ names into the fabric that had been passed down to them.

There was room at one corner for Claire’s daughter. If she had a daughter.

But the coverlet was ruined.

The bell rang and Fiona gathered the coverlet to her breast and hurried to the entryway. She opened the door.

“Miss Fiona, got a package here for the mister.”

The postman handed it over. A small brown-paper-wrapped parcel. She nodded her thanks and closed the door on him. A corner of the coverlet fell from her arms, and as she gathered it up, the parcel fell from her hand to the floor and the paper burst open. The box inside was cardboard, a bottom and a shallow lid, which came off and flopped onto the floorboards. Fiona set the coverlet on the floor — it wasn’t going to get more ruined than it already was — and snatched up the various parts: the two halves of the box, a wad of cotton, a small off-white card, and a key.

The key was large and ornate, with a filigree handle and a long barrel and a bit of metal that stuck out from the side, like a trigger. She turned it over in her hands. It was heavy, weighted at the handle end, and there was a hole in the barrel that seemed to go straight through to the handle.