She stepped over the coiled rope and peered around the corner of the building into the rear yard. Empty, although she could hear Mad Lester humming to himself and the clink of his chain. The bawdy-house was still occupied. Beyond the walls were the sounds of feet upon carpet, the low murmur of voices, a scrape of spoon against pot. It stood to reason; Kate Holt and her girls had nowhere else to go.
Helen smoothed the packet in her hand. A message to Lowry. One of two notes she had written that morning: the first sent by footman to the Duke asking for the favour that would help Carlston; and this one to Lowry, offering to reinstate the deal. She truly was Pike’s creature. Helen twitched her shoulders under the weight of the thought.
Her instincts told her that Lowry’s sister would still be in contact with him. On the other hand, if Kate Holt had no way of delivering a message to her brother … She pushed away the useless anxiety. Time to find out if her intuition was correct.
Five long strides took her to the kitchen door. The greasy woman standing over the pots looked up, mouth forming into a gummy circle of surprise. Helen did not wait to hear any protest. She barged through to the corridor and headed past the staircase to the parlour where Kate Holt’s pleasant voice issued instructions to a deeper male bass. Her husband, or the bruiser in his gaudy waistcoat? It did not matter, Helen told herself. She would not allow anyone to stand in her way.
The door stood ajar. Helen flung it back and stepped into the room, her blood thundering through her veins. Kate Holt and the bruiser turned almost as one, any surprise replaced by wary readiness. They’d clearly had practice dealing with sudden appearances.
‘You!’ the bawd spat. She gestured to the bruiser. ‘Henry, get him.’
Helen caught a wild flash of what was to come — the clash of the present and the violent immediate future making her falter.
Henry lunged for her, aiming a punch at her face. The room suddenly felt still, everything expanding but at the same time sharpening into close focus, detail crowding into her mind. The smell of suffocating perfume, the sound of breathing — hers, theirs — like bellows in her ears, the scratch of her linen shirt. Henry moved as if he were wading through water, heavy and ponderous. Like the on-lookers in the laneway.
Ah, now she understood: she had shifted into Reclaimer speed. She had more than enough time to lift her hand and catch his fist as it inched closer. She twisted it sharply to one side. The snap of bone was slow too, the sound stretched out. The pain registered in his eyes, his lips drawing back in a sluggish grimace of pain as he slowly flinched backward. The encounter was unfair to say the least. Even so, she thrust him away by his damaged wrist, his arms and legs flailing in slow rotations as he lifted into the air and sailed past Kate. He finally landed against the opposite wall, the sound of the impact like a cannon shot in Helen’s ears.
Carlston had explained that this window into the future, like their speed, was held in the rush of their blood and could be controlled with training. Another skill she had not yet mastered. She staggered back and took a deep breath, trying to steady the beat of her heart and bring the world back to its normal pace. It took three more deep inhalations before the overwhelming smells and sounds dropped back to their muted everyday levels.
‘’Pon my soul, you’re one of them,’ Kate Holt said, looking up from her fallen man. She stepped forward, both fists clenched, fear overtaken by something more primal. ‘You here for my Lester? I won’t let you kill him. He’s not doing no harm to no one.’
‘I am not here for Lester,’ Helen said. ‘I am not going to kill your son.’
Kate Holt regarded her, stiff with tension. ‘You swear?’
‘I do not kill poor unfortunates. Lester is safe.’
The bawd studied her for a moment more, still wary. Finally she nodded. ‘What then? My brother? He ain’t here. You and the other one saw to that.’
‘I want you to give him a message.’
‘You got a nerve.’ She peered more closely at Helen, recognition dawning in the dark small eyes that were so like Lowry’s. ‘Ah, now I see what’s for. You ain’t no man. You’re the girl he told me about. His way back to all that ungodly strength.’
Helen stepped forward, raising her palms in truce as Kate Holt flinched back. ‘Do you know about the journal?’
Kate frowned. ‘Journal?’ She snorted. ‘My brother don’t keep no journal. He never liked making his letters.’
If she did know, she was a masterly liar.
‘Is he still in Brighton? Can you get a message to him?’ Helen asked.
‘Maybe.’
Helen held out the packet. ‘I am offering him another chance at all that ungodly strength. The deal is the same. We’ll meet here. On the full moon, the twenty-fourth, like he wanted.’
‘He won’t trust you.’
‘Tell him I’ll be alone. My word on it.’
Kate took the offered packet. ‘I’ll tell him.’ She studied Helen again. ‘And let me tell you something, girl, on account of your mercy to Lester. Get as far away from my brother as you can. He will eat you alive.’ She tapped her temple. ‘He gets in here and you won’t ever be the same. Nothing soft survives around him, and you got too much soft in you.’
Helen backed away, feeling her skin crawl with the truth of the woman’s words. ‘Just give him the message,’ she said, and turned on her heel.
Halfway down the corridor she heard an urgent hiss and stopped. A pair of watery blue eyes under a mess of brown tangled hair peered around the stairwell balustrade. Sprat. The girl sat crouched on the top step, skinny arms hugging her knees, the oversized dress slipping off one knobbled shoulder.
‘What you doin’ back?’ she demanded. ‘Mrs Holt is furious wiv you an’ the gent. No one’s comin’ in ’cause of what you did.’
‘Are you all right, Sprat?’
She nodded. ‘All’s bob. Wiv Binny too.’ She uncurled herself and climbed the few steps, her eyes on the doorway into the parlour. ‘What about you? What was that thump?’
‘Henry, hitting the wall.’
‘Really?’ Sprat grinned, but it quickly faded. ‘Did Mrs Holt tell you Lizzie’s gone to Kingdom come?’
Kingdom come. Lizzie was dead; God have mercy upon her soul. Helen drew a shaking breath. Perhaps if she had stopped and tended to Lizzie that night. Done something …
‘You couldn’t do nothin’,’ Sprat whispered, as if Helen’s heart had been laid bare. ‘Lizzie was dead soon as she took his fancy.’ She reached across and patted Helen’s arm: a grimy-fingered absolution. ‘It’s how it is.’
She withdrew her hand and cleared her throat — too much emotion, it seemed — and hoisted the gaping neck of her dress over her shoulder.
They both turned at a stream of loud cursing from the parlour.