Prologue

The call came latein the evening as Angus Brodie was preparing to leave the office on the Strand.

The shrill ring of the telephone stopped him at the door. It had been a long day, in a dozen or more of them lately in his work for the Agency. Now a new inquiry case over counterfeit currency that had been found circulating among merchants in London.

He had sent round a message to Sir Avery at the Special Services Agency several hours earlier with an update delivered by Mr. Conner, a retired officer of the MET whom he'd worked with in the past, regarding the counterfeit currency case.

He had a particular distrust for telephones, knowing how the system worked. A call initiated by one person was put through to an operator at one location, then transferred to another operator in another part of the city, and eventually to the person the call was intended for.

In the interest of the Agency and the work they did, it was best to send round messages by trusted persons, rather than rely on a system where several others might be able to listen to the conversation.

The irritating clanging sounded again, and he thought it might be his wife, Mikaela. He had sent her home to Mayfair earlier, after she made her notes in the case on the blackboard. That was hours ago.

She understood the nature of the work from past inquiry cases, and it was not like her to ring up the office and remind him that he was late for supper or some social engagement, particularly social engagements which he had a particular dislike for.

Still, the persistent sound seemed almost urgent in itself. He returned to the desk and lifted the earpiece. The call was scratchy, a crackling sound as it was put through by the operator, then he heard a frantic voice.

"I saw him again as I was getting ready to leave!"

Brodie recognized the voice, the tension, and more.

"Did ye see his face?" he asked.

"No, but it was the same man! He was there like before, at the carriage park across from the service entrance as I was about to leave. When I looked again, he was gone!"

The fear reached through the telephone connection from the hotel.

"Stay where ye are!" he told her. "I will meet ye there!"

It was the third time in as many weeks, always the same and included that first note he had received from her—someone was there watching, waiting, then disappearing.

He had urged her not to return, that it might still be dangerous, but she hoped the past was in the past.

"What if he knows where I live?"

"All the more reason for ye to stay at the hotel where there are others about until I get there!"

"I can't take the chance!"

"Stay where ye are!" he told her again, and then as the connection crackled, "Ellie?"

Brodie cursed. The call had gone dead at the other end.

He grabbed the revolver and the hand-held lamp from the desk drawer, then his coat.

It was late, even for the nearby theater district, most of the coach and cab drivers already gone with a last fare of the night.

He eventually found a driver on his way to the yard where the drivers put up their rigs for the night. He thrust a five-pound note into the man's hand. Instead of the hotel he told him to take him to Charing Cross.

How long had it been since that call, he thought, as the driver let him off at the square where those five streets met, including Charing Cross?

An hour or more, he realized, as he set off toward Craven Street and the row of tenements where Ellie lived.

Would she have already arrived? Very likely, he thought. There were always cabs at the hotel, no matter the time of day or night, for guests arriving or departing.

He quickened his pace, past Northumberland House, darkened for the night, then past the Lane. Craven Street was just beyond.

He slowed, cautious as he rounded the corner, staring through the misty glow of a street lamp at those tenements that lined the opposite side of the street. They were often crowded with more than one family to a room, rubbish overflowing on the street, a cat skittering from an entrance into the shadows.

It was Friday, the work week end. Workers who returned to those flats would have collected their pay, then spent an hour or two at the local pub or tavern.

It was a place of families, with a child's trolley made of wood and skate wheels propped against a wrought iron rail outside one of the buildings, where a boy's or girl's play took them to the streets.

The entrance to number twenty-eight Craven Street was lit from the ground floor to the third, the shadows of those inside suddenly appearing at a window amid shouts of alarm that reached the street.

Instead of entering by way of the street entrance, Brodie ran down the steps behind a wrought iron rail, to the basement door. The lock gave easily and he quickly entered the building. The beam from the hand-held fell across stairs that led to the upper floors.

He paused in the shadows on the ground floor, heard voices just beyond, footsteps urgent on the floor above, then the slam of a door.

He crossed the hall to the stairs, the smell of coal oil and fish for someone's supper thick in the air, along with a haunting memory that suddenly returned, of another place and another woman.

Ellie's flat was on the second floor. The door, always bolted, now stood ajar. Had she only just returned in spite of what he'd told her, and forgot to set the lock?

He kept his voice low when he called out. When there was no answer, he eased the door open and stepped inside.

It was dark inside the one-room flat, except for the thin shaft of light that spilled through the open doorway from that single fixture in the hallway. He cursed softly. She would not have left the door unlocked, not even for a moment.

The flat had electric, the button beside the door. He didn't turn it on. There was no need as he slowly swept the beam from the hand-held across the usually well-kept room. It was now in disarray, the table turned on its side, utensils scattered across the floor. And then he saw her.

She lay on the floor, her eyes sightless as she stared back at him, her head twisted at a sharp angle. Not satisfied with that, the murderer had also cut her, the bodice of her gown stained dark with blood.

He knew before he touched her that she was dead.

"Why wouldn't ye listen!" he whispered.

He touched her cheek, her skin cool to the touch, that old memory sharp as if it was yesterday.

He pulled his thoughts back to the here and now.

She had fought her attacker. Not that it had done her any good. Whoever had been there had easily overpowered her.

It would have been quick, he thought. Those years with the MET and before, pushing their way back through memory.

This had been done by someone who chose to overpower and silence her quickly, and had then slipped away—someone who was experienced in such things.

If only he had gotten there sooner!

"Ellie, girl. I'm so very sorry," he whispered even though she was past hearing anything.

The sound of a constable's whistle, distant at first, then much closer, cut the silence.

He scanned the looming darkness of the flat, eyes narrowed in the meager light.

Where was the boy, Rory? Had the killer taken him? His head came around at the creak of a floorboard.

There was only the one room in the flat with the sleeping area curtained off in the corner.

That faint sound came again.

He rose and aimed the hand-held in the direction of the alcove with that curtain drawn across. He pulled the curtain back. The alcove was empty.

He heard it again, along with another muffled sound from the wall beside the alcove.

Brodie ran his hand along the scarred wood of the wall, caked with an accumulation of grime and soot from a coal fire she, and countless others before, had cooked with.

It wasn't unusual for people who lived in these places to hollow out a space behind a wood panel or behind a counter to hide something of value—coins, a trinket, or a bauble that might be of value—against thieves who were known to frequent these places when those who lived there were away.

Or possibly something more precious than a trinket or a handful of coins?

He rapped gently on the wood panel, the wall behind hollow.

"Ye can come out, lad," he said gently.

The panel creaked, then opened a narrow space. A pale face appeared in the opening, a boy with a mop of dark hair and large, dark eyes.

"Yer safe now," Brodie told the child.

There was a hesitant nod as the lad, small and thin for his age, stepped out of the narrow space between the wood panel and the stone wall behind it.

When he would have glanced past, Brodie stopped him.

"Dinnae look, lad." Rory, a strong, fine name. He would need that strength now, and for all the days to come.

"Is she…?" The rest of the question caught in the boy's throat.

Brodie pulled him against himself and held him tight, Rory's face pressed into his shoulder.

He knew only too well what it was to have that image forever burned into one's memory. That old memory of finding his mother's body in a place very much like this swept back at him, painful and raw as if it was here and now. He forced it back. Back over twenty years earlier, where he kept it carefully hidden.

How did the murderer find Ellie after all these years? Did he know about the boy?

Until Brodie found who had done this, he had to assume that Rory wasn't safe.

He heard the constable's whistle, closer now.

"We must go," Brodie gently told him.

Rory pushed against him, surprisingly strong.

"No! I won't leave her!"

Brodie heard the tears along with the anger in the lad's voice, something he knew only too well.

"There's nothin' to be done for her now."

"I want to find him!" Rory cried. "I want to make him pay for what he did."

The same words he had screamed into the shadows as a boy a long time ago.

Was it possible Rory had seen the man? In that case, he might very well be in danger.

"I will find him," Brodie promised, as he stroked Rory's back. "Ye have my word. But we must go now."

The fight eased out of that thin body and ended on a sob.

"I don't want to leave her!" Rory said as he fought the tears.

Brodie would see that her body was provided for. It was the least he could do. He couldn't bear for this to be the boy's last memory. But for now, they needed to go.

"Yer not leavin' her, I am."