Mind the Gap (Hidden Cities #1)

Mind the Gap (Hidden Cities #1) Page 21

"An interesting name."

"Short for Jasmine."

"Beautiful. Seems sort of a shame to have a name like that and not use it."

"So nobody's ever called you Terry?"

Terence smiled. "Not my friends."

"Have a lot of those, do you, Terry?"

He laughed, then nodded in appreciation. "A precious few, Jasmine. Do you fence?"

"What, you mean like with swords? Do I look like some posh tart, then? Next you'll ask me if I sail."

"I don't see you as a sailor, actually But fencing... you'd have a talent for it, I think."

Jazz sat back and crossed her legs, enjoying the sun, wishing she wore a skirt or shorts instead of long trousers. "And why is that?"

"You clearly relish the sparring and the quick riposte. You're quick on your feet, light and agile. As I mentioned on the Tube, you managed to slink around the house while I was there, with me none the wiser.

And believe me, I was alert for the presence of others. It's a rare creature who can trump me the way you did today."

A waiter brought a tray of sandwiches to a table of well-coiffed professionals at the far side of the patio. As he walked past her, Jazz inhaled the aroma of the food and her stomach rumbled. She ignored it but thought back to the moment on the train when Terence had sat so close to her, had spoken to her, and she had inhaled his warm, sweet breath.

"Do your friends share your view of yourself, or are you really as much an egotist as you sound?"

"Both, I suspect."

Jazz smiled. "Of course."

"I don't suppose you're going to tell me where you learned your craft?" Terence asked. Thus far he had care-fully avoided mentioning whose house they had been at or anything even remotely resembling a discussion of theft. There was something thrilling about having this conversa-tion where others could hear yet making it oblique enough that no one would understand what they were talking about.

"I can't do that."

He sat forward and slipped out of his jacket. "Of course not." Neatly, he arranged the jacket on the back of one of the two empty chairs at their table. His clothes were stylish and impeccable.

"Do you always dress so well for work?"

"I dress to fit the job. Shall I tell you where you learned your craft?"

"You're a psychic now as well? You have so many mar-ketable skills."

Terence sat back, perhaps unconsciously mimicking her pose. "You're a tunnel rat."

Jazz flinched inwardly but tried to keep her expression neutral. How the hell did he know that?

"Oh, you could have somewhere aboveground, but I don't think so," the thief went on. "The pallor of your skin gives you away, and your clothes have a bit of a moldy smell that might've come from your auntie's damp basement or something, but taken together with your complexion, tunnel rat's the safest guess. I suspect you've learned sleight of hand that would make the finest prestidigitator proud, relieving passersby of the burden of having to carry their wallets, purses, mobiles, and whatever else your fingers might reach.

"You haven't been away from home very long. Your ed-ucation makes that clear. And the way you're constantly on guard, even this far from the scene of our encounter, makes it clear you're running from something other than your bravura performance earlier."

The waiter interrupted with their coffees. He set down napkins, then Terence's cup and Jazz's glass.

"Can I get you anything else?"

"We're perfect, thanks, Rob," Jazz told him.

He liked her using his name. Pleased, he put his tray un-der his arm and threaded back through the patio to the cafe.

"All right, you've read your share of Doyle," Jazz said, turning to Terence. She picked up her iced coffee and took a sip, wrinkling her nose. It needed sugar. "I won't argue. Rather, let's just cut to the 'so what?' I had the good fortune to get to something you wanted before you did and you're upset."

"You have skill, not good fortune."

Jazz shrugged. "Whatever. And what of it? You think I'm a tunnel rat. Pretty sure you live a bit higher than I do, breathe a rarer air. How does any of that lead to fancy coffee in the garden?"

The bag with the money and knickknacks she'd stolen from Mort's house —along with the strange holed blade— sat on the fourth chair, within reach of either of them. She was pretty sure that Terence hadn't even looked at it.

"What you did today was far beyond the scope of what you and your accomplices would normally attempt. That's simple deduction."

"We aspire to greater things."

Terence stirred his cappuccino and set the spoon aside. "Admirable, wanting to improve your lot." He took a sip. Jazz could smell the cinnamon wafting off the top. "But you'll forgive me, I hope, if I say I have difficulty believing in today's coincidence. I suspect, whether you're aware of it or not, there is another reason you were in that house today."

Her thoughts immediately flashed to the framed photo-graphs in her bag. The shock of seeing her father in that old picture, standing with the Uncles, remained fresh.

"What do you know of the apparatus?"

Jazz frowned. "The what?"

Terence cocked his head, obviously surprised by her reply.

"The object you stole today," he whispered, glancing around, no longer as confident as he'd been.

"What made you take it?"

Jazz smiled. She also whispered. It wouldn't do for them to be overheard, now that they were no longer skirting their subject. "I nicked plenty of things today. I only took the sod-ding blade because I saw it was what you were looking for and figured it was valuable."

He studied her, and Jazz saw the moment where he decided he believed her. Terence sighed and gave a small, self-deprecating laugh. "It's worth more to me than you can imagine, but to you it's worthless.

You really only took it be-cause you saw I wanted it?"

She nodded.

"And that house?" He lowered his voice further. "Mortimer Keating's house? Who chose that house in partic-ular? You're new to this line of work. Your friends have been in the game longer, but neither of them seemed bright enough to organize a tea party, much less a high-society burglary."

"You underestimate them."

Terence raised his cappuccino in a mock toast, then sipped it. "Maybe so. Regardless, someone sent you to that house. But I see you won't tell me who it was. Fair enough. Can't say I blame you."

He set the cup down. "Have you ever heard of the Blackwood Club?"

Jazz started to shake her head but faltered. She'd never heard of any Blackwood Club, but the name Blackwood was familiar enough to stir up nausea in her gut. Josephine Blackwood had been present at her mother's murder —in-deed, she "saw to it herself."

"No?" Terence asked.

"No," she replied, barely able to get the word out.

Now, at last, he looked at her bag. Since she'd set it on the chair, he had behaved as though it wasn't there at all, as though it did not contain the very thing for which he went to such great lengths at the house of the Uncle who'd once told her to call him Mort. Mortimer Keating. She let the name settle in her mind and found she liked having his iden-tity. It made him less terrifying to her —made her feel like she could hurt him, if she could get close enough.

"If I ask you for it, would you give it to me?" Terence said, voice low.

"If I say no, will you try to take it?"

He chuckled softly, but then his expression grew serious again. "All that time, down there in the tunnels. I'm sorry, Jasmine, but I can't believe it's all coincidence."

"I couldn't care less what you believe."

Something flashed in those ice-blue eyes, and for the first time she thought that Terence might be a dangerous man. "Does the phrase 'the spirit of London' mean anything to you?"

She took a long drink of her iced coffee, almost draining it, and when she set it down the ice clinked in the glass. Then she reached for the bag, grabbed the strap, and pulled it onto her lap.

"Thank you for the coffee," she said. "But the conversa-tion's gone a bit dull, don't you think? I'd best get going."

Yet she could not rise. Those blue eyes fixed her in place, so intense was his stare.

"Do you ever see ghosts down there?" Terence asked.

Her heart skipped a beat and she caught her breath, knowing that her face had betrayed her.

Understanding dawned in his eyes. What the hell did he know? Jazz had been willing to chalk it all up to coincidence and let it go at that, but now she realized it could not be. Whatever this thing in her bag was, and whoever Terence might be, it was all connected. How this related to her mother's death and the Uncles she didn't know, but Terence had just asked a question that destroyed any assumptions she had made.

"You should come home with me," the thief said.

The words hung there between them. Jazz tried to make sense of them, but her confusion had become a maelstrom. What was true? Who could she trust? Surely not this man she had just met, this gentleman bandit?

Jazz leaned across the table and lowered her voice.

"You might think yourself something more, Terry, but you're no better than me. You wear sophistication the way you wear that suit and tie, carry around your looks the way you carry that shoulder bag. Maybe you live high, but you might as well be down in the tunnels with me. You're a thief, not a bloody baron."

His brow furrowed and he stared at her a moment, then sipped at his cappuccino again. He sat in contemplation, searching her face for something —Jazz had no idea what. Slowly, Terence sat forward so that they leaned toward each other across the table. Prior to that moment, observers might have thought them uncle and niece, even father and daughter. But now passersby would think them quarreling lovers, no matter her age.

"I am a master."

"You're not my bloody master."

He tapped one finger on the table, then sat back. "I could be. You have aspirations? I could teach you. Help you fulfill them. I could show you a life that would otherwise al-ways be out of your reach. You have natural talent, but with proper training you could achieve a lot more. You could have almost anything, really, but given your present circum-stances, you might begin with a warm bed, clean clothes, the finest foods. And the security and confidence not to be so frightened all the time."

Jazz nearly shouted at him, denied being frightened. But he'd already pointed out the way she looked around, always on guard. There would be no point in lying now.

"I have friends. I couldn't just —"

Terence stood, sliding his chair back. "You could. We've already established you haven't been down there long. How close could you have gotten in that time? How well do you even know these friends?"

"Better than I know you," she said.

But the question was not lost on her. The fact that Harry had chosen Mort's house to rob lingered in the back of her mind. But as for how close she had gotten to the oth-ers in the United Kingdom, Terence had no idea. A single thought of Cadge was all she needed to know that she had friends in the Underground. And maybe, where Stevie was concerned, more than friends.

"They'll be worried about me," Jazz said, holding the bag on her lap.

Terence glanced at it, then reluctantly pulled his gaze away. He plucked a wallet from his pocket and tossed a twenty-pound note on the table. It was far too much for their coffees, but he showed no inclination to wait for change. The money meant nothing to him.

And if the money meant nothing, then why had he bro-ken into Mortimer Keating's house today?

Why did he want that strange serrated blade?

"Tell me something," she said. "What's this apparatus you asked me about? What does it do?"

Terence hesitated a moment, then gave a small shake of his head. He pointed at the bag on her lap.

"I need that. You have no idea how I need it. But I'm not going to try to take it from you. I'm hoping that at some point you'll be willing to give it to me. But I also meant what I said about teaching you. You're a remarkable girl, Jasmine. Only the dead be-long so far underground. It's time for you to come back to life.

"I'm going now. But think about what I've said. If you want to try a different path from the one you're on now, meet me tomorrow afternoon at half-two in front of the Victoria and Albert Museum. I'll wait, but not for long."

Jazz stared at him.

Terence smiled, slung his jacket over his shoulder, and gave a small bow of his head. "A pleasure to meet you."

"And you, strangely enough," she replied.

He turned and strolled across the patio, weaving around other tables, and out into the park. In moments he was out of sight.

Jazz picked up her glass and drained the last of her coffee.

Chapter Thirteen

the light of day

For weeks, Jazz had felt as though the gloom and shadow be-low the city were her natural habitat, and every time she went upside, into the daylight world, her eyes had to adjust. But she'd been aboveground most of the day, and by the time she descended once more into the Underground, she had to learn to adjust to the darkness all over again.

With the bag over her shoulder —the weight of the blade Terence so desired seeming to want to pull her deeper—she followed the tracks of an abandoned tunnel and descended farther. The geography of the underworld had become sec-ond nature to her now. Jazz moved as though on autopilot, her mind absorbed by her conversation with the gentleman thief, his blue eyes locked in her memory. She stepped through the hole Harry had found in a hastily bricked-up wall and then started down the corridor to the Palace.

On the other side of that broken wall, she found the bucket that Bill had set there with several torches inside. Jazz took one and clicked it on. The light seemed to be swallowed by the darkness. As she started down the arched corridor —its marble columns apparently put in place to make it somehow more acceptable a retreat from utter destruction for the roy-als, ministers, and members of Parliament who would have used it—she wondered if any of the others would have been positioned out here by Harry to wait for her.