Caro Peacock [Liberty Lane 04 When the Devil Drives (retail)

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.The Liberty Lane Series from Caro PeacockDEATH AT DAWN(USA: A FOREIGN AFFAIR)DEATH OF A DANCER(USA: A DANGEROUS AFFAIR)A CORPSE IN SHINING ARMOUR(USA: A FAMILY AFFAIR)WHEN THE DEVIL DRIVESA Liberty Lane MysteryGillian Linscott writing as Caro PeacockThis eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law.Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.First world edition published 2011in Great Britain and the USA byCrème de la Crime, an imprint ofSEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of9–15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.Copyright © 2011 by Caro Peacock.All rights reserved.The moral right of the author has been asserted.British Library Cataloguing in Publication DataPeacock, Caro.When the devil drives.– (A Liberty Lane mystery)1.Lane, Liberty (Fictitious character)–Fiction.2.Womenprivate investigators–Fiction.3.London (England)–Social conditions–19th century–Fiction.4.Detectiveand mystery stories.I.Title II.Series III.Linscott, Gillian.823.9′2-dc22ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-140-8 (ePub)ISBN-13: 978-1-78029-011-9 (cased)ISBN-13: 978-1-78029-513-8 (trade paper)Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.This ebook produced byPalimpsest Book Production Limited,Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.COURT CIRCULARThe Hereditary Prince (Ernest) and Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg Gotha landed at the Tower at 4 o’clock yesterday afternoon from the Continent.Their Serene Highnesses and suite were conveyed in two of the Queen’s landaus to the Royal Mews at Pimlico, and shortly afterwards left town with their suite in two of the Royal carriages and four, for Windsor Castle, on a visit to the Queen.Cutting from The Times, 11 October 1839,recording the arrival of Princes Ernestand Albert to visit Queen Victoria.PROLOGUEJust after one o’clock on a damp October night, in Knightsbridge, on the south side of Hyde Park.Inside the grand new houses most people had gone to bed.In drawing rooms, servants put out the candles in chandeliers with long snuffers on poles, clumsy from tiredness, so that hot wax dropped and solidified on carpets.Trouble in the morning, probably, but that was five hours’ sleep away.A police constable trod the pavement, slow and unworried.Knightsbridge was an easy beat.Most trouble happened east of the park in the livelier night time streets around Piccadilly.He was patrolling so that the sound of his feet, steady as a dray-horse, could reassure people inside the fine houses that they might fall asleep in safety.The back door of one of the houses opened a crack.A girl came out of the door and stood in the candlelight from the scullery, listening.She was fifteen, with a pale round face, wearing the black dress and stained brown apron of a kitchen maid.When the sound of the policeman’s boots died away, she let herself out of the yard gate and ran round the corner to the back of another house, much like the one she’d left.‘Stephen?’The gate opened.A hand pulled her inside, as urgently as if rescuing her from a river.‘Jeanie.I’ve waited.Every night like I said.’ He was a servant too and not much older than the girl.‘I couldn’t get away till tonight.I can’t stay, either.’But she stayed for a while.They sat side by side on a rabbit hutch, his arm round her, the animals shifting on the straw inside.A vacancy for a maid had come up in the house where the young man worked.If she was lucky enough to get the position, they could be under the same roof, seeing each other every day.She was hardly able to believe in such luck, reluctant to give notice to her employers.He encouraged her: do it tomorrow.A shout came from inside the house.‘Stevie, where are you?’‘Got to go.You’ll be all right back?’They kissed.He disappeared inside.She unlatched the yard gate and stepped onto the deserted pavement.Between the back of his house and hers were two corners and one short stretch of roadway.She worried she might meet the constable, who’d want to know what she was doing out so late and probably insist on escorting her home.Being absent from the house without permission would cost her a character reference and so any prospect of the position in the other house.The pavement was empty.She adjusted her shawl round her head and stepped out, walking quickly.She was halfway between the two corners when the carriage came along from the opposite direction.It had the high rectangular shape of a gentleman’s dress chariot and was drawn, at a walk, by two dark coloured horses, the coachman on the box in a black cloak.She couldn’t make out any more because the lamps on the front were not lit.At first she was relieved, knowing that no gentleman would stop his chariot to take notice of a servant walking home late.It rumbled past, and she was only a few dozen steps away from her turning.Then it stopped.The rumble of wheels and slow hoofbeats gave way to brakes grinding, the jingle of harness, as the horses were reined in.She glanced up, saw the footmen at the back, opened her mouth and felt terror rushing into her whole body.Before she could even let it out in a scream the footmen had vaulted off the back of the chariot and were on her.She was plucked up into the air, blackness all round her.Blackness of the street or the sky, of their arms, their masked faces.She tried to scream, but one of them had his arm locked over her face.They carried her as easily as a stick of firewood and bundled her inside the chariot.One of them got in and slammed the door.The other jumped on the back of the chariot.It moved off, the horses going into a fast trot.The whole thing hadn’t taken more than thirty seconds.Later, while it was still dark, a different police constable almost tripped over the form of a girl, hunched in the gutter in another part of Knightsbridge.A damp shawl was wrapped round her head and she was so still that he thought at first she was dead.He drew back the shawl and saw a pale face smeared with blood and tears.Her eyes opened, staring at him as if he were some horror from another world.She struggled to get away, weak as a butterfly in a boy’s hand.He held her, spoke kindly, tried to soothe her.When she talked at last he could hardly make out what she was saying, but the word ‘devils’ kept coming up.Yes, he agreed, any man’s a devil who does this to a poor girl.He tried patiently to get her to tell him where she lived.It took a long time.When my part in the story began, I didn’t know about the attack on Jeanie.The rape of a servant girl, with an hysterical-sounding description of her attackers, was not unusual enough to make a paragraph in the newspapers.I did not know Jeanie or anybody connected with her.It was only weeks later, after everything else had happened, that I found her and heard her account at first hand.By that time, her story wasn’t hysterical at all and made perfect sense – not that that was much help to poor Jeanie.Looking back, I can tell myself that I should have known.It was no more than a mile away across the park from where I live [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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