The God of the Hive - Laurie R. King [0]
LAURIE R. KING
Mary Russell Novels
The Beekeeper’s Apprentice
A Monstrous Regiment of Women
A Letter of Mary
The Moor
O Jerusalem
Justice Hall
The Game
Locked Rooms
The Language of Bees
Kate Martinelli Novels
A Grave Talent
To Play the Fool
With Child
Night Work
The Art of Detection
And
A Darker Place
Folly
Keeping Watch
Califia’s Daughters (as Leigh Richards)
Touchstone
In memory of Noel,
who would have loved Robert Goodman
Prologue
Friday, 29 August 1924
Two clever London gentlemen. Both wore City suits, both sat in quiet rooms, both thought about luncheon.
The younger was admiring his polished shoes; the older contemplated his stockings, thick with dust.
The one was considering where best to eat; the other was wondering if he was to be fed that day.
One clever man stood, straightening his neck-tie with manicured fingers. He reached out to give the silver pen a minuscule adjustment, returning it to symmetry with the edge of the desk, then walked across the silken carpet to the door. There he surveyed the mirror that hung on the wall, leaning forward to touch the white streak—really quite handsome—over the right temple before settling his freshly brushed hat over it. He firmed the tie again, and reached for the handle.
The other man, too, tugged at his tie, grateful for it. The men who had locked him here had taken his shoes and belt, but left him his neck-tie. He could not decide if they—or, rather, the mind in back of them—had judged the fabric inadequate for the suicide of a man his size, or if they had wished subtly to undermine his mental state: The length of aged striped silk was all that kept his suit trousers from tumbling around his ankles when he stood. There was sufficient discomfort in being hungry, cold, unshaven, and having a lidded bucket for toilet facilities without adding the comic indignity of drooping trousers.
Twenty minutes later, the younger man was reviewing his casual exchange with two high-ranking officials and a newspaper baron—the true reason for his choice of restaurant—while his blue eyes dutifully surveyed the print on a leather-bound menu; the other man’s pale grey gaze was fixed on a simple mathematical equation he’d begun to scratch into the brick wall with a tiny nail he’d uncovered in a corner:
a ÷ (b+c+d)
Both men, truth to tell, were pleased with their progress.
BOOK ONE
Saturday, 30 August–
Tuesday, 2 September
1924
Chapter 1
A child is a burden, after a mile.
After two miles in the cold sea air, stumbling through the night up the side of a hill and down again, becoming all too aware of previously unnoticed burns and bruises, and having already put on eight miles that night—half of it carrying a man on a stretcher—even a small, drowsy three-and-a-half-year-old becomes a strain.
At three miles, aching all over, wincing at the crunch of gravel underfoot, spine tingling with the certain knowledge of a madman’s stealthy pursuit, a loud snort broke the silence, so close I could feel it. My nerves screamed as I struggled to draw the revolver without dropping the child.
Then the meaning of the snort penetrated the adrenaline blasting my nerves: A mad killer was not about to make that wet noise before attacking.
I went still. Over my pounding heart came a lesser version of the sound; the rush of relief made me stumble forward to drop my armful atop the low stone wall, just visible in the creeping dawn. The cow jerked back, then ambled towards us in curiosity until the child was patting its sloppy nose. I bent my head over her, letting reaction ebb.
Estelle Adler was the lovely, bright, half-Chinese child of my husband’s long-lost son: Sherlock Holmes’ granddaughter. I had made her acquaintance little more than two hours before, and known of her existence for less than three weeks, but if the maniac who had tried to sacrifice her father—and who had apparently intended to take the child for his own—had appeared from the night, I would not hesitate to give my life for hers.
She had been drugged