The Whitechapel Conspiracy - Anne Perry [94]
Remus was talking to him heatedly, and the man was replying now with some anger himself. Remus seemed to be accusing him of something; his voice was rising higher, sharp, excited, and Gracie could pick out the odd word.
“… knew about it! You were in on …”
The other man dismissed whatever it was with a quick gesture of his hand, but his face was red and flustered. The indignation in his tone rang false.
“You have no proof of that! And if you—” He gulped back his words, and Gracie missed the next sentence or two. “A very dangerous path!” he finished.
“Then you are equally guilty!” Remus was furious, but there was a thin thread of fear clearly audible in his voice now. Gracie knew that with certainty and it sent a chill rippling through her, clenching the muscles in her stomach and tightening her throat. Remus was afraid of something, very afraid indeed.
And there was something in the other man’s body, the angle of his head, the lines of his face that she could still see in the shadows and the thin gold of the evening light. She knew that he was afraid also. He was waving his hands now, jerky, angry movements, sharp denial. He shook his head.
“No! Leave it! I’m warning you!”
“I’ll find out,” Remus retaliated. “I’ll uncover every damned piece of it, and the world will know! We’ll not be lied to any longer … not by you, or anyone!”
The other man yanked his arm up angrily, then turned and strode away, back in the direction from which he had come.
Remus took a step after him, then changed his mind and walked very rapidly past Gracie towards the road. His face was set in tense, furious determination. He almost bumped into a couple who were walking arm in arm, taking a late stroll in the summer dusk. He muttered an apology and kept straight on.
Gracie ran after him. She had to keep running, he was going so rapidly. He crossed Hyde Park Terrace, continuing north over Grand Junction Road and up to Praed Street and straight into the station for the underground railway.
Gracie’s heart lurched. Where was he going? How far? What was this all about? Who was the man he had met in the park and accused … of what?
She followed him down the steep steps to the ticket window and bought a fourpenny ticket as he did, and went after him. She had been on an underground train before, and seen them coming roaring and screaming out of the tunnels and stop alongside the platform. She had been rigid with terror, and it had taken all the courage she possessed to climb inside that closed tube and be hurtled, in deafening noise, through the subterranean passages.
But she was not going to lose Remus. Wherever he was going, she was going too … to find whatever it was he was pursuing.
The train shot out of the black hole and ground to a stop. Remus got in. Gracie got in behind him.
The train lurched and roared forward. Gracie clenched her fists and kept her lips tightly closed so she would not cry out. Around her everyone else sat stolidly, as if perfectly accustomed to charging through holes under the ground, closed inside part of a train.
They came to the Edgware Road station. People got out, others got in. Remus did not even glance up to see where he was.
The train moved off again.
They passed Baker Street, Portland Road and Gower Street the same way. There was a long stretch to King’s Cross, then they seemed to lurch to the right and roar on, gathering speed.
Where was Remus going to now? What was it that connected Adinett’s trips to Cleveland Street; the girl Annie Crook, who lived there and had been taken away by force, and her lover as well? She had ended up in Guy’s Hospital attended by the Queen’s surgeon himself, who had said she was mad. What had happened to the young man? It seemed no one had heard of him again.
What were the coaches about in Spitalfields? Were