“His name?”
There was a pause. “Do you mean it’s a woman?” Sebastian couldn’t keep the excitement out of his voice. “Mrs. Slater is your master, isn’t she? She’s the one who told you to make me disappear? Tell me I’m wrong, Hal!”
Hal looked away and said nothing.
“Is she here in the village? Where can I find her?”
Hal’s face looked pale and wretched in the gloomy light. “She’s not here. She’s in Lon’on, safely hid, and I can’t tell you where, so don’ ask. She’s my cousin, Mr. Thorne,” he went on, in genuine misery. “I didn’ want to leave you in t’mire, and that’s the truth, sir.”
“Then why did you, Hal?”
“She told us we was t’make it look like an accident.”
“By ‘us’ I presume you mean you and your son?”
“Aye.”
“Where is he now?”
“Jed’s gone back to Lon’on. He only come up here to give me orders from her…Angela. He followed you,” he added, with a hint of his old spark, “and you never even knew it. I thought you was a man with eyes in the back of his head, Mr. Thorne? He showed you, eh?”
“I’ll congratulate him when I see him,” Sebastian said, icily.
He tried to think, but his head was buzzing. Mrs. Slater—Angela Slater—was alive! And she was on his home turf, in London. That made it all so much easier. And perhaps it also explained why she had brought the children here to Yorkshire all those years ago—because she had family in this area and felt safe.
More worrying was the fact that Hal’s son had followed him here. How did Jed know that Sebastian was planning to come to Yorkshire? And more importantly, what he meant to do once he got here? Who had told Mrs. Slater that, after all these years, someone was looking for her? As far as Sebastian was concerned, only he and Aphrodite knew the details of his assignment. The first thing he’d do when he returned to London was visit her and ask her who else knew.
“I despise that woman,” Hal muttered, and Sebastian realized he meant his cousin. “Do you know she has houses where she brings girls, young girls, and sells them to men? She makes money from misery. I always warned Jed against being drawn into that world, I told him it were no good, but in the end it didn’ stop him. The thought of being rich lured him, like a fox to the lamb, and last year he left. I know’d he’d gone to work for Cousin Angela. Some days I still hope to persuade him to come home, sir. ’Twas for Jed’s sake I lied to you and took you to the mire. Whatever he’s become, he’s my son. He’s my flesh and blood.”
Sebastian sighed. He’d been so looking forward to a good bout of fisticuffs, but Hal was making it difficult to hate him unreservedly.
“Tell me where Jed is. Perhaps I can persuade him of the error of his ways.”
“And what’d Angela do to us if she found out I’d told?”
“Isn’t the risk worth it? Anyway, it’s not Jed I want, it’s her. I can stop her. I can have her arrested and jailed. Isn’t that what you want? You said you despised her and wanted to save your son? This way we both win.”
“She’ll know!” He looked terrified. “She’ll send her creatures after me.”
“Why should she? I’m not going to tell. But if you’re worried, then go away somewhere and keep your head down until it’s over.”
“You asked me before what happened to her husband,” Hal said, glancing over his shoulder as if he expected to see Angela Slater leering in the shadows. “He called himself her husband, at any rate, though no one remembered seeing a preacher say the words over them. Anyway, this was back when she was farming babes in Lon’on, years ago. Too many of t’bairns were dying, and there was nasty talk. Folk said she was letting the babes die, and keeping t’money she was paid for their upkeep for herself. Some even said it went further than neglect. Well, her husband, he gave her up to the magistrates to save his own skin. But she had friends—she has friends everywhere, Mr. Thorne, never forget that. The court let her off, and next thing her husband was dead,
dragged up out of the river, with his tongue cut out. Some folk said the fishes ate it out, but we knew it was her revenge on him, to show he’d blabbed.” He fixed Sebastian with staring eyes. “If she’d do that to her man, imagine what she’d do to us.”
“All the more reason why she needs to be stopped, Hal. You have to help me, or you’ll be frightened of shadows for the rest of your life. Do you want that? I don’t think you’re a bad man, Hal. I think you’re loyal to your son, and that loyalty has forced you into an intolerable position. But that doesn’t change the fact that you tried to murder me. I could go to the constable now and have you arrested. You’d hang for it, or else see out your days at Botany Bay.”
“I didn’t want to trick you into t’mire,” Hal said sullenly. “I told you—”
“Then prove it. Save yourself. Save Jed.”
Hal slumped in his chair, accepting that Sebastian was right, and that there was no other way.
“She has a house in Mallory Street. That’s the one Jed’s in charge of, or so he boasted to me. Turned my stomach, it did.” He took a deep breath. “Number forty-four Mallory Street. There are other places, but that’s the only one I know about.”
“Thank you, Hal. You’ve done the right thing. I’ll keep Jed out of it if I can.” Excitement rippled through him. He had an address, a starting point!
Hal was watching him anxiously. “What’re you going to do now?”