Page 45 of The Journal of a Thousand Years
“Describe him.”
“Tall, about thirty. Red hair. He’s not from around here. I’d never seen him before and he wore good clothes. Not like a toff, but not like the sort that usually come in here.”
Red hair, good clothes… The description rang a bell. A rather large, loud one.
It did for Alex and Willie, too, going by the flicker of excitement to cross their faces. Alex wasn’t ready to leave, however. “Do you have a telephone?”
The publican pointed to a booth near his office. “Who you calling?”
“Scotland Yard.”
“I don’t want the pigs crawling around here! They’re bad for business, and for my health.”
“I’ll tell them to be discreet, and just send two men. One will be a sketch artist. You’re going to give him a description of the redheaded man who spoke to Mad Dog and he’s going to draw his likeness.”
The publican grumbled his irritation over the disruption to his day.
Alex handed him the money he was going to give him earlier. This time the publican took it.
Alex made the phone call, then we waited. Willie ordered a drink, and brought it over to where I sat with Alex, waiting for the sketch artist and his escort to arrive.
Willie thumped Alex’s shoulder. “We got her! After all these years, we finally got her!”
“Her?” I prompted. “Don’t you mean him? Valentine?”
“Nope. His mother, Hope. Lady Bloody Coyle. I knew she was no good the first time I met her years ago. Now she’s gone and done something real stupid and we’re going to put her behind bars. Her and her idiot son, Valentine.” She smirked before she downed her drink.
Alex drummed his fingers on the table. “She might not be involved. Valentine could have acted alone.”
“He can’t plan his way to the mailbox and back. Shemustbe behind it.”
“Why would either of them want to kidnap Gabe?” I asked.
“For his magic,” Willie said. “Just like Thurlow and Jakes.”
Alex glared at the window, as if willing the police to hurry. “We’ll call on them and find out what they have to say for themselves.”
“Are we meeting your father there?” I asked.
“No. He doesn’t know we suspect Valentine. I want to question him myself without my father present.”
Willie let out awhoop. “This could get interesting.” She held up her empty glass. “Another, barkeep!”
CHAPTER 10
Gabe’s father’s cousin, the widow of the manipulative Lord Coyle, lived in a modest flat with her adult son. Despite owning a Rolls-Royce—driven by the chauffeur rumored to be Valentine’s real father—she had found herself in reduced circumstances in the years following Lord Coyle’s death. Her son’s answer to their situation was to invest heavily in financial schemes I’d never heard of. From the look of their flat, his latest was yet to bear fruit. There was less furniture than on our last visit.
Willie picked up a shirt from the pile in the basket beside the table that was currently being used as an ironing board. The hot iron sat in its cradle out of harm’s way. “Someone steal your furniture, Hope? Or did the debt collectors catch up with you?”
Lady Coyle’s blue eyes flared with her fury. They’d once been her best feature, so I’d been told. Apparently, she’d been a beauty in her youth. But her blonde hair was now white, and her hourglass figure was shaped more like a barrel. Her lace dress only enhanced her age. It was at least a decade out of date.
She snatched the shirt from Willie. “I assume this isn’t a social call?” Her gaze flitted between the three of us. “Where’s Gabriel?” Her words slurred a little. It wasn’t the only evidenceshe’d been drinking. A bottle of gin sat on the floor beside a chair.
A door opened, revealing a bedroom beyond. Valentine, the current Lord Coyle, emerged wearing trousers and an undervest that had gone gray after years of use. His feet were bare. “Is my shirt ironed yet? Oh. You lot. What are you doing here?”
Willie regarded him, hand on hip. “Nice to see you, too, Val. Now, where is he?”
“Where is who?”
