Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
Her eyes dart to the little threshold where she emerged, but she keeps hacking at the mortar, a small pile of lime forming at the base of the old buttress as her fingers get pinker in the cold.
She sticks at it. The light is leeching out of the sky and up the hill, what little she can see of the castle framed in the peachy glow of dusk.
Finally, she manages to manoeuvre the smallest stone out.
On the rear there’s an image scratched into the rock; a rose and two buds surrounded by a rectangle made of curlicues.
Araminta stares, unsure what to do. Her fingers are so cold now they’re painful.
She silently curses Berenice because she has no idea what this clue means though she’s risked her life to get it.
Flowers in a frame, she thinks, desperately, but nothing comes.
She can’t put the stone back – the lack of mortar will make it too obvious.
But if she takes it with her and she’s caught by Thom, she’ll be handing him the twelfth clue.
She quickly settles on wedging the stone behind a gutter beyond the lead flashing.
She edges carefully along the roofline and glancing down sees Thom once more, this time emerging from the building she was held in, with another man.
They’re in animated conversation, looking up and down the High Street, stopping passersby.
Araminta has to remind herself to breathe.
She reaches to jam the stone behind the gutter, but her fingers are so cold that she lets go too soon.
The stone scutters downwards. She reaches to catch it and loses her footing, gasping as she falls, saving herself by grabbing a gargoyle’s ear.
Her feet scramble on the wet slates and she manages to pull herself up as the twelfth clue comes to rest above the gutter, under its own steam.
She rests for a moment, panting, hardly able to believe that she didn’t fall. That nobody below noticed.
Then on the street past County Hall, a lamplighter carrying a ladder points upwards. ‘Hey!’ he booms. ‘Lassie!’
She steps backwards, out of his line of sight and makes an assessment.
The stone isn’t wedged where she wanted it, but neither is it obvious.
The wind might dislodge the clue, but it isn’t windy now.
And no doubt, Thom is coming. She must flee.
She scrambles back into the church and thunders down the stairs in a panic, pulling herself together with deliberation before emerging into the rear of the nave.
As she steps onto the flagstones, she draws the green cape round her body so that the damage to her clothes isn’t visible.
She tells herself she must simply disappear into the darkness.
There’s a kerfuffle at the door, the lamplighter, having divested himself of his ladder, is explaining loudly to one of the ministers that he’s seen a woman on the roof.
Araminta ducks behind the pulpit. The church is lit only by candles, and now the windows are darkening, it’s getting dimmer and dimmer.
She pulls up the hood to shield her face.
The minister is remonstrating with the lamplighter and it looks as if he might get rid of him when suddenly Thom appears in the doorway and realises immediately that the man is talking about her.
The concerns of a gentleman are a different proposition.
Thom raises his voice. ‘My sister. Quite mad. Widowed.’ She catches the concern in his tone.
‘I’m afraid what she might do . . .’ The charlatan.
This is how it happens, she thinks. This is what the lady in the newspaper had to endure.
Araminta feels anger stir in her belly. He had her locked in that room in this shabby guise of caring.
By lying that they’re related. That she’s somehow mad.
And nobody asked. Nobody checked. How dare they?
The minister doesn’t question Thom’s story any more than it seems the men who jailed her did.
He points towards the doorway that leads to the staircase.
Araminta watches Thom pass through it, scarcely able to believe that he doesn’t notice her.
But he’s focussed on going upwards. He thinks she’s there.
She can hear his first few steps, hammering up the stairs, so she takes her chance, moving smooth and low past the pews, towards the main door.
The minister is talking to a congregant.
Just as she reaches the exit he looks up.
‘Madam,’ he says loudly. He makes a movement as if to flag her down, but she keeps going, gives an elegant nod and steps outside.
The lamplighter is smoking on the setts as she emerges into the freezing dusk.
‘Ha!’ he lets out. Perhaps it’s the cape. ‘I’ve caught you bonnie now.’
Araminta silently puts her finger to her lips, her mind racing over which direction she ought to take as she makes off as fast as she can across Parliament Square and down the steps to the Cowgate.
The minister emerges. ‘Madam!’ he exclaims again, but she doesn’t stop.
St Giles’s roof is not afforded a view in this direction.
It burns her that Thom has got away with his lies.
But, she reasons, she’s shot three bullets into a tomb and climbed onto the roof of the cathedral.
She must keep going. Casting a glance behind she sees the minister in conversation with the lamplighter, as they decide whether to pursue her. She continues swiftly down the close.