Chapter Fifty-Two
She wished Damien would follow her. That he would run after her, and tell her that she was right.
That he could stay, that he would stay, and as she turned the corner of Park Lane, she wondered whether she had conjured him to her doorstep – for there was someone there.
Her pace quickened, for there was something familiar about his posture, the way his shoulders hunched, though when she drew closer, she saw it wasn’t Damien at all.
‘You were here before,’ Ava said quietly. ‘You asked whether this was a boarding house.’
The man nodded, holding his hand out between them. ‘Indeed. Though that is not why I have returned. My name is Mr Briggs.’
‘Mr … Briggs.’ Ava wiped the wetness from her cheeks, frowning, for she remembered that name. Remembered when Damien had sat before her and told her the story of his father’s letters.
‘I believe we have a mutual acquaintance. One in dire need of help.’
His hand still hovered between them, but she didn’t reach for it. Instead, her eyes raked over his fluffy brown hair, barely contained beneath his hat, his carefully oiled moustache, the elegant way his collar snapped around his neck. ‘You’re after Damien,’ she said – her voice low, and ragged.
‘Mr Carter,’ corrected Mr Briggs, hand lowering.
‘Yes. I’ve seen him return to this address on a number of occasions, but I couldn’t quite work out why.
’ His tone hooked around the words as though it were a question, but Ava kept her face blank, her gaze stony.
‘Tell me: what sort of work is it that you do?’
‘Mesmerism,’ she said. ‘Memory work,’ and watched as the man flipped to a new page in his notebook, and those three words translated into a whole minute of silent scratching.
‘And what does that mean for Mr Carter?’
‘That means I don’t tell strangers upon my doorstep his secrets,’ she said firmly. ‘Though rest assured that would be true for anyone, not merely Mr Carter.’
The man ran a gloved hand over his beard, the leather coming away shiny. ‘Why don’t we go inside?’ he said, gesturing to the door. ‘And I shall explain everything.’
‘You can explain it here,’ she said, unmoving. ‘What do you want with Damien?’
‘You are on first-name terms,’ he said slowly. ‘So you must know his address? Know where he is staying in the city?’
‘Answer my question,’ said Ava, crossing her arms over her chest.
The man paused, tapping his pencil against the page. ‘I wish to help him,’ he said. ‘Him and his father, both. But each time I get anywhere near him, he runs.’
Ava raised an eyebrow. ‘What are you?’ she asked, eyeing his coat, his brooch. ‘Police?’
‘No,’ said the man, scribbling something else upon the page. ‘Damien’s father tasked me to find his son. Did you know it has been almost a decade since Damien has seen him? His father has been very worried.’
Ava let the words sink in as the cold air tugged her wisping blonde hair from beneath her hat. ‘If Damien wants to see his father, I imagine he knows where to find him. If he’s running—’
‘He’s running because he believes a lie,’ said Mr Briggs. ‘A lie that his father is rather desperate to unravel. Surely you would be, too? He must be suffering for it.’
Ava blinked, and for a moment she was back on that street, listening to the thud of her own heartbeat in her ears as he’d said: This cannot work between us, Ava. It can’t. No matter how much I wish it could.
Ava’s gaze caught upon the diamond, twinkling now in the low lamplight, and she watched the sharp angles of it blur.
I just don’t want it to happen again.
I don’t want you to change in front of me, like he did.
‘And what would you do?’ she asked. ‘If you were to find him?’
‘We would talk,’ said the detective. ‘I would straighten some things out. And then, all things being equal, I would reunite Damien with his father. That is what I have been hired to do, Miss Adams. Reunite a grieving man with his son.’
‘That’s all?’
‘That’s all,’ said the man, snapping the notepad shut, and tucking it into the silk pocket of his coat.
Ava swallowed, considering it, her thoughts as loud as the wind picking up between the trees. Because the man was right – Damien had suffered for it. He’d spent years believing he was a bad person – worthy of only bad things – and she knew that wasn’t true.
But he hadn’t believed her, when she’d tried to tell him.
But perhaps … he would believe this man.
He would believe his father.
And then perhaps everything he had said at the teashop – everything he had unravelled – perhaps that would go away, too? For he wouldn’t need to go to America. And he wouldn’t need to leave. And then …
‘He’ll be at the apothecary in Manchester Street,’ she said. ‘In a few days’ time.’
And the man’s smile was like the flicker-flare of a match being lit.