A man in an expensive looking jacket and top hat, who used a cane when he walked, entered the prosthetics clinic at approximately half past eleven. He was inside for forty five minutes, and then hailed a motorcab when he left. A man in a flat cap and worn clothing, who had only one arm, entered the clinic at around half past twelve. He left after ten minutes, and looked upset as he staggered down the street. A woman entered the clinic about five minutes later, and then a delivery driver unloaded some packages ten minutes after that. The woman left around twenty minutes after the packages were delivered. She had been wearing a red dress.
On a rooftop opposite the clinic, Stella sighed. She had no idea what she was looking for, but after an entire morning watching the clinic, she had found nothing. Weren’t there supposed to be clues? How would she even recognise a clue if she saw one? She had no idea who any of these people were, or what was and wasn’t important.
She stayed in place, watching.
She counted the number of windows she could see from this spot. Fifty four. She timed each person that entered. She counted three hundred and forty eight pigeons on the rooftops around this street. She made little notes in a notebook about every person who went inside. Anything might be important.
Nothing might be important.
She drank cold potato soup from a flask, and ate a sandwich she had brought with her. There was ham and lettuce on the sandwich, which Violet had made. At least it was better than the food in the brothel. She was still shocked that their sandwiches had nothing but lettuce on them.
As the afternoon moved on, she saw a one-legged man helped into the clinic and leave on his own two feet a few hours later. A stray dog peed in front of the clinic window. The receptionist left and came back with a bag from a local shop, probably the staff lunch run.
Stella yawned.
She had really thought watching the place would pay off, but it hadn’t.
Eventually, the receptionist and nurse left, and then the doctor came out and locked the clinic up behind him. Stella waited a little longer.
Harley Street was around one hundred and fifty years old, a Georgian terrace with a wide carriageway and pavements on either side. That meant it was around 40 feet across, and her silk tentacles only reached twenty. She’d considered attempting to form a catapult with them, but silk lacked the elasticity required for that purpose, and even with her control of it she couldn’t manage to make it work.
She had catapulted into the warehouse through the window, but that been easier simply because the distance was much shorter.
Another option was to attempt to form a bridge with the silk that led out halfway across the street, and then form another to the next building. It was something she had never practised, and above a busy road seemed like a bad place for it to go wrong.
One of her tentacles shot out and grabbed a chimney, and she walked along the roof until it was pulled taut. If she kept it as tight as she could, she should be able to swing halfway across the street. Theoretically. Then she could catch the next building with another tentacle.
Grinning beneath her volto, she sprinted off the edge of the building. The tight silk swung her out towards the centre of the street, and just before she started to curve, she released it. She passed a few feet through the air before her next tentacle shot towards the distant building… and missed.
As she started to lose height, four more tentacles shot out and one grabbed purchase. She swung down on it and landed on the street before the clinic. Startled pedestrians turned to stare at her.
She bowed. “Venario’s Circus, Hyde Park. For the next week only, do not miss the startling and amazing acts.”
The pedestrians clapped, and one little boy grabbed at his mother’s sleeve and asked if they could go see the clowns. Stella felt a little guilty about that, but what else could she have done?
Her tentacles shot upwards and a moment later she was on the roof of the clinic, berating herself for not being more careful.
She waited half an hour, to be sure no one who had seen her remained, then dropped down in front of the clinic. A thin strip of silk entered the lock and she felt it manoeuvring inside. The handcuffs had been so much easier than this, but they had also been smaller and lighter. It took her almost five minutes to fill the lock with silk and manipulate the tumblers. Londoners passed by without paying her any attention. This was London, after all.
Eventually it clicked open and she slid into the dark waiting room, closing the door behind her.
She crossed to the reception desk and started opening drawers. Stationery supplies. An appointment calendar. Notes about patients. Nothing that seemed like a clue, or connected the clinic to the brothel or the warehouse. Nothing that made her stop and say “ah hah!”
Stella moved into the back room and started looking through things there. Display models. Prosthetics designed specifically for particular clients but not yet fitted. Client files. Those were interesting: all of the clients were incredibly wealthy, but they’d have to be. A full leg here cost more than a car. Her mother’s house in Highgate might actually cost an arm and a leg.
There were no clues, or if there were, she was forced to admit they weren’t obvious enough for her to see them. Her mother had trained her to fight, to hunt, to lead, but not to investigate. She was used to knowing what to do, not to finding what to do. This was a hunt of a kind, but when she hunted animals she knew trail signs, she could recognise animal prints, spoor, and fur. She could identify creatures by their scent on the wind and the visible signs of their passage.
This was a kind of hunting she was not trained in.
Thankfully, her bibi-daj had taught her what to do when she was out of her depth. It was time to call in an expert. Stella knew just who to go to, too.
She left the clinic and climbed to a roof, then removed her mask. Her clothes altered colour and style as she crossed the rooftop and when she dropped back to the ground two streets later, she looked like any other pedestrian. She bought a copy of the London Eye and read it on the tram.
The headlines were mainly still about the explosions and gang riots. France, Britain, Sweden, and Norway had formed some kind of Baltic naval task force to monitor shipping in the area. A vast fire in New York on Thursday had left ten thousand people homeless. Sinn Fein had won the Irish General Election yesterday, but the party was split between pro-treaty and anti-treaty factions, and neither of those had achieved power, so no one really knew what would happen next. The Sabini boys who had been arrested were already back out on the streets. The Birmingham Boys had been released but kicked out of London, and were on their way home. Or probably home already.
She flicked absently through the paper but nothing caught her attention, and not even the crossword seemed worth doing. Perhaps it was the mood she was in. Perhaps she was in a mood where nothing could catch her attention?
She moved slowly across the city, transferring from tram to omnibus to tram, finding no reason to hurry. It was definitely her mood that was the issue. The investigation had stalled and with it so had her desire to do anything. She didn’t even want to hit someone, and she pretty much always wanted to hit someone.
She was so lost in her thoughts that she almost walked into the police station, remembering only at the last moment that she was unmasked, and she couldn’t risk Donald, Northwoods, or any the other coppers from the night of her arrest seeing her. She kept walking at a casual pace, turned the first corner she came to, found a sheltered location no one seemed to be observing, and rose to the rooftops.
With her clothes altered back to what she thought of as her battle suit, and her mask firmly in place, she settled into a shadow on the roof and watched the police station. Investigations seemed to involve a lot of waiting and watching. Some hunts were like that, lying in wait as the prey slowly came closer, but Stella had always preferred the pursuit kind of hunting. There was something inherently thrilling about running down prey, and like she had told Violet yesterday, meat really did taste better when one killed it themself.
Three cops were dragging two women into the station. They looked like they had been fighting. One had a bloody lip, the other a black eye. Both were resisting as best they were able, and one tried to bite a copper. Stella admired her spirit.
She formed silk tentacles into a chair and sat back to watch the street. She wasn’t in any kind of hurry, but this might take a while.
If she had been in a hurry, she’d have called the station and had DI Donald meet her, but he’d want information if she did that. This way she could have a chance encounter with him, get his help on her investigation, and he wouldn’t require payment in kind. Hopefully. She didn’t have any information to pay him with.
After around an hour or so, DI Donald left the station. She followed along on the roof as he walked down the street. At times the roofs changed heights, but she easily leapt down or scurried up and didn’t fall far behind. He wasn’t walking particularly fast. He had his head down, his shoulders hunched, his hands in his pockets, obviously deep in thought. She wondered what mysteries he was pondering, and if the stroll would help clear his mind.
He turned a few times as he went, seeming to follow a route he knew without thinking, or perhaps he was walking aimlessly, lost in thought. No, she realised a moment later, he had been heading for this street, and now he had slowed considerably and seemed to be scanning the ground as he walked. About a third of the way along the street he stopped and squatted down, staring at the road before him.
Stella glanced around, making sure the street was empty, then dropped to the ground. He looked up as she approached.
“What do you know about the Birmingham Boys and the explosions?” he asked.
“Just what I read in the paper.”
“Nothing more than that? Because we arrested a tall young woman that night that reminded me of you.”
“Lots of tall women in the city, detective. Diamond Annie’s almost my height.”
“Diamond Annie can’t get one of the most exclusive lawyers in the city out of bed in the middle of the night.”
Stella considered that. “Financially, she probably could. It would depend on the lawyers motivation, but honestly it sounds like you arrested a nob.”
“And you’re not a nob? Running around the city dressed like a… what are you meant to be anyway?”
“I’m a concerned citizen,” she told him again, moving forward a few spaces to see what he had been looking at. There was a metal grate, a sewer drain, in the road in front of him.
“Yeah, you look like one,” he replied.
“Did the bombers escape through the sewers?”
“What? No. No, I’m no longer investigating the bombings or the gangs or anything like that.”
“Oh. Why not?”
“Politics. Racism. My bosses are pricks. Take your pick, any or all of those reasons.” He practically growled the words. She wasn’t the best at understanding the emotions of others, but it couldn’t possibly have been more clear that he was unhappy.
It didn’t seem like the right time to ask for investigation advice.
“What’s with the sewer?” she asked instead.
“We got a report that a diamond ring was stolen. I’ve been sent out to check if it was dropped along this route. There seems to be something metal down there, in amongst the mud and leaves.”
She moved beside him, and saw the dull, dirty metal he was looking at. A slender tendril of silk slid down between the grates and wrapped around the metal, then slowly lifted it out. She dropped the ring into his outstretched hand. “There, you solved it.”
His fingers slowly closed around the dirty ring. “It’s not the right one.”
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