CHAPTER 6

1906, San Francisco

Maddy strode down Minna Street towards the bank. ‘Come on.’Liam was struggling to keep up with her. ‘So, who put them in this bank? And when did they do it?’

She reached the front step of the Union Commercial Savings Company and stopped. ‘OK, Liam, just a second

…’ She pul ed her glasses and a scrap of paper covered with scribbled notes in her handwriting out of her handbag.

‘Oh Jay-zus … you brought notes back with you? Isn’t that not al owed? You know? Contamination of time an’

al ?’Maddy looked around the quiet street guiltily. ‘I know, I know … but there was way too much to remember. I was worried I’d forget something.’

‘Foster would throw a t if he knew you’d brought notes back here,’ said Liam.

‘Wel , he won’t, wil he?’ she mut ered impatiently.

‘Because he bailed out and left us to cope on our own.’

Liam shrugged at that.

She put her glasses on. ‘OK, so, my name is Miss Emily Lassiter. You’re my brother.’

Lassiter. You’re my brother.’

‘Do I get a name too?’

She sighed. ‘Yes … uhh … here it is, Leonard Lassiter. Al right?’

He nodded.

She scanned the notes further, digesting the information for a few moments before tucking them back in her bag and removing her glasses. ‘Al right, I think I’ve got it al .’

She looked at him. ‘You don’t have to say anything, OK?

Just go along with whatever I say.’

‘Wil do.’

She took a deep breath, then pushed the double door to the bank inwards. They stepped on to a tiled oor that echoed their footsteps around a hal , dark with oak panels. Ahead of them were half a dozen ornate mahogany desks, each with softly glowing green ceramic desk lamps. Behind each one sat a bank tel er, al but one busy dealing in hushed, respectful tones with customers.

Maddy led the way towards the unoccupied tel er, a young man with hair slicked down in a rigid centre parting and a careful y clipped and waxed moustache.

‘Uhh … ’scuse me?’ she said.

The young man looked up at her and smiled

charmingly. ‘Good morning, ma’am. How can I help you?

‘I’d like to speak with a Mr … uh … Mr Leighton. He works here, I think.’

‘Oh, I’m certain he works here, ma’am,’ said the young man. He tapped a wooden name-holder on the desk. ‘I’m Harold Leighton, you see? Please, wil you take a seat?’

Harold Leighton, you see? Please, wil you take a seat?’

Maddy smiled and slumped down in the seat a lit le too casual y then did her best to quickly recover her lady-like demeanour. ‘Much … uh … much obliged,’ she said as demurely as she could manage.

‘Now, ma’am, how could I assist you?’

She took a breath, hoping she was going to get this right and not sound half as nervous as she felt. ‘My family has a safe deposit box with your bank and I wish to make a withdrawal.’

‘Certainly, ma’am. The account is in the name of?’

‘Joshua Waldstein Lassiter.’

Harold Leighton’s eyebrows raised.

Her heart skipped. ‘Oh … is there a problem?’

‘Not a problem as such, ma’am. It’s just … I stil have the paperwork here on my desk.’

Maddy shook her head. ‘Paperwork?’

‘The paperwork set ing up the safe deposit account. Joshua Waldstein Lassiter, I presume he is your …?’

‘Uh? … My uh … yes, that’s right, my father.’

‘Wel , your father was here not more than an hour ago. Actual y, I dealt with him myself. He brought a very nice jewel ery box with him and we carried it down to the safe room and put it in a deposit box together … as I say, not more than an hour ago.’

‘Oh,’ was al she managed to say after a few moments.

‘Yes, wel , that’s quite right.’

‘And you wish to withdraw something from the safe deposit box already?’

deposit box already?’

She nodded. ‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘Wel … that is highly irregular.’

‘We’re a funny old family, us Lassiters,’ said Maddy, looking back over the chair. ‘Aren’t we, Liam?’

Liam stepped forward. ‘Oh yes, that we are, dear sister.’

He grinned at the tel er. ‘She sometimes cal s me Liam, although my name is in fact Leonard,’ he said, nudging the smal of her back.

Maddy mental y kicked herself for being such a dumbnuts.

‘You are brother and sister?’ Harold Leighton looked up at Liam. ‘And it seems you, sir, are Irish?’

‘Yes.’

‘But,’ he said, looking at Maddy, ‘it seems, ma’am, you’re not?’

‘I … uh …’ Maddy’s mouth apped uselessly. ‘Oh …’

‘I was brought up in Cork,’ cut in Liam. ‘My dear sister in California. Father likes to keep a home either side of the Atlantic, so he does.’

The young tel er cocked an eyebrow. ‘So it seems.’ He sighed and spread the bank account details out in front of him. ‘Wel , it appears your father did specify his children as fel ow signatories on the account, so … you, ma’am, I presume are Emily Lassiter?’

‘That’s correct,’ she replied.

‘For security reasons I have to ask you for the code word your father has put down here on this form to assure us you are in fact who you say you are.’

you are in fact who you say you are.’

‘Of course.’ She nodded. ‘It’s … it’s …’ She realized al of a sudden her mind had gone blank and cursed. The tel er’s jaw dropped open at her unladylike language. ‘Madam!’

Liam grinned sheepishly. ‘She’s spent time at sea. Picked up al sorts of dreadful language from the sailors, so she did. Father so hates her talking that way.’

‘Just a sec,’ said Maddy, fumbling in her handbag for her note. She quickly scanned her scribbled writing. ‘Ahh!

Here it is!’

She leaned forward over the desk. ‘The code word, Mr Leighton, is Hemlock.’

Leighton stared at her long and hard, suspicion clouding his young tel er’s eyes. Final y a cautious smile spread across his lips. ‘Yes, it is, Miss Lassiter. If you’l just sign here, I can take you down to the safe room.’

∗

The tel er spun a large brass wheel and slowly pul ed open the cast-iron door leading on to a smal room lined with numbered deposit boxes on three wal s. ‘Your safe deposit box is number three-nine-seven,’ he said, leading them to a locker with the number on its door. He inserted the key and twisted it once.

‘It is company policy, madam, sir, that I remain in the safe room while you inspect the contents of your deposit box. However, I shal remain over there by the door and I shal turn my back to al ow you a lit le privacy.’

Maddy nodded and smiled politely. ‘OK.’

Maddy nodded and smiled politely. ‘OK.’

She waited until Mr Leighton had crossed the room and was standing by the cast-iron door, casual y jangling the keys in one hand and examining his ngernails on the other.

‘Liam,’ she ut ered softly.

‘Yes?’

‘I think it’s best if you go talk to him, distract him. I don’t want him seeing anything he shouldn’t.’

He nodded. ‘Aye, you’re right.’ He wandered over and easily struck up a conversation with the young man while Maddy at ended to their business.

She pul ed the deposit box’s door open. The faint glow from the safe room’s overhead light showed her lit le of what was inside. Maddy pushed her hand into the darkness and almost immediately felt the side of a wooden box. She found a smal handle and pul ed it out. It was quite heavy, and as she hefted it out of the locker towards an inspection bench in the middle of the room, the young man cal ed out.‘Let me give you a hand with that, madam.’

‘I’m ne … I’m ne,’ she grunted.

‘Strong as an ox, so she is,’ Liam assured him. ‘She’l be al right.’ He resumed chat ing to Leighton, something about steam ships, from what she could hear. She studied the box. It certainly looked like a jewel ery box, about the size of a smal travel trunk, made of dark wood with silver buckles and ornate swirls along each side. She turned the box so that the upright lid would hide side. She turned the box so that the upright lid would hide what was inside from any prying eyes, and then slowly, careful y opened it.

‘Another box,’ she whispered. But this one was smooth, featureless, metal and cold to the touch.

Refrigerated. There had to be some kind of smal power unit or bat ery inside.

Her gloved ngers found a catch on the side and gently slid it back. Something inside the box clicked and the lid slowly raised with a barely audible hiss. A shal ow fog of nitrogen wafted out of the box revealing a row of eight glass tubes, each six inches long and a couple of inches wide. She eased one of the glass tubes out of its holder and, stil shielded by the lid of the jewel ery box, inspected it closely. Through the glass she could see the murky pink growth solution and the faint pale outline of a curled-up human foetus.

‘Hel o there, lit le baby Bobs!’ she cooed softly, waggling her ngers down at the frozen embryo. ‘Auntie Maddy’s here.’

The conversation in the corner was get ing quite animated. Clearly Leighton had a passion for new-fangled things like steam ships and automobiles. And Liam was playing along nicely.

Wel done, Liam.

She placed the glass tube back and closed the lid of the refrigerated case, lifting it out of the jewel ery box and into her bag. She was about to close the lid of the jewel ery box when she spot ed a scrap of paper at the jewel ery box when she spot ed a scrap of paper at the bot om. What she saw on it made her heart lurch. Her name.

A note for me?

She reached in and picked it up. Just a folded scrap of paper, a few words scrawled hurriedly on it. Maddy, look out for ‘Pandora’, we’re running out of time. Be safe and tel no one.

‘How’re you doin’, my dear sister?’ cal ed out Liam.

‘I’m good,’ she replied, grabbing the scrap of paper, bal ing it up and tucking it into one of her gloves. She closed the box and lifted it back into the locker, much lighter now. She closed the door. ‘I’m al done here, Mr Leighton!’

‘Ah, splendid!’ He came over with his jangling keys and locked the deposit box for her.

‘Everything al right?’

She glanced at Liam making a sil y face at her over Leighton’s shoulder.

‘Yes … yes, just ne, thank you.’

A minute later they were exiting the bank on to Minna Street once more, Liam holding the bag for her.

‘Nice enough chap,’ he said.

She turned to look at him. ‘A dozen hours from now he’l be dead.’

‘Dead?’

‘Dead?’

‘Yes, dead. That’s why the instructions said to ask for him speci cal y.’ She’d gured that out on the way back up the stairs. Because if anything happened, if the young man had caught a glimpse of anything inside the box, or heard either of them say anything suspicious … wel , he’d hardly have time to do anything with that knowledge, would he? The agency once again cleverly covering its tracks.

‘Jaayyzz. That seems not right to me,’ ut ered Liam. ‘Not to warn him somehow.’

Maddy didn’t like it either. ‘It’s how it is, Liam. It’s how it is.’

As they walked up Minna Street towards the main thoroughfare, Liam at empted to lift the mood. ‘You got our lit le babies?’

She nodded. ‘Al in there. Baby Popsicles.’

‘Baby what?’