Twenty-one
LANGTON ESCAPED FROM the Pier Head and Fallows’s questions at six the next morning. Exhausted and wearing borrowed, mismatched clothes, he hailed a hansom cab and told the driver to head along the Dock Road. He looked back for a moment at the men swarming over the Span; the gas arc lights picked out the engineers, navvies, cablemen, and hordes of Span company officials. Henry Marc Brunel swore that the Span would be open within weeks. The thousands of people waiting to emigrate seemed to believe him.
Langton settled back into the cab’s worn cushions. Every muscle hurt; every part of him cried out for rest, but he knew he had so much yet to do. McBride still waited in the Infirmary with Elsie at his side. Fallows and Purcell had demanded his full report, although Langton doubted that Purcell would welcome what he had to say. Langton still had to officially close the case of Kepler and the missing—presumed lost—Durham. And Queen Victoria herself had asked to see Langton, to thank him in person.
All that must wait.
At Langton’s shout, the cab stopped outside the entrance to Gladstone Dock. Langton walked down the empty steps to the dockside and the tall sides of dark warehouses. He could hear the Mersey slapping the wooden pilings and sandstone quays beneath him. How soft and pleasant that sound seemed now. How deceptive.
Sister Wright’s warehouse reared up at his right. He found the rough wooden door standing ajar. The interior lay dark and apparently empty. Langton clicked on the electric lamp he’d borrowed from Sapper George’s wagon; the beam of white light showed dancing dust motes, an empty hallway, and the darker outlines of open doorways. In the first side room, Langton found the bunks empty and the chairs overturned. A mosaic of bright playing cards spilled from the table and onto the floor.
Deeper inside the building, Langton found the bizarre sitting room quiet and cold. No embers glowed in the hearth. Only the ticking clock broke the silence. The lamp’s beam picked out polished wood, chintz couches, a sparkling decanter. The room waited for an owner who would never return.
Langton stood outside the storeroom door and took deep breaths. He retrieved the key he’d found clutched in Sister Wright’s hand and turned it in the lock. The massive door swung open without a sound. Langton found the light switch inside the entrance and flicked it on.
Caged bulbs filled the room with light and showed shelf after empty shelf. Every jar that Sister Wright had collected, bought, or “rescued” from other gangs had gone into the maw of the machine buried deep in the cavern beneath the Span. Every jar save one.
Sarah’s jar stood in the center of the zinc table. The copper ring and green wax seal glinted. Dwarfed by that cavernous room, it seemed lost and out of place. Alone. Vulnerable. Langton circled the table and ran his hand over its cold metal surface. Then he reached out and picked up the jar in both hands. A ripple of recognition drifted up his arms and made him blink back tears.
Like a priest with a chalice, Langton carried his wife’s jar through the warehouse and along the wharf to the water’s edge. He set it down on the cold stone surface and knelt beside it. He worked the green wax loose with his pocketknife until the gleaming copper seal lay exposed. He gripped the seal, then hesitated. Would Sister Wright have kept her word? Despite her death in the tunnels, would she have ensured Sarah’s resurrection?
Even now, if he kept the jar safe, he could bond with Sarah whenever he wanted. Nobody else would know. He could delay saying good-bye; he wouldn’t have to feel so alone, so bereft. He could connect with her right up to the moment that her depleted essence finally faded to nothing.
How long would that take? Days? Weeks? Possibly months for Sarah trapped inside her prison.
Langton bowed his head a moment before turning the seal in his hand and releasing the lid.
The bright mist within swirled from the jar and enveloped Langton. Soft and warm, it set his skin tingling. He closed his eyes as a thousand overlapping memories surged through him: Sarah laughing before they kissed, dancing to soft music, running through the rain, her eyes locking onto his over a candle’s flame. The feel of her hand resting in his; her skin gliding under his hand; the warmth of her lips on his neck; her words whispering in his ear; the smell of her perfume…
And then she was gone. Langton stood on the wharf and watched the bright mist rise and dissolve into the pink light of dawn over the Mersey. Hand outstretched, he tracked every particle before the sunlight absorbed them. He breathed cold morning air and let the moment settle through him like rain. Then he smiled good-bye and turned back toward the street and the waking city.
Behind him, golden in the new day, rose the waiting towers and cables of the Transatlantic Span. And beyond the Span, America.