Page 40 of A Case of Possession
“That’s the Hawkes and Cheney suit!” said Merrick, outraged. “I’ll never get that stain out.”
“I’ll bleed more carefully next time,” Leonora assured him. “Hello, Frank.”
“Missus. You alright?”
“She’s fine. It was the rats.” Crane took the parcel. “The ones that got Rackham. While you’re here, I don’t suppose you know anything about Tsang Ma and Bo Yi?”
Merrick looked blank. “Can’t say I do, my lord. Who’s that, then?”
“The dead shamans.”
“What, the ones the rats killed, down in Limehouse? That’s not their names, is it?”
“Yes.”
“You sure?” said Merrick, frowning. “Could have sworn they said something else.”
“Said?” Stephen repeated. “Weren’t they dead?”
“I didn’t mean when they was dead, sir,” Merrick said kindly. “I mean, back in China.”
Crane choked. “What? When?”
“When I bumped into ’em back home. Good few years back, that was.”
“You knew them?Why the hell didn’t you say?”
“Why didn’t I say what?” demanded Merrick. “‘Hey, them two Chinese shamans, they was shamans from China?’ I told you every time I passed someone I ever met, we’d never talk about anything else! My lord.”
Crane glared at him. “You’re not fooling anyone, you know. So who are they?”
Merrick turned his hands up in exasperation. “I dunno, do I? They was a couple of bumpkin shamans what I met in some clapshop. Nobodies. You didn’t know them, I didn’t know them.”
“So why do you remember them?” asked Stephen.
“Well, you don’t see shamans in a whorehouse much, sir. And they was a funny-looking pair. Pretty torn up when I saw them the other day, and they’d got old, ain’t we all, but one of ’em had this, like, flower shape on his cheek, birthmark sort of thing, and the other one had a face likema po do fu. Very pockmarked, is what I mean, sir. Stuck in the mind.”
“Yes, Mrs. Hart?” said Esther.
Everyone turned. Leonora was staring at nothing, mouth slightly open. Her skin was pallid.
“Leo?” said Crane.
“Who were the shamans, Mrs. Hart?” Esther asked.
“Pa Ma and Lo Tse-fun,” Leonora whispered. “They’re dead? And so is Rackham… Oh, no. No no no. I have to get out of here.”
“You’re going nowhere.” Crane grasped her wrist as she leapt up.
“Get off me!”
Crane tightened his grip. “Sit down.”
Leonora struggled fruitlessly. “Let me go, you bastard,” she snarled, in English, and then slapped a hand over her mouth like a child.
“Watch your language,” said Crane. “And stop playing the fool. Whatever this is about, your best chance is to tell these two about it right now.”
Leonora swallowed. “They’ll want me dead.”
