Free The Thief Taker by C.S. Quinn Page A

up.
    ‘It is a witch killing,’ he said, thinking aloud. ‘Everything about the murder looked to be a sacrifice.’
    ‘A witch was recently released from Wapping prison,’ said Marc-Anthony thoughtfully. ‘There is much talk of it in the town. Perhaps there is your murderer.’
    ‘Perhaps. I think the murder is something to do with this.’ Charlie’s hand closed around the key at his neck. ‘The mark on the murdered girl. The brand. It was made in this shape.’
    ‘Sure but this could be good news for you. It might be a chance to discover where your key came from.’
    Charlie laughed a little too loudly.
    ‘That is the stuff of orphan’s dreams,’ he said.
    ‘Yet that key must open something,’ said Marc-Anthony.
    Charlie looked away. As a boy he had thought his mother might have left him the key to find him again. Women left all manner of strange objects in the hope of retrieving their babes once they had the means. Little pieces of fabric, paper scraps, sketches, marked coins, playing cards, charms, shoe buckles and clothes pegs were all part of the medley.
    But it was equally possible he had found the key somewhere between being orphaned as a small boy and left with the nuns. After all, Rowan had nothing. It made no sense for a mother to give one child a memento and not the other.
    Growing up, Charlie had made his own investigations. The key was some odd shape it transpired – double-sided and not like an English key at all. Rather than having one blade it fanned out like a pair of wings and looked suspiciously foreign to most Londoners .
    Nor did it seem the right shape to fit any known lock. Too big for a chest and too small for a door. Even what the key might open was not apparent.
    In his more honest moments Charlie acknowledged he kept a secret faith alive that working as a thief taker could one day lead him to some window of his past. A fact which Marc-Anthony was one of the few to discern.
    ‘I can ask Rowan,’ Charlie decided. His brother tended to know too much of London’s dark doings.
    Marc-Anthony snorted. ‘Your brother? When has he ever helped you Charlie?’ he shook his head. ‘One brother catches thieves and the other gets away with murder. Is that not how it is?’
    The bear howled as the first dog leapt, bit sharply into its chest and dropped back down to avoid the swinging paws. Rising on its haunches the bear launched forward, but the chain caught sharply. A second dog attacked from the side, drawing blood from the th ick neck.
    Charlie thought for a moment, trying to manoeuvre the facts. It was a theft of sorts, he reasoned. The girl’s life had been stolen.
    He replayed the scene in his mind.
    The coin eyes flashed at him. They had not been made by a coin house he recognised which was odd. He turned the fact over and logged it for later consideration.
    Hawthorn on the body. The shrub grew in hedgerows all over London. It thrived mostly in Kings Cross. But hawthorn could have come from any part of the city.
    The brand. That had been his greatest clue. If only the blacksmiths were still in London.
    The crowd were baying for blood now, shouting for the bear and dogs alike. And the bear dropped back to all fours, eyeing the dogs warily. The snarling pack huddled together, then one pounced.
    Like lightning the bear’s claw shot out. And suddenly the dog’s intestines lay outside the ring. In a flash a second dog lay disembowelled at the bear’s feet.
    A great roar went up from the crowd. The canine bodies lolled glassy eyed, but only their owners showed any concern. Everyone else was waving and shouting.
    ‘I hear your Lynette made a visit to the Bucket of Blood,’ said Marc-Anthony, watching his face carefully. ‘You could ask her for help. She could shelter you, at least.’
    ‘She is not my Lynette.’
    Marc-Anthony nodded tactfully. ‘You have both decided on it then? To say that your marriage never happened?’
    Charlie nodded.
    ‘And she agreed to it?’
    The two