Free The Body at the Tower by Y. S. Lee

hysterical giggle in her throat didn’t climb high enough to be heard.
    Keenan swung the belt one last time but rather half-heartedly, as though acknowledging that the game was over.
    “Why are you all standing about? Back to work, all of you! Except you, Keenan – what is the meaning of this!” Mr Harkness was standing before them. Slowly, the other trades melted back towards their tasks.
    Keenan looked mutinous. He stared at Harkness for a long minute, his chest rising and falling rapidly. “Why, Mr Harkness, sir,” he finally said, his voice velvety and dangerous, “how kind of you to take an interest in a matter of site discipline.”
    Bright patches of red appeared on Harkness’s cheeks, and on the top of his bald head. “I said, what is the meaning of this?!” His voice was shrill, the twitch going double-time.
    Another silence. The only sound now was of Jenkins’s sobbing. Eventually, Keenan said, “The lad’s got to be punished.”
    “What for?”
    “Playing the fool. Damaging materials.”
    Harkness took a deep breath and turned to Mary. “Is this true?”
    From the corner of her eye, she saw Keenan’s face twist with rage. “Yes, sir.”
    Harkness looked surprised. “You wilfully damaged Keenan’s property?”
    “Not on purpose, sir. But between us, Jenkins and I broke a brick.”
    “A brick!” Harkness turned back to Keenan. “You would thrash a pair of children within an inch of their lives for one damaged brick?”
    “I thrashed them for playing the fool. They’ve no business messing about with tools. The damage could have been much worse.”
    Harkness’s face turned very pale. Through clenched teeth he said, “Unless you wish your entire gang dismissed, you’ll remember who’s in charge of this building site, Keenan. Quinn will no longer assist any of you. You’ll work short-handed until you find another bricklayer, and I expect to see progress as usual.”
    Keenan flushed a shade darker but didn’t reply.
    “Do you hear and understand?” roared Harkness.
    “Yes. Sir.” He spat the words as though they tasted bitter. “And I’ll remember this. Sir.”
    If Harkness was troubled by the threat, he gave no sign of it. “Come then, children.” He beckoned to Mary and Jenkins, and she suddenly realized she’d been holding her breath. Although the other workmen made a show of returning to their tasks, they stared openly as the three of them marched past: Harkness in the lead, Jenkins hobbling as best he could, Mary bringing up the rear.
    She could feel Keenan’s gaze on their backs. It was nothing like warm sunlight, more like an icy drill through her skull. Her thoughts were all confusion, her legs rubbery beneath her. She was still trembling, although this time it was with relief. But even as she followed Harkness and Jenkins, she began to wonder about the significance of Harkness’s rescue. He hadn’t intervened in time to save Jenkins from a savage beating. But in saving her from a similar lashing, Harkness had safeguarded her identity, and thus the entire assignment. She had to ask whether he knew the truth, or any part of it. And if so, what he expected in return.

Eight
    Miss Phlox’s lodging house
    Coral Street, Lambeth
    C oral Street was lively in the evening, with children and women calling to one another across the street and over garden walls. Washing was pegged out on clotheslines, itinerant hawkers stocked their pushcarts for the evening’s sales, an umbrella repairman was at work on a front step. It was a bustling domestic scene of the sort that still, occasionally, gave Mary a pang. Tonight, it made her eyes prickle. Had her father lived, that could have been her family’s fate: a modest but cosy home, younger brothers and sisters, and supper around the table every night.
    Tired as she was, Mary knew the scene in her mind was improbable. Her parents had been very poor, her father away at sea more often than not, her brothers stillborn. Yet she clung