Free The Devil in Amber by Mark Gatiss

the fear in his eyes.
    ‘Gotta be careful, pal. Real careful,’ he muttered.
    ‘All right.’
    He nodded towards the drugstore. ‘We can talk in here.’
    Despite having chosen the venue, he seemed to reconsider his choice for fully thirty seconds, looking over his shoulder and then peering through the plate glass of the window. The red liquid in the giant bottle gave his pocked face a hellish tint. Finally, he nodded and let go of my arm.
    I pushed at the door, setting the ‘open’ sign swinging, and we swept inside into a mercifully warm interior.
    A long bar, studded with stools that had the appearance of upholstered mushrooms, took up the whole of one side of the place. On the opposite wall hung a huge rectangular mirror all stuck over with postcards of Florida.
    A fat soda-jerk in a white coat and silly white hat beamed at us over his siphons. I ordered two cups of coffee and the fellah set to work, skilfully brewing the java without even glancing up from his sports magazine.
    Volatile gulped down his.
    ‘Well,’ I said. ‘As they say in the flickers: shoot.’
    He threw a wary glance outside. ‘I’m hoping I can trust you, Mr Box. I need to trust you.’
    ‘Go on.’
    ‘Mons is crazy. He’s turned the whole organization into his personal fan-club. It wasn’t like that before. We had good intentions, I can assure you.’
    I nodded encouragingly, though I knew full well the sort of bigoted trash of which his good intentions consisted.
    ‘You contacted us because you have something on Mons,’ I queried. ‘What is it? You said something about a prayer? And a lamb?’
    Volatile leant forward, eyes wide. ‘I found the Lamb!’ he whispered,as though I should know what he was talking about. ‘Right under their noses! Mons is going crazy looking for it. He thinks he’s on the right track but he’ll find the bird flown!’
    A curious, hissing laugh spluttered from between his teeth. I was beginning to worry that everyone around me was a little unbalanced.
    Volatile’s mood switched back abruptly. He jumped to his feet, crossed swiftly to the door and, shading his eyes, looked out onto the snowy sidewalk. Either he was paranoid to the point of delusion or he was convinced he was being followed.
    I glanced across at the soda-jerk but he was absorbed in his baseball literature.
    Eventually, Volatile sat down again, rubbing his weary face with long, nervous fingers. ‘There’s only one place I’ll be safe. In a church.’
    I almost laughed but managed to disguise my outburst by taking a gulp of coffee. ‘Sanctuary?’
    Volatile bit his lip and the bristles on his unshaven chin curved upwards. ‘Well, not a church, at all really. The Convent of St Bede. It’s in England. I’ve got a passage booked out of here. Got an understanding with the captain. Pier Thirty-Nine. Tonight at midnight. Boat called the Stiffkey .’
    ‘The captain being a big, square fellah. Boozy face, long watch chain?’
    ‘That’s the guy. Name of Corpusty. Know him?’
    ‘Saw him. He didn’t see much of me, though.’
    ‘That’s good.’
    ‘Why?’
    Volatile leant even closer. ‘I want you to go instead of me. The trip’s a blind. I’ve got other means of getting to England. You’ll act as a decoy.’
    He handed me a sheaf of shipping documents. I looked them over.
    ‘Charming. And what do I get out of all this? Am I to expect company? Company with stout boots and tommy guns?’
    ‘I’ll tell you it all!’ cried Volatile. ‘I’ve got the inside track on the whole damn thing. How Mons gets his cash. What he’s got planned for the Lamb. It’s evil, sir! Diabolical .’
    ‘So you said.’
    ‘And if I can get safely to the convent—’
    ‘More coffee?’ The fat soda-jerk was looming over us, coffee pot in hand, beaming through the steam that poured from its pitted lid.
    ‘No, thanks. Look,’ I turned back to Volatile, ‘tell me about this “lamb”. And what’s this alternative escape route of yours? If