Read Chapter 17: The Meet

The callbox at the end of Cable Street still stank of piss and burnt rubber. Arthur pressed his back against the brick, watching the pub across the road—The Bleeding Hart—through a smeared window that hadn't been cleaned since the war. He'd sent word through a kid he knew from the yards, a nipper who ran messages for tuppence and didn't ask questions. The note had been simple: *Signalman wants a word. Same place as the wharf job. Bring your conscience.*

Scar wouldn't come for conscience. But he'd come for curiosity, and maybe for fear. Arthur counted on both.

He'd been standing there for forty minutes, the torn sack of cash digging into his ribs beneath his coat. He'd counted it twice in the church tower before dawn. Eight hundred quid, give or take a few crumpled notes. Not enough to buy safety. Enough to buy a conversation.

The pub door swung open. A man stepped out, broad-shouldered, wearing a flat cap pulled low. The scar ran from his left temple down to his jaw—a pale river in the sodium lamplight. He crossed the road without hurry, hands in his pockets, and stopped ten feet from Arthur.

"You're a hard man to find," Scar said.

"You're an easy one to remember."

Scar's mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. "You set fire to me."

"You were trying to kill me. I took exception."

"I was trying to kill you because Victor paid me to." Scar said it flat, like he was reading a grocery list. "It weren't personal, Phelps. You knew the rules. Man signs on for a job, he expects to walk away. Victor changed the terms."

"And you went along with it."

"I went along with the money." Scar shrugged. "Then you went and lit me up like a Guy Fawkes, and now Victor's gone quiet. Won't answer his phone. His flat's empty. Word is he's cleared out of London altogether. Which means I'm out of pocket and out of a patron."

Arthur felt the cold settle deeper into his bones. Victor gone. That changed things. He'd assumed the man was still out there pulling strings, using his forged manifest to keep killing off the crew. If Victor had vanished, then there was no one left to prove Arthur's innocence to—except the police, who would happily hang the whole job on him.

"You still working for him?" Arthur asked.

"I'm working for whoever pays. Victor stopped paying." Scar's eyes flicked down to Arthur's coat, the lump where the cash sat. "I heard you got out with a bag."

Arthur made a show of hesitating. Then he pulled the sack open, just enough to show the top note. "Eight hundred. You can have it."

Scar's eyebrows rose. "For what?"

"For your loyalty. Such as it is." Arthur tucked the bag away. "I need to find the buyer. The man Victor was going to sell the manifest to. You were going to meet him after you killed me, weren't you?"

Scar's scarred face darkened. He didn't answer, but he didn't need to. Arthur watched the man's weight shift, his jaw tighten. He was calculating—whether the money was real, whether Arthur was bluffing, whether he could just take the bag and walk away.

"Victor didn't tell me his name," Scar said finally. "Called him Marlow. A broker. Deals in paper—bonds, deeds, manifests. Middleman for the kind of buyers who don't want their hands dirty."

"But you met him."

"Once. At a betting shop in Soho. Victor wanted me to put a face to the name in case the job went sideways."

Arthur's pulse quickened. "You think he's still waiting for the manifest?"

Scar laughed. A dry, ugly sound. "Marlow's been waiting for that manifest for two weeks. The whole job was for him, Phelps. Victor was just the crow that stole the shine. You think he'd leave his buyer hanging? That would be bad for business."

The words settled over Arthur like a wet blanket. Two weeks. The heist had been planned for months, executed in twelve minutes. Victor had been working for this Marlow from the start. And Arthur, stumbling through the dark with a bag of cash and a dead copper's diary, had been nothing but a loose end waiting to be trimmed.

"I want to meet him," Arthur said.

Scar's eyes narrowed. "Marlow doesn't take meetings with nobodies."

"Then I'll be somebody." Arthur took a step forward. "I have the diary. The dead copper's diary—Eddie Marsh. It names the crew. It names the method. It names everyone Victor was too clever to write down. Marlow wants the manifest because it's a list of names he was supposed to collect. But I've got something better—I have the whole story, and I'll trade it to his competitors if he doesn't want to play."

It was a bluff. The diary didn't name Marlow. It didn't name anyone above Victor. But Scar didn't know that.

Scar studied him for a long moment. The scar on his temple caught the lamplight, still pink and raw. He must have burned worse than Arthur had realized.

"You're asking me to switch sides," Scar said. "Victor finds out, he'll have me killed."

"Victor's gone quiet. You said so yourself. He's not in London. He's not answering his phone. If he was going to pay you, he'd have paid you." Arthur spread his hands. "I'm offering sixteen hundred."

Scar blinked. "You said eight."

"Eight now, eight when it's done. You help me get to Marlow, you help me walk away from the meet, and you get the rest. Cash. No Victor. No strings."

Scar was silent. Arthur could hear the distant clatter of a train on the bridge behind them, the rumble of the last tube running south. For a moment, he thought Scar would laugh again—or worse, pull a knife.

Instead, Scar nodded slowly.

"Alright. Sixteen hundred. But I want the first eight now."

Arthur pulled the sack from his coat and tossed it. Scar caught it one-handed, weighed it, then tucked it inside his jacket without checking the contents.

"If you're lying about the rest," Scar said, "I'll find you. And this time I won't let you get near a lantern."

"I'm not lying."

"You'd better not be." Scar turned and started walking back toward the pub. "Tomorrow. Nine in the evening. The Albion Hotel, off Piccadilly. Marlow keeps a room there under the name 'Prentice.' I'll get you in the back door. Don't be late."

Arthur watched him disappear through the pub door. His hand was shaking, and he pressed it against his thigh to steady it.

He'd known Scar would betray him. It was in the man's nature—he'd already tried once. But the plan didn't need Scar's loyalty. It only needed his access. And now Arthur had a name, a place, and a time. He had eight hundred quid left and a dead copper's diary that was either his salvation or his death warrant.

He turned and walked into the dark, heading south toward the river. The Albion Hotel. Marlow. The buyer who Victor had been working for all along.

Somewhere in that room, Arthur hoped, was the truth.