Beekeeping for Beginners by Laurie R. King Read Free Book Online Page B

station, but she kept to the north of it.
    The rooftops of Spitalfields Market came into view—an entire city block, where brick buildings along three of the streets created a squared horse-shoe, its centre a glass-roofed market hall packed with stalls of many degrees of size and permanence. Despite the proximity of the night’s fires—the source could not have been more than a few streets to the east—the market was open for business. The usual Spitalfields odours of citrus and cabbage and onion were all but imperceptible beneath the reek of smoke, just as its usual populace of market porters, costermongers, deliverymen, and shopkeepers struggled to move around the influx of police constables, newsmen, and curious onlookers. Six members of a fire brigade were quenching their thirst outside a public house; an ambulance inched along Lamb Street. As far as the eye could see, the market pulsated like an exposed brood comb. The pavements were solid, the lanes worse, the market hall itself all but impenetrable.
    I was, to put it mildly, apprehensive. I pushed forward, so close that Russell could not have failed to recognise me, had she turned. Anyone at all could come up to the child, then be away in an instant, leaving her bleeding into the paving stones.
    In addition to the open west side, the market hall had five entrances—one each through the three-storey buildings on the north and south, and three on the long eastern face. At the northern, Lamb Street entrance, Russell paused to speak to a constable whose ash-streaked face made it clear where he had spent the night. He ducked his head to hear against the din, then straightened to point forward, directly across the market hall. What on earth had brought her here? What did she imagine she was going to find, two streets from a bombing site?
    I made up my mind: No matter the repercussions, I could not risk her further freedom. I should have to elbow my way forward and take her under my wing. I braced my shoulders, permitted my spine to straighten to my full height—and saw over the heads the familiar visage of Miss White, searching the crowd from atop a box on the southernmost Brushfield Street side. The passageway leading to that entrance was partially blocked by a piece of what appeared to be fire brigade equipment, and a hand-written sign, illegible at this distance, had been put up where the passage opened onto the hall itself. My sight of the Irregular was blocked for a moment by a porter threading his way through the crowd with a load of baskets on his head, then she was back.
    Russell had worked her way halfway across the hall, and was now closer to Miss White than she was to me. I rose up on a display of potatoes (ignoring the protests of the vegetables’ owner) and waved my arm widely. The young agent saw my gesture, and lifted a hand by way of response. I jabbed my forefinger at Russell, then swept my arm forcibly to the side, stating a clear order to remove Russell from this place, immediately, by whatever means necessary.
    Miss White craned for a moment until she spotted the brown hat coming towards her, and gave me a quick nod before hopping down from her perch.
    It was then that I saw the shadowy figure.

12
    A person stood among the shadows atop the framework of a closed stall, half-hidden by one of the iron stanchions, under a dark portion of the glass roof that had been covered by tarpaulins, a stone’s throw from the Brushfield entrance. The stall beneath him was one of the more rag-tag structures, appearing little more than drapes and wood scraps, although clearly it was substantial enough to hold his weight.
    I did not need to see the figure’s face to know it would match the framed photographs on the aunt’s desk; nor did I need to examine more closely what he held between both of his hands to know that it mustn’t land upon the head of a passer-by, particularly one who was of value to me. He was forty feet away and ten feet from the ground; Miss