Airship City

Chapter 22

He forced himself to smile. “Yes, I’m fine, thank you. Just a bit tired, I think.”

“Of course, you’ve had full day, going to work, then travelling here on a freighter, of all things. And to top it all off, a dinner with my mother would exhaust anyone!” She smiled ruefully. “I’ll show you to your room, and you can get some rest. We’ll talk more tomorrow.”

As Joseph followed her back into the central structure and up to the level reserved to Hughes, he thought desperately about what he ought to do. One option would be to come clean, confess to Ione and her father. Tell them I’ve been spying on them. But as he said it, his mind shied away from a vivid image of Ione’s hurt face, staring at him. I just can’t do that. And how would her father react? Hughes had been angry enough after the crash with H-1. It didn’t bear thinking about.

Ione led them down the carpeted corridor to an imposing set of double doors, opening them with a key. Joseph followed her into Hughes’s private apartments, and across the palatial marble entrance hall.

“Here we are, Joseph,” said Ione, opening the door onto a magnificent suite. “I hope you’ll be comfortable in here. Let me or the housekeeper know if you need anything.” 

Joseph was so preoccupied with his dilemma that he barely noticed it. “Thank you,” he said. “Good night.” As he closed the door he was peripherally aware of a look of disappointment on Ione’s face, but his thoughts were all-consuming. He went to lie down on the enormous bed. 

So if I can’t confess, does that mean I just go along with Monmouth’s plans? That thought was just as unacceptable. What if Monmouth were planning some terrible atrocity? If he had already tried to crash Hughes’s airship, how far would he go? Joseph was afraid to even think it, but there didn’t seem to be any way to avoid the conclusion. Monmouth wants to kill Hughes.

So what do I do? It was impossible to decide when one option was just as unacceptable as the other. The horns of the dilemma pricked him painfully whichever way he turned. But still he turned it over in his mind, going back and forth between the two impossible choices.

After chasing his thoughts around and around for what seemed like hours, he decided to get ready for bed. As he was brushing his teeth in the en-suite bathroom, it occurred to him that he could just do nothing. That way he wouldn’t be going along with Monmouth and helping make his plans a reality, but at the same time, he needn’t tell Hughes and Ione anything.

He got the envelope out of his suitcase and put it on the bed in front of him. I could simply tear it to bits right now. Or at least open it first, see what it says.

And if he read something that required immediate action, what then? What if the message commanded Thornton to stab the magnate as he lay sleeping? He would have to tell Hughes then.

Snatching up the envelope, he was about to open it when he remembered what Monmouth had said. If I tamper with it in any way, he will know about it. He paused. He had thought at the time that this meant that the envelope was a test. And thinking about it logically, would Monmouth put something so incriminating into the very first message that he entrusted to Joseph? No, it was far more likely that the message was innocuous, perhaps no more than a code word to let Thornton know it was from Monmouth.

He put the envelope down. If I destroy it now, I’ll just be ensuring that Monmouth won’t trust me again. He’ll use some other way to do what he wants, and I won’t know anything about it.

Joseph got up and started to pace about the room. Surely it would be far better for him to play along for now, so that in future he would be entrusted with a really important message? Then a sudden thought struck him.

If I make the drop, and then hang around to see Thornton pick it up, I’ll have confirmed Ione’s theory!

Seized with excitement, he took off his pyjamas and got dressed again. Thornton probably checked the drop at night, when it was less busy, and Joseph himself was going to be spending the following day with Ione, so it would have to be now. He put the envelope into his jacket pocket, and opened the door to his room carefully. It was still an hour or so before midnight but the palatial apartment was in gloom and seemed deserted. He slipped carefully across the marble floor to the front door, and emerged into the corridor outside, patting his pocket to check that he had a key. Seconds later he was in the lift heading down to the Core.

As he had expected, it was virtually deserted. He encountered only a few couples returning from dinner, and a security guard. The statue of Atlas was found easily enough. It stood on its plinth about halfway along one of the arcades that led from the Core to the promenade. The golden figure’s bulging muscles showed the strain of holding up the huge globe of the Earth that rested across his shoulders, but Joseph slipped silently beneath it and dropped the envelope down the narrow gap between the back of the plinth and the wall. He then looked around for a hiding place.

Directly opposite the statue was a small portico that stood in front of a shop, some sort of fancy jeweller by the look of it. The portico was supported by two thick pillars, and the left-most one stood very close to the wall of the shop next door, which projected out in line with the end of the portico. Joseph crossed the arcade and discovered that if he sat with his back to the wall next to the pillar, he was in shadow and not visible to the casual observer. Nevertheless he could still see across the arcade to the statue, through the small gap between the pillar and the wall. He settled down to wait.

Despite the discomfort of sitting on cold hard marble, with an equally cold metal wall at his back, he found himself becoming drowsy. He dug his nails into the palms of his hands trying to keep awake, and shook his head vigorously. From time to time the tap-tap of footsteps would echo through the arcade, and he would come onto high alert, but the visitors never stopped, and he was always left alone again.

Then even the periodic footsteps ceased, and only time crept by. He became aware that the marble floor he was lying on was the one in the atrium of the bank, and he realised that he must have fallen asleep waiting for Churchill. There was an insistent tapping sound, which he knew was Mickey, knocking on the great oaken doors of the bank, and he wished he would stop.

“Go away, Mickey,” he murmured, and just as he did, the tapping ceased.

With a start, he came fully awake, blinking in confusion. I’m not in the bank, I’m on Aeropolis! He glanced out through the gap, and his heart seemed to stop as he saw the figure of a man, bending down next to the plinth of the statue. He held his breath as the man straightened up and slipped something into his jacket pocket. Glancing quickly around him, he turned to face briefly towards Joseph’s hiding place, showing his face clearly for a moment, before he hurried away.

Joseph sat back on his heels, feeling stunned and confused. For the light from the lamp over the statue of Atlas had shown the face, not of Clive Thornton, but of Blake Vanross.