The old woman shook her head. “Not now. Now Kale is in charge, and he is an arrogant beast. Everything is his way. New ways.”
“Tell me what you know of this Kale. What does he look like?”
“He is English, but not just Anglo. A mix. He does not look that much different from many others, not until you look into his eyes or hear him speak. His voice was damaged in the fight in which he killed the last leader of their band. But Kale...he is a snake of a man, quick with his fists and blades, and cunning and clever, too.”
“How do the slavers operate? Lashoria told my brother that Undoto was involved.”
“Yes!” The word was hissed. “He is a snake of a different skin, that one. But he is not the leader—that is Kale, without any doubt. Undoto is his...procurer. Yes, that is the word. Undoto points and says, ‘That one.’ And Kale and his men, they take that one. That is how it works.”
Robert recalled the point Declan and Edwina had made about those taken being selected, not chosen at random. Facts shifted in his brain. Lady Holbrook had known the background of virtually every English person in the settlement. She told Undoto which ones would fit his bill, and Undoto then pointed Kale their way. But who had told Lady Holbrook or Undoto which types of people were needed?
With no answer to that, Robert set the point aside and turned his mind to the other end of the slavers’ operation. “You said your husband used to run with the slavers. What are the steps the slavers take once they seize someone in the settlement?”
“They will take them first to their lair.”
“Lair?”
The old woman huffed out a breath. “The slavers do not usually walk the streets during the day. That would be inviting too much attention, and snatching people in daylight is more difficult. More risky. So they wait for the darkness to hunt their prey. But their camps are too far out in the jungle”—the old woman flung out a hand—“for them to come in every night from there. So they have a lair—a place where they can wait during the day. And they gather any they snatch in one night there before taking them out to the camp.”
“Do you have any idea where Kale’s lair is?”
“No. It will be in one of the slums somewhere. I do not think it is in this one, but I cannot be certain.”
Robert reviewed what he now knew, then he looked at the old woman. “What can you tell me about Kale’s camp? Anything at all will be helpful.”
She pulled a face. “Few who visit a slavers’ camp return to tell of it. All I know is from my husband, and that is from years ago. The camps must be out in the jungle a long way. They have to be beyond the areas your soldiers patrol, and also outside any villages’ or chieftains’ boundaries, or the chiefs will cause trouble.” She met Robert’s eyes. “The villagers around do not hold with slavery—very few in this area do.”
Robert nodded. He knew that some tribes from the north were wont to assist slavers who preyed on natives from deeper in the interior, but with the West Africa Squadron sailing out of Freetown, he’d assumed this area was less troubled by the scourge.
The old woman had been studying his face. “For what it is worth, this business of stealing English men and women is very different from the usual trade.”
“How so?” Robert tipped his head, inviting her to explain.
She took a moment to order her thoughts. “Kale has been a slave trader for years and years, yet only now, in this business with Undoto, has he started to take Europeans. That has never been normal anywhere, but especially not here. With the fort so close and the ships, too, why risk the wrath of the governor and his men? So that is one mystery. And the care to pick the people—this one and not that one—is also unheard of. A man is a man—why do they need to choose so carefully?”
So that they took only those whose disappearance would be unlikely to raise any, or at least not too much of, an alarm. Robert didn’t say the words, but he was sure enough of that.
The old woman straightened from the table and raised her hands. “There is no rhyme or reason to this. No sense in it at all. It is very peculiar to choose to play this game right under the English governor’s nose.”
A nose that had been singularly unresponsive to date, but that, Robert was starting to realize, had been very carefully arranged.
He was starting to believe that Holbrook was entirely innocent of any complicity in the scheme.
The old woman looked tired, even more worn out. Robert could think of no more to ask her. He rose. When she looked up at him, he half bowed. “Thank you for speaking with me.” He hesitated, then reached into his pocket. “If you will not take it amiss...” Hauling out three sovereigns, he laid them on the table. “For your help.”
The old woman’s gaze had fallen to the coins. She studied them for a long moment, then she reached out a hand and covered them, and drew them to her. “Beggars cannot be choosers. Thank you.”
Robert hesitated. “I don’t expect it will be any real consolation, but the help you and Lashoria have given will, in the end, save many lives.”
The old woman’s head came up. Some of her earlier hate sparked in the darkness of her eyes. “Kale. Be careful of him. He is like a rabid dog—do not take your eyes from him. But if you and your people can end Kale’s life, I will die happy.”
Robert held her gaze for a moment more, then nodded. “I’ll see what we can do.” He stepped back from the table. “I’ll show myself out, but please bolt the door once I’m gone.”
She nodded.
He didn’t wait for more but climbed the rough steps, strode along the corridor, slid back the bolts, opened the door, and stepped outside. He pulled the black-blotched red door closed behind him, then went down the steps.
In the alley, he paused, breathing deep of the air that, although still cloyingly humid, felt much less smothering than the air in that kitchen, weighted as it had been with so much helpless emotion—powerful emotions that had no outlet. When he caught the scrape of the bolts sliding home again, he straightened his shoulders and set off to walk back down the long passage.
He felt nothing more than a stir in the air at his back as Benson and Coleman fell in at his heels.
“Learn anything?” Benson murmured.
“Enough to be going on with.” As he strode down the slope, Robert used what he now knew to construct what he thought must be the slavers’ operation. Some of the slavers would be waiting in their lair. Undoto, or perhaps Lady Holbrook when she’d been there, would send to summon them, directing them to this victim or that. The slavers waited until night, then seized their victim. They returned to the lair—possibly to report, also possibly to combine their victims—then either on the same night or the next, the slavers ferried said victims out of the settlement and took them to their camp.
It was the location of the camp Robert needed. But clearly, the first step toward finding the camp was identifying the slavers’ lair.
* * *
Night had fallen hours ago.
Seated in the small
