I drove to Bethnal Green and parked in a nice quiet alley. There I changed into my Girl in Grey outfit, while Emily checked her crossbow. Scruff remained in her day clothes. Apparently, while she has no objection to wearing her Robin outfit by night, she won't wear it by day. We left her in the car doing weird and woderful things with the computers.
James Holding lived in an old terrace that had seen better days. His flat was on an upper floor, but I know everything there is to know about getting into a building by means of the fire escape.
Emily, now visible again, and wonderfully black and smoky, climbed the fire escape ahead of me. If she was right, and Holding had been the man she'd shot, he'd be terrified when he saw her and might even consider confessing everything to us.
Chance would be a fine thing!
Emily tried the window. It was locked, but rotten, and she smashed it to pieces.
We weren't terrible subtle. All right, we weren't subtle at all. Emily vaulted in first, and I followed.
Holding was in the living-room. He'd jumped to his feet, but as we crashed through the bedroom door, he went for a gun. One of Emily's bolts stopped him, hitting his right hand and pinning it to the table. Holding yelled in pain and fear.
"You probably remember me," Emily told him. He nodded, afraid.
"The... the... the Outsider!"
"You DO remember me! I'm so glad! Now, last night you tried to kill Jackson Hughes, and I shot you. Someone hired you to do that. If you know who it is, you're going to tell me, or I'll do some more shooting. I've also got a nice big sword and a few knives that I can use imaginitively on you. How does that sound? Painful? I'm so glad it does!"
Holding was gibbering quietly now. I smiled.
"Well, Mr. Holding?"
"You... you're dead! I saw..."
"Oh," I scowled. The dirty little... He'd been one of the men who'd thrown me in the dock to drown.
"No. I don't wear a cat costume for nothing. I've got nine lives. You, on the other hand, just have one, which the Outsider here will make very uncomfortable for you if you don't 'fess up and tell us who hired you."
"I don't know," he said sullenly. Emily shot him in the left elbow.
"Bad answer," she told him. "Unless you want me to apply the Mogul sword-torture?"
I heard her draw her sword. Its point touched Holding's throat.
"It may LOOK black and smoky like me, but I assure you it's real," she told him threateningly.
"I'll talk!" he cried. "I was hired by a man called Mark Conant! He's a local gangster! I don't know any more! I swear I don't!"
"I believe you," Emily sheathed her sword. Then she retrieved the bolts that were stuck in Holding. "Now, you need to see a doctor."
We left with another link in the chain.
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