Corridors of the Night (22 page)

‘And to hide anything we might want to,’ Squeaky added. ‘Best that people don’t know what they don’t have to.’

Scuff understood. This must succeed. Anything that would make it better, safer, was good. He even agreed to go home quietly and trust Squeaky to arrive at four o’clock in the morning, with the horse and cart, so they could set out from Paradise Row just before dawn. That way they would be well out of the area where they were known before other people were on the roads.

‘By the time we’re passing people who are up, they’ll be farmers,’ Squeaky pointed out. ‘Best we be invisible. An’ that means Mr Monk’s gotter get out of his clothes that fit him like he had a tailor cut ’em for him special. Which I dare say he does! Better not to look like a waterman neither, not as far from the river as we’d be going.’

‘We?’ Scuff asked, and then wished he hadn’t, but it was too late.

Squeaky turned to look at him. ‘You gonner tell me you can drive a horse all that way, and back again? You don’t just tell horses, you know. They got minds o’ their own, like anybody else. You’ve got to go an’ rescue Miss Hester, an’ them kids, never no mind arguing with a horse what doesn’t understand you anyway.’

Scuff nearly asked him if the horse understood him, but he didn’t really want the answer. He broke all his natural instincts and agreed without argument.

He even repeated it very firmly when he arrived home at Paradise Row to tell Monk that he had succeeded.

Monk thanked him, gave him a thick, cold meat sandwich and told him to go to bed. He would be wakened at half-past three to get ready, in the assumption that Squeaky would keep his word and be there by four.

Hooper was coming with them. He would sleep in the sitting room, and be ready also.

‘That all?’ Scuff asked nervously. ‘Just us?’

‘You can change your mind,’ Monk said, his voice suddenly gentle. ‘We don’t know how many there are of them, possibly just Rand and whatever staff he has. But Laker has to run the station. He isn’t fit for this yet, and we can’t all leave. The other men have their regular duties. I can’t take them off police work.’

Scuff swallowed. ‘I’m coming.’

Monk nodded, frowning a little. ‘I know. But you must do as you’re told. You are part of a team. Any man disobeys, he endangers the rest of us. Understand?’

‘Yes, I do,’ Scuff said decisively. ‘I’ll do it exactly. I promise.’

It did not prove to be as difficult to keep his word as Scuff had thought, at least not at first. He would have promised anything at all rather than be left behind.

Squeaky arrived exactly when he had said he would. He was unrecognisable at first. He appeared out of the shadows at the end of the street, seeming to dissolve into the darkness between one streetlamp and the next, taking form again as he passed under the brief light. He was bent forward over the reins, his gnarled hands half-hidden by fingerless gloves. There was an ancient, dented top hat on his head and his long, grey hair straggled out of it on either side. He wore what was either a cape or a ragged coat; it was impossible to tell which. But all that mattered to Scuff was that he chose a large wagon piled with loose hay, a pitchfork skewered into the largest heap. The whole was pulled by a powerful horse, too good for the contraption it was yoked to.

Monk and Hooper were waiting at the kerb.

‘Excellent,’ Monk said, sizing it up at a glance. ‘Thank you.’ Even without Squeaky being able to see his face, Monk’s gratitude was evident.

Squeaky held on to the reins. ‘Get in and let’s be going.’

Monk looked at Squeaky and then at the horse. ‘Thank you,’ he said again, and climbed up into the cart, swinging his leg over the side, and sitting down in the hay.

Hooper gave Scuff a hoist up, and then followed him.

They travelled in silence, apart from the steady sound of the horse’s hoofs on the road, and the creak of the cart. No one spoke, each alone with his thoughts. Scuff looked sideways at Monk a few times, wondering if he was planning what they would do, or if he were merely remembering better times, thinking of when they were all three of them together at home, worried perhaps, but safe. He thought he saw anxiety in Monk’s face, but even in the broadening dawn, there was still mostly just shadow.

Did Monk know what they were going to find when they got to this place? Would there be lots of people there, and they would have to fight? Scuff half hoped they would. He wanted to hurt the people who had taken Hester. He was pretty good at the sort of snapping that happened at school now and then. But this would be different. The men might have knives, even guns. What if Hester had been injured? She would have fought when they took her. That thought was so painful he forced it out of his mind. He found his throat tight and his mouth dry.

He started to watch the hedges and the road instead. As the sun rose, he distinguished fields on either side of them, copses of trees in many, and cattle slowly stirring. Most of them were standing up; he wondered if that was how they slept.

Still no one spoke.

Hooper glanced at him once or twice, as if to make sure he was all right. Scuff liked Hooper. There was something in the way Hooper looked at him that made him feel good.

There seemed to be an awful lot of countryside, miles and miles of it, all wide open, as if there were no other cities. Then Scuff realised that they were avoiding the villages, except the smallest ones, and he felt silly for not having understood that they would do that.

He was very glad when they stopped for a late breakfast. The horse needed a break and a drink as well, although Squeaky was very careful not to let it have too much.

‘Why do you do that?’ Scuff asked as they were standing in the yard of the inn, early sunlight splashing pale gold on the cobblestones. ‘’E’s thirsty. E’s bin pulling us all this way.’

‘He’s a she,’ Squeaky corrected him. ‘And horses can drink too much, and then get sick. I got a couple o’ carrots for her. D’yer want to give them to her?’

Scuff thought about it for a moment. Now he was standing on the ground, the horse seemed very large. Then he saw Squeaky’s smile.

‘’Course I do!’ he said abruptly. ‘Gimme the carrots, then!’

Squeaky handed them over. ‘Hold your hand flat, like this. You don’t want her to take your fingers as well. Fingers aren’t good for her.’

Scuff gave him a dark look and took the carrots. He walked over to the horse and held them out on the palm of his hand, trying to appear as if he fed horses every day.

The horse took them delicately, blowing warm breath at him. He watched her face as she chewed them and then searched him hopefully for more.

‘I in’t got no more,’ he told her. ‘Yer not got to eat too much, or it’ll make yer sick. Don’t yer know that?’

The horse nudged him again, harder. That was the moment when he saw movement in the hay on the cart. It was just a slight fidget, as if there was something alive inside it.

He did not like rats at all, but he was used to them – or he had been, when he lived on the river edges. He would far rather find it when he was standing on the ground than if he were sitting in the hay next to it. He seized a handful of the hay and pulled it. He found Worm, crunched back as far as he could get, staring at him with wide eyes.

He was about to demand what the hell Worm was doing here, but the answer was obvious. He wanted to help too.

‘Wot the ’ell do you think Miss Claudine is going to do when she finds yer gone?’ he shouted. ‘She’ll go crazy! She’ll take the clinic apart looking for you.’

Worm crept a few inches forward. ‘No she won’t,’ he hissed, trying to keep his voice down. ‘I left ’er a note tellin’ ’er.’

‘Yer can’t write, yer stupid little article!’ Scuff said desperately. ‘And we ’aven’t got time ter take yer back now.’

Worm wriggled another foot forward. ‘Ruby wrote it for me,’ he answered. ‘An’ yer can’t blame ’er. She just wrote it for a message, an’ I put me name after. I can write me name. She showed me that, an’ all!’

Scuff used a few choice words he thought he had forgotten, but Worm understood them perfectly, and did not even blink.

Scuff felt a heavy hand on his shoulder and jumped.

‘Yer shouldn’t oughter use words like that,’ Worm said sententiously, but looking beyond Scuff at Squeaky standing behind him.

‘And you shouldn’t ought to be here,’ Squeaky said sternly. ‘I told you that before.’

Worm said nothing.

Scuff turned round and saw Monk and Hooper approaching them, Monk’s face dark with anger as he saw Worm.

Worm looked frightened, but he didn’t move.

It was Squeaky who spoke.

‘Got a stowaway,’ he said casually. ‘Wants to help. We’ll make the little beggar work for it. One thing about him is that no one will take any notice of him.’ He looked steadily at Monk, barely even blinking.

‘Did you know he was there?’ Monk demanded.

‘No,’ Squeaky replied.

From the expression on his face Monk had no idea whether to believe him or not.

Scuff did not, but he said nothing.

Monk looked at Worm. ‘You’d better do exactly . . . exactly what you’re told. We’re going after men who will kill children. Do you understand?’

Worm nodded.

‘I suppose you’re hungry?’ Monk added.

Again Worm nodded.

With a sigh Monk broke his thick slice of bread in half and offered one piece to Worm.

Watching Monk’s face all the time, Worm reached out and took it. He ate it in thirty seconds.

They travelled steadily, according to the directions Monk had wrung out of Magnus Rand. The doctor had been reluctant, but by then deeply afraid that his brother would be disgraced, and if any of the children died, even hanged.

By late morning they were in the right general area. After a few errors and a couple of enquiries, they found an unnamed outlying farm close to Redditch. It answered Rand’s description almost exactly.

‘Looks right,’ Hooper said, staring at it from the road. It was an old farmhouse, a hundred and fifty yards away along a dirt track. The thatch on the roof was in need of repair, but it was surrounded by fertile land. There were several fields close by. Looking to be within its boundaries was an orchard with thirty or more apple and pear trees, and a group of outhouses huddled nearby, seemingly well maintained. A kitchen garden, even seen from a distance, looked neat and weeded, as if receiving constant attention.

‘If this is it,’ Monk said guardedly, ‘then Rand has someone here all the time. Weeds grow pretty fast in good earth like this.’

‘Gardener?’ Hooper suggested, his eyes searching all of the land he could see.

‘Maybe. Could be more staff than that.’ Monk followed Hooper’s gaze. There were a score of places where a man could be unseen from the road.

Squeaky said nothing.

‘I’ll go and look,’ Scuff offered, his mouth was so dry he stumbled over the words.

‘Send Worm,’ Squeaky interrupted. ‘They’ll take no notice of ’im.’ Without waiting for Monk’s approval, he turned to Worm, who was standing a few feet away. ‘You go just as far as that bend – see?’ He pointed to the cart track. ‘Look at what you can see from there, then come back and tell us. Right?’

‘Yeah. Right,’ Worm agreed, and started off at a brisk walk.

Monk made a lunge to grab him back, but Worm eluded him as easily as an eel in the river, and scampered off towards the bend in the track. Monk swung back to face Squeaky, and the argument died on his lips. They had no time to waste on reconnaissance, and they all knew it.

They stood close together in the sharp, early light. Monk, Squeaky, Hooper and Scuff watched the small figure of Worm as he reached the corner, looked around him carefully, and then went on towards the front door.

Monk swore under his breath.

Hooper put a hand hard on his shoulder. ‘Don’t stop him, sir. We’ve no time to lose if this isn’t the place.’

‘And how is Worm going to know if it is or not?’ Monk said savagely.

No one answered him.

Worm had disappeared out of sight. The seconds ticked by, dragging out until time seemed endless. There was no sound but the wind in the trees, a ticking of insects in the long grass at the sides of the road, and the occasional snap as a seed head burst in the strengthening heat of the sun. A bee wound its way lazily through the hedgerow flowers. Sheep bleated in the distance.

It was almost unbearable.

Scuff did not dare to look at Monk.

Then at last they saw Worm coming back along the dirt track, not quite at a run, but moving quickly. He arrived breathless, and it was only then that Scuff noticed he was barefoot.

‘Well?’ Monk could not help himself asking.

Worm nodded vigorously. His face was flushed. ‘There was two women in the kitchen. I’m almost sure one of them were Miss Hester. There was sheets on the laundry line, an’ a nightshirt, big.’ He stretched his arms wide without ever taking his eyes off Monk’s face. ‘An’ there’s a big man, like ’im.’ He jerked his hand at Hooper. ‘But ’e’s got a long gun, an’ ’e walks around the garden all the time. But ’is ’ands is dirty, like ’e digs in the ground a lot. ’E told me ter get out of it, an’ if I come back ’e’d shoot me, like a rabbit.’ He swallowed hard, still staring hopefully at Monk, longing for his approval.

‘Two women in the kitchen?’ Monk asked him.

‘Yeah,’ he nodded.

‘How much did one of them look like Miss Hester? A lot, or a little bit?’

‘A lot. ’Ceptin’ ’er ’air were all screwed back like she didn’t care. Not . . . pretty, like.’

‘And the gardener carried a gun?’ Monk pressed.

Worm gulped and nodded.

Monk glanced at Hooper.

‘Then we must take the gardener first.’ Monk made the decision. They would get no better information than this. He touched Worm lightly on the shoulder. ‘Thank you. You did very well. From now on you will do what you are told, or I will have to tie you to the wagon. You promise?’

Worm nodded, but he was smiling, flushed with the praise. He had helped.

They studied what they could see of the landscape for a few more minutes, and then began to lay plans as to how they could flush the gardener out of the immediate surrounds of the house so that they could ambush him and take his gun. It was finally agreed that Worm would lure him out, from a distance.