In a flash, Alfie understood what had happened. The man with the gun must have seen him go up in the balloon, found out where it was heading and taken a cab to Vauxhall Gardens.
Instantly Alfie hopped back into the basket.
‘Need any help, Mister?’ he asked. ‘Anything you want doing? It’ll save you getting more sand.’
‘No, it won’t,’ said the balloonist. ‘I’d be dumping a couple of bags now. I’ll be taking up passengers soon.’ He looked at Alfie. ‘Anything the matter?’ he asked.
‘Just a man with a gun after me,’ said Alfie, trying to sound tough.
‘That’s a nuisance,’ said the balloonist absent-mindedly, fiddling with the cords coming from the valve. ‘And you don’t have a gun, right?’
‘Right,’ said Alfie, wondering if the man was mad.
‘And you want to get away? Quite right, too. I’d do the same in your place. Frankie!’ He shouted the last word and a man in the blue and white uniform of a waterman came forward.
‘Frankie, take this lad back to Westminster, will you? Did me a favour. Game lad, plenty of courage. Never batted an eye when we went into a tree. He’s a bit worried about a man with a gun after him, though. And who could blame him?’
The balloonist was in good humour. A long queue of people to buy tickets to go up in the balloon was forming.
Alfie took one look at the man called Frankie. He looked tough and Alfie decided to trust this stranger. He clambered out of the basket and took his place beside the waterman.
He looked behind him a few times as they walked together through the crowds, but the man with the gun was keeping well out of sight. My lucky day, thought Alfie and said no more until he was in the wide, low boat moored beside the Vauxhall Steps.
‘Westminster?’ asked Frankie with a lift of an eyebrow.
‘Westminster,’ repeated Alfie in a loud, clear tone of voice. Let the man with the gun take a cab and be waiting at Westminster Steps. Alfie had another trick up his sleeve.
‘Temple Stairs suit you as well?’ he asked quietly as Frankie pulled strongly on the oars and set the boat on its course right down the centre of the River Thames.
‘You didn’t say that back there.’ Frankie made the observation but he continued to pull strongly against the oncoming tide and his broad, placid face was unchanged.
‘Don’t ever say where you’re going when there’s a man with a gun around,’ said Alfie. His voice, to his pleasure, sounded calm and unworried.
‘Puts you off, don’t it, having a gun pointed at you,’ agreed Frankie. He drove his oars deeply into the water and made the boat leap forward before saying, ‘What’s he after you for, then?’
‘Police business,’ said Alfie, looking directly into the waterman’s face.
‘Won’t meddle in it, then,’ said Frankie. He was silent for a moment before saying, ‘You should get yourself a gun.’
‘Should, indeed,’ said Alfie grandly. ‘I’ve been taking shooting lessons at a place near Leicester Square,’ he added. ‘Don’t know if you’ve heard of it. Called George’s Shooting Gallery.’
‘Good fellow, George,’ said Frankie. ‘Know him well.’
‘Good fellow,’ agreed Alfie. ‘You take lessons from him, then?’
Frankie gave a grunt. ‘You must be joking,’ he said. ‘Where would I get the money for something like that?’ He steered expertly around a dredging barge and said nothing for a moment or two and then resumed.
‘Naw, sometimes I row some toffs to Hungerford Steps and that’s where they’re bound. George gives me a shilling if I send a customer to him. Straight as a die is George. Sent him a man last Friday night. And there he was, Saturday morning, punctual as a clerk to his desk, shilling in his hand. Nice fellow, George. A lot of others would have pretended that the man never arrived.’
‘Stays open late, then, does he; George, I mean?’ enquired Alfie, in an off-hand way.
‘As late as it takes,’ confirmed Frankie. ‘It must have been about eleven o’clock of the evening when I dropped off this fellow.’
Not very likely then, thought Alfie, that George had anything to do with the death of Boris, the Russian spy. No, it must be Ron Shufflebottom that was responsible for the death of Boris Ivanov. Or was there another possibility? Alfie sat very still as ideas darted through his head.
‘So why are they after you, then?’ asked Frankie, looking at him shrewdly. ‘A man with a gun? Why should anyone bother about you?’
‘Wish I never got myself tangled in this business,’ groaned Alfie, avoiding the question.
‘What business?’ The waterman was gazing at him with interest.
‘Any chance you were around Westminster Steps on Friday evening?’ Alfie asked the question with little hope in his voice and was not surprised when the man shook his head.
‘Naw,’ he said. ‘Not much business around Westminster in the evening. The cabmen have it all sewn up. But, now that I come to think of it, I did get a fare on Friday – early Friday evening – going to Westminster. Crowd of drunken Yorkshire men. They’d come two hundred miles to London to hear their Member of Parliament speak in a debate about a new law saying that children under nine could only work for twelve hours a day. All mill owners, they were, and said that they could never make a living if the new law was brought in. They was hoping that their Member of Parliament would speak up for them.’
‘What was his name?’ asked Alfie.
Frankie chuckled. ‘Not a name that you could forget. Shufflebottom! What a name, eh?’ His laugh rumbled out.
Alfie laughed too but he was thinking furiously. If the mill owners had come all the way from Yorkshire to hear Ron Shufflebottom argue about how long children should work – well, then, there was no chance that he could have left the Houses of Parliament early.
No, thought Alfie, his heart sinking, Ron Shufflebottom was not responsible for the death of Boris Ivanov on Friday night. He had begun to guess what had happened on that night.
‘Well, here we are at Temple Stairs,’ said Frankie, interrupting his thoughts. ‘Mind how you go. Remember what I said. Get yourself a gun and some lessons. London is a very dangerous place.’