Wilde was curled up on the stone step outside the front door. The milkman looked at him for a few moments, then stepped past him and rang the bell. Lydia answered within a few moments. At first she saw the milkman’s irritating grin, then looked down with horror at Wilde.
‘Look what the cat didn’t quite bring in, Mrs Wilde,’ the milkman said, pointing at Wilde’s inert form.
Lydia hated it when the milkman called her Mrs Wilde, because he was quite aware that she was still Miss Morris, but on this occasion she ignored him. She was more concerned by the sight of Tom lying unconscious at her feet. She immediately knelt down beside him and put the back of her hand to his brow. Finding warmth, she breathed a sigh of relief.
‘Alive, is he, missus?’
She ignored the milkman. ‘Tom? Please wake up, Tom.’
He groaned.
Johnny was now at her side. ‘Daddy, Daddy,’ he said. ‘Daddy sleep.’
‘Let me give you a hand, Mrs Wilde,’ the milkman said. ‘Help you carry your old man inside? Looks like he had a few too many bevies last night.’
‘I’ll deal with it, thank you.’ Her retort was curt, and she instantly regretted it. Whether or not she liked the confounded milkman, she had to deal with him every day.
He huffed. ‘Suit yourself, missus.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to be so short.’
‘That’s all right, Mrs Wilde. I’ll be on my way – you get the professor to bed.’
Lydia put her hands under Wilde’s armpits and tried to pull him up. He groaned again, then shook his head. ‘God in heaven,’ he said.
‘Daddy hurting!’
‘Tom, what on earth is going on? Why did you sleep here? Even if you’ve lost your key, I would have woken up and let you in.’
‘Just give me a moment.’ He was on his knees now, clasping the edge of the front door. Gradually he pulled himself up. ‘Dear God, Lydia, I’ve got the hangover to end all hangovers.’
‘You must have drunk a whole bottle of Scotch. You smell like a distillery.’
‘One glass, that’s all. It was doped.’
‘By whom? Why?’
‘Templeman. Lord bloody Templeman.’
‘You’re not making sense, Tom. Why would a man like Dagger Templeman drug you?’
‘To make me talk, I think. Come on, let’s get inside. Make some coffee and I’ll try and tell you everything. Or what I can remember. At the moment it’s all as fuzzy as hell.’
*
Coffee, weak though it was, helped him feel more human, but it did little to improve his memory. He was aware that he had been abducted from the street outside St Thomas’ Hospital by Philip Eaton and two of his agents. He was aware, too, that he had been taken to Latimer Hall and held against his will and he suspected he had been questioned regarding the whereabouts of Harriet Hartwell. ‘Beyond that I can remember almost nothing.’
‘Well, perhaps it will all come back during the day, darling,’ Lydia said. ‘But don’t you think you had better tell me where you have been – and who exactly your new friend is? I don’t much like the sound of Harriet Hartwell.’
‘She’s all right, I think – a serious woman.’ He realised he was parroting her own words to describe herself.
‘Is she now? You might be interested to know that she phoned here last night and asked me to give you a message.’
Wilde was suddenly alert. ‘Yes? Did she say where she was?’
‘I really don’t know. It was rather strange actually. She just said, “Tell him the shed.” At least I think that’s what it was. Does she know you have a partner and a child?’
‘Did she leave a phone number?’
‘No. I tried to question her, but she just cut the call dead. There had been a click on the line, as usual nowadays. Someone is listening in.’
‘Templeman’s men, I imagine.’
‘I assume the shed means something to you?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, I think it does.’
‘Then what are you going to do, Tom? Don’t you think you’ve had enough of this game? If you ask me, you need to do one of two things – either trot along to St Andrew’s Street, talk to the police and clear your name, or get yourself to the embassy in London and do it through diplomatic channels. You can’t just go chasing after this woman, a fugitive about whom you know bugger all. And I’m pretty sick of visits from the local police and others asking if I’ve heard from you.’
‘I’ll call Bill Phillips and get his take on it.’
‘And you know what he’ll say? Kill this nonsense stone dead. The last thing he’ll want is any sort of rift between allies.’
First though, he wanted to talk to Jimmy Orde in Caithness. He wanted an affidavit of what he had seen – Sunderland 4026 arriving in Scotland, not leaving. He wanted it so that whatever came of this affair, he had something on paper to prove he wasn’t merely chasing shadows.
*
Jean Orde answered the phone in her low, lilting brogue, but a little flatter than he remembered it. ‘Hello, Mrs Orde speaking.’
‘Jean, it’s Tom Wilde.’
‘Oh yes, hello, Tom.’
‘Is Jimmy there? I’d like to have a quick word with him.’
There was a slight pause; he could almost hear the catching of emotion in her throat from 600 miles away.
‘Is something the matter?’
‘He’s missing, Tom. The boat’s missing.’
He went cold. ‘How long? How long has it been missing?’
‘They were due back yesterday evening. This has never happened before.’
‘Is the weather bad?’
‘No, it’s been fine these past two days and nights. I’m scared, Tom. We all are, all the wives. All sorts of possibilities go through your mind, none of them good. Some say they’ve been . . . torpedoed.’
The final word was uttered so faintly that Wilde wondered for a moment whether it had been spoken. But that was merely wishful thinking, for he knew it had been said. He felt utterly helpless. He had met a man after his own heart in Jimmy Orde, and his wife Jean was every bit his match. He thought of their warm, welcoming house with the splendid food and the children running around and imagined it cold and full of fear.
‘Would they have had a lifeboat aboard?’
‘Aye, and the search has been on all night. But there’s not a sign – and there was no mayday call. We’re all in despair up here.’
‘Perhaps the trawler is drifting through loss of power.’
‘Aye, perhaps . . .’
‘I’m so sorry, Jean. I can’t imagine what this is like for you and the bairns, and the families of the other men.’
‘It’s what I’ve lived with every day since childhood. My uncle Alec was taken by the sea back in 1913, but that was God and nature doing their worst. This feels like man’s doing.’
‘Can I give you my number in case you hear anything?’
‘Aye, I’ll let you know – either way. Jimmy liked you and trusted you, Tom.’
Wilde didn’t know what more to say. The stoicism of the woman was, in itself, enough to bring a man to tears. Lydia and Johnny were watching him in silence. Even the boy seemed to understand that this was no moment for childish prattle.
Slowly he replaced the receiver.
‘I understand,’ Lydia said. She had seen the darkness in his eyes, and she knew that any hope of his giving up on the strange, perambulating quest that was consuming him had just disappeared.