“Good evening, ape,” Florenza Tarantello said as she approached me.
Astonished, I stared at her through the fence, before looking nervously around. We would both be in mortal danger if any of Moira Gray’s gang saw that Florenza was here.
But the risk was small—where Florenza was standing could not be seen from the backyard. And, in any case, she was prepared for the worst: she had a pistol stuck in the belt of her dark overcoat and a small set of binoculars hanging round her neck. She must have used them to watch me and Bernie, waiting for when he left me alone. It was me she wanted to see, me and no one else.
“How long will Bernie be away?” she asked.
I thought it might take Bernie at least a quarter of an hour to change his clothes, but I wanted Florenza to go away as quickly as possible. So I held up three fingers.
“Three minutes,” Florenza said calmly. “Good, I’ll be brief, then.”
She looked me straight in the eye.
“The word out in the city is that Moira has called a meeting with the bosses of the other riverside gangs. My uncle heard that this meeting will be at midnight tomorrow, but he doesn’t know where.”
Florenza leant forward.
“Do you know anything about it?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“Well, I want you to find out,” she said.
She was obviously expecting me to nod, but I didn’t. When she continued, her eyes had become harder.
“If you don’t help my Uncle Tommy, he will let Moira know who grassed to us about the burglary at the Greek’s place.”
Florenza’s words made me jump—not a lot, but enough for her to notice. I caught a gleam of satisfaction in her eyes as she went on. “What do you think will happen to your friend Bernie when Moira hears that he sat in my uncle’s car and gave away her secrets?”
I shook my head vigorously. That wasn’t the way things had happened. Bernie had been tricked!
Florenza carried on unconcerned. “Do you believe Moira would forgive him? Well, I don’t. I think she’d throw him out on the street, or maybe get Carl and Kevin to take him down to the Twilight Quay…”
My legs began to tremble and I felt a tightness in my chest.
“Right,” Florenza said. “Which is it to be? Do you want to save your friend Bernie’s life or don’t you? You’ve got ten seconds to make up your mind.”
I lowered my head in a sign of surrender.
“Right then,” Florenza said. “On board the Campania I saw you reading the names on the sick children’s name tags and crossing them off on the passenger list, so I know you can read. Can you write as well?”
My first thought was to lie and shake my head, but I hesitated just a little too long.
“Good,” Florenza said. “So you can write.”
She took a piece of chalk from her pocket and passed it to me through the fence.
“Once you know where the meeting is to be held, write the name of the place on the underside of this stone.”
She pointed to a stone on the ground by the fence. It was within easy reach both for her and for me.
I gave a reluctant nod.
“You must do this before eleven o’clock tomorrow night,” she continued. “And I give you my word that Moira won’t find out that you are the one who passed us the information. My uncle will make sure of that.”
She held my eye for a few seconds more as if to assure herself that I really had understood. Then she turned on her heel and set off back the same way she’d come. She’d gone no more than fifty yards before she was swallowed up by the darkness and the smoke from an engine leaving the station.
A few moments later Bernie returned, wearing dry clothes and looking pleased with himself. He took two apples from the pockets of his raincoat, compared them and gave the biggest and nicest-looking one to me. I hadn’t had anything to eat for hours, but I just couldn’t enjoy it. I felt sick.
Bernie and I weren’t allowed to leave our posts until the pale light of dawn began to show in the eastern sky.
I’d been awake now for two whole days and nights, but I still couldn’t get to sleep. Thoughts set my mind spinning faster and faster. Somehow or other I had to find out where Moira was going to meet the other riverside bosses—that was my only chance of saving Bernie. I didn’t doubt for one moment that Florenza’s threat was to be taken seriously.
But there was also a suspicion nagging at my mind. Why did Tommy Tarantello want to know where the gang bosses were going to meet?
A whole series of unpleasant pictures passed through my mind. A war was about to break out, that much I knew, so maybe Tommy Tarantello was planning to get rid of all his enemies at the same time? What if he was planning a bloodbath?
I buried my head in the pillow and tried to force myself to think of other things. It didn’t work.
I had to make a choice.
I could either discover where the meeting was to be held, tell Florenza and so save Bernie. Or I could simply keep quiet and thus prevent Moira and the other gang leaders coming to any harm.
I chose Bernie, and with that I fell asleep.
I woke to find Kevin leaning over me, yelling for me to get a move on. It was already the middle of the day and time to go and relieve the guard on the marshalling yard. I hurriedly put on my overalls and rushed out. Bernie followed on my heels, looking just as sleepy as me.
I cursed myself for having slept the whole morning, but perhaps it hadn’t done any great harm. I still had ten hours to find out where the meeting was to be held that night.
It wasn’t until our shift on guard duty was over that Bernie and I finally had time for the day’s first cup of tea. We drank it at the kitchen table while dusk was already falling outside the window—and I still hadn’t heard where the meeting was to be.
The rest of the day was spent with Bernie and me doing small jobs around the house. I eavesdropped on every conversation going on around me. No one in the house seemed to know where Moira was intending to meet the gang bosses. Or if they did, they weren’t talking about it.
Moira must know, of course. And Gordon as well, presumably. But the two of them were somewhere out in the city.
After supper, Bernie and I were sent out to stand guard at the marshalling yard again. It was another cold night and the snow was still falling. The big station clocks were showing almost seven o’clock and I still had no idea how I was to fulfil the task Florenza had given me. And time was running out.
Was there any other way for me to save Bernie? The only idea I could come up with was to flee immediately and to take Bernie with me. Maybe we could just hop on one of the trains leaving the station?
In that case, we’d first have to climb the barbed-wire fence. I had no doubt I could manage it, but big, heavy Bernie? And, what’s more, he had no idea at all that he was in danger. How could I go about explaining it to him?
I felt as if I had something stuck in my throat—something that just wouldn’t go away. It was the onset of panic.
What was I to do?