The footsteps came from behind, as the ones that you notice do. She remarked to herself the moment they began to follow that they rang dull in the ears, flat and sinister. They stayed close behind in the shadow, neither overtaking nor falling back, and she gripped the neck of the bottle in her pocket, squeezing Daisy’s hand, keeping her eyes on the end of the street. Her tormentor hung behind them another twenty yards, another fifty. Just the soles of his shoes and a soft, wheezing breath, which she caught as she strained the very nerves of her eardrums.
Just as she thought she could bear it no longer she heard the footsteps quicken, and as time slowed she marvelled at how he had still surprised her, though she had been poised on a nerve string. She turned as he leaped towards her, pushing Daisy aside, and swung the bottle, still half full, into the side of his head. It shattered into pieces that flew through the air, a shower of glass and gin, catching the gaslight, twinkling and falling to the ground, leaving a vicious jagged dagger in her hand. As if in a trance she heard Daisy scream, looked round to find her crouched by the wall and gathered her up. They glanced back at him once, staring dumbly at them, mouth hanging open, blood running down his face into the puddle of gin.
Grace came to with a start and a little gasp, knuckles white on the side of the boat. The family were sleeping. She took in the reeds, the birds, the chirping riverscape.
The family woke early and cold fingers of sunshine fought through the canopy. Billy rowed them into the weak morning sun. Charlie broke out breakfast–rolls, butter, cheese, ham. He gave the first roll to his sister. And on they went. Whitechapel seemed far away. The sky grew blue, the children spotted sheep, the birds sang. It was all very nice but she knew they made quite a picture: they must keep moving. Maybe they should get off the river soon.
They stopped past the next town, and tied up the boat. After they had tidied their few effects, prompted by Charlie, and eaten, they sat on the riverbank and tried to catch fish with long switches and a line they found in the bottom of the boat, though Daisy was content to imagine hers. Their eyes fixed on the water, every ripple and splash. Within five minutes Daisy tired of this. Grace and she walked up the bank to the lane at the top and over the bridge.
‘I know a good game,’ said Grace. ‘You get a stick and drop it in the water, then run the other side and see whose comes out first.’ Daisy found herself a fine stick and a large twig for Grace.
After Daisy had won four times, and lost two, and they were playing with blades of grass as the good sticks were becoming harder to find, Grace suggested a foray into the village, though Daisy wanted to play on. She was lured by the possibility of bull’s-eyes and the promise that they would play sticks again on the way back. Though only once.
They took a little footpath that ran behind the town. As they wandered up it, Grace filled her lungs with the sweet, clean air and imagined how it would be to live in the countryside, spending every day among the rolling green fields instead of grey streets and human wreckage. Maybe in a little house like that one on the hill ahead, with its apple trees and its thatched roof. She pictured herself inside, baking, or making jam perhaps, the children running around outside, picking blackberries and apples. Daisy skipped ahead, plucking wild flowers from the hedgerow as if participating in this idyllic fantasy. And suddenly Mr Blunt, never far from her thoughts lately, swam into them again, spoiling the scene. She saw him thundering down the footpath towards them, breath grunting, coat tails flapping, heavy boots kicking up stones. She felt uneasy and looked about her, and though she knew he could not be near them, not yet at least, her nerves crackled, as if she was being watched. She remarked to herself then that the only way she could be free of this shadow was if Mr Blunt was dead and buried. A cold notion that dropped out of the sky on to her head. She was surprised she had not thought it before.
They came upon a winding road that appeared to be the main street. A sign said Runney Mead. The sky was blue between the billowing clouds, white like Maidie Robertson’s feather pillows. Two shops huddled together opposite a miniature pub.
‘What’s mead?’ said Daisy.
‘Some funny old drink they used to have in the olden days.’
‘Is it nice?’
‘Dunno, darlin’. I’ve never had it.’
‘Everything’s so small, ain’t it?’
They bought plums, bull’s-eyes and sweet tobacco, and walked through the village, munching, lost in thought. A woman watched them across the square. As Grace looked over she lowered her head and went inside her shop. The windows all around seemed to stare like dead men. She hurried Daisy on.
By the boat the boys were talking about some girl with red hair they had seen in the last town. When Grace and Daisy reappeared they had given up fishing and were eyeing up a fancy skiff moored at the other bank.
‘What are you doing?’ Grace said.
‘Nothing.’
All the way from Datchet to Boveney Lock, Grace sank into herself, the children chattering around her. They must leave the boat soon. Supposing someone knew they had left London on the river, and had merely to follow it along? She had felt sure before of their secret escape, now she was not. At Romney Lock the keeper seemed to watch them for all the time it took the water to fill. Grace could see him peering from his little booth as the boat came up.
Now, our Grace is a handsome woman and it may be the lock-keeper was merely sneaking a good look at her–he is a lonely fellow, and though he spends his days in this idyllic spot, with the birdsong all around, and eats fresh country eggs and ham every morning, he finds it interminably tedious and longs to see the lights of Piccadilly; so who knows how he whiles away the hours in that little booth of his–but the running and hiding and secrecy had drawn Grace tight as piano wire. She could hear the grass grow, smell fox in the hedgerow, see through skin, and this had quite skewed her judgement of everyday things, which is the problem, of course, with suspicion. So, he was not a lonely lock-keeper but a spy, piercing her with sharp eyes. She turned her back.
‘Look, Daisy, a windmill.’ Even that seemed to watch them, looming dark across the fields.
‘Why doesn’t it go round?’
‘There’s no wind.’
‘What’s it for?’
‘Making flour.’
‘Oh!’ Flour was not something Daisy had thought much about; it came in bags and never troubled her. But she was pleased to know anyhow, and to solve the matter of windmills, which she had seen on china cups but never considered properly either. ‘Can we wait until the wind comes?’
‘No, we can’t.’
They made a stop presently at Maidenhead, which seemed a bit risky, but the children were clamouring for food and they had none. They moored on the quieter side of the river, at the end of the landing.
‘We’re not stopping long!’ Grace shouted after them, as they leaped out of the boat and ran down the jetty.
The children were hoping to find another Mrs Robertson and were cruelly disappointed by the surly fellow who was landlord at the Orkney Arms. They sat down to chops and boiled potatoes and were quiet for some time, the landlord scowling in the background, before Grace ventured conversation with him. ‘Do you see many travellers around these parts?’
‘No,’ was the gruff reply.
Even Daisy did not melt his rude manner. ‘May I have a cup of milk, please?’ she asked him politely.
‘Get your nasty hands off the bar, little girl,’ he said, under his breath, so that her mother could not hear, which she did. Grace bit her lip.
They wolfed their food, making surreptitious faces at each other all the while, paid their bill and left. The landlord watched them until they disappeared round the next bend, staring intently from the upper floor of the inn, beard bristling as he sucked his front teeth–a habit he had indulged since childhood–which made his chin protrude, giving him a pugnacious yet ridiculous air. He stood on the small balcony as if it were the prow of a ship, imagining himself to be Lord Nelson, before he had lost his arm. He enjoyed this fantasy for a few moments, until his wife, who was even more disagreeable than he and bedridden with colic, shouted for him to empty her pot.
Where do you think you are going? said the tiny voice at the back of Grace’s head–the one that spoke at unsure moments such as this. In the rush to escape London she had not thought past the end of her nose. When she looked at their prospects she felt that she had been labouring under a wishful delusion: did she imagine that he might simply abandon his search after a week or two and go home again? How stupid. You are sleepwalking! You knew he would come, the voice scolded. You have made a pig’s ear of it.
They stopped for a nap not a mile on, concealed by a great bank of alder, and Grace went back and robbed Landlord Nelson while Charlie watched the little ones, who were sleeping peacefully as she came running through the orchard, night falling behind her, Charlie turning the boat to row back the way they had come.
She shivered in the night air, punting silently past the Orkney Arms. Charlie kept his head down and steered them away from the bank with the other oar. The river was empty; they kept to the shadows on the far bank and disappeared under the bridge. Grace would get her family off the river as soon as they woke, before Laleham and Maidie Robertson’s cottage. If Daisy went there again she would never get her away.
Jack was turning away from the house in Bell Lane once more. They were gone for sure. It must have something to do with Mr Belmarsh. He had the uncomfortable feeling that he had failed her–a sentiment she might have appreciated, though there really was nothing he could do–and tried to content himself with the thought that she could get by nicely without his help. Trixie May Turner might know something.
It didn’t take him long to find her. She was on good form, though precious about her recent exploits. They had several jars in the Britannia. She hadn’t seen Grace since all the business with Mirabel Trotter, or so she said.
‘Where do you reckon she is, then?’ he asked, for the second time, possessed of the irrational theory that all women are part of some general conspiracy, as many men are, especially the ones who are up to something themselves.
‘I’ve really no idea,’ she replied again.
‘Do you think something happened to her?’
‘No!’ She felt sorry for him suddenly, staring moodily into his jar. He needed diversion, perhaps a little venture. Trixie and Jack had a modest history of partnership in crime; certain occasions when an opportunity had presented itself. She needed help with a few tricky tabs that were owing. ‘Don’t sulk, Jack. Listen to this…’
Mr Blunt had taken to drinking in the Frying Pan lately, finding it the quietest place for a beer at certain times of the day. He has asked, of course, after his long-lost cousin, a Miss Grace Hammer: bringing solemn family news, most regretfully–and notice, on a happier note, of a financial nature–but Mr Daley, the landlord, amenable fellow though he was, could not attest to having heard of such a person. He did, come to think of it, remember some Hammers from years back–they lived west, he was sure of it, Hammersmith way. Mr Blunt was sure these were not his Hammers and ignored him. He wondered about the tunnel that was rumoured to run beneath the building, stretching under the street and beyond. The idea of this subterranean network appealed to his devious nature. He wondered how one might get in.