When we left the house we sort of wandered for a bit, strangely unsettled by the meeting.
On the corner of the road I noticed a pub and idly read the sign. It said THE FERRY HOUSE. This was the pub Ty’d told me about, where her uncles used to drink. I remembered what she said about being able to hear the ghosts of Elizabeth’s hunting dogs barking at twilight, so I looked over the silvery winter Thames, straining my ears to hear the baying across the centuries. But there was nothing to be heard other than the sounds of traffic and a plane high above, heading to City Airport – Savage sounds crowding out the Medieval past. ‘Let’s go in here,’ I said.
Inside the pub was welcoming. It was one of those old-fashioned ones – no dove-grey paint and blackboard menus, but crap carpet, a telly on and a dartboard. We all ordered Cokes. It was a beverage I’d never seen on offer at Cumberland Place. At a sticky corner table, we discussed our encounter.
‘So I guess Missy doesn’t know what Ty is up to,’ said Shafeen.
I said, ‘But she must know about Leon Morgan, no?’
‘Not necessarily,’ said Nel. ‘He was the dad’s uncle.’
‘How do you know?’ I demanded.
‘Because he was called Morgan, dummy.’
She had a point. I thought then of the game books at Longcross. One of them, way back in the stacks, would have held Leon Morgan’s name. Then I thought of the new game book, squat and malign, lying on the counter at Cornellisen’s. That book, like all the others, would soon be written with death. But then I looked at Nel and Shafeen and was sure of two things.
One, there was no way that we could tell Missy Morgan that Ty was in danger.
And two, there was no way we were going to let any harm come to Ty on Boxing Day.