Albert Skinner was in Calais, interviewing customs officer Jean Lepage.

Had Jean Lepage seen the Sparrowhawk come through? He had! Albert Skinner was relieved. Where had the Sparrowhawk gone? It was very important. The children on board had run away, the girl’s uncle was looking for her and the boy was an orphan with no family.

Jean Lepage found himself in a dilemma.

On the one hand, he knew the stories circulating in Calais about Ben and Lotti. If there was the slightest chance of the boy finding his brother alive, he had no intention of getting in their way. His own nephew had disappeared at the Battle of Verdun, his sister had spent months scouring hospitals for him. Also, there was the memory of the girl’s face when she told him about the puppies, that look of wonder, which Jean had not forgotten.

On the other hand, one did not lie to policemen.

Jean Lepage compromised.

‘Try asking at La Belle Ecluse,’ he said. ‘The landlady there may be able to help.’

Madame Royère had none of Jean Lepage’s scruples about lying. Henri de Beauchesne had given precise instructions before he left about what to say to anyone who came looking for the Sparrowhawk, and promised to reward her for saying it.

‘They have gone to Paris,’ the landlady said firmly, and gave Albert the captain’s address.

Albert had one final question, about something that had been troubling him since he left England.

‘Tell me,’ he asked. ‘With the children, were there dogs?’

Madame Royère rolled her eyes. This was a subject dear to her heart.

‘So many dogs!’ she sighed. ‘Puppies!’

‘Puppies?’

‘Five!’ she told him. ‘Four black like the mother, the fifth a toffee-coloured runt, with the ears of her terrible father, who cries all night.’

So Malachy Campbell’s chihuahua had made it to France, thought Albert.

‘Thank you, madame,’ he said.

He left for the station, to catch a train to Paris. As soon as he was gone, Madame Royère telephoned Captain de Beauchesne, to warn him of the policeman’s arrival.

Henri sent a second telegram to the convent, this time addressed to Clara, hoping that she was there, that it would be helpful and, most of all, that she would be pleased with him.

*

Sister Monique brought Henri’s telegram to the Sparrowhawk, noting with interest that Clara blushed as she read it.

‘What should I do?’ asked Clara.

‘About what?’ asked Sister Monique drily.

‘About the policeman, of course.’

‘The captain tells you that he will deflect him. Is it so bad, if the policeman finds you?’

Yes, thought Clara bleakly, it is so bad. And yet, at some point, wasn’t it inevitable that the law would catch up with them? What would happen now? In the unlikely event that Ben found Sam alive and well, he would live with his brother, but if he didn’t? For the first time, Clara realised that in haring after the Sparrowhawk with no plan other than to keep Ben and Lotti safe, she had actually made things worse for them. Would anyone allow her to become Ben’s guardian, now that she had helped him run away? And would she herself be in trouble with the law? She wasn’t sure where it stood with respect to Ben, but she was fairly sure it would take a dim view of the fact she hadn’t returned Lotti to her uncle.

She should have insisted on bringing Lotti home before the Netherburys returned from Scotland, taken her to St Winifred’s, begged them to say nothing of the late arrival to her uncle … Hubert Netherbury would be furious. Clara had met him only once, when he interviewed her to tutor Lotti, but she had a fair idea of the sort of man he was. Suddenly, she felt very afraid for Lotti.

Oh, she should have done everything differently! And yet Clara also knew that nothing she said could have stopped Ben and Lotti, and that had she given them away, they would never have forgiven her.

Sister Monique was asking her a question.

‘Do you trust this captain?’

Clara thought about the efficiency with which Henri had helped them at La Belle Ecluse, his bashfulness towards her at the end. Unconsciously, she stroked the telegram with her thumb. She knew that Henri would keep Albert Skinner away for as long as he could.

After that, who knew?

‘I do trust him,’ she said.

‘Then save your worry for the children,’ advised Sister Monique. ‘Or, better, pray for them.’

Her eyes fell on the puppies nestled with Elsie in their crate.

‘The little toffee one is too thin,’ she observed.

‘I know,’ said Clara. ‘I keep trying to help her feed, but Elsie is so unsettled since Ben went away, she doesn’t seem interested.’

‘Bring her to the kitchen,’ suggested Sister Monique. ‘I’ve some fresh goat’s milk, we’ll try her with that.’

As they walked up to the convent, a gardener came towards them pushing a wheelbarrow. He stopped and straightened to let them pass, and Clara felt a small shock. She had seen him several times from a distance and had assumed from the way he carried himself that he was an old man. Close up she saw that he was quite young, though his ragged clothes and thick beard and the livid scar that ran down his left cheek from his temple made it hard to guess his age.

‘A poor lost soul,’ sighed Sister Monique when they were out of earshot.

‘Who is he, and how did he get that scar?’

‘Nobody knows, because he does not speak. He appeared earlier in the spring, and the Reverend Mother took pity on him and gave him work. He lives in a cabin in the woods. We call him Moses, because he loves to watch the river.’

‘Poor man,’ said Clara, but she shivered as she followed Sister Monique through the orchard, feeling the gardener’s eyes still on her, and remembering her feeling last night on the Sparrowhawk, that she was being watched then too.