by Joel N. Ross
“Audrey!” Tom yelled. Where the hell was Rugg? “Go back! Run!”
She pointed more energetically, and he saw Rugg behind him. Thirty yards away, two paces off the path, his back to the city.
Tom’s hand reached for the Colt he didn’t carry. The canal was behind him. There were no boats. Could he swim? Not with the banks so muddy, the water so cold. Not with one hand he couldn’t use. Not and leave Audrey behind.
He’d have to take one of them. It was an easy decision, even if Renard had a knife. Tom felt a sudden rush of warmth. All he wanted was to stand and fight. He was tired of wrestling ghosts. He glanced at Rugg to be sure the big man was far enough away before he tangled with Renard. He had no weapon, not a shattered brick or a length of wire. He wanted to finish this.
Audrey’s scream rose and wavered and Tom spun back toward her, his stomach twisted with the fear that Renard’s knife was pricking her throat, but she was nowhere near him. She was standing under the dripping canopy of an oak, arms held straight at her sides, hands in fists, mouth open and color high—a one-woman air-raid siren.
Renard glanced toward her, must’ve decided she was too far to silence, and continued toward Tom, holding the knife by his leg.
The bridge was narrow, with a low rail. Tom had never killed a man off the battlefield. He removed his jacket and wrapped it around his right forearm, tight enough to set his hand burning. There was always a first time.
A long way off, a car roughly shifted gears. Tom put a foot on the bridge and stood sideways to Renard, watching Rugg from the edge of his eye.
“Sad blinkin’ yobbo,” Renard said, the knife casually at his side. “Should’ve given us the parcel when we asked.”
“You got a first name, Renard?”
“Not for the likes of you.”
The planks of the bridge were slick under Tom’s feet. If he could toss Renard into the canal . . . “Never killed a man whose name I knew,” he said.
“I have.” Renard spat over the railing. “He got just as dead.”
Tom lifted his swaddled right arm and dropped into a crouch. He heard Audrey screaming and saw Rugg stop and clasp a hand to his shoulder, as if he was soothing a sudden injury. Renard was watching Rugg, too—distracted—and Tom sprang forward, leading with his wrapped jacket. He needed to let Renard cut him, to trap the knife in the cloth and toss Renard into the water. One more slash wouldn’t kill him.
Renard feinted, then hit Tom’s bandaged right with a backhanded swipe. Pain jolted up Tom’s arm and his eyes watered as he jabbed Renard in the face with his left.
Renard stepped back. “Bastard!”
“Must be tough”—Tom faked left, but Renard didn’t bite—“fighting a man with one hand.”
Renard circled. “No hands when I’m through.”
Tom raised his jacket-wrapped right arm to try to catch Renard’s knife in fabric instead of flesh and finish this.
“Rugg’s shot,” Tom said.
Renard glanced toward the big man, and Tom tossed his coat at Renard’s face and aimed for his throat with the edge of his left arm, but he hit him high on the chest. Renard sliced with the knife as he fell backward, and Tom felt the blade pass an inch from his cheek. He stepped forward and hit Renard in the throat with his right fist. The pain was a spike through his palm. Renard gagged and swung wildly as Tom ducked and lunged in a football tackle—lost his footing on the wet boards of the bridge and slammed to the ground.
His vision blurred and cleared, and he saw Rugg, twenty yards away, shaking his head like a bee-stung bear. Heard him cursing toward a dark copse of trees, and saw a flash in the air, glimpsed the outline of a well-dressed man throwing something at him.
Renard moved forward in a crouch, and Tom kicked and connected with nothing firm, but the clatter of metal on wood told him he’d knocked the knife from Renard’s hand.
He bared his teeth. Now they’d see who’d walk away.
He rolled, and out of nowhere Audrey leapt at Renard. She shrieked and clawed his face, her eyes blank. Holding her shoes like brass knuckles, she stabbed at Renard’s neck with the heels. He grunted and swung an arm, flung her away. She fell against the railing and slipped on the wood. Tom grabbed Renard’s leg and yanked. Unbalanced, Renard stumbled past and scrambled for the knife.
Tom rolled backward, put the railing behind him. He would take the cut to his arm and use his legs to push Renard into the canal. But Renard was gone. Tom was alone with Audrey on the bridge. She knelt next to him, wet and shaken. She said something that didn’t quite form words.
He said, “Are you hurt? Audrey, are you hurt?”
She shook her head. “I saw that man. He was following you. I was following— You’re bleeding.”
He said he was fine and she started crying. He held her, looking over her tangled black hair for Rugg and Renard, and saw four men approaching, attracted by her earlier screams.
“Get your shoes on,” he told Audrey. “Keep your head down! Time to go, quick and quiet.”
She reached for the shoe lying beside her, the heel she’d swung at Renard. “There’s blood—”
“Put it on, love. Let’s go.”
“I lost the mate.” Her eyes were wet. “Over the side.”
“Time to go, Audrey.”
“I saw that man—I thought you needed me.”
“He’s still out there. I still need you.” Tom grabbed his jacket and stood. “Let’s go.”
He helped Audrey to her feet. She weighed nothing. Without heels, she barely reached his chin. Hitting Renard, spitting and hissing, she hadn’t done more than scratch him, but it didn’t matter. Maybe Renard ran because he’d lost his knife, maybe because he was afraid for Rugg, maybe because of Audrey. But now she was paying the price in shock. He brushed a twig from her hair. “It’s good, Audrey. You did good. We have to go.”
“My shoes . . .”
“I’ll buy you another pair.”
“I . . . I ruined these.”
“That’s what happens, love,” he said. “When you accidentally stick your shoe in someone’s neck.”
Her laugh was weak, but definitely hers. “I came after you because—I know where you might find Earl.”
Someone was stalking through a dense patch in the trees—a big man with a gun. Tom grabbed her hand and ran.
RUGG WAS CLOSING on Tom when something jabbed his shoulder, then hung there, sharp and deep. He put a hand out, and it was a dart. Then another pricked the back of his neck—he felt the weight of it dangling—and a man dressed as a headmaster stepped out of the fog.
Rugg cursed him, and the headmaster said, polite as a parlor maid, that the next dart would be in his eye. Rugg had bowed his head and charged. A fookin’ dartboard don’t move when you’re aiming, does it?
The dart scratched his cheek, but he’d done worse shaving, and the headmaster backed into the trees. Rugg specked him sneaking behind a shuttered kiosk and went the other way round. Slid behind the kiosk, and walked into a swinging shovel blade. Made a fierce clang on his forehead. He staggered and fell to his knees.
The headmaster swung the shovel again, and Rugg blacked into darkness for a spell. When he came to, he was still kneeling, hadn’t even time to fall over. Another swing, and Rugg lifted his hand—slower than a tree grows—and caught the shovel and flung it away. He grabbed a fold of the old man’s trouser and a voice behind them yelled, “Don’t, bastards! Stop! First one goes in your knee!”
He looked at the headmaster and the headmaster looked at him, and they both turned and looked at a ginger-haired man with a great bleedin’ gun in his hand. He had to be police, or near enough to make no difference.
“Step away,” Ginger said, the barrel steady as a steeple. “Hands behind your head. On your knees, if you want to keep them. On your knees!” To the headmaster: “Been lookin’ for you, mate.
You too, Rugg. Where’s your little friend, then?”
Rugg put his hands behind his neck. Want to know where my little friend is? He’s creeping behind you, Ginger, through the pea-soup fog. Renard was a squit, but he knew how to handle a man with a gun—from behind.
The headmaster was rattling on, keeping Ginger from hearing as Renard moved close. Rugg popped a knuckle behind his head, Ginger pulled at a pair of cuffs, and Renard stuck him, twice, snake-fast, under the shoulder blade, into the heart.
Ginger sprawled forward, the gun flung from his fist. Rugg watched it drop to the brick and waited for the gunshot. It bounced, didn’t fire, and he lunged for the headmaster while Renard stuck Ginger again. The headmaster stepped sideways, bowed, and came up holding the gun, pointed somewhere between Rugg and Renard.
“I’m better at firearms than pub games,” he told Rugg.
“Go your way,” Rugg said. “We go ours.”
“You chased ‘my way’ into the night. You put a great deal in jeopardy.” He inspected Rugg. “Can you stand?”
Rugg stood.
“You have an impressive constitution.”
“Fookin’ shovel,” Rugg said.
Headmaster smiled. “Though a meager vocabulary.”
Renard inched away to flank the man, but Rugg glanced at the squit and said, “Piss off it.”
Renard stopped, and the old man nodded. “You know what you’re about, Rugg,” he said. “I had you cast as the mindless brute, but you know what you’re about. However, I couldn’t allow you to dispose of Tom Wall.”
Rugg popped another knuckle. ’Course they were all after Wall.
“To kill him now would be disastrous,” the headmaster said. “He has a dramatic purpose still to serve.”
Rugg said, “Has a parcel, too.”
“I should hope he does. I gave it to him.”
“You’re Sonder?”
“Very nearly. So, you know who I am.” He touched Ginger’s body with his toe. “And I know what this chap is.”
“What he blinkin’ was,” Renard said.
“Fair point. But I’m not entirely certain what you are.” The headmaster cocked his head at approaching footsteps. They faded, and he smiled. “Ah. Blackshirts? Yes, British Union.”
“That’s right—when there bleedin’ was one.”
“Excellent. You were sent to search for the parcel in Tom Wall’s possession?”
Rugg palmed his forehead where the shovel had hit. Chilton had said Sonder was a coward and traitor, but with that voice and that calm? Not fookin’ likely. Sonder was bone-tough.
“Ah, discretion,” Sonder said when they didn’t answer. “Well, it was in service of the Führer that I gave Tom the parcel.” He dropped the gun in his jacket pocket and extended his hand. “Pleased to meet you.”
Rugg took the headmaster’s hand. Could snap him in quarters without raising a sweat, but when he looked in the man’s eyes, there wasn’t a stain of fear. Hard as a hammer, Sonder was. Not a dress-up fascist like Chilton, but a proper man.
“A pleasure,” Sonder said. “Yet now we must find Tom Wall.”
“We?” Renard said.
Sonder talked on, but it wasn’t like Renard or Chilton nattering. He spoke truth, his voice smooth and thick as clotted cream. Looked you in the eye, too, and didn’t flinch or fidget. Strong and straight, and saying again they had to find Tom Wall.
“He’s long gone,” Renard said.
“He’s looking for his brother. If he fails to find him, he’ll return to Shepherd Market.”
“What if he blinkin’ succeeds?” Renard asked.
“Then he’ll do the same.” Sonder stepped over the dead man. “Will you join me? We have much to do.”
CHAPTER
THIRTY-ONE
AFTERNOON, DECEMBER 5, 1941
“IT’S WINTER,” TOM said. He didn’t have time for this. The Japanese strike force had launched almost three weeks ago.
“Spring’s around the corner, Tommy.” Audrey eyed the shoes in the window—dark red, with pleated leather around open toes—and the sight seemed to calm her better than anything he’d tried. “It’s never too soon.”
“You said you know where I might find Earl.”
“Shoes first,” she said.
After the dustup in the park, they’d trotted—her in stocking feet—to St. Mark’s Square and Princess Road, then followed the canal toward Camden Town. Every ten steps, Audrey had half-turned, wanting but afraid to look behind. She did again now, dragging her attention from the display window.
“There’s nobody there.” Tom hoped he wasn’t lying. “We lost them at the park.”
“We’ve time for shopping, then.” She pulled him into the dress shop. “My toes are ice.”
Inside, he grabbed the nearest pair of shoes. “Here.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Revolting.”
“What about Earl, Audrey?”
“He’d agree. Revolting.”
“Jesus. I don’t have time for this. If you know something, spill.”
A rail-thin woman asked if they needed assistance, her eyes darting disapprovingly toward Audrey’s laddered stockings. Audrey beamed and asked for a pair of the T-strap flats in size four.
“Hyde Road, Tommy,” she said when the woman disappeared into the back room. “The canal barely meets Hyde Road—in Hoxton, or Islington.”
“There’s a Hyde Road?”
“Of course there is, silly. Didn’t I just say?”
Not Hyde Street, but Hyde Road. “It intersects Regent’s Canal?”
“Barely, Tommy.” She took the shoes from the woman and wriggled her feet into them. “Too small. May I see the wedgies in the window?”
“They’re fine,” he said.
“They pinch. I need—”
“They’re fine.” Tom tossed a couple bills at the woman. “Let’s go.”
HYDE ROAD INTERSECTED three other roads in a wide junction just south of the water and ended in a bridge. It didn’t touch the canal, but you could toss a rock from the sidewalk and hear the splash. What had Inch actually overheard? Earl talking about Regent’s Canal . . . and Hyde. Hyde Park, Hyde Street, Hyde Road. This was it. As close as Tom had come.
He handed the taxi driver an extra note. “Take the lady home.”
“Rubbish!” Audrey said. “Of course I’m coming along.”
“I’d rather you—”
“Tommy!”
He helped her from the car and pretended he wasn’t pleased.
Inch had been right about one thing: She wasn’t able to maintain a temper. A brawl in the park and a forced march through Camden Town, and she begrudged none of it, not even canvassing the neighborhood around the canal, wearing a pair of too-tight shoes. She followed as he knocked on endless doors, and smoothed his approach to wary shop owners and warehouse workers—but all for nothing until they spoke with a middle-aged woman smoking a cigarette outside a hairdresser’s shop.
She looked at the photograph of Earl and said, “Haven’t seen him, more’s the pity.”
“That helps,” Tom said.
“Your young man,” the woman told Audrey, “could stand to learn his manners.”
“You’ll have to excuse him. His mother is that worried, poor dear.”
“Is she? Well . . . it’s your brother, you say?” The woman inspected the photograph more closely. “No, I’ve not seen him. Poor woman, your mother. I’ve buried two, and two more fighting.”
Audrey expressed her condolences.
“One in Norway,” she said. “One not ten blocks from here. He wasn’t fourteen—wanted to be a pilot. They all do, don’t they?”
“Nobody loves the infantry,” Tom said.
The woman looked at him for a long moment. “It’s hard days we’ve been given. All
we can do is carry on. . . .” Her thick eyelashes fluttered away tears. “Happy to be near water at any rate. I like the sound, even if it’s naught but the Grand Union, with the weeds and clutter.”
“The what?” Tom said.
“The weeds, dear.”
“The Grand Union? This isn’t Regent’s Canal?”
“It’s the Grand Union now,” the woman said. “Hasn’t properly been called the Regent’s for ten years.”
“I thought Grand Union was a train station.” What had Highcastle said the first time Tom met him? “. . . two auxiliary firemen heard a commotion over Grand Union, behind the stable.” It had come full circle. Hyde Road and Grand Union, Earl and Sondegger. “The stables. Where’s a stable?”
“Isn’t one,” the woman said. “Not anywhere near.”
“There’s got to be.”
She said there wasn’t, and he pulled Audrey away.
“Norway,” the woman said behind them. “So far from home.”
HARRIET COULDN’T FACE the empty house in Shepherd Market, not even for her garden. She returned to the office instead—there was work to be done. She understood the ALBANS dispatch memorandum now. The agent was Sondegger, and if he blew the Double-Cross, her girls would die.
She settled into her desk without informing Mr. Uphill she’d returned. The door to his office was closed, and she had a moment of privacy. She opened the bottom drawer and looked at the plaid check of Renard’s coat. She must confront Father. She’d speak with him tomorrow. Today had been long enough, and it wasn’t half over. Oh, Tommy—
“Mrs. Wall,” Mr. Uphill said. “I wasn’t aware you’d returned.”
“Tidying up,” she said too brightly.
“I’m sorry you came. I was told to expect you Monday next.”
“Yes, I meant to—”
He said perhaps she ought to return home. He didn’t phrase it quite as a question. Thirty minutes later, she unlocked the front door and hung her coat and Renard’s on the stand. She dropped the keys on the kitchen table, splashed water on her face, and dried with a tea towel. Put the kettle on, then opened the door to the garden. Thin pink worms lay on the path, naked and vulnerable.
