‘We must wait. Rest is the best medicine I can prescribe for him now.’
‘Do you know what’s wrong with him?’ Alice’s father asked.
The doctor shook his head. ‘A fever such as this can be brought on by many things.’
‘What about the blackening of his lips?’ Alice said. ‘Surely that must provide some clue as to the cause.’
‘Liquorice. Nothing more. On closer inspection I noted that the boy’s teeth and gums showed the same discolouration. I’m partial to it myself. The smell is unmistakable.’
Liquorice? Alice thought, confused. She was about to say that she had been with Chester all afternoon and that she would have known if her son had eaten any liquorice, but she stopped herself when she recalled that she had not been with Chester all afternoon—not quite. She had left him alone when she went to find Charlotte. She remembered the man sitting beside Chester in the castle grounds then, and a shiver ran through her when she pictured the paper bag he was holding. She recalled how quick he was to leave when she returned, and she thought it no wonder that the pigeons had been so disinterested. Why would they show any interest if the bag the man was holding contained not breadcrumbs, but liquorice?
Poisoned liquorice . . .
It was too abhorrent to think that anyone would give such a thing to a child. She wanted to tell the doctor that he was wrong to suppose it was liquorice and nothing more, but she had no proof, and to voice her suspicions would force her to explain why she thought anyone would want to harm Chester in the first place. She wondered now whether the street vender with his dancing ribbons had also been party to the setup, wilfully luring Charlotte away so as to separate them and leave Chester vulnerable.
Alice bit her lip until she tasted blood. How could she have been so foolish? She could only think that her plan to provide false information to the Dutchman on the experimental submarine at Chatham had been discovered for the misinformation it was. It was clear to Alice now that Raskin and the people he was working for were resourceful enough to get to her children wherever they were, and clearly they were prepared to go to any lengths for their cause, however unthinkable. Or was she simply being paranoid? Perhaps there was another, more innocent explanation. Alice wished that were true, but she could not believe it was.
Dr Shackleton made for the door, and she drifted after him, thinking now of her husband and hoping that no harm had come to him as a result of her misjudgement.
‘Keep a watch over young Chester tonight,’ the doctor said. ‘While he’s sleeping, leave him to it. If he becomes delirious again, apply cold towels and call me at once. I’ll return in the morning.’
Lord Metcalfe opened the door. ‘Thank you, James. We are once again in your debt.’
‘Not at all, sir. Not at all.’
The doctor turned back from the door then and smiled at Alice. ‘I know it’s an impossible thing to ask a mother, but try not to worry too much,’ he said. ‘I’m sure Chester will be as bright as a new penny again in a day or two.’
Alice could not bring herself to return the doctor’s kindly smile. She simply gave a small nod and silently prayed that he was right.
It was almost four in the morning, and because Alice had watched over Chester tirelessly since Dr Shackleton left the house, her mother had insisted she now try to sleep. But Alice could not sleep. She lay awake on her bed, wrapped in her housecoat and her thoughts, staring at the shifting shadows that her bedside candle cast on the ceiling. On top of everything else, she was as worried now about what evil deed the Dutchman might sanction against her children next, and when she thought about her little Charlotte, it brought tears to her eyes. Raskin was the last man in the world Alice wanted to see, but she knew she had to find him, to assure him that she would cooperate fully from now on. And she had to know she was right about the man on the bench with his paper bag, and that what he had given to her son to teach her a lesson would not cause Chester any irreparable harm.
Alice swung her legs off the bed and put on a pair of flat shoes, supposing that the Dutchman could not come to her in her own bedroom, although she would not put it past him to try. She tied her housecoat more securely at her waist and then took up her candle and went to the door. The house was still. All she could hear was the sound of the grandfather clock keeping time in the main hallway below. She stepped out, guarding the light from her candle with her free hand as she went towards the stairs. When she came to Chester’s room, she paused and trod extra carefully past so as not to alert her mother. When she passed Charlotte’s room, she looked in momentarily, just to know that she was still sleeping peacefully.
As she made her way down the stairs, all the while peering into the near darkness beyond the candle’s glow, in case anyone else was about, she supposed that Raskin would not be far from Hamberley on this night of all nights—if indeed any night. She knew that he or one of his spies must have followed her into Rochester. How else could he know her every move? She reached the bottom step and went to the dining room, thinking to go out on the terrace as she had that night with Archie. Raskin had come to her there, and she hoped he would do so again tonight.
It was colder than Alice imagined it would be after so fine a spring day. She wrapped her arms around herself and gazed up into the night, where stars pricked the black sky and the moon was nowhere to be seen. She went to the balustrade and gazed out across the lawns, and then a breeze arrived unannounced and extinguished her candle.
‘Raskin,’ she called under her breath.
She looked down into the shrubbery below, but it was too dark to see anything, so she went to the steps and began to descend them as she had before. Somewhere far off an owl screeched, breaking the silence. She called out again, a little louder this time.
‘Raskin!’
At the bottom of the steps, Alice ventured further around the house, and gradually her eyes became better accustomed to the dark, but it served her no purpose. Raskin was nowhere to be found, or perhaps he did not wish to be found, meaning to let her suffer all the longer for her deceit.
Alice did not call out again. She could feel the cold biting at her ankles now, and she had begun to shiver. She thought it would not do to catch a chill and fall ill herself with Chester in such need of her, so she returned to the terrace and went back into the house. She closed the door behind her and wished she had a match with which to relight her candle, but she knew the way well enough. She was about to move off when a familiar voice startled her.
‘Here, let me light that for you.’
Alice spun around as a match struck up, and there in the flame’s glow was Raskin. He was dressed in a long sheepskin coat, sitting back in her father’s chair with his boots up on the table. Just being near him again made her skin crawl, but Alice went to him just the same and offered out her candle. His pale blue eyes commanded her attention as he lit it, and Alice could no longer avoid them.
‘If you had called my name any louder, you might have woken the whole household.’
Alice thought that might not have been such a bad thing. Perhaps then this monster would be caught and made to free her husband and end the terror he had brought upon her family. But she knew his capture would make no difference. He would simply be replaced by another who would torture her emotions all the more for it.
‘You’ve got a nerve coming in here,’ Alice said.
The Dutchman smiled wryly. ‘Strong nerves are very handy in my line of work.’
‘Don’t you sleep?’
‘Of course. By day, when it suits me. A few hours here, a few hours there.’
‘What have you done to my son?’
‘What have I done?’ Raskin gave a condescending laugh. ‘You know very well it is because of what you have done that your son is now fighting for his life.’
At hearing that, Alice felt a rage inside her that she had never felt before. The candle she was
still holding began to shake in her hand.
‘You gave him poisoned liquorice,’ she said. It was no longer a question in her mind.
‘Not I, personally,’ Raskin said. ‘But yes, he was given a substance. The taste can be quite bitter. The liquorice helps to disguise it.’
The Dutchman’s matter-of-fact coldness made Alice fear what he was capable of all the more. She set the candle down on the table and made a fist with her hand as she withdrew it to hide the fact that it was shaking.
‘Will he die? I have to know.’
‘The amount was not sufficient to kill him,’ Raskin said. He leaned closer and added, ‘Not this time.’
Were Alice a man, she thought, she would have used her fists to lash out at the Dutchman there and then, despite his size and obvious strength. Instead, her rage turned to tears as she pictured Chester lying in his room trying to fight off the poison.
‘He’s only four years old,’ she said, pleading without hope to a sense of compassion she knew did not exist. She choked back her tears. ‘How could you?’
Raskin offered her no sympathy. ‘You were tested and you failed.’
‘Tested?’
He gave a slow nod. ‘We already know about your experimental F-class submarine. It has a double hull, which will accommodate the ballast tanks, making the vessel more streamlined. Length—151 feet. Expected range—three thousand nautical miles. She will have three 18-inch torpedo tubes—two bow, one stern. I could go on, but you already know how completely absurd your report was. The F1 will be nothing more than a coastal patrol submarine of little importance to us. What is important to us is that we trust you. Can we trust you, Alice Stilwell?’
Alice swallowed the lump that had risen in her throat. She nodded.
‘Are you quite sure? Because from now on there will be no more chances.’
‘Yes, I’m very sure,’ Alice said. She was never more sure of anything in her life. ‘I’ll do everything you ask of me. Just promise you won’t harm my children again.’
‘That is not a promise I am at liberty to make,’ Raskin said. ‘As I hope you now fully understand. The fate of your children depends entirely on you.’
‘And my husband? Is Henry well? Tell me you haven’t harmed him because of me.’
‘He is quite comfortable, I assure you. And your son will make a speedy recovery. Now we must press on.’
‘Where is all this leading?’ Alice asked. ‘Why me? Is it because of who my father is? What do you really want?’
‘So many questions,’ Raskin said. ‘And they will be answered—that I do promise you. But not now. Now I have another task for you. Tomorrow you must go to the Burlington Hotel in Dover and speak to the head waiter, Raimund Drescher. Ask him how his mother is. Say you hope she is well. He will then tell you what you must do.’
‘His mother?’
‘His mother is dead. If you say this, he will know I sent you.’
‘I see.’
Raskin produced a notebook and pencil from inside his coat. ‘There is something I have to show you.’ He began to write into the notebook, and a moment later he held it to the candlelight so Alice could see what he’d written.
‘Alice is a good girl,’ she read aloud, confusion furrowing her brow.
Raskin didn’t elaborate. Instead he wrote something else into the notepad, taking longer this time. He showed her again, and Alice just stared at it. What he had written looked like unreadable nonsense. ‘Lac iie aso gdo igl r.’
‘It’s a cipher, Alice. A code if you like. I want you to use it for all further communication between us.’
Alice was still looking at it. ‘How does it work?’
‘It’s really very simple. Just swap each pair of letters around. Then write them out in blocks of three, which merely serves to confuse the eye. It’s called a transition cipher. There are many variants and some quite complex, but this will be sufficient.’
Alice looked at the text again and found she was able to read the original sentence quite easily now she knew how it worked. ‘It’s very clever,’ she said. ‘But what if I can’t do what Drescher asks of me?’ She knew from her experience in the slipway at the dockyard that she was ill suited to this.
‘You must do it.’
‘But what if I fail again?’
The question seemed to amuse the Dutchman. ‘Don’t you see, my dear Alice. It is the very fear of failure that will ensure your success. It doesn’t matter how you do it—what or whom you use to accomplish the task is irrelevant. But you must accomplish it. Do you understand?’
‘Yes,’ Alice said. She understood very well.
Chapter Twelve
Present day.
It was just before midday when Jefferson Tayte arrived at Gillingham Marina, where Davina Scanlon had said she would meet him for lunch. He was earlier than expected and somewhat confused because the restaurant he had just entered was the only restaurant at the marina, and the tanned young man who had introduced himself to Tayte as the restaurant manager had just informed him that they had no lunch reservation in Davina’s name.
‘I guess there must have been some mix-up,’ Tayte said. ‘Thanks for checking.’
He picked up his briefcase and was about to leave, but as he turned around, he saw her through the floor-to-ceiling windows. She was standing outside, smiling and waving at him in a low-cut summer dress. The sight of her made Tayte’s palms clammy. She was an unquestionably striking woman, and he couldn’t deny his attraction to her, which only made him feel worse because of Jean—not that he planned on trying to do anything about it. To the contrary, he wanted to run the other way. They met at the door to a chorus of crying seagulls.
‘You’re early,’ Davina said, still smiling. ‘You must be keen, is that it?’
Tayte’s mouth cracked into a nervous smile. ‘Actually, my visit with Lord Metcalfe didn’t go so well,’ he said, thinking that it was quite a setback in light of the fact that he already knew from his research that Alice’s daughter Charlotte had borne no children, making her brother’s bloodline the only Metcalfe line available to him. ‘I wasn’t at Hamberley half as long as I’d expected to be.’ He turned back to the restaurant. ‘I just checked, and they told me they don’t have a reservation. Maybe they can still fit us in, though.’
‘No need,’ Davina said. ‘I changed my mind. It’s such a nice day that I thought . . .’ her words trailed off as a playful grin danced across her glossy lips. She took Tayte’s arm. ‘Come with me and I’ll show you,’ she added. ‘You do like surprises, don’t you?’
Tayte snorted uneasily. ‘Who doesn’t?’ he said, already wishing he were back at his hotel having a room-service meal for one.
Davina led Tayte down towards the water, where reflections of the sun, now at its zenith, twinkled and shimmered between the yachts and the cruisers that were moored there. They took a pontoon walkway and were soon between the boats, and it didn’t take long for Tayte to realise where Davina was taking him.
‘Which one’s yours?’ he asked, showing his impatience to find out where Davina’s change of plan was going.
‘We’re coming to it. She’s call the Osprey.’
Seeing all those boats only brought bad memories to Tayte’s mind, most of which stemmed from his first assignment in England, when he’d almost drowned. ‘What did you have in mind?’ he asked when his impatience to know the answer got the better of him.
Davina turned to him as they walked. Her playful grin had returned. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, clearly sensing his unease. ‘I wasn’t planning to take you for a ride.’ She winked. ‘Not today anyway. I just thought that, as the weather’s so nice, we’d have lunch on the boat instead of at the restaurant.’
‘Oh, okay,’ Tayte said, thinking that this was all going to be far more intimate than he wanted it to be.
Davina stopped besid
e a gleaming white cruiser that looked to be around forty feet in length. Its marine blue canopy was folded down, revealing a white leather lounge deck around a table set for two, flowers and all. Tayte’s eyes fell on the bright red rose in the table centre and the beads of condensation on the ice bucket, which just made his throat feel all the more dry.
Davina stepped aboard. Then she turned and offered Tayte her hand. ‘Welcome to the Osprey.’
Tayte whistled. ‘She’s a lovely craft.’
‘She was my husband’s pride and joy.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Tayte said. ‘I didn’t mean to—’
‘It’s okay,’ Davina interrupted, saving Tayte from an awkward apology. ‘Actually, I like being here. I like being close to the things that remind me of him.’
Tayte stepped aboard, and the boat swayed and settled again.
‘Everything’s ready,’ Davina said. ‘I’ve even brought my research down so we can go over everything here.’
‘Great,’ Tayte said, glad to know that he no longer had to find uncomfortable small talk to fill the conversation with. Or so he thought.
‘You don’t mind if we save all that for after lunch, though, do you?’ Davina added. ‘I’d like to find out all about you first.’ She indicated the table. ‘Have a seat. I’ll be right back.’
With that, Davina opened a small door beneath the cockpit and disappeared below deck. Tayte took his jacket off, carefully folded it, and laid it over his briefcase. He sat down and tried to think of something interesting to say that wasn’t about his latest assignment, coming up blank as he knew he would by the time Davina returned. She was carrying two plates, which she set on the table.
‘I hope you like seafood?’
‘Sure. See food and eat it,’ Tayte said, eying the plates of dressed crab and brown shrimp, salad, and baby potatoes. ‘There isn’t much I don’t eat,’ he added, and immediately wished he hadn’t.
Davina smiled. ‘I like a man who likes his food.’ She reached for the ice bucket, pulled the bottle out and showed Tayte the label, cradling it in a cloth napkin to catch the drips. ‘I bought us a nice Sauvignon blanc—Pouilly-Fumé,’ she said. ‘Would you like some?’ She pouted her lips at him. ‘Please say you would. I really don’t like drinking on my own.’
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