The Kingdom of Bones

by Stephen Gallagher

  Then he turned to Sebastian.

  “You stay close to me,” he said.

  Bertorelli and his men crossed the tracks and disappeared into the woodland on the opposite side. The uniformed policemen produced truncheons and the officer in charge took out a small revolver, which he checked and cocked. Sebastian had no weapon.

  Cautioned to silence, they fell into single file and started down the lane—the officer in front, Sebastian behind him, and the uniformed men following. The only sound was that of birdsong.

  After two hundred yards, they came to the abandoned cab and the grazing horse. The horse paid them no attention. It had been released from the traces, but had not wandered. The morning sun was shining down through the overhanging branches and the scene was one of complete rural tranquillity.

  A white picket fence ran down past the station. The station was a small country halt in painted wood, looking vaguely Alpine with all the gingerbread edging along its roof and platform awnings. A single long building incorporated waiting rooms and a ticket office, and an iron footbridge ran over to a second platform on the far side of the tracks.

  While the officer and the remaining men carried on to enter by the gateway at the far end, Sebastian hung back. Nothing was set to happen just yet; they had to allow time for Bertorelli and his men to get into place, in case Sayers should try to cross the tracks and disappear into the fields and woodlands beyond.

  He was less than happy with what he’d heard on the journey out here. Summary justice, making sport with a prisoner…what next? Public lynchings, and trials by ordeal?

  It was positively medieval, and he’d have no part of it. No matter that he was a long way from home. If he could put an arresting hand on Sayers before any of the others got to him, he would.

  Left alone now, Sebastian climbed over the picket fence, taking awkward care and making no noise. He stepped through a flower bed to reach a point where he could peer around the building to see what was happening on the platform. When he reached the corner, he positioned himself to lean out and then froze at the sound of nearby voices.

  “It’s running late,” he heard Sayers say.

  Sebastian risked a look, leaning out an inch or so and holding himself ready to pull back.

  The prizefighter was at the platform’s edge, looking up the track. It curved off into deep countryside past the signal box about a quarter of a mile away. The young actress was right beside Sayers; he had his hand on her arm and was holding her close, as if she might otherwise flee. Sebastian thought that he recognized her from the lodging house, but he could not be sure. All he could see for certain was that she was ghastly pale.

  Her words were a surprise to him.

  “Please, Tom,” he heard her say. “Let me speak for you. I can tell your story to the police. Perhaps I can convince them as you convinced me.”

  Something from Sayers then, that Sebastian could not hear.

  “But I see the truth of it now,” she said. “James Caspar is to blame and has bound our employer to him in some secret pact. I can explain all this. Will you not let me be your advocate?”

  “How can I do that?” Sayers said. “Knowing the danger I’d be placing you in? No, Louise. I’d rather see you safe.”

  “But now you’ve warned me of the danger,” she said, “I’ll know exactly how to protect myself.”

  At that moment, there came a sound from down the line. It was a train whistle. The locomotive’s approach was further signaled by a moving tower of white smoke against the blue of the sky. Almost immediately after, the engine came into view.

  They would later learn that the apprentice signalman had taken his master at his word that they were to “hold the train until the police arrived” looking out of the signal-box window and seeing men in uniform gathering at the gateway on the north side of the station, he’d taken that as his cue to raise the signal and let the train through.

  For Sebastian, it was an unwelcome complication but not necessarily a disastrous one. They all but had Sayers now. Even if he succeeded in boarding the train, they could close in and take him from it. But Sebastian had no intention of allowing him to board.

  Sayers had his back to him. He was watching the engine as it came into the station. Sebastian grew bold, and started to emerge from his hiding place.

  If he could get up behind Sayers without being seen, he might be able to pinion his arms. The officer and the others could rush forward then, and all would quickly be over. It could be carried off without violence or bloodshed.

  “Please, Tom,” the woman said. Sayers looked at her.

  “You truly believe I am sincere?” he said.

  “Tom,” she said. “I know of no more sincere man in this world.”

  Sayers seemed to realize that he had been gripping her arm hard enough to cause her pain. Sebastian was out in the open now, but Sayers had not yet seen him.

  “Forgive me,” Sayers said to Louise, and released his grip on her.

  Whereupon, without any warning, she shoved him hard. He stumbled back. He was close to the edge, and missed his step.

  Her action sent him tumbling from the platform, right in front of the moving train.

  NINETEEN

  It seemed to Sayers that he fell with grace, but landed with none. The track bed was around five feet below platform level, a darkened pit of oil and stones and spilled coal. Only the rails were clean, their surface ground to the bare metal by constant use. He hit the sleepers with his face only inches from the ties; he had about a second to roll into the space between rails before all was plunged into darkness and flooded with steam, accompanied by the deafening racket of steel on steel as the engine passed right over him.

  Inevitably, he’d landed on his bad arm. He might have cried out. No one could have heard it if he had. He tried to make himself as small as he could without risk of touching the wheels; they were enormous, and would easily take off any body part that got in their way.

  The axles and the undercarriage passed above him, spitting grease and steam as the engine slowed to a final halt. First the engine, then the coal tender behind it, and finally a little more headroom as the first of the passenger coaches came to a stop overhead.

  Steam continued to billow all around, pressure driving it along the track and out through the understructures of the carriage. He was unharmed beneath the train, but no skill had saved him from decapitation or a maiming; it was sheer luck, and nothing more.

  He could hear voices, shouting, an urgent commotion. And in his mind’s eye he saw the expression on Louise’s face, captured in his memory as if in a photographer’s flash.

  It had all been an act. This past twelve hours, she’d been performing to save her life; or so, at least, she must have believed. She’d deceived him into thinking he’d convinced her. He’d thought that he was winning her over when, all along, she’d been playing on his trust and looking for her opportunity.

  He scrambled out from under the passenger wagon, emerging into the middle of the open trackbed. Now the train stood between him and the platform. For the moment, he couldn’t get back. From down here, the carriage looked enormous, an unscalable wall.

  They were calling his name. Who knew his name? And were those police whistles that he could hear?

  Sayers turned and crossed the empty track to the opposite platform. A jump and a scramble got him up onto it, with his good arm doing most of the work. As he was getting to his feet, he heard answering cries from the woodland close by.

  They were here, and he was surrounded. Almost. He glanced back, and saw curious faces looking at him from the windows of the train. Those on the platform were probably assuming that he was underneath it, mangled or dying. But any moment now they’d learn the truth, and would need only to run to the bridge or fling open both sets of carriage doors to get through to him.

  There was no time to waste. Louise was lost to him. There was nothing for it, but to run.

  So he ran to the end of the platform and hu
rdled a picket fence, landing in brushwood on the other side before descending an embankment to an open field.

  He had to forget her. He had to forget that look. He had to think only of himself now. Otherwise, they would have him.

  He took a moment to check out the landscape. Behind him were the station and the woodland. Ahead of him lay open fields. Across the nearest of the fields ran a cart track that met the railway embankment farther down. The track passed under the embankment by means of a brick tunnel.

  Sayers made for the tunnel, valuing speed over concealment. The track was churned and muddy. The tunnel was taller than a house but barely more than one cart’s width. For the few seconds that it took him to run through it, he could hear his own ragged sobbing echoing all the way up to the vaulted roof.

  Sobbing? He was astonished.

  Back in the open air, he stopped and fought for control. This would not do. He wiped his eyes on his sleeve and then walked forward slowly until his breathing steadied. He was on a fenced lane now, and ahead of him was a crossroads. He broke into a cautious trot. He had no idea how close his pursuers might be.

  When he reached the crossroads, he chose the way to his right. After a while this lane began to climb, and when he saw that it would end in a farmyard, he left the road and struck out across moorland. On high ground, he stopped and looked back into the valley that he’d left. He expected to see it swarming with men, all spread out in a long line and sweeping their way up the slopes toward him. But there were none.

  He couldn’t make out the railway station for the tree cover, but he could see the track and the fields that he’d crossed. Way down there moved the merest handful of men, a dozen of them or less, tiny figures making slow progress in entirely the wrong place.

  At that his spirits lifted, just a little, and he turned and walked on.

  After two hours or more, he was growing breathless and light-headed. He drank from a peaty stream, which left him hungry. He’d eaten nothing in more than a day, apart from a pie that he’d bought with pennies that he’d found in his stolen coat’s pocket.

  As the day wore on the skies darkened again, and some time later it started to rain. When he came upon an abandoned cottage, he sheltered and waited for the clouds to pass over. The doors and windows of the old house had gone, as had part of the roof. But the beams were intact, as was most of the upstairs floor, so there was enough to keep him dry. No one had lived here in years, and only sheep seemed to use it now. Some farmer had dumped a sackful of cut turnips as winter feed in the place that had once been the sitting room.

  Most of the turnips had now rotted away. Sayers found one that hadn’t and tried to bite into it, but spat it out. Perhaps boiling for an hour or two might have made it edible. But he had nothing to hold water to boil it in, and no way of making fire even if he did.

  The outlook seemed bleak all around.

  Insofar as Sayers had a plan, it was to make his way south. He certainly had few friends in this part of the country, and the sensational nature of the accusations against him would keep them fresh in people’s minds. They’d continue to study every lone stranger with suspicion.

  The farther away he moved, the farther he’d be from the common people’s thoughts. If he could get as far as his house in Brixton without being noticed, he had a little money and some valuables stashed under the floorboards. The Tom Sayers hoard.

  After a while, the rain began to ease. When it finally stopped, he looked at the skies and decided that if he didn’t get off the moors now, he’d be stuck out here for the night.

  That wasn’t an enticing prospect. Nor were stealing food and sleeping out under hedgerows, but either was preferable to staying where he was. He’d realized that sheep used this building for rather more than feeding and shelter—it was going to take him a while to rid himself of the stink.

  He turned up his collar and set off across the hill, picking up another lane on the other side of a gate in a wall. This lane was well used. After a while, it brought him within sight of a village: some rows of houses with the winding tower of a coal pit rising up behind them. It looked like the size of place that had grown up around a single family owned mine and could grow no more; colliers with their wives and children living in the cottages while the shops, school, and Wesleyan chapel were sized to their needs.

  A bed for the night would be too much to hope for. Even if he was offered one, it would be too big a risk to take. But perhaps he could work for some food, before slipping away into darkness to seek out a suitable barn or outbuilding. He had to take some chances, or else he’d starve. It was probably no more dangerous to show his face here than anywhere else.

  With this in his mind he walked into the pit village from its outskirts, passing through a row of allotments and pigeon sheds behind one of the streets.

  The village had a store and a public house and a main square and a memorial. The chapel was the most imposing building in the square, and the memorial stood before it. Sayers would never know what loss or disaster the memorial had been set up to commemorate. He stopped at the sight of all the men mustering in front of it.

  Before him milled a small army of policemen and special constables. Some had their helmets off, and most had mugs of tea. Trestle tables had been set up to serve them. Local women were handing out sandwiches. A number of volunteer miners in flat caps and silk mufflers had turned out to play a part, armed with staves and pickax handles. One man was sitting on the side of the public horse trough, rewinding the homemade puttees around his ankles. Behind them all, the town’s drill hall stood with its doors wide open and lamps blazing inside. Some police officers were walking out studying written orders, while civilian workers in brown coats and bowler hats were carrying in movers’ boxes and bundles of maps tied with ribbons.

  Without realizing it, Sayers had walked into a place that, in the course of the past few hours, had become one of the base camps for his manhunt. Everyone here was so taken up with the business surrounding the chase that not one of them had yet noticed his presence.

  A perverse thought crossed his mind. Did he dare to push his way through the crowd and help himself to sandwiches?

  Alas, he did not. This was not some tale of adventure. His liberty and his life were at risk. He took a step backward into the shadow of a wall and, careful not to make any hasty movement that might attract the eye, he turned to walk away.

  In three or four strides, he was again safe from view. He was learning; he did not run. He walked back through the allotment section behind the houses. As he passed by the pigeon sheds, a number of the birds suddenly fluttered up, startling him. He glanced back, but no one had followed.

  He had thought himself safe. He was not. Those men back at the railway station had been only a beginning. His mind reeled with it.

  Sayers was no criminal, and could not begin to think like one. The English countryside might be vast, but his pursuers had maps, manpower, and method, and he had none. His one thought was to keep moving. In an hour or less, it would be dark. The search might stop for the night, but he could not.

  If he gave up, they would hang him. A few grim weeks of preparation might pass before it happened, but the outcome was assured. Strangers would strap his arms, bind his feet, put a bag over his head and a rope over the bag, and then drop him so hard that he broke. He could tell them his story as often as he liked. They would ignore it, just as Louise had. Even God would turn his face away as they dumped his remains into unhallowed ground.

  For Tom Sayers, the hope of justice was no hope at all.

  He’d now reached the spot from where he’d first set eyes on the pit village. He took a few moments to stop and look back for any signs of pursuit. As the daylight faded into a deeper and deeper blue, warm lights were beginning to show in the windows. The lights of home. Somebody’s home, if not his own. Those distant lights began to blur; he was growing so weary. His senses were no longer sharp. These people must have been all over the local countryside in the course
of the afternoon; sheer ignorance had protected him as he’d walked through their lines.

  Or perhaps God was not quite so set against him as he’d imagined. Could that be it? Heartened by that slender dash of hope, he turned to go on.

  But he could not. There was a white horse blocking his way.

  He blinked to rid himself of this hallucinatory image, but it did not go away. Astride the horse sat James Caspar. They had appeared as if from nowhere. Sayers had heard nothing of their approach.

  “You’ve been standing there for the past ten minutes,” Caspar said. “I thought you were never going to move.”

  Ten minutes? He exaggerated. Sayers was sure that he’d paused for a few seconds, at most. But the light had faded appreciably. Suddenly he was sure of nothing.

  He stood, disoriented and probably exhausted, as Caspar walked the white horse toward him. Caspar was immaculate in heavy riding tweeds, as if the costuming for the part had been a significant element in the hunt’s attraction for him. He was also a surprisingly good horseman, stepping the horse sideways like a dressage animal with almost no obvious show of control.

  He said, “I volunteered to help. What more can a good citizen do? Edmund’s offered to pay for a team of dogs to hunt you down.” He reached down across the horse’s shoulder. “But I don’t think they’ll be needed, do you?” He straightened up again as, from a saddle holster down by his leg, he drew out an expensive-looking shotgun.

  Sayers did not run. He did not even move. It was as if he’d finally burned off all his fear and energy and had none left to spare. Caspar stretched out his arm and leveled the shotgun at him from about four feet away. It was a beautiful weapon, with a polished walnut stock and scroll engraving on the action. The single barrel was steady, and pointed at a spot somewhere in the middle of the prizefighter’s forehead.

  Caspar said, “I could walk you back into the village and hand you over to the police. But who’s to say they won’t lose you again? How inefficient they are.” Without changing his aim he gave some invisible signal to his mount, which took a couple of sideways paces, bringing Sayers even closer.