The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne

by Jonathan Stroud

  “You’d be far away, I give you that. But this Free Isles stuff…no. I’ve never heard—”

  “Well, that’s what I want, anyway,” Albert said. “And what about you, Scarlett? You’ve heard lots about me now. What’s your story? Take a chip and tell me all.”

  She glared at him. “I don’t have a story. And I don’t want a chip.”

  “Who are these men you owe money to?”

  “What’s that got to do with anything? Local businessmen.”

  “Criminals?”

  “If you like.”

  “But you’re a criminal too. I’d have thought you’d get on fine.”

  “Great Siddhartha, Albert! It doesn’t work that way.” She blew out her cheeks, sat back in her chair. After all, it wouldn’t hurt to tell him. He’d probably already “sieved” half of it without her knowing. “They’re the Brothers of the Hand,” she said. “An outfit based in a town called Stow. They organize…certain activities across Wessex and Mercia. They don’t like freelance operatives like me. I trod on their toes a bit—robbed a place they didn’t want robbed, killed a couple of their men. Nothing big…but it got them irritated.” Scarlett took the coffee jug and poured herself a cup. “They’ve demanded compensation, or else it’ll go badly for me. Obviously I can handle myself, but I want to pay them off. It’s simpler. That’s all.” She shook her head, took a sip. “I really don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

  “I do.” All at once, his smile was radiant. The strength and certainty of it took her by surprise. “Because I can help you, Scarlett. I can repay you tenfold for all the help you’ve given me….” He leaned close, his expression suddenly cunning and conspiratorial. “I’m talking about…the Lechlade bank.”

  “For the gods’ sake, speak more quietly.” Scarlett glanced about them, but there was no one close. The old man had finished his meal and was departing, leading the child by the hand. “What are you wittering on about?” she said. “You can’t help me there.”

  His dark eyes were shining with excitement. “I can. I’ll help you break in.”

  The idea was so comical that Scarlett forgot herself. She laughed. It was the first time she had done so in an age. “Let me explain about banks, Albert,” she said. “The big ones, they’ve all got safeguards—traps, trip wires, pits, fake safes rigged up to explode. To get past them, a girl needs strength, athleticism, guile.” She took a chip, grinning. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but—setting your talent aside—you’re completely useless. You barely got across this room without being beaten up. There’s no way you could help me during a job. You’d just fall over and trigger an alarm.”

  Albert nodded. “Perhaps. What safeguards has the Lechlade Municipal Bank got?”

  “That’s part of my problem. I don’t know yet.”

  “How will you find out?”

  “I may not be able to. That makes any expedition more dangerous for me.”

  “OK. And what would you say if I told you I already knew the secret safeguards of this bank, in every detail?”

  Scarlett gazed at him. “Meaning?”

  “Meaning I was speaking to a lady who worked as a teller there. Nice lady, though she suffered from digestive problems. But she knew all about their security.” He smiled at her. “I know where the keys to the vaults are hidden. I know how they protect the safe.”

  “She told you this?”

  “In a manner of speaking. I saw enough images to be sure.”

  Scarlett ran the tip of her tongue across her lips. Despite herself, she could feel her heart beating fast. She realized she was holding her cup of hot coffee, and the heat was burning her fingers. She set it down. “What are you suggesting?”

  “A sort of deal. I help you get your money. Maybe more than before. In return, you put me on a boat that’ll take me to the Free Isles. Pay my fare. No other obligation. That’s my suggestion.”

  He set about his food again. Scarlett looked at him. Well, her first intuition in the bus had been correct. He was clearly mad. The idea was mad too. Sure, it would be feasible to pay someone to take Albert downriver. A fisherman or trader of some kind. But why would she choose to help a weird boy fulfill some half-baked dream?

  “Because you’d never find the keys, for a start,” Albert said.

  Scarlett blinked. “Stop doing that.” She took a sip of coffee, glared out across the room. The armored pigeon would have reached Stow by now. The Brothers would know she had lost the cash…. “So what do they have?” she said at last. “Is it mantraps, extra guard posts, something like that?”

  He shook his head. “In the bank? None of that. It’s much worse.” He leaned forward over the ketchup, spoke in an exaggerated stage whisper, which at any other time would have made Scarlett itch to slap him. “All the money’s in the safe, and the safe is in the basement. And in the basement…”

  “Well?”

  His eyes gleamed; his voice was scarcely audible. “In the basement is the beast.”

  Scarlett sat there. “A beast?”

  “I think before we go any further,” Albert Browne said, “we should establish the terms of the agreement.” His smile was innocently inquiring. “Do we have ourselves a deal?”

  She frowned at him, picked up her fork. All at once, she remembered how famished she was. “Why bother asking me?” she said. “You already know.”

  Albert’s first bank heist didn’t begin quite the way he had expected. In his idle daydreams, he’d hoped for an athletic, even swashbuckling, entrance, perhaps pattering like a cat across the Lechlade rooftops before dinking through a skylight and sliding smoothly down a coiling rope to land nimbly in the vault itself.

  In fact, he spent the first twenty minutes standing in a puddle in a cold and dirty side alley, holding a smelly packet of raw meat.

  “Are you sure this is necessary, Scarlett?” he breathed. “Why don’t you just climb up to the window and get on with it?”

  The side of Scarlett’s face was a pale crescent in the darkness. She was pressed against the wall beside him, gazing out at the lit concrete expanse of the high street a few feet away. “I told you. We’ve got to wait for the militia patrol to go by. Stop talking. And keep that parcel away from me.”

  “It does stink, doesn’t it? Why have I got to hold it?”

  “Because it’s your job. We’re a partnership, as you keep telling me. Well, we each have tasks appropriate to our skills, and yours, my friend, is to hold the offal. Hush, now! Here they are.”

  Sure enough, Albert saw two figures in bowler hats pass along the street. A torch beam swung briefly along the alley, but Scarlett and Albert were wedged tight into a recess in the wall and remained unseen.

  The footsteps faded. Scarlett inched toward the light and squinted at her watch. “Yep, right on schedule, like the unimaginative town-dwelling berks they are. They won’t be back for half an hour. By which time we’ll be out and gone. Come on, let’s get you to your post.”

  With soundless steps, she approached the corner. Albert followed more slowly; he was weighed down by a small but heavy backpack. They peered out along the road.

  A row of lit streetlights glimmered in both directions, shivering frailly with the distant fluctuations of the generator. Over in Primrose Park, oil lanterns hung from the trees. The militiamen were faint figures heading toward the land gates; otherwise the high street was quiet, the town around it sleeping. And beside them, the Lechlade Municipal Bank rose into the night above its pillared portico—austere, impregnable, the overlord of the Lechlade scene.

  There was a window just beyond the corner, obscured behind its set of iron night shutters. Scarlett halted beside it. She was entirely dressed in black, even down to the plimsolls that she’d produced from the depths of her bag. Black glove on one hand; white bandage on the other. Just a light cloth bag strapped over her shoulders an
d, hitched above her gun belt, another belt with many hooks and pouches and her safecracking tools hanging at her side.

  “You’re going to wait here,” she said. “All set?”

  “I suppose so….” Now that it came to it, Albert did not much like the idea of being left on his own. He looked at the package in his hand. “This meat is dripping on me.”

  “No, it isn’t. Or if it is, put it down.”

  “I’m sure there are wolves around. Savage ones. They’ll be drawn by the scent. You’ll open the window and find me gone. Just my trainers left, with my little feet inside them.”

  “There are no wolves in Lechlade. And if there are, I won’t forget you—I’ll keep your feet as a memento. Oh, stop looking so miserable. Joining this heist was your idea, remember? All you’ve got to do is wait. It’ll take me five minutes, no more.”

  And it was easy to believe her, standing beside him like that—her hair tied back from her face, her skin shining so, all brisk and sure and confident. And with her thoughts gleaming above her, as bright and effervescent as he’d ever seen them. Showing how she would scale the wall, break in, come down to fetch him…Scarlett’s belief in her talents was absolute. It made Albert believe her too.

  “All right,” he said. “I’m ready.”

  “Good. No need to be twitchy. If anyone comes, just nip back into the alley until they pass.”

  “All right.”

  “That’s your only conceivable danger.”

  “Fine.”

  “And don’t bump the backpack. It’s got gelignite in it. If it goes off, your head’ll shoot over the rooftops and ping between the chimneys.” She waved a casual hand. “See you in five.”

  Albert was inching forward so his backpack no longer brushed the wall. “Don’t be long.”

  He was going to say more, wish her luck, say whatever friends and partners said before they started a daring enterprise together, but she’d already sunk away into the shadows of the alley and was gone. He moved to the corner and watched the girl-shaped fleck of darkness flit six yards down to the drainpipe on the wall opposite the bank. Up she went, as fast as blinking. A flex, a shimmy; she had disappeared onto the flat upper-story roof. He waited, counting slowly in his head…. Then—how his heart swelled to see it!—she erupted back out over the edge and arced across the alley’s yawning void.

  With a thump and a muffled swearword, she landed on the vertical face of the bank’s side wall. Surely she was going to fall! No—it was OK! She’d gauged it correctly: she’d reached the first decorative lip of stone. Her fingers snared it; her muscles snapped and locked, holding her in position. For a second, her legs swung loose beneath her, plimsolls scuffing at the wall. Then she stabilized herself. She paused, probably to catch her breath, and reached up to the next protruding block. Now her feet found purchase too. Up she went, hand over hand. He hoped her stitches were holding firm.

  Less than two minutes after leaving his side, Scarlett had scaled the wall. He glimpsed her crouched on the sill of a third-story window. She was reaching in her belt—for her glass cutter, maybe. How could she possibly balance like that? Ah, but she had the tool! Now she leaned forward into the recess and was lost to view.

  Rapt with admiration, Albert returned to his allotted place. Scarlett had moved with such strength, grace, and surety. Even more extraordinary was how closely her actions had followed the intentions of her thoughts. It had been a beautiful thing to witness.

  Now if only she’d hurry up, open the ground-floor window, and let him in.

  He stood listening to the street’s silence. Across the way, the trees of the park where he’d spoken with the old lady were soft brushed notches, lit by drops of lantern light. Three days had passed since their chance conversation had started Albert’s great idea fermenting in his mind. Three days in which Scarlett had raised a dozen objections to his taking part in the raid.

  In the end, circumstances had forced her hand. She was running out of time.

  * * *

  —

  For Albert, his stay in Lechlade had been a breathless and unnerving insight into the life that Scarlett led. The first morning after they made their deal, she had gone off alone and been away some hours. On her return to the inn, she was pale and distracted. There was a slip of paper in her hand.

  “Here,” she said. “It’s a message from the Brothers of the Hand.”

  The note was written in red ink in a neat, calligraphic script, very ornate and curled. It had been stamped with an image of a splayed hand, the little finger bitten off at the base.

  Do not presume to direct us to clemency, when you have failed in your avowed intent, which was to redeem your sorry life with cold hard cash. We will be merciful one final time. Fresh clocks have been set. Give the money to Ives of the Lechlade Chapter by midnight on the fourth day. Otherwise you know the necessary outcome.

  “And don’t ask what the ‘necessary outcome’ is,” Scarlett added darkly. “You don’t want to find out.”

  “I surely don’t.” Albert handed the paper back. “Do they really feed people to their owls?”

  She grimaced. “Will you please stop reading my thoughts? Yes, as a matter of fact they do.” She crumpled the paper, tossed it aside. “Which is why we’ve got to get to work.”

  And indeed, the threat of death and dismemberment had a galvanizing effect on Scarlett, which Albert could only marvel at, even as he struggled to keep up with her. Far from being despondent, she became a whirlwind of activity. Her injured hand was quite forgotten; energy coursed through her. There followed two days of intense preparations.

  First, she went to Lechlade market to raise immediate funds. She sold off several items from her rucksack—two books, four holy relics—and even the chains and handcuffs from the Faith House agent’s briefcase. All told, these fetched a good price. The case itself had a broken lock, but it too was bartered off to a stall holder for a few coins. Albert noticed she did not dispose of the vile mind restraint; what she did with this he didn’t see.

  Next, Scarlett carried out her own reconnaissance of the bank. Working from the lobby and a café across the street, she took note of the positions of doors and locks, the routines of the tellers, the times of the militia patrols. “You have your sources of information,” she said. “I need mine. Got to get a view of the bigger picture, see how the bank fits in with the town around it. No sense carrying out the perfect snatch and then being collared by a patrol the moment you hit the street, is there? We’ve got to understand the patterns.”

  Scarlett also conducted exhaustive explorations of the lanes and paths of Lechlade, tracing out the quickest and least obtrusive routes across town. She was particularly interested in how to get to the wharf. She watched the evening routine at the river gate, saw how the guardhouse was left untenanted when the docks fell quiet.

  All being well, this was their destination following the raid.

  “The first thing I do, the instant we get the money,” Scarlett said that first afternoon, “is take it to the Brothers and clear my debt. The second thing is—we leave town. They’ll close the gates as soon as they discover the theft in the morning, and we want to be long gone by then. This is where your harebrained plan to go to London comes in. We hire someone with a fast boat and we leave in the middle of the night. I’ll come with you as far as the next river town. After that, baby, I’m out of here. You’ll be on your own.”

  The thought of journeying onward without Scarlett gave Albert a dismal feeling inside. But there was no help for it. He had to keep moving. The longer he remained in Lechlade, the more on edge he felt. A cold tension was spreading through him. Behind the manicured flower beds and the spotless shop fronts, it was a cruel place: a town where men and children were kept in cages, where slavers and criminals walked in sunlight, wearing their expensive clothes. It made him sick to think of it. A
nd somewhere, near or far, Dr. Calloway’s men were hunting him. They would not give up. He knew it as surely as if they were knocking on his door. They would seek to bring him back, tie him to the padded chair, bring out the wires and experiments again…He would not escape a second time. The isles were his only hope, but his enemies were coming. He found himself anxiously surveying the faces in the crowds.

  “Well, I know someone who can take me to London,” he said. “An old man with gray hair. He was eating at the table next to us in the inn last night.”

  It took Scarlett a few seconds to make the connection. “Who? That weird old guy with the kid? You sure?”

  “He’s looking for passengers to take downriver. Outwardly he’s a trader in smoked fish. Normally he smuggles cigarettes between the river towns too, but the supply of tobacco has run low this year. He’s badly in need of money, and he’s worrying about how to take care of his granddaughter. I think he’s just what we’re looking for.”

  Scarlett’s jaw had grown a trifle slack. “You found out all that just by sitting next to him? And there I was thinking you were talking to me.”

  “Oh, I was, most of the time. But that fellow’s thoughts were loud.”

  They found the old man sitting on the wharf, away from the hurly-burly of the queues around the guardhouse, close to where a store of precious petrol drums was stacked behind barbed wire. He was mending a hole in a piece of white tarpaulin and sipping on the contents of a hip flask. As Albert had observed the night before, he was a very thin, even bony, individual, with dark brown skin and a shock of streaked gray hair that bristled out around his narrow skull like the mane of a Mercian wildcat. The small blond child sat at his feet, building a tower of wooden blocks.

  Without ceremony, Scarlett made their request. The old man listened in silence. His face was weathered, his clothes were patched and torn, but Albert noted a certain dignity to his posture, and the glimmer in his eyes was shrewd.