“Did you feel that?” Albert said. “It was as if my heart was about to stop.”
Scarlett’s face was gray. She nodded. “It is a dead zone, left over from the Cataclysm. It is best to avoid such places. They aren’t good for body or mind. Presumably, this is the Didcot Barrens. We should reach the trading post soon, if the old man has told the truth.”
The old man had. Less than an hour later, in the golden light of late afternoon, they saw before them a low and rocky bluff set back above the river. Another thicker braid of the Thames rounded the hill from the other side. The waters then converged and bent away to the east. Atop the bluff was a stockade, silhouetted rather gauntly against the purpling sky. There was one squared tower, windows where glass glinted, a number of birds circling above. The scene gave off a whiff of desolation: the modest nature of the fortification only served to emphasize the vast emptiness all around. Scarlett noted a green-and-yellow flag lapping on a pole high on the stockade. Otherwise there was no sign of life. Below the hill, reeds and scrub oaks fringed the riverbank, where a concrete jetty projected into the stream.
Scarlett moored the raft at the jetty. The old man was out cold beneath his blanket, as he had been all day. Albert and the child had started a hide-and-seek game around the crates, with much squeaking and hilarity. Scarlett took a wad of banknotes from her bag.
“All right, Albert. We’re at Bladon Point. We need petrol, and food too.”
He got up from behind a crate, pushing hair out of his face. “Are we going to rob it?”
“It’s full of soldiers. We’ll use honest money. Well, honest money that we nicked. Come on.”
“What about Ettie? Joe’s sick. I can’t wake him. I should stay here with her.”
“No. I need you to help carry stuff. She’ll be all right.”
Scarlett hopped out onto the jetty, the first time she had felt solid land in almost two days. Albert followed more slowly, his brow furrowed, glancing behind him. Ettie watched him go, blue eyes wide and serious. Her face broke into a broad smile. With surprising agility, the little girl clambered off the raft, tumbled onto the jetty, and got up to follow them.
Scarlett groaned. “Albert…”
Albert stopped, hands on hips. “Ettie, you really must go back.”
The child grinned even more widely and trotted toward him, arms outstretched.
A thought occurred to Scarlett. It was not impossible that messenger pigeons sent by the Faith Houses would have reached the fort by now.
“Oh, let her come,” she said abruptly. “It might be good for us to have a kid. If word’s reached here about the burning of the wharf, it won’t have mentioned anything about a child, will it? She’ll be cover for us. What harm does it do?”
Albert regarded the girl doubtfully. “I don’t know. What will Joe say?”
“We’ll be back before he wakes. Half an hour, tops. Look, she wants you to pick her up….”
“All right. I’ll keep an eye on her.” He swung Ettie up and nestled her against him.
The way plunged in amongst the scrub oaks, a pygmy species with fat splayed branches that arched low above their heads. The leaves were yellow and brown, and there was a smell of wild garlic on the air. The child nuzzled into Albert’s chest. She seemed to be enjoying the ride.
“Think she is Joe’s granddaughter?” Scarlett asked. “I mean, really?”
“Of course. Why not?”
“They just make an odd couple, that’s all. She’s a weird kid, anyway. Never talks. Never says anything.”
“I suppose not. She’s only little.”
They continued upward through the trees. At intervals, they passed concrete platforms by the path, where piles of logs, sandbags, cement, and other heavy supplies had been stacked. Everything was covered by a blanket of yellow leaves. Looking up between the branches, Scarlett could see the colored flag flapping against the sky at the top of the tower. There was no one on the parapets that afternoon.
Ettie grew drowsy. By the time they neared the top of the hill, her eyes had closed. Scarlett gazed at Albert in wonder. “Wait, is she actually asleep? She is. I can’t believe she’s gone to sleep on you.”
Albert patted the little curved back but said nothing.
For a few minutes, the path had been rising steeply in lazy zigzags between outcrops of black rock. As she looked back, the ancient river showed gray and dark below the oaks. Now they came out onto a grassy bank with the angled concrete walls of the fort rising beyond. It was a windswept place. Close to, the fort was even smaller than Scarlett had thought, albeit well defended. No windows at all low down, a few gun slits higher up. The path ended at a metal door set in the wall.
Woodcutting had recently taken place close to the path. There was a stack of worked logs, a mound of bark and lopped branches, a half-finished log resting on a trestle. A drift of white chippings had blown in a ragged oval across the hill. An axe projected from the log. There was no one there.
“Are most trading posts this quiet?” Albert asked. “It’s not exactly bustling.”
Scarlett had visited cemeteries with more live action. She stared up at the blank walls, listening to the silence. The birds that she had seen circling above the fort were gone. Away below them, beyond the ruff of trees, the floodplains stretched in deepening shades of blue and brown to merge with evening. It would be night soon.
“Perhaps the men are inside having dinner,” she said, “or working down at the quays on the other side of the hill. This isn’t the main door. It’s probably rarely used….”
Even to Scarlett’s own ear, her voice lacked conviction. Setting aside her doubts, she marched them to the gate and knocked smartly on the studded metal door.
“Right, Albert,” she said, “our story is this: we are honest kipper traders, and we need to buy supplies. Since I can frame coherent sentences, I’ll do the talking. It’s best you keep quiet, as usual.”
They waited. “If anyone asks me,” Albert said, “are we colleagues or family?”
Scarlett looked at her watch. She resumed staring at the door. “Whichever.”
“Right. OK. I’ll say family. So Ettie is our child?”
“Ack! I hope not! Just pray the subject will not come up.” She rapped again. “Strange…. It’s a pity there is no bell.”
“Why not try the door?”
“I suppose I could.” She pushed at the cold iron, and the door swung smoothly inward on oiled hinges. Scarlett and Albert hesitated, still half expecting a burly gatekeeper to stride out; when nothing happened and no one came, they stepped through.
The interior of the fort consisted of a square courtyard, open to the sky. The ground was of gray-blue concrete, and the walls were concrete too, roughly finished and purely functional. On three sides, arches led to ground-floor rooms set into the perimeter walls. There was another metal gate opposite, closed and barred. An external staircase rose to an upper-floor walkway that ran beside the battlements. Here squatted three cannon like great black snapping toads, craning their mouths to the rivers below. On the fourth side was a building of two stories, topped with a tower, where the flag of Bladon Point danced brightly in the dying sun. The highest reach of the tower was sliced with pink sunlight; everything else was flat and cold and dreary. In the center of the courtyard stood a pump of dull black metal, with a concrete trough beneath. Under an awning was the skeleton of a half-built rowboat. There were piles of rubber sheeting, folded tarpaulins, and other items of vaguely nautical nature. But no people anywhere.
“Hello!” Scarlett called. The echoes reverberated in the empty space and were swallowed up by silence. The little girl stirred on Albert’s neck. She opened her eyes and looked around.
“How many men did Joe say worked here?” Scarlett asked.
“At least ten.”
She rubbed her chin in d
oubt. “Maybe they’ve gone down to the river….”
“We could take a look from the tower.”
“I don’t necessarily want to find them. I just want their supplies. But it’s weird. Maybe it’s been abandoned for some reason.”
“Abandoned very recently,” Albert said.
Scarlett became aware of a slow anxiety stealing over her, something to do with the desolation of the scene. She shook herself back into clarity and action. “Doesn’t matter. We can take a quick look round. There’ll be fuel and food here for certain.” She set off toward the arches at a brisk pace. A wide one fitted with a pair of double doors seemed promising.
Albert did not follow immediately. He was wrestling with Ettie, who, having woken, wanted to get down. She stretched out her arms and legs and made herself long and fluid and boneless. Albert had trouble holding on to her. At last he set her to the floor.
“You can get down,” Albert said severely, “but you need to stay close. Come with me.”
The girl started to obey but instantly noticed the water pump. Her mouth opened in an extravagant O of delight. She tottered across to it, stared into the trough, then began trying to move the great black lever.
Albert hesitated. “We need to keep an eye on her. Shouldn’t leave a child near water.”
Scarlett was at the double doors, pulling them open. “Albert, she spends her whole life on a raft with no safety rail. She can cope with a horse trough. Ah, now then. Come and look. This is what we want.”
As she’d hoped, it was a storeroom for the fort. A gun slit high on the outer wall let in a ribbon of grainy light. In the haze, she saw precisely what they’d been looking for: ranks of metal shelves, stuffed with burlap sacks and cardboard boxes, great stacks of firewood and coal. And yes, there at the end—neatly stacked rows of plastic petrol canisters, evidently full.
Scarlett and Albert hurried to the shelves. To their vast satisfaction, the sacks and boxes contained an array of foodstuffs—dried fruits, oats, vegetables, tins of soup, racks of hanging sausages and cured meats. It was the work of a moment to collect a sackful; nevertheless, Scarlett found herself repeatedly looking over her shoulder at the open doors and out into the yard, where the child was dangling happily from the pump lever. No one else was there. The fort was empty. But her nerves were tight. The silence was unsettling.
Finally, she straightened. “That’s enough,” she said. “We can’t take anything more. Think you can carry the sack and lead the kid? I’ll take two fuel cans.”
Albert too had been glancing back at Ettie and the courtyard. “All right, but I feel a bit awkward about this.”
“About what?”
“Stealing. I don’t feel happy about it. We should pay somebody.”
“You stole from the bank happily enough.”
“Yes, I know, but that was the town. And they were cruel to that poor horn-beak. This is all so tidily arranged. They take pride in it. It’s important to whoever lives here, you can tell.”
“Well, they’ve gone now, haven’t they?” Scarlett frowned. “Look, we take the stuff. If someone comes, we pay them. If no one comes, we don’t. OK? It’s nice and simple….” She let her eyes rake the storeroom, wondering whether she should look for other useful things, but the silence of the place had got into her bones, and she had no heart for it. “Nice and simple…,” she repeated. “Nothing to worry about at all.”
Albert looked at her. “Why is your voice so hushed?”
“I don’t know. Why is yours?”
“I don’t know either. Shall we take the things and go?”
“Let’s do that.” She picked up the two canisters. Albert slung the sack over his shoulder, and they went out into the yard. “Where’s Ettie?” Scarlett asked.
They gazed across the courtyard at the water pump, at all the doors and staircases. The little girl wasn’t there.
“That’s strange,” Albert said. “She was here a second ago.” He hurried to the water trough and looked in it. “It’s all right—she’s not in here.”
“Good. Well, where is she, then?”
“I don’t know. She must have gone exploring.”
Scarlett let out a soft curse. She put a coin in her cuss-box. “What kind of tiny kid would do that, just wander off somewhere?”
“They all do it. It’s the way children are.”
“How do you know that? You were locked up all your life…. Bloody hell, Albert, you said you were going to keep an eye on her!”
“It’s not just my job. Why is it my job? You’re the one who made us bring her here.”
“Never mind that. We need to find her. Is she on the battlements?”
“No.”
“Then she’ll have gone in through one of the arches.”
They dumped the sack and canisters near the outer gate and hurried across to the nearest arch. But it was just another storeroom, hung with waterproof coats, boots, and boathooks. Tidy, well stocked…and utterly empty of a little girl.
The next door was locked, and the one after that proved to be a toilet. Two further arches were investigated without success. Ettie had vanished.
By now Albert was becoming agitated too. “Oh, what’s Joe going to say about this? He’s not going to like it! He’s not going to be pleased with us if we’ve lost his granddaughter!”
“Shut up. Will you shut up about Joe?” Scarlett tried to speak calmly. “He’ll never know about it, Albert, because we’re going to find her. Aren’t we?”
“Yes.”
“So stay focused. She must be in there.” She pointed to the only door they hadn’t yet tried. It was on the west side of the courtyard, where the fort was double-storied beneath the tower.
They jogged soundlessly across to the building. High on the tower, a few last fingers of sunlight touched the flag at the top of its pole. These would soon be withdrawn and the day would fade altogether at Bladon Point.
They reached the open door. Beyond was a large room. “I can’t believe she got all this way over here,” Scarlett said. “How can anyone with legs that short and fat move so fast? All right, she’ll be just inside. Grab her and let’s go.”
But when they entered the room, it was desolate and still. A long wooden table stretched almost the entirety of its width, with chairs of cracked green leather standing all around. It was the dining hall of the men of the fort, and there were plates still upon it, with sandwiches half eaten and mugs of cold, congealing tea. Most of the chairs had been pushed back from the table, as if the occupants had got up and left at speed.
To the right of the room, an open corridor stretched away into dimness. To the left was an arch to a kitchen and a wooden staircase leading to the higher levels. No lights were on, though there were electric bulbs available in the ceiling. There was a faint hum, as of a working generator. Scarlett listened for the scuffles of a small person, or indeed the sound of anybody, but got nothing.
“Halloo! Ettie!” Albert shouted it at the top of his voice, making Scarlett jump.
She put her hand on his arm. “Don’t shout so loud. I don’t know why. Just don’t.”
“Well, we need to find her, Scarlett.”
“I know we do.” She went to the table, touched the curled tip of a sandwich, rough and dry like a lizard’s snout. But not bone hard and brittle, as she’d been hoping. Hours old, rather than days. She tapped her fingers lightly on the tabletop, thinking.
“Any of them eatable?” Albert asked. “She’ll want food when we find her.”
“She’ll want a smack on the backside….” Scarlett was looking at the darkness. She felt a pressure building in her chest. More and more she wanted to be gone. But they had to find the girl.
Albert was gazing at her. “Are you all right?”
She knew he was looking at her thoughts—heaven knew what he was
seeing—but this wasn’t the time to challenge him. “Yes,” she said. “I’m fine. We need to get this done fast. You check upstairs. I’ll try the corridor. And, Albert—do it quietly.”
He pattered away to the steps. Scarlett slipped into the corridor. Several doors opened off it, set into the thickness of the fort’s wall. One was slightly ajar; beyond was a blank, black space that smelled of ink and paper.
“Ettie?” Scarlett stepped inside. She flicked on the electric light, revealing a small square room, white-walled and carpeted, with filing cabinets, chaotic reams of paper piled on shelves, a desk and chair. A framed etching of a market town on the desk. A hoop for ball games screwed to the wall, dark scuff marks on the paint around it. The office belonging to the bored administrator of the trading post, perhaps. No sign of Ettie. Scarlett turned to go.
Except…she knew that children sometimes hid themselves out of a misguided sense of fun. It was possible she was concealed behind the furniture, and indeed there was something small and roundish just visible beyond the near-side leg of the desk.
Scarlett took a step into the room to check. A single step—and stopped.
It wasn’t Ettie. Nor was it a ball, or a bag, or a wastepaper basket, or any of the other things conceivably to be found in the office rooms of bored men in remote trading outposts.
It was slightly at an angle, tilted rakishly against the desk leg, but turned toward her so that she saw the face.
She saw its expression of mild surprise.
She saw the pool of blood beneath it.
It was a human head.
Just for a second, Scarlett remembered the severed rabbit’s head lying in the grass beside the mere at Cheltenham, on a dawn morning almost a week before. Here too was the mess of blood, the eyes staring glassily upward. But this was a man’s head, with blue eyes and ruddy skin and a reddish-brown beard. Up top, a few strands of sandy receding hair. In a sad detail, given what else had been taken from him that day, you could see how he’d combed it forward that morning to minimize his sense of loss. Scarlett stared at the strands of hair, locking her gaze on them randomly while her panic started, while her skin went cold and the sweat sprang out on her palms and inside her collar. She knew her body would begin shaking, and it did. Her pulse banged at her temple; it was like a tent peg being hammered in. She waited for the initial violence of the attack to stop, keeping her breathing deep and steady, and all the time she didn’t try to move. When she had control of herself, she took a slow step back. Very carefully she reached out for the switch and turned the light of the office off. Then she backed out of the room altogether and gently closed the door.
The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne Page 21