Fifteen minutes later they were all sitting wedged in, Edward shivering, Daniel half asleep, Jemima sitting awkwardly between Gracie and Charlotte, her arms gripped tightly around herself. Tellman urged the horse forward and they began to move, but the feeling was extremely different from when he had driven in. Now the cart was heavily laden and the night was so black it was hard to know how even the horse could find its way. He also had very little idea where they were going. Paignton was the obvious place, the first that anyone Voisey employed would think to look. Perhaps the opposite direction was equally obvious? Maybe there was somewhere off to the side? Where else was there a station? By train they could go anywhere! How much money had he left? They had to pay for lodgings and food as well as tickets.
Pitt had said a town, somewhere with lots of people. That meant Paignton or Torquay. But back at the Ivybridge station they would be remembered all standing together waiting for the first train. The stationmaster would be able to tell anyone who asked exactly where they went.
As if reading his thoughts, even in the dark, Gracie spoke. “Where are we goin’, then?”
“Exeter,” he said without hesitation.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because it isn’t really a holiday place,” he replied. It seemed as good an answer as any other.
They drove in silence for a quarter of an hour. The darkness and the weight of the cart made them slow, but he could not urge the horse any more. If it slipped, or went lame, they were lost. They must be over a mile from Harford and the cottage by now. The road was not bad and the horse was finding its way with more ease. Tellman began to relax a little. None of the difficulties he had feared had come to pass.
The horse pulled up abruptly. Tellman nearly fell off the seat, and saved himself only by grabbing hold of it at the last moment.
Gracie stifled a shriek.
“What is it?” Charlotte said sharply.
There was someone on the road ahead of them. Peering forward, Tellman could just make out the dark shape in the gloom. Then a voice spoke quite clearly, only a yard or so away.
“Now, where are you going at this time o’ the night? Mistress Pitt, isn’t it? From Harford way? You shouldn’t be out at this hour. Get lost, you will. Or have an accident.” It was a man’s voice, deep and with a lift of sarcasm to it.
Tellman heard Gracie gasp with fear. The fact that the man had used Charlotte’s name meant that he knew them. Was it intended as a threat? Was he the watcher who had told Voisey where they were?
The horse shook its head as if someone were holding its bridle. The darkness prevented Tellman from seeing. He hoped it also prevented the man from seeing him. How did he know who they were? He must have been watching and ridden ahead, knowing they would come this way. If he had seen Tellman go to the cottage door and then carry the boxes out, then it meant he had been there all the time. He had to be Voisey’s man. He had come ahead of them here into this lonely stretch of road between Harford and Ivybridge to catch them where there was no one to see, or to help. And there was no one—except Tellman. Everything rested with him.
What could he use for a weapon? He remembered packing a bottle of vinegar. It was half empty, but there was enough in it still to give it weight. But he daren’t ask Gracie for it aloud. The man would hear him. And he did not know how she had stacked the basket!
He leaned over and whispered in her ear. “Vinegar!”
“Wha . . . oh.” She understood. She slid back a little and started feeling for the bottle. Tellman made some move himself to cover the sounds, climbing off the box and slithering down the side of the cart until his feet touched the ground. He felt his way around to the back, hand over hand on the rough wood, and was coming around on the other side when he made out in the gloom the figure of a man ahead of him. Then he felt a smooth weight against his forearm and Gracie’s breath on his cheek. He took the vinegar bottle from her hand. He could see the dark shape of Charlotte, with her arms around the children.
“It’s you again!” Gracie’s voice came clearly from just beside him, but she was speaking to the man at the horse’s head, drawing his attention. “Wot yer doin’ out ’ere in the middle o’ the night, then? We’re goin’ ’cos we got a family emergency. Yer got one, too, ‘ave yer?”
“That’s a shame,” the man replied, the expression in his voice impossible to read. “Going back to London, then?”
“We never said we come from London!” Gracie challenged him, but Tellman could hear the fear in her, the slight quiver, the higher pitch. He was only a yard away from the man now. The vinegar bottle was heavy in his hand. He swung it back, and as if he had caught the movement in the corner of his eye, the man swiveled and shot out his fist, sending Tellman sprawling backwards onto the ground, the vinegar bottle flying out of his grasp and rolling away on the grass.
“Oh, no you don’t, mister!” the man said, his voice suddenly altered to a vicious anger, and the next moment Tellman felt a tremendous weight on top of him, knocking the air out of his lungs. He was no match for the man in strength and he knew it. But he had grown up in the streets and the instinct to survive was above almost everything else; the only thing greater was the passion to protect Gracie . . . and of course Charlotte and the children. He kneed the man in the groin and heard him gasp, then poked at his eyes with stiff fingers, or at any piece of flesh he could reach.
The fight was short, intense and absolute. It was only moments later that his hands reached the unbroken vinegar bottle and he finished the job, cracking the man over the head with it and laying him senseless.
He scrambled to his feet and staggered around to where the other horse was standing with a dogcart pulled across the track, and led it off onto the side. Then he ran back and with difficulty in the dark, took the bridle of their own horse and led it past, before climbing up onto the box again and urging it forward as fast as it was capable of going. The east was already fading a little ahead of them and dawn would not be far away.
“Thank you,” Charlotte said quietly, holding a shivering Jemima close to her and Daniel by the other hand. Edward was clinging on at the farther end. “I think he has been watching us almost since we got here.” Charlotte did not add anything further, or mention Voisey’s name, or the Inner Circle. It was in all their minds.
“Yes,” Gracie agreed, a quiet pride in her voice and in the stiff, square-shouldered way she sat. “Thank you, Samuel.”
Tellman was bruised, his blood was beating so hard he was dizzy, but above all he was astounded by the savagery which had driven him. He had behaved like something primitive and it was exhilarating, and frightening.
“You’re going to stay in Exeter until the election is over and we know whether Voisey has won or lost,” he answered.
“No, I think I shall return to London,” Charlotte contradicted. “If they are blaming Thomas for this man’s death then I should be there with him.”
“You’re to stay here,” Tellman said flatly. “That’s an order. I’ll send a telephone message to Mr. Pitt to say as you’re all right and safe.”
“Inspector Tellman, I . . .” she began.
“It’s an order,” he said again. “Sorry, but that’s the end of it.”
“Yes, Samuel,” Gracie murmured.
Charlotte tightened her arms around Jemima and said nothing more.
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
Isadora sat at the breakfast table across from the Bishop and watched him toy with his food, pushing bacon, eggs, sausage and kidney around his plate. He did not look well, but then he so often complained of some minor ailment, and she knew that if she asked him he would tell her. She would be required, in ordinary civility, to listen and to offer some condolence. Kindness dictated she do more than that, and she could not bring herself to feel such a thing. So she ate her own breakfast of toast and marmalade, and avoided his eyes.