Выбрать главу

He could remember the woman, even by name. This was rare for him to do, but then she had been rare. Where had she gone? He drooped; it made him sad.

Then he sneezed.

The rope had held and Gemma was in the boat, rocking. The boat felt less substantial than it had appeared when she’d been looking down on it. She patted her coat just to make sure Richard was still there, although she knew he was from the extra weight. Slowly and carefully, Gemma turned around in the boat. She faced the land she was heading for and put the spatula in the water. Then she tried to put the ladle in and realized she couldn’t do both because her arms weren’t long enough. It didn’t work, anyway, for they were too small to push back enough water for the boat to move. “How stupid I am!” she said aloud.

“I wouldn’t disag-”

“Be quiet!”

She wrenched the oar from its lock, shoved the end against the boat and pushed the rowboat away. One oar could be managed if she used both hands; she’d never have been able to row with two of them. She tried this and found the boat wouldn’t go straight with just one, so she moved it from side to side. The boat moved forward, and though she couldn’t go fast, she could see the house over there and the dock inch closer.

If her hands had been free, Gemma would have clapped. As it was, she settled for telling Richard, “You’re not the only one that’s smart.”

His answer was muffled, but not complimentary.

Bluebells.

That was what he smelled; that was what made him sneeze. It got stronger as he sniffed his way around the side of the house. He was baffled; that smell shouldn’t be here, but back there where the girl lived with the bluebells he’d brought her. (Jimmy? Janie? Jemima?) Was she here? Had she been here?

He sniffed along the dock. He hated being this close to water. His head came up for he sensed something. Right at the end of the dock, he looked out over the river and saw a little rowboat moving his way. He paced back and forth, back and forth.

Then he saw her and barked.

Gemma could hardly believe it when she heard a dog. Why would a dog be running back and forth on the dock, pulsing with barks-?

“Sparky!”

The boat bumped against the dock and turned around. Sparky looked over the edge. The dock was too high for the girl (Jimmy? Jeanna?) to reach. In a minute, a rope tied to something landed on the dock. Was it that damned doll? It was tied to the end of the rope. He got his teeth around the doll; there was a lot of slack, but he clamped down and pulled the rope up on the dock.

Gemma thought, how would he know what to do with the rope? He was only a dog, for heaven’s sake. Yes, but a very smart one. She wanted him to wrap the rope around something, anything that would take it. One of the pilings would do it. She only needed a little purchase so she could climb up. The distance wasn’t much. As she looked at the pilings, she saw a second rowboat drifting in and out from under the dock, only this one had a motor attached to it. It wasn’t very securely tied. Gemma imagined Maisie Tynedale must have been in a big hurry to leave.

When all of the slack was taken up, Sparky still held the doll (which was pretty heavy) in his mouth and looked around. He dragged the doll and the rope over to a piling and had just enough room to maneuver the rope around and around again. After she tugged at it and it held, she started climbing.

Sparky bounced about, completely giddy when Jimmy managed to heave herself up, hand over hand, onto the dock.

“Sparky!” Gemma grabbed him and squeezed him to her chest until he could only just breathe. He could do without this part of it.

She untied Richard. Remarkably, he was still the same; he hadn’t even gotten wet. She was checking to see if the string still held, when she heard the car.

Both of them heard the car.

The car pulled into the forecourt, slammed its door, left its engine running and its headlights on. Gemma knew it was them, or one of them, either Kitty or Maisie. One of them had brought her here. She had expected it, but she was still afraid. Even if she could have jumped down into the boat, there was no time to do it.

The woman came toward them bathed in the glare of the headlights. But when she got to the dock, she stopped, stunned. It was Maisie. Her eyes, looking at Gemma, were immense. “My God! How on earth-?”

Gemma got down to Sparky’s level. “Go, Sparky!”

Sparky jumped. He had never really gone before, and now he saw his chance. He plummeted toward Maisie, grabbed her ankle and let himself be shaken and shaken, yelled at to get off, get off. Cursed. Good.

Clutching Richard, Gemma watched. “Get her down, Sparky, get her head down!” Gemma moved nearer to them.

Sparky let go of the ankle and sprang up to Maisie’s forearm. To dislodge the dog, she had to bend down, get her head down-

Gemma rushed at her just as Sparky had, pulled her own arm back and with every single ounce of strength left to her, brought Richard down on Maisie’s head. Giving a small exhalation of breath, Maisie slumped on the boards with a dull thud.

“Let me hit her again! Hit her again!”

That was Richard. Gemma thought he’d earned the right, so she hauled off and brought the doll down on Maisie’s head again. Then for good measure, hit her once more. Gemma would have liked to kill her, to roll her off the dock and let her drown.

But she didn’t; they left her lying there.

Fifty-two

Sparky led; Gemma followed. All she knew was this was along the Thames, but she had no idea where Swan Lane was, a name they’d just passed. He seemed to know exactly where he was going and stopped every so often to make sure she was right there behind him.

At one point a car stopped, just pulled up to the curb and the driver leaned across as far as he could and said, “Want a lift, love. I’m just on my way to-”

Gemma never found out where because Sparky hurled himself against the car door, mere inches from the nose of this person making his offer.

“Bloody hell!” the man yelled, jerking away from the window, then stalling the engine out when he tried to accelerate, and Sparky, all the while like a pole vaulter, snarling and launching himself at the car. It made Gemma laugh. The man finally got out like the devils in hell were at his heels.

Gemma skipped along as if this were a walk in Kensington Gardens. She hadn’t felt like skipping in a long time, but now she did. She wished she could throw herself, as Sparky had done, up against things and scare them and make them run away. But then she’d have to have Sparky’s bark and Sparky’s bite to do that.

By now they were coming up on the Victoria Embankment, and Waterloo Bridge, vast and black, was a short distance before them. She loved the lights across the Thames, oceans of them as if the whole of London were layered in little lights. Sparky was descending some steps, his nails clicking on the cold concrete. Gemma wondered where they were going, but didn’t mind all of this walking as she was still in a little daze over having escaped from whatever horrible plan the two women had made for her. She wondered if she had killed Maisie and allowed herself the consolation of thinking she could blame it on Richard, anyway.

“Hey, hey!”

“Oh, be quiet, Richard.” She shook him a little. He was dressed again in his black outfit. Sparky had waited patiently while she had sat on the step of a building back there and got the clothes on him and the stuffing back inside. She would sew him back up later when she had a needle and thread.