“How did you know that I was Isobel?”
“I hide and watch. You look like boy, but you move like girl. And you running away.” He waved his hand over the forest towards Parklands. “I see that in your eyes. I know that look. And I think it must be you. You do not want to be here. You not mad.”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t think I am. Gregor—did you see anyone else following me?”
Gregor shrugged; “I hear branch falling, but I see nothing.”
She unwound Mavis’s leading rope and took hold of it with a firm grip. “There’s a dangerous man after me. I’ve got to get away.”
“Where is James?”
“James isn’t here. He’s still in London.”
“I told that you together.”
“I know where he is and I’ll tell you, but not now. Jump up. Mavis can carry us both.”
Gregor looked at the sky. “Soon be dark.”
“I know. So hurry.” She stepped onto the tree stump.
“I have hiding place.”
She frowned. “I can’t stay here.” She feared walking into a trap.
“But we cannot travel in dark,” Gregor replied.
“I don’t care. I have to get away.”
“Your brother cannot see in dark.”
She plunged her hand into her pocket and closed her fingers around the hilt of the dagger. “How do you know that my brother is after me?”
“I guess. His name in newspaper, and sister too. Saliv…? Slavia…?”
“Sylvia?”
“Is she for thinking you “delicate nerves” too?”
“No.” The pretence of William’s concern made her sick. “It’s not just my brother who is after me. There’s a man down there who is even worse than him.”
“He need light to find you, and we see him in dark.”
“He is very cunning.”
“Gregor’s hide place is safe. He not find it.”
Isobel loosened her grip on the dagger. The autumn night would soon be upon them. To travel safely in the dark would be difficult, but dare she trust Gregor? She risked being caught whichever choice she made. Gregor looked frightening, but his concern appeared genuine, and she was so tired and very hungry. She stepped down from the stump.
“Very well, show me this hiding place.”
“That is good. But, the horse go. Man find horse, man find Gregor.”
“But we shall need her tomorrow.”
“No. Easy to hide on foot.” He pulled the rope out of Isobel’s hands and wound it round Mavis’s neck. Then he gave her rump a smack, and she trotted away into the trees and was gone.
“She find own way home. Now come, this way.”
Gregor led the way up the slope. Isobel followed, her hand in her pocket, her fingers stroking the dagger’s leather scabbard. Could she find the strength to escape if it came to a fight?
Above her, the strange fog hung against the twilight sky. Its lowest edges thinned into ragged tendrils of mist. Flourishing gorse bushes circled the few trees that grew in the thin soil. They spread out and up in a tangle of sharp branches.
Gregor knelt beside the nearest one. “Follow now.” He lay flat on his stomach and wriggled underneath the bush, and his trailing cape disappeared from sight.
Isobel hesitated. If she was going to run, do it now. She shivered. She would freeze, alone on the hillside.
She crouched on all fours, scrunched up her shoulders, and forced herself against the scratching branches. They scraped across her back and pressed her body into the cold earth. Her feet scrabbled in the dry soil as she pushed forwards on her stomach. The ground sloped down. How deep was this hole?
Then a match hissed, and in its flare, Gregor’s terrible face loomed out of the shadows. He sat, facing her, an oil lamp in his hand, which he lit with the burning match.
She had reached a small underground cave. Tree roots looped and curled to form a natural roof. Rough woollen blankets covered the floor, and slumped against the side of the cave stood a large sack. She emerged from the tunnel and sat up.
“Goodness. What is this? Some poachers den I suppose.”
Gregor tapped his nose. ‘My brother, he dig this.” He turned up the wick, and the flame brightened.
“I see.”
The cave smelt of fresh earth. It was almost cosy in the soft yellow light. Gregor looped the lamp handle over a tree root. “You safe here.”
Isobel shifted round. Branches and roots blocked the narrow tunnel. It would be hard to find this place in the dark. “I’m safer in here than out there.”
“That is good. Tonight rest. Tomorrow, we walk. Do you want food?”
“I’m ravenous. The last time I ate was yesterday, and my brother drugged the food so that it put me to sleep and gave me bad dreams.”
The left side of Gregor’s mouth lifted in what she presumed was a smile. Then he pulled the sack towards him, and reached inside.
Later that night she dreamt about Terrington. He found their hiding place, and dragged dead wood up to the gorse bush to make a bonfire. As he struck a match, a branch snapped, and he spun round.
Something, a beast, a man, prowled through the trees, its breathing low and deep. It approached, and its orange eyes gleamed. Trails of hot breath steamed in the cold air. Terrington turned and fled.
The wolf chased him, snapping at his receding back. It let him go, satisfied that he would not return. Then it lay down beside the gorse bush and waited for the night to pass.
The dream faded, and Isobel shifted in her sleep and sighed.
The day dawned cold and clear. The mist evaporated in the rising sun, and Isobel and Gregor emerged from their hiding place and climbed the steep slope together. At the top, she turned to look back at Parklands.
One of the windows reflected the sun with a flash of light. The House looked so small from up here, and the fear and danger that she had experienced the day before diminished like the disappearing mist, until their memory no longer held any power over her.
She thought of James and of her longing to be with him again. Her thoughts darkened when she remembered Bedlam. She would get him out, she would save him, like he had saved her, when she ran away from home.
She turned her back on Parklands, and followed Gregor over the top of the hill and down the slope on the other side.
Part Two. The Diamond Lost and Found
Chapter Seventeen
“Sir.” The doorman raised his top hat as The Chief climbed the short flight of steps into the warm interior of the Socrates Club in Pall Mall. Inside, he removed his coat and scarf and handed them to an attendant.
“I am expected.”
“Indeed sir. Follow me please.”
Five minutes to midnight and the Club was almost empty. One or two elderly gentlemen snoozed before the log fire or sat, gazing bleary eyed into the middle distance, brandy glasses cradled in their laps.
The steady beat of the Grandfather clock accompanied his ascent to the first floor lounge.
“This way sir.” The attendant opened a pair of mahogany doors and stepped aside.
“Thank you.” The Chief slipped him half a crown. “Leave us now, and see that we are not disturbed.”
“Of course sir.”
The doors closed behind him with a dull thud. He walked towards the fire on the far side of the lounge, his head bent, his shoulders hunched. The swirling patterns on the carpet slid past his feet in a blur of colour. He stood before the stone hearth and stared into the fire, his hands clasped behind his back, his fingers rubbing against each other with anxious little strokes.
William Hunt, Doctor Hood and Judge Buffrey sat watching him from the comfort of their high backed leather chairs, their reflected images visible in the mirror that hung above the mantlepiece.