‘The place looks deserted,’ Rufus observed. ‘A perfect temporary base of operations for our transatlantic captors. I wonder how they heard about it.’
‘I ’eard a rumour,’ Matty continued, ‘last time I was ’ere, that the local authorities was tryin’ to move people out of the tenements. ’Parently they wanted to sell the land off to build factories on, or posh mansions or somethin’. People I talked to told me that the authorities would start a rumour that some illness, like consumption or the plague, had broken out in a tenement. They’d move everybody out to the workhouse, then they’d knock the tenement down an’ build on the land. Make a lot of money that way, they could.’ His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘I ’eard that sometimes, if there weren’t any places left in the workhouse, they’d brick up the alleyways in an’ out of the tenements an’ leave the people inside to starve, but I don’t believe that.’
‘The trouble is,’ Rufus said thoughtfully, ‘that we don’t have any idea where we are, we have no way of getting out and there’s nobody to ask for help.’
Sherlock looked around. He had the map still in his pocket, but it was no use. ‘I think we were carried from the cart to the block from over there,’ he said, pointing to an alleyway between two of the blocks. ‘We didn’t turn any corners, and that’s the only straight route.’
‘Cart’ll be gone by now,’ Matty observed darkly. ‘That bloke who was askin’ the questions will’ve taken it.’
Rufus shook his head. ‘He had his own carriage. That’s how he brought me here. Just him and a driver. The driver stayed in the carriage.’
‘With the two men who kidnapped us from the park still in the tenement block,’ Sherlock finished, ‘the cart should still be here.’
The three of them looked at each other for a moment, then rapidly headed for the alleyway that Sherlock had pointed out. The alleyway opened out on to a dirt road that led away into the distance. On the other side of the road was a stretch of unkempt ground where a handful of bony, hollow-eyed horses were grazing on thistles and weeds. Sherlock couldn’t help but compare the scene with Amyus Crowe’s cottage back in Farnham: a beautiful, rustic location beside a field where Virginia’s well looked-after horse grazed contentedly. Here, everything seemed to be a dark inverse of that familiar place: rows of identical prison-like blocks next to a patch of wasteground where horses that might be Sandia’s forgotten siblings had been left to die.
Glancing into one of the tenement doorways, Sherlock caught sight of a movement. He squinted, trying to see what it was. A curtain fluttering in the wind? A pigeon or a seagull roosting?
Something white moved against the darkness inside the doorway. More quickly this time, Sherlock realized that it was a skull. The deep sockets of the eyes, the hairless surface of the head, the sharp edges of the cheekbones and the sinister grin of the teeth – another dead man was staring at him!
The figure moved back into the shadows before Sherlock could point it out to Matty or Rufus Stone. He scanned the row of doorways frantically. Was he going mad? Most of them were empty, but – yes, there! Another thin white figure stood half in shadow, watching him. It moved back into darkness as soon as it realized it had been seen.
Were these creatures connected with the Americans who had kidnapped the three of them, or was this some kind of hallucination born out of a breaking mind?
He gazed over at Matty, and saw that the boy was staring at the tenement doorways as well. Matty turned his head to look at Sherlock.
‘Did you see them?’ Sherlock asked desperately.
Matty nodded. ‘They’re dead men walking, aren’t they? They’re following us. They want us.’
‘I don’t believe that dead men can walk.’
‘Why not?’
‘You’ve seen dead rabbits on butchers’ slabs, and dead fish in costermonger’s?’
‘Yeah. So?’
‘They never move. Not ever. When you’re dead, the vital spark has gone from you. Vanished. The only thing left is flesh, and that decays. Dead animals don’t come back to life, so dead people don’t come back to life.’
Matty looked unconvinced. ‘I ain’t got time to argue wiv you,’ he said.’
‘Come on!’ Rufus called. ‘We need to get out of here before they come back!’
On the side of the road a cart had been left, its horse tied to a stunted tree. The animal looked in considerably better condition than the ones in the ground across the road.
‘That,’ Rufus said, ‘is our ride home – if we knew which way home was.’
‘I memorized the route out,’ Sherlock said. ‘I can just reverse the times and the turns, and we can work out the way back to our hotel.’
‘But we’ll have to put a sack over your head,’ Matty murmured. He looked up at Sherlock and smiled. ‘So the conditions are the same as on the journey out. Otherwise you might get it wrong.’
Sherlock and Matty climbed into the back of the cart while Rufus clambered in the front. He flicked the reins experimentally and the horse started off as if someone had fired a gun. It didn’t seem to like being near the tenements.
Sherlock stood up behind Rufus’s shoulder, clutching on to a wooden bar, and tried to reverse the route that had brought them there. He assumed the cart was travelling at about the same speed, so all he had to do was remember the turns and the rough times in his head and then start the list at the bottom and work upward. Of course he had to change the turns around. A right-hand turn heading from the city centre to the tenements would be a left-hand turn heading back.
His neck was throbbing, and his ankles had been scraped raw by the rope. Whenever he took a breath he could feel a catch in his throat, as if the cartilage had been pushed in. Worse than the physical damage, however, was the feeling of helplessness that had flooded over him when he was hanging there, in the tenement room. He’d been close to death before, but he’d always felt that there was something he could do, some way he could fight. Before he had remembered the knife in his pocket – Matty’s knife – he had been completely at the quiet man’s mercy. He had been moments from a painful and protracted death.
If he hadn’t kept Matty’s knife, if his friend hadn’t told him to hang on to it, then he wouldn’t have had any way out. He would be dead by now.
On such trivial things survival can rest. The thought made him feel uneasy. He looked at Rufus, who was also injured, and wondered if he felt the same.
It took half an hour, and two wrong turns, before they were back at the park near Princes Street.
‘Right,’ Rufus said. ‘Where now?’
Sherlock looked at Matty. ‘Do you want to tell him?’ he challenged. ‘After all, we worked it out.’
‘Nah.’ Matty smiled. ‘You go ahead.’
‘They’re hiding in a place called Cramond. I’ve looked on the map, and I know the way. It’ll probably take us an hour or so to get there.’
‘We’ll grab some food first,’ Stone said, ‘and clean ourselves up. I don’t know about you lads, but I’m starved.’
After they had done both, Matty purloined a scarf from somewhere, and Sherlock used it to cover the marks on his neck. Then, with Sherlock directing, Rufus steered the cart out of the city. It took a while to get past the houses and out into the countryside, and for the first half-hour or so Sherlock was aware of the dark shape of Edinburgh Castle looming over them, perched on its massive crag of rock. The low grey skies matched Sherlock’s mood. What had started as an adventure to find his friends now seemed like something much darker and more unpleasant. There were people out there who wanted to hurt Amyus Crowe, that much was sure. The question was, why? But whatever the reason, it looked as if Sherlock had unwittingly led them right to him. All he could do now was to get to Amyus Crowe before his enemies could work out where he was.