Except for three men in a disused wherry half-hidden alongside the shadowy planking.
Will couldn’t have said the moment he realised it, or what caused it. There was no sign of the foreman. There was no one within earshot to hear a cry for help. The three men were getting out of the boat.
One of them was looking up. Right at him.
They found me.
He knew it at once, knew the purposeful look in their eyes, the way they were spreading out to block his path as they climbed out of the wherry.
Will’s heart jammed in his throat.
How? Why are they here? What had given him away? He kept to himself. He kept his head down. He hid the scar on his right hand with fingerless gloves. He had to rub at it sometimes to keep his fingers mobile, but he was very careful not to let anyone see when he did that. He knew from experience that the smallest gesture could betray him.
Maybe it was the gloves themselves, this time. Or maybe he’d just been careless, the anonymous boy on the docks not quite as anonymous as he’d hoped to be.
He took a step back.
There was nowhere to go. A sound behind him: there were two other men coming up to block his path, shadowy figures he didn’t recognise. But he knew the coordinated way the men were moving, fanning out to block his escape.
It was sickeningly familiar, part of his new life, like seeing her lying on blood-soaked ground and not knowing why, like months of hiding without the first idea why they had killed her or what they wanted from him. He thought of the last word his mother had said to him.
Run.
He sprinted for the only way out he could see, a stack of crates to the left of the warehouse.
Jumping for the top of the crates, he pulled himself up desperately. A hand snatched at his ankle; he ignored it. He ignored the shaking, the heart-thundering panic. It should be easier now. He wasn’t stupid with fresh grief. He wasn’t naive, like he had been those first nights, not knowing how to run or hide, not knowing to avoid the roads, or what happened when he allowed himself to trust someone.
Run.
No time to sprawl when he landed in the mud on the other side. No time to get his bearings. No time to look back.
He pushed himself up and started to run.
Why? Why are they after me? His feet slapped on the wet, muddy street. He could hear the men shouting behind him. It had begun to rain, and he ran blindly into the wet dark, over slippery cobbles. Soon his clothing was sodden and running was harder, his breath too loud in his throat.
But he knew the warren of streets and smaller lanes that were in constant construction, a mess of scaffolding, new buildings and new roads. He made for them, hoping to get far enough ahead to misdirect and hide, and let the men run past him. He ducked and wove between the planks and struts of construction and heard the men slow and fan out, looking for him.
I can’t let them know I’m here. Staying very quiet, he slipped in between struts and then into a space behind a high scaffold that laddered up a half-built structure.
A hand grabbed his shoulder; there was hot breath against his ear and a hand on his arm.
No. Heart pounding, Will struggled desperately, and when a wet hand clamped over his mouth, he stopped breathing—
‘Stop.’ The man’s voice was hard to hear over the rain, but it made Will’s blood run cold. ‘Stop, I’m not one of them.’
Will barely registered the man’s words, the sound he made muffled under the man’s heavy hand. They’re here. They’re here. They’ve caught me.
‘Stop,’ said the man. ‘Will, don’t you recognise me?’
Matthew? he almost said, recognising the voice with a jolt the moment the man said his name. The outline of one of the men from the river resolved into a figure he knew.
He went still, disbelieving his eyes as the man’s hand slowly lifted from his mouth. Half-obscured by the rain, the man was Matthew Owens, a servant of his mother’s in their old house in London. Their first house, their first life, before they had moved to a series of different out-of-the-way places, his mother never telling him why, but increasingly anxious, wary of strangers, watching the road.
‘We need to stay quiet,’ said Matthew, lowering his voice further. ‘They’re still out there.’
‘You’re with those men,’ Will heard himself say. ‘I saw you at the river.’
It had been years since he had seen Matthew, and now he was here, had chased him here from the docks, might have been chasing him since Bowhill—
‘I’m not one of them,’ said Matthew. ‘They only think I am. Your mother sent me.’