“They hit something, that’s all,” said Alice, pinching her eyes shut. She tilted the brim of her hat over her face. “A sheep maybe. It’s all right, Marlowe.”
“They’re looking under the carriages,” said the kid.
Charlie furrowed his brow. Something was wrong; he could feel it. “Where did Mr. Coulton go, Miss Alice?” he asked quietly.
“You know where he went,” she said, without stirring.
“He had to ask Mrs. Harrogate something, Charlie,” said Marlowe. “He told us so. Before he went.”
But Charlie wet his lips. It was because he knew who Mrs. Harrogate had brought along, why she was locked in a different part of the train. When she’d cuffed him to the chair in the testing room she’d said it was for her protection, not his. He knew that kind of fear.
“He’s been gone a while now, hasn’t he?”
“It’s been twelve minutes, Charlie.” She tilted the hat, opened one eye. “Try to get some sleep.”
Just then they felt a sudden lurch, and the train groaned underfoot. The whistle at the front sounded three sharp blasts. Slowly, very slowly, the train started to creep forward, at a walking pace, not even that. And then the clunk-shh, clunk-shh, clunk-shh, faster and faster, as the train gathered speed. The green fields flowed past.
“See,” said Alice. “Nothing to worry about.”
But the bad feeling in Charlie just got worse. He studied Alice where she sat in her long oilskin coat, like a rancher. In the little traveling case overhead he knew she’d packed a revolver. He’d seen her clean it and wrap it in oilcloth, and he’d seen the way her hand lingered near it, and he knew the kind of person she was. It didn’t make him feel any easier.
Suddenly Marlowe stiffened. Alice must have sensed it, for she took the hat from her face and uncrossed her legs and looked at him. The kid got down, went to the paneled door, pressed his hand against it.
“What is it?” said Alice. “What’s the matter?”
The train was gathering speed, their shoulders jiggling where they sat.
Marlowe looked scared. “It’s him,” he whispered. “He’s found us. He’s here.”
11
SHINING BOY
The train was moving again.
Lurching at first, shuddering, then starting to roll. In the narrow side corridor, Margaret Harrogate stumbled up against Coulton. The field outside the windows began to slide slowly past. She was tired, and irritated, not least because some part of her knew Coulton was right.
But the man had stopped arguing at least, there was that, as if maybe he’d given up on trying to convince her. He could be so insufferably sure of himself, at times. But then he held up a callused hand, and turned his head, and stood listening. The windows and fixtures were rattling softly now, the low clatter of the railway ties coming up through the floor. She put out a hand to steady herself, studying his stout red face as she did so, the soft flicker of his eyelashes.
“What is it?” she said.
He shook his head. “I don’t know. I thought I heard something.”
Her eyes shifted past him instantly, down the corridor, toward the compartment where she’d left the litch. The door was still locked, the blue curtains over its glass partition drawn. There was the quick dappling of sunlight and shadow as the train passed through a stand of oaks, emerged into open country.
And that was when they heard the scream.
It came from one of the compartments. Margaret whirled around at once in a swish of her long black dress and ran, and then she was turning the little key in the lock, sliding the doors wide. There were stains on the upholstery where the litch had lain. His ropes had been chewed through and left frayed, tangled. The curtains were flapping wildly, in shreds. Margaret went at once to the tall carriage window. It had been slid down and left open and the wind was whipping at her hair.
“Damn,” she hissed.
Coulton spat. “How in hell’d he fit through that?”
Then a second scream came from the next compartment over and Coulton ducked back out, banged his fist on the lintel, but a young woman in spectacles and a schoolteacher’s blouse with her hair loose in her eyes was already stumbling out, collapsing into his arms, shrieking.
“Dear God, oh dear God,” she was crying.
“For the love of all that’s holy, child,” Margaret snapped, catching sight of her. “Speak plain.”
But the young woman was blubbering too much to make real sense. “My window, out my window, it was a, a…”