Runaway (2 page)

Shaking with shock, I bent over him, closed his eyes and pressed a kiss on his forehead. My vision blurred and a tear splashed down onto his face. I wiped it away with one trembling hand.

‘This is a respectable house!’ said the landlady, her voice high-pitched. ‘We don’t have murders and violent goings-on here! I must call a magistrate!’

I heard her leave the room behind me, shooing the watching children away and pulling the door shut. My tears continued to flow, running unheeded down my cheeks. ‘Oh, father!’ I whispered brokenly. ‘What have they done to you? And why?’ I stroked his poor face and sobbed.

I recalled my father’s terror, his certainty that he was being watched and followed over the last couple of weeks. I was ashamed now to think I’d dismissed his fears, believing them delusions. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I whispered, my tears still falling. ‘I should have believed you.’

But even if I had, what could I have done? Could I have protected him in any way? The memory of the man’s words echoed in my mind.
I know who you are and I’ll find you
.

Who was I? No one of importance. What could we possibly have that anyone would want? Nothing. I wiped the tears from my face with my sleeve and attempted to marshal my wits. I had to escape. I sat back and took a deep breath. If I stayed here, that man would be back and my life might end the same way my father’s had. If the magistrate came and began to speak of inquests, I would be trapped. I must flee now, during all the fuss.

I began to rummage through the clothes that had been tipped onto the floor, but couldn’t think what I would need. I dropped them again and sat helplessly back on my heels. I couldn’t think at all.

By the time the landlady returned with the magistrate, I was lying motionless on the floor, curled up in a ball beside my father. I sat up, numb with shock and grief. The magistrate was a spare, wizened man, with thinning grey hair and sharp eyes. He was puffing from climbing so many stairs. He stood in the doorway, taking in the scene in our room. ‘Well, here’s a to-do!’ he said, once he had caught his breath. He looked around at the smashed-up room and then darted a glance at my father, lying in a blood-soaked heap. His face showed no emotion at all. He picked up an overturned chair, perched upon it, rubbed his hands together and drew a notebook from his pocket. ‘Right, then,’ he said, his voice business-like. ‘Can you tell me the name of the deceased, young lady?’

The landlady stood beside him, her fierce, frowning gaze trained upon me as though I had conspired to arrange all this especially to cause her trouble. Her mouth worked angrily as I spoke.

‘He was Andrew Smith,’ I said shakily. ‘My father. Formerly a soldier of the English Army.’

‘That’s not the name he gave me,’ interjected the landlady shrilly. ‘That’s not the name he hired this room under. Brown, he said!’

‘I know,’ I confessed. ‘He’s been afraid for some time that he was in danger. He gave another name. He’s been trying to hide, but I don’t know why. I still don’t know. Except that now … ’ I gestured helplessly at the tumbled room.

‘This is a respectable house,’ repeated the landlady angrily. ‘You’ve lied and brought trouble on me!’

‘Thank you! That will do for now, Mrs Wickett,’ said the magistrate, dismissing her. ‘I’ll call you if I need you.’

She backed out of the room reluctantly. The magistrate watched her leave and then turned back to me. ‘I’m sorry for your loss, my dear,’ he said. His words were kind but his voice cold. I sensed impatience beneath the surface. ‘I’m going to have to ask you some questions. Can you manage to reply, do you think?’ I nodded.

‘Good. Your father was discharged from the army, you said?’

‘Last autumn.’

The man took some notes. ‘And your name?’

‘Charlotte Smith.’

‘And can you tell me what occurred here, Miss Smith?’

I told him briefly about the man I’d found here. ‘I’d never seen him, to my knowledge,’ I said at last. ‘He was a stranger to me and I know of no reason why he should have hurt my father.’

‘Has anything of value been taken? It is likely the motive was robbery.’

I shrugged helplessly. ‘I have no idea.’

To my horror, the magistrate stood, bent over my father’s body and searched his pockets. I had to bite my lip hard to prevent myself ordering him to show some respect. He drew out a purse, shook it and held it out to me. ‘Empty,’ he said. ‘Was there money here before … ?’ He gestured at the body.

I shook my head, wondering whether the coins for the pie had been his last. It was possible. ‘I don’t believe there was much to steal,’ I told the magistrate, who made a note.

‘Did you see the intruder’s face? Would you know him again?’

‘Only briefly, but yes, I’d know him anywhere. He was young, perhaps a few years older than me, brown-haired, and clean-shaven. His eyes were a very pale blue and he had a small mole just below his right eye. He sounded educated, not rough.’

The magistrate looked taken aback. ‘I see. My goodness me. Yes, that is very … um … detailed. Now, you said your father had been afraid for some time. Did he have enemies?’

‘Are you not going to write down my description? It could be important!’

‘Oh yes, of course.’ The man scribbled for a minute then looked up. ‘Now where was I? Yes, enemies?’

‘No. We know nobody in London. We’ve only been here a couple of months.’

‘Debts or quarrels of any kind?’

‘Not that I know of,’ I said. I looked forlornly around the mess, at my father’s body, lifeless on the floor. He had certainly sold the few items of value we’d once had.

The magistrate closed his notebook, rose and stood looking down at me where I sat upon the dirty floor. ‘I shall have to send a message to the coroner. There will be an inquest,’ he said. ‘You’ll need to stay here until after that. Do you have any relatives nearby? Your mother…?’

I shook my head. ‘My mother died a year ago. I have no one in England,’ I said.

A strange expression crossed his face. I wasn’t sure why but it made me uneasy. Was it satisfaction?

‘Very well. Stay here for now. It sounds to me as though it was merely a robbery that went wrong. You shouldn’t be in any further danger. But perhaps, to be on the safe side, you should give those papers to me for safekeeping for now.’

As I stared up at him, my blood ran cold. He continued to look down at me with a condescending air. He held his hand out. ‘The papers?’ he asked again.

‘I didn’t … mention any papers,’ I said slowly.

‘Of course you did. You’re confused, my dear.’ He opened his notebook again. ‘You told me the man demanded your father’s papers from you. Now, what I suggest is that you hand them over to me for safekeeping and to look into. Meanwhile I’ll call an inquest into this death.’

‘Murder,’ I said unsteadily. ‘It was a murder.’ My mind was reeling with shock and confusion. Had I really mentioned the papers? I was almost certain I had not.

‘The inquest will decide whether it was murder or not,’ he said. ‘The papers?’

He held out his hand again. Was it my imagination or were his eyes glistening? If I was right, I was in far more danger than I had thought. ‘My father had no papers,’ I said. ‘You are mistaken.’

The magistrate hesitated, then bowed briefly. ‘If you’re sure. If you remember where they are, do let me know, won’t you? Mrs Wickett can always get a message to me. They could be important in tracing whoever did this dreadful deed.’

‘I will,’ I said, forcing myself to sound calm. ‘Thank you … for all your help.’

The man nodded and left. I heard him descending the stairs.

My hands were icy in my lap. I was shaking. With difficulty, I rose to my feet, steadying myself by grasping the chair back. My head swam sickeningly. The weakness passed after a moment and I left the room, stepping out into the now deserted hallway and creeping down the creaking, filthy stairs after the magistrate.

When I reached the window on the landing below our room, I stopped and peered out through the grime-encrusted panes. I could just see down to the narrow street from here. I watched until the magistrate emerged from the building below me. He paused on the pavement below and wiped his thin face and hands on his pocket-handkerchief. Then he took a pinch of snuff from a box, sniffed it, and tucked the box back into his coat. Casting a glance around him, he crossed the narrow street and paused by a doorway, apparently exchanging a few words with someone, before walking on. I stayed where I was, watching, my heart thumping uncomfortably in my chest.

After a few moments, a man stepped out of the shadow of the doorway where he’d been concealed and looked up at the house. I caught my breath and drew back swiftly from the window. In that brief moment, despite the distance, I’d recognized my father’s killer. The magistrate had been speaking with the murderer. Clearly he had no intention of arresting him. He knew him.

I retreated back to my room, closed the door and stood leaning against it, shaking. What had I told him? Dear heaven, I’d told him I would know the murderer anywhere. I’d given him a description that proved it. I’d surely signed my own death warrant with those words. My life was in danger and I had no one to turn to for help.

I needed to flee. To get far away from a killer who was so powerful he was in league with a magistrate. I tried to imagine what my father could possibly have that they wanted so badly, but I had no idea. We were poor. We had no connections of note, no influential friends. My father had been a mere major in the army, living on his pay.

I rummaged through my scattered effects. My head was clearer now, my senses sharpened by fear. What would I need? Some clean linen. I looked hopelessly at my few gowns. They had once been good quality, but now every one was patched and shabby. They made me pause and think: a gown was no good anyway. How was I going to escape from the house unrecognized? Where was I going to go? What would I do?

An idea came to me that gave me hope. I rummaged deeper to find garments I’d not worn for a while: my brother Robert’s outgrown breeches, shirt, and jerkin. I was going to be destitute on the streets of a strange city where I knew no one. It would be safer to be dressed as a boy. I was used to it, after all. My parents had sometimes dressed me like my brother when we were travelling in America, to keep me safe. The murderer was looking for Charlotte Smith, but he would not find her now, no matter where he searched.

I discarded the gown I was wearing, horribly stained with my father’s blood, and dragged the breeches on with shaking hands, fumbling with the buttons. I wrapped a scarf tightly around my chest to conceal my breasts, put a shirt over it and pulled on a leather waistcoat. I knotted a shabby silk neckerchief around my neck to hide the knife cut that was still bleeding a little. I twisted my long, brown hair into a thick rope and pulled my father’s cap over it.

I picked up a clean shift, the least worn of my gowns and an extra shirt, wrapped them hastily into a bundle and stuffed them into a leather satchel. As my only shoes were unmistakably girls’ shoes, I pulled riding boots over my stockings. My disguise was complete.

To one side of the closet was the floorboard where father had hidden his papers. With difficulty, I prised it open with my fingernails, ignoring the splinter that stabbed under one nail and sent a sharp pain through my finger.

A bundle of assorted papers wrapped in oilskin and a leather pouch lay beneath the loose board. I stuffed them all hastily inside my shirt. As an afterthought, I picked up my father’s cloak from the floor. Before I left, I knelt beside my father and kissed his brow one last time. ‘I’m so sorry, dear father,’ I whispered, fighting the tears that trembled behind my eyelids. ‘If I could help you by staying, I would do so. But I cannot. Farewell.’

The light was fading outside the window as I slipped out of the door. I half expected the children to be there, gawping, waiting for something more to happen. But they had long gone and so, I noticed now, had my pie. It wasn’t difficult to make the connection. I would go without food tonight, but it would be worth it if I succeeded in leaving unobserved.

I descended the stairs swiftly. From behind each door came the sound of voices, the bawling of children and the smell of cheap food.

Instead of leaving through the front door, the way I’d entered with the pie, I went out the back into the courtyard. Here was the stinking latrine that was shared by several houses, with a queue of people waiting to use it. Children played tag in the yard and mangy dogs sniffed at the rubbish that lay strewn about. No one so much as glanced at me as I walked by. They had no interest in a scruffy, unknown lad.

I paused, pulled my cap down low over my eyes, and joined a gaggle of other lads, all of them ragged and dirty, so that I wouldn’t be leaving the yard alone. We passed right by the murderer. His eyes ran over all of us, but rested no longer on me than on the others. It took all my courage to saunter by casually when my legs shook for fear of my life, but somehow I managed it. The man stood slouched in a dark doorway, his pale eyes watching the coming and going from both the front door and the back yard. There was no other way out, and he was probably confident I couldn’t leave the house unobserved. But he was looking for a girl.