But none of this could be, for the bow was not yet tillered and Lawrence had no practice with the arrows taken from Donald’s room. He did not waste energy cursing about it. Nightminster would be here some other time. The man hardly kept his travels a secret using that magnificent silver flying boat. What counted was that the initiative now lay entirely with Lawrence. The power of that fact swelled his morale. For the first time since his arrest back in July, he felt like a winner.
“I can’t wait for my clothes to be ready. Just let me have a sou’wester and an oilskin.”
“Just a minute. You’re rushing me.”
“What’s the problem? I’m death to your family.”
“Skay has got to see you. She would never forgive me if you left without seeing her.”
Lawrence was accustomed to dealing with minds more stolid than his. It had been his burden throughout the years with General Wardian, indeed, his contempt of such minds had been part of his downfall. He was wary of making the same mistake again.
“I’m leaving of my own free will—I can write a letter for her.”
“Where’re you going now?”
“I can look after myself.”
“Won’t you at least wait to see your brother?”
That did give Lawrence pause for thought. Only a fool neglected his family in this world—that was a lesson he had learned in a hard school. What was the risk? Lawrence could not recall any occasion of Nightminster’s being absent from his Value System for more than a couple of days. Staying out of his sight should not be a great challenge.
“I’ve a better idea,” Lawrence said. “We’ll wait for Donald to get here. He can escort you and I back inside the Central Enclave as guests on his passport. We’ll go to Bloomsbury College and start to trace Sarah-Kelly from there.”
“Done! That’s a plan.” Bartram smiled up at Lawrence with a new admiration. “But until he gets here, we need you right out of sight. I’ve a string of barges moored at the island—we’ve our own little island out there in the main basin. We’ll wrap you in blankets and Bill and I will take you out and leave you on a barge like you’re just a bit of freight. No one will bother you out there, as it’s our land. We hang trespassers, so folk don’t trespass. After Prentice is gone, we’ll fetch you back and wait for Donald.”
“There is one danger: suppose Donald arrives and asks about me in front of Nightminster?”
Bartram suppressed a retch of fear.
“Don’t even think about that.”
Chapter 20
Lawrence relaxed after being deposited in the small cabin of a barge where he was comfortable and out of the wind. The lapping of little waves and the twittering of robins and starlings in the bushes of the island made a soothing background to his rising sense that at last, at last, he was starting to win.
After some time, Lawrence put a cautious nose out of the cabin. The island was shaped like a long, narrow horse shoe, forming a discreet harbour to store long boats. They were little craft, not as wide as a man is tall, and no longer than a wagon with a team of a dozen men, say forty feet long. He crawled across the neighbouring barge and from it pulled himself onto dry land under a rhododendron bush. The island was smothered under these bushes. Being evergreen, they hid the modest anchorage all year around. From beneath their cover, he could look at the rear view of the flying boat and beyond it to the yard of the Newman’s business.
Whereupon, nervous exhaustion caught up with him and he dozed off.
What sounded like distant gunfire yanked him alert, blinking and scanning all about. A cloud of dark smoke swirled behind the flying boat, pulsing from one of its engines, which chugged like a diesel locomotive. Another engine fired up, then another and another until a grey haze drifted in a long tail across the waves. Two men in a rowing boat—Bill and Dave, the human cranes—towed the machine out and swung it around to point its dogfish snout pointing down the length of North Kensington basin. They unhitched the rope from a cleat on the nose and pulled back to the shore. The engines lifted in tone, the machine eased out further from the quays, steadied and passed the island close enough for Lawrence to get a clear look at the unmistakable swept-back hair and high-domed cranium of Nightminster, The Captain. The flying boat sustained its modest pace, gradually shrinking into the distance until it became difficult to make out against the outline of warehouses at the far end of the basin. It seemed to fold up and then spread out again. The flying boat had turned about to face the prevailing wind. Now its propellers hurled up clouds of spray, the nose lifted, its keel skimmed the water, it bounced and was airborne, bellowing overhead leaving two thin trails of smoke. Lawrence’s eyes followed it all the way out of sight as it banked to the north, its heavy, thrumming beat fading.
“I beat you, you bastard,” he murmured. Truly, he glowed with the victory he had won over Nightminster.
A few minutes later, Bartram and Bill returned to find Lawrence once again wrapped in blankets inside the cabin of the barge. He acted the role of inert load until he was back under cover in a warehouse, whereupon he rolled out of the blankets and stood up.
“When will Nightminster be back?”
“No
