Chapter 9
The business end of a gun is remarkably distracting. It dominates the world. So it wasn’t until the weapon fell away that I looked past it to see the familiar scarred features of my pilot, who swore and reached for my arm. “There you are! I’ve known some troublesome girls in my time, but sweetheart, you take the-oh, hey there, honey, come on in,” he added in a very different voice, and the hand at his side shifted to hide the gun completely. He peeled back the door to encourage us to enter, standing almost behind it so as not to frighten the child at my side.
“I didn’t see you there, little Miss,” he said. His voice was soft with easy friendship, and it occurred to me that he might have had a family, back in America before the War and the ’plane crash that left his face and hand shiny with scar tissue. “Do come in, it’s chilly out there and Mrs Ross would be happy to set some breakfast in front of you. That’s right, in you come, and pay no attention to the big ugly man who met you with a growl.”
Estelle glued herself to my side. When the door was shut, she peered around me at Javitz. I looked down and said, “Estelle, this is the man with the aeroplane. He didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“What’s on your face?” she asked him.
He gave no indication of the distress it must have caused, this first reaction from any new acquaintance. “I got burnt, a long time ago. Looks funny but it doesn’t hurt.”
“Did it hurt then?”
“Er, yes. It did.”
“I’m sorry.”
After a minute, he tore his gaze away from her to look at me. “Where have you been?”
“Probably best you don’t know, just yet. Why the, er, armament?”
“Someone tried to jigger with the machine last night. I happened to be outside and heard them, so I stood guard to make sure they didn’t get another chance. The lad took over at daybreak. I was about to set out and look for you.”
“Well, I’m here. Is the ’plane ready? Can we go before the wind gets too strong?”
“What, both of you?”
“Estelle can sit on my lap.”
“Where are her-” He caught himself, and looked from me to her.
“Her parents asked me to look after her for a couple of days. We’ll meet them up later.”
“My Papa’s hurt,” she piped up, contributing information I had given her some hours earlier. “His Papa is taking him to a doctor.”
Javitz raised an eyebrow at me. I shook my head, warning him off any more questions, and asked, “Estelle, I’d bet you would like a quick bite of breakfast, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, please,” she said emphatically. Javitz laughed-a good laugh, full and content, which I had not heard before-and led us towards the odours of bacon and toast.
The kitchen was warm and smelt like heaven. Javitz strolled in as if the room were his, and asked his hostess if she’d mind stirring up a few more eggs. I had met Mrs Ross briefly in another lifetime-the previous afternoon-as well as the lad currently out guarding the aeroplane, but there was still no sign of a husband. I decided not to ask.
The mistress of the house was a bit surprised at my reappearance with a child in tow-particularly a child with such exotic looks-but she greeted us cheerily enough, and stretched out a hand for the bowl of eggs. I stayed until she had set two laden plates on the table, then tipped my head at Javitz. He followed me into the hallway.
“Who do you think was trying to get at the machine?” I asked.
“All I saw was a big fellow who ran away when he heard me coming.”
Which indicated it wasn’t the police, I thought: That would have made things sticky. “Well, as soon as Estelle has eaten, let’s be away. How much petrol have we?”
“She’s full. I didn’t know if you’d want to go beyond Thurso, but there was nothing for me to do here except fetch tins of petrol.”
“Yes, sorry. Is the lad big enough to turn the prop for us?”
“Should be, yes.”
“Good. I’d like you to take us back to Thurso-perhaps this time we can find a field closer to the town? Estelle and I will catch a train from there, if you don’t mind making your own way back to London.” It was all very well to risk my own neck bouncing about in mid-air and alternately roasting and freezing in the glass-covered compartment, but I felt that the sooner I could return my young charge to terra firma, the better. Thurso might carry a risk of arrest, but at least I would get her away from Brothers. And with luck, Javitz could land and quickly take off again, all eyes on him while Estelle and I slipped into town and away: There might be a warrant out for Mary Russell, but I thought it unlikely that any rural constable, seeing a woman with a child getting onto a train, would call that warrant to mind.
Javitz looked as if he would object to the plan, but considering the trouble we’d had on the way up here, he could hardly insist that the air was the safest option.
I wiped Estelle’s face (Mrs Ross tactfully suggested a visit to the cloakroom for the child, a nicety I’d have overlooked) and led her out through the garden to the walled field. There it sat, this idol of the modern age, gleaming deceptively in the morning light. It had tried its hardest to kill me on the way up from London; I was now giving it another chance-with the child thrown into the bargain. I muttered a Hebrew prayer for travellers under my breath and climbed inside. Javitz passed Estelle up to me, and as he climbed into his cockpit before us, I let down the glass cover.
In the end, Mrs Ross herself pulled the prop for us, yanking it into life while her son oversaw operations from the top of the stone wall. Estelle’s nose was pressed to the glass that covered our passenger compartment, watching the ground travel past, first slowly, then more rapidly. She shot me a grin as the prop’s speed pushed us back into our seats; I grinned right back at her, and pushed away thoughts of Icarus and his wings.
Then we tipped up, took a hop, and were airborne. Estelle squealed with excitement when the wind caught us. She exclaimed at the houses that turned into sheds and then doll-houses, the horses receding to the size of dogs and then figurines, a motorcar becoming a toy, and a man on a bicycle who became little more than a crawling beetle. We rode the wind up and up over the town, then Javitz pulled us into a wide circle and aimed back the way we had come, roaring lower and lower. The houses, animals, and figures grew again as he prepared to buzz over the Ross rooftop-and then I glimpsed the man on the bicycle, only he was not simply a man, he was a man with a constabulary helmet, and he was standing on the Ross walkway craning up at us.
Five minutes later and he’d have caught us on the ground.
Estelle kept her face glued to the glass, her bony knees balanced on my thighs. I tucked most of the fur coat around her, and tried to ignore the frigid air brushing my neck and taking possession of my toes. It was less than forty miles to Thurso as the crow flew-although slightly longer for a Bristol Tourer that kept over land for much of the time. In any event, under less than an hour we would be trading our hubristic mode of transportation for the safety of a train, to begin our earth-bound way southward, towards civilisation and the assistance of my brother-in- law. Who would surely have reasserted his authority by then.
We approached Thurso as we had left it, over the coast-line between the town and Scotland’s end at John o’ Groats. The wind was powerful, but nowhere near as rough as it had been when we fought our way north. From time to time, Javitz half-rose in his cockpit to peer at the ground past the high nose of the ’plane, making minor corrections each time.
Unbidden, a thought crept into my mind: Would it be irresponsible of me to turn over the duties of nurse-maid to Javitz-just for the day-while I returned to the islands to see what could be done about Brothers? Clearly, the pilot had friends in the area. And he seemed to know better than I how to communicate with children. Yes, I had promised Estelle’s father that I would watch over her; but surely removing the threat of Brothers would offer a more complete protection? Or was this merely what I wanted to do, and not what I should do?
We had shed altitude as we followed the coast-line south. Before the town began, Javitz throttled back, correcting his course a fraction each time he stood to examine the terrain. We were perhaps a hundred feet from the ground, and even I in my seat could glimpse the approaching harbour, when a sinister chain of noises cut through the ceaseless racket: a slap, a gasp, and an immediate, high-pitched whistle.
