The Winter Rose (73 page)

"Well, Freddie, can I?"

Freddie hesitated. He looked at the constables.

"It's a garden shed, gentlemen. It has a roof, walls, and a floor. I won't be tunneling out."

"I don't see why not," Freddie said. "We'll have to go with you, however. We'll turn our backs during the examination."

"Very well."

India walked out of the restaurant and into the kitchen with one
constable ahead of her, and the second one, plus Freddie, behind her.
Ella was walking next to her.

"Here are Dr. Hatcher's notes," she said, handing India a lined
notebook. India gave her a puzzled look. They rarely took notes in the
clinic. They couldn't afford the paper. She looked closer and saw that
it was Miriam's lesson book. She opened it. One of the constables held
the kitchen door open for her. She walked down the steps into the yard,
flipping past page after page of cursive writing exercises. And then she
saw them. Two lines. In Ella's handwriting: Mama earwigged. Get ready
to run.

India had barely digested these words when all hell broke loose.

It began with a horrible sound--the deep, snarling bark of a bull terrier on the rampage.

"Mama!" Miriam screamed. "Help, Mama, help! Eddie got in! He'll kill us all!"

Kill us all? India thought. Eddie? He has no teeth!

The next thing she knew, the fearsome-looking dog was tearing around
the yard after the orange tom, who had been pitched off its high perch.

"Gott in Himmel, do something!" Mrs. Moskowitz shrilled at the constables. "He'll tear the children limb from limb!"

The mothers and children, not knowing that Eddie was noisy but
harmless, started to scream and scatter. Chairs and fruit crates went
over. Infants were hoisted high. The two officers tried to corner the
dog, but Eddie, maddened by the sight of the tom, plowed into one,
flattening him, and skirted the other. He raced through the mountain of
feathers from the plucked chickens, sending them into the air, careened
off the wash pot and into the chicken coop. The wash pot went over and
the door to the chicken coop fiew open. A dozen terrifled hens fiew out.
The tom leaped on one, and Eddie leaped on the tom. India was blinking
at the whirling ball of fur and feathers when she felt Ella's hands on
her back.

"The door, Indy! Go!" she shouted.

Panicking, she looked back at the kitchen door. There was no one there.

"Here, India, over here!" a little voice piped. Solly was down at the
bottom of the yard, waving at her furiously and holding open a door to a
narrow alley that ran along the backs of the houses. India hitched up
her skirts and ran. As soon as she was through, Solly slammed the door
shut. He grabbed a plank, jammed one end of it against the door, and the
other against the alley wall.

"Keep going!" he yelled. "Down there!" He pointed at the east end of
the alley. Aaron was waiting there, standing in the back of a wagon.

"Hurry up!" he shouted. India ran to him, stumbling over the cobbles. "Get in," he said, reaching down for her.

She grasped his hand and he pulled her up. Her bag and jacket were
already there. The driver tipped his hat to her. She recognized him.
She'd delivered his wife of twins.

"Mr. Fein--" she said.

"Lie down behind the potatoes, Dr. Jones. Quickly, please. Before we all go to jail."

Large, fifty-pound burlap sacks were propped up inside the wagon.
There was a small space behind them. India wedged herself in it. Aaron
pushed her things in after her, then plugged the space with another
sack.

"Can you breathe?" he asked her.

"Yes."

"Herschel will take you as far as Covent Garden," Aaron said. "Hire a
cab from there. There's still time. You can make it." He jumped out and
banged on the side of the wagon.

"Go!"

India heard a whip crack and felt the horses strain forward in their
traces. The wagon moved, then picked up speed. She guessed they were
heading for the Commercial Road. If they made it, they would soon be
lost in the ocean of traffic that flowed around Spitalfields Market. If
only Herschel Fein could get her to Covent Garden! She would do as Aaron
had said--hire a cab and pay the man to drive hell for leather to
Richmond. She heard the bells from Christ Church again. It was eleven
now. She had an hour. She needed a miracle.

Sid would come by cab, too. She was certain he wouldn't risk being
spotted on public transport. He would come on the Upper Richmond Road,
as she would, then turn onto Hill Street. She had to get there before he
did. She had to stop him before he turned onto Arden Street. She closed
her eyes, urging Herschel Fein on, hoping, praying that she was not too
late.

The cab stopped halfway up Richmond Hill, at the mouth of Arden
Street. Sid peered down the street, eyes searching, ready to tell the
driver

to move on at the first hint of anything suspicious. But there were
no vans parked outside of Number 16, no carriages. There were no men
painting the house or fixing the road. There was nothing out of the
ordinary. He paid the driver and got out.

He heard the newsboys. Their cries carried up from the bottom of Richmond Hill.

"Actress murdered! Killer on a rampage! East End villain strikes again!"

He ducked his head and jammed his hands in his pockets. He'd
discovered that he'd killed Gemma Dean the same way the rest of London
had-- from the headlines. Had Frankie done for Gemma, too? Why, for
God's sake? The poor girl was innocent. She'd never harmed him or anyone
else. And why was he getting the blame?

He walked up the street, nerves jangling, muscles tensed for danger,
but there was none. A cat strolled across the cobblestones. A woman was
pruning her garden. Another was cleaning her stoop. A man oiled the
hinges on his front gate.

Sid let out a deep breath--one he felt as if he'd been holding for
the last three days. He'd gone to Sally Garrett's flat via the tunnels
the night Joe was shot to eat and sleep, and she'd given him India's
message. And then she told him how India had left her flat--just as he'd
entered it. He knew how terrifled India was of the tunnels. He was
almost unable to believe that she would do all that she had done--brave
the tunnels, leave the clinic, her home, and go all the way to
America--for him.

The man oiling his hinges doffed his hat. "Beautiful weather," he said.

Sid nodded back. "Aye, that it is."

He glanced up at their flat, at the big bay window. It was empty.
India often stood in it, looking down the street, waiting for him. He
let himself into the building, casting a wary glance about the foyer,
then quietly walked up the stairs. He hoped she was ready to leave. He
wanted to put as much distance as possible between himself and London.
He'd be nervous until the ship docked in New York, until they were able
to disappear in the crowds and tumult of that city.

He paused at the door to the flat, leaned toward it, and listened.
Nothing. He wondered if India had arrived yet. He opened the door and
saw that she had. She was standing across the room in the big bay
window, looking out of it. For me, he thought, smiling. She must've been
just ahead of him, for he hadn't seen her there when he'd looked up
just a moment ago.

"You are here," he said. "Thank God for that. I was worried. Had a bad feeling."

India made no reply. Had she not heard him?

"India, luv? Is something wrong?" he asked.

She inclined her head slightly, but still said nothing. He walked
over to her and put a gentle hand on her back. She turned around.

"Sid Malone, you're under arrest for the murder of Gemma Dean and the attempted murder of Joseph Bristow," she said.

"Jesus!" Sid gasped. It wasn't India. It was a stranger. She must be a
policewoman. He backed away, then headed for the doorway. He drew up
short when he saw that Alvin Donaldson was standing in it, smiling.
behind him were two uniformed constables.

"Hello, Malone," Donaldson said. "I've waited a long time for this."

"How did you get here? How did you know?" Sid asked.

"Your lady gave us the address."

No, he thought, not India. She would never tell them about Arden
Street. She would never betray him. Unless someone got to her, a voice
inside him said. And made her believe that you shot Joe Bristow. And
killed Gemma Dean.

"I don't believe you. You're lying," he said.

"Believe whatever you like. Just come along quietly."

"Where?"

"To Scotland Yard."

The words came back to him: under arrest... murder.

"Listen to me," he said quickly. "I didn't shoot Joe Bristow. And I
didn't kill Gemma Dean. And while you're here arsing about, the real
murderer's on the loose."

"Tell it to the beak. You'll have plenty of time to rehearse your story while you're sitting in a prison cell."

Prison. Sid shook his head, wildeyed, a bull in a slaughterhouse.

Donaldson held out a pair of handcuffs. "You're done, lad. You can go hard or easy. It's up to you."

Sid looked around; there was no way out but the way he'd come in.
Donaldson's soft, he thought. I can take him. But the two blokes behind
him were huge.

Donaldson followed his gaze. "I wouldn't," he said, opening his jacket to reveal a holster.

Sid took a step backward. And then another. He was not going back to
prison. Not now, not ever. He looked out of the big bay window again, at
the beautiful November day, the blue sky, the white clouds scudding in
the breeze.

And then he hurled himself through it.

"Bonjour, Madame," India said breathlessly to the woman behind the
counter of the French bakery on Richmond Road. "Has Mr. Baxter been in

yet today?"

"No, Madame Baxter, he has not," the woman said in accented English. "If I see him, what shall I tell him to buy?"

"Oh ...um...the madeleines!" India said quickly, forcing a smile. "Au revoir, Madame!"

She raced out of the baker's and headed for Hammond's, the florists.

"Where are you, Sid? Where are you?" she said aloud.

She'd been dashing in and out of shops on the Richmond Road for the
last fifteen minutes, ever since her cab had dropped her there. She
looked at her watch. "Only twelve oh six," she said. "He's still on the
way. Must be. He's always late getting here." She prayed that he was
late today.

He usually got out of his cab on Richmond Road, not at the flat. He
liked to amble along the pretty village street, buying a bottle of wine
and a dozen white roses before he strolled up Richmond Hill. White roses
for his winter rose, he always said. And cakes, always cakes. Because
she was too thin. She could see him, his green eyes clouded by concern,
trying to coax her to eat one more jam tart, one more biscuit, and her
heart twisted inside her.

Why had this happened now? Now, when he was about to renounce his old
life and everyone in it? Why couldn't they leave him alone? Let him go?

Her fear threatened to overwhelm her. She refused to give in to it
and bravely pressed on, dashing across the street heedless of traffic.
At Hammond's the florist's boy said that Mr. Baxter hadn't been in
today. The man at the wine shop said the same thing. She checked the
newsagent's, the greengrofficer's, the bookseller's, the butcher's, her
desperation growing with every regretful smile, every shake of the head,
every no.

Her only hope was to intercept him here. She knew the police were
already at the flat, waiting. She looked at her watch again. It was now
12:35. She spent nearly another half hour standing on the pavement,
watching cabs arrive and depart, hoping against hope that she would
suddenly see Sid stepping down from one. And then a church bell tolled
one o'clock, and she knew it was futile to wait any longer.

With a growing sense of doom, she crossed back over the Richmond Road
and began the walk up Richmond Hill as if she were walking to the
gallows. Nausea clawed at her. Only one thing enabled her to put one
foot in front of the other--the fragile, tiny hope that Sid had not
come. That he'd somehow gotten wind of Donaldson's plans. She reminded
herself that he was smart and strong, that he'd survived the tough
streets of East London. She prayed that the instincts that had kept him
alive in a dark world for so long would serve him now.

It was quiet when she reached Arden Street. There were no police
wagons, no strange men milling about. She quickened her step, hope
surging inside her, and then she saw the broken window, gaping and
jagged. It looked as if it were shrieking. She ran the rest of the way,
flung open the gate, and dashed up the path. She saw blood on the grass.
It was spattered over the dark green leaves of the rose bushes and
their faded blooms.

"Oh, God," she cried.

The front door was ajar. She pushed it open and ran to the second floor. The door to the flat was open, too.

"Sid?" she called. "Sid, are you here?"

"Not anymore," a voice said.

India whirled around. Alvin Donaldson was sitting on her settee. A young constable was standing nearby.

"What happened to him? What have you done?"

"I tried to arrest him. I urged him to come quietly, but he didn't. Instead he threw himself through the window."

India sagged. The constable was at her side in an instant.

"Take your hands off me," she said, stumbling to a chair. She did not
sit, but held on to the chair back to keep herself upright.

"Where is the body?" she asked. "I want to see him."

"There is no body."

"How can there be no body?"

"He's not dead, Dr. Jones."

India nearly wept with relief. "Where did you take him then? Which jail?"

"He escaped. We expect to find him shortly. He won't last long on his
own. He was wounded in the fall and he has a bullet hole in his back as
well."