Chapter 6 #3
“So I have no claim on his heart?” the woman scoffed. “You were boys together, Rab. I would have been his wife.”
Caroline’s pulse tripped.
“Let’s not do this,” Rab said tightly. “Let’s not do this again.”
“Oh, I think we should,” the woman spat.
“The last time I saw Charlie, he was unsettled. Said he had to speak with you, over and over, but about what, he would not say. I tried to stop him from leaving, after the hell you put him through. The hell you put us both through. And I never saw him again. Something you said sent him away.”
“No,” Rab said quietly. “We made up. We made up, that night.”
“How convenient,” Mary Jane snarled, “that your friendship survived. I almost did not.”
Silence, thick as honey. Caroline was holding her breath.
“If something happened to Charlie, it happened after he came to the boardinghouse that night,” said Rab. “We made up. We parted ways as friends again. He left before midnight. I assumed he was returning to you.”
Caroline imagined the woman crossing her arms over her chest, appraising Rab.
“I swear it, Mary Jane.” The plea was bare in his voice. “I swear on my life.”
The sound of air blown out between lips.
“Enough,” she said. “I believe you, I suppose. As much as I believe anything these days.”
“If you hear anything about him,” Rab went on, and Caroline could practically feel his relief, “anything at all, will you tell me?”
“If you promise to do the same. Although I have a feeling, Rab, that we will come up empty-handed. Wherever Charlie Foster is, he does not want to be found.”
“Are you still in the flat in Miller’s Court?”
A sound of assent. “But come alone,” the woman said, “in the daylight, or I shan’t open my door to you. And if you ever manhandle me down an alley again, Robert Ripley, I will stab you through the heart.”
Rab muttered a reply, but Caroline was no longer listening.
She had heard an extremely private conversation, and if she did not move quickly, Rab and Mary Jane would walk right into her.
As quickly and silently as she could, Caroline retraced her steps toward the alley opening. Behind her, footfalls bounced up the narrow walls.
The cobbles twisted and turned. The distance she had traveled felt twice as long.
The other two were not trying to be quiet, not stepping carefully; she would never reach the high street before them.
So when Caroline reached the smelly offshoot she had glimpsed earlier, she raised her skirts to clear the puddles and stepped into the noxious dark.
Her boots sunk into reeking water; it slid between her laces, wet her stockings. But she did not hesitate, did not stop, until the cramped passage twisted and she could no longer see the glow of light where she had entered.
Caroline pressed herself against the damp bricks and bridled her frantic breathing. The two sets of footsteps grew artificially loud as they passed the mouth of her tunnel, then receded.
Breathe, Caroline commanded herself, inhaling and exhaling the fetid air through an open mouth.
When her heartbeat had steadied and the only sounds were the drip of water and the patter of vermin, Caroline peeled herself off the wall and picked her way back to the larger alley.
The air grew brighter and sweeter with every step, but she did not notice.
I would have been his wife.
Caroline saw Charlie seated beside the stream again. One day, if neither of us marries, after Father dies, we can live here together.
It couldn’t be true. This Mary Jane had misunderstood Charlie’s intentions, surely, had lost herself in a hopeful fantasy.
But where—oh, God, where—was Charlie?
So caught was Caroline in the web of her own thoughts that she did not hear the shuffle of poorly shod feet until she turned the final twist in the alley. The opening onto the high street was not ten paces more, but a pair of men stood before it, blocking her way like clouds across the sun.
Caroline’s spine stiffened.
“Would you look here, Nat?” said the man closer to Caroline. He bared gapped, tobacco-stained teeth in an unfriendly smile. “You were just saying you needed some comp’ny. The good Lord was listening.”
Nat was shorter, his nose red with sun and gin. “I did just say, dinnit I?”
“If you please, gentlemen,” Caroline began, her voice pinched and high, “I was just meeting my brother.”
This pronouncement brought a hearty laugh from both.
“Aye, meeting your brother,” said the taller man. “In a dark little tunnel. And I’ll wager you’re a good girl from the country, just down on your luck. We’ve heard that one before. Haven’t we, Nat?”
“Aye, a hundred times,” the shorter man said, with an expression like that of a starving dog eyeing a butcher’s window. “Don’t worry, pretty. We pay.”
“There he is,” Caroline bluffed, looking past their shoulders. “Charlie! Charlie!” They turned, as she hoped they would, and she ducked past them, was an arm’s span from the street—
Fingers closed painfully around her waist.
“Help!” she screamed. “Help!”
She managed to kick the tall man in the shins before the second slapped a filthy hand over her mouth and dragged her deeper into the alley.