The Silent Boy Read online

  Head cocked, he pauses by the bed. He hears no sounds of movement below. A wild hope leaps within him: perhaps he imagined the shadow in the yard, imagined the scrape of the bolt.

  Charles burrows between the wall and bed. He slithers into the crushing embrace of the mattresses. He pushes his hand between the wall and the upper mattress, trying to make a gap that will allow the passage of air.

  His heart twitches and thumps inside his chest. An image of it, astonishingly vivid, grows in his mind: his heart is a small pink animal with short legs; it scurries to and fro, trying to escape from the prison of Charles’s ribcage.

  He strains to hear the slightest sound apart from his own laboured breathing. But there is nothing. The mattresses cut off sound as well as air.

  Time passes. In a similar predicament, Mr Crusoe would shoot the man with one of his guns or run him through with a sword. Or, if he were obliged to hide, he would do so in order to contrive an ambush and use the advantage of surprise to overpower the intruder. Or, if he judged it wiser to retreat, he would do so by a route he had prepared in advance, for Mr Crusoe was both far-sighted and industrious; he always thought ahead to what the future might hold.

  But Charles is not Robinson Crusoe. He is a small boy with neither family nor friends. He is without resources and without the power of speech in a city that is completely strange to him. But he has food, he reminds himself, and he has a knife. He investigates his hiding place until he finds the bundle of cheese and ham, which he contrives to push into his pocket. His fingers close around the handle of the knife.

  The mattresses press him into a musty sandwich of horsehair, squeezing him harder and harder. The temperature is rising. The sweat streams off him, soaking his shirt. The handle of the knife is slippery. The air is growing worse. He pants for breath. He moves slightly in the hope of encouraging a current of fresh air.

  Worst of all, there is a tickle in the back of his throat.

  The tickle grows. Charles rubs his upper lip with his forefinger, a trick his mother taught him when he began to sneeze while she was talking with a gentleman in the Palais Royal. ‘Rub it harder, my love, rub it faster – it will make the naughty tickle go away.’

  But this time the rubbing has the opposite effect. Or perhaps it is the thought of Maman, a distraction that unlocks a great hollowness within him. The tickle swells to a sensation of elephantine proportions.

  Charles rubs his lip even harder.

  The tickle dies.

  It is a miracle. Charles relaxes. Air glides from his lungs in a long, soft sigh.

  But the tickle returns. Charles sucks in a breath. A spasm runs through his body and a mighty sneeze erupts from him so quickly that he does not even know it is coming.

  The ringing in his ears subsides. He wants to be sick.

  Nothing happens. Charles waits. He allows himself the luxury of hope.

  At that moment, and without any warning, the mattress shifts above him. Next, in one swift movement it is dragged from the bed. Fresh, cold air rushes over his sweating skin. The room is dark apart from a covered lantern held high, its feeble light playing over the lower mattress until it finds Charles’s face.

  The side of the lower mattress still pins Charles to the wall. He wriggles from its embrace. The bedchamber is filled with an immense shadow. In the lantern’s light he glimpses the brim of a hat and hears stertorous breathing. A hand grips his leg.

  ‘Ha!’ a man says in a whisper as he drags Charles across the mattress towards him. ‘Ha!’

  Charles twists his body and curls his spine towards the shadow. He stabs the knife down on the hand.

  The man screams. The hand relaxes its grip. Charles pulls his leg free and rolls off the bottom of the bed. The lantern clatters against the post at the end of the bed and the flame inside it sways and flickers.

  Charles crawls through the doorway. On the landing he scrambles to his feet and takes the flight of stairs leading to the floor above.

  He knows at once he has made a mistake. He should have run downstairs, to the back door or to the hatch from the cellar into the yard.

  Too late. The light from the lantern has steadied and grown stronger. The man’s heavy footsteps are already on the landing.

  Charles has the advantage of knowing where he is going. The man behind him has the advantage of the lantern. Charles is nimbler. The man is stronger.

  In the dark, the house in Nightingale Lane is a maze of doorways, passages and stairs, arranged without rhyme or reason. Landings lead nowhere – more than once, Charles is forced to double back and almost rushes into the intruder’s arms.

  It is as much by chance as intention that he rises higher and higher in the old house and at last bursts through a low, slanting door into the loft.

  The man is following him up the last flight of stairs. He is breathing heavily like a wheezing pump.

  They are in the attics, a series of tentlike spaces beneath the many gables of the house. Their arrival has set off the rats – Charles hears a scurrying of tiny paws, diminishing rapidly in volume.

  Despite the panic, despite the haste, everything moves very slowly. There is time for him to register the presence of the rats, and time for him to feel that the air is cooler up here and to notice the windows in the gables, rectangles of faint radiance in the gloom. There is even time to consider the courses of action before him: to turn and attack the man with the knife; to hide, if he can find a hiding place; or—

  Even as the idea is forming in his head, he has made his choice: he is running again, knife in hand, making for the far end of the attics where a projecting gable forms an alcove at right angles to the main pitch of the roof. He cannot see where he is going. He stumbles and falls. Behind him, the lantern sways and its light lurches among the rafters. The breathing is louder than ever and drawing closer.

  Charles reaches the window and fumbles for the latch. The opening is about eighteen inches high and less than a foot in width. The casement swings out in a rush and the night air rushes into the attic. He pushes his head and shoulders through the opening and drags his body on to the sill.

  The night is cloudy, but the faint radiance of the city fills the sky to the south. On the far side of the window, a leaded valley stretches away between two lower roofs, which belong to the kitchen wing and the outhouses at the back of the house. Charles’s hands scrabble for purchase on the leads. He feels water, a slimy puddle. He touches spongy moss and dead leaves.

  His hips are through. The sill digs into his thighs. No man could crawl through this space, let alone a man-monster.

  A hand grasps his left ankle. Charles kicks out with his right foot, though he cannot do much because his legs are so tightly confined by the window frame.

  He twists his body, trying to stab the man’s hand again. But the blade catches on the side of the window frame, and the force of his own thrust wrenches it from his hand. The knife clatters down the tiles and comes to rest in a gully.

  Another hand shackles his right ankle. An immense force drags him back into the house. There is nothing to hold on to. The fronts of his thighs are compressed against the sill. He fears the bones will snap.

  Charles opens his mouth. He wants to scream. But he cannot.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  The drawing room stretched the width of the house. Despite the candles, it was a place of vast and ill-defined shadows. It held five people, six now Savill was here, but it was large enough for forty or fifty.

  ‘Do you know Mr Malbourne?’ Mrs West said in a low voice, releasing his hand.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But not well. Have you known him long?’

  ‘No – a few hours. He is an acquaintance of Monsieur de Quillon, and they encountered each other quite by chance in the street. He seems very agreeable and très bien élevé, as Monsieur Fournier says. But enough of that – sit beside me, sir. Tell me, have you news of the boy?’

  He joined her on the sofa. ‘No, ma’am, or rather nothing to the point.’ H
e answered almost at random, for his mind was elsewhere, struggling to comprehend this new information about Malbourne. ‘I believe he was brought to London. But where he is now, I have no idea.’

  Mrs West patted his sleeve with her fan. ‘You poor man. Forgive me if I speak plainly, but you do not look at all well. I see that this business has distressed you greatly.’

  Monsieur Fournier, Savill noticed, had joined Malbourne and Miss Horton. But the Count approached the sofa.

  ‘Mr Savill,’ he said, ‘have you found my son?’ He waved imperiously. ‘No, don’t get up. No need to stand on ceremony, sir. All I want is Charles.’

  Once again, Savill explained that he had followed the trail of Charles and the man in the blue coat to the outskirts of London but had been able to find no trace of him since then. He did not mention the boathouse in Chiswick and what he had found there. With a glance at Mr Malbourne, he added that the authorities were pursuing the matter.

  ‘You disappoint me, sir,’ the Count said. ‘I had hoped for news by now. If this were France in the old days, I would have—’

  ‘Ah – that lost paradise,’ Monsieur Fournier interrupted, turning towards them. ‘France before the Revolution. How desperate we were to remove its blemishes, were we not? But now we would give anything to have it back, blemishes and all.’ He smiled down at Savill on the sofa. ‘You must forgive us if we sound impatient – we are so anxious for intelligence of Charles. Why, we even drove to your house today in the hope of finding you there.’

  ‘My house?’ Savill stared stupidly at him. ‘I was not aware you know where it is.’

  ‘Miss Horton recalled you lived in a place called Nightingale Lane near Bedford Square. That was all we needed to know. The coachman did the rest.’

  Savill remembered now. Miss Horton had quoted some poem or other when he mentioned the name, and he had been bearish in reply.

  ‘The shutters were up,’ Mrs West said. ‘And a woman came out of the house nearby and said you were away and asked if she could take a message.’

  ‘Where have you been staying?’ Fournier said casually.

  ‘In lodgings,’ Savill said. ‘My sister and my daughter are away, and there was no purpose in opening the house until their return. But I own I’m surprised that you have come to London at all.’

  This was too blunt to be polite but Fournier smiled in response as if Savill had said something droll. ‘Because the authorities have a foolish fear we might indulge in seditious activities? You are quite correct. But this is merely a short, private visit as dear Mrs West’s guests. We shall not go to public places and call on our acquaintance. Why, we can hardly be said to be here at all.’

  Mrs West laughed. After the mild witticism, Fournier entered into conversation with Miss Horton and Dr Gohlis. The Count began talking to Mr Malbourne, speaking loudly in French and with obvious relish.

  ‘I had not hoped for the pleasure of seeing you again so soon,’ Savill said to Mrs West. ‘I thought you intended to stay longer in Norbury.’

  ‘This business with Charles has unsettled us all, and Monsieur Fournier was anxious to come up to town to see his attorney before the weather worsened. All in all, there seemed no reason to delay the visit.’ She smiled at him. ‘Particularly as Harriet wished it.’

  He glanced involuntarily at Miss Horton, and caught her looking at Malbourne. ‘Had she a particular reason, ma’am?’

  Mrs West raised her eyebrows. ‘If she had, sir, she did not confide it to me.’

  Savill heard the arch intonation in her voice and cursed his own stupidity in giving her such an opening. He felt his colour rising and looked away from Miss Horton. He pushed the thought aside and forced his mind to turn to the matter in hand.

  Malbourne was already acquainted with the Count. Was Rampton aware of this? If so, why hadn’t he mentioned it? Did Rampton know that Malbourne was here? Surely not, or he wouldn’t have urged Savill to call at Green Street. Was it possible that Malbourne had arranged for Charles to be kidnapped not for his own reasons but to oblige Monsieur de Quillon?

  ‘You mustn’t waste your time on an old woman like me.’ Mrs West poked him in the ribs with her fan. ‘Go and talk to Harriet. She will want to hear whatever you can tell her about Charles. She is grown very fond of the lad, you know. Curious, isn’t it? The fact he doesn’t speak, I mean. Or won’t speak. It makes him rather like a dog or a baby, doesn’t it? I’ve never had a baby, but one can certainly grow fond of a dog, and I imagine it’s much of a muchness.’

  ‘He is more than a dog or a baby, ma’am,’ Savill said, his voice sharpening. ‘He is perfectly capable of thought, and of feeling. It’s merely that he’s a prisoner. A prisoner in his own silence.’

  She smiled at him. ‘How very poetical, sir. Be sure to tell Harriet that.’

  He rose and bowed. His jaw had begun to ache around the empty socket where the tooth had been.

  Fournier waved to him to join them. As Savill crossed the room, his eyes met Malbourne’s over the Count’s shoulder. There was no expression in Malbourne’s face.

  ‘Miss Horton has a message for you, sir,’ Fournier said to Savill. ‘From her father.’ He hooked his hand under Gohlis’s elbow and went on, ‘And now, Doctor – would you be so good as to assist me …?’

  Savill was now alone with Miss Horton, who declined to look directly at him.

  ‘My father begs to be remembered to you,’ she said. ‘He is as anxious for news of Charles as any of us.’ She looked up at him at last. ‘He feels what has happened reflects badly on all of us in Norbury – and particularly on him as Justice of the Peace. Is there really nothing more to tell?’

  ‘Nothing of any importance. I wish there were.’

  She questioned him minutely about his pursuit of Charles and the man in the blue coat, trying to wring every scrap of information from his narrative. She was so probing in her interrogation that he had to work hard to avoid revealing more than he wished.

  Then she took him by surprise with another line of questioning.

  ‘And how is Miss Elizabeth, sir?’

  He stared stupidly at her, unsettled by the change of direction and caught off guard by the formality of ‘Miss Elizabeth’. ‘She is very well, thank you,’ he said.

  ‘She is happy to have you home, I dare say.’

  ‘In fact no.’ It was a relief not to have to guard his tongue on this subject at least. ‘I haven’t opened up the house. So she is still staying with friends.’

  Miss Horton smiled and, in that flash of white teeth, the formality between them dissipated. ‘She would rather be with you?’

  ‘Yes. She said she desired to act as my housekeeper until my sister returns. Indeed, she had her heart set on it.’

  ‘That is understandable.’

  ‘She is staying with her best friend at present,’ Savill said, abandoning all restraint on this subject. ‘The friend is about to be married.’

  ‘Ah. A mixed pleasure for Miss Elizabeth, perhaps.’

  It was his turn to smile. ‘It is sometimes agreeable to be the centre of attention oneself.’

  She laughed. ‘You are cynical about the fair sex, sir.’

  ‘And about my own. To be fair, Lizzie is worried about Charles, too. She takes a great interest in him.’

  ‘That is natural. He is her brother, after all, and to a girl of her age no doubt the circumstances of his life have an air of romance and mystery about them.’

  Savill was ready to take offence: Miss Horton presumed a great deal on such a slight acquaintance.

  ‘Is your daughter in London?’ she said, distracting him.

  ‘Yes. She’s staying at her old school. It is the principal’s daughter who is getting married.’

  ‘Would you permit me to call on her? She must be so curious about Charles, and I could tell her what I know of him.’

  ‘I could not possibly trespass on your good nature.’

  ‘Why not? I should like it.’

  ‘Perhaps when
we are settled in our own home again, ma’am. Her friends do not know of Charles yet and she could not talk freely in their presence.’

  ‘Of course.’

  She began to say something else but broke off almost at once. Her eyes moved away from Savill’s face and her expression changed. Savill turned. The Count was bearing down on them with Malbourne beside him.

  Master and man?

  ‘Well, sir,’ the Count said, ‘Mr Malbourne has a position in a government department. I have been telling him that he must use his utmost endeavours to find my son. He will know just how to set about it, eh?’

  Savill bowed in acknowledgement. Miss Horton curtseyed and withdrew to Mrs West on the sofa.

  ‘He has already promised to raise the matter with the Secretary of the Home Department,’ the Count went on. ‘You must hold yourself in readiness – he may wish to question you.’

  Savill bowed again, suddenly conscious of his shabby coat and unshaven face.

  Malbourne had brought with him a hint of perfume. From his neatly dressed hair to his gleaming shoes, he looked as if he were fresh from the attentions of his valet.

  ‘A private gentleman can do very little in such matters.’ The Count’s face was flushed a darker colour than usual. ‘I apprehend you are acquainted with Mr Malbourne. I cannot understand why you have not approached him yourself.’

  ‘The acquaintance is by no means close, my lord,’ Malbourne said. ‘And I have been out of town a good deal. So it’s not to be wondered at. But you may rest assured I shall do all I can.’

  ‘I am much obliged to you, sir.’ The Count had put on his grandest manner. ‘The more I see of you, the more you remind me of your father. I greatly prized his friendship.’

  Malbourne bowed.

  The Count smiled condescendingly at him and glared at Savill. ‘Pray assist Mr Malbourne in any way possible,’ he commanded. ‘For Charles’s sake.’