She caught me staring, and must have seen the shocked look on my face. “Well?” she said sharply, annoyed.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. I dropped my gaze and noticed that someone had left a newspaper on the seat next to me, where the minty woman had been sitting. UNKNOWN BOMBER STRIKES AGAIN, the headline read. FOUR DEAD AT GUILDFORD AIRPLANE FACTORY. And beneath that: HAVE BOLSHEVIKS INFILTRATED ENGLAND?
I vaguely recalled seeing similar headlines over the past weeks. There had been a string of bombings of factories and such, but I had been too wrapped up in my own problems to pay attention. I looked away from the newspaper and reached into my messenger bag—trying not to create enough movement to disturb Pickwick, who was slumbering on my feet—and pulled out the three telegrams I’d found in Gloria’s flask bag. I unfolded them and shook out the three small photographs, spreading them on my knees.
I studied the three faces, thinking of what Octavia had said about that final séance. I concluded, just as Octavia had, that Gloria had seen at least one of her brothers—if not all of them—that afternoon. I traced my fingers along the edges of the photographs, wondering. Which of them had she seen? Tommy, with his sweet, open face? Harry, with his dark beauty? Colin, with his bold, inscrutable features, so like Gloria’s own? What did the words I had no idea mean? To whom had she said, Good-bye, darling? And why had she been crying?
I sighed and flipped over the newspaper on the seat next to me. I looked for anything written about Ramona’s murder, but the sordid death of a cut-rate morphine-addict psychic was not news. Instead, the pages were dominated by the mysterious bombings; there had been four in all, all of them unsolved, with no group taking responsibility. The authorities were awash in theories. Anarchists? Labour fanatics? Fascists? Communists? Germans? Irish Republicans? Did the fact that two of the targets were factories mean that unions or Bolsheviks were involved? No one knew, and in the meantime each successive bombing claimed a handful of lives.
I picked up the paper and used it as a cover to take a surreptitious glance around the train car, wondering whether I had a pursuer looking at me right then. If so, he was looking only at a girl reading a newspaper on a train car, as concerned as any other Londoner about whether there were Bolsheviks in her midst.
I glanced down at the photographs again, Gloria’s three brothers looking up at me. Something about them bothered me, twigged something in my mind that I couldn’t quite place. But before I could think too much on it, the conductor announced Charing, and the journey was nearly over.
* * *
I disembarked along with an elderly couple and a woman with two small children. I inquired at the station about hiring a motorcar, and the route to the Dubbses’ house. The stationmaster told me that the only driver available—the only driver ever available—had just suffered a breakdown of his motorcar not an hour before and wouldn’t be going anywhere today. However, if I really needed to get somewhere, I could rent a bicycle for a reasonable fee.
I hesitated. I hadn’t expected something so important to go wrong so early. It was tempting to panic—the plan had me driving to the Dubbses’ in a motorcar. Besides, I wasn’t very experienced in bicycle riding, and my dress and stockings were hardly appropriate cycling wear. And what about Pickwick? On the other hand, I could simply bicycle up the same road I’d intended to drive. What should I do?
For a second I wished myself home, in my mother’s bedroom with the curtains closed, far out of sight of Gloria’s murderer. What I was attempting seemed insane. But the plan was already in motion, the police already in place. I had no hope of ever finding the man I sought, a man who came and murdered and left again without being seen. My only choice was to make him come to me. You can do this, Ellie.
“I’ll take the bicycle,” I said.
It was a sturdy contraption with wide handlebars and a low seat. I had hoped for a basket to put Pickwick in, but I had no such luck. I need not have worried, because as I awkwardly wheeled the bicycle away from the station, Pickwick, well rested, picked up his tail and pranced alongside me, eagerly sniffing the greenery and tugging on his leash. The countryside seemed to revive him. I promised him that I wouldn’t cycle too fast—as if there were a chance of that—so that he wouldn’t tire.
I mounted up and began. It took some getting used to, and I banged my ankles sharply against the body of the bicycle more than once, but as I left Charing and made my way out into the countryside, I began to find a rhythm. I slung my bag backward against the small of my back and pedaled. Pickwick trotted alongside me, and after a while I dismounted and unhooked him from his leash as he showed no inclination to run away. He wasn’t a young dog, but my cycling skills weren’t much of a challenge, and as we went along together I was reminded of how happy I was to have him with me.