“But so will Sinclair,” Darryl added, as if that made things better. “They’ll pose no danger to each other.”
Michael mutely nodded, as if he, too, saw the wisdom and symmetry in that. But it didn’t make the stones any less heavy.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
December 26, 11:20 a.m.
“UNDER ASSUMED NAMES,” Sinclair was saying. “We always traveled under assumed names, and changed them with some regularity. It became a game of sorts, choosing who we would be called in San Remo, or in Marseilles, or wherever it was we stayed after that.”
Lawson was transfixed, and Sinclair had taken some pains to relate the more dramatic episodes from their journey—the midnight rides through mountain gorges, the narrow escapes from suspicious authorities, the high-stakes card play that had generally paid for their travels. But he had carefully skirted the more appalling aspects—most notably the constant quest for a fresh supply of blood. Certainly no need to go into that. And time was running short, anyway. In a couple of hours, the watch would change, and the more-wary Franklin would come back on duty. If Sinclair was to make his move, and gain the maximum amount of time before anyone had discovered his escape, he had to act now.
“From Marseilles, we continued west. In Seville, Eleanor fell ill, and I thought the sea air might revive her, so we traveled to a small town on the Gulf of Cadiz. Its name escapes me, but if I heard it again…”
“Was it Ayamonte?” Lawson said, consulting the atlas.
“No, that wasn’t it,” Sinclair said. “It was something longer. And it was on the way up the coast, toward Lisbon.”
“Isla Cristina?”
“No,” Sinclair said, tilting his head to one side, as if straining to remember. “But I do believe that if I saw it there…”
Holding the book open to the correct page, Lawson got up from the crate and came toward Sinclair—who readied himself.
He laid the book across Sinclair’s lap, and before he was able to stand back again, Sinclair said, in his most innocent tone, “Where exactly are we on this map?”
“Right here,” Lawson said, pointing to a yellow line that he had traced across the page, and while his eyes were trained on the book, Sinclair lifted the beer bottle he had been concealing and cracked him smartly across the back of the skull.
Lawson went down onto his knees, but if Sinclair was hoping for him to be knocked out cold, he was disappointed. That damned kerchief must have interfered. He cracked him again, and the bottle smashed, leaving a bloody gash, but Lawson was still conscious and trying to crawl away. Sinclair had to act quickly; his chain was fastened to the pipe on the wall and he had only a few feet of slack. Looping his cuffed hands over Lawson’s head, he dragged him backwards toward the cot; fortunately, the man was sufficiently dazed by the blow that he could not put up much of a fight. Sinclair tightened the cuffs around his windpipe and pulled up. Lawson’s hands went to the metal around his throat and he tried desperately to claw it away, but Sinclair only leaned back harder, holding on and choking him until his feet—in the boots that Sinclair had been admiring—stopped scrabbling at the floor and his hands dropped limply to his sides. Even then, Sinclair held on for several seconds more, just for good measure, before easing up on the cuffs and letting Lawson’s head loll forward.
The atlas, oddly, had remained open on his lap the whole time.
As the body slumped to the floor, Sinclair pushed the book away, and knelt. He put his ear to the chest and heard the heart still pumping; he had been in this position before, and for a moment the terrible urge to take advantage of the moment rose up in him like a blood tide. But he had neither the time, nor the desire, to kill the man. He put his mouth to Lawson’s, and blew into it, just as the seamen had done with the soldiers who had drowned in the botched landing at Calamita Bay. Then he pushed down gently on the abdomen until he saw it rise, then fall, then rise again. Before Lawson could come to again, Sinclair rifled through his pockets and dug out the keys to the shackles. It was tricky work, undoing them all, especially as Sinclair’s own heart was already beating faster at the prospect of freedom, new boots…and finding Eleanor.
December 26, 11:30 a.m.
“Are you trying to dissuade me?” Eleanor asked, looking into Michael’s eyes.
“No, of course not,” he said, inching his chair closer to the bedside where she sat, and clutching her hands more firmly. “It’s just that there’s a risk involved—a considerable risk—and I’m afraid for you.”