‘Don’t …’ Robin moaned, but his voice scarcely sounded above the rain that fell torrentially on the water.
‘Yes, the rest … We had the little lass, didn’t we, Rob? We had her in our grip. Out the window and down the ladder and sprinting down the garden to the river, where our boat was waiting.’
He turned to Armstrong. ‘Canny he was! Did he trespass in the garden? Did he climb the ladder? Did he break an entry? Not he! Others did all that dangerous work. He waited in the boat. Too great an organizational mind to be risked in action, you see. Got a head on his shoulders, eh?’ He turned back to Robin. ‘So down the garden we came and the child with us, chloroformed, in a sack. I had her, for though I am slight my strength is formidable, and I tossed her like a bag of cress into the arms of Rob here.’
Robin sobbed.
‘I chucked her over the water to my son, waiting in the boat. And what happened, Rob?’
Robin shook his head while his shoulders shook.
‘No!’ exclaimed Armstrong.
‘Yes!’ said Victor. ‘Yes! The boat tilted and he half dropped her. There was a crack against the side of the boat and in his grasping to clutch her back again he lost his grip again, and in she went. Down like a sack of stones she sunk. He set the men to prodding with their oars, and how we did it I don’t know, but we found her at last. How long was it, Robin? Five minutes? Ten?’
Robin, a white face in the dark, did not answer.
‘We found her, anyway. And off we went. Back to Brandy Island. There we set her down and opened up the sack, didn’t we, Rob, son? All might have been lost,’ he said with gravity and a sombre shaking of the head. ‘It could have been the end of everything. But Rob here, with his clear head, saved the day. “It matters not whether she be alive or dead,” said he, “for the Vaughans won’t know it till the money is passed over!” And he wrote out the note – a prettier note I never did see – and it was sent, and though we had not the goods, not in a fit state anyhow, we sent the invoice all the same. And why not, he said, for we had had the labour and the risk of it, eh Rob? I knew he was my son then too.’
Armstrong all the while had edged up the slope and away from the swirling water, but Robin stood still. The water eddied around him, and he seemed not to feel it.
‘So we had the ransom from Vaughan. We had it, and we gave him back his girl too, didn’t we, though he made out we hadn’t. Lasted a good long while, that money. Lovely house, Rob got. I’ve seen it. Didn’t my heart swell with pride, a son of mine in a fine white house in the city of Oxford. Mind you, he has never invited me there. Not once. After everything we had gone through together. Pig rustling and fairground trickery and kidnap and murder – you might think as they was pastimes would bind one man to another in comradeship, mightn’t you? That pained me, that did, Rob. And when the money ran out – he is a gambler, Armstrong, this child of ours, did you know that? I’ve warned him, but he won’t listen – yes, after that money ran out, I’ve been the one to keep him afloat. Every penny I’ve got has gone into his pocket. I’ve worked myself to the bone to keep him in his finery, my boy, so that now, you might say as he belongs to me.
‘Now that you know I’m your father, you wouldn’t be so unkind again, would you? With all those IOUs, that fine white house is my house now, but there is nothing of mine I will not share with you, my son.’
Rob looked at the man. His eyes were dark and quiet and his shivering had ceased.
‘Look at him,’ Victor sighed. ‘See how fine a figure he cuts, that’s my lad. Come, we’ll take the money, Armstrong, and be on our way. Are you ready to go, Rob?’
He stepped towards Robin, hand outstretched. Robin sliced the air with his hand, and Victor took an awkward step back, stumbling. He held his hand up to stare at it in surprise and saw that it was running with dark liquid.
‘Son?’ he said uncertainly.
Robin took a step towards him. He raised his hand again and this time the light caught the blade of Armstrong’s slaughter knife.
‘No!’ came Armstrong’s roar, but again Robin’s hand came down, a swift line in the air, and Victor stepped back again. This time the ground was not where he expected it to be. He teetered on the brink, clasped the coat of his son, who slashed at him – one, two, three – with the knife. They were on the very edge of the riverbank and it was into the running river that they fell – together.
‘Father!’ Robin cried as he fell, and in the moment before the river swept him away, he reached a desperate arm towards Armstrong, and cried out once again: ‘Save me, Father!’
‘Robin!’ Armstrong waded to the point where he had seen his son enter the water. He felt the current tug at his legs. He saw Robin go under, scanned the water frantically to see him re-emerge, and when he saw the flailing limbs was shocked at how far the current had already carried his boy downstream. He had been readying himself to launch into the wild stream but, recognizing his own powerlessness, refrained.
A punt appeared from out of the rain. A tall figure raised a pole towards the sky, and when it descended and found the riverbed, the long narrow vessel moved with remarkable force through the water, slicing through it with effortless grace. The ferryman reached into the water and with thin, bare arms and easy strength drew out the body of a man in a long sodden coat. He laid the body in the bottom of the punt.
‘My son!’ cried Armstrong. ‘For God’s sake, where is my son?’
The ferryman reached in again, and with the same ease he pulled a second body from the water. As he hauled it in, Armstrong caught a glimpse of Robin’s face, still and lifeless and like – so very like – the other man’s.
He cried out, a painful cry, and knew what it was to feel your heart break.
The ferryman launched his pole into the air and let it fall through his fingers.
‘Quietly!’ called Armstrong, after him. ‘Give him back to me! Please!’
The ferryman did not appear to hear him. The punt disappeared swiftly into the rain.
Armstrong did not mount Fleet but they walked, man and beast, out of the water through the torrential rain towards the shelter of the Swan. They went their way in silence for the most part, Armstrong weighed down by the intolerable weight of his grief. But from time to time, he spoke a few words to Fleet, and Fleet softly whinnied a reply.
‘Who would have thought it?’ he murmured. ‘I know the stories about Quietly, but I have never believed them. To think the human mind is capable of producing visions like that. It seemed real at the time. Didn’t you think so?’
And later: ‘There must be more to stories than you think.’
And much later, when they were nearly there: ‘I could swear I also saw … In the punt – behind the ferryman … Am I mad? What did you see, Fleet?’
Fleet whinnied, an unsettled and nervous sound.
‘Impossible!’ Armstrong shook his head to dispel the image. ‘My mind is playing tricks on me. These visions must be the ravings of despair.’
Lily and the River
COLD. IT WAS cold. And if Lily knew she was cold then she was awake. Darkness was ebbing from the room, dawn was coming and – surely – something else too. She opened her eyes to the sting of cold on her eyeballs. What wasn’t right?
Was it him? Returned from the river?
‘Victor?’
No reply.
That left one thing. Her throat tightened.