THE DOOR OPENED and she heard the first mate’s voice. “Storage locker.”
A man with a London accent said, “Right.” It was just one word, but the way it was delivered reminded her of certain aspects of Britain. I’m all right, Jack. Backyard gardens with ceramic gnomes. Chips and peas. Almost immediately, the door was shut and that was it: inspection over.
They waited some more and then Captain Vandergau entered the locker and dismantled the wall of boxes. “It’s been a pleasure to meet you three ladies, but now it’s time to leave. Follow me, please. A boat has arrived.”
A dense fog had rolled in while they were hiding below. The deck was wet, and little beads of water clung to the railing. The Prince William of Orange was moored within the East London docks, but Captain Vandergau quickly escorted them to the starboard side of the ship. Attached by two nylon ropes, a narrow boat rode on the waves. The wooden boat was forty feet long and built for shallow water. It had a large central cabin with porthole windows and an open back deck. Maya had seen other narrow boats in London whenever she crossed one of the canals. People lived on the boats and used them for holidays.
A bearded man wearing a black mackintosh was standing on the stern of the boat, holding the tiller. A hood covered his head and made him look like a monk from the Inquisition. He gestured-Come down-and Maya saw that a rope ladder was now attached to the side of the ship.
It took Maya and Alice only a few seconds to climb to the deck of the narrow boat. Vicki was a good deal more cautious, gripping the wooden steps of the rope ladder, and then glancing down at the narrow boat as it rose up and down on the waves. Finally her feet touched the deck and she let go. The bearded man with the hood-whom Maya began to think of as Mr. Mackintosh-bent down and started the boat’s engine.
“Where are we going?” Maya asked.
“Up the canal to Camden Town.” The bearded man had a strong East London accent.
“Shall we stay in the cabin?”
“If you want to stay warm. No reason to worry about the cameras. No cameras where we’re goin’.”
Vicki retreated to the little cabin, where a coal fire was burning in a cast-iron stove. Alice went in and out of the cabin, inspecting the galley, the sunroof, and the walnut paneling.
Maya sat next to the tiller as Mackintosh turned the boat around and headed up the Thames. A rainstorm had surged through the city’s drainage system, and the water had turned dark green. The dense fog made it difficult to see more than ten feet in any direction, but the bearded man was able to navigate without visible landmarks. They passed a clanging buoy in the middle of the river and Mackintosh nodded his head. “That one sounds like an old church bell on a cold day.”
Fog drifted around them, and the damp coldness made her shiver. The splashing waves disappeared, and they passed a dock with yachts and other pleasure boats. Maya heard a car horn in the distance.
“We’re in Limehouse Basin,” Mackintosh explained. “They used to bring everything here and dump it on barges. Ice and timber. Coal from Northumberland. This was the mouth of London, swallowing everything up so the canals could take it to the rest of the body.”
The fog parted slightly as the narrow boat entered the concrete channel that led to the first canal lock. Mackintosh climbed a ladder to shore, closed a pair of wooden gates behind the boat, then pushed a white lever. Water surged into the lock and the boat rose up from the level of the basin to the canal.
Weeds and scrubland were on the left side of the canal; a flagstone pathway and a brick building with barred windows were on the right. It felt as if they had entered the London of an earlier time, a place with carriages and chimney soot that lingered in the air. Passing beneath a railway bridge, they continued up the canal. The water was shallow, and a few times the bottom of the boat scraped across sand and gravel. They had to stop every twenty minutes to enter a lock and rise up to the next level. Waterweeds brushed against the bow of the slowly moving boat.
Around six o’clock, they passed through the last canal and approached Camden Town. This once run-down neighborhood had become a site for small restaurants, art galleries, and a weekend street fair. Mackintosh pulled over to one side of the canal and unloaded the canvas shoulder bags that contained the women’s belongings. Vicki had bought clothes for Alice back in New York, and everything was stuffed into a pink knapsack that had a unicorn on the back.
“Go up to the road and look for an African bloke named Winston,” Mackintosh said. “He’ll take you where you want to go.”
Maya led Vicki and Alice up the pathway to the road that cut through Camden. A Harlequin lute was scrawled on the sidewalk, and it had a small arrow pointing north.
They walked about a hundred yards on the sidewalk to a white van with an interlocking diamond pattern painted on the side. A young Nigerian with a round, chubby face got out and opened the side door of the van. “Good evening, madams. I am Winston Abosa, your guide and driver. I am most pleased to welcome you to Britain.”
They got into the back and sat on steel benches welded to the walls. A metal grate separated this cargo area from the two front seats. Winston made several turns down the narrow streets of Camden. The van stopped, and suddenly the side door was yanked open. A big man with a shaven head and blunt nose peered in.
Linden.
THE FRENCH HARLEQUIN wore a long black overcoat and dark clothing. A carrying case for his sword hung from his shoulder. Linden had always reminded Maya of a foreign legionnaire who had no allegiance to anything except his comrades and fighting.
“Bonsoir, Maya. You’re still alive.” He smiled as if her continued survival were a subtle joke. “A pleasure to see you again.”
“Did you find Gabriel?”
“Nothing so far. But I don’t believe the Tabula have found him either.” Linden sat on a bench nearest the driver and slipped a piece of paper through the grate. “Good evening, Mr. Abosa. Please take us to this address.”
Winston pulled back onto the street and headed north through London. Linden placed his broad hands on his legs and studied the other passengers.
“I assume you are Mademoiselle Fraser.”
“Yes.” Vicki looked intimidated.
Linden glanced at Alice Chen as if she were a plastic bag of trash retrieved from the narrow boat. “And this is the child from New Harmony?”
“Where are we going?” Maya asked.
“As your father used to tell me: ‘Solve the first problem first.’ These days, there are very few orphanages, but one of our Sikh friends found a foster home in Clapton where a woman takes in children.”
“Will Alice be given a new identity?” Maya asked.
“I’ve obtained a birth certificate and passport. She’s been renamed Jessica Moi. Parents killed in a plane crash.”
Winston drove slowly through the rush-hour traffic, and forty minutes later he pulled over to the curb. “Here we are, sir,” he said softly.
Linden opened the side door and everyone got out. They were in Clapton near Hackney in North London. The residential street was lined with two-story brick terrace houses that had probably been built in the early 1900s. For years the neighborhood had presented a respectable face to the world, but now it was tired of keeping up appearances. Pools of dirty rainwater filled potholes in the street and pavement. The patches of ground in front of each building were overgrown with weeds and cluttered with plastic bins stuffed with garbage. A wanted poster for a lost dog was stapled to a tree, and the rain had made each letter bleed wavery black lines.