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while until the police come for them, and then your parents
will come to take you home. Let's wrap this rug around
you so you don't get cold. Are you hungry?" I felt her head
shake side to side. "Right. Now, we'll have to stop talking
and be still, as still as baby deer in the woods, all right,
Jessica? I'll stay with you, and your doll is here now. By
the way, my name is Mary."
She greeted this with silence, and I pulled the rugs
around us, put my back against the tree, and waited. The
thin body in my arms slowly relaxed, gradually went loose,
and eventually, to my amazement, dropped off to sleep, I
listened to the last sounds of the beery men returning
home, and after half an hour several cars came swiftly up
the road. Distant yells, two shots (the child twitched in
her sleep), and then silence. An hour later came the sound
of solitary footsteps on the road, and the light of a lantern
through the trees.
"Russell?"
"Here, Holmes." I took the hand torch from the basket
of food and flashed it. He climbed the hill and stood
looking down at us. I could not read his expression.
"Holmes, I'm sorry if I--" I began, but the simple
and immediate plea for understanding was not to be, for
Jessica woke at my voice and cried out at the sight of
Holmes in the lamplight, and I moved quickly to reassure
her.
"No, Jessie, this is a friend; he's my friend and your
mother's friend, and he's the friend who made all that noise
so I could take you from the house. His name is Mr.
Holmes, and he doesn't always look so funny; he's dressed
up, like I am." This soothing prattle took the worst of the
tension from her body. I bundled the rugs together and
handed them to Holmes and walked down the hill with
the child in my arms.
We took her to the caravan, lit a fire, and dressed
her in one of my woollen shirts, which flapped around her
ankles. The publican's wife produced a hot, thick mutton
stew, which we wolfed and the child picked at. Holmes
then put the kettle of water on the little stove, and when
it was warm he washed and examined my sore foot,
wrapped it securely to stop the bone ends from their tedious
creaking, and finally used the rest of the water to make a
pot of coffee and shave the bristle from his cheeks. Jessica
watched his every move. When his face was clean he sat
down and showed the child how his gold tooth came out,
which was the cause for serious consideration. He then
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brought his ring of picklocks from his pocket and spread it
on the table for her to examine, and asked if she wished
him to take the chain from her leg. She cringed away from
him and tucked as much of herself as she could get into
my lap.
"Jessica," I said, "nobody's going to touch you if you
don't want. If you like, I can take it off you, but you'll have
to sit on the table--I can't do it with you on my lap."
There was no response. We waited a while, and then
Holmes shrugged and reached for the picklocks. She
stirred, and then slowly pushed her foot towards him.
Without comment he got to work and, touching her as
little as possible, within two minutes had the shackles on
the floor. She gave him a long, grave look, which he returned,
and then gathered herself up against me again and
put her thumb into her mouth.
We sat, and dozed, and waited, until finally there
came another car on the road, which braked to a halt just
outside the caravan. Holmes opened the door to the Simpsons,
and Jessie flew into her mother's arms and glued her
arms and legs around her as if she would never come free,
and Mr. Simpson put an arm around both of them and led
them to the car, and I found it hard to see properly, and
Holmes blew his nose loudly.
SEVEN
words withMiss simpson
. directing all things without gif ing an
order, receiving obedience but not
recognition.
The end of a case is always
long, tedious, and anticlimatic, and since this is my story
I choose to save myself from having to describe the next
hours of weariness and physical letdown and questions and
the ugliness of confronting those men. Suffice it to say that
the night ended and I crawled into my hard bunk for a few
hours of collapse before a fist on the caravan door brought
me into the day. Cup after cup of black coffee did not help
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the soggy thickness in my bones and brain, and it was with
considerable sour satisfaction that later that afternoon I
watched the last of the cars drive off down the narrow
track. I rubbed my tired eyes and propped up my sore foot
and thought vaguely of a bath but found I could not summon
the energy to do anything except sit on the wagon's
back step and watch the horse graze.
It must have been nearly an hour later that I became
aware of Holmes, sitting on a stump and tossing his jack knife
repeatedly into the tree next to him.
"Holmes?"
"Yes, Russell."
"Is it always so grey and awful at the end of a case?"
He didn't answer me for a minute, then rose abruptly
and stood looking down the road towards the house with
the plane trees. When he looked around at me there was
a painful smile on his lips.
"Not always. Just usually."
"Hence the cocaine."
"Hence, as you say, the cocaine."
I hobbled into the caravan for more coffee and
brought the lukewarm cup back into the last rays of the
evening sun. The oily slick on top was slightly nauseous,
and I abruptly tipped it out, watched it soak into the trampled
grass, and spoke in a rush of words I had not intended
to say.
"Holmes, I don't think I can sleep here tonight. I
know it's late and we should barely get on the road before
we had to stop, but would you mind awfully if we didn't
stay here until morning? I really don't think I can bear it."
My voice came out a bit shaky at the end, but I looked up
to see Holmes with a genuine smile in his eyes.
"Mary, me girlie, you took the very words from me
mouth. If you'll get the nag in place, I'll have these things
stowed away in a minute."
It was considerably more than a minute, but the sun
was still above the hills when we turned the painted wagon
around and faced back up the road we had come down the
day before. I began to breathe more easily, and after a couple
of miles Holmes put his back against the caravan's
painted door and let out a sigh.
"Holmes? Do you think they'll catch the person behind
this?"
"It's possible but not, I think, likely. He's been very
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cautious. He was not seen--he has certainly never been
here, he'd never have overlooked the tree branch, or the
curtains. These five were hired and paid anonymously, had
no address or telephone number, no means of contacting
him other than the newspaper, and received their orders
from postboxes all over London: The ones I saw were all
from the same typewriter, which will soon be lying on the
bottom of the Thames. The Yard may have luck with tracing
the money, but something tells me they won't. However,
sooner or later he'll put his head up again, and
perhaps we'll see him then. Russell? Come, Russell, don't
fall off under the wheels, I beg you. Hand me those reins
and go to sleep. No, go on. I've been driving horses since
before you were born. Get on wi'ya, Mary." So I got on.
I woke up many hours later in stillness and heard the
little caravan's back door open. Boots thumped gently onto
the wooden floorboards, outer clothing rustled, and Holmes
climbed into his bunk. I turned over and went back to
sleep.
It was a blessing that we were saddled with the caravan
and horse and were forced to make our way slowly to
Cardiff. If we had gone off by car and plunged immediately
into officiai business and then whisked ourselves back
home by train, it would have left me, and perhaps even
Holmes, gasping and stunned. As it was, two long days of
plodding travel forced us to put the case into its proper
place. We rode and walked, Holmes alternated between
pipe and gentle, lyrical violin pieces. We talked, but not
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