فصل 32

CHAPTER 32

ICE COFFIN

BEWILDERED, FRUSTRATED, ANGRY, GEORGE DARLING walked the streets of London, oblivious to the gusting wind and the hard, cold rain streaming down his face, soaking his clothes. He didn’t want to go home to his empty house. He couldn’t sleep anyway, not when he knew that both his daughter and wife were out there, somewhere, in need of help.

His help.

He understood now that the police were not going to find them. He’d placed yet another a call to Cambridgeshire, only to be told the search for Wendy had been called off because of darkness and the same horrible weather that was assaulting London. It was a rainstorm of biblical proportions, made worse by the fog that oozed up from the Thames, blanketing the streets like a thick smoke, making it impossible to see more than a few feet.

The blackness around George matched his mood. Utterly helpless, unable to think of any way to find his wife and daughter, he was spiraling downward to despair. He walked the streets of Knightsbridge like a zombie, without direction or reason.

Despite the weather, he was not alone. A few determined souls braved the deluge, some darting into pubs, others simply trying to get home. They walked quickly, heads bent, leaning into the gale, splashing through the slop that overflowed the gutters and sanitary ditches meant to carry the city’s stinking waste to the sewers, the river, and eventually out to sea.

George plodded along, sometimes pinching his nose to block out the foul smells, paying scant attention to the few pedestrians he encountered. He had been walking for two hours, maybe more, when he realized that he was close by the entrance to the Sloane Square Underground Station. He turned toward it, a vague plan forming in his mind. His wife—why hadn’t he believed her?—had told him a bobby had tried to grab her in the Underground. Perhaps there was something down there, some clue. …

It wasn’t much, but it was better than aimless wandering. George turned toward the Underground. From close behind he heard the clop-clop of horse’s hooves splashing on the cobbled street. He glanced back and was surprised to see, emerging through the fog, the familiar white boxy shape of an ice cart. Strange to see one so late—the ice men usually came around in the morning, delivering to the better homes of the neighborhood.

The cart was heading directly toward him, as if the driver did not see him in the fog. George stepped aside at the last second. The cart brushed him, knocking him backward.

“Mind your way, driver!” he shouted, recovering his balance.

He heard splashing behind him. He started to turn, then felt powerful hands grip his arms and lift him off his feet. A man on each side. Big men, and very strong. They lifted him without apparent effort.

“Let go! LET ME GO!” shouted George, struggling to free himself. It was useless. The men swiftly carried him to the ice cart, where a canvas tarpaulin had been pulled back, revealing blocks of ice stacked so that there was a space between them just wide enough for …

A man’s body.

He struggled harder, kicking with all his strength. But the big men overpowered him easily, shoving him headfirst into the space between the ice blocks. A third man—apparently the cart driver—helped them to pin him down. George heard a grinding sound and realized that the men were sliding heavy blocks of ice across the space over him. He tried to raise himself up, only to bang his head painfully on the cold, hard block above. He shouted for help, but heard nothing in response except the grunting of the men imprisoning him, and the howl of the unrelenting storm.

He continued to struggle as more blocks were dragged into place above and behind him. Finally the men stopped holding him. They didn’t need to: he was imprisoned in an ice coffin, cold and pitch black. He shouted once more but he knew it was useless: the ice imprisoned the sound as it imprisoned him.

He felt a rumble.

The cart was moving.

George, his arms pinned to his sides, his face pressed against the rough wooden cart floor, shivered violently in his sodden clothing. His only hope was that the men who had captured him were the same men who had captured his wife. If that was so, maybe he would see her. Maybe he could find a way to help her …

If he could find a way to stay alive.