for the first time that evening. “Not bad at all.”
Uncle Mick put each of the items into the bag that was slung across his torso. It was an excellent prize, and it had been exceptionally easy, all told.
Too easy, my mind said, and I tried to push the thought aside, longing to be back out in the safety of the streets, where we could blend into the shadows. The worst we might have to deal with was encountering an air-raid warden, out patrolling for errant lights. We could slip through the mews and out onto another street and disappear into the night.
Uncle Mick closed the safe, and we left the room and went out the way we had come.
Stepping out into the night, I immediately noticed that something felt strange. The air felt different, as though there was some kind of change in the atmosphere. It was like a sixth sense warning of impending danger. I suppose some people would call it superstition. My Irish ancestors might have called it the Sight. Whatever the case, I’ve learned to trust my instincts, and, in that moment, they were banging the alarms.
I was about to turn to whisper to Uncle Mick when I heard the footsteps. I thought someone might be passing along the front of the house, and I stilled, waiting for them to move out of earshot. But an instant later, I realized, whoever it was, they were coming toward us. And they were coming from both directions.
I turned to Uncle Mick, eyes wide, as I assessed our options.
Ahead of us, parallel to the house, was the hedge and, behind that, the high iron fence. Much too high to climb. And we had relocked the door of the house before closing it behind us, so that route was closed to us, too.
It was Uncle Mick who found his voice first.
“Run, Ellie!” he hissed, giving me a little push forward, but it was too late.
A man materialized out of the darkness beside me. “Not so fast, love,” he said, grabbing my arm just as my wits returned and I made to run off.
I struggled, but I knew right away he was much too big for me to fight, so, after a moment of resistance, I stilled. Besides, if Uncle Mick was caught, I wouldn’t leave him, even if I could escape this brute’s clutches somehow.
The man had pulled my hands behind my back, and I felt the cold metal against my wrists as he latched the handcuffs.
“This way,” he said, grasping my arm and roughly pushing me toward the front of the house.
I managed to glance over my shoulder and saw that whoever had come from the other direction had taken Uncle Mick toward the back of the house, away from me.
There were several of them, I realized, now that my eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness. Four or five men in dark clothes. Somehow, they must have been expecting us.
And so we were caught.
CHAPTER TWO
There are a lot of things that go through a girl’s mind when she’s arrested. First there’s the surprise, then fear, then worry, then the tedium of waiting for something—anything—to happen.
I had passed through the first two stages fairly quickly and was on to worry as I rode in the back of the car, its headlights hooded, through the darkened streets.
The city was dark, but, in the moonlight, I could make out landmarks as we went. We crossed the Thames toward Central London, and I saw the spires of the Palace of Westminster and the silhouette of Big Ben, his darkened face quietly but watchfully guarding his domain.
A bit farther and we passed St James’s Park, and I thought, unaccountably, of a happy day I’d spent there in my youth, ambling along the shady paths and feeding dry scraps of bread to the birds at Duck Island. Would I ever have the chance to do such carefree things again?
I lost track after that as we made several turns along smaller, less familiar streets. My best guess was that we were in Belgravia, but I could think of no good reason why we should be.
Uncle Mick would have known where we were headed. I was convinced he held a map of the entire city in his head. Surprisingly, however, they had taken him in a different car—a waste of petrol rations, I would have thought, but who was I to question police methods?
In any case, I had more important things to worry about. How was I