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It did not prove to be as difficult to keep his word as Scuff had thought, at least not at first. He would have promised anything at all rather than be left behind.
Squeaky arrived exactly when he had said he would. He was unrecognisable at first. He appeared out of the shadows at the end of the street, seeming to dissolve into the darkness between one streetlamp and the next, taking form again as he passed under the brief light. He was bent forward over the reins, his gnarled hands half-hidden by fingerless gloves. There was an ancient, dented top hat on his head and his long, grey hair straggled out of it on either side. He wore what was either a cape or a ragged coat; it was impossible to tell which. But all that mattered to Scuff was that he chose a large wagon piled with loose hay, a pitchfork skewered into the largest heap. The whole was pulled by a powerful horse, too good for the contraption it was yoked to.
Monk and Hooper were waiting at the kerb.
‘Excellent,’ Monk said, sizing it up at a glance. ‘Thank you.’ Even without Squeaky being able to see his face, Monk’s gratitude was evident.
Squeaky held on to the reins. ‘Get in and let’s be going.’
Monk looked at Squeaky and then at the horse. ‘Thank you,’ he said again, and climbed up into the cart, swinging his leg over the side, and sitting down in the hay.
Hooper gave Scuff a hoist up, and then followed him.
They travelled in silence, apart from the steady sound of the horse’s hoofs on the road, and the creak of the cart. No one spoke, each alone with his thoughts. Scuff looked sideways at Monk a few times, wondering if he was planning what they would do, or if he were merely remembering better times, thinking of when they were all three of them together at home, worried perhaps, but safe. He thought he saw anxiety in Monk’s face, but even in the broadening dawn, there was still mostly just shadow.
Did Monk know what they were going to find when they got to this place? Would there be lots of people there, and they would have to fight? Scuff half hoped they would. He wanted to hurt the people who had taken Hester. He was pretty good at the sort of snapping that happened at school now and then. But this would be different. The men might have knives, even guns. What if Hester had been injured? She would have fought when they took her. That thought was so painful he forced it out of his mind. He found his throat tight and his mouth dry.
He started to watch the hedges and the road instead. As the sun rose, he distinguished fields on either side of them, copses of trees in many, and cattle slowly stirring. Most of them were standing up; he wondered if that was how they slept.
Still no one spoke.
Hooper glanced at him once or twice, as if to make sure he was all right. Scuff liked Hooper. There was something in the way Hooper looked at him that made him feel good.
There seemed to be an awful lot of countryside, miles and miles of it, all wide open, as if there were no other cities. Then Scuff realised that they were avoiding the villages, except the smallest ones, and he felt silly for not having understood that they would do that.
He was very glad when they stopped for a late breakfast. The horse needed a break and a drink as well, although Squeaky was very careful not to let it have too much.
‘Why do you do that?’ Scuff asked as they were standing in the yard of the inn, early sunlight splashing pale gold on the cobblestones. ‘’E’s thirsty. E’s bin pulling us all this way.’
‘He’s a she,’ Squeaky corrected him. ‘And horses can drink too much, and then get sick. I got a couple o’ carrots for her. D’yer want to give them to her?’
Scuff thought about it for a moment. Now he was standing on the ground, the horse seemed very large. Then he saw Squeaky’s smile.
‘’Course I do!’ he said abruptly. ‘Gimme the carrots, then!’
Squeaky handed them over. ‘Hold your hand flat, like this. You don’t want her to take your fingers as well. Fingers aren’t good for her.’
Scuff gave him a dark look and took the carrots. He walked over to the horse and held them out on the palm of his hand, trying to appear as if he fed horses every day.
The horse took them delicately, blowing warm breath at him. He watched her face as she chewed them and then searched him hopefully for more.
‘I in’t got no more,’ he told her. ‘Yer not got to eat too much, or it’ll make yer sick. Don’t yer know that?’
The horse nudged him again, harder. That was the moment when he saw movement in the hay on the cart. It was just a slight fidget, as if there was something alive inside it.
He did not like rats at all, but he was used to them – or he had been, when he lived on the river edges. He would far rather find it when he was standing on the ground than if he were sitting in the hay next to it. He seized a handful of the hay and pulled it. He found Worm, crunched back as far as he could get, staring at him with wide eyes.
He was about to demand what the hell Worm was doing here, but the answer was obvious. He wanted to help too.
‘Wot the ’ell do you think Miss Claudine is going to do when she finds yer gone?’ he shouted. ‘She’ll go crazy! She’ll take the clinic apart looking for you.’
Worm crept a few inches forward. ‘No she won’t,’ he hissed, trying to keep his voice down. ‘I left ’er a note tellin’ ’er.’
‘Yer can’t write, yer stupid little article!’ Scuff said desperately. ‘And we ’aven’t got time ter take yer back now.’
Worm wriggled another foot forward. ‘Ruby wrote it for me,’ he answered. ‘An’ yer can’t blame ’er. She just wrote it for a message, an’ I put me name after. I can write me name. She showed me that, an’ all!’
Scuff used a few choice words he thought he had forgotten, but Worm understood them perfectly, and did not even blink.
