I set the lock on the door, and returned to the parlor.
Neither my guests nor I had touched Mrs. Ryan’s raspberry cake. I set the dessert plates on the floor.
Rupert was quite pleased. He was very fond of Mrs. Ryan’s cakes.
“Good boy,” I told him as I tucked the piece of wool into my notebook. “Well done.”
The rail car lurched sharply around a curve as it sped through the night.
Away from London.
The boy slept on with his head against Brodie’s shoulder, occasionally jerking awake as memories slid into dreams, a thin hand twitching as if he wanted to grab something.
Something, anything, to fight off the nightmare dreams and the people that were in them, Brodie thought. He understood well enough.
Kings Cross station, then north.
He wanted to tell Mikaela where he was going, the one person he trusted above all others. But then there was the warrant Abberline put out. He couldn’t, wouldn’t involve her in this.
This was something only he could do. He needed to get the boy out of London, to a place no one would think to look for him.
The answer came from his old friend—the chemist, Mr. Brimley.
Late the previous night he had showed up at the back entrance to the chemist’s shop, the boy exhausted and shaking beside him.
There were no questions.
With his medicines, microscopes, and medical knowledge from an education at Kings College, Mr. Brimley had assisted in previous inquiry cases.
The bond was more than merely professional with the care and assistance the chemist provided to the poor in the East End.
“I’ll not be forgettin’ that you saved my boy from the gaol,” the chemist told Brodie at the time.
“When the time comes, I will see that you’re repaid for what you did.”
The East End of London, running with those who had little care for anyone but themselves. More bad choices, and young Brimley was the only one identified in the robbery of a smoke shop by a group of lads.
Mr. Brimley had come to him, desperate to save his son from gaol, or worse.
Brodie knew someone, a man of some means who had contributed financially to one of the foundling homes.
He had helped the man before, someone whose career would have immediately ended if it was learned that he had assisted more than one young person escape the legal system that was flawed, and a sure sentence to prison.
But this was different. Young Brimley had needed to leave London before he was arrested. Brodie went to the man. Young Brimley was given a choice—remain in London where he would most certainly be arrested, or leave.
It was a situation where there was no real choice. Arrangements were quickly made, and he left London with Brodie for Leeds and a position with a man of some property who raised sheep.
It was far from London and far from the streets. Safe. And in time, the young man admitted that it had saved his life.
He had stayed in Leeds, worked hard, and saved his wages. He eventually acquired a small plot of land of his own and then another, along with a small herd of sheep. He was married, and now had two boys of his own.
No telegram was sent, no telephone call was made, to a small community where those things would have been known by all in a matter of time.
Instead, Brodie boarded the train at King’s Cross Station with young Rory. And not a word from the lad the entire trip.
It was the middle of the night when they arrived at the station in Leeds, the only passengers that left the train that time of the night.
He found a room at the local inn, where the woman at the counter appeared in her nightcap and dressing gown. He provided a story about traveling to visit his‘sister.’
