Read Online Billie's Kiss by Elizabeth Knox - Free Book Online

young lady go to those lengths to –’ Then, in difficulties, ‘Who on that ship had enemies so desperate?’
    Murdo shrugged this off. He’d possibly never have imagined that the ship was sabotaged if the girl hadn’t jumped. He told Rory that he didn’t have to explain his thinking. But then he did. Perhaps it was the cargo the saboteur had wanted to send to the bottom, the tools and materials for Lord Hallowhulme’s factories. Perhaps the explosion occurred too soon. The fuse was poorly timed. She set it, then saw her mistake, and ran.
    Murdo saw that Rory Skilling looked dubious. He also saw pity. He leaned forward, held his weight for a moment on his trembling arms, then sat on the step above the silent, drooping girl. He looked at her hands – her grubby, grazed palms, stiff with scabs, and curled like cooked shrimps. Thenhe closed his eyes and regarded what he cherished – a plausible picture – Wilhelmina Paxton setting a flame to a fuse, the dynamite packed between the plates of the hull and something unyielding, perhaps the crated parts for the Scouse Beach generator, or James’s telephones, their batteries and bales of cable. He saw Miss Paxton check her watch to time the fuse. And, persuaded by his picture, he opened his eyes to look for the timepiece, around her neck or pinned to her breast. He touched her and she brushed at his hands, absently, as if brushing at a fly or scratchy foliage. Murdo opened the bag she wore on her belt – found a mesh miser’s purse, a pewter pillbox, a comb, a manicure set, a hinged buttonhook and shoe horn, the steel horn engraved on its inside curve: Janet Blazey. She hadn’t a watch, of course, and so Murdo let it go – her purse, and his picture.
    â€˜It was the boiler,’ Rory said, consolingly.
    â€˜Edith,’ whispered Miss Paxton.
    For several minutes nothing was said or done. Murdo remained beside the girl, his head hanging too, his men looming in the passageway and teetering a little like skittles grazed by a bowling ball.
    Fiona came back with two pairs of shoes. Worn dancing shoes, one pair red, the other white. ‘These can be spared, says Mrs Deet.’ Fiona was out of breath, with anger as well as hurry. She said to Rory, beginning quietly and ending up broadcasting: ‘Deet was in a fluster. I suppose because these shoes were poor Miss Ingrid’s. Still, a respectable woman would have asked why the girl was in the gatehouse, and noticed that, with me gone, the girl must be in the gatehouse alone’ – Fiona gave Murdo a mollifying but totally unmeant smile – ‘with one gentleman, and three ruffians.’ She was making it quite clear she’d modified her first thought – four ruffians. She knelt to fasten the shoes on Miss Paxton’s feet, first removing Miss Paxton’s one remaining shoe. ‘And where are you taking her, Mr Hesketh?’
    â€˜Mr Mulberry’s church.’
    â€˜She should have been there from the first,’ said Fiona.
    â€˜But Fi, she was never in the water,’ said Rory Skilling.
    Murdo could feel his rage going, taken by reason and the force of circumstance. He had felt that he’d come ashore on the girl, that his imagination followed her jump – but behind him was the water, and Ian, under the water. Only his spite had vitality; it pulled him up and on again. Miss Paxton’s scabbed palm was against his own; he hauled her to her feet as Fiona finished fastening the shoes. Miss Paxton stumbled around the kneeling woman. Murdo hauled her out the door.
    They walked from under the arch of the gatehouse and onto the road. Murdo’s men followed them, a few paces back, except Rory Skilling, who stayed just behind Murdo’s shoulder , and whispered to him, ‘God help you, Mr Hesketh.’
    Murdo ignored him. He didn’t have to drag the girl. She went on nimbly enough, kept pace with him. Her arm was