Read Online The Book of the Crowman by Joseph D'Lacey - Free Book Online

grinning and delighted with the little compliment. The girl’s mother put out her hand too. Gordon held it as though it were precious.
    “Denise,” she said, reddening. She withdrew her hand quickly.
    This was better than being poked with the shotgun. Better by far than fighting the Ward. Gordon allowed himself to relax. They shared out the fish and he made sure Flora got most of it. In his rucksack was an apple he’d been saving. This seemed like the moment it was destined for. He cut it three ways, again in favour of the sick little girl.
    To start with no one said much and Gordon enjoyed that full, mingling silence. To have food, to share it in safety with people who didn’t want to rob or rape you; all this was a rare combination of blessings. He let the silence build, happy just to be in company. Flora studied him without any embarrassment and, if that was considered bad behaviour, her mother didn’t scold her for it. Denise glanced at him from time to time, assessing him in minute snatches, gathering intelligence with her eyes, processing it and then glancing again. He pretended not to notice.
    Flora crawled back into her blankets when the food was eaten. She looked exhausted and moving seemed to cause her pain. Tightly bundled, she lay on her side, peeping out at Gordon and her mother. After watching for a while Flora sat up and reached for a cloth bag. In it was a tablet of blank white paper. It looked very expensive and very clean. Her coloured pencils, by contrast, were either stumpy or broken and appeared to have been gathered from many sources.
    “You live up here all by yourselves?”
    Gordon’s voice sounded like a shout after the quiet they’d shared. Denise nodded, looking around as though seeing the place for the first time.
    “Pretty much.”
    “How do you get food?”
    “I’ve got friends.”
    Friends .
    Gordon nodded, more to himself than her. Did he trust these two? He knew he wanted to. But could he trust their friends? Friends meant uncertainty. Friends meant whispering lips and flapping tongues. And friends weren’t always friendly, especially not to strangers.
    He moved the conversation along.
    “You two should get out of London. Cities are the hardest places to survive. It’s less dangerous in the countryside and there’s more to eat.”
    While Denise considered this – not with any enthusiasm that he could see – Gordon glanced at Flora. The girl was busy drawing things she had seen in the street from the attic’s tiny dormer window: broken walls, blinded windows and forsaken buildings. Here and there a weed poked through the decaying stratum of damned construction overlaying the land and Flora captured those particularly well.
    “I’ve never been to the country,” she said, looking up at him and smiling. “What’s it like there?”
    “It’s green and open. It’s beautiful. Not as beautiful as it used to be but it’s still a lot nicer than London. There are trees and flowers and–”
    He caught the warning flash in Denise’s eyes.
    “And what?” asked Flora.
    “Well,” said Gordon. “It’s not like that any more, of course. Those days are over.”
    “I’d like to go,” said Flora
    “We’re just fine here,” said Denise.
    He didn’t force the issue.
    “Anyway,” said Denise, “if the countryside is so safe and so easy, what are you doing in London?”
    This was what always happened when you got talking to people. Tricky questions. The temptation to open up. He ought to have known better. Something about Denise and Flora was safe, though. He could sense the good, the sturdy honesty of good people. In spite of how they’d begun their acquaintance, Gordon felt welcome in their home. For once he wanted to talk. But how to let it out?
    “I’ve got… business here.”
    “Really?” Said Denise. “What kind of business?”
    “The tracking-someone-down kind.”
    “Maybe I could help with that. Like I said, I’ve got friends.”
    The expression made