Read Online The Devil and His Boy by Anthony Horowitz - Free Book Online

is?”
    “Of course I do. It’s just outside the city wall. We could walk there in half an hour. But I wouldn’t get too excited if I were you. There’s nothing there. A few butts. Some windmills. If that’s what he brought you all this way to see, he was wasting your time.”
    “Maybe he lived there.”
    “Nobody smart lives in Moorfield. How do you think it got its name? It used to be a moor. Now it’s a field.”
    “At least we can look,” Tom said, gloomily.
    Moll nodded. “All right. We’ll look. But it’s too late to go there now. The sun will be down in an hour or so. We’ll go there tomorrow morning.”
    “What about tonight?” Tom looked around the room. “You said I could stay here?”
    “Yes.”
    “But there’s only one bed.”
    “No problem. You can have the floor.”
    From the moment he had walked into Moll’s room, Tom had felt that he was being watched. But it was only later that night, as he lay on the floor with a single blanket and the flickering fire to keep him warm, that he realized who by. The room looked out, not just on to the river but also on to London Bridge. The huge bridge with its twenty stone arches and its shops, houses and chapels all crammed together above the water, was one of the great sights of the city.
    But as he gazed at it in the moonlight, Tom noticed something else. There
were
three heads turned towards the window, three pairs of eyes fixed on him even now. But they were eyes that saw nothing. The heads they belonged to ended at the neck, cut off and stuck on metal poles.
    Traitors. This was the price they had paid.
    Tom rolled over and pulled the blanket over his head. But he could still feel the eyes boring into him. And it was a long, long time before he lost himself in the brief escape of sleep.
    Moll was right about Moorfield.
    She and Tom were standing in a rectangular field, just north of the city wall. Far away to the north, Tom could just make out the shape of three windmills. There were a few cattle grazing here and there. Despite the icy weather – it seemed to be getting colder by the day – a handful of people had come out to practise archery, aiming at two straw-filled targets, the “butts” that Moll had mentioned. It was a sunny day but the sun was white, not yellow, and gave no warmth at all. Somewhere, dogs were barking. Otherwise, Moorfield was empty and silent.
    “Seen enough?” Moll asked.
    “Yes.”
    “Maybe you didn’t hear him properly. Maybe he didn’t want to bring you here.”
    “He definitely said Moorfield.”
    Moll shrugged. “Let’s go and get a drink,” she said. “I’m freezing!”
    They turned south and went through Moorgate, back into the city. That was the strange thing about London. It was huge, crowded, the streets and houses jammed into what little space there was between the wall and the river. But walk ten minutes in almost any direction and suddenly you had left it all behind and you were back in the countryside. It was a city surrounded by green.
    Moll led Tom into a tavern, took the table nearest the fire and ordered two pints of ale. Neither of them spoke until it came. At last Moll lit her pipe and broke the silence. “So what are you going to do now?” she asked.
    Tom was feeling more miserable than ever. In all the time he had been travelling from Framlingham and despite what Moll had said the night before, he had been hoping that Moorfield would mean something, be something. That when he got there everything would make sense. But a field, a handful of cows and three windmills? Why should Hawkins have brought him all the way from Framlingham for that?
    “I don’t know,” he said.
    “Maybe you should get out of London. If you’ve got Ratsey looking for you!”
    “But where will I go?” Tom cried. “I haven’t got anywhere.”
    “I’m told Bristol’s nice. You could join the navy.”
    “I’d get sea-sick,” Tom said.
    “How about the army?”
    “That’s worse. I’d get