Page 63 of The Midnight Secret

‘I’ll pay double.’

There was a pause, an angry flash of green eyes. Landon didn’t like being pushed around, but he wanted their money. Flora could see him weighing up the odds. ‘I sense you’re a versatile man, otherwise Tucker wouldn’t have pointed us in your direction.’

The fresh mention of Tucker made Landon look up. For all Tucker’s personal shortcomings, he was clearly a skilledbusinessman, his interests reaching to every corner – and port – of the world.

‘...All right,’ he said finally. ‘Meet me outside the immigration building on Louise Embankment tomorrow evening—’

‘Evening?’ Flora asked. ‘Couldn’t we go in the morning?’ It was hard to imagine waiting another night and another day. She didn’t know how long she could stand the unrelieved anticipation; every minute that passed felt like a month.

‘The detainees are given access to the roof gardens between eight thirty in the morning and six in the evening. The guards and matrons patrol up there during those hours, and there are several hundred other immigrants who’d clock you as soon as you stepped outside...Meet me at quarter to seven, when it’s quiet, and I’ll arrange for her to be up there—’

‘With the baby,’ Flora urged.

Landon hesitated, and she knew she’d betrayed something of her urgency. Worse, her story.

She felt James’s foot press against her own under the table and she sank back.

‘With the baby,ifthat’s possible. It might not be. It’ll be dark and we won’t have long before they count everyone in for dinner. Whatever you have to say to her, say it quickly.’

‘Understood,’ James nodded as Landon got to his feet.

Both of them watched him cross the room and disappear into the city’s depths. Flora could feel her heart pounding so hard, she knew her body must be quivering.

When she turned to her husband, he was already looking intently at her, his eyes burning with hope. ‘One more night,’ he said, taking her hand and clasping it in his own.

‘One more night,’ she whispered back.

Flora stared down at the reflection of the full-bellied moon shimmering on the black water of the docks. From the roof of the three-storey building, she had a clear view of the entire port: deep-water docks, huge storage sheds, miles of administration buildings, the slink of the railway tracks right up to the water’s edge. There was no longer any traffic in the seaway – the ice had become fully impassable and theEmpress of Scotlandwas now couched in her winter berth. At the height of the crossing season, this place would process several thousand immigrants a day, but now the lights shone on only a few wharves as some pre-docked grain ships were unloaded. She heard the whirr of cranes, the clanking of steel upon steel...This was the epicentre of industrialization – which only made the garden in which she was standing all the more surprising. Thousands of plants were potted all around the vast roof space in a surprising antidote to the heavy industry that surrounded them, and all but disguised the fencing that kept the detainees prisoner here.

Flora was standing in a corner, hidden behind a large evergreen shrub; James stood alone in the open space as they waited for Landon to return with Mary. He felt it would be better not to startle Mary outright. If she saw Flora, she might immediately run. James was as good as a stranger to her, so they didn’t anticipate her remembering him, or at least not outright; it had been eighteen months since his trip to St Kilda. That would give him time to start ‘negotiating’ with Mary, as he had put it. Getting their son back was a business deal that needed to be brokered.

She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to calm herself. It was snowing lightly, but she barely noticed the cold as the minutes ticked past. She could think of nothing but seeing her baby at last. How much had he grown? How long was his hair?

They heard footsteps, voices...a familiar scowl carried on words in a kindred accent. Flora looked up sharply as Crabbit Mary came into view, the same as she ever was. She drew a deep breath. Just like that, after crossing a continent and an ocean, Flora was reunited with her past.

Mary was holding the baby closely so that there was little to see of him from this vantage point, but he was bigger, so much bigger than when he’d last left Flora’s arms, not even a day old. The world fell away. She could see his gleaming shock of dark hair, exactly as she’d remembered; she could remember the smell of it...

Instinctively she startled, impelled towards him, but James made a slight turn in her direction as if he anticipated her instincts, telling her to hold back. In that tiny gesture, he reminded her she was not out of mind, just out of sight. She had to trust him.

‘...going to tell me what’s going on?’ Mary asked Landon, looking from him to James and back to Landon again.

As James had hoped, she didn’t seem to recognize the well-dressed gentleman standing before her. She would assume him to be some sort of government official, perhaps. Something to do with her immigration application. Or perhaps one of Lorna’s doctors...

Landon looked only at his paymaster. ‘Make it quick. They’ll be doing the dorm rounds shortly.’

James nodded. Landon sank back into the shadows, his footsteps retreating quickly on the stairs.

‘What’s going on?’ Mary asked, looking more concerned now and clutching the baby closer to her bosom.

‘Mrs McKinnon,’ he said, stepping forward. ‘Time is against us, so I’ll be blunt. I’ve come to reclaim my son.’ James’s voicewas cold, utterly toneless, as he stood tall. Even standing six feet away from Mary, he towered over her.

‘...Your what?’ she gasped.

‘I am James Callaghan, the child’s father.’

A moment of blankness was followed by gasping recognition. ‘But...you’re...you’re dead!’

‘Come now, Mrs McKinnon. We both know I’m nothing of the sort. That was the lie concocted by you and Miss MacDonald to put Flora into distress, induce the birth and convince her to give the baby up to you.’ His words were brusque and unforgiving, none of his usual deference or polite euphemism.

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