Moriarty Returns a Letter by Michael Robertson Page A

become a problem now to know what to do. The police were looking for her. Everyone in the Thames basin, it seemed, was talking about her.
    Cheeverton did not think it would do to take her to the pub with him. Even if she was not specifically recognized, for her to be seen with him would cause the entire town to talk. He would have to explain her presence—and he had no explanation to offer for this woman half his age. At least none that the town would accept without it becoming a focus of public attention.
    So he told no one.
    A full week went by. Remarkably, she gave no indication that she wanted to leave. She seemed perfectly content to go out with him onto the river in his little boat every day. It was almost his normal routine. They would rise well before dawn—earlier than the other Thames fishermen, because Cheeverton did not want to encounter anyone on their way to the dock. She would help him cast off and mind the engine, and perform other basic tasks, although she showed no interest in the fishing itself. She would just sit near the bow and watch, like a small terrier that he had once years ago.
    In the full morning, with other boats on the river, Cheeverton would keep an eye out for any that came too close. Once, Thaddeus Sizemore’s boat had appeared out of a fog bank, just fifty yards or so off to starboard, and then had suddenly turned and come in Cheeverton’s direction.
    “I think you’d best go below now,” he’d said then to the woman, and she had done so quickly, and without another word.
    Sizemore had brought his boat up alongside and asked Cheeverton how productive his morning had been. Sizemore had never done that before; he was older and even more taciturn than Cheeverton, and unlike most of the small net trawlers, he rarely volunteered anything about his own catch, or inquired about anyone else’s. But on this day he had come over full of curiosity, to the point that Cheeverton finally just started the motor on his own boat and moved on.
    That evening, in the pub, Sizemore stood at the bar and kept looking sidelong in Cheeverton’s direction. Had Sizemore seen her? Cheeverton couldn’t be sure, but he was taking no chances, and he left the pub after his first pint.
    Months had flowed by in that manner. Cheeverton had pulled her from the Thames in early autumn, and now it was solid winter.
    Had she warmed to him? He couldn’t tell. She had not indicated any desire to venture from her little cot into his bedroom, though he himself lay awake agonizing about that fantasy nightly. But neither had she shown any restlessness or a desire to leave.
    Until just recently.
    The wind was cold and the water was cold, but even so, she had begun to walk down to the deserted shore in the late afternoon. She would walk barefoot, though there were sharp shells among the pebbles, and then she would sit on the damp sandbank and just stare out for hours, until the sun set. He had no idea what she might be thinking.
    And now, just in the past couple of weeks, she no longer wanted to go out with him fishing on the boat. She wanted to stay behind, and though he knew there was risk in that—that she might be discovered—it didn’t feel right, or wise, to deny her.
    And then, just a few days ago, she had asked him for bus fare to London.
    He asked if she knew how to get about in the city. She said that’s what buses are for.
    And it had become clear to him that her remaining amnesia was, apparently, only regarding her own personal specifics—she might not know her own name, or where she was from, or what she had done in the past, but she had no difficulty now with any of the details of the world around her.
    He gave her the fare. But he asked her to promise that she would avoid their little local village—she would just go to the bus stop and get on the bus, and if she should encounter anyone along the way she would not stop to talk to them.
    She had agreed.
    And when he returned from his boat late that