Applause (The Dudley Sisters Saga Book 2) by Madalyn Morgan (best authors to read txt) 📕

public were they often got in the way of the professionals. She decided against it, lifted her scarf over her mouth and nose and walked back to Kingsway. With the gut-churning crump and rumble of exploding bombs ringing in her ears, she suddenly felt frightened. Bill had been sent to Fleet Street earlier in the evening. She prayed he wasn’t still there. She shook the thought from her mind and carried on walking. There wasn’t a bus in sight. She would probably have to walk all the way to Euston to catch one now.

The drizzle of half an hour ago had turned into rain and the smoke from Fleet Street’s burning buildings was making it difficult to see. She stepped into a shop doorway to tie her scarf around her head and stumbled over something bulky. She began to withdraw her foot from what she thought was a bundle of rags when it kicked out. She caught her breath. A man, mumbling to himself in what smelt to Margot like a pub cellar, was slumped against the door. She daren’t move. Suddenly the man belched loudly, jolting himself out of his drunken stupor. His eyes shot open and, seeing Margot, he began to curse. Margot made a bolt for it, knotting her scarf as she ran.

At Russell Square there was a barrier across the road. Margot strained her eyes and could just make out a gaping hole on the other side. Unable to follow the bus route, she followed a faint line on the road that pointed to a sign that read DETOUR.

The rain was sheeting down. The new moon gave little light and without streetlights one house looked much like another. There was always a window or a door that allowed a chink of light to escape, but not tonight – tonight Margot felt as if she was walking through a ghost town. She looked about. Not a soul in sight. She told herself not to panic, that there was bound to be fewer people in the streets now than there had been an hour ago, or however long ago it was since she left the Strand. But she hadn’t reckoned on the streets being completely deserted. She turned into a tree-lined avenue of three-storey terraced houses with tall shuttered windows. ‘Bloody blackout,’ she said under her breath.

Everything about it looked familiar. She stopped for a moment to think. Had she been here before this evening? Without streetlights one city avenue looked much the same as another. Each terraced house was built to the same design. Each had window boxes instead of a garden, and a small paved area between the gate and the steep steps leading up to the front door. What made each house different from its neighbour was the door, windows and curtains, which couldn’t be seen in the blackout.

Margot needed to know where she was, so she opened the nearest gate and ran up the steps. At the door she lifted a brass knocker. It was heavy and shaped like the head of an animal. She put her hand into what felt like a mouth and rapped several times. There was no reply. She put her ear to the door, but there was no sound. She was about to knock again when she heard footsteps. They were coming from the direction that she had come – and they were getting nearer. Margot turned, ran down the steps and was through the gate in seconds. She walked as quickly and as quietly as she was able to the end of the road, and then she flew round the corner to goodness knows where and stopped. Leaning against a wall she held her breath and listened. All she could hear was her own pulse beating.

She waited for several minutes and when she was sure she wasn’t being followed, she walked on. She hadn’t gone more than a few yards when she heard footsteps again – and they sounded closer. Margot stopped, and the footsteps stopped. After a minute’s silence she began to walk again – and she heard the footsteps again. Convinced now that someone was following her, Margot ran for her life, the clip-clip of her heels sounding louder as she pounded the uneven pavement.

At the end of the avenue she saw a derelict builder’s yard and her heart sank. She had seen the yard already this evening. She had gone round in a circle. She was lost. In a frenzy to escape whoever was following her, Margot ran through the open gate. Her left shoe came off in the mud, but she daren’t stop. Praying there were no unexploded bombs in her path, she hobbled across a stretch of wasteland littered with broken furniture and motorcar tyres, a stove, and other discarded objects. She looked over her shoulder to see if she was being followed, tripped and fell. On her hands and knees she crawled to a rusting oil drum and pulled herself up.

Sitting on the drum, covered in mud, exhausted from running in what had turned into torrential rain, Margot burst into tears. She looked up at the sky. The rain was sheeting down. She cuffed a hot tear from her cold cheek and smeared mud across her face. She didn’t care. She was soaked, cold and frightened, and she knew she couldn’t stay there; it was too open, too exposed. Shivering, she hauled herself to her feet and set off across the expanse of mud and puddles.

‘Ouch! Damn! That hurt!’ Margot stubbed the toes of her shoeless foot on something sticking out of the rubble. It happened so suddenly that the momentum carried her forward and she slammed her foot down hard on the ground. She wanted to scream. She stopped for a second. But the footsteps behind her didn’t. In agony every time she put her foot to the ground, Margot hobbled on.

‘Hello? Who’s there?’ she heard someone shout. She ran into