Dealers thronged the cattle pens, while bargain hunters moved along the line of vegetable and second-hand-goods stalls. Above the bellows of the cattle rose the chants of the livestock auctioneers, and from somewhere beyond the pens came the tinkle of a barrel organ. Billy made a quick circuit of the stalls before cutting through the middle of the pens. With growing anxiety he began a slower round of the stalls, searching the shifting crowd for the shining hair, the vivid features he had come to find. A few families stood watching a Punch and Judy show, others were bunched around the barrel organ, the children laughing at a leaping monkey. But there was no sign of Annie or the child. His anxiety gave way to sharp self-reproach. He should never have left it so late. He’d purposely avoided the early bus because he knew she would be on it and he hadn’t fancied sitting apart from her like a stranger or talking to her under the nosy gaze of the other passengers. Now he saw that his caution had been a trap, that it had driven him into wasting a perfectly good opportunity.
