A rare gesture that, for her to come to the door to see them off, as if a bond were building between this spidery woman and the men to whom she played a foster mother. George driving, Carter beside him. Johnny and Willi Guttmann in the back seats. Across the hills and down to Abinger, right at the main road and heading for Dorking between the avenues of ripening trees. Fast up the dual carriageway under the shadows of the grass shaven slopes of Box Hill. George drove the Rover with authority and there was a feeling of freedom that permeated them all, even Willi. Something of an event, a day's outing to London, something to anticipate with excitement. Each in his own way believed himself a prisoner of the house at Holmbury. For all of them the journey to the capital represented a truncated but welcome escape. The boy looked around him with the full swing of his neck, the arc broken only when his eyes would have challenged Johnny's. This was the remaining area of his suspicions. With Carter he seemed to have an understanding of sorts, with George he had ploughed a bare field of co-existence, but with Johnny his trust was soured.
