“If he gets out of this dockyard, we’re sunk!” Skeeter gasped.
“Looks like we’re sunk, then!” Margo spat back.
Kaederman had just slipped through Gate Two, with Armstrong hard on his heels. Skeeter put on a burst of speed and drew ahead. By the time Skeeter shot through Gate Two, a second squad of river police had put in appearance, running north from the direction of Gate Three. They were still in the distance, however, nowhere close to Kaederman. He was just visible on Rotherhithe Street, dodging past startled pedestrians on the pavements, cutting around large groups by ducking into the street. Horses flung their heads up and reared, shrilling a sharp protest at his erratic flight. Skeeter had just caught up to Armstrong when Kaederman cut sharp south again, leaving Rotherhithe Street.
“Where the hell is he going?” Skeeter gasped. “The river police are down that way!”
For a long moment, Armstrong didn’t answer, too busy dodging past a protesting carthorse and its cursing driver. Then a startled expression crossed the detective’s face. “Surely not?”
“What, dammit? Where’s he heading?”
“The tunnel?”
It took a few seconds for Skeeter to call up his mental map of the area, memorized before leaving the station, then he had it: Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s Thames Tunnel, connecting Rotherhithe and Wapping. Twelve hundred feet long, it had taken eighteen years and countless lives to build. It was also the only way to get from Rotherhithe’s Surrey Docks to Wapping without detouring to London Bridge—or swimming.