Then she repocketed the handkerchief. “If you’d like to follow me.”
Eventually we found ourselves in the map section. She led me to a shelf of pink spines. “Typical,” she tutted. “Everyone’s always taking them out and putting them back in the wrong order.”
I pulled a random map out and turned it over. On the rear was a diagram of the entire country divided into little squares. The Isle of Skye was covered by maps 23 and 32. I ran my finger along the pink spines.
The librarian found 32. I found 23.
“Can I take them out?” I asked, extracting map 32 from her hands.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “maps can’t be borrowed. You’ll have to read them here.”
It was not a day for worrying about fiddling details like library rules. I said, “My name is Barry Griffin. I go to St Thomas’s,” and sprinted for the exit.
Only when I reached the flats did I realize what a stupid idea it was, going home. Inspector Hepplewhite knew my address. And if he didn’t, Charlie’s father would tell him.
I overshot the car park, coming to a halt behind the garages. I got off my bike and poked my head round the corner. The car park was empty. The inspector had been and gone. Or hadn’t got here yet. Or simply assumed I wasn’t stupid enough to come back. My head reeled. If I was going to find Charlie, there was stuff I needed upstairs. I could be in and out in three minutes.
I decided to go for it. I ran across the vacant car park, banged through the swing doors and threw myself into the lift.
I let myself into the flat and shut the door firmly behind me.
I went into my bedroom. I emptied my own savings of nineteen pounds fifty-two from the cigar box and added them to Charlie’s money. I pulled the old tent and one of the sleeping bags down from the hall cupboard and stuffed them into my big sports holdall. I grabbed a change of clothes and went into the kitchen and started filling a Sainsbury’s bag with food: a loaf, a packet of biscuits, some of Dad’s leftovers and a box of Quality Street. I opened the wotsit drawer and took out a penknife, the first aid kit, a torch and a roll of string. I went back into my bedroom and found a compass.
As I was doing this, the brass wristband fell out of my pocket. I picked it up and looked at it. Was this how they’d found Charlie? Was it sending out some kind of homing signal? I had to get rid of it. Except that I couldn’t get rid of it. It was my one piece of proof, the one object I possessed which showed that I was not a deranged lunatic.
And then I remembered. Dad lost a plane last year. The park people put corrugated iron round the bandstand. The plane flew behind it, the radio contact cut out and it crashed into the boating lake. Radio signals couldn’t travel through metal. He proved it by putting the radio in the oven and making it go silent.
I grabbed the roll of cooking foil from under the sink, tore off a large square and wrapped the wristband in several layers before shoving it back in my pocket.
Only when I had finished did I stop and stand still and listen to the ticking of the clock and the buzzing of the refrigerator and realize that the flat was completely empty. No Dad. No Becky. Where were they?
I suddenly felt cold all over.
9
Vroom
I took a deep breath. They were late, that was all. Mum was still at work. Becky was still at school. Dad would be…
Where would Dad be? I’d done a runner. He’d ring the school. He’d ring Charlie’s parents. He might be round there right now. He might be talking to Inspector Hepplewhite. He might be locked up in a cellar somewhere.
I rang his mobile. Nothing. I crossed the lounge, opened the glass door, stepped outside and looked over the balcony. Maybe he was on his way back here right now. But the car park was empty.
The glass door slid open behind me. I spun round. “Dad?”
It was the man from Captain Chicken. The same suit. The same cropped grey hair. The same wristband under the same white cuffs.
“I’m sorry, James,” he said smoothly. “You know too much.”
“Where are Becky and Dad?” I said, backing up against the railings, my voice suddenly hoarse. “What have you done with them?”
“Your father is at the police station. You ran away from Inspector Hepplewhite, remember? But I’m afraid the police won’t have any idea where you are.” He shook his head sadly. “Your sister is with that poorly-washed boyfriend of hers.”
“You…you…you…” I felt very small and very alone and very frightened.
“Goodbye, James. Unfortunately this is the bit where you die.”
I shoved him hard in the chest so that he staggered backwards, then I turned and grabbed the railing. Maybe I could climb over and swing down onto Mrs Rudman’s balcony. I threw my leg over.
“James, James, James…” he sighed, clutching my arm and dragging me back onto the balcony. “Don’t waste your energy. You see the red Volvo?”
I looked down. A red Volvo was parked by the entrance to the flats. A man in a very expensive light-grey suit was leaning against the bonnet. A second man in a very expensive light-grey suit was standing nearby, idly kicking bits of gravel.
“Even if you got away,” he said, “you wouldn’t make it to the bottom of the stairs.”
My body went limp. There didn’t seem to be any point in struggling.
Then I heard a familiar noise. It was still several streets away, but I would have recognized it anywhere. Craterface had taken the silencer off. It sounded like a Chieftain tank being driven at sixty miles an hour. The Moto Guzzi.
“I think we should do this inside,” the man said, tightening his grip and pulling me back towards the door. “Where no one can see.”
I reached out and grabbed the railing again. If I could hold on for a few minutes until Becky and Craterface got up the stairs. If I could just –
“You’re starting to really annoy me now,” he said, prising my fingers off the railing and shoving me through the sliding door into the lounge. The blue light had reappeared in his eyes and it was flickering like crazy.
I grabbed the curtains. They came off the rail. I grabbed an armchair, which turned over. I grabbed the sideboard and we were momentarily covered in a shower of biros and radio-controlled aircraft parts and Mum’s decorative plates from Crete and Majorca. As I was manhandled through the hall, I swiped the paper knife from the phone table, twisted round and stuck it into the man’s leg.
He said nothing. He didn’t shout. He didn’t wince. He merely removed the paper knife, stopped in his tracks, held me against the wall with one hand and twisted the other into a crab-shape several inches from my face. Five hot neon-blue lights appeared on the ends of his fingers and thumb.
And that was when the front door opened. Becky stepped inside, saw me pinned to the wall and screamed like a cat having its tail screwed into a vice.
“What’s up?” asked Craterface, coming in behind her.
The four of us stood looking at one another for several seconds, no one knowing quite what was meant to happen next.
Then the man raised his glowing hand towards Craterface. “You. Back off.”
“Do something!” Becky shouted.
It was all the encouragement Craterface needed. He swept the greasy hair out of his eyes, inflated his chest and said, “No one tells me to back off, mate.” He flattened his hands, kung-fu style, then leaped forward, roaring, like someone preparing to cut an aeroplane into slices.
The man in the suit let go of me so that he had two hands free to defend himself. Craterface was really very good at the kung-fu thing. He chopped the man in the side of the neck and he tumbled backwards through the kitchen door, fell over and got himself tangled in the ironing board. It was, I think, the first time I had ever seen Craterface looking genuinely happy.