Crowns and Codebreakers (14 page)

She didn’t move.

The others were out investigating.

Flora had told her about it earlier, but she hadn’t wanted to listen. Minnie’s so-called apology still smarted.
The way Minnie had fobbed her off when she’d asked about their plans, it was obvious that Minnie hadn’t wanted her. And then Flora had added insult to injury by admitting she’d taken Sylvie’s bridesmaid dress without even asking! So Sylvie had been too cross to listen properly. But now? … with the balmy sunshine on her face and her muscles aching pleasantly, Sylvie wondered what the others were doing.

She could almost remember the name of the place Flora had mentioned – Speedy? Quickly? Something like that. She stood on the pavement and looked left and right. The peach sky made the street look golden. It was nice out, but she had no idea where to go.

Great.

Sylvie found half a Mars bar that she’d forgotten about at the bottom of her vanity case. The best thing to do would be to go to the salon or the cafe and see if the others were there. She chewed happily as she made her way to Marsh Road.

She didn’t notice a silver car parked on double yellow lines outside the stage school.

Minnie couldn’t believe it. She was scrambling up through the window and trying not to land on peanut boy. They’d found him! They’d really found him! She grabbed hold of the flaking window sill and pulled her long legs through. She dropped down on to a chair, then to the floor, with Piotr right behind her.

She looked around.

There was no light on, so the little room she found herself in was gloomy. If she stretched her arms out beside her, she’d be able to touch both walls. The door was opposite the window. There wasn’t much furniture – a roll-mat bed, with a wrinkled sleeping bag tossed on to it; the battered teddy bear from the case; a chair with a small pile of comics on the seat; and the suitcase itself, black, scuffed and grained with harmattan dust.

They were in the right place.

‘Are you OK?’ Piotr asked the boy. ‘Are you hurt?’

Minnie looked at him properly.

He was much smaller than Minnie and Piotr – he could only be six or seven years old. His eyes looked huge: black pupils gleaming in the dim light. His face was all eyes. His hair was buzz-cut short, a sprinkling of black on his scalp.

He wore a bright orange T-shirt with a crocodile logo.

He smiled. ‘I am not hurt.’

Then Minnie noticed a scab on his lip, crusted and old, but still sore-looking. She pointed at it. ‘But you were hurt.’

The boy’s fingers rested gently on the scab. ‘I got it wrong,’ he whispered. ‘I took the wrong case.’

Minnie felt a flash of fury. Who would hit a small boy for making a mistake?

She crouched down so that her eyes were level with the boy’s. ‘I’m Minnie,’ she said, ‘that’s Piotr and we’re here to help you. OK? What’s your name?’

‘Femi,’ the boy said. He held out his small hand. Minnie took it and held it. His fingers felt cold.

‘Hello, Minnie. Hello, Piotr.’ Femi struggled to pronounce Piotr’s name. He twisted his tongue around it a few times, then grinned. ‘It’s a difficult name,’ he said.

‘Where are your family?’ Minnie asked.

Femi shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t seen them since I was little.’

‘How long have you been working for the smugglers?’

‘Since I left my home. I stay here sometimes.’ He waved at the little room. ‘I stay in Lagos sometimes. I like it in Lagos more. I stay with a lot of people. They talk to me. I don’t like it here. It’s too cold. And there are demons.’

Minnie frowned. He’d said that before. ‘Femi, what do you mean, “demons”?’

Sylvie was annoyed to find that the salon was locked and in darkness. There was no sign at all of Flora or Minnie or anyone.

She pressed the buzzer for the flat above the shop.

It sounded for a while. She waited. There was no answer. So she pressed it again.

‘Yes? Hello? What?’ a confused-sounding voice said. Sylvie recognised it as Minnie’s gran.

‘Oh, hello, Auntie. This is Sylvie. Is Minnie there?’

Minnie’s gran made a little shocked noise, like a squirrel finding his nut store empty. ‘She’s not with you?’

‘No,’ Sylvie replied.

‘She said she was going to see you.’

‘Oh.’

‘You’re sure she isn’t with you?’ There was a definite edge of panic in Auntie’s voice.

‘Sorry, no.’

‘Wait there!’

After a few minutes, the light flicked on in the salon. Sylvie saw Auntie rushing across the room, trying to pull on her coat with one arm and get her boot on with the other. She held her handbag with her teeth.

Auntie pulled open the front door and locked it behind her. She dropped her handbag on the floor. ‘Little Minnie is missing,’ Auntie said. ‘And she isn’t answering her phone.’

Little
Minnie? Sylvie was about to object, then she realised just how frightened Auntie was; the whites of her eyes were like the shores around dark islands.

‘It’s OK,’ Sylvie said. ‘I’m sure she’s fine. She’s probably with my sister.’

Auntie shook her head. ‘She didn’t say anything about a sister. She said she was going to visit you. Back before dusk. I fell asleep. I should have been watching her. Now something has happened to my little granddaughter.’

All the time, Auntie had been pulling on her coat and doing up the buttons. She hoisted her bag on to her shoulder like a knight pulling on a shield. ‘We’re going to look for her,’ Auntie said firmly.

‘Look for her?’ Sylvie wondered whether it was too
late to say that she had homework or a dentist appointment, or that Mum really needed her to sort through her sock drawer and put all the pairs in order.
Anything
. But Auntie was staring at her with those lost eyes.

She sighed. She had to help, even though the chances of Minnie actually being in any trouble were somewhere between nothing and zero.

‘Well,’ Sylvie said. ‘If she was going to my house, how about we walk that way and keep an eye out for her? Maybe she’s just dawdling and lost track of time.’

Auntie took her arm. ‘You’re a very good girl, Sylvie.’

Right at that moment, Sylvie had to agree.

At the end of the road, where the pedestrian zone stopped and the traffic began, a silver car started its engine with an expensive roar.

As they walked past, the window on the driver’s side whirred down. ‘Mrs Adesina!’ a voice called. ‘I’m so pleased to run into you.’

‘Police commissioner?’ Mrs Adesina said.

‘Hop in. I’ll give you a lift.’

Sylvie had never seen the police commissioner before, hadn’t even known there was one if she was honest. But the car was very fancy, tinted windows, air conditioning, leather seats. ‘We can look out for Minnie just as well
from the car as from the pavement,’ she said to Auntie, and popped open the back door.

They got into the car.

Inside the shed, Femi looked frightened, his skinny arms wrapped around his body. ‘I don’t like them.’

‘Who?’ Minnie asked gently.

‘The demons,’ Femi replied.

‘Is it Omar? Marcus?’ Minnie asked.

Femi bit his lip, but didn’t answer.

From her pocket, Minnie felt the vibration of her phone ringing, then the melody of a call coming in. She pulled her phone out and jammed the mute button. Gran. Probably wondering when she was going to get home. No time for that now. Minnie switched her phone to silent.

‘Are they in this building?’ Piotr moved to the doorway and listened.

‘Can you show us?’ Minnie asked, putting her phone away. ‘We’ll keep you safe, I promise.’

‘You’ll stay close?’ Femi asked.

‘Like fleas on a dog.’

Femi nodded reluctantly. ‘This way,’ he said.

He opened the door. Straight away, Minnie and Piotr noticed the temperature change. The air outside was much colder. Minnie hadn’t noticed a heater in Femi’s room, so why was it so much colder out here? She could feel goosebumps on her arms. Femi’s hand reached for hers.

They were in a short corridor. Opposite was the main door, with a hefty looking square lock. There were two other doors. One was ajar and she could see a small bathroom. The other, at the end of the corridor, was closed.

It was this door that Femi led them towards. He paused in front of it.

Minnie gave his hand a short squeeze. ‘It’s all right,’ she said. She hoped she was telling the truth.

Femi turned the handle and pushed open the door. Minnie and Piotr followed him inside.

The room was dark, entirely dark, and cold: it was like walking into a cave. It smelled like one too, musty and old. She remembered the covered windows she’d seen around the back of the building. They must be inside that
space. She could tell from the echoes of their footsteps that the room was large.

Minnie’s eyes strained to see in the dark. Eventually she could make out lumps in a different shade of black. A tiny amount of light must have been squeezing in at the windows’ edges.

Femi dropped her hand and walked away. ‘Where are you going?’ she whispered.

‘Wait!’ his urgent voice replied.

She could hear him patting the walls, scrabbling for something.

Then the room blazed with light. Femi had found the light switch.

Minnie wished he hadn’t. Now she knew exactly what he meant by demons.

Heads. Dozens of heads.

They were arranged on rickety shelves. Carved from wood, each one was scarred and maimed: hundreds of nails had been hammered into eye sockets and mouths; rusty screws, barbed wire and tiny saw blades ripped into the wooden flesh; flattened noses had been cut again and again with terrible piercings. Beside them lay metal swords, wooden clubs and shields made from animal skins. A small museum of smuggled objects.

‘Demons,’ Femi whispered. ‘They were just spirits once, but the men say they have become demons. I must behave or they will get me.’

Minnie walked further into the space on tiptoe, almost holding her breath.

There was a man – no, a costume of straw and rope. It stood six foot high, with a long crocodile’s snout and sharp slices of metal laid one over another to make jaws stuffed with teeth. Its painted eyes had all the patient menace of an ambush hunter. Tin-can monkeys hung from its limbs.

She had heard of masquerades, but had never seen them. But her cousins had told her about the men who’d take on the form of spirits and chant and dance into the night.

She glanced back at the door. Piotr was inside the room, staring in astonishment, but Femi had retreated to the doorway, his arms folded again.

On the right there was a huge figure covered in coloured grass – pink, blue, orange, green, a rainbow of reeds. But its face wasn’t peaceful. Blood red lips glowed in a coal black face, horns rose from its forehead.

‘Femi,’ Minnie said, ‘what is all this?’

‘Demons,’ he whispered. ‘Demons for sale.’

Then Minnie noticed something else tucked into a corner, forgotten. A black suitcase, identical to the one in Femi’s room. She moved closer and checked the luggage label.
Mrs Adesina, c/o Beauty Cuts, Marsh Road
.

Gran’s case. With her tea inside. And her address attached. The case that had started all this.

Well, now Minnie was going to finish it. ‘We’re getting out of here,’ she said. ‘You too, Femi. We’re going to end this and the police are going to listen.’

Sylvie slipped into the back seat beside Auntie and closed the car door.

The sounds of the street were immediately gone. The inside of the car was a soundproof, luxurious bubble. It was almost like being in a submarine, cut off from the world outside. Even the tint to the windows made the few people in the street seem odd, like cut-outs from magazines pasted on to the glass, weirdly flat and colourless. Sylvie wondered why a police commissioner wanted to feel so isolated?

‘So, Anthea, have you found my suitcase, eh?’ Auntie asked.

‘Please put your seat belts on,’ Anthea said smoothly.

‘Or have you found out who broke into our flat?’

Anthea didn’t reply. She turned the radio on. Classical music flooded the car from speakers hidden discreetly in the upholstery.

‘Ah, Brahms,’ the commissioner said.

‘What about my case?’

‘Why don’t you just enjoy the music while I drive?’

‘Where are we going?’ Sylvie asked. ‘We’re looking for my friend Minnie. She might be walking to my house. It’s the next left.’

Anthea took the next right.

They were headed away from town.

Sylvie looked at Auntie in alarm. Her skin began to prickle. What on earth was going on?

Andrew and Flora sat on the curb underneath the board displaying company names. The sky above them had turned to a violet twilight. Flora tucked her arms under her knees to keep them warm.

‘They’ve been gone for ages,’ Andrew said.

‘I know.’

‘Do you think they’re all right? Do you think they found the boy?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Tell me something interesting to keep me distracted,’ Andrew said.

Flora thought for a moment. ‘Did you know the Chinese were the first civilisation to use fingerprint analysis? They used to sign contracts with an inky thumb because everyone’s thumb print is different. That way
you couldn’t say you hadn’t agreed to something if you changed your mind later.’

Andrew pressed his thumb into the dirt at the edge of the road and then stamped Flora’s arm with it.

‘Hey!’ she said.

Andrew laughed. ‘Sorry, I just couldn’t –’ Suddenly silent, his head shot up.

‘What?’ Flora asked.

‘Listen,’ he whispered.

Flora listened.

Whistling.

They both scrabbled to their feet and ducked behind the board, where there were wooden struts running horizontally. They lifted themselves on to these, so that their feet wouldn’t show below.

The whistling was closer. Someone was very pleased with life.

Flora noticed a small hole where a screw had fallen out. She peeped through.

A tall someone in a white suit was strolling down the drive. Marcus.