Ribblestrop (35 page)

Lady Vyner took a mouthful of rum. Sam saw that she was struggling not to sob. “Cyril said it was the most disgusting thing he had
ever heard of. He said he'd report Jarman, and he wrote the letter. He showed it to me. He rang the police. He rang whoever was in charge, in the war office—I heard him on the phone. He went down that night—Saturday night—to throw Jarman out, once and for all. He was going to seal the lab.” She paused and swallowed. The words wouldn't come. “And Jarman was waiting for him,” she whispered. “Jarman shot my husband dead. Crippen saw it all.”

“Crippen?”

“My manservant. The gentleman behind you.” Lady Vyner realized Sam was slow. “He was the boy, Sam. Crippen was the young lad who had his brain drilled, I can show you the scar.”

Sam turned and saw that the manservant—perhaps he'd heard his name—was standing to attention, with a tray under his arm. He was licking his lips thoughtfully, as if he had something important to say. There was a line of drool down his chin and he had his eyes closed.

Lady Vyner, meanwhile, had started to sob in earnest. It was the sound of a nail being scraped across tin in a slow zigzag. “Do you know why I let Caspar play with weapons? It's because one of these days we're going to
find
Mr. Jarman and Caspar's going to kill him for me. He's still down there. Still working . . .”

“But the tunnels are sealed. The headmaster said they were all locked—”

“Why does he tell you lies?” she cried. “Sam, how do you seal tunnels that are still in use? The train still runs, you fool! Jarman gets his supplies. The lease was for ninety-nine years, I can't get him out! He has police protection. I used to have a map but that disappeared. Neptune's an exit. The chapel goes down, and there's a lift in one of the towers. Oh, and the telephone box, of course. Ever tried to dial from there? Don't, Sam—stay away from the phone box! Dial 1939 and ask for Mr. Winston . . .”

“I think I ought to go now,” said Sam. He had managed to uncurl and was standing.

Crippen was still trying to remember whatever it was he wanted to say; Sam stared about him, wildly.

“Don't go, Sam. Caspar needs a friend, stay the night.”

“That's very kind, but—”

“I've scared you, haven't I?”

“No!”

“I don't know how to talk to children . . .” She reached for Sam's wrist and he backed away.

“Your glass, ma'am,” said Crippen, in a deep, slow, aching voice.

“I have to go,” said Sam. “Millie's waiting!”

As he spoke, there came the most terrible scream from the bathroom.

Millie had never been able to resist temptation and, as we have discovered, she had no real conception of consequences. She would reflect later on whether things would have turned out for better or for worse if she'd resisted this one.

The children had been working in freezing temperatures all afternoon and as the sun went down it was getting even colder. By five o'clock the flashings were on and the slate was nearing completion. It was a production line: fourteen boys, one girl, and three adults moved over the roof until dusk; the last tile was pressed into position as the rim of the sun touched the lake.

They had their roof. Lots to be done still—but a watertight roof.

Now, the children perched upon the ridge like birds on a wire: exhausted, but unwilling to descend. The towers around them were turning from yellow to pink, and the weathercock that sat high above had been caught in one last honey-colored sunbeam: it appeared to be made of solid, fairy-tale gold. Eric had a bag of sweets; Ruskin had struggled up with two flasks of hot chocolate. He had been declared sober, so this was his first appearance off the ground, and it was met with a small round of applause. They all sat together passing the cups and the sweets: they were so happy they didn't want to speak.

“I wonder how Sam got on,” said Millie, at last. Darkness was falling.

“I wonder if he got in,” said Sanchez.

“He should have finished by now. We'll meet tonight in the orphans' room, after I've had a chat with him. They want to have a party, Sanchez.”

“I know; Sanjay's cooking.”

“We ought to stop them. You know what their parties are like—if we've got serious business, we'll never get it done.”

“What time do you want to meet?”

Millie thought. “I'll pretend to be tired and go straight to my shed. If we try and meet by nine thirty, we can explain what we saw and go down again.”

“All of us? Tonight?”

“Yes. I think the more witnesses the better. And by the way, Ruskin's got a camera.”

“Has it got film?”

“He says it has. We'll go down and we'll do a proper search, checking the freezers and looking in those jars. Once we have evidence, we can do something.”

“Right.”

“And if Tomaz . . . ?”

“If he's down there, we'll find him. We've got to.”

“Yes.”

“You agree?”

“Yes.”

“Sanchez. This is the first time ever you have agreed with anything I've said. You're becoming reasonable.”

Sanchez closed his eyes and kept silent. The orphans' chatter died away too and a nightingale started to sing. Lights came on round the school and in the cold of the evening ice started to form on the new slates. It was then that Millie's eyes wandered to the south tower and she saw something strange.

“I'm confused,” she said, after another long silence. “The headmaster doesn't live in the south tower, does he?”

“No. He lives above his study, in the attic.”

“I'm just getting my bearings. That's Professor Worthington's
tower, yes? The one with the big metal thing. So that's Lady Vyner's place? South.”

“Yes.”

“Can you see that window—the little one, under the bird's nest? Sanjay! Come here!”

“What about it?”

“I can see little Lord Caspar, in the bath.”

Sanchez followed her gaze and Sanjay skipped across to join them. They peered hard, and, sure enough, through one of the leaded windows, a figure could be seen.

“That's private,” said Sanchez. “Don't look. He should draw the curtains.”

“I can see his bum,” said Millie.

She stood up carefully and crossed the ridge. Sanjay was giggling and helped her slide gently down the hip so she could stand in the sloping gutter. This brought her to the halfway point of the south tower, which shot up far above her head. Her nose came level with the sill of the lowest leaded window. Some of the orphans were standing too, intrigued. Soon, there was a little crowd.

Sanchez followed, slowly and carefully. “What are you doing, Millie?”

“There is a God,” said Millie. “Did I ever say there wasn't? From now on I will say my prayers with you, every night. Come here.”

Sanchez was not at all confident in high places, so he gripped Millie's arm when he reached her. He looked through the glass and found that, just as his friend had said, he was right outside the Vyner bathroom. The lights were on; the room was just a little steamy, condensation moist on the window. But you could still see someone standing in a small bathtub, and that person was definitely Lord Caspar.

“Don't say a word,” whispered Millie.

Sanchez was about to. He felt strongly about intruding on anyone's privacy and was about to state his outrage. But he hesitated
and found that a grin had grown across his face. He found himself squeezing closer to the wall and window; Ruskin was there too, right at Millie's elbow.

“Steady me,” said Millie.

“What do you mean?”

“I need both hands.”

Like all the children, Millie was wearing a tool belt. Such things are essential when you need your hands free. You can slip your hammer into it and there's a sizeable pouch for nails and other odds and ends. Millie delved and pulled out an old, but clean, flintlock pistol.

“What are you carrying that around for?” whispered Sanchez. He gripped Millie by the back of her shirt, keeping her upright as she rummaged. Anjoli had crawled in front of her. He put his shoulder against her chest, giggling with anticipation. She snaked her arms around him and steadied the pistol with two hands.

“I've been carrying this since day one. You're the one who leaves his gun at home—I've got more sense.”

“It doesn't work!”

“You don't know everything, Mr. Colombia. My friend Anjoli found some flint. I know a little bit about gunpowder. We've been a pretty successful team.”

“Millie, this is dangerous . . .”

“All I'm doing is returning Caspar's property. I've been waiting for the chance all term, but I don't see as much of little Caspar as I'd like.”

“You can see a lot of him now,” said Ruskin.

Millie had found a short roofing nail without a head. It was a little shard of metal about as long as a pin, with a tiny barb at the tip. She loaded, cocked, and raised the pistol so that the muzzle was against the glass. Anjoli saw that the window seals were coming apart and, with delicate fingers, he managed to slide the tiny pane out completely. He was rocking with silent laughter.

“Keep still!” hissed Millie. Lord Caspar was rinsing his hair
with a jug and had no idea what a target his buttocks presented. He was a skinny, pale-skinned little boy, and the two orbs of his backside seemed to glow.

Millie aimed carefully and Sanchez steadied her. The boy bent down to refill the jug and his bottom seemed to expand. It was now or never, so she closed one eye and pulled the trigger.

*

The scream that interrupted Sam was wonderful. There were three distinct parts to it. There was the shriek as the gunpowder exploded. Then there was the gasp as a sizzling pain seared into the buttock: that feeling of acid injected deep into muscle. The gasp turned into a moan and it got louder. But the richest part of the trilogy came when Caspar turned and saw Millie, Sanchez, and too many faces to count grinning at him. That produced a high-volume, full-throated shriek, which cannoned the child backward out of the bath altogether. Caspar sat hard on the bathroom rug, and the dart was pressed deeper still. The scream was cut off into a series of agonized gargles.

Sam leaped to his feet and Lady Vyner struggled onto hers. Unfortunately, she was so drunk that she immediately lost her balance and fell heavily onto the coffee table, which folded like matchwood under her. Crippen was still stuck in midsentence, so offered no help. Lady Vyner grabbed at the standard lamp, hauled herself upright, and cannoned into the piano, knocking Lucy 027 aside and producing a symphony of chaos. Her shotgun was leaning in the hall. Grabbing it, she made for the bathroom, ricocheting from wall to wall.

Sam ran for it.

In seconds he was down the tower steps, in time to hear Lady Vyner's cries of rage echoing over the school. The other children were leaping and scuttling to their dormitories, and Sam followed them. What was the garbled mess of information he had worth? It had to be worth something. He had never felt so intrepid or important in his life, and a new career was presenting itself, to be pursued alongside professional soccer. Sam Tack, double agent.
DI Tack, first on the crime scene: “
Not so fast, let me take a look at that!
” He threw himself into his dormitory and did a cartwheel over Ruskin's bed. Sam Tack, private investigator: he landed flat on his back, panting, and heard the door slam.

Millie leaned over him, her hands on his shoulders. She was grinning with glee. “What have you got, Sammy boy?” she said.

“Everything,” said Sam. “And it's terrifying.”

Captain Routon had excelled himself once more with a fabulous array of pizzas. The school song was sung again and again, and the mood under the new roof was triumphant. Anjoli was frantically washing the plates and pans, desperate to finish and join his friends in the east tower, the orphans' dormitory. The kitchen was dark and nobody liked being alone in it. More importantly, though, he knew that Eric—who just a few months before had been a pot boy in a roadside restaurant—would be cooking more of his unique party sweets, and the first-day-of-roofing celebration party would be kicking off. Despite Millie and Sanchez's pleas, the party was going ahead, and it was going to be a wild one. The orphans practiced their partying skills hard, trying to get several in each week. Usually, it was a birthday party. None of them knew when their real birthdays fell, so every boy was allowed five possibles. There were parties on Fridays to mark the weekends, and parties on all holy days and every full moon. There were parties to mark feats of courage or cleverness: for example, there had been a three-night party when Anjoli slammed the door on Miss Hazlitt's hand. There were actually parties in the orphans' dormitory most nights.

Tonight, however, was special even by their standards. By nine o'clock the air was thick with cinnamon and coconut; milk was boiling over a camping stove and a twenty-pound bag of sugar was standing by. The rest of the orphans were soaking wet, but
that too was a regular thing, as their showers usually turned into water fights. This was the east tower and it was semiderelict; the orphans had spent considerable time making it home. They'd reconstructed the fireplace, so the room could be made deliciously warm. They'd done away with the collapsing ceiling and built shelves in a rising-step formation up into the witch's hat of the turret: these shelves served as beds, and you looked up into a high grotto of hammocks and drying laundry. Tonight, candles stood on every rafter. Candles hung in jars and candles lined the windowsills.

Nobody was going to bed.

They had a windup gramophone, so the jazz had started already, and while Eric nursed his sugar-and-rum truffles, the bigger boys were preparing for Battleships. Sanjay had invented Battleships, and it was the current favorite game. The rules were simple and everything depended on two large sets of bunk beds, where the littlest boys slept. You hauled these beds to the center of the room, so they were parallel; you then attached ropes, made from twisted sheets. These went way up to the rafters and the light fittings. You then got all the rest of the furniture: chairs, desks, lockers, boxes, spare mattresses—in fact, anything you could carry—and you piled it on. When you stepped back you could convince yourself that you had constructed
not
dangerous piles of junk that could collapse at any moment, but a couple of rigged galleons ready to do battle on the high seas. Asilah would take over at this point and decide the teams for the night. Dressed only in pajama bottoms and black-and-gold bandanas (for piratical authenticity), the two crews would assemble on their craft. When Asilah said “Go” you simply had to take possession of the other ship, while defending your own. This meant jumping, swinging, pushing, wrestling, and punching until you had knocked every one of the opposing team to the floor. Aerial assaults were allowed and it was entirely legal to overturn the whole bunk if you had the manpower.