Nobody was talking very much. I knew why. But it was Brenda who put it into words.
“Do you realize…” she began, and for once her voice was hoarse and empty. “Do you realize that the killer could be sitting here, at this table.”
Tim looked around. “But there’s only us here!”
“That’s what she means, Tim,” I said. “She’s saying that the killer could be one of us!”
Brenda nodded. “I know it’s one of us. One of us got up last night and went down the corridor.” She shuddered. “I thought I heard squeaking last night…”
“That was Tim,” I said. “He snores.”
“No. It was a floorboard. Somebody left their room…”
“Did anyone else hear anything last night?” Eric asked.
There was a pause. Then Libby nodded. “I have the room next to Mark,” she said. She turned to look at him. “I heard your door open just after midnight. I heard you go into the corridor.”
“I went to the toilet,” Mark replied. His dark face had suddenly got darker. He didn’t like being accused.
“You went to the toilet in the corridor?” Tim asked.
“I went to the toilet which is across the corridor, opposite my room. I didn’t go anywhere near Janet.”
“What about the skull?” Brenda whispered. Eric scowled. He had forgotten about the dancing skull. “I know you say it’s a dream, Eric,” she went on. “But that’s typical of you. You never believed anything I said, even when we were at school. Well, believe me now…” she took a deep breath. “Maybe it wasn’t a ghost or a monster. Maybe it was someone in a mask. But they were there! I was awake. I jumped out of bed and went over to the window but by the time I got there, seconds later, they’d gone. Vanished into thin air…”
“It wasn’t a dream,” I said. “I saw it too.”
“You?” Eric sneered at me.
I nodded.
“I didn’t see anything,” Tim said.
“You were asleep, Tim. But it was definitely there. It came out of nowhere … like a magic trick. A rabbit out of a hat!”
“You saw a rabbit too?” Tim asked.
We all ignored him. “Any one of us could have climbed out onto the terrace,” Brenda said. “Any one of us could have killed Janet. And Rory. And Sylvie! How do we know that she wasn’t strangled or poisoned or something?”
“I think she was poisoned,” I said.
Everyone looked at me so I told them about the sweet wrapper and Sylvie’s love of chocolate. It was strange. Everyone in the room was ten years older than me but suddenly I was in control.
Not for long, though. Eric Draper, the ex-head boy, raised his hands. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced. “I don’t think we should jump to conclusions. Why would any of us sitting at this table want to kill Rory or Sylvie or Janet?”
“Mark used to go out with Sylvie,” Libby said. She was staring at him. “When she broke up with you, you told me you wanted to kill her.”
“That was ten years ago!” Mark protested. He jerked a finger at Libby. “Anyway, what about you? You nearly did kill Rory with that bicycle pump…”
“Yes. And what about you!” Tim pointed at Eric. “You say your name’s Eric, so why are you wearing a dressing-gown that belongs to Ed?”
It took Eric a few seconds to work out what Tim was getting at. “Those are my initials, you idiot!” he snapped. He took a deep breath and raised his hands. “Look,” he went on. “There’s no point arguing amongst ourselves. We have to stick together. It could be our only hope.”
The others fell silent. I had to admit, Eric was speaking sense. Blaming each other wouldn’t help.
“Both Brenda and … Tim’s little brother saw somebody last night,” he went on. I didn’t know why he couldn’t call me by my name. “Now that could have been one of us, dressing up to frighten the others. But remember, we were all inside the house … and this thing, whatever it was, was outside. So maybe it was someone else. Maybe it was someone we don’t know about.”
“You mean … someone hiding on the island?” Mark said.
“Exactly. We know we can’t call the police. We know we’re stuck here. But it seems to me that the first thing we have to do is find out if there’s anyone else here.”
“We’ve got to organize a search party,” I said.
Tim shook his head. “This is no time for a party, Nick,” he muttered.
“You’re right, Eric,” Libby said. “We’ve got to go over the island from head to tail.”
“But at the same time, I think we should keep an eye on each other,” Brenda said. “I’ll feel safer that way.”
Eric went upstairs to get changed. Mark went with him. From now on, we were going to do everything in pairs. Brenda and Libby cleared the breakfast things. I’d already noticed that most of the food in the house was in tins – which was just as well. Even the cleverest killer couldn’t tamper with a tin, so at least we wouldn’t starve. At half past nine we all met in the hall. Then we put on our coats and went outside.
The search began back at the jetty, right at the head of the crocodile. The idea was that we could cover the entire island, working like the police searching a wood when someone has gone missing. That is, we kept ten metres apart, always in sight of one another, moving across the island in a line. It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining and the sea was blue, but even so I could feel a chill breeze on Crocodile Island. And there was something else. I couldn’t escape the feeling that I was being watched. It was weird. Because it was obvious that there wasn’t anybody in sight … not even so much as a sheep or a cow.
It only took us an hour to cover the island. There really wasn’t very much there. Most of it was covered in gorse that only came up to the knee, which no killer could have hidden behind – unless, of course, he happened to be extremely small. There were a few trees but we checked the branches and Tim even climbed one to see if anyone was hiding at the top. Then I climbed up to help Tim down again and we moved on. We came to a couple of ruined outbuildings. I went inside. There was nobody there – but I did see something. Another security camera, fixed to the brickwork. Of course, a rich man like Rory would have had to be careful about security. I remembered the camera I had noticed in the kitchen. He had probably covered the whole island. Was that why I had felt we were being watched?
We went past the house and continued towards the crocodile’s tail. The ground rose steeply up, finally arriving at a narrow point at least twenty metres above the sea. This was what I had seen from the boat. Six great rocks, steel grey and needle-sharp, rose out of the water far below. Looking down made my head spin. I wondered briefly if there might be a cave somewhere, perhaps tucked underneath the lip where we were standing. But then a wave rolled in, crashing against the cliff face. If there was a killer down there, he’d be soaking wet. And anyway, as far as I could see, there was no way down.
We moved away, retracing our steps. There was nobody outside the house, but how about inside? Starting in the hall, we went from room to room: the library, the dining-room, the conservatory, the hall and so on. We looked behind curtains, under tables, in the fireplaces and up the chimneys. Tim even looked in the grandfather clocks. Maybe he thought he’d find somebody’s grandfather. We covered the ground floor and then went up to the first. Here were the bedrooms, with our names still attached to the doors. We went into every one of them. There was nobody there … apart from the three very dead bodies. It wasn’t easy searching those particular rooms, but we made ourselves … although I think Tim was wasting his time doing it with his eyes tightly shut.
Nobody in the rooms. Nobody in the corridors. We found the attic but all that was there was a water tank. Tim dipped his head in and I made a mental note not to drink any more water. Not with his dandruff. Eventually, we gave up. We had been everywhere. There was nowhere else to look.
We started to go back down to the kitchen but had only got halfway there when Libby let out a little gasp.
> “What is it?” Eric demanded.
“There.” She pointed at the wall at the end of the corridor. “I don’t know why I didn’t see it before!”
What she had seen was a black-and-white photograph in a silver frame. It was hanging right in the middle of the wall with enough space around it to make it stand out. The question was – had Rory hung it there? Or had it been someone else? Was this something we were meant to see?
The photograph showed nine teenagers, all of them wearing the same uniform. It’s funny how people change in ten years – but I recognized them at once: Eric Draper, Janet Rhodes, Mark Tyler, Brenda Blake, Sylvie Binns, Libby Goldman, Rory McDougal and Tim. Tim looked the weirdest of them all. He’d had long hair then, and spots. Lots of spots. Of course, I wouldn’t have looked too great myself when the picture had been taken – but then I would only have been four years old.
There was one face, however, that I didn’t know. He was standing at the edge of the group, slightly apart; a thin, gangly teenager with curly hair and glasses. He was wearing an anorak and had the sort of face you’d expect to see on a train-spotter. “Who’s he?” I asked.
“That’s Johnny!” Brenda replied. “Johnny Nadler. He was one of my best friends…”
“And mine,” Libby agreed. “Everyone liked Johnny. We used to hang out with him in the yard.” She walked closer to the photograph. “I remember when this was taken. It was prize-giving day. He came second in geography. I came first.”
“Wait a minute,” I interrupted. “Everyone in this photograph is here on Crocodile Island. Everyone except Johnny Nadler!”
“You’re right!” Mark agreed. “Why wasn’t he invited?”
“Because he’s the killer!” Eric snapped. “He’s got to be!”
“But why would Johnny want to kill Rory?” Brenda asked. “The two of them were friends. And every day after school he used to catch the bus with Sylvie – even though it took him eight miles in the wrong direction. That’s how much he liked her.”
“He let Janet cut his hair,” Libby went on. “She accidentally cut a chunk out of his ear, but he didn’t mind. In fact he laughed all the way to the hospital. Johnny wouldn’t hurt anyone.”
“What else can you tell me about him?” I asked.
“He came second in history as well as geography,” Eric said. “He was really clever.”
“He was always playing with model planes and cars,” Mark added. “He used to build them himself. We always said he’d be an inventor when he left school but in fact he ended up working at Boots. I saw him there once, when I went in to get some ointment.” He blushed. “I had athlete’s foot.”
“Did any of the rest of you ever see him again?” I asked.
Everyone shook their heads. I looked at the photograph again. It did seem strange that he was the only one in the picture who hadn’t been invited to Crocodile Island. But did that make him the killer? And if so, where on earth was he? We had searched the entire island and we were certain now that we were the only ones who were there.
Eric looked at his watch. It was half past twelve. “I suggest we continue this meeting downstairs,” he said.
“I need to change,” Brenda said.
“Me too,” Libby agreed.
Everyone started to move in different directions.
“Hold on a minute!” I said. “I thought we were all going to stick together. I think we should all stay in this room.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Eric snapped. “We have to eat something. It’s lunch-time. And anyway, we’ve just searched the island. We know there’s nobody else here.”
“Well, I’m staying with Tim,” I said.
“How do you know I’m not the killer?” Tim demanded.
Because whoever killed Rory and the others is brilliant and fiendish and you still have trouble tying your shoelaces. That was what I thought, but I didn’t say anything. I just shrugged.
“I don’t want to be near anyone,” Libby said. “I feel safer on my own.”
“Me too.” Brenda nodded. “And I’m certainly not having anyone in the room with me while I’m changing.”
“We can meet in ten minutes,” Eric said. “We’re inside the house. We know there’s nobody else on the island. We’ll meet in the dining-room at twenty to one.”
He was wrong of course. This was one little group that was never going to meet again. But how could we know that? We were scared and we weren’t thinking straight.
Tim and I went back to our room. Tim scratched his head, which was still damp from the water tank. “Johnny could be hiding on the island,” he said. “What if there’s a secret room?”
The same thought had already occurred to me, but I’d tapped every wall and every wooden panel and nothing had sounded hollow. “I don’t think there are any secret rooms, Tim,” I said.
“But you can’t be sure…” Tim began to tap his way along the wall, his eyes half-closed, listening for a hollow sound. A few moments later, he straightened up, excited. “There’s definitely something on the other side here!” he cried.
“I know, Tim,” I said. “That’s the window.”
I left him in the bedroom, drying his hair, and went back downstairs. I was going to join the others in the dining-room. But I never got that far. I was about halfway down when I heard it. A short, sudden scream. Then a crashing sound. It had come from somewhere outside.
I ran down the rest of the way, through the hall and out the front door. Mark Tyler appeared, running round the side of the house.
“What was it…?” he demanded. He was trying not to sound scared but it wasn’t working.
“Round the back?”
We went there together, moving more slowly now, knowing what we were going to find, not wanting to find it. The kitchen door opened and Brenda Blake came out. I noticed she was breathing heavily.
This time it was Libby Goldman. I’m afraid she had recorded her last episode of Libby’s Lounge and for her the final credits were already rolling. Why had she gone outside? Maybe she’d decided to light up one of her cigarettes – in which case, this was one time when smoking certainly had been bad for her health. Fatal, in fact. But it hadn’t been the tobacco that had killed her. Something had hit her hard on the head: something that had been dropped from above. I looked up, working out the angles. We were directly underneath the battlements. Behind them, the roof was flat. It would have been easy enough for someone to hide up there, to wait for any one of us to step outside. Libby must have come out to get a breath of fresh air before the meeting. Air wasn’t something she’d be needing again.
There were footsteps on the gravel. Eric and Tim had arrived. They stared in silence. Mark stretched out a finger and pointed. It took me a minute to work out what he was pointing at. That was how much his finger was trembling.
And there it was, lying in the grass. At first I didn’t recognize the object that had been dropped from the roof and which had fallen right onto Libby Goldman. I mean, I knew what it was – but I couldn’t believe that that was what had been used.
It was a big round ball: a globe. The sort of thing you find in a library. Maybe it had been in Rory’s library before the killer had carried it up to the roof. The United States of America was facing up. It was stained red.
I looked at Eric Draper. His mouth had dropped open. He looked genuinely shocked. Mark Tyler was standing opposite him, staring. Brenda Blake was to one side. She was crying.
One of them had to be faking it. I was certain of it. One of them had to have climbed down from the room after watching Libby fall. There was nobody else here. One of them had to be the killer.
But which one?
MORE MURDER
Eric Draper? Brenda Blake? Or Mark Tyler?
It was early evening and Tim and I had gone for a walk – supposedly to clear our heads. But the truth was, I wanted to be alone with him and somehow I felt safer away from the house. It struck me that all the deaths had taken place inside or near the bui
lding. And if we stayed too close to the house something else might strike me – a falling piano or a model of the Taj Mahal, for example.
I glanced down at the piece of paper I was holding in my hand. I had made a few notes just before we left:
RORY MCDOUGAL – Killed with a sword.
SYLVIE BINNS – Poisoned.
JANET RHODES – Stabbed with an Eiffel Tower!
LIBBY GOLDMAN – Knocked down with a globe.
There was a pattern in there somewhere but I just couldn’t see it. Maybe some fresh air would help after all.
“I’ve got an idea!” Tim said.
“Go ahead, Tim,” I said.
“Maybe I could swim back over to the coast and get some help.”
We were sitting on the jetty. Today the sea was flat, the waves caught as if in a photograph. I could just make out the mainland, a vague ribbon lying on the horizon. The sun was setting fast. How many of us would see it rise again?
I shook my head. “No, Tim. It’s too far.”
“It can’t be more than five miles.”
“And you can’t swim.”
“Oh yes. I’d forgotten.” He glanced at me. “But you can.”
“I can’t swim five miles!” I said. “The water’s too cold. And there’s too much of it. No. Our only hope is to solve this before the killer strikes again.”
“You’re right, Nick.” Tim closed his eyes and sat in silence for a minute. Then he opened them again. “Maybe we could get one of the others to swim…”
“One of the others is the killer!” I said. “I saw someone out on the terrace, wearing a skeleton mask. I don’t know how they managed to disappear so quickly – but I wasn’t imagining it. Brenda saw them too.”
“Maybe it was Mark! He’s a fast mover.”
“And just now … when Libby Goldman was killed. Someone must have climbed up onto the roof.” I thought back. “Brenda was out of breath when she came into the garden…”