We sat in silence, watching the activity all around us. I yawned. I was dog-tired. All I wanted was a bed. I’d even settle for a kennel.
Then Tim strolled over to us. He’d been fixed up by the doctors. Someone had lent him a sweater. And he was looking in a lot better shape than me. In fact, he was quite his old self. Which is to say that as usual he was totally impossible.
“Hi, Nick!” he said, smiling.
“Are you okay, Tim?” I asked.
He grinned. “This has been my greatest case. It’ll make me famous. The man who got Johnny Powers!”
“What about me?” I demanded.
“You helped, kid. Maybe I’ll even share some of the reward with you. In fact, I’ll forget that fiver you owe me.” He tapped me gently on the shoulder. I felt like knocking him out. “The British Museum will pay me plenty for the return of the Purple Peacock,” he went on. “By the way, where is it?”
He sat down as he spoke. But he was so wrapped up in himself that he wasn’t looking what he was doing. I saw his backside come down fair and square on the cardboard box. The cardboard crumpled. There was a dull splintering from inside. The color drained out of Tim’s face.
The Purple Peacock had been stolen in Camden. It had found its way to Wapping. It had survived an explosion and a flood. But it hadn’t survived Tim.
He’d just sat on it.
FRENCH TRANSLATION
It ended exactly the way it had begun—with French on a hot afternoon.
C’était un dimanche matin et il faisait chaud. Antoine et Philippe étaient dans le champ. Leur père dormait dans une chaise longue. Quelqu’un les appelait de l’autre côté de la palissade. C’était leur grandmère.
“Voulez-vous jouer au football?” demanda-t-elle.
The exercise was written up on the blackboard and we were being made to translate it out loud. Palis would call out a name and some poor soul would have to stand up and stumble over the next sentence. You weren’t allowed to sit down until you reached a period. Why do French translations have to be so stupid? You sweat your guts out turning them into English only to find they weren’t worth it in the first place. Fortunately I’d done this one the night before. If my name was called, I could cope.
“Sington!”
“It was a . . . er . . . dimanche . . . Sunday morning and it made warm.”
“It was hot, you stupid child!”
Two weeks had passed since our escape from Penelope. In the newspapers, the story had slipped from page-one headlines to page-two comment to a few column inches on page three. Anyway, the press had left out more than it had told. For a start, nobody mentioned Tim or me. Snape had seen to that with something called a D-notice. D for “don’t!” He said it would be better for me if my name was kept out of things. And better for you, too, I thought. What would the British public make of the British police framing and blackmailing British schoolkids? I mean, it simply wasn’t British.
“Sit down, Sington. Goodman!”
“Me, sir?”
“Yes you, Goodman.”
“Antoine and Philippe were in the field, sir.”
In the end I’d gotten a four-line mention in some of the nationals. They said that I’d been released from Strangeday Hall “in the light of new evidence.” In other words, my name was cleared. Only Snape and the authorities were making sure that it wasn’t a name you’d read about too much.
“Hopkins!”
“Their father was asleep in a garden chair.”
“Exactement.”
Of course, I’d been the center of attention once I’d got back to school. The headmaster had made a speech about me during assembly. Everyone had made a lot of jokes. But it’s surprising how quickly people forget these things. After a few days everything was back to normal. Sure enough, there was extra homework. Enough to fill an extra home. But I wasn’t the hero anymore. I wasn’t sure that I ever had been.
Palis hadn’t changed either. He was his old, sarcastic, ear-tweaking self. He had barely said a word to me since I’d gotten back. It was as if he wanted to forget the evening we had spent together. I hadn’t mentioned his involvement, the way he had helped me. I guessed he preferred it that way. But he could at least have said he was glad to see me alive.
“Simple!”
He called my name now and I got to my feet. It was hot and stuffy in the classroom. The sun was dazzling me. It was hard to concentrate on the words. Somebody did something from the other side of the palisade?
I remembered. “Someone called them from the other side of the fence,” I said.
“Yes. That is correct, Simple. Now Buckingham! The next sentence . . .”
I sat down again.
My head was throbbing and I could feel the sweat beading on my skin. For a moment I thought I was ill. But it was something else. The voices in the classroom had become a dull echo. I screwed up my eyes and tried to focus on the blackboard. I’d seen something, read something, that was horribly wrong. Or maybe just horrible.
The French words in Palis’s spidery handwriting blurred, then straightened out. I plucked out the sentence I had just translated.
Quelqu’un les appelait de l’autre côté de la palissade.
The fence! That was it. I’d just said the word myself. The fence—la palissade.
Palissade.
Palis.
No. It was insane—a coincidence. I glanced at the French teacher. He was talking to someone else, but his eyes were fixed on me. And there was a cruel smile tugging at his lips.
And then suddenly it all made sense. Palis was the Fence. It couldn’t have been anyone else.
When Snape had first come to visit me, he had told me that the Fence could be hiding behind an ordinary occupation—a banker or a shopkeeper, for example. He could also have been a teacher. In fact, with their afternoons off and long vacations, what better cover could there have been? And Snape had probably suspected him from the start.
The thought hit me like a bucket of ice. Why else would he have chosen me of all people to do his dirty work? He’d guessed that Powers would break out of Strangeday Hall. He’d hoped that I’d go with him. That was why he’d been there so coincidentally the night of the escape. I would recognize the Fence when I saw him. And if the recognition killed me, it would only prove that Snape had been right all along.
Palis . . .
Piece by piece it all fit together. Right at the start, in Woburn Abbey, I had been surprised by how much the French teacher had known about art and antiques. But of course, as the Fence, that had been his profession.
Then there was his flat—the expensive flat in Chelsea. I’d wondered how he could afford it. And the paintings! I’d seen what I’d assumed to be copies of Picassos on the wall. But I’d been wrong. They were the real thing!
I’d blown it from the moment I walked in there. Palis had rescued me from the police because he thought I was on his side. And once I was in the flat he’d been about to tell me everything.
Thank you for rescuing me . . .
Well, I had a good reason . . .
He’d been about to tell me that he was the Fence, but before he could speak I had ruined everything. I had told him I was working for the police and had sealed my own fate.
No wonder he’d been in a hurry to leave Wapping the next morning. He’d known about the bomb because he’d telephoned Powers the night before. I’d even heard the tinkle of the bell in my dreams. Poor old Tim had been dragged out of his bed on my account. Palis had cold-bloodedly arranged it all. He’d driven me there knowing that it was the last journey I’d ever make . . . at least, in one piece.
Palis . . .
The thud of closing books and the slamming of desks brought me back to the present. I glanced at the clock. It was three-thirty, the end of the last lesson. Already people were running down the corridors as the school emptied.
What was Palis planning? Did he know that I knew? I looked at him carefully. There could be no doubt about it. He had
handed me that sentence as a challenge. He was finished and he knew it. But he planned to take me with him.
“That is all for today,” he was saying now. “Malheureusement I will not be with you next week. In fact, I am taking a vacation . . . a long vacation. I will not be coming back.”
There was a groan of disappointment from the class—fake, of course. Nobody would be really disappointed if he fell off a cliff.
“You can go now,” he went on. “All except Simple.” He dropped the three words like daggers.
My fingers tightened on the desk. Everyone else had gotten up and begun to shuffle out. Palis slid his hand into his jacket. It was a casual movement but I had no doubt what he was holding on the inside. What could I do? If I tried to make a break for the door now, he would start shooting—and he wouldn’t be too fussy about who he hit. But once I was alone, I wouldn’t have any chance at all. By the next day I’d be back in the newspapers again. In the obituaries.
There was just one chance. He had more or less told me that he was the Fence. He knew that I knew. But did he know that I knew that he knew that I knew? Work it out. It made sense to me.
I walked forward innocently and stood in front of his desk. A pile of exercise books were stacked between us. I rested my hands in front of them. There were only seven or eight people left in the classroom, grouped around the door.
“Is it about the French translation, sir?” I asked.
“No.” He blinked at me, wondering if I was more stupid than he thought. That was what I wanted him to think.
“I did do all the extra work you gave me, sir,” I went on.
“It’s not about that.”
I pretended to scratch my nose, using the cover to look out of the corner of my eye. The doorway was clear.
“Mr. Palis . . . ?” I said.
At the same moment I jerked both my hands upward. He was already pulling out the gun but I’d taken him by surprise. The books flew into his face, knocking him off balance. At the same time I ran for it. I’d reached the door before he’d recovered. Even so, there was a sudden crack and the frame splintered as I passed through.
I was out. But I wasn’t away.
Palis had a gun equipped with a silencer. Nobody had heard the first shot. Nobody knew anything was wrong. I looked left and right. The main entrance was blocked by a crowd of people, milling out into the yard. I went the other way, skidding along the corridor and crashing into a fire extinguisher. The second shot hit the extinguisher with a loud clang. I spun around a corner, colliding with Mr. Roberts as he came out of one of the classrooms.
“Simple . . . !” he began.
Palis fired again. The bullet drilled through six volumes of the Oxford Medieval History and buried itself in Mr. Roberts’s shoulder. He screamed and passed out. I jumped over him and ran.
I came to a staircase and took the steps three at a time. I’d reached the first floor when a photograph of an old school cricket team seemed to blow itself off the wall just above my shoulder. With a fresh burst of speed I carried on to the second floor and then to the third.
Even as I went I was asking myself one question. Where was Snape? If he suspected Palis, he had to be somewhere near. It almost seemed as if the chief inspector wanted me dead as much as the Fence did.
The top floor of the school was given over to the biology and physics laboratories. The classes must have finished earlier because the rooms were empty now. There was no way out from here and no witnesses. Palis knew that. He was moving more slowly, his feet heavy on the stairs. I tiptoed through a pair of swing doors and into the biology lab, hoping he would miss me. A dissected rat stared at me from a glass case. A skull grinned beside a Bunsen burner.
Palis found me. There was another muffled cough and the skull disintegrated as his bullet hit it right between the eye sockets. I threw myself behind a counter. The Fence walked into the room.
Fortunately the blinds had been drawn in the room and there wasn’t much light. I crouched behind the bench, moving forward on my haunches. The bench stretched almost the whole length of the room. As I went one way, Palis walked the other. I could hear his footsteps but I couldn’t see him. I didn’t dare to look.
There were shelves under the bench, close to the floor. Each one was lined with bottles, filled with liquid of different colors. I took one and pulled out the stopper. The smell made my eyes water.
Palis stopped. He was breathing deeply. I reckoned he was only a few feet away, standing on the other side of the bench. I straightened up. And there he was, right in front of me. He fired.
I threw the bottle.
His bullet hit me in the arm, spinning me into the wall. My bottle hit him in the face, splashing its contents all over him. He screamed and rammed his hands into his eyes. A wisp of smoke curled out from underneath them. Pressing my own wound with one hand, I staggered out of the laboratory.
Another door stood open opposite. Still clutching my arm, I ran through it and up another flight of stairs. I didn’t know where I was anymore. I just wanted to put as much distance between myself and Palis as I could. God knows what I’d done to his eyes. What had been inside the bottle? Sulfuric acid? Nasty . . .
The stairway led onto the roof. That was as far as I could go. It was a flat area no bigger than a tennis court with a forty-foot drop on each side. But at least there was one good thing: I could hear the police sirens. I looked down and saw the first cars racing up to the school. There were still a lot of people around and now they were joined by a squadron of armed policemen diving out of the cars and taking up their positions around the building. As usual, Snape was late. But at least he had arrived.
“Simple . . .”
Palis was standing in the doorway, trying to hold the gun steady. He was a mess. White burn marks streaked one side of his face. One eye was closed. The other was bloodshot and staring. Half his hair seemed to have dissolved.
“You destroyed everything,” Palis hissed. “My whole operation . . . my life’s work.”
“And now you’re finished, Fence,” I said. “This is your last post.”
“Oui. But I’ll take you with me, Simple. At least I’ll have the satisfaction of that.”
He squeezed the trigger.
But nothing happened. He had already fired six bullets. He didn’t have a seventh.
Mad with rage, Palis screamed out and charged. He came at me like a wild bull. I stepped aside. Unable to stop himself, he shot over the edge of the building. Still screaming, he plummeted down. Then the screams stopped.
I walked back to the edge and looked down. It wasn’t a pretty sight.
The Fence had impaled himself on a fence.
Ten minutes later I walked out of the school, my right arm hanging limp, blood spreading through my shirt. They’d wanted to carry me on a stretcher but I’d refused. I wanted to be on my own two feet.
From Woburn Abbey to Strangeday Hall to this . . . it hadn’t been a lot of laughs. But I was alive. I was more or less in one piece. And that was all that mattered. Because life isn’t so bad if you don’t let it get you down, and although I had plenty to complain about, I meant to go on and enjoy it and save the tears for another day.
Turn the page for a preview of
THE FALCON’S MALTESER
a Diamond Brothers Mystery
THE PACKAGE
There’s not much call for private detectives in Fulham.
The day it all started was a bad one. Business was so slack it was falling down all around us. The gas had been disconnected that morning, one of the coldest mornings for twenty years, and it could only be a matter of time before the electricity followed. We’d run out of food and the people in the supermarket downstairs had all fallen down laughing when I suggested credit. We had just $2.37 and about three teaspoons of instant coffee to last us the weekend. The wallpaper was peeling, the carpets were fraying, and the curtains . . . well, whichever way you looked at it, it was curtains for us. Even the cockroaches were walking
out.
I was just wondering whether the time hadn’t finally come to do something constructive—like packing my bags and going back to Mum—when the door opened and the dwarf walked in.
Okay—maybe you’re not supposed to call them dwarfs these days. Vertically challenged . . . that’s what it says in the book. But not this book. The truth is, this guy was as challenged as they come. I was only thirteen but already I had six inches on him, and the way he looked at me with cold, unforgiving eyes—he knew it and wasn’t going to forget it.
He was in his midforties, I guessed. It was hard to say with someone that size. A short, dark stranger with brown eyes and a snub nose. He was wearing a three-piece suit, only the pieces all belonged to different suits like he’d gotten dressed in a hurry. His socks didn’t match either. A neat mustache crowned his upper lip and his black hair was slicked back with oil. A spotted bow tie and a flashy gold ring completed the picture. It was a weird picture.
“Do come in, Mr. . . .” my brother began.
“Naples,” the dwarf, who already was in, said. His name might have come out of Italy, but he spoke with a South American accent. “Johnny Naples. You are Tim Diamond?”
“That’s me,” my brother lied. His real name was Herbert Timothy Simple, but he called himself Tim Diamond. He thought it suited his image. “And what can I do for you, Mr. Venice?”
“Naples,” the dwarf corrected him. He climbed onto a chair and sat down opposite my brother. His nose just reached the level of the desk. Herbert slid a paperweight out of the way to give his new client a clear view. The dwarf was about to speak when he paused and the nose turned toward me. “Who is he?” he demanded, the two hs scratching at the back of his throat.
“Him?” Herbert smiled. “He’s just my kid brother. Don’t worry about him, Mr. Navels. Just tell me how I can help you.”
Naples laid a carefully manicured hand on the desk. His initials—JN—were cut into a gleaming ring. There was so much gold around that third finger he could have added his name and address, too. “I want to deposit something with you,” he said.