Ten minutes later, I was sitting down in the kitchen, eating. Betty had insisted on cutting my toast into soldiers which was pretty embarrassing. I’d been threatened, blown up, attacked – and here I was being treated like a kid again. But I suppose she meant well.
“Where’s Mr Timothy?” she asked.
“Herbert?” I said. “He’s in jail. Accused of murder.”
“Murder!” she shrieked. “That’s a crime!”
“Well … yes.”
“No. I mean accusing Mr Herbert of doing anything like that.” She sniffed. “Anybody could see he wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
She was right there. Herbert ran away from them. He was probably the only private detective in the country who was even scared of goldfish.
“So you’re doing all the detective work for him,” she said. I nodded. “Have you found out anything yet?”
Had I found anything out? Well, I’d found out that Beatrice von Falkenberg had a strange taste in pets. I’d found out that if you stood too close to an exploding grenade it made your ears hurt. I’d found out that the Fat Man still wanted to lose weight and that I was the weight he wanted to lose. But when you added up everything I’d found out, it would just about fit on the back of a postage stamp and you wouldn’t even need to write in small letters.
“No, Betty,” I said. “I haven’t found out anything. Not unless you know what a digital detector or a photo lighter is.”
“A wot?” she asked.
The scraps of paper that I had found in the dwarf’s room were still safely in my shirt pocket. The trouble was, my shirt pocket was still in the hotel. It had been blown off the shirt by the blast and for the life of me I couldn’t remember exactly what the words had been.
“I’m going to have a bath,” I said.
“I’ll run it for you,” Betty volunteered.
I shook my head. Any more encouragement and she’d be offering to scrub my back. “No, thanks … you go home. I can manage.”
“But what about the cleaning?”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out one of Herbert’s ten-pound notes. It hurt me to see it go, but there was no denying that Betty had done a good job. When she’d come, the flat had looked like a junk-yard. Now it was more like an industrial slum. “Here you are,” I said. “Come back next week, after Christmas.”
“Ooh! Ta!” She took it. “Happy Christmas, Master Nicholas,” she burbled.
“Happy Christmas, Betty,” I said.
Some time later, the doorbell dragged me out of a beautiful sleep. I looked at my watch. It said five to ten. It had said five to ten when I’d gone to bed. Either it had been a short sleep or I needed a new watch. I held it up to my ear and shook it. There was a dull ping and the second hand fell off. Well, that’s what comes of buying a second hand watch.
I pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweater and made my way downstairs. The bell was still ringing. Whoever was down there was leaning on the button. I pressed the intercom to let him in, hoping he wouldn’t do the same to me. I don’t like being leaned on and in the last few days I’d had more than enough of it. I went into the office and had just sat down when my client walked in.
Correction – he didn’t walk, he staggered. And I smelt him before I saw him. It must have been around lunchtime but he’d been drinking since breakfast and he’d brought the stale reek of whisky as his visiting-card.
I recognized him from somewhere. He was around sixty, small, fat, unshaven, owlish, with round glasses, dressed in a crumpled grey raincoat with bottle-sized pockets.
He fumbled his way towards one of the chairs that Betty Charlady had repaired for us and sat down heavily, stretching out his legs. He was wearing green socks. I could see them through the holes in the soles of his shoes. I waited for him to say something but he wasn’t in a hurry. He pulled a single cigarette out of his pocket, straightened it between his thumb and forefinger and twisted it into his mouth. He lit it with a trembling hand. The match had almost burned itself out before he found the end of the cigarette. He wasn’t just a drunk. He was a short-sighted drunk. Suddenly I remembered where I’d seen him. He’d been at the Falcon’s funeral, standing – swaying – next to Beatrice von Falkenberg.
“It’s good to sit down,” he said.
“You tired?” I asked.
“No. It’s just that I keep falling over when I stand up. Or bumping into things.” He sucked in smoke. “You see, sir, I got this problem …”
“Drink?” I muttered sympathetically.
“Thanks. I’ll have a large Scotch.”
I shook my head and slid an ash-tray towards him. He flicked the cigarette and scattered ash across the top of the desk. “Who are you?” I asked.
“The name’s Quisling,” he said. “Quentin Quisling.”
“Your parents liked q’s,” I said.
“Yeah – bus queues, shopping queues … but that’s not why I’m here. You may have heard of me, sir. I used to be called the Professor.”
Sure I’d heard of the Professor. That had been another of the names on Snape’s blackboard. What had Snape told me? The Professor had been the Falcon’s tame scientist, something of a whizz-kid. But a year ago he’d gone missing. Looking at him now, I could see where he’d been. On the skids. Professor Quisling might have been smart once but now he looked like Billy Bunter grown old and sick. He had the skin of a five-year-old cheese and he spoke with a wheezy, grating voice. He puffed smoke into the air and coughed. Cigarettes were killing him while booze was arranging the funeral.
“I wanted to see your brother,” he said.
“He’s not here.”
“I can see that, sir. I don’t see much. But I can see that.” He pulled a half-bottle of whisky out of his pocket, unscrewed it, squinted and tilted it towards his throat. The liquid ran down the side of his neck. He groped for the cigarette and found it. “All right,” he said. “I’ll split it with you. Fifty-fifty.”
“The cigarette?” I asked.
“That’s very funny, sir. I can see you have a sense of humour.” He screwed the cigarette between his lips and coughed. It was a horrible cough. I could hear the marbles rattling in his lungs. “You know who I am?” he asked.
“You just told me.”
“I used to be the Falcon’s brains.” He stabbed at his chest with a bent thumb. “He wanted something fixed, I fixed it.”
“Light bulbs?” I asked.
“Oh no, sir. I invented things for him. Things you wouldn’t understand.”
“So what happened to you?” I asked.
“This happened to me.” He waved the bottle. “But I know what you’ve got, sir. Indeed I do. I saw you at the funeral and I figured it out. A packet of Maltesers, would it be? Well … I know what to do with them. Together we could make money.”
“What are you suggesting, Professor?” I said.
“You give them to me and you wait here.” He smiled at me with crooked, sly eyes. “I’ll come back tomorrow with half the money.”
I nodded, pretending to consider the offer. In fact I was amazed. Here was a guy who was killing himself as sure as if he had a noose around his neck. He couldn’t afford a decent pair of shoes and he was dressed like a dummy in an Oxfam shop. But he thought he could pull a fast one on me just because I was a kid and he was a so-called adult. For a moment he reminded me of my maths teacher. You know the sort. Just because they can work out the angles in an isosceles triangle, they think they rule the world. I decided to play him along.
“I give you the Maltesers,” I said. “And you come back with half the loot?”
“That’s right, sir,” Quisling said. He finished the half-bottle and lobbed it towards the dustbin. It missed and smashed against the wall. He didn’t seem to notice.
“But what do the Maltesers do?” I asked.
“They open the …” He stopped himself just in time. “I’ll tell you when I bring the money,” he said.
I knew that once I’d given him the Maltesers I?
??d never see him again. But I’d had an idea. I pulled open the drawer of the desk and took out the box that I’d hidden there a few days before. “This is what you want,” I said. He reached forward hungrily but I didn’t let go. “You will come back?” I queried.
“Sure, sir. I’ll come back. On my mother’s grave.”
The old girl probably wasn’t even dead. “When?” I asked.
“Tomorrow morning,” he said.
I lifted my hand and he snatched the box away.
“In the morning,” he repeated.
The door slammed shut behind him.
I waited thirty seconds before I followed him. He wouldn’t see me behind him. With his eyesight he wouldn’t see me if I stood next to him. And if Quentin Quisling really did know where the Falcon’s diamonds were hidden, he would lead me to them. The box of Maltesers I’d given him would, of course, be useless. But perhaps I’d let him keep them – after he’d led me to the end of the rainbow. That was the way I’d planned it but of course that was far too easy, and when nothing can go wrong that’s when everything always does. I’d reached the front door. I’d turned round to lock it behind me. I could hear an engine turning – a van parked close by. There was a movement in the street. I glanced up just in time to see something short and unpleasant come thudding down. It hit me behind the ear. I was out like a light.
FAIRY CAKES
I wish somebody had told me it was Knock Out Nick Diamond Week in London. It had happened to me twice in two days and I was getting a bit tired of it. Being knocked out isn’t so bad. It’s waking up that’s the real problem. Your head hurts, your mouth is dry and you feel sick. And if it’s pitch dark and you’re locked up in the back of a van that could be going anywhere, it’s pretty scary too.
I was still in London. I could tell from the sound of the traffic and from the number of times we stopped. Once – when we were at a traffic light or something – I heard vague voices outside and thought of hammering on the side of the van. But it probably wouldn’t have done any good and anyway, by the time I’d made up my mind, the van had moved off. A few minutes later, we stopped. The door was pulled open. There wasn’t a lot of light left in the day but what there was of it streamed in and punched me in the eyes.
“Get out,” a voice said. It was a soft voice, the sort of voice you’d expect to float on the scent of violets. It had a slight German twang. I’d heard that voice once before.
I got out.
The first thing I saw was a road sign. It read: Bayly Street SE1 which put me somewhere on the south bank of the river, opposite the City. I looked around me. This was warehouse territory. The old brick buildings rose up five storeys high on both sides of the road, the narrow gap of sky in between criss-crossed by corrugated iron walkways, hooks and chains, pipes and loading platforms. A hundred years ago, Bayly Street would have been on its feet. Twisted coke cans, broken slates and yards of multicoloured cables spilled out of the deserted buildings like entrails. The street was pitted with puddles that seemed to be eating their way into the carcass.
Another sign caught my eye, bright red letters on white: McAlpine. It was a death warrant in one word for Bayly Street. There’s nothing more destructive than a construction company. They’d gut the warehouses and build fancy apartments in the shell. Each one would have a river view, a quarry-tiled garage and a five-figure price tag. That’s the trouble with London. The rich have got it all.
There was a man standing beside the van, holding a silenced gun which he was pointing in my direction. He might have been a gangster, but he went to a smart tailor. He was dressed in a pale grey suit with a pink tie. His shoes were as brightly polished as his smile. A moment later, the driver’s door opened and a second man got out. He was dressed identically to the first, except that his tie was a powder blue. They were both short and thin and both wore their hair parted down the middle – one dark, one blond. They were both approaching fifty and had spent a lot of money trying to back away again. Their slightly plastic faces had to be the work of a slight plastic surgeon. Know what I mean? Cut out the fat, take up the wrinkles, re-tone the flesh, thank you sir, and make sure you don’t sneeze too violently. I had a feeling the two men were fond of each other.
“This way,” Blondie said, gesturing with the gun.
“After you,” I replied.
“I don’t think so.”
There had to be men at work on a construction site nearby. I could hear them now, their hydraulic drills jabbering away in the distance, the mechanical grabbers churning up the mud. I thought of making a break for it. But there was no chance. There was nobody in sight and they’d have shot me down before I’d gone five metres. The driver had walked across to a heavy wooden door and unlocked a padlock the size of a soupplate. It led into a room like an abandoned garage: bare concrete floor, burnt-out walls, junk everywhere. For a nasty minute I thought that this was it and that I was about to reach the last full-stop, but there was a staircase in one corner and Blondie steered me towards it. We went up five flights. Each floor was the same – derelict and decaying. But then we came to another door and another padlock. The fifth floor was different.
It was open-plan and about as big as a tennis-court, only it would be difficult to have a game – not with a grand piano parked in the middle. It had a large, wide window – more like a French door really – reaching from floor to ceiling, but being five storeys up it didn’t lead anywhere. The room was furnished with a grey carpet, grey silk curtains and a silvery three-piece suite arranged around a white marble table. There was an open-plan kitchen with a tray loaded with cups and plates for tea.
The dark-haired man went into the kitchen while Blondie waved me over to the sofa.
“And who are you?” I asked, although I already had a good idea.
“I’m William,” Blondie said. “And that’s Eric.” He gestured.
“Gott and Himmell,” I muttered. The two German schoolboys from Eton. That gave me a complete score on Snape’s blackboard.
“We thought it was time we invited you to tea,” Gott went on. “I do hope you like fairy cakes.”
The kettle boiled. Himmell filled the pot and brought the tray over to the table. “Who’s going to be mother?” I asked. They both raised their eyebrows at that. I couldn’t believe it. These were meant to be the Falcon’s two right-hand men but they looked about as dangerous as my two maiden aunts. But then I remembered the way they’d brought me here and the fact that there were two dead bodies to be accounted for. They might look like a joke. But they could still make you die laughing.
Himmell poured the tea into china cups decorated with roses interlaced with swastikas, and then handed round the fairy cakes. I didn’t feel like eating but it looked like he’d made them himself and I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.
“Who plays the piano?” I asked. Polite conversation seemed like a good idea.
“We both do,” Gott said. “But now, my friend, it’s your turn to sing.” Himmell laughed at that. I didn’t. I’ve found funnier lines in a Latin dictionary. “You have something we want,” Gott went on. “Let me explain, Nicholas … if I may call you Nicholas? A charming name.”
I bit into the fairy cake. It tasted like Fairy Liquid.
“We were following the dwarf the day he visited you and your brother. We didn’t know then what he was carrying. We searched your apartment that evening but we found nothing. Then we ran into Miss Bacardi.”
“Is she here?” I asked.
“You’ll see her soon enough. She told us about the Maltesers. Most … unusual. So we went back to your flat for a second time. That was the day of the Falcon’s funeral. We were certain that we would find the Maltesers then. But after we’d broken in, we were surprised. Who was the man waiting for us?”
“His name was Lawrence,” I said. “He was the chauffeur of the Fat Man. He was after the Maltesers too.”
“It was unfortunate for him.” Gott sighed. “He said some very hurtful things. So Eric hur
t him. In fact, he killed him. I have to tell you, Nicholas. Eric is a lovely person. Lovely. But he gets moody sometimes. And when he’s moody, he shoots people.”
I smiled at Himmell. “Nice fairy cakes,” I said.
“We still want the Maltesers,” Gott said. “We know your brother is in prison. And we know you know where they are. So either you tell us now or …”
“Or what, Gott?” I asked.
“It would be a terrible shame,” he replied. “You’re a very nice boy. Really very sweet. How old are you?”
“Thirteen.”
“Yes – far too young to end up in a plastic bag with six bullets in your chest. Would you like some more tea?”
Himmell filled my cup. He didn’t seem to have quite such a good grasp of the English language as his friend. They were still both smiling at me with their plastic smiles and I wondered if, after the face-lifts, they were capable of anything else. Gott finished his tea and smacked his lips.
“Thank you,” he said. “You do make a lovely cup, Eric.”
“Anudder cup?”
“Nein danke.” He turned to me. “So where are they?”
I’d been thinking. I’d have been happy to tell them if I thought it would get me out of there. But somehow I didn’t believe it. Once they’d got what they wanted, they wouldn’t need me and I’d be in that plastic bag like a shot. And I mean shot. I had to buy time. Given a bit of time, maybe I could find my way out of this jam.
I coughed. “Well, it’s a bit tricky …” Himmell’s face fell. He was still smiling, but I reckon his nose and chin must have sunk a good centimetre or two. “I mean, I do have them. They’re at Victoria Station. In a left-luggage locker. But Herbert has the key.”
“The number?”
“Um … one hundred and eighty!” I’d been making it up as I went along and I sang out that number like a darts commentator on finals night.
“At Victoria Station?”