by K. M. Peyton
‘All the same, quite a few pf the people at that party are here in this house now. So if what he says is all true . . .’ John Pike looked quite excited at the thought.
‘He didn’t make up those holes in his neck,’ Jodie said. ‘They weren’t there when I spoke to him the first time.’
‘You’d need to find the body, to make anyone believe his story,’ Christian decided.
‘I could ring home, and see if there’s any news about it – how about that?’ Jodie appealed.
‘Yeah, but do we really want to know?’ Nutty said. ‘It’s quite fun as it is, but if it’s real – I mean, if there really is a murderer here, that’s not a lot of fun, is it?’
‘No,’ said Hoomey. ‘And nobody seems to have missed the body. If he was supposed to be with the orchestra, there’s nobody missing, is there?’
‘Not that I’ve heard of.’
‘We’ll play it by ear,’ Christian decided. ‘See what happens.’
It was very hard to explain to Boris what was going on. He was mystified by the whole Arnold thing, and had rearranged his shoes in the wardrobe. He smiled, whatever they said to him. After hearing him play, they had all decided that yes, he was a genius. Also yes, he was a bit of a weirdo. He had practised in the hall all afternoon with his minders (and Arnold, had he but known it, hiding under the seating platforms, thinking about food) and had been obviously pleased to shake them off afterwards and come back to the dormitory. His managers occupied the best room on the floor below, immediately under the one Christian had appropriated, and still apparently wanted Boris to stay with them. Boris conveyed this by mime, making disliking faces when the female Russian had come up to argue with him. She had a face like a nutcracker, with outlying nose and chin, and sharp black eyes.
‘No wonder he prefers it here,’ Nutty remarked. She wasn’t a looking-after sort of woman, it was obvious.
When she had gone Boris gave a thumbs-up sign.
Nutty had a feeling she could quite easily fall for Boris. Unluckily boys fell for the Jodies of this world, and Nutty had to grind them down by perseverance. She decided to acquire a Russian dictionary and get started. While she was visiting every room along the corridor with a cry of, ‘Anyone learn Russian here?’ Christian and John Pike set off to take provisions to Arnold in the ballroom.
It was nine o’clock and only slightly dusky. The evening was cool and damp and the far mountains were lost in a sunshot haze where the clouds had momentarily parted to allow a few moments of impressive sunset. A golden glow spread eerily over the wide valley. The boys paused on the top of the fire escape, impressed by the grandeur of the scene. The ballroom of stags’ antlers seemed all of a piece seen in its wild setting, its back to the turbulent river.
They had to cross the yard where the coaches and several cars were parked. The ballroom lay on the far side in a grove of pine trees. They got down the iron staircase and were crossing the yard when a tractor approached from over the bridge, its headlights swinging across the yard as it turned into one of the barns. They froze behind a convenient car, bobbing their heads down as the light flared.
In that moment Christian saw, lying across the car’s dashboard, a pair of fur gloves. On the tip of each finger was a claw. On any other occasion he would have seen them for joke gloves, frighteners, but he knew instantly that he was looking at the gloves that Arnold had felt round his neck. He grabbed John Pike’s arm.
‘Look!’
But the tractor headlights had gone. Dazzled, John Pike could only see the vague shape of the gloves Christian was pointing at.
‘The claws that strangled him—!’
But they couldn’t stand around in the open. They doubled up and sped for the shelter of the pine trees. Christian jerked out what he had seen.
‘Whose car is it?’ John Pike peered back across the yard.
‘God knows. We’ll get its number as we go back. It’s that black one, a Citroen, I think.’
‘Don’t tell Arnold!’
Christian could see John Pike’s point. As they opened the door into the ballroom they were both struck by a distinctly spooky atmosphere. In the half-light the white skulls seemed to give off a phosphorescent sheen, glimmering in the high arches of the ancient roof. Looking up in awe, they felt as if the empty eye-sockets had been filled again with the vengeful eyes of two thousand slaughtered beasts. A musky damp smell permeated the place, like old foxes and wet leaves, and the river could be heard booming over the rocks two hundred metres away, swollen by the rain.
They shut the door behind them with what they hoped was a cheerful crash and shouted for Arnold. He emerged from the back of the stage eagerly.
‘What’s for supper then?’
They had managed to bring a plate this time and their scavengings looked quite attractive: several slices of ham, six large potatoes, two hard-boiled eggs, three tomatoes and a wedge of cucumber slices. While Arnold ate, apparently quite cheerful, Christian and John Pike were traumatized by the incident of the gloves. Suddenly the great lark they had been enjoying had turned into the serious thing Jodie had told them it was. They neither of them had really believed it. Now they did. The shock was considerable.
‘Everything all right?’ Arnold noticed their reticence.
‘Yes, fine . . . we’d better get back, before we’re found missing.’
Christian hesitated. He knew he wouldn’t want to spend a night alone in this morgue, even without a murderer after him.
‘We’ll come in the morning. I wouldn’t – I wouldn’t leave here until we come. Not off your own bat, I mean.’
‘OK, boss.’ Arnold grinned.
They retreated, leaving Arnold still scoffing. John Pike shut the door firmly behind them and they stood in the porch, looking across the yard. Nothing moved. The great fortified manor house with its grim stone front glowered before them, the black hillside pressing down behind. A few stars glimmered faintly in the pale sky.
They dodged back between the cars. Christian took the number of the car with the gloves on the dashboard, although it was now impossible to make them out. It was quite a relief to get back up the iron staircase and into the racket of the dormitory floor. Nutty was returning triumphantly waving a Russian dictionary; Jodie was trying out Christian’s clarinet.
‘Fort Knox is on her way!’ Hoomey had been keeping look-out.
‘Just in time!’
The girls scattered for home.
At one of the windows a watcher smiled grimly. In his pocket he had a length of wiring flex. Strangling was simple and quiet, with luck, and this time he would make no mistake. A body dumped in a patch of bracken on the hillside would certainly never be found. With the meddling boy gone, no-one could ever prove there had ever been another body, or even, come to that, a meddling boy. Tonight he would disappear for good.
CHAPTER SIX
AFTER HE HAD finished his dinner, Arnold gathered up the bedding and dragged it down to his hidey-hole under the orchestra platform. It was quite roomy under the back row. He laid out the blankets and pillow, and realized that he felt not the slightest bit sleepy. It was dark in the hall but his new friends had given him a good torch. He wandered round and lay in the sagging armchair for a bit: it was more comfortable than the floor. On a small table nearby several leaflets were scattered, mostly to do with the Youth Orchestra and its visit.
Arnold leafed through them idly, shining the torch on the photos to see if he could recognize his friends. There was a large photo of Boris sitting at a piano and, opposite, a photo of a man in evening dress. The face looked familiar. Underneath, it said he was Igor Turkin, manager to Boris Khobotov.
Arnold frowned. It wasn’t the man Boris was travelling with now. No sign of Nutcracker face either. But why did the face of Igor Turkin seem familiar?
Arnold stared at it in the torchlight, with that tantalizing feeling of knowing he had seen it before. At the party? Something to do with the party . . . no, in the water . . . it was the face of the
body. The dead body!
Arnold could not help a yelp escaping him. Given that the Igor of the photo was dry, combed and smiling, and the face Arnold had seen was dead and slimy, there was no mistaking in Arnold’s mind that it was the same man. Boris’s manager! So Boris was in the conspiracy that he seemed to have walked into! And who was the present manager? Arnold could recall the wife’s face, all jutting jaw and straight, unlovely hair, and young Ferretface, whose job seemed to be to drive the Russians’ car, but the third man had a less obtrusive presence than his two friends. Arnold remembered a bland face; no features came to mind. To the best of his knowledge, nobody had mentioned the missing Igor, no-one had enquired as to why Boris’s manager had changed his face. True, Boris appeared to be a nervous wreck, but that was because he was a genius. Or was it because he knew? Knew what? Arnold realized he didn’t know either. Whether Igor fell in or was pushed? Had he been murdered, or merely careless?
Arnold lay back in his armchair, his mind reeling with too much conjecture. Whatever Igor’s fate, there was definitely a murderer around, so it seemed reasonable to assume he had done for Igor. Arnold had stumbled upon the body and was now in danger of being erased himself.
Arnold groped his way rapidly back to the comfort of his cave and got under the blankets. He had been unhappy in the wardrobe last night but was now desperate to be back in its dark embrace, listening to the comforting snuffles, snorts and deep breathing of his companions. In here there was only the distant murmur of the river and the sighing of the wind in the pine trees. No sound of a living creature, only the silence of the long-dead stags whose great antlers closed like a forest all round him, two thousand of them at bay against their killers.
Arnold knew what they felt like.
Whether he dozed off or not he did not know, but it seemed that time had passed; the floor was hard, the hall was dark, and there was a noise at the far end by the door which sounded like a handle being turned. Arnold lifted his head off the pillow. There came a gentle creaking, as of the heavy door moving, and a squeaking of a floorboard. No more.
Arnold lay back, clammy with fright. He could hear his heart hammering, as if it was in his head, not his chest. Of course, Boris knew he was in the ballroom and he had told his murdering minders . . . Fort Knox finding him in the wardrobe would be nothing compared with what he faced now.
He lay still, holding his breath to try and catch the smallest sound. His first panic had been overtaken by a rather familiar determination in the face of danger. He would have to rely on his wits now, if this was a man intending to kill him.
The ancient wooden floor sighed to the foot-steps passing. A faint creak . . . there was no doubt someone was in the room. A ray of torchlight flickered momentarily on a row of white skulls and faded. Now Arnold could hear the footsteps approaching. He held his breath. If the torch came looking under the staging, he would be lost.
He pulled the blanket right over him and held up a corner to see through. In the dim light – his eyes becoming accustomed – he saw a pair of legs walking past, very slowly. The torchlight was searching the stacked chairs, screens and various rubbish that lined the far wall. Arnold could see no higher than the man’s behind.
Opposite Arnold was the small Exit door that let out at the back of the hall. He knew it was unlocked. If the intruder did not give up but came searching more thoroughly, Arnold decided to make a bolt for it. He stood far more chance out in the open, could run like a hare if his life depended on it. The legs disappeared out of vision, returning to the front of the orchestra stand. Arnold dithered as to whether to go or not. But betted on the intruder departing, having found nothing. Wrongly, as it turned out.
The man went up to the top of the hall again and there was a long and wracking silence. Then the footsteps came again over the creaking floor, round the back of the staging. This time the torch was turned inward.
Arnold ran. The man was still out of his vision, round the curve of the staging, and Arnold, doubled up, went silently, hoping to get to the door unseen. But as he straightened up to open the door, a board creaked beneath his foot. The torch flew in his direction, pinning him in its bright light.
He wrenched at the door handle and flung himself through the door. The man came after him. Instead of running straight, Arnold right-angled and ran down the back wall to the corner, then launched off among the pine trees in the direction of the river. One instinct told him to make for the house, but another told him to keep his new friends out of trouble if possible. He was adept at eluding capture but always across friendly tarmac: the dark and hostile hillside before him was something else. He plunged down, leaping and scrambling through the thick heather roots, making for the sound of the river. It gave a sense of direction, although it wasn’t a practical proposition. Better would be to head up the valley and make for the track that led away, following the river, towards the far mountains: they had seen that clearly from their bedroom window. He would try and lose his murderer, and then make up the valley to try and find somewhere to lie low until morning.
The torchlight caught him, lost him as he leapt sideways and fell in landing. The uneven ground had dropped him in a nice hole. Taking advantage, he turned and crawled and wriggled back in the opposite direction, keeping his head down, following an animal track. The man ran to the spot where the light had picked him out and stood there, flashing the torch all round. Arnold froze to the ground.
His pursuer was about five metres away. Arnold buried his face into the earth and waited. The torchlight flickered all round like a will-o’-the-wisp over the dank heather. Arnold could hear the man’s heavy, angry breathing and the squelching of his feet as he moved direction. The man knew he was there and persisted, searching, but when he decided to stamp his way around the area to flush Arnold out, he fortunately chose the down-river direction, and turned his back for a few moments. Arnold took the opportunity to wriggle a little further. It was imperative to make no noise. Fortunately the river rolling over loose rocks made a grumbling, gravelling noise which covered up the rustling of his snakelike progress. He put several more metres between himself and the searcher before the torch turned back uphill in his direction.
He lay still again, face down. It was only chance that would see him through. The man stamped backwards and forwards, at one point coming to within an arm’s length. His stamping foot flicked wet earth in Arnold’s face. Arnold stopped breathing; his pulse thumped so loud it seemed to fill the night. But his luck held. Within centimetres of him, the man swore and muttered and turned away. The torchlight went on down to the river and Arnold heard cursing and crashings, but gradually the sounds of pursuit receded.
Arnold crawled on along a sketchy tunnel made by animals, making uphill for the track which he knew led away from the big house up the valley. He thought, if he made back to the house, the man would be lying in wait for him and in the other direction lay safety. If he lifted his head he could see the lights of the old fortified manor-house some eight hundred metres away, looking very inviting, safe and cosy. Fort Knox would be peanuts beside the hunter that was searching for him at the moment. But it would be suicide to go back. He had no alternative.
He laid up for about half an hour, cold, wet and shivering. A half moon came out from behind the clouds and lit up the silent valley and let loose a few glittering stars to wink at him from above the fell tops. Nothing moved.
Very carefully Arnold crept to his feet and, hunching down, started to move up the valley. All was quiet. Gradually he straightened up, moving fast, but there was no pursuit. He had no idea what lay up the valley but it must be better than what lay in wait in the other direction.
‘He’s not there!’
Jodie came back to the boys’ room after breakfast, still with Arnold’s filched portion in the capacious ‘hand-warmer’ pocket of her sweatshirt. She looked eight months pregnant.
‘Not a sign of him. His bed’s all rumpled and – what was odd – the back door was open.’
‘Perhaps he’s just gone down to the river to wash,’ Hoomey suggested.
‘Out of character,’ said Nutty. ‘Wash! Would you?’
It was raining again. They knew she was right.
‘Something’s wrong. He wouldn’t have moved otherwise,’ Christian said.
‘Perhaps Claws has got him?’
Hoomey looked pale. The story of the furry gloves in the car had terrified him. They had discovered that the car was the one used by Boris’s keepers. With this disturbing information to hand, Nutty had prepared to question Boris about the dead body, but had not got him to comprehend that oobivat, according to her dictionary, meant murder. Instead of turning pale and fleeing the room he had looked bemused. Abazoor for lampshade he had cottoned on to, but Nutty had only experimented with lampshade because it was easy, not because she wanted to talk about lampshades. Russian was not a user-friendly language, she had quickly discovered, not even having a comprehensible alphabet. To fall in love appeared to be vlyooblyatsya; sweetheart was vaz-lyooblyen-nay. Even if she wanted to call Boris her sweetheart, by the time she had got her tongue round vaz-lyooblyen-nay his concentration would have worn off.
‘If Claws has got him,’ Jodie said, ‘he’d only have to drag his body out in the heather somewhere and no-one would ever find him. Suppose he doesn’t turn up? We’ll have to tell someone.’
‘They’ll think we’re spoofing. There’s no proof he exists,’ John Pike pointed out. ‘Not after last night when the count was all correct. I heard Fort Knox saying she must have made a mistake.’
‘No proof of a body in the first place either,’ Jodie added. ‘He swore it was, but I couldn’t be sure. I am sure someone’s trying to murder him though.’