by K. M. Peyton
John Pike leant down to Arnold during the applause and said, ‘You’d better get up and look as if you’re the cymbalist. Your crashes don’t come till near the end so she could still make it. If not, you’ll just have to do your best.’
‘I can’t!’ Arnold squeaked.
‘You’ve bloomin’ got to! Hoomey’s hopeless, he’s tried before. We can’t have him panicking. He knows where the crashes come though, so he can give you the prod. D’you hear, Hoomey?’
‘Yes!’
‘You both owe it to Nutty not to make a hash of it.’ John Pike looked very severe, a real public school prefect. His voice was stern, dropping as the applause started to die away.
‘Can’t you do it?’ Arnold whispered.
‘I’m going full bore as it is – no way. Get up now, stand behind them. If you do it right, no-one will notice anything amiss. That’s what matters.’
Arnold got up and stood in the back row, feeling as large as an elephant. He was trembling like an aspen leaf. Hoomey stood beside him, white-faced.
‘Where’s she got to? Perhaps Claws has got her?’
‘Don’t be daft!’
Arnold eyed the cymbals that stood before him on their stand – two large discs of brass with handles to grasp them by. He remembered Nutty holding them aloft, arms stretched out, a manic glint in her eye, tongue between her teeth, waiting for the moment of impact. If she could do it . . . she was only a girl . . .
All the brass instruments went into action at a nod from Mr Carruthers and Arnold froze as John Pike started an unholy racket beside him, a drum roll to end all drum rolls. Arnold felt his blood curdling. It was familiar, this piece. Oh, please, he prayed, let it be all right!
Part of the orchestra now, Arnold felt the music moving through his guts. He was all stirred up, waiting. It was a piece called Finlandia by Sibelius – it had wonderful tunes that you had to wait for. It had just sounded one long mess the first time he had heard it but now it had got a hold of him like a hit in the charts. John Pike had to work really hard building up the crescendos and then gonging his biggest drum with enormous drumsticks like boxing gloves on sticks, giving almighty swipes, his red hair flopping across a sweaty forehead, blue eyes glittering, until all the strings came sweeping in with the marvellous tune. Then when they died away Christian took it up alone, slow and heart-rending, and Mr Carruthers closed his eyes and put on a really fatuous face as if he was getting a call from God. Then it was all go again, and Arnold picked up his cymbals, no longer scared but dying to give them a bash.
‘Not yet!’ Hoomey squeaked.
John Pike was going full blast – no wonder he was such a stocky, muscled fellow, good as a game of soccer this, Arnold thought, and Hoomey gave him a nudge and said, ‘Coming up any minute!’ and Arnold lifted the heavy brass cymbals and brought them together with a wonderful crash, louder even than John Pike’s. The brass was competing too, deafening the back row.
‘And again,’ said Hoomey.
WHAM! Hey, this was terrific! Every time John Pike finished a drum roll Arnold crowned it with a WHAM!
Hoomey was pulling at his arm.
‘Shut up!’ he hissed. ‘You’re finished!’
But Arnold got in two more before the finish. It would have been three if Hoomey hadn’t physically restrained him.
The audience went mad, clapping and cheering and stamping, and all the various parts of the orchestra got up separately for a bow. Arnold, seeing John Pike bow, bowed too. He did not notice Mr Carruthers giving him a hard look.
It was the interval now, before Boris played his piano concerto. John Pike took Arnold’s arm and said, ‘Cripes, you went potty! Everyone’s noticed you now, you idiot! We’d all better keep our heads down now, else they’ll be after us.’
There were refreshments in the interval but Arnold was guided outside by his elders and betters and dumped on the school lawn. Jodie and Christian found them.
‘You’re an absolute nutter!’ Jodie hissed. ‘You’d think you wanted everyone to see you up there, crashing away!’
‘Fantastic!’ Christian was grinning. ‘A natural! Your timing was splendid. If Sibelius had put all those crashes in the score – which he didn’t, being a restrained sort of bloke – that’s where he’d have had ’em, all the same, right where you decided.’
Arnold wasn’t sure whether he was in the doghouse or whether he had just discovered the meaning of life. He was on a high, skating along the tops of Sibelius’s thunder. Those cymbals were really something! His hands really hurt.
‘It was brill! I’d like to do it again!’
‘Actually, you were pretty good.’ John Pike was smiling too.
‘Is there any more? In the next . . . if Nutty doesn’t turn up?’
‘There’s a piece we finish with . . . nothing in Boris’s concerto. I wonder where Nutty’s got to?’
She still didn’t arrive. They filched some refreshments (Arnold only got two ginger biscuits), then they were bundling back on stage again. This time they insisted he got under the drum covers at the back, completely out of sight. Mr Carruthers was sending dagger glances up towards the timpani. Boris swept on in his best suit, rather tight and of a dubious dark blue, and bowed extravagantly to the welcoming cheers. John Pike picked up his drumsticks and, when everything had gone quiet, started this tremendous roll. Arnold could feel it coming up through his seatbones and vibrating right through his rib-cage. The excitement of it was tremendous. It made his hair stand on end. And then Boris came crashing in to join him. Ba ba BOM! Ba ba BOM! Ba ba BOM! Arnold wriggled with excitement. It was sweating hot under the plastic cover. He thought perhaps he had a fever the way he felt. He itched to be cymbaling again. The music broke out all round him, sweeping and sliding and banging and crashing. He realized he had a hell of a headache.
At the end when Boris was bowing to left, right and centre and the audience was cheering and stamping again, Nutty arrived amongst the timpani. She was covered with mud and had some sprigs of heather stuck in her hair. She slapped down the hopeful Arnold with a brisk request to get out of her way.
‘Aren’t you supposed to be hiding?’
She dropped the drum cover back over him like putting a parrot to bed.
Hoomey said indignantly, ‘He did your cymbals in Finlandia. He was really good!’
John Pike grinned. ‘He was ace. You’ll lose your job if you don’t look out.’
‘Yeah, well, old Claws must have taken note. He’s here, you know! And I’ve found out—’
Mr Carruthers tapped his baton imperiously on his music stand. John Pike just had time to hiss, ‘But we’re going to tell all when we get back, aren’t we? We’ve only got to guard him for another hour or two!’
Arnold, crouching in his plastic cave, flinched as the music broke out all round him. He was all stirred up, but whether by his recent experiences or the thought of being exposed shortly to the mercies of Mrs Knox, Mr Harlech and all he could not tell. It was agony trying to sit still, the blood hammering through his veins so that he felt breathless. He thought he was going off his nut. What on earth was going to happen when they revealed that Boris’s keepers were dyed-in-the-wool crooks? Arnold thought it would go down like a lead balloon. It would ruin the tour. Everything was getting rather out of control.
As he sat there, cocooned in swooshing, stirring noise, he wished with all his heart that he could stay, for ever, within the battlements of the school orchestra. Stupid as he was, he trusted implicitly the decisions of the General’s son Christian, the stolid John Pike, even the stout-hearted girls – girls being a definite turn-off in his life so far. (His mother called herself a girl.) Even Hoomey, a real wimp, was transparently well-meaning. He saw that the really noble thing would be to get up and go away, far away, where Claws would never find him again and nor would Christian and the gang. He ought to back out now, over the edge of the staging and out through the back door, go to the station and catch the train to London. Leave them all in t
he clear.
He couldn’t. He had no money. Nor the will. He wasn’t noble, after all. He wanted them to see him through, even if it brought them all down. He tried to make excuses for himself, but he knew he was a pretty hopeless case. He was good at cymbals though! The little thought kept surfacing, with a rush of good cheer.
The music finished and the applause took over. It seemed to go on for ages. This, Arnold thought, was the beginning of the end. He crouched himself up, heart beating audibly, hating everything. The staging shook as everyone started to push back their chairs and prepare to leave. There was a great hubbub of conversation and general noise. John Pike whipped the cover off him.
‘Keep your nut down. We’ve got to decide what to do next.’
‘There’s tea in the school. Over the road. That’s what’s next,’ Hoomey said hopefully.
‘Idiot, about Arnie!’
Christian and Jodie came over, shutting their instruments away in their cases. They looked serious. The stage was rapidly clearing.
‘Listen,’ said Nutty. ‘What I found out. Old Mildred told me—’ She recounted Miss Manners’ story of Boris’s keepers. The others were very impressed.
‘It all makes sense.’
‘We can’t go on hiding it up. When we get back—’ But Christian looked anguished at the thought. Arnold knew he was wishing they had never got involved.
‘Come on,’ he said firmly, in his General’s voice. ‘We’ll carry on as usual. Keep Am in the middle. Carruthers might come to find out about the new cymbalist. We want to keep out of his way. There’s just a chance, after all, that – that – well, we might . . .’
‘It’s not fair to hide it up, not to Arnold, or Boris, or anybody,’ John Pike said stoutly. ‘Even if it does mess up the music fortnight.’
Christian looked agonized again. ‘No,’ he agreed.
‘Do you think Boris knows what’s going on?’ Jodie said.
‘I keep asking myself . . . I think not,’ Christian said.
‘No! He can’t know.’ Nutty was positive. ‘Not about his friends trying to knock out Arn.’
‘No, not that. He might know about the first Mr Turkin being removed though.’
‘Not if they could avoid it, surely?’ Jodie said. ‘I bet they just told him he was ill, gone home. That would account for his being a bit nervous, not very sure of them. I mean, the first Mr Turkin must have been his friend.’
Everyone was trailing out of the big hall into the street. Across the road was a school where tea was being laid on in the hall. The coaches were parked outside the hall and the school precincts were full of parked cars, including the mud-sprayed, heather-tagged estate car of Mildred Manners with the harp still in the back. A great crowd was milling about, both audience and orchestra, and there seemed no immediate danger. Murder could hardly be committed in such a situation.
‘What’ll we do then?’ Nutty demanded.
‘Tea for now,’ said Christian.
They stowed their instruments back in the coach and crossed the road to the school, keeping an eye open for the people they wanted to avoid. The school hall was buzzing. They scrummed for sandwiches and cups of tea, elbows well out, and backed out into the schoolyard to eat. The ever-present mountains seemed to lean over the street, sharply etched in an evening glow of forgiving sunlight. For a moment it was warm. They lined up against the stone wall dividing the school grounds from the road, hitching their bottoms on the uncomfortable rocks.
‘If Arn stays around you’ll lose your job,’ John Pike grinned at Nutty. ‘He’s a natural.’
Nutty glared from over her tea mug. ‘I was doing him a favour! Look where it got me! Don’t push your luck, Am boy.’
‘When you tell ’em, tonight, they’ll send me back to London,’ Arnold said sadly. ‘It’ll all fall apart.’
‘Oh, come on,’ said Christian. ‘You’ll be a star witness. It’s not like being the one they’re after.’
‘They won’t forget they’re after me. Not afterwards.’
‘Well, s’like being a grass,’ Hoomey said eagerly. ‘You’ll get off for helping the police.’
‘Hmm.’ Arnold wasn’t so sure.
‘Hey, here’s Boris.’
Boris was approaching, smiling, with a large piece of chocolate cake on a plate.
He held it up and articulated carefully, ‘Delicious. Good Lord!’
‘Hey, well done, Boris boy! Speak Engleeshski!’ Nutty grinned.
‘Hi,’ said Boris. ‘Lampshade!’ He smiled at Nutty.
The others all rocked about.
‘Go on, tell him you love him, Nutty. You looked it up!’
‘Oh, shut up!’ Nutty had gone bright red. ‘And lampshade to you too, Boris,’ she added.
‘Good Lord!’ said Boris.
His vocabulary extended no further, and there was no way of asking him if he knew his keepers were murderers. He took a large bite of chocolate cake and a blob of chocolate cream fell down his cream silk tie.
‘Good Lord!’ he said.
‘Lampshade!’ said Nutty.
Arnold wished he’d seen the chocolate cake.
‘I’m going to get a piece,’ he said.
‘Not on your own,’ Christian said. ‘Hoomey, you go with him.’
The two of them disappeared back into the hall. A few minutes later Mildred Manners fluttered her way across to Nutty and said, ‘Could you help me with my harp, dear? Just to unload it?’
The boys offered to help. They all wandered over to her car and she opened up the back.
Christian and John Pike nobly went to lift out the harp while Boris stood around not knowing what to do with his chocolate cake. Just as the two boys were edging the instrument carefully through the back aperture Hoomey came tearing round the side of the building shouting at the top of his voice.
‘He’s gone! He’s gone!’
Christian straightened up. ‘Hoomey!’ he bellowed.
Hoomey changed course like a hunted hare and sprang towards them.
‘He’s got him – that man – Ferretface! Quick! There! Look!’
He was pointing out into the road. The Russian’s Citroen was just in the act of backing out of the side street where it was parked, driven by Ferretface, with Arnold sagging in the front seat.
‘He hit him!’ Hoomey wailed.
Christian and John Pike dropped the harp as one man. As it twanged on to the tarmac Christian took a flying leap into the driving seat.
‘Get in!’ he shouted.
They leapt into the back. John Pike slammed the tailgate down and jumped into the front seat as Christian started the engine. The old car shot backwards out of the schoolyard. Ahead of it, the Citroen sped away down the street.
Hoomey squeaked, ‘He went to the loo – there wasn’t anyone there, and that man – him! – he followed him in – I saw him – he dragged him out and hit him—’
‘Did he see you?’ Christian snapped.
‘No. I was at the top of the corridor, waiting for him. I came for you!’
‘Why didn’t you sock him one?’ Nutty shouted at him. ‘You’re hopeless, Hoomey! You could’ve stopped him!’
‘You’re sure he didn’t see you? He thinks he’s got Arnold away without anyone seeing?’
‘Yes!’
Nutty, looking behind, saw Miss Manners crouching, pop-eyed, over her harp, and Boris standing looking after them with a puzzled look on his face (no doubt saying, ‘Good Lord!’). Behind him, Mr and Mrs Turkin were hurrying to collect him up.
‘What are we going to do?’ she asked Christian, fearing the worst.
‘Arn’s only chance is for us to follow him,’ Christian said tersely. ‘That geezer’s going to take him somewhere remote and do him in. We’ve got to stop him!’
‘The rest of the gang know what’s going on,’ Nutty said grimly. ‘They’ve collected Boris already.’
‘Probably come after us,’ John Pike said.
‘What are we going to do?’ Hoomey w
ailed.
‘Rescue Arnold, of course!’ Nutty shrieked. ‘Because you’re such a dimwit, Hoomey, letting it happen! You were supposed to be guarding him!’
As they skidded round the bend out of the village they all saw the black Citroen ahead of them, accelerating up a road that led over the forested hillside. Christian straightened up and put his foot down. With five of them in it, Miss Manners’ old Ford shuddered manfully in pursuit.
‘Are you sure we’re doing the right thing?’ Jodie asked doubtfully, looking back.
‘No,’ said Christian. ‘I’m sure we’re not, but it’s too late now.’
‘If we lose them, Arnie’s lost!’ said John Pike.
Christian changed down as the hill met them. It was up to him now, and Mildred’s old banger.
Poor Arnie!
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE ROAD THEY were following led to a tourist camping site on a hillside overlooking a lake. Ferretface drove past and took another unsurfaced route marked ‘Unsuitable for Motors’. It was by now seven o’clock, a grey evening promising drizzle, and there were no campers to be seen. Only early lights shining in the big tents showed any sign of life, and Christian did not stop to plead help.
‘Mustn’t lose him or Arn’ll be a goner!’
Afterwards, they supposed one of them could have tumbled out and raised an alarm, but by the time they thought of this they were well past and jerking up the mountainside desperately trying to keep within sight of the Citroen’s occasional bright brake-lights. Christian had grated into second gear and Mildred’s old car was labouring.
They were all in a state of high anxiety and excitement. Christian, totally occupied with his driving, said nothing and John Pike at his side was quiet and grim, trying to work out whether things were quite as serious as he rather thought they were. In the back Hoomey was white-faced, trying not to burst into tears – it was all his fault, after all, that had been made quite clear to him – while the two girls bounced about urging Christian on.
‘Five of us – we’ll get ’im!’ Nutty was crowing. ‘C’m on, Chris, put your foot down!’
‘He can’t really be wanting to murder him, surely?’ Jodie appealed. ‘It can’t be that important?’