‘You look blissed out,’ Tariq teased Laura as they sailed back to shore.
‘I am,’ Laura murmured dreamily. ‘In total heaven.’
He grinned. He was blissed out too, just not for the same reasons. Oh, the private villa, delicious food and heavenly stretch of beach were wonderful, especially for a boy who’d known the terror and hardship that Tariq had before meeting Laura. But his past had also taught him that there are more important things in life than beautiful surroundings. Friendship, loyalty and kindness were what counted. That he had found those qualities not merely in his best friend, but in her uncle as well, made his heart feel full to bursting.
He would have laid down his life for Laura knowing that she would, in a second, do the same for him. In St Ives and on Montserrat, she’d proved it.
Back at the villa, Laura threw a Frisbee for Skye before settling into a shady hammock on the verandah. The husky lay on the white boards beside her, washing his sandy paws and licking at his damp belly. He hated to be dirty. He cleaned himself until his wolf-dark fur was once more pristine.
‘Be careful what you wish for,’ Matron had said time and time again to Laura at Sylvan Meadows. But though Laura would never again buy a raffle ticket, she had no regrets. Everything had worked out for the best.
Not, of course, that it had seemed that way when she’d been sitting at the bottom of a dark tank of water with her lungs burning. At that moment, things had been as bad as they could be.
When she heard Skye barking, she’d propelled herself to the surface, followed closely by Tariq. The husky had heaved himself out and they both used him as a crutch to do the same. Then the three of them had lain still for a long time, gasping for oxygen and coughing in the sulphuric air. Tariq and Laura had used their T-shirts as masks to protect themselves from the toxins, and the boy had tied his handkerchief around Skye’s muzzle to protect the dog’s lungs. The mountain still streamed with scarlet ribbons, but the area around them was clear.
What happened next was like a sequence from a dream. Headlights came swerving out of the darkness. The Land Rover and attached caravan bounced into view.
Rupert threw open the door. ‘We really must stop meeting like this,’ he said. ‘Can I offer you a ride?’
When the smoke finally cleared the following morning, Marine Concern had been buried beneath a carpet of grey ash. Thanks to Rupert’s Early Warning system and Tariq’s email, the Gannets had been saved from the volcano and almost all the gangsters, including Little and Large and the men who’d posed as pirates, were in custody. Almost all. Janet Rain was missing, presumed dead, and Rutger had escaped. Mr Pike was going to jail as soon as he was released from the hospital. He was missing a couple of fingers after losing a battle with a shark.
‘Couldn’t have happened to a nicer man,’ remarked Laura.
Her uncle had had plenty of adventures of his own. He’d been kidnapped from the Ocean Empress in exactly the way that Laura guessed – in the conjurer’s box. The pirates had taken him directly to Marine Concern, where he’d been held in a dank dungeon dripping seawater until shortly before the children saw him tied to a chair above the pool.
During his stay in the dungeon, Calvin Redfern had expected to be tortured. He’d imagined that the gang would want to take immediate revenge on him for his past success in disrupting the operations of the Straight A’s and arresting numerous high-ranking members of the gang.
‘Instead, they tormented me by telling me that the two of you had been kidnapped and were being held in Antigua. They didn’t let on that you’d escaped. They contented themselves with driving me out of my mind by hinting at how Celia and Sebastian were making you suffer. They promised that my day of suffering would come, but claimed they were waiting for someone. I was certain that that someone would be Mr A.’
Laura put down her drink. ‘Mr A?’
She turned to Tariq. ‘In over a decade of pursuing the Straight A’s, no law enforcement agency anywhere in the world has come close to discovering the identity of the elusive head of the gang.’
‘Until last night,’ Calvin Redfern put in.
Tariq leaned forward. ‘What do you mean?’
Calvin Redfern held his forefinger and thumb an inch apart. ‘I was this close to getting him. This close.’
Laura said eagerly: ‘Did you see his face? Could you recognise him again? Who was he?’
Her uncle gave a dry laugh. ‘I wish I knew. He wore a Joker mask, a hideous thing. His suit was handmade, but there are a million tailors who could have designed it. Mr A has made it his mission in life to eliminate me, so it didn’t take a rocket scientist to guess that he was going to be the “guest of honour” at the Straight A’s revenge party.
‘After you and Tariq had left, I herded Janet and that bodyguard I call Mr Bones into a storage cupboard in the pool area. Rutger was still tied up. There was no lock on the cupboard door but I wedged it shut. However, I knew it wouldn’t hold long and I had to work fast. I also knew that it was a matter a minutes before Sebastian realised that he was being held hostage by a dead snail. You see, while I was in the water I’d realised the one of the marble cone snails wasn’t moving. When Laura had the genius idea to pretend a garden snail was a killer, it occurred to me that I could do the same with a dead one.’
‘What happened next?’ prompted Laura.
‘It was very obvious that some crisis was unfolding in the aquarium. Water was pouring everywhere and seahorses and a couple of turtles went by. Sebastian was beside himself with fury. At first, we saw no one. My guess was that anyone with sense had escaped the volcano. The same thing must have struck Sebastian because he suddenly made a break for it. As he glanced around, he spotted that the snail was not moving. I could have overpowered him, but I was very worried about your friends, the Gannets, in the hands of Mr McGee.’
He laughed. ‘As you now know, I needn’t have been.’
Laura and Tariq had already heard the story three or four times, but they made him tell it again. How when he burst into the shark area he’d been greeted by the most extraordinary sight. The adult Gannets were tied up near the dolphin pool. Rita was hysterical. Mr McGee was in the shark tank, being circled by a hungry Great White.
‘He was pleading for his life. He looked like a drowning cockroach.’
‘And where was Jimmy?’ asked Tariq, eyes shining.
‘Jimmy was at the instrument panel. As you already know, he’d shown tremendous presence of mind – and courage, mind you – getting past Francine and the guards to make it into the private section of Marine Concern in the first place. Nobody could have blamed him for giving up when he found out the aquarium tour was cancelled, especially since he had no way of knowing whether you and Laura were there at all. And yet he didn’t. He was so determined not to let you both down that he threw himself head first down a laundry chute.’
Laura giggled. ‘It’s such a funny image, although I know it must have been terrifying. When we spoke on the phone, he told me that, as he burst out of the tube, two laundry attendants were standing right there. Luckily they had their backs to him. They were watching television and trying to decide whether or not to flee the volcano. He buried himself under the towels, waited five minutes and found himself alone.’
‘Exactly,’ said her uncle. ‘Of course, then he was in a real quandary. He had to choose between getting away from the volcano himself, or taking a chance that he still had time to rescue you. He chose the latter, which is the reason he’s going to be given a medal for bravery.’
‘He was doubly heroic,’ added Laura, ‘because he then opened the door of the aquarium and was confronted with the sight of his mum and dad, whom he thought were still safely in the museum, as hostages. They were roped and bound and that evil Mr McGee was steering them towards the shark tank.’
‘The most amazing part of the whole thing is that, by the time I arrived on the scene, less then ten minutes later, Jimmy was in charge,’ said Calvin Redfern incredulously.
‘Mr McGee was, as I was saying, floundering in the shark tank, and Jimmy was at the control panel trying to figure out how to save him. If the positions had been reversed that wouldn’t have happened, let me assure you.
‘At any rate, he kept pressing buttons in the hope of either draining the shark tank or releasing the sharks. Unfortunately, the panel wasn’t labelled so the place was awash with water and marine creatures. Each button opened a tank and released a different species. There were turtles and leafy sea dragons everywhere. I was in the midst of untying his parents when two things happened simultaneously. Jimmy hit the button that released both the dolphins and sharks into the sea, and the police ran in. Mr McGee was last seen being washed into the ocean with almost the entire contents of the Marine Concern aquarium, including the creatures with big sharp teeth.’
As soon as he knew the Gannets were safe and would be rescued, Calvin Redfern had dispatched a five-man police squad to find and help Laura and Tariq. That done, he’d raced down to the jetty, where he’d hidden and waited for the gang’s notorious leader, Mr A, to arrive.
‘I thought there was a good chance he’d be coming by water. What astounded me is that he came alone. Unprotected. He pulled into shore on a sleek little speedboat, already wearing his Joker’s mask. He turned off the engine and was preparing to moor when I swam up behind him and put my hand on the edge of the boat. I was so close to him I could have tied his shoelaces. And that’s when it happened.’
‘What happened?’ Laura urged, although she already knew the answer.
He looked at her. ‘The volcano erupted. Up on the cliff road, I could see a stream of flashing lights as the police cars and ambulances carried every last person left at Marine Concern out of the path of the glowing cloud. I was sure you were with them. All of a sudden the waves were almost hurricane force. They came in a tsunami-like surge. Somehow Mr A managed to stay aboard and start the engine. He was gone in the time it took me to fight my way out from under the jetty.
‘I had seconds to jump into a small motorboat and ride for my life. It saved me from the volcano, but overturned shortly afterwards. Fortunately, the waves had calmed by then. However, I can’t say that swimming through an assortment of rare sharks is up there with the most fun I’ve ever had in my life.’
He grinned at Laura. ‘Next time someone offers you the chance to win a free holiday, would you mind counting me out?’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Laura. ‘I’ll be counting myself out.’
Lying in the shady hammock with Skye snoring softly by her side, Laura allowed herself a small smile. She and Tariq had been praised to the skies by Montserrat’s Governor and by Britain’s highest-ranking detective for their role in bringing to justice some of the Straight A’s most notorious gang members. Of particular help were the files that Tariq had saved to the file sharing site. They proved the business links between the gang and the black marketeers who traded in endangered marine species, and would allow those trade routes to be shut.
But so secret were these findings that the authorities were working to erase all traces of the involvement of Calvin Redfern, Laura and Tariq. No one would ever know they’d been in Montserrat. Apart, of course, from the Gannets and Rupert, but they more than anyone knew the threat the gang posed and their lips were sealed. Besides, Project V, Rupert’s Early Warning system, was now being taken seriously and would receive extra funding.
It was odd knowing that no one at school or anyone else would ever know the truth about their adventures, but Laura was fine with that. She agreed with Matt Walker that fame and detection were incompatible. At the same time, it amused her that the Gannets were going to get all the glory.
At some point she must have drifted off, because next thing she knew Tariq was tickling her awake. She opened her eyes. There was a halo of sunshine around him and she thought for a moment how good looking he was and, more importantly, how good. With his white teeth, shiny black hair and caramel skin, he looked as if he belonged to the island. Belonged to Antigua. But, no, she thought, he belongs in St Ives with Uncle Calvin, Skye and I. We belong together, the four of us.
Tariq tickled her again. ‘Come on, lazy bones. Let’s watch the news.’
THE DESTRUCTION OF Marine Concern and capture of some of world’s most wanted men was the lead item on the Globe News Network. A presenter wearing a black toupee introduced the day’s headlines with the words: ‘Meet the ten-year-old British boy whose quick thinking saved hundreds of rare marine species and led to the arrests of some of the leading members of mafia-style gang, the Straight A’s. All this while a volcano was raging.’
A picture behind his head showed freckle-faced Jimmy Gannet receiving a red velvet box containing the keys to the island, a gift from the Governor of Montserrat.
After listing the rest of the day’s headlines – wars, floods, cyclones and stockmarket crashes – the presenter returned to the main story.
‘And now for some good news. Ten-year-old Jimmy Gannet of High Wycombe in the United Kingdom is a hero for our times. While on holiday in Montserrat, he single-handedly saved some of the earth’s rarest marine species from the clutches of the Straight A gang, criminal masterminds responsible for a wave of billion-dollar operations across the world.
‘Join us as we go live to the Caribbean island of Antigua, where Jimmy Gannet and his parents are holding a press conference.’
‘Jimmy Gannet saves the planet,’ Tariq quipped.
‘Shh,’ said Calvin Redfern. He gave Skye a bone, handed the children a plate of lunch and sank into the sofa between them. ‘I’m fascinated by the legend that is Jimmy G. I don’t want to miss a word.’
Jimmy was seated at a long table between his parents, a couple of policemen and a media officer. A thicket of microphones separated them from a packed room of journalists. All three Gannets were dressed from head to toe in white. They looked like a party of angels. Jimmy’s plump face was positively cherubic. Only the pizza stain on his shirt showed that, beneath the clean laundry, lurked their incorrigible friend.
‘Rita, are you surprised that Jimmy saved the day?’ asked the smartly groomed Globe News Network reporter, a woman with a blonde bob, wearing a scarlet suit. ‘From what you know of your son, are these heroics out of character?’
Rita beamed. ‘Not in the least. We always knew Jimmy was special.’ She glanced at her husband. ‘Didn’t we, doll. We believed in him even after he was barred from that crèche. They didn’t understand him, you see. They didn’t know how to cope with a boy of his intelligence.’
‘Exuberant is what he is,’ Bob interrupted. ‘Curious. Not half asleep like some of the kids you find today. I remember once when Rita brought him down to the factory. I’m in the box business, you see, Gannet Boxes—’
‘Mr Gannet,’ said the press officer, ‘may I remind you that this is a live interview. Let’s stick to the subject. Jimmy, tell us in your own words what happened on that day.’
Jimmy flushed. ‘Umm, umm … It’s difficult to explain.’
Watching him, Laura felt a wave of sympathy. It was hard to tell the truth when you had to leave out three of the people involved in order to protect them.
‘Jimmy, as I understand it you entered the shark section of the acquarium to find that Mr McGee, one of the world’s most wanted and most dangerous men, had tied up your mum and dad. He was marching them towards the tank, with the intention of throwing them in,’ said one of the reporters. ‘What happened next?’
‘Jimmy was very brave,’ Rita said.
‘Brave as a lion,’ Bob added proudly. ‘That Mr McGee never had a chance against our Jimmy.’
A huge grin spread over Jimmy’s face. In that minute he felt his whole destiny shift. Never again would he be Jimmy Gannet, the prey of school bullies, the shy, clumsy mouse. He’d faced down sharks and gangsters. He was capable of anything.
‘Actually,’ Jimmy told the reporter, ‘it was sort of an accident. When I saw Mr McGee about to throw my mum and dad to the
sharks, I ran to try to stop him. I was very scared because this one shark kept opening its mouth and it had thousands of teeth.’
‘I’m not ashamed to admit I was screaming,’ Rita put in. ‘There was a lot to scream about.’
‘Go wan, boy. You say it were sorta an accident?’ asked a reporter with dreadlocks.
‘Yes,’ said Jimmy. ‘You see, as I ran up to Mr McGee, I tripped over a harpoon gun that was lying on the ground. The harpoon went straight into Mr McGee’s leg. He made this strangled noise and fell into the pool with the sharks.’
‘It was no more than he deserved,’ Rita interrupted, ‘and if it was up to me, I’d have left him there. But Jimmy has a heart of gold. He rushed over to this electrical panel and was pushing every other button, trying to find a way to either empty the tank or let the sharks out or something. Bob and I were tied and could do nothing to help. Then the door burst open and this man who looked like a hero from a romantic novel …’
‘She was hallucinating by that time,’ Bob interjected, suddenly remembering that they weren’t supposed to mention the tall, dark stranger who’d untied them and dealt with the police with such authority. ‘Apparently that’s what happens when you get overwhelmed with terror.’
The Globe woman said: ‘Some reports are saying that there were other children at Marine Concern that day – a boy and a girl.’
Watching TV, Laura almost choked on her veggie burger. ‘How did that get out?’
‘There are always leaks,’ her uncle told her. ‘Don’t worry. Your names won’t be mentioned. I’ve made sure of it.’
Bob and Rita looked at one another. ‘No, there was only our Jimmy.’
‘What do you say to the people who say you’re a hero, Jimmy?’ the reporter persisted.
Jimmy said, ‘I’m no hero. I just did what anyone would have done. I did meet two real heroes once. They saved my life and afterwards they wouldn’t even let me thank them for it. They said it was nothing. One of them, the girl, she’s going to be a detective when she grows up. She’s going to be as good as that detective in the books, Matt Walker. Better probably. You never know, maybe I could be her sergeant or something.’
Laura Marlin Mysteries 2: Kidnap in the Caribbean Page 15