It was Ivo who noticed. He looked at Felix for confirmation, and felt his heart beating faster when Felix nodded. Standing just behind a pretty girl on whom the camera was focused was a face that Ivo recognised. It was the face of one of the men who had gone into Blackwood’s carriage. And the face of the man who had chased Felix and Miranda into the café. It was their tutor.
.
Chapter Three
The bespectacled face stared out at them from the newsprint. Miranda sat up straighter, her eyes flashing uneasily; Felix leaned forwards, his face set into a quizzical expression, whilst Ivo toyed with a packet of sugar. Around them the room was hushed, the waitress rushing back and forth, the cash register ringing out every now and then. Occasionally the door would bang open and a gust of sharp cold air would enter; people would stand for a moment, blinking, and then settle into a quiet corner. A dog snuffled glumly under a table.
‘Now that is weird,’ said Ivo. ‘He got on to the carriage where Blackwood died, I’m sure. And you know what was even weirder? They were trapping Blackwood. He was running away from them, I know it.’
‘What do you think he was doing there?’ asked Miranda. ‘Perkins, I mean. Do you think he’s got something to do with the bomb? Oh my God I can’t believe it. If he has, our parents will go crazy . . . oh my God, Felix, how can you just sit there when something like this happens?’ She kicked her brother, who threatened to punch her back in mock anger, curling his hand up into a fist, and distorting his face into an excellent imitation of a sneer.
‘It wasn’t a bomb,’ said Ivo. His voice made the two stop.
‘Well, I don’t know what to call it. What would you call it?’ There was a challenge in Felix’s voice.
Ivo shrugged. He was feeling uncomfortably hot. Suddenly this friendly café seemed to be closing in on him, the builders at the table next to him appeared larger, more threatening, the waitress to be glaring at him, and slicing through his thoughts was the image of the hand, soft, glistening, bloody, three times as large in his imagination as it had been in real life.
‘I’d call it murder,’ said Ivo.
‘Murder? Who was murdered?’ said Miranda, leaning forward, her eyes lighting up with interest. ‘We love a good murder story. We’ve got all the Agatha Christies, and Felix has started on Dorothy Sayers, but I don’t like those so much, do you?
‘Not really,’ said Felix. ‘Although I quite like those Father Brown ones, have you read those?’
Miranda began speaking in a reporter’s voice. ‘Intrepid ace Ivo Moncrieff stumbles upon a conspiracy and saves the day!’
Felix joined in, laughing, but Ivo cut through it.
‘I don’t . . . This is serious. This is real, and it’s . . .’ He stopped, not wanting to mention the black stone, and the strange words which Blackwood had said before he had died. ‘Koptay thurson. Remember: Koptay thurson.’ He had known he would die, Ivo had seen that in his eyes. This was his last, desperate act, giving the object to a boy he didn’t know. And why had he done that? It would be mad, an empty gesture, unless . . . unless he had not wanted those following him to get it. Which must mean that it was important, and, now Ivo had been entrusted with it, that he too was in danger. Those people, and the tutor, Perkins, could they really have torn Blackwood apart?
‘I need . . . I need to find out what happened,’ he said. He felt in a choking way that a net was being drawn around him, that the dim, vague future was forming into a clearly defined and dangerous path. His quiet life had so far been undisturbed by anything more exciting than being told off by his housemaster for having an untucked shirt. Now he was embarking into the unknown, and it was scary, and it was exhilarating.
Miranda pushed her hair back, tying a blue scrunchie round it. ‘I wonder if this has got something to do with what Perkins was up to the other day? I hope not.’ She lifted her tea in her long white hands.
‘You know what?’ said Felix. He aimed a jet of air at his purple-black fringe. ‘I think you should come with us.’
‘Why’s that?’ said Ivo, folding up the newspaper and stuffing it into his rucksack.
‘We found something strange . . . you should see it. It might help you find out about what happened. Who knows?’
‘Yeah, and if it doesn’t, it’s pretty cool anyway.’
‘What is it?’ said Ivo.
‘That, you’ll have to wait and see. Coming?’ said Felix, in a deep voice.
Ivo nodded, pleased that he had made two friends so quickly. They left the tiny café, paying for the teas, joking with the waitress as they did so, and then Miranda grabbed Ivo’s arm, leading him out into the street. Horns beeped aggressively, sirens wailed in the distance, a pall of fear hung over London as its citizens mobbed around, uncertain of the dangers that hid in their midst. Ivo felt it creeping into the cracks of buildings, emanating from the ground itself.
It was raining, and they began to run, slowly at first, then leaping over puddles, whooping round corners, and Ivo began to feel free and happy. They dashed through knots of startled pedestrians, drab workers on their way back to offices; laughing and shouting, they then turned a corner.
‘Hey,’ said Ivo. ‘This is where I’m staying. My aunt and uncle live here.’ Charmsford Square, it was, though it looked far from charming, the houses looming grey and grim. ‘Lydia and Jago Moncrieff.’
‘Awesome!’ said Felix. ‘We’re on the corner.’
They headed over there and jumped, jostling, up the stairs to the door, Ivo suddenly anxious that Lydia might spot him out of the window.
‘Quick,’ he said, as Felix fumbled with his keys, and soon they were all piling into the hall. ‘What about Perkins?’ said Ivo.
‘Perky? It’s OK, he’ll have taken himself off to the Science Museum or something so he’s got something to show our rentals. He’ll buy a souvenir and pretend he took us with him. He did that the other day.’
‘He’ll run out of places to go soon, and then he’ll be in trouble.’ Felix and Miranda laughed. They had a very similar way of laughing, and Ivo felt an envious pang as he watched the siblings share their joke. As they marched on ahead he trailed behind them, feeling shy and awkward.
Ivo looked around in amazement. Their house, identical on the outside to his aunt and uncle’s, was inside nothing like the comfortable, homely clutter of 43 Charmsford Square. It was all steel, black and white squares, abstract sculptures and acres of empty space. The whole right wall of the hall was an aquarium, filled with tropical fish, glowing with blue light; and the stairs that led up to the first floor were made of glass too. Ivo watched an octopus making its way up, and let out a small gasp.
‘You like?’ said Miranda, her face tinged from the blue glow.
Ivo nodded, dumbly. ‘I . . . I think so,’ he said, although he wasn’t exactly sure whether like was the right word to describe his feelings.
‘Ma’s an interior designer. This is like, the eighteenth time she’s changed the inside. You can never put anything down in this house because you never know when everything will change,’ said Felix. ‘It is so annoying. I once left my iPod on a green chair in a green room, and when I came back downstairs about three hours later the whole thing had gone. There was like a red chair and some builders and Ma said she’d no idea where my iPod had gone. Dad hates it even more.’
‘Yeah, he’s always leaving papers on the table and finding them gone. And he’s a politician,’ continued Miranda. ‘Lots of secret files and stuff.’
‘Yeah, secret,’ said Felix sarcastically.
‘So where are we going?’ said Ivo.
‘I just need to get a couple of torches, and then we’ll show you.’ Felix disappeared off down the corridor; Ivo stood fascinated by the aquarium, watching the fish. Miranda sat, somewhat disdainfully, in a chair, tapping her foot on the ground.
‘Where are your parents?’ asked Ivo.
‘Ma’s at her office, in Mayfair,’ answered Miranda, ‘and our father works in Whitehall somewhere. Pretty dull, actually. They know your aunt and uncle – they’ve been to Christmas parties over there. I know I heard Daddy asking if we should get Lydia to paint Ma.’
At this point Felix returned, grinning. ‘You two getting on OK?’ he said. Miranda made a face, and Ivo blushed slightly.
‘Come on,’ said Miranda impatiently, and opened the front door, ushering Felix out, who made a mock bow as he left. Miranda turned to Ivo and grimaced, shooing him out in front of her. Back out in the cold, Felix pattered down the steps, jumping down the last couple, and gestured to them to follow.
‘So . . . what’s up?’ said Ivo, slightly nervously.
‘Well, last week,’ said Miranda, ‘me and Flixter gave old Perky the slip. It was Tuesday, and our parents were really busy, and there was no one else in the house, and so we thought we’d just leave. So we did. We thought we’d wait for him to leave too, and then we’d go back in the house. We were hiding in the square garden, and we saw him go out, and then, I don’t know why, we thought it might be funny to follow him, because . . .
‘Because,’ chimed in Felix, ‘we couldn’t really believe that Perkins had any sort of existence outside our house.’
‘I mean, you know, you’ve seen him,’ said Miranda. They were walking along the south side of Charmsford Square, the side on which the Rocksavages had their house; the Moncrieffs were on the northern side. They turned right, down towards the Marylebone Road, and crossed it at the lights, jumping up and down from the cold.
‘And we followed him, laughing quite a lot, obviously,’ said Felix, ‘and really not being very good spies at all.’ They entered a small side road, on which there was nothing but an abandoned office block and a couple of half-derelict houses.
‘We were just about to give up and go home,’ continued Miranda, ‘when we saw him stop here.’ She pointed to the office block. It looked very dejected. There wasn’t a single window that didn’t have a crack in it, and it was plastered with signs that read ‘DANGER’ and ‘CONDEMNED BUILDING’.
‘So he went in here?’ asked Ivo.
‘We didn’t actually see him go in,’ replied Miranda.
‘But he must have,’ said Felix.
He led them round the side of the building. Ivo shivered, both from the icy air and from excitement. He exchanged a glance with Miranda, and felt that she shared his trepidation. Felix raised an arm, pointing at a pair of doors that looked like they led into a cellar. ‘He came round here and then disappeared. He must have gone in here.’
‘So whaddya think?’ said Miranda. ‘Shall we have a look?’
‘We didn’t go in before,’ said Felix. ‘Miranda was scared.’
‘Miranda was scared? You were the one who suddenly started squealing.’
The siblings stood facing each other for a moment in silence, and then turned to Ivo, who nodded quickly. Felix bent his head once, as if confirming his thoughts about Ivo, and said, ‘Good man. Help me open these.’ He aimed a kick at the doors, and Ivo did so too. Thump after thump, they kicked at them, until eventually the lock caved in.
Miranda jumped from foot to foot, rubbing her hands. ‘God, I’d go in there now anyway,’ she said. ‘It’s so cold out here.’
Ivo peered into the opening. He could just about make out a flight of steps leading down into the darkness. He stopped at the edge.
‘You all right?’ said Felix.
Miranda was already on the third step down.
‘Can’t catch me!’ she called, and, suppressing his fears, Ivo followed her, Felix coming close behind.
Blackness. Ivo could hear his heart thumping.
The passageway was musty. It was tall enough to stand up in, and wide enough for Ivo not to be able to touch both walls at once. He could hear the earth around him, full of subtle noises. He imagined creatures slinking in their tunnels, the tube trains sliding in and out of platforms like hideous white snakes, fat with their human cargoes. Ahead he could hear Miranda feeling her way along the walls, occasionally giggling and shrieking a little. Behind him was Felix, relaxed, whistling under his breath.
Something jumped at him – a face, ghastly, half-illuminated. Ivo faltered for a minute; it was Miranda. She pointed the torch at her own face, showing only her cheekbones and her forehead.
‘What is this?’ said Ivo, in hushed tones.
‘Who knows? Follow me.’
Felix appeared. ‘Here, take this.’ He pressed something cold and hard into Ivo’s hand. ‘Maglite. Come on.’
They crept on. Damp filtered through Ivo. After about five minutes or so, during which Ivo began to feel that he was becoming hypnotised by the darting beams of light from the torches of Felix and Miranda ahead of him, his own showing up patches of damp and mould and brick, the wall that he had been running his finger along came to an abrupt end.
‘Look,’ said Felix. ‘There’s a door here.’ A faint light was coming from the other side. Felix took the handle. ‘Ready?’ They looked at each other.
‘OK,’ said Miranda. ‘Three . . . two . . . one.’
Felix pushed at something, and switched his torch off, pulling Ivo with him.
Light flooded Ivo’s eyes, making him blink in the shock. He took in a large, cold, institutional-looking room, with stacks of containers placed around the edges – dozens of them, all piled up higgledy-piggledy, with papers and tools and bits of old electrical equipment pouring out of them. The space was about the size of a classroom, and there were doors at both ends of it. A few fire extinguishers provided a splash of violent colour against the uniform whiteness of the walls. The lighting was fluorescent and bright, casting long shadows over the mass of objects. There were desks, and office chairs, and even what must have been an old computer – a large, cabinet-like thing with spools of tapes and many incomprehensible switches. Ivo half expected it to turn itself on and start buzzing, like some haunted machine, but thankfully it remained still.
‘Pretty cool, huh?’ said Felix, running into the middle and flopping on to a chair, releasing puffs of dust. ‘God knows what Perky was doing down here. This place has been abandoned for years,’ he said, holding up a desk diary that said 1965.
‘Maybe there’s a whole network,’ said Miranda.
‘I think it’s, like, something to do with the Cold War,’ said Felix. ‘You know, bunkers and stuff, and biological warfare and nuclear weapons.’
‘Weapons of mass destruction,’ said Miranda.
‘You’re a weapon of mass destruction,’ said Felix. Ivo laughed.
‘That’s right, Ivo, laugh at Felix. He is so funny I can hardly contain myself.’
Miranda grimaced and sat down. Felix leaped up and grabbed the back of her chair, spinning her around faster and faster, Miranda shrieking with delight. ‘Spin me too!’ said Felix, jumping on another, and Ivo did, and soon they were all laughing.
‘What was that?’ said Felix suddenly, stopping himself with his feet. Ivo’s snorts died down. Miranda came to a creaky halt. They fell silent. A rhythmic, clanking noise was coming from nearby: noise like people walking. The three looked at each other for a second. Unease had slithered into the marrow of their bones. Ivo could feel warning signals flashing through his body, as if he were a small mammal that could sense the presence of a hawk above him. He obeyed those signals instinctively.
‘Come on, hide,’ said Ivo, surprised at himself, dragging Miranda and Felix behind a stack of large boxes that stood next to the entrance they’d come in by. Ivo pulled them down just as the doors on the other side of the room were flung open, and they heard the marching of feet and the murmur of voices. Through a crack between the boxes, Ivo could see the shapes of some figures. He motioned to Felix and Miran
da to keep quiet. Miranda shrunk down next to her brother, who put his arm around her.
They watched as the figures came into the centre of the room, and heard somebody throw themself into a chair. ‘So,’ said a voice, ‘we eliminated Blackwood.’ An ecstatic cry filled the air, coming from many people’s throats, sounding like a pack of hounds. ‘One more gone! But . . .’ and the voice changed a little, became a little entreating, ‘he did not have the Koptor.’ The word shot through Ivo’s brain like a bolt.
‘It has been lost. Now,’ he said, over mutterings, ‘there is nobody to blame for this. It was to be expected. So we will set our best agents on it, and perhaps we ourselves will take an interest if there are no developments. We must find it! Perkins, I will entrust this to you.’ There was silence after he spoke. Then, hesitantly, someone said, ‘Will you show us?’
‘Ah. You want to know what it feels like? To be free?’
Ivo could feel expectancy in the air.
‘Yes,’ came Perkins’ voice and others added their assent.
‘Well . . . it would not be good to spoil it now, would it? Maybe, just a little . . .’ The voice began to sing, sonorously, two syllables – a long ‘eee’, and then ‘oh’. Eeeyoh, eeeyoh. It was a wonderful sound. It made Ivo’s skin prick with pleasure. The other people in the room joined in. A strange light spilled out to where the three were hiding, and they slid further back. They could no longer see anyone. Ivo let the sounds wash over him, and into him, let the voice become a part of him. He could feel it stretching into every inch of his body. He was alive with it. Happiness coursed through him. He could see that Miranda and Felix were experiencing the same thing, and suddenly knew this was wrong, just like it had been on the tube. Don’t give in, he commanded himself. Felix released Miranda and sprang forward and, alarmed, Ivo grabbed him and held him back.
‘I want to see!’ he hissed at Ivo. ‘Get off me.’ Ivo shook his head and pinned Felix’s arms to his sides. Miranda, who had shut her eyes, opened them. Taking in the situation, she too put her arms around Felix and held him back. Felix struggled a little. He kicked out, and a box almost toppled over, but the people in the room were too wrapped up in their chant and did not notice.
The Liberators Page 3