The Good Thieves

by Katherine Rundell

  She stumbled on to the platform, but the train was making alarming noises – get-ready, get-go noises – and as she limped up, her hand almost close enough to touch the black shining paint, it began to move. The others were already on the train. Arkady’s face in the window was a mask of horror.

  Vita had no time to feel anything, no despair, nothing. Samuel’s face disappeared from the window … and suddenly the door of the last carriage on the train flew open, and a long arm reached out.

  A porter on the platform shouted, ‘Hey! Stop that!’ and Vita half jumped, half fell forwards.

  Her hand closed on Samuel’s, he shouted, ‘Hep!’ and she was heaved on to the floor of the train. The door slammed shut behind her. The porter on the platform, who was young, with the feeble traces of an unsuccessful beard, put his tongue out at them and made a rude gesture.

  ‘Thank you!’ said Vita, and Samuel grinned.

  ‘We couldn’t leave without you. You’re the just-in-case.’

  They found Arkady and Silk sitting two in a row on the bench-seat of a small compartment. Samuel and Vita dropped on to the padded bench opposite. All of the others, she saw, wore their disguises.

  The collector entered, took their tickets, nodded approvingly at Silk’s sweet smile, at their general spruceness, and moved on. And the train thundered on through the night, away from the city and towards the unknown.

  They pulled into the train station deep in the pitch-black night. Mist hung low on the ground, and they clambered out on to the dimly lit platform, stamping their feet to wake up their toes.

  Nobody else got off, and there were no porters. The station was no more than a single platform, a stationmaster’s lodge, and the darkness of the countryside stretching away in every direction. A horse coughed and neighed nearby.

  ‘Where now?’ asked Arkady.

  Vita put the return tickets in Samuel’s hand. ‘You look after these, OK? We’ll get the station cab to take us – Grandpa used to tell me about the cab driver. He’s very old, and he sleeps above the station.’

  ‘Will he mind being woken?’

  ‘Not if we pay him double. I’ve saved up all my dollars. We won’t ask him to take us all the way – we’ll walk the last bit.’ She saw their eyes glance, in unison, down to her leg. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  She put her hand into her coat pocket.

  There was nothing there.

  She tried the other pocket. ‘The money …’ she muttered. She began to turn the pockets out.

  Silk was immediately alert. ‘What money?’

  ‘The money for the taxi!’

  ‘Are you sure it was in your coat pocket?’

  ‘Positive!’ And then the memory flared up. ‘That boy! There was a boy in the station – he jostled me! He was one of those boys, that day in the alley!’

  ‘Did he do a two-step? Left, and then right – and make a face like it was your fault?’

  ‘Yes!’ said Vita. And then, as the full horror of what this meant sunk in, ‘He’s a pickpocket, then?’

  ‘His name’s Fergus. He’s got a black hole where his conscience should be. I’ll kill him when we get back!’

  ‘Can we walk instead?’ asked Samuel.

  ‘Not before sunrise,’ said Vita. ‘It would take hours. We’d never get there in time.’

  ‘So what do we do?’ Arkady turned to her. His eyes were too trusting to meet full on.

  Vita shivered. She suddenly felt very small, and very young, and very foolish – just a schoolgirl in the middle of nowhere, with a handful of storybook delusions.

  The horse neighed again, and it sounded like a mocking laugh.

  But Arkady’s face suddenly broke into a grin. ‘Horses!’ he said. He turned to Samuel. ‘Can you hear that?’

  Samuel caught Arkady’s meaning instantly; he turned, listened. ‘There’s two!’

  Arkady began to run towards the sound. ‘It’s probably a mare – quite old, from the whinny – let’s hope not too old to ride!’

  So they left the pool of light of the station, and went, half sprinting, half groping, into the dark. Vita pulled the torch from her coat and shone it ahead of them. The road was paved but weathered, with potholes deep enough to twist an ankle in.

  The horses were in a field looking on to the road, two dark blurs in the night. The gate was rusty, sealed with a vicious twist of barbed wire, but Arkady, Silk and Samuel cleared it at a jump, and Vita clambered carefully after them.

  The horses smelt them coming and took off, neighing high and scared, to the far corner of the field. Samuel and Arkady exchanged glances.

  ‘Do you want help?’ asked Samuel.

  Arkady shook his head. ‘Easier just them and me.’ He left the pool of light cast by the torch and went, sure-footed over the grass, following the noise and smell. Vita heard his whisper on the wind, ‘Ne boisya. Don’t be scared.’

  The three waited, huddled close but not quite touching in a corner of the field, trying not to listen to the strange rustlings in the dark trees above them. The cold was insidious; it crept into every pore of Vita’s skin. There was a sudden sharp whinny in the dark, and an answering murmur in Russian.

  Then there was a laugh of delight, and a thump, and into the pool of light rode the boy, sitting high on a black horse. Behind came a bay mare. They had no tack, no reins, but they responded to Arkady’s every call and touch.

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Arkady, ‘before someone comes.’

  Samuel crossed to the mare and stroked her. ‘She’s strong,’ he said admiringly. ‘She’ll be fast.’

  Silk was looking in horror at the horses. ‘I didn’t realise they’d be so big!’ she said.

  ‘You’ve never seen a horse?’ asked Arkady. He sounded, in the dark, horrified.

  ‘Of course I have!’ Silk’s voice was shrill. ‘But not up close!’

  ‘Then why are you scared? Are you allergic?’

  She took a deep breath, and her old sardonic voice tried to restore itself. ‘Normal people aren’t rich enough to know if they’re allergic to horses. They’re just … big, is all.’

  Arkady held out his hands, cupped, at the side of the horse. ‘Put your foot here and swing up – it’s far easier than climbing a drainpipe.’

  ‘Drainpipes don’t bite,’ said Silk, but she put her foot in his hands and he propelled her, with only a little scrambling, on to the mare’s back. She sat hunched, her fur-trimmed white coat bulging at the front.

  It took some work, and a lot of help from Arkady, for Vita to clamber on to the other horse’s back, but for once she barely registered it. The swing and buzz and hope of the mission had come back in a burst that warmed her veins, as Arkady leaped up in front of her. Then Samuel was up on the mare, and they were facing the fence that separated them from the road.

  ‘Who first?’ asked Arkady, and, ‘Together,’ said Samuel – and without warning the horses were charging at the posts.

  ‘Grip with your knees!’ called Arkady, and suddenly Vita was flying over the gate, tipping so far back she was at right angles to the ground, and then the horses landed, clattering, on the deserted country road.

  ‘Where?’ asked Arkady, his voice low.

  ‘That way,’ said Vita. She pulled the map out of her coat pocket, and shone her battery torch at it, just to be sure. But she knew it by heart: she had looked at it a thousand times. ‘Follow that star,’ she said.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Vita’s torch cast shadows through the trees, giving the branches elbows and hands and guns. Arkady whistled a tune, but the sound was thin and piping, deadened by the weight of the forest overhead, and he stopped at a look from Silk. Vita turned up her coat collar, and they rode on in grim silence.

  Finally the trees began to thin. Beyond the forest were wild meadows, unfarmed and untouched, and then muddy sandbank, and the sound of the river.

  ‘We’d better leave the horses here, in the wood,’ said Vita. ‘They’ll attract attention.’

  She
swung down on to the ground. It was further than she’d judged, and she landed hard, skinning one knee. She thought of her grandfather’s long, strong fingers, wrapping bandages around her scrapes when she was young, and scrambled to her feet.

  Arkady slid to the earth as easily as if stepping out of bed, and offered his hand to Silk. To everyone’s surprise – including her own, from the look on Silk’s face – she took it.

  Arkady led the horses a few yards back into the forest, looking for somewhere that provided grazing. They came at the click of his tongue.

  ‘Shouldn’t we tie them?’ said Silk.

  ‘What with?’ said Arkady.

  ‘Can’t you – I don’t know – tie something round their necks?’ said Silk.

  ‘They’ll wait,’ said Arkady. ‘I know them, now.’

  ‘Which way?’ asked Samuel. Three pairs of eyes turned to Vita.

  ‘This way,’ she said, leading the way out of the trees. ‘Wait a second, the moon’s coming out from behind that cloud. There! Hudson Castle!’

  The eyes followed the direction of her hand.

  ‘Ah,’ said Silk. ‘You weren’t exaggerating when you said “Castle”.’

  It looked like it had been designed by someone who had seen more castles in picture books than in the flesh; it looked like someone had sought the essence of castle.

  The ornamental lake was edged with trees, the water blue-black. Rising on stone foundations from the middle of the water was a wall, and beyond the wall a garden, surrounding on three sides a great block of brick and stone.

  The castle was topped with a single turret and battlements, silver-black in the moonlight. One wall of the castle dropped straight into the water, and its reflection glinted and shimmered, fairy-tale-like. Vita’s whole body thrilled and shook at the sight of it. It was real.

  ‘My great-great-great-grandfather saw it in France,’ said Vita. ‘He knocked it down, and rebuilt it here; it came out a bit wonky, actually: the turret’s falling down. Everyone said he was mad, but he said, if that was true, at least he’d be mad in a castle, and they’d be sane in a house.’

  ‘Where’s the boat?’ asked Samuel.

  ‘Hidden under a willow tree, to the west side of the lake. It’s called Lizzy, after my grandmother.’

  ‘What if Sorrotore found the boat and sold it?’ said Silk.

  ‘It wouldn’t be worth anything,’ said Vita. ‘It’s so old.’

  ‘Well then, what if it leaks?’

  ‘There’s no point in fighting about a possibly non-existent boat,’ said Samuel. ‘Let’s go and see.’

  They ran in single file towards the lake, the long grass jabbing at Vita’s knees through the material of her dress. They startled two rabbits, who took off across the wild grass.

  ‘It’s so quiet,’ said Silk. ‘I’ve never been anywhere so quiet in my life.’

  But even as she spoke, a noise tore through the air, rough and high and angry. Barking.

  ‘That’ll be the guard dogs,’ said Vita. She looked at Arkady, whose eyes were narrowed.

  ‘German Shepherds,’ he said. ‘Two years old, maybe two and a half. Probably both male.’ The bark came again. ‘They’ve not been properly cared for – can you hear the scratch in the second one’s voice? It’s had an infection that wasn’t treated. So they’ll probably be hungry.’

  The boat was exactly where Grandpa said it had always been.

  They reached the edge of the lake, listening for human voices, and Vita crawled through the shrubby trees that grew along the muddy shore, skirting the thorn bushes as best she could in the dark, until she reached the wooden canoe.

  Grandpa had said it was bright green, the colour of Lizzy’s eyes. In fact, the paint had peeled so much that it was mostly brownish grey, but there were places where the colour still lingered. Vita picked off one of the splinters of paint and put it in her pocket.

  The other three came running in a doubled-up crouch. They ran like what they were – a collection of acrobats and thieves – and their feet were completely silent across the muddy sand. They gathered round the boat and pushed it into the water.

  Silk glanced over her shoulder. ‘And you’re sure there’s no nightwatchman?’

  Vita shook her head. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘You don’t think?’

  ‘Why would there be? There’s the guard, but he sleeps in a cottage on the other side of the lake. At night there’re just the dogs.’

  The barking came again, deep and rough-edged.

  ‘Oh good,’ said Silk.

  There was a brief scuffle over who should row. Silk solved the matter by seizing an oar and brandishing it like a sword while Vita grabbed the other. At first they both splashed haplessly in the water – ‘Shh!’ hissed Arkady – but then they got into the rhythm of it, and they moved almost silently across the glass surface of the lake.

  Samuel sat in the stern of the boat, looking up at the vast brick wall as they drew closer and closer. The map had showed a small landing jetty round the other side of the lake, but it was in full sight of the caretaker’s cottage; instead they rowed straight at the garden wall that rose, looming, out of the water.

  ‘Apparently,’ said Vita, ‘my great-great-great-grandfather saw the houses in Venice, which drop straight into the canal, and thought it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, like a woman rising from a lake, he said. So he got his engineers to—’

  ‘Can we save the architectural history for the train home?’ said Silk between clenched teeth, hauling on the oar.

  They were close to the wall now. It was built of large grey bricks, rough-hewn and well cemented.

  ‘Here?’ asked Samuel.

  ‘I think so,’ said Vita. And then, trying to sound more certain, ‘Yes, exactly here.’

  Samuel stood up in the boat, barely rocking it. The carefully blank politeness with which he faced the world had vanished. His eyes were growing wild and fierce, and the edges of his mouth were beginning to twitch.

  Arkady turned to Samuel. ‘I don’t see how you’re going to—’

  But Samuel shook his head, holding up a hand for silence. Behind his eyes were six dozen calculations. His lips moved as he murmured under his breath, and his fingers quivered by his sides. He reached into his bag and pulled out a rope; it was a huge, heavy coil.

  ‘No grappling hook?’ said Arkady. ‘I thought you’d have a hook on the end of it?’

  ‘The wall’s too thick,’ said Samuel. ‘I’m doing it my way.’

  He pulled off his shoes, tied the rope twice around his waist, then looped the remainder over his shoulder, the movement making the boat rock under him. Vita reached out and tried to grasp the wall, but there was nowhere for her hands to gain purchase.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Keep the boat still.’ He leaned over, reached up to the wall and pushed his fingers into the gap between two bricks.

  ‘Samuel!’ said Arkady. His voice was suddenly full of panic. ‘Don’t! It’s not possible to climb a sheer brick wall!’

  It is not possible to climb a sheer brick wall. It is not possible – unless you grew up climbing as close to the sky as you can get. It is not possible, unless you decided at the age of five that you would fly and spent the rest of your life finding a way to do so.

  Samuel reached higher up, and his fingers found another gap, digging in against the mortar. He pulled himself up, his feet scrabbling against the stone. Steadily, silently, he rose.

  Vita sat frozen to the spot, her eyes prickling, her breath shaking with the skill of it. It was Arkady who got to his feet, unsteadily, to stand underneath his friend, arms half outstretched. Vita and Silk stood too, and they waited, ready to catch him when, as he surely must, he fell.

  But Samuel was nearing the top, and he was moving fast now; astonishingly fast. One arm swung up over the top of the wall, there was a gasping, heaving noise, and suddenly there was a boy in neat grey trousers and the look of an aristocrat sitting astride the bricks. He settled
himself with one leg dangling either side, and lay the front of his body flat against the top of the wall. Then he let the rope cascade down to the boat.

  ‘Come on up!’ he whispered. ‘Vita first. It’s her wall.’

  Vita shook her head, and felt the flush in her cheeks. She had, secretly, been dreading this moment. It was dark, but even so she did not want them to watch her struggle with the rope. ‘I’ll go last. I’ll take longest.’

  Silk spoke quietly in the dark, and there was no sarcasm in her voice. ‘We’ll wait,’ she said.

  Vita’s hands were wet with sweat. She grasped the rope, found her grip suddenly slippery and unreliable. She wound her right foot in the rope, and used her left foot to press upwards, ignoring the cry of pain in her Achilles tendon. She reached up, seized a spot above her head, and hauled herself up a few inches.

  ‘Good,’ said Samuel. ‘Unwind your right foot, and do it all again. Just six inches. Don’t think about yards – think about inches.’

  The wind blew her hair in her eyes and mouth as she climbed. She didn’t look down, but up, at Samuel’s beckoning face, hauling herself hand over hand. He half dragged her up the last foot, and she sat, upright on the wall.

  ‘Now Silk,’ said Samuel.

  Silk’s hands were quick, but her legs were long and awkward, and she glared at Arkady below her when he offered help. It was as she reached the top, and Vita and Samuel were pulling her up to sit alongside them, that the barking rent the air.

  A dark shadow came tearing across the grass towards them.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The rope tightened, and Arkady’s head appeared, like a jack-in-the-box, at the top of the wall. He nodded to Samuel; the two understood each other without words. Arkady heaved the rope up one side of the wall and dropped it down the other; Samuel braced himself, and Arkady grabbed the rope and slid down it, wincing as the rope burned his hands.