by Danny Weston
The cab driver’s eyes widened for a moment. He was clearly tempted. Then he hunched down over the wheel. ‘I know a few short cuts,’ he said.
Owen looked back. The Daimler was dangerously close now, so close that he could see the grim expressions of the two men travelling in it. Neither of them looked friendly.
‘They’re getting very—’ Owen broke off as the cab turned suddenly sharp left into a narrow, winding lane. The manoeuvre threw him sideways onto his seat and he landed heavily on top of the suitcase.
‘Careful!’ snapped Mr Sparks.
‘Quiet!’ hissed Owen. He looked back. He saw that the big black car had failed to make the turn and was racing on past.
‘That’ll buy us a bit of time,’ said the taxi driver. ‘There’s a few more like that between here and the station.’ He studied Owen in the mirror of a moment. ‘So tell me about this plot,’ he said.
‘Plot?’
‘To blow up the building. Which one was it?’
‘Oh, I … I think they said something about the … the Houses of Parliament.’
‘Of course! That makes perfect sense. Another reason why you have to get to London?’
‘Er … yes.’
The driver looked puzzled. ‘But … if they’re planning to do that, what were they doing in Llandudno?’
‘I think they … wanted somewhere out of the way,’ said Owen desperately. ‘Where they could draw up their plans without being disturbed.’
‘Well, they’d certainly get that in Llandudno,’ admitted the cab driver.
Owen sensed rather than saw movement behind him. He looked back and the Daimler had reappeared, catching up by the second.
‘They’re coming!’ he shouted.
‘I thought it would slow them up more than that,’ muttered the cab driver. Now the other vehicle was trying to edge around the side of the cab, but the road was too narrow to allow it and the sides of the Daimler ripped chunks of greenery out of the hedgerow. The car’s horn blared indignantly as though demanding that the taxi cab slow down.
‘Oh, pipe down, Fritz,’ muttered the cab driver. ‘Now, somewhere round ’ere, there ought to be … ah!’
He wrenched the steering wheel hard to the right and the cab shot through the open gates of a field and went juddering and bouncing across the uneven ground. Once again, the Daimler raced on by, but the sound of its squealing brakes told Owen that it wouldn’t be long in correcting the mistake. He tried to ask the cab driver where they were going, but the vehicle was bouncing so violently, he couldn’t actually form words. Several rude ones, however, came out of the suitcase as it was flung up and down on the seat. Owen slapped a hand on it. The cab descended a steep hill, then levelled out as it slid through a patch of mud and plunged headlong through a narrow gap in a hedge. There was a violent bump as it went over a rough kerb, then angled sharp left and with a manic screeching of tyres, raced on along an even narrower lane than before. On either side of them hedges clattered and banged against the bodywork.
‘This is playing hell with my paintwork,’ complained the cab driver. ‘Who’s going to pay for it? That’s what I’d like to know.’
Owen reached into the money belt and pulled out another tenner. He waved the two of them at the driver. ‘How far now?’ he demanded, remembering to breathe.
‘Just up the road a bit. You should see the … ah!’ He broke off in an obscure Welsh curse as a familiar-looking radiator grille appeared in the mirror behind him. ‘Don’t those Huns ever give up?’
The cab swung sharp left again onto a wider road and now Owen saw ahead of him the imposing grey stone entrance of the station. The cab driver brought the taxi to a squealing, shuddering halt. Owen pushed the two ten-pound notes at him, grabbed the suitcase and jumped out of the cab. As he did so, he was horribly aware of the Daimler, pulling into the forecourt a short distance behind him. He didn’t hesitate but ran through the open doors of the entrance and straight past the ticket booth, ignoring the indignant shouts of the moustachioed man behind the glass. He caught sight of a sign that read TRAINS TO CHESTER and ran onto the platform, aware as he did so that a train was already there and beginning to move away.
‘We’re too late!’ yelled Owen, but the voice that answered him from the suitcase was in no mood for compromise.
‘We’ve got to catch that train, Owie!’
Owen took a deep breath, put his head down and went in pursuit of the train, stretching his legs out and pumping his free arm like a marathon runner. He came up alongside the rear carriage, but the train was already accelerating, the engine pumping out great clouds of steam. Behind him, Owen heard a wild yell and when he glanced briefly back, he saw that the thinner of the two men was gaining ground on him, his long legs eating up the distance between him and his quarry. The second man trailed some distance behind.
Owen looked to his right again and fixed his gaze on a particular door – the last door of the last carriage, the only one he had any chance of reaching. He saw that the window of that door had been left slightly open, so he put everything he had into one final push, hoping against hope that he could make the leap. And then, suddenly, just as he was steeling himself to do exactly that, a man appeared at the door. He opened it and leaned out, one hand hanging onto the door frame, the other extended, offering his help. Owen weighed up the distance, snatched a quick breath and leaped, throwing himself across the space. He seemed to hang in the air for a long, silent moment and then the toes of his feet thudded onto the small wooden step that jutted out from under the door and his left hand found the welcome grasp that was being offered to him. His right hand, stretched out behind him, still held the suitcase and Owen realised, even as he hung there, that the thin man was reaching out his own arms to make a grab for it. The man lunged, just as Owen snatched the case out of his reach and allowed his saviour to pull him into the carriage. The door slammed shut behind him with a loud thud. Owen collapsed onto the floor and sat there, gasping for breath, hugging the case against him. Then he realised that several pairs of eyes were looking down at him. He glanced up to see that he was in a compartment with three other travellers, two women and the man who had pulled him to safety, a big wiry-looking fellow with dark hair and a thick moustache.
‘Well that was close,’ he said and his companions laughed, more from relief than anything else. ‘Pity the other chap didn’t make it. Your father, was it?’
Owen shook his head. ‘Never saw him before in my life,’ he said and allowed himself a smile. He got to his feet, turned back to the door and stuck his head out of the window. Back on the platform, already dwarfed by distance, the bowler-hatted man was helping his lanky colleague to his feet. Owen felt reckless enough to give them a little wave. Then, picking up the suitcase, he stowed it on the luggage rack and settled himself into a spare seat beside his saviours with a long sigh of relief.
‘Are you all right?’ asked Wilkins, helping Quinn up. Wilkins was breathing so heavily from the run, he could hardly speak.
‘Do I look all right?’ hissed Quinn, scowling. He brushed the dust off his trousers with a gloved hand. ‘That little— I almost had the case, Wilkins! It was inches away.’
Wilkins nodded, understanding his employer’s frustration and noting, not without a certain satisfaction, that Quinn’s world-famous composure was finally beginning to crack. ‘Well,’ he gasped, ‘we know where … where the train’s ’eaded.’ He pointed to a sign on the station building. ‘There’ll be a phone in the … office here. All we need to do is get the … Chester police to arrest the boy when he steps off the train. Then we’ll … drive up there and …’
‘What if they get off before Chester?’ asked Quinn.
Wilkins frowned. ‘Well all right, we’ll … we’ll phone the police at every stop along the way. I’ll call in a few favours. And then we—’ He broke off. Five men were approaching them along the platform. Four of them were dressed in railway uniforms and they were accompanied by the man who had been drivin
g the taxi cab. They all had grim expressions on their faces. Wilkins decided to take the lead. He stepped forward, smiling jovially. ‘Ah, gentlemen, I’m … so glad you’re ’ere. Perhaps you can be of assistance? We’re police officers and—’
‘We know who you are,’ said the first uniformed man, a grey-haired fellow who Wilkins took to be the stationmaster. ‘This gentleman …’ He nodded to the cab driver. ‘… has told us all about your wicked plans.’
‘Our … what?’ cried Quinn.
‘You have to hand it to them,’ said the cabbie. ‘They’ve disguised their voices well enough.’
Quinn laughed. ‘What are you talking about?’ he cried.
‘We take a dim view of you people coming over here to try and disrupt this country,’ said the stationmaster. ‘So you two can just wait with us until the police arrive and then you can have a nice long talk with them.’
‘We are the police!’ snapped Wilkins.
‘Yes, and I’m Kaiser Wilhelm,’ said the cabbie.
‘Have you gone mad?’ snapped Quinn. ‘Now look, we need to go to your office and use your telephone.’
‘Oh, I bet you do,’ said the stationmaster. ‘You’d love that, wouldn’t you? Then you’d be able to phone your associates and leave them a coded message!’
‘You …’ Quinn and Wilkins exchanged baffled looks. ‘Look,’ said Quinn, pointing at the cab driver. ‘I don’t know what this imbecile has told you, but we’ve no intention of waiting for the police. We have urgent business to attend to. Now kindly step aside and let us pass.’
One of the uniformed men, a big, brawny fellow with a black moustache, took a step closer. ‘Yes, go on, Fritz, please try and get by me. That’d make my day that would! My older brother died in the trenches.’
‘Fritz?’ Quinn thought about it for a moment and then the penny dropped. Despite the awfulness of the situation, he couldn’t help but laugh.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Wilkins, still mystified.
‘They think we’re Germans,’ said Quinn.
‘We don’t think, we know,’ said the cab driver. ‘And we’ve no intention of letting you anywhere near the Houses of Parliament. So you boyos aren’t going nowhere. And just to make doubly sure, I’ve punctured every tyre on that fancy German car of yours! So stick that in your pipe and smoke it!’
10
Portsmouth
Owen hurried along the quayside, clutching the paper bag of supplies tightly to his chest. Darkness was falling and the weather had turned cold and stormy, the sky a roiling fury of bruise-black clouds. Powerful gusts of wind stirred the restless grey waves into violent motion against the quay, throwing up explosions of white foam. Owen was tired and hungry and he didn’t even want to think about the last couple of days, days which had dissolved into an exhausting blur of train and motorcar travel as he and Mr Sparks had made their way steadily southward to the coast.
Owen spotted the feeble light above the door of the filthy little guesthouse in which they were lodging and stepped gratefully in off the street. They’d arrived in Portsmouth only a couple of hours earlier and Mr Sparks had instructed Owen to bring him straight to the Alhambra. Owen got the impression that Charlie had stayed here before, but it was hard to see any appeal. It certainly had none of the charm and cleanliness of Aunt Gwen’s hotel and he couldn’t imagine why the dummy had chosen it, but he’d already learned that it didn’t pay to put up any argument. Mr Sparks did as Mr Sparks wanted and there was no other option but to go along with him. The desk clerk had raised an eyebrow when a twelve-year-old boy asked for a room for the night, but the fact that Owen had offered to pay up front in cash had soon smoothed over any misgivings.
Owen walked across the badly lit foyer, which smelled strongly of paraffin fumes. In a tiny cubicle in one corner, a desk clerk, a thin, furtive-looking fellow, was sitting reading a newspaper. He didn’t even glance up as Owen walked past and made his way straight up the narrow staircase to the first floor.
He tapped gently on the door of room nine and then went in. Mr Sparks was sitting on the scruffy single bed, where Owen had left him, propped up against a couple of pillows. He looked vaguely comical with one of Owen’s vests wrapped tightly round his head, but there was nothing comical about his mood, which had grown steadily darker as they’d journeyed south.
‘Did you get the stuff?’ he growled.
‘Yes. Sorry it took so long but it wasn’t easy to find the—’
‘Never mind that. Get over here and have a look at my head.’
Owen bit his lip, thinking that the odd ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ wouldn’t go amiss, but he didn’t say anything. He walked over to the bed, sat down beside Mr Sparks and began to unpack the contents of the paper bag: a roll of bandage, a tin of sticking plasters, a pair of scissors, a can of putty and a loaf of bread. Mr Sparks looked down at the latter in bemusement. ‘What did you get that for?’ he asked.
‘I was hungry,’ protested Owen. ‘I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast. It’s all right for you, you’ve no idea what it feels like to have an empty belly.’
‘Yes, yes. Well, you can eat just as soon as you’ve taken care of my poor noggin.’ He glared at Owen. ‘I can’t believe I let you talk me into seeing that mad mother of yours!’
‘I didn’t talk you into anything!’ protested Owen. ‘I didn’t even want you to see her. I told you to stay in the case.’
‘Well, I wish you’d managed to convince me. I was only trying to help, and look where it got me.’
‘You scared her,’ said Owen. ‘I’m still not sure why she took such a fright.’
‘Because she’s barmy,’ snapped Mr Sparks. ‘Someone like that should be locked up, where they can’t harm others.’
‘She is locked up,’ Owen reminded him.
‘Yes, well she needs to be restrained. She could have killed me.’
‘It was just a bit of a bump.’
‘A bit of a bump? Is that what you call it? I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s permanent damage. Even as I sit here, I can feel my mind … going.’
Owen looked doubtfully at his purchases and frowned. ‘Are you sure that putty is the right thing?’ he asked. ‘I mean, it can’t be very—’
‘It’s a temporary measure,’ Mr Sparks assured him. ‘Just until I can get the job done properly.’
‘Well, I suppose you know best.’ Owen reached up and began to unknot the vest from around the dummy’s head. ‘This might hurt a bit,’ he said. It was hard to believe that a lump of wood could actually feel pain, but Mr Sparks had complained of it all the way here and sure enough, as Owen pulled the fabric away from the wound, the dummy’s face registered an expression of pure agony. ‘Aargh, be careful!’ he snarled.
‘Sorry.’ Owen examined the temporary bandage, which was badly stained with dark grey fluid. ‘What is this stuff?’ he muttered.
‘It’s my teapot,’ said Mr Sparks.
‘Your what?’ cried Owen.
‘Er … my … my …’ Mr Sparks grunted as though unable to find the right words. ‘My thoughts. My … mind. All right, now, take the tin of putty and lift off the bicycle …’
‘The what?’
‘The … the lid! Use the scissors to prise it up. There, good. Now, get some of the putty out and knead it until it’s nice and soft. Yes, that’s the way. Work it between your fingers. Now, my boy, take some of the putty and gently … gently, I say! Work it into the … the …’
‘Crack in your head?’ suggested Owen.
‘Precisely. Be careful though, because … aargh! That’s so sore!’
‘Sorry.’ Owen tried to be as gentle as he could but he’d never had to do anything like this before and he didn’t have the least idea if he was going about it the right way. After a few minutes of pushing and prodding, which elicited a whole string of grunts and curses from Mr Sparks, he’d managed to fill in the entire length of the ‘injury’ with a seam of khaki-coloured sludge. He sat back and surveyed his h
andiwork. ‘I think that’s it,’ he said.
‘You’re sure? There’s nowhere left where anything can … leak out?’
‘No, I think I got it all.’
‘Good. Right, take a bandage and wind it tight … I mean, really tight around my onion … my head! Yes, that’s right. Now I … owww! Owie, I’m not being funny, but don’t ever consider taking up a career in medicine. You haven’t got the hands for it.’
‘Sorry, I’m sure,’ said Owen. He wound the bandage several times around Mr Sparks’ head and secured it in position with a strip of adhesive plaster. ‘There,’ he said. ‘All done.’
Mr Sparks gave a sigh and slumped back against the pillow. His pink face seemed paler than usual and Owen was amazed to see drops of moisture on his forehead as though he was sweating. His eyelashes fluttered for a moment and Owen thought that he might be about to drift off to sleep, but then he seemed to remember something, and the eyes opened again. ‘Did you do the other thing?’ he asked. ‘The errand?’
Owen nodded, reaching for the bread as he did so. ‘The very first thing, just like you said. I called to the address you gave me, but Mr Nail wasn’t there. An old woman in a wheelchair … I think it must have been his mother, she didn’t say … she said he was out on a job at the docks, so I left her our address and asked him to call here.’
‘Did you impress upon the woman how urgent it was?’
‘Yes, I told her we had to see him tonight.’ Owen broke off a crust of bread and began to tear at it wolfishly, swallowing down large chunks without bothering to chew it.
Mr Sparks watched him disapprovingly. ‘You wouldn’t win any prizes for good manners,’ he observed.
‘I’m starving!’ protested Owen. ‘If you’d let me stop for a proper meal on the way here, I wouldn’t be eating like this.’
Mr Sparks seemed to soften a little. ‘Owie, I’m sorry about this, I really am. The way it’s worked out and everything. You know, once we’re clear of those people, I’ll make it up to you. I’ll buy you those clothes I promised you. And we’ll make sure you get some decent grub. It’s just, with everything happening so quickly, there was no time to think. And I was afraid I was going to lose my cabbage … er … my envelope … er … my mind!’