Murder in Time

by Veronica Heley

  Ellie shushed. She damped down panic. She told herself that Mikey wasn’t panicking, so she mustn’t, either. It would do absolutely no good to start screaming and shouting to be let out. Mikey was expecting her to be calm. After all, he might be able to think of something. He’d certainly learned a lot about electricity and plumbing last year when a neighbouring house had been undergoing conversion to a hotel. He’d forever been over there when he should have been doing his homework.

  Besides which, if she gave way to hysteria, Evan would get upset and start screaming, and that would not be a good idea. Not at all.

  She walked the baby around the room. There were two long windows overlooking the street. She took Evan to look out of the nearest one, parting the net curtains so that he could look out. They were on the third floor in a terrace of beautiful houses. Four storeys? Five? The drop outside this window went down and down into a basement. She spent a moment or two wondering how she’d manage to climb down a rope from that window – that is, always supposing she had a rope, which she hadn’t – and especially with Evan in her arms. She concluded that, as she’d never been much of a gymnast, Abdi was correct in thinking she’d not be able to get out that way.

  There were trees in the street and topiary in tubs outside the porticoed front doors. She let the net curtains drop and fingered the heavy brocaded inner curtains which were of silk damask and looked expensive. They were double-lined and looped up with tasselled cords. Each window was alarmed. What was the time now? Her watch was still stopped. She really must get it seen to. How soon would Thomas or Vera realize they were missing, and what would they do about it?

  Mikey went into the bathroom, but didn’t take any of his new clothes in with him.

  Someone – a woman who looked to be a servant – arrived with a tray holding tea things; tea, milk, ice cream, cakes and sandwiches. Also some small bowls containing gooey-looking foodstuffs. Ellie helped herself to a cuppa and a sandwich. Evan looked interested, so she let him have half a sandwich. Mikey returned, closing the bathroom door behind him. He refused sustenance with a shake of his head.

  ‘Can I help?’ asked Ellie.

  ‘I can manage. There’s no one outside our door. I suppose they think it’s not necessary since we can’t escape through the windows, and there’s so many of them downstairs. There’s no fire extinguishers on the landing, but I expect they’ve got some somewhere. I had hoped there’d be some kind of Internet connection here so that we could phone out for help, but there isn’t one. I expect they’ve got Wi-Fi, but even if I can find a computer somewhere I don’t know the code, so I can’t use that. I’ll have to try something else.’

  He removed the brightest of the side lamps from a side table and plugged it into a socket beside one of the windows. He switched it on and placed scrunched-up toilet paper over the bulb. Then he draped one of the net curtains over all. And waited.

  Ellie fed Evan sips of milk and tried out the contents of the little dishes by dipping her finger in and tasting – whatever it was. This one was honey. Or very like it. Honey and yogurt? Evan could have some of that. ‘Yum yum,’ she said to the baby, who smacked his lips and opened his mouth for more.

  ‘Ah,’ said Mikey, pleased with himself. A spiral of smoke arose from the lamp, and then came a flicker of fire, darting up the net curtain.

  ‘Clever old you,’ said Ellie, looking round for her coat and handbag.

  ‘This should set off the sprinkler system. I think we should try to vacate this room as soon as possible, don’t you? Where’s your coat?’

  ‘I think I left it in the bathroom.’

  ‘I’ll fetch it.’

  When Mikey returned with her coat, he was careful to shut the bathroom door after himself. She noticed that the carpet around the door to the bathroom had turned black. Good. Now, where had she put her handbag? One really did not wish to be caught in a fire, did one? Cue for a hasty exit. She said, ‘I don’t know what happened to the baby buggy, do you?’

  ‘It’s still down in the basement, with my school bag. Let me hold Evan while you get your coat on.’

  She handed the baby over and got into her coat. ‘I wish they’d managed to find him a dummy.’

  The fire was licking its lips as it ran up the net and started on the heavy curtains.

  Mikey eyed the window which he’d not set fire to. ‘Suppose we set the house alarms off before we go?’ Grinning, he picked up a spindly-legged chair and took a run at the window, only to rebound. Bang!

  ‘Is it toughened glass?’ said Ellie. ‘It doesn’t look like it. Try again.’ Evan didn’t like sudden, loud noises. He stiffened and began to wail.

  ‘Ha!’ Mikey smashed the chair against the window again. This time he succeeded in breaking the glass, and the house alarm went off.

  ‘Well done, you!’ said Ellie, just as the sprinkler system went into action. ‘Help! We’re going to get wet!’

  Ducking their heads, they ran for the door.

  Ellie hoisted Evan to her shoulder, hoping he wouldn’t be sick when he burped. He didn’t like being bumped about like this. He was going to start yelling any minute. He was fighting to get off her. It was difficult to hold him fast. She mustn’t drop him. Whatever would Diana say …?

  Mikey held the door open on to the landing for her, and left it open. ‘To help the fire along …’

  There was no one in sight on the landing, and the yammering of the alarm covered their retreat. Mikey peered over the banister. He shouted in her ear, ‘We’ll have to take the stairs. The alarm might stop the lift working.’

  ‘Three storeys. Or is it four?’ Ellie groaned, shifted Evan to a more comfortable position, and gave her handbag to Mikey to carry so that she had a hand free for the banister as they descended. Evan had had enough. Just as he was starting on a nice meal, he’d been roughly carried away. He added his voice to the din.

  The yammering of the alarm continued. Panicky shouts came from below. They’d be running around downstairs, trying to locate the source of the alarm. The fuse box should tell them which floor was in trouble. Would the sprinkler system also say which room was affected?

  Third floor, or was it the second? Ellie shifted Evan from left to right shoulder. They should have realized that trying to cage Mikey was like trying to cage the wind.

  Was that someone pounding up the stairs? Yes. Oh dear …

  Mikey had heard, too. He opened the first door they came to and beckoned her to follow him inside. The room was empty. It was an expensively furnished sitting room, complete with a huge television set, stereo equipment … and a laptop.

  As Mikey closed the door someone ran past them, going up the stairs. Shouting.

  Mikey grinned. ‘Bang, bang: you’re dead!’ He darted across to the laptop, picked it up, held it high over his head, and brought it down with a crash on the edge of the table.

  Ellie gasped. Evan jerked in her arms and howled.

  Mikey did it again. There was a rattling sound. Mikey threw the ruined laptop on the floor.

  Ellie opened the door a crack, to see a second man running up the stairs past them, eyes wild, shouting to someone upstairs … who shouted back down. They’d found the fire and the broken window, then? Had they also discovered that their prisoners had escaped? She shut the door, breathing hard. Would they search this floor next or assume they’d gone out of the window?

  Mikey said, ‘Hold on a mo.’ He opened drawers in the desk, searching for something. He took out a tube of … superglue? And squeezed it into the power plug points and over the remote control for the television. Then threw the tube under the desk.

  Ellie had the jitters. If Abdi caught them now …? ‘Hurry up!’

  ‘One more window, then!’ This time he used the broken laptop to smash the window. Yet another alarm went off. Evan had quietened down momentarily, but this set him off again.

  Ellie was on tenterhooks. ‘Come on!’

  Mikey nodded. He cracked the door open an inch to look out, and si
gnalled OK. They could hear shouts from above. The lift whined, passing them, going upwards. Dealing with the fire, or searching for the escapees?

  They left the shelter of the room to descend the next flight of stairs. With caution, keeping to the wall so that they wouldn’t be easily seen if someone glanced over the banister. More shouting from the top floor. They heard the lift descending. Someone had gone down for fire extinguishers? Or looking for the prisoners?

  So, the fire hadn’t put the lift out of service.

  How long was it going to take before Abdi realized they were still in the building? Windows had been broken on two floors, and he might well suppose they’d gone out that way, if they’d found a rope – or tied bedclothes together … although Ellie had never thought that method of escape would be as easy as it sounded.

  Down and down to the next landing. More shouting from below, echoed and answered from above. Which floor would they search next?

  Ellie paused to catch her breath. Evan was unhappy, wriggling like mad, yelling in her ear. She shifted him to her other shoulder. He was making almost as much noise as the alarm.

  Mikey gave her a look, assessing her strength, hiding impatience. If he’d been on his own, he’d probably have been out of the building before now. She knew she was holding him up. But he was a good lad. He realized she wasn’t as nimble as he was, and he wasn’t going to urge her to go faster, but she knew – and he knew – that at any minute …

  The yammering continued. Ellie told herself that it couldn’t be too difficult to isolate the fuse dealing with two different circuits and take them out of action … Or was it? She’d heard that you could have your alarms linked to the mains, which foiled burglars who thought they could cut off the alarm by removing a fuse or two. If this was so, what would it take to shut off the alarm? They’d have to shut off the electricity to the whole house. Would they know where the master switch might be? Perhaps that was what they were searching for, down below?

  Down, down. Slowly. With care. The shouting continued. No one could hear what they said. The lift went up again.

  If only Abdi didn’t appear to block their retreat! More screaming from above. More advice shouted up from below. Surely, Abdi would come rushing up the stairs in a minute, to direct operations!

  Mikey held up a hand at the top of the stairs leading down to the ground floor. A woman was screaming, down in the hall. Was she the one who’d brought up the refreshments? A man; no, a couple of men were shouting up the stairs, and others were answering back from above. Whatever language it was, it appeared they were not happy about the situation. Where was Abdi? Wrestling with circuit breakers or fuses or whatever?

  Out in the street, searching for some indication of an escape?

  Mikey signed for Ellie to stay put. She stayed. Mikey opened doors, one after the other. The noise was appalling. Evan didn’t like it. He screwed up his eyes and threw himself around. Ellie tried to cover his ears with her free hand. She tried putting his head under her coat. That didn’t work, either.

  Mikey beckoned. He’d found a door leading to some back stairs. A time switch was on the wall. Would it still work? Mikey punched it and, hooray, they had light. Which meant Abdi hadn’t yet found the master switch for the house.

  They made their way down and down … how many steps down? Surely they were on the ground floor now?

  Ah. A door, opening out … into the garage space in the basement. Good.

  No one there. Even better. They were probably all faffing around upstairs.

  The heavy door closed behind them. Relief! Down here you couldn’t hear the alarm bells. How wonderful silence could be!

  Four cars. Well, they couldn’t drive out in any of them. No keys. Anyway, Ellie had never learned how to drive. Mikey went to the garage doors and tried them. ‘I can’t shift them. They’re electrically operated.’ He thumped one in frustration.

  How were they to leave the house through those substantial, electronically operated doors?

  Ellie was tired of holding Evan, who was grizzling but not in full voice at the moment. Ah, there was his buggy. Thank goodness! She strapped him in, and jiggled. She’d give anything to sit down and rest herself, but there wasn’t a chair or a bench in sight. She tried the door of the Mercedes to see if she could rest there a while, but it was locked.

  Bother. Even if she listened hard, she couldn’t hear the alarms from where they were. Well, that was good. She wondered what would happen if Abdi failed to halt the spread of the flames. Would the fire spread to another room? How long could the sprinklers keep going? Were they linked to the mains? She envisaged a blackened, sodden room. And smiled.

  Evan calmed down. His eyes switched right and left, up and down. He liked the shine on the door of the car, and he tried to grasp it with one podgy little hand. Evan liked cars.

  Ellie wondered how to disable a car. They were always disabling cars in books. Removing some tender part of them. But which part, and what would it look like? There was also something, if she remembered rightly, about pouring sugar into the petrol tank. Only, she hadn’t any sugar on her. Pity. And no keys to get into them, anyway.

  Ellie looked around. Would a house like this have CCTV? Probably. Where would the cameras be? Probably covering the front door … and the garage doors, too. How on earth were they to get out of here? Even if they could open the garage doors, they’d be visible the moment they left the house. If they could find a way of getting out.

  Mikey made a helpless gesture. ‘Got any ideas?’

  Ellie gestured to a tool rack at the back. And there – eureka! – was a tyre iron. ‘Fancy a jemmy?’

  Mikey grinned. ‘Wow, yes! But first, let’s set off some more alarms!’ He took the jemmy and smashed it against the side of the Mercedes, which reacted like an offended dowager. Whoopee! Another alarm. Evan screamed. The sports car next. Nice big dents in the side panels, which would need the attentions of a body specialist and then a repaint job. Then the people carrier. It was quite possible that the people in the house wouldn’t hear the noise. Or would they?

  Finally, Mikey turned his attention to the garage doors.

  He put the tyre iron under the bottom of one door and tried to lift it. It wouldn’t budge. But yet another alarm went off. Now that one would sound up above, wouldn’t it?

  Mikey sank to the floor. He hadn’t the strength to lever the door up. He let the tyre iron drop from his hand.

  Defeated.

  Mm. Ellie really couldn’t stand the noise any longer. She wondered if the lift were still working. She didn’t fancy manoeuvring the buggy up those nasty back stairs. She pressed the button to summon the lift, and – hurray – it arrived.

  Perhaps it was on a different electrical circuit from the one governing the alarm system? Perhaps they’d got the electrics sorted out above? Well, it was better to risk it than stay there to be discovered. ‘Come along,’ she said. ‘Don’t forget your school bag. You’ll need it on Monday.’

  He picked it up, moving slowly, dragging his feet. She got the buggy into the lift and pulled Mikey in after her. He didn’t want to go. He’d overtaxed his strength and was as limp as could be.

  Up they went to the ground floor. And the doors opened just as they should. Bravo.

  Ellie’s limited knowledge of burglar alarms informed her that some, especially those attached to expensive properties, had a direct line to the local police station. She hoped that Abdi’s house had just such a line. On being alerted to a problem, the police might first ring the house to see what had set the alarms off, but hopefully in this case they would have assumed the worst and sent someone across in double quick time to enquire who was breaking into one of their most prestigious establishments.

  So, let’s hope.

  Ah, as she had anticipated, there was a knot of policemen, as well as Abdi and several of the servants, in the entrance hall. All explaining, shouting, expostulating. The front door was open. The alarm upstairs was off, but for the garage door it was
still all systems go.

  Everyone fell silent as Ellie and Mikey appeared and walked straight past them to the front door.

  ‘Hey!’ said one of the policemen.

  Think fast, Ellie. You can’t yell ‘kidnap’ or you’d have to explain about Vera, and that’s the last thing we want to do. Can you spare a moment, Lord …?

  ‘You are needed downstairs,’ said Ellie. ‘Some poor man, perhaps a druggy looking for somewhere to kip down, seems to have got in and has been creating mayhem. You might still catch him if you’re quick.’

  ‘But who are—?’

  ‘A neighbour,’ said Ellie. ‘A visitor, now going home. Isn’t that right, Abdi?’

  Abdi gaped. And recognized defeat. He held up his hands. ‘That’s right. A neighbour, now going home.’

  ‘And one of your people took our mobile phones to top them up for us. Perhaps you’d let us have them back now?’

  ‘Of course.’ Abdi shot a look at one of his men, who handed them over as if they’d stung him.

  Ellie said, ‘Thank you so much. So thoughtful of you. I won’t trouble you for a lift home. Is there a taxi rank on the corner?’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ In a hurry to oblige. ‘Would you like someone to go with you, see you safely home?’

  ‘No, thank you,’ said Ellie. ‘We’re fine on our own. Come on, Mikey. Time for tea. Your mother will be worried if she gets home before we do.’

  THIRTEEN

  Friday evening

  ‘Well, I never!’ said Rose, when she heard what had been happening. ‘Why didn’t Mikey call the police on his mobile?’

  ‘They took our mobiles off us in the garage,’ said Ellie. ‘And there was no phone in the room where we were held.’

  ‘Couldn’t he have emailed us on his little thingamajig?’

  Mikey grinned. ‘It’s called a netbook, Rose. No, I couldn’t unless I knew how to get into their Wi-Fi. I did think about emailing someone on the laptop we found in one of the rooms, but we’d already set the alarms off, and I didn’t have time. Besides, I would have had to explain the threat that Abdi was holding over us, and Mum doesn’t want that. When I saw the police had arrived downstairs, I nearly died, but Mrs Quicke talked us out of the house without giving anything away and got us our mobiles back.’