Where Peacocks Scream

by Valerie Mendes

  They stepped into Phil’s hallway. He closed the door, giving Daniel a very long stare. Then he sighed.

  “All right, then, Dan, if we’ve come this far with that villain in tow, I’ll go along with what you want. I’ve got a friend who owns a boat along the river. Give me half an hour on the phone. I’m not making any promises, but I’ll see what I can do.”

  Daniel changed his clothes. He parcelled up the stinking jeans, walked into the kitchen and put on his watch. He sent Joshua a long text and shoved his mobile into his pocket.

  Phil had poured them tall glasses of orange juice. Daniel drank his in several long gulps. All the time he could half-hear Phil’s voice on the phone, murmuring questions, issuing instructions, checking details.

  He sat there, his heart racing, his fingernails biting into his palms.

  This plan of theirs had to succeed. If it didn’t, he couldn’t imagine what vicious revenge Jasper would take next. But there were only a couple of hours to put the plan into action… If the narrowboat wasn’t an option, they were sunk, river or no river…

  Fifteen minutes later, Phil pushed through the door, his face flushed, his blond hair ruffled. “We’re in luck.”

  Daniel felt his cheeks flame with relief. “I can’t believe it. Thank you so much, Phil. You’re a star.”

  “It’s times like these when you know who your real friends are.” Phil flopped onto a chair. He grabbed his glass of juice, his hands shaking. “Guys who’ll do you a favour without asking tricky questions.”

  Very few people came to The Riverside that evening, and those who did hadn’t heard about the fire. They left soon afterwards, murmuring excuses, sympathy, apologies.

  Mum had disappeared to London.

  “I drove her to the station this afternoon,” Dad said. “She’s sorry she didn’t say goodbye, but she knew you’d understand. She’ll stay with her sister Annie for a few days. She was desperate to get away… It’ll be only the second night we’ve spent apart since we were married. The other one was my overnight stay in hospital in the summer. I’ll never get to sleep without your mother by my side.”

  Daniel’s heart sank. He desperately needed Dad to sleep like a log tonight.

  He said, “Will she be all right?”

  “She’ll be fine.” Dad’s forced cheerfulness tried to convince himself. “Your mum’s tough as old boots. It’s partly why I love her. Can’t abide namby-pamby women. She’ll be back before we notice it. She’s not one to make a fuss about nothing.”

  He hesitated for a moment. Then he said, “We’re going to try to spend more time together when she gets back. Like have one evening a week out on our own, away from the pub… We seem to have grown apart recently.” He flushed. “She was in floods of tears this morning and a lot of accusations came tumbling out… Things we should have said to each other long ago… Good thing, too. Helped to clear the air. Got a lot to do with how busy we’ve been in the past few months, specially after that Jasper fellow arrived.” Dad bit his lip. “Can’t say I miss having him around the place, trotting around in his dressing-gown at all hours of the day and night. Something about him I never really trusted… Bit of a slime ball, if you ask me.”

  Daniel choked into his soup.

  “Anyway, enough about me and my problems… Did you have a good day at school?”

  Daniel looked across the table at his too-busy-to-notice-anything, honest, straightforward, innocent father. At that particular moment he loved him very much.

  “Oh, you know,” he said carefully. “It was pretty ordinary.”

  “I expect everybody wanted to hear about the fire.”

  “Something like that.”

  “Tell you what, Danny… ”

  “What?”

  “That Phil the Boatman… He’s a really great guy, isn’t he? Brought your mum and me a couple of thermos flasks this morning. Wasn’t that the kindest thought? We were parched with shock. He’s one in a million.”

  At ten o’clock Daniel marched up to his room.

  He’d checked his study, just to make sure Jasper wasn’t hiding behind the door. A thin smell of smoke still hung in the air.

  “Tomorrow,” Dad said, “I’ll get the maids to open the windows, do some more cleaning. The place will soon feel like new… You sleep well, now… I’ve had the fire alarms repaired. I’ll check them every night from now on, come what may.”

  Daniel propped himself in a chair by the window and stared out as the dusk deepened into twilight and then into a clear, cloud-free, sharply moonlit night. He heard Dad pottering about, running a bath. Finally his bedroom door closed and everything fell silent.

  Daniel felt strung up like a taut trapeze-act wire, not sleepy at all. It was probably just as well. He was going to need his wits about him, big time. He didn’t trust Jasper further than he could spit.

  He knew the man would turn up. He knew he’d have the dirty money with him.

  But he guessed that Jasper would still have a trick or two up his sleeve.

  Frank Jasper wasn’t a man who’d allow himself to be beaten by anyone, let alone a small, skinny, freckle-faced boy who fitted so conveniently into a wheelbarrow.

  Double Bluff

  Phil was waiting for him outside his front door.

  He murmured, “Let’s hope this little expedition goes according to plan. If you come to any harm, everyone will blame me for not looking after you.”

  They walked swiftly down to the boatyard.

  Phil checked his watch. “It’s a quarter to twelve… The owner of the narrowboat called round at ten o’clock, as we’d arranged. He’s stacked it with fresh food, enough to last Jasper a week. And he’s given me a set of keys.” Phil glanced at him. “I still don’t know why we’re bothering to help that monster. I feel like pushing him into the river and watching him drown.”

  Daniel clenched his fists. “I know how you feel… Hang on for another half an hour and we’ll be shot of him, hopefully for ever.” He swallowed, reluctant to think about his family. “Dad seems to have recovered from the fire, but it gave my mum a terrible shock. She’s gone to London. Dad still hasn’t a clue about what happened between her and Jasper—”

  Phil gripped his arm and whispered, “Quiet… He’s over there, by the river, waiting by the launch.” He whistled softly. “I stood outside my front door for a whole hour, watching out for him. It’s like he’s appeared from nowhere. How does he manage it?”

  Jasper stood, still as a post, his legs astride, staring across the river.

  He’d replaced his shambling-gardener outfit with a black leather jacket, dark trousers and a black cap covering a head of blondish curls. As he turned towards them, Daniel noticed that Jasper had also decided to dump the grey beard in favour of a pale moustache. He was sucking at a pipe, as if he hadn’t got a care in the world. The sweet, tangy scent of tobacco floated into the air.

  At Jasper’s feet were two bags. One looked like an overnight case. The other was the bag of money.

  “Ah, there you are,” he said, airy, nonchalant, the pipe clenched between his teeth, as if the three of them were meeting for a midnight feast, not his own furtive getaway. “I wondered whether you’d manage to pull it off… I trust you haven’t got the place crawling with cops.”

  “We haven’t,” Phil said. “You’re extremely lucky we’ve turned up at all. You can thank Dan here and his powers of persuasion. I’ve done the organising, pulled some strings and got you a narrowboat. It’s in excellent condition and will take you wherever you want to go. But only because Dan is desperate to have you out of his life for good and all.”

  “I can assure you the feeling’s mutual.” Jasper tapped his pipe out on the heel of his shoe, shoved it into his pocket and picked up the bags. “Shall we get started? I can’t wait to see the back of this place… The island, The
Riverside, the boatyard, the whole infernal lot of you… You make me sick to the eyeballs.”

  Daniel almost burst out, “There’s gratitude, you scumbag!” but he remembered the lethal flash of steel Jasper had threatened him with on Godstow Road. That knife was probably at the ready, in the man’s pocket. He bit back the words and stayed silent.

  Phil stepped neatly into the launch. Daniel followed. Jasper hesitated for a long moment. He scanned the river, the boatyard, the island, the adjoining field, as if he suspected they might be hiding clutches of armed police. Then he too stepped in, with the bags. Daniel felt the launch sag beneath the weight.

  Phil revved the engine. It coughed, caught and hummed. Within seconds, they were chugging away from the bank into the centre of the river. The air suddenly felt cooler, sharper, greener.

  A surge of excitement and fear throbbed through Daniel’s body. He’d never been out on the water at the dead of night, and had often wondered what it would feel like. He wished it were just him and Phil, out on a jaunt. A high, round moon shone down on them, lighting their spray of foam.

  Jasper nudged him with a leather-clad elbow. “This is more like it, eh, Danny-boy? Life on the open river… Used to remember what this was like, after the bailiffs arrived, after we were chucked out of our home… Memories of it haunted my dreams. I’d wake up sweating and cursing that it wasn’t real.”

  Daniel felt a wave of loathing for the man wash over him. He made an attempt to find out any new details he could give the police. “Where will you go, once you’re on the narrowboat?”

  “Haven’t a clue, lad… Upstream, downstream… Wherever the fancy takes me.” He dug Daniel in the ribs again. “Only joking… Got everything mapped out to the last inch… Planning and preparation, that’s the secret of success. Proved that over and over in my life. Built a scam, see, to make my millions. The money came rolling in. People are greedy, they’ll fall for anything. It’s easy as pie when you know how. Think everything out, cover your back. Get out while the going’s good. Never leave anything to chance. Stands to reason, don’t it? If you’re always ten steps ahead of the enemy, they can never catch you up.”

  Phil drove them skilfully to the top of Bossum’s Boatyard.

  Twenty or thirty narrowboats, sailing boats and yachts of different sizes lay moored on the bank, the water lapping around them. He switched off the launch’s engine and they stood for a moment listening to the silence.

  “Yours is the Huckleberry Fin.” Phil pointed to a clean, bright, carefully maintained boat that lay ahead of them. “Move about her quietly. Some of the boats have people sleeping on board.” He looked at Jasper with extreme distaste, adding sarcastically, “You don’t want to draw attention to yourself, do you?… Here are the keys.”

  Without a word of thanks, Jasper grabbed them, picked up the overnight case, pushed past Phil and stepped onto the bank.

  “If necessary,” he said, “I can fade into thin air.” He nodded towards the bag of money at Daniel’s feet. “There’s your loot.”

  Daniel picked it up. Then he threw it with all his might across the launch. It landed on the grass beside Jasper.

  “We don’t want it,” Daniel said, his voice icy quiet. “We didn’t find you an escape route for the money. Like Phil said, I want you out of my life.” Suddenly his anger overcame him. “Take your dirty money and drop dead.”

  “You mind your tongue, Danny-boy.” Jasper gave a contemptuous snort. “Did you really think I’d pay you for your troubles? The stuff in that bag is counterfeit. It’s well executed, made to pass muster. Guys like you would never notice the difference. But it’s fake. I wouldn’t want to be caught using it.”

  He swung his leg and kicked the bag into the river.

  The heavy splash hid Daniel’s gasp.

  Then, swift as an arrow, Jasper slipped along the side of the bank and onto the Huckleberry Fin.

  “Quick.” Phil revved the engine. “We’d better get back to my house as fast as we can.”

  Daniel watched Jasper in his black leather jacket disappear into the hold of the narrowboat, like a worm slithering into a damp patch of earth.

  He said, “I never want to see that monster again.”

  “You might have to when you’re asked to give evidence… When he’s dragged to court by the scruff of his neck.”

  Daniel turned and stared ahead at the river. “The police have got to catch him first.”

  “They will.” Phil glanced down at him. “I rang them earlier this evening—”

  “But you said you’d give Jasper time to get away.”

  “Couldn’t do that, Dan.” Phil gripped the wheel, steering carefully round a bend in the river. “You gave Jasper your word. But I didn’t promise him anything. If I’d failed to tell the police what I knew, I’d have been accused of perverting the course of justice, obstructing their work, withholding vital information. All that kind of stuff… I couldn’t risk it.”

  Daniel swallowed. “So how much time has he got?”

  “The police were in position all around Bossom’s Boatyard… No idea exactly where. That was the whole point of the operation. We deliver the goods. They let us get out of the way, in case the man is armed. They know where Jasper is… And now he’s well and truly trapped. He’s got nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.”

  “And we can finally sleep easy in our beds?” Daniel’s mouth tasted sour, as if he’d been forced to swallow the swirling green plankton of the river. In the distance, he thought he heard the sound of gunfire.

  “I don’t know about you,” Phil said. “But for me, this has been a very long day. I could sleep for a week, easy as anything.”

  Into Thin Air

  Daniel climbed the stairs to his room and crashed onto his bed.

  Fully clothed, trainers and all, he slept like a stone.

  Next morning he sat in the kitchen with Dad and told him the whole story. Well, not quite the whole story. He didn’t mention Jasper’s claim to be his father… He’d keep that sordid nugget for Mum, whenever she decided to return, and face her with it then. If he dared… He had to dare. He’d force himself to ask her. He couldn’t spend the rest of his life wondering.

  When he got to the bit about being kidnapped, Dad burst into tears. Daniel had never seen him cry before and he wasn’t sure what to do. He stood awkwardly beside him, his hand on his father’s shoulder, telling him that everything was going to be all right, even though he wasn’t sure it was…

  “Your mum told me I never noticed anything,” Dad snuffled, “even if it was going on under my nose… She was right! I should have spotted how nasty that Jasper fellow was. I blame myself entirely. You could have been killed. I should have taken better care of you both.”

  Luckily, Phil knocked on the door.

  Dad recovered himself, hastily mopped his face, thanked Phil effusively for his help and offered him breakfast.

  An hour later the police arrived. Daniel went through the entire saga, one more time, signed his statement, and agreed to talk in court if he needed to.

  Then, in a whirl of relief, he rushed off to school where Joshua greeted him with open arms. Word about the fire had spread. Even the headmaster shook him by the hand.

  “Well done, Williams! Splendid stuff. Boys like you are a credit to the school.”

  Chloe was waiting for him as he cycled into The Riverside’s car park that afternoon.

  Daniel’s heart started to bang against his ribs. He flung the bike against the shed and stared across at her, standing there in her long skirt, her hair smooth and dark.

  “Have you come to say goodbye?” His voice sounded old and crackly. He was dreading her answer.

  “No.” Chloe blushed. “I came to see how you were. I heard about the fire on the news. Then Dad told me what happened. It must have been terrible—”
>
  “It’s over and done with. Jasper’s locked up. I hope he’ll stay that way for a very long time.”

  Saying the words gave him an incredible feeling of freedom and triumph. Maybe going through the ordeals of the fire and the kidnap, those frightening hours on the night river, had been worth it.

  He asked bravely, “Did you get my note?”

  “Yes.” She moved towards him. He noticed the length of her eyelashes, the soft curve of her cheekbones. “You can stop worrying… I’m not going to Edinburgh.”

  Daniel gasped with relief.

  “I thought and thought about what you said, about putting up a proper fight. I made myself plan it out, what I was going to say. I locked myself in my bedroom at Stephen’s house. Then I told them that if they made me go with them, I’d run away and come back here, so there was no point in them taking me.

  “The row went on for hours. I told them they didn’t really want me, they were just making a show of it. I don’t know how I found the courage to say the things I did. But Dad’s always over the moon when I’m with him, and can’t bear it when I leave. I belong here, by the river where the peacocks scream. I never want to live anywhere else.

  “In the end, Mum realised she couldn’t get me to change my mind. She got so fed up she said, ‘To hell with you, Chloe… Go and live with your river-loving father and see where it’ll get you!’ So here I am! I’ve just spent the afternoon with Dad, unpacking everything and settling in again.”

  Daniel looked at her. He wanted to grab her hands, to fling his arms around her. He said, “Oh, Chloe… That’s the best news ever.”

  And it was then that Daniel found the courage to take her in his arms.

  But he’d spoken too soon.

  He might have known Jasper wouldn’t simply roll over and beg for mercy; that he’d have other plans. It seemed there was a problem. Big time. While Jasper was being transferred from prison to courtroom, he managed to escape.