‘Mess with a Miniver,’ Emily shouted, ‘and you’ll be sorry!’ She spun the dinghy between two moored yachts into the open river, straightened up, and raced triumphantly away.
9
The Bridge House
Millamant was cold.
It was almost summer, and the room she was shut up in was airless, hot and stuffy. But Millamant was not just a prisoner. Ever since her arrival, she had been desperately ill. Her head ached, her joints throbbed, and her throat was so sore she could hardly swallow. Her mouth was dry from lack of water, and she had not eaten since her arrest on Monday morning. The very walls seemed to thud and vibrate. Millamant lay on the floor, in the darkness and the dust, and shivered from head to foot with sickness and terror.
She felt as she had done when she was at school, an unattractive, tiny girl almost as round as she was high. The other children had bullied her. They called her ‘runt’ and made her life a misery, stealing Millamant’s books and lunches, imprisoning her in lockers, forcibly dressing her in ridiculous clothes made for dolls or babies. Wherever she went, people stared and pointed at her. Millamant had known she was a freak. In those days, nobody had wanted her, not even her own parents. She had been unhappy, frightened, and alone.
When Millamant had grown up, things had not been very much better. She had still been bullied, though grown-ups were cleverer at it than children; and though she was a much tougher person because of the way she had been treated, she had still been miserably alone. Then, through a series of accidents and some small bravery on her part, Emily and Rosamund Miniver had come into her life. Like Millamant, they were small, but unlike Millamant, people loved them for it. When baby Rosamund was first put in her arms, Millamant had known at last why she had been born the size she was. She had determined, then and there, that neither Emily nor Rosamund would ever suffer for being small, that no one would ever call them freaks, or hurt or taunt them. Millamant loved Rosamund and Emily more than she loved herself. Now, sick and imprisoned as she was, she could think of nothing else but where they were, whether they were safe, and worst of all, whether they were even still alive.
Hot, salty tears flowed down Millamant’s cheeks. I should have known, she thought despairingly. I knew what Madame was like, better than any of them. It was stupid to hope she might have changed.
But you had no proof, Millamant, her own commonsense argued back. There was no one you could have spoken to, and anyway, you can’t accuse somebody, just because of something they did when they were a teenager. And you did write to Gibraltar.
I still should have done more, said her tearful half. And indeed, Millamant had been afraid for a long time that something terrible might happen. She had seen it start after Papa King’s stroke, when the newspapers had begun to print pictures of the Minivers that were not quite perfect, and stories that were not quite kind. Millamant had known, as Rosamund and Emily could not, that love, especially the love of people who do not really know you, is a fragile thing. She had known too, that though Rosamund and Emily worked hard for the love their fans gave them, they had never completely earned it. It was Papa King who had ordained that the Minivers should be everybody’s darlings. He had set Emily and Rosamund up for the people of Artemisia to worship, to take their minds off complaining about the way he ruled. He had known that, because they loved the Minivers, the people would also love him. Papa King had been very clever, Millamant thought. And, of course, the cleverest thing about what he had done was that, from the moment of Rosamund’s arrival, Papa King had loved the Minivers himself. They had filled a hole in his own life that was deeper than he would have admitted, a hole made by disappointment and Madame’s betrayal.
Millamant had a fair idea of just how much Papa King had looked after Rosamund and Emily, and how many bad things he had stopped from happening to them. But now that he was ill, his love was no protection. Rosamund and Emily were completely on their own. In the face of Madame’s hatred, there was no clear escape for any of them.
The conference room at Miniver House was the only room with doors and ceilings of ordinary height. It had been designed for the Miniver sisters to hold parties for normal-sized visitors, and they also used it for their press conferences. Since the events of Black Monday, it had been cleared out and used for other purposes. The conference room, with its lofty ceilings and blue plush carpet, was now the site of Operation Miniver, and the call centre for the Minivers Crisis Line.
Around the room, men and women wearing headsets were furiously logging incoming calls. Others watched tape after tape of closed-circuit TV footage. Blue-shirted security officers and police detectives came and went, and on a wall at the far end of the room, a huge map of Artemisia was dotted with coloured flags, marking all reported sightings of the Minivers.
Titus was standing in front of the map, twiddling a blue flag between his fingers. The blue flags stood for Emily, the red ones for Rosamund, and the yellow ones, which were by far the greatest number, stood for unconfirmed reports by members of the public. Titus’s eyes were fixed on a blue flag in the middle of the river. He stared at the map for a moment longer. Then he leaned forward, and carefully pushed the flag he was holding into the cork.
‘Can you give me a moment?’ said Ron. Titus nodded and the two men withdrew to a corner. Ron sat down at a desk covered with papers and handed Titus a typed report. ‘I’ve just debriefed the team that handled Emily’s call,’ Ron said. ‘You were right. It was logged at four o’clock this morning, to Lindsey Smith at her aunt’s house in Somerford. Luckily, after your tip-off, we’d already taken Lindsey into custody, but the aunt didn’t play the game as well as we’d hoped. The plan was to keep Emily talking as long as possible while we traced the call, but she was smart enough to realise something was up. By the time my team reached the phone box, Emily had gone.’
‘Hmm,’ said Titus. He chewed his thumbnail. ‘Still, we’ve come very close on at least two occasions. Have you tried the places I suggested?’
Ron nodded. ‘Offices, record companies, dressmakers, hairdressers – every building and every person we can think of that they know.’ He shook his head. ‘We’re running out of time. Every day increases the chance that somebody will find out the truth, and when that happens we’ll be so deep in trouble it’ll take a lifetime to dig ourselves out. Including you.’
‘I know that,’ said Titus calmly. ‘I told Madame to wait, but she wouldn’t listen.’ He stood up. ‘Widen the search,’ he ordered. ‘Emily’s obviously trying to contact fans. I’ll send you a list of our club’s committee members for the last five years, and any other prominent fans I can think of. After that, try the city hotels and big shops. Hotels like the Artemisia where they’ve been to functions, department stores like Eastman’s and Delaney’s where they’ve shopped.’
Ron stared at him. ‘That’s impossible!’ he exploded. ‘You’re talking about days of work. I’ve got a family, you know. Young Alex’s problems are getting worse – my wife’s worn to a thread. Besides, I’ve already spent most of the Minivers’ security budget. If Madame wants this sort of effort, the palace treasury is going to have to cough up.’
‘You can forget about that,’ said Titus. ‘Madame will never spend her own money when she can spend somebody else’s. All the same, I honestly don’t think it’s going to take that much longer. We just have to think more like Minivers. We have to imagine how they’re feeling and what they’d do.’
‘Just at the moment,’ said Ron, ‘I’d rather not do that.’
Titus smiled. ‘That, my friend, is the difference between us.’
Eastman’s, on George Street, was the oldest and poshest department store in Artemisia. It was the place where the wealthiest and most important citizens went to shop, and more often than not, one of the places its distinctive green and white delivery vans called into was Miniver House. Rosamund and Emily Miniver were regular customers at Eastman’s. They shopped there for things like gifts, which had to be normal-sized, and the exceedi
ngly polite staff were happy to open the building after hours so they could shop in private.
Since Black Monday, Eastman’s display windows had been draped with black silk curtains. In the centre of each window hung a floodlit portrait of either Emily, looking sweet and thoughtful, or Rosamund, at her poised and elegant best. The windows had attracted a great deal of attention, which was what their designer had intended, and ever since the Minivers’ disappearance, Eastman’s had been doing a brisk trade in merchandise. The ‘Rosamund’ range of cosmetics had done particularly well, along with the lavender-based ‘Emily’ and rose-based ‘Rosamund’ perfumes. In the toy department, so many Miniver playhouses had been sold that it would be at least three months before the store filled all the orders.
It was in the toy department, shortly after midnight, that a tiny figure emerged like a shadow from the storeroom. It had been hovering for some time, carefully monitoring what was happening in the store. When the big glass doors were closed on George Street, Eastman’s came alive with cleaners and people putting new stock on the shelves, and for several hours it was almost as busy as it was during the day.
By midnight, most of this work had been done, and the intruder felt safe enough to venture from her hiding place. She ran the length of the toy department, keeping as close as she could to the shelves. At the end, she crouched low by a stack of Minivers jigsaw puzzles and waited for a nearby security camera to sweep past. As soon as the camera pointed away, the intruder dropped onto her stomach. She slid like a baby octopus under the shelves and out into Children’s Wear. Here she stopped by the very smallest clothes, and pulled a pink T-shirt off a shelf. The tiny thief added a pair of shorts, some underpants and matching socks to her swag, and quickly shoved it all into a small purple backpack.
The thief moved silently from department to department. She took a knife from Kitchenware, a small torch from Camping, and a Compact Artemisia Street Directory from Books. In Electrical, she found a miniature radio and spare batteries. Finally, she did a commando crawl through Shoes and arrived at her final destination, Gourmet Gifts.
Gourmet Gifts was adjacent to the store café, which was locked up for the night. For a moment, the intruder looked mournfully through the glass at the cake cabinets and refrigerators full of leftover fresh food. But they were impossible to get into, so she turned instead to the shelves of expensive chocolates and prettily packaged pots of jam. As she put the last box of biscuits into her bag, the intruder glanced at her watch. It was twenty-four minutes past midnight. She had seven minutes exactly before the security guard came back on his round.
Quickly and carefully, watching always for security cameras and keeping to the shadows, the intruder crept back to the storeroom. By the time the security guard arrived, Emily Miniver had disappeared. She had vanished amongst the disused SALE signs and out of season Easter Bunnies, as if she had never been there at all.
Shortly after dawn on Thursday morning, a white car pulled up at a curious bridge on the outskirts of Artemisia. The bridge had a stone archway at either end under which the traffic drove, and each archway was in turn topped by a square turret with windows. People had once lived in them, for the Bridge House had been built as a home for the tollkeeper, in the days when people were expected to pay to go over the bridge. Now it was largely forgotten, except by people who found it useful to have a place to hide things.
The white car turned off the main road and drove down a private driveway. It went through a gate at the bottom and parked beside a wooden door, set into the stone. The driver’s door opened and Madame got out. She was not in a good mood. It was several days since she had slept properly, and she was still fuming over Papa King’s unexpected birthday present to Rosamund Miniver. The fact that he had made her deliver it was even worse. It was, Madame thought, just the sort of sly and sneaky thing she would have expected him to do.
Madame slammed her car door shut and stomped up some steps to the Bridge House door. She did not like this part of what she was doing, not because she felt sorry for Millamant, whom she detested, but because, like all bullies, she was at heart a coward. Madame knew she was skating on very thin ice. She had been telling a lot of lies lately, and while her conscience was not particularly bothered by this, the thought of what might happen if one of the Minivers unexpectedly reappeared bothered her a lot.
Madame knocked on the door. A moment later, it was opened by Ron. He was unshaven, and looked very grumpy.
Madame pushed into the cramped stone hallway. ‘Has she said anything?’
‘No. I’ve been asking the same questions over and over, and she hasn’t said a word.’ Ron followed Madame up the wooden stairs to the turret. ‘She really is very sick. I don’t know whether she’s refusing to say anything, or whether she’s just too ill to speak.’
‘Millamant? Too ill to speak? I don’t think so.’
They reached the door of the turret room. Ron unlocked it and Madame stepped through the low doorway into Millamant’s prison. At first she could see nothing, for the light was turned off to avoid attracting attention from outside. Then her eyes became accustomed to the dimness, and she saw that she stood in a squalid little room, with two very high paned windows. A glow of orange streetlamps filtered in, and there was a low rumble of traffic going over the bridge beneath. Madame, who was accustomed to dirt and neglect, was unmoved by the dust and broken furniture and the sheer nastiness of the unemptied slop bucket. But the room was uninsulated, hot and almost airless, and she could not stop the film of sweat that broke out on her forehead and the back of her neck.
A small grey shape lay slumped in the corner of the room. It looked like a bundle of old clothes, wrapped in a blanket and thrown onto the scrap-heap. Only the rasp of its breathing told Madame it was alive. Madame went up to it, and stood for a moment looking down.
‘Millamant.’
The bundle stirred and moaned, but it did not, or would not, sit up. Madame waited a moment. When there was no further response from the prisoner she stooped, and delicately took hold of one of her stubby fair-haired plaits. Bit by bit, the blanket fell off, and Millamant sat up. She had no choice, for Madame was pulling on her hair. Though her face was as grey as the blanket, Millamant did not utter so much as a whimper.
‘Millamant, I need to know where Rosamund put the key.’ Madame was not much of a talker, and she did not see any point in beating about the bush. ‘Ron’s people have searched Miniver House from top to bottom, and they haven’t been able to find it. I know it wasn’t on her when she was kidnapped. Where is it?’
‘I don’t know.’ Millamant’s voice was a dry whisper. ‘I can’t tell you.’
‘You’re very thirsty, aren’t you, Millamant? I know Rosamund and Emily well; they never keep secrets from you. Tell me where the key is, and you can have a glass of water.’
‘Go jump, Karen.’ Millamant coughed. ‘You can’t make me tell you something I don’t know. If Rosamund hid the key, then the only person who knows where it is, is her.’
‘Suppose I ask her, then?’ said Madame spitefully. ‘Rosamund’s my prisoner too, you know. I’m sure you wouldn’t want her to suffer, when she’s so small and delicate.’
For the first time, a look of fear came into Millamant’s eyes. She stared hard at Madame, and looked across at Ron. Her face relaxed and she shook her head. ‘You’re lying,’ she said. ‘You don’t have Rosamund. If she was really your prisoner, you wouldn’t be asking me these questions. Rosamund doesn’t even know why the key’s important. If you’d asked her, she’d have told you quickly enough where you could find it.’
‘Rosamund is dead,’ said Madame. ‘She died, trying to escape my people; she fell under a train. It was in all the papers this morning.’
‘Oh, come on, Karen.’ A tinge of contempt crept into Millamant’s voice. ‘You can do better than that. Rosamund would no more fall under a train than you would tell the truth. Do you think I don’t know what you’re like? I remember you before Papa King se
nt you away. Ill-natured, bad-tempered, proud. You haven’t changed a bit, for all the years you were gone. You were a bully from the day you were born.’
‘Maybe I still am.’ Madame’s pale cheeks turned an angry red. ‘I might not have killed Rosamund yet, but we’re looking for her and Emily, too. The whole of Artemisia is reporting to me, now. I will find the Minivers, and when I do I’ll make sure you’re the first to know what I do to them.’ She gave Millamant a shove that sent her thudding against the wall. ‘No food for the prisoner again today, Ron. Give her enough water to keep her alive, but no more. Keep on questioning her and don’t let up. I’ll be back again tomorrow morning, at eight o’clock.’
10
Livia
It was Friday morning, and Livia Wallace lay on her front verandah watching the dawn.
She was surrounded by lattice, soft light, and birdsong. From her hammock she could see the yellow glow on the wall of her house growing slowly richer and deeper. The faint scent of frangipani filled the morning air, and the exposed tin of the verandah roof above her head began to creak gently as the sun warmed it.
Livia untangled herself from her blanket and swung out of her hammock. The front door was unlocked, for her house was so hidden by trees and morning glory vines behind its picket fence that she was not afraid of strangers coming in uninvited. Livia had inherited the house from her grandfather, the City Archivist. When she had moved in, it had been sad and grey, but now, as she pushed open the door and went into the living room, it dripped with colour like an all-day sucker at a funfair.
The Minivers Page 8