The White Mercedes

by Philip Pullman

  BOOKS BY PHILIP PULLMAN

  HIS DARK MATERIALS

  The Golden Compass

  The Subtle Knife

  The Amber Spyglass

  Lyra’s Oxford

  Once Upon a Time in the North

  Two Crafty Criminals!

  The Scarecrow and His Servant

  I Was a Rat!

  Spring-Heeled Jack

  Count Karlstein

  The White Mercedes

  The Broken Bridge

  THE SALLY LOCKHART MYSTERIES

  The Ruby in the Smoke

  The Shadow in the North

  The Tiger in the Well

  The Tin Princess

  The White

  Mercedes

  Philip Pullman

  Alfred A. Knopf

  New York

  THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 1992 by Philip Pullman

  Excerpt from The Broken Bridge copyright © 1990, 1992 by Philip Pullman

  Cover art copyright © 2002 by Jeff Fisher

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. Previously published in hardcover in the United States in 1992 by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. Originally published in Great Britain by Pan Macmillan Children’s Books, a division of Pan Macmillan Limited, London, in 1992.

  Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Visit us on the Web! randomhouseteens.com

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition of this work as follows:

  Pullman, Philip.

  The white mercedes / Philip Pullman.

  170 p. 22 cm.

  Summary: Seventeen-year-old Chris, living and working in Oxford, falls in love with an elusive girl and, while searching for her, discovers the devastating consequences of placing his trust in the wrong person.

  ISBN 978-0-679-83198-3 (trade)

  [1. Mystery and detective stories. 2. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 3. Revenge—Fiction. 4. Criminals—Fiction. 5. Oxford (England)—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.P968 Wh 1993 [Fic] 92011072

  ISBN 978-0-679-88623-5 (tr. pbk.) — ISBN 978-1-5247-6503-3 (ebook)

  First Ebook 2017

  Ebook ISBN 9781524765033

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v4.1

  a

  Contents

  Cover

  Books by Philip Pullman

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Part Two

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Part Three

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Excerpt from The Broken Bridge

  About the Author

  PART ONE

  One

  Chris Marshall met the girl he was going to kill on a warm night in early June, when one of the colleges in Oxford was holding its summer ball. Undergraduates paid a great deal of money for tickets to balls like this—a hundred pounds, or even more, in some cases. For that they expected a great deal in return, and the organising committees worked hard to provide it: marquees with dancing floors, champagne buffets, hot new bands and famous old ones, alternative cabarets; whatever entertainment was fashionable, expensive and available.

  This particular college had grounds which bordered a lake. There were going to be fireworks, there was a 1920s-style dance band on a floating platform, there was a cabaret-circus in a marquee, and altogether it was a spectacular event, which the undergraduates felt embodied the wealth and splendour due to them, at this time in this country.

  Chris Marshall wasn’t an undergraduate. He was seventeen, with a year still to go at school, and this was a holiday job of sorts, though the holiday was some way off yet. He worked part-time for a firm called Oxford Entertainment Systems, owned by a man called Barry Miller. Barry was a mild, energetic man in his early thirties, blond and lean and slightly short-sighted, which made him blink and open his eyes wide with what looked like innocent candour. He knew that Chris was saving for a decent bike, so he offered him twenty-five pounds for the night’s work, even though he didn’t really need help. Chris was glad to do it. He was tired of sitting at home with his mother and her new lover, trying to make conversation and feeling himself in the way all the time. He’d never felt like that at home before, and it was uncomfortable.

  So on a warm evening in June, Chris found himself setting up the lights for the cabaret-circus: uncoiling lengths of cable, strapping them to upright stands with insulating tape, swarming up scaffolding to check the angle of a spotlight, plugging various cables into a dimmer board, replacing a fuse which had burnt out, freeing a revolving colour-wheel that had become caught, and setting up the maroons to make flashes of green fire, while Barry Miller talked cheerfully to the director of the cabaret.

  Finally the director, twitching anxiously, went backstage, and Barry turned to see how Chris was getting on with the maroon.

  ‘How’s it going?’ he said. ‘Got enough powder? Blimey, there’s too much in there. You don’t need much powder for a socking great bang…’

  Chris spooned some fire powder out of the maroons. These were fire-clay dishes across the base of which you fastened fuse-wire between two terminals. You put some powder—green, red, or white—on top of that, and when you switched the current through, the fuse-wire burnt out, setting off a big flash. Chris hadn’t used one before and hadn’t known how much powder to put in.

  ‘Have we got a script?’ Chris asked.

  ‘No. He’s going to give me a nod from back there. I says does he want a cue light, but it’s one more thing for him to fuss over and forget. I tell you one thing, this lot won’t make it professionally. Bloody shambles. I mean, they didn’t even want to rehearse the lighting cues, shit, I mean, how careless can you get?’

  The performance was due to start at half-past midnight. Before that there was going to be a jazz quartet playing in the marquee, followed by a gay comedian whose TV show had been taken off the air. Chris was bemused.

  ‘I thought people came to a ball to dance,’ he said to Barry. ‘There’s so much going on, it’s like a fair. I’m surprised they haven’t got Dodgem cars.’

  ‘Not a bad idea. I done dozens of these, Chris. This is a bit more ambitious, but I like that. Look, I won’t be needing you till half-twelve. Go and have a wander. Mingle. Circulate.’

  ‘I’m not dressed for that,’ said Chris, but he did as Barry said, fascinated by the braying voices of the young men, the bare shoulders of the young women in their ball gowns, and the sheer beauty of the college grounds in the summer twilight, with torches flickering on the grass, lights glowing among the great trees, and the first snatches of music drifting over the water.

  He’d lived all his life in Oxford, but there was a lot
of it he’d never seen. The colleges were private places, except when tourists thronged them, bunches of bored Italian kids or interested Japanese adults, and Chris had no desire to get confused with them. Chris’s Oxford was rougher, louder, dirtier than all that tourist stuff. It was the Jericho Tavern, where good new independent rock bands came to play; it was the football ground; it was the Speedway, where Chris had gone every week till he tired of it and began to cycle seriously instead.

  That was his Oxford, not this upper-class fairyland. Chris decided there and then that whichever university he went to, it wouldn’t be the one in his native city. For one thing, he didn’t like feeling looked down on, and he was conscious of the faintly curious looks he was getting, casually dressed as he was in jeans and T-shirt, plainly neither a guest nor a waiter.

  In fact, he looked as if he might have been a member of a rock band. He was good-looking enough, with rough dark blond hair, and fit and muscular from his cycling. He looked older than he was, and if a person’s character shows in their face, his face showed independence and openness and courage. It might have showed innocence, too.

  When the night was completely dark and the ball was fully under way, Chris wandered down to the edge of the lake. There was a little boathouse at the far end under some great dark trees, and he wanted to see whether there was a boat in it. He left the floating bandstand, with its jokily-suited orchestra and brilliantined, megaphone-holding singer, and made his way into the green darkness under the trees.

  The air was scented with the heavy sweetness of flowers from the college garden, and with the perfume of girls, and the warm, slightly rotten smell of the vegetation at the edge of the water. Chris moved more slowly, and finally stopped altogether, at the corner of the boathouse, not quite sure why he’d stopped, not quite sure of anything, but intoxicated by something.

  He stood looking back across the water, watching the dancers on the wooden floor by the bandstand, swaying to Blue Moon. From this distance they looked not offensively upper-class but tiny, glamorous figures, handsome men in black and white and beautiful girls in coloured gowns, like some old-fashioned dream of elegance and grace.

  They looked even more striking because of the vast darkness that surrounded them, as if they were the last people left at the death of the universe, and they knew it, but they were dancing anyway, because they were human, and because the best way of being courageous was, at that moment, to dance. The distant words came over the water, and Chris stood there entranced while the old song unwound, while the saxophone wailed like a ghost, while the dancers swayed. He knew he’d remember this moment for the rest of his life.

  Then he turned away from the boathouse to go back, but stopped, because there were footsteps coming along the path. Someone was running towards him. The darkness among the shrubs and bushes was intense, but there was a glimmer, and there suddenly appeared before him a terrified girl in a white ball gown.

  Her dark eyes were wide, her delicate shoulders were trembling. She cast a glance back over her shoulder, and he heard stumbling feet and male laughter from a little way back. The line of her throat in the faint light from across the lake was enough, on its own, to make him fall in love.

  ‘Someone chasing you?’ he said quietly.

  She nodded. Short dark hair, bare slender arms, those wide terrified eyes…He was lost.

  ‘Go round there, in the boathouse,’ he said. ‘I’ll keep them away.’

  She darted past, so close that he could smell the scent she was wearing. She vanished around the corner. He stood in the path, waiting for her pursuers, perfectly at ease, perfectly confident.

  Within a few seconds they were there, and then they saw him and stopped: three young men in dinner jackets and black bow ties, one clutching a champagne bottle, another smoking a cigar, all drunk.

  ‘Look, Piers,’ said one, ‘she’s changed into a chap.’

  ‘Do him anyway!’ said another, lurching forward a step, but the third held him back. He was the one called Piers, and Chris could see that he was fair-haired and handsome.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’ he said.

  ‘Not dressed properly,’ said the one with the cigar.

  ‘Chuck him in the pond,’ said the one with the bottle. ‘I would.’

  ‘I’m a lighting technician,’ said Chris. ‘I’m checking the lights down here. That’s who the hell I am. OK?’

  ‘There aren’t any lights down here.’

  ‘They’re not on yet, are they?’

  The three of them stood there, uncertainly.

  ‘Well, anyway…’ said the cigar smoker. ‘Anyway, if you’re a technician, you ought to keep out of sight, I reckon. You don’t pay a hundred pounds to see a lot of bloody workers slouching about…’

  ‘Where’s Jenny?’ said the handsome one suddenly. ‘Have you seen a girl coming this way?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Bloody liar,’ said the champagne drinker. ‘She couldn’t have gone anywhere else. You must have seen her.’

  ‘Don’t tell me what I must have seen. I’m doing a job here. I haven’t got time to waste talking to people like you,’ Chris said. He was ready to fight them if he had to, and they must have seen it, because they began to move away.

  ‘Cocky little sod, isn’t he?’ said the one called Piers, the handsome one.

  ‘Oh, shut up, Piers, for Christ’s sake. Look, you, technician chap, we’re looking for a girl in a white dress. She’s—’

  One of the others plucked at his sleeve and whispered. He went on:

  ‘She’s not well. She’s had a spot too much to drink. She could hurt herself. You sure you haven’t seen her?’

  ‘Perfectly sure. I heard her, though.’

  ‘I thought you said—’

  ‘I said I hadn’t seen her,’ said Chris. ‘I heard someone running a minute before you turned up. Along the path, that way.’ He pointed away along the edge of the lake. ‘And she didn’t sound drunk, she sounded frightened.’

  ‘Yes, well, she’s not quite, you know…’ Piers tapped his forehead. One of the others snuffled with laughter.

  Chris stood perfectly still. After another moment or two, the three young men began to move on.

  ‘Bloody rude, you know. We should have chucked him in the pond.’

  ‘I’m sure there weren’t going to be any lights down here…’

  ‘They should either keep out of sight or be dressed like servants.’

  ‘Stupid little bitch. If she’s gone and…’

  The rest of it was swallowed by the bushes and the darkness.

  When he was sure they’d gone, Chris moved along the side of the boathouse to the front. It was a small place, big enough to contain two punts, perhaps, with a narrow wooden walkway around the inside.

  He stood in the entrance and looked in. It was very dark, but he could see the glimmer of her white dress at the end. It looked as if she were seated on the planking.

  ‘It’s all right, they’ve gone,’ he said softly.

  She said nothing. Thinking she might not have heard, he moved in towards her. He remembered what one of the young men had called her.

  ‘Jenny? Is that your name?’

  Still no reply. He stood still, halfway along the side of the boathouse, peering closely to see if she was all right. Had she fainted? They’d said she was not well, she’d had too much to drink. She hadn’t seemed like that, and when she’d brushed past he’d smelt her beautiful scent, not drink. But could she be ill?

  He was perturbed now.

  ‘Jenny? Are you all right?’

  He stepped on the planks at the end of the boathouse, and with a faint rustle of fabric, she fell forward, slowly. It was horrible. She was headless. He nearly cried out in terror, but then realised that it wasn’t her: it was the dress. She wasn’t in it. She wasn’t in the boathouse at all.

  He stood trembling, waiting for his heart to stop thudding, and then stooped and picked up the dress, crushing the stiff fabric to his face, br
eathing in the scent he remembered. Then he put it down gently and looked around.

  He was full of apprehension. The first fear of horrible death was replaced by another: was she mad, as Piers had implied? Had she taken the dress off in order to slip into the water and drown?

  She certainly wasn’t in either of the punts. The wooden bottoms gleamed faintly under the sheen of an inch or so of water. And she wasn’t in the lake, as far as he could tell, though if she was under the punts or tangled in weed he wouldn’t have known.

  Now what should he do? Raise the alarm?

  Yes, of course, and right away.

  But no sooner had he begun to move than he saw what he’d missed a minute earlier. There was a door in the far wall of the boathouse. She wasn’t necessarily in the lake after all.

  A step or two, and he had opened it. The hinges were oiled; he and the three pursuers wouldn’t have heard if she’d opened it and crept away. He stood outside among the tangled bushes and paused, uncertain. It had somehow become comic now, like blind man’s buff. If she wasn’t drowned under the dark water she was hiding in the dark bushes, without her dress. But why take it off? Because it showed up clearly in the gloom, and it rustled. It made sense.

  He didn’t know what to do. If he did raise the alarm, it might be embarrassing for her.

  ‘Thanks,’ whispered a voice from the dark.

  Then he did jump, so much so that he banged his elbow on the edge of the door. There was a giggle.

  ‘Where are you?’ he said.

  ‘Never mind. Have they gone?’

  ‘Yeah. I think. D’you want me to go back with you in case they’re hanging around?’

  ‘No. I’m not going back.’

  ‘Oh…’

  Her voice was low and soft, and her accent was northern. It was the most expressive sound he’d ever heard.

  ‘Why were they after you?’ he said into the silence.