Terrifica rubbed her arms. ‘You didn’t have to pull me so hard in there.’
‘Oh but I did.’ Abbie explained as quickly as she could about the monks and their warning – which was pretty slowly thanks to all the interruptions from Marcus, Terrifica and Mr Dabbings.
‘You’re kidding.’
‘That’s incredible.’
‘To think we swam in that lake.’
It was certainly too slowly for Chester. While they oohed and aahed and you-can’t-be-serioused, he squashed himself against the side of the bottle and tried to push it up the slope. But every time he stopped to catch his breath, it rolled back down.
‘Give us a sec, Chess,’ said Dad. ‘Mother’s a tough old toaster. She won’t mind us resting for a minute.’
Abbie told them her theory: that if Finbar was in the cave and Oisín in the lake, then Kenneth must be in the woods. ‘Except,’ she frowned. ‘How come nothing happened, even when you were quarrelling your heads off?’
Perdita pulled up a clump of grass. ‘Maybe we were wrong.’ She danced the roots over her lap. ‘Maybe Kenneth fell into another bog: not that one by the woods.’
‘But I could feel something watching us. I’ve felt it all along.’
Marcus tore a patch of moss from a rock and pressed it between his palms. ‘Maybe it wasn’t Kenneth you felt, but Klench.’
Of course! Relief surged through Abbie. She wasn’t going mad. And even that foul flabster made a more appealing enemy than a tyrannical, landscaped monk.
‘So if Kenneth’s not in the woods,’ said Terrifica, ‘where is he?’
‘Nowhere.’ Dad stood up. ‘And I’ll tell you why.’ He took out a hanky and wiped his forehead theatrically. ‘Whatever strange geology is at work here – and I admit it’s very strange – the only evidence that Kenneth is still around comes from two witnesses. Assuming – and I admit it’s a big assumption – that they are who they say they are, how many flaws could there be in their story? Now let’s see.’ He held up his thumb. ‘One. They’re a thousand years old. The memory can play tricks. Two,’ he waggled a finger, ‘they must’ve felt bad about failing to rescue Kenneth. Guilt can mess up the mind big time. And three,’ he raised another finger, ‘they’re going through some weird rotting process in which they haven’t quite died. Who knows how that’s meddling with their grey matter – or what’s left of it? Simple historical detective work.’ He bowed. ‘I thank you.’
Abbie wanted to believe him, really she did. ‘But what about the cave sealing up and the lake going still?’
‘Ah.’ Dad frowned. ‘That’s geology, not history. You’ll have to ask Matt.’
Abbie hardly felt reassured. But with Chester tickling her like a hysterical duster, it was time to move on.
As they climbed higher, pausing every now and then to admire the view, her anxiety faded. The island spread below them. The treetops and moor, the muddy brown lake and humps of the huts, stood sharp and still as a photograph. Tiny mountain flowers scented the air with vanilla and honey. Insects whirred. Birds cheeped sleepily.
Except for one bird. Its cheep was anything but sleepy. In fact it was more of a bellow. ‘We know you’re up there!’
Shielding her eyes, Abbie looked up. Ten metres above her stood Grandma and the Incas. Their backs were turned. Grandma was yelling up the mountain.
***
‘You can’t ’ide from us! We’ve been watchin’ you come down.’ Above Grandma rose a slope of loose stones, ending at a rocky outcrop. ‘Out you come, you rascal.’ She shook her fist at the rocks.
***
‘Don’t you dare! You stay right zere,’ hissed Mummy.
Klench gave her a long inner look. Then he sucked in his cheeks defiantly, stuck out his stomach giantly, edged round the rock and emerged at the top of the scree. ‘Here I am, Grandma. I am comink to face your musics.’
25
A Rocky Run-in
Abbie gasped at the sight of the man who loomed so large in her nightmares. As usual, he loomed even larger in the flesh – and firmer too, thanks to the last few days of exercise. His biceps curved like courgettes beneath his mint-green shirt. His calves bulged like marrows below his knee-length shorts.
‘You,’ he snarled, spotting Abbie behind Grandma. ‘Alvays you turn up like bad Penelope.’
She swallowed. Now wasn’t the time to point out that he’d followed them to the island, or that her name was actually Abigail.
Grandma spun round. ‘About time too!’ she called down the mountain. ‘Don’t just stand there – chuck us some water.’
Chester had already brought out Abbie’s bottle from her rucksack. She threw it up to Grandma who downed it in one. Dad and Mr Dabbings threw their bottles to the Incas who downed them in two. Chester flew up to Grandma’s head. The others edged up nervously to join her below the scree. ‘Stay where you are,’ hissed Dad, nodding up towards Klench. ‘He’s a dangerous man.’ Mr Dabbings dropped only too willingly behind the others.
‘Time to go home, Mother.’ Dad took Grandma’s hand. ‘No sudden moves. He’s bound to be armed.’
‘No!’ At the top of the scree, Klench emptied the pockets of his shorts. ‘I am veapon-free.’
‘And why should we believe you?’ barked Grandma. ‘When you tricked me and escaped from prison?’
Klench held out his arms beseechingly. ‘My head voss turned, Grandma, by You-Know-Who. Ven you mentioned treasure, she bossed me into escapinks.’
Grandma snorted. ‘Wild goose chase. There’s no treasure ’ere.’
‘I know zat now. I have been sveatink my socks off, climbink my feet off and diggink my toes off. And now I have had it viz Her Upstairs. Oh yes, Mums.’ He stamped his foot, causing a little landslide down the scree. ‘You can stuff it vhere ze sun don’t shine. I never bow to you again.’ He bowed to Grandma. ‘You must believe me, Madams.’
‘Pwah!’ said Grandma, in a no-I-mustn’t sort of way.
‘OK,’ said Klench desperately. ‘See – I am standink above you. I have advantage of higher position. Easily I could smack you down mountainside viz spade. But no.’ He picked up the shovel and hurled it away into the rocks, where it landed in the nest of a golden eagle who came home to a rather upsetting dinner of scrambled eggs. ‘You see?’ Klench hung his head. ‘I am truly sorry, Grandma.’
‘Sorry?’ Grandma put her hands on her hips. ‘Sorry never washed the dishes. Sorry never built the Pyramids. It’ll take more than sorry to make up for it, my lad. You owe me one.’ She winked at the Incas. ‘Quick, chaps, now’s yer chance.’
Grinning from earhole to earhole, Chunca scrambled up the scree towards Klench. Biting his lip, Bacpac followed. The two old men used their hands to steady themselves on the stones, which rattled and slipped beneath their feet.
Near the top, Chunca turned and shouted down the slope in Ancient Quechua.
‘Goodbye Grandma!’ Bacpac translated. ‘You kind as cocoa and tough as potato.’
Chunca looked up, saluted and shouted something at the burning sun.
‘Put kettle on Granddad,’ Bacpac translated. ‘We there in a jiffy.’
Then Chunca Inca, four hundred and fifty-year-old Son of the Son of the Sun, reached out to take the hand of the stoutest crook.
Who snatched it away. ‘Who are zese fruitcakes?’
Chunca reached for his other hand.
‘Get offs. You think I help you? I never help anybody in my lifes.’
‘Well you’d better start now!’ Cupping her hands round her mouth, Grandma shouted up to Klench the Incas’ story and prophecy. ‘So you can jolly well take their ’ands, you scallywag, or you’ll ’ave me to answer to.’
Klench was backing up against the rocks. ‘Never!’ A look of fear had come into his eyes. ‘I do not shake hands viz strangers. Especially foreign vuns.’ He shoved his hands in his pockets and shook his head, like a schoolboy refusing to do his homework.
‘You do it now,’ roared Grandma, ‘or I’ll �
��ave your flabby guts for garters!’
‘You do not understand, Grandma – I cannot!’
‘Why the poppycock not, you great lummock?’
‘Becoss … aaaah!’ cried Klench as Chunca reached over and pulled his left hand out of his pocket.
This is it. Abbie caught her breath.
But before the Emp could hold it fast, Klench had snatched his hand free. ‘Go avay!’ he screamed, thrusting both arms behind his back and kicking at the scree. The Incas slipped down the slope. Chunca yelled. Bacpac yelled. Grandma yelled.
And Klench covered his hands with his ears. ‘Shut ups! Shut ups!! Shut UPS!!!’ His voice echoed round the rocks.
A stone, perched on a rock, teetered and fell. It rolled down the scree, loosening more stones. They tumbled past Abbie and down the mountainside.
Grandma tried to clamber up the slope. ‘Wait till I get my ’ands on you, you mingy great melon!’ Her feet loosened more stones.
‘No Mother!’ Dad tugged her T-shirt. She slid backwards. More rocks fell.
Above them, Klench slipped as the stones gave way beneath him. He slid down the scree on his bottom.
‘Run!’ roared Dad.
Mr Dabbings, of course, already was. Everyone hurtled after him as stones, rocks and a mint-green boulder that no one fancied being flattened by, tumbled down the slope.
Was she running or falling? It was hard to tell. Abbie’s legs seemed to dissolve as they carried her down the mountain, racing rocks and stones that bit her ankles, clattering and slithering and flinging up dust.
They were saved by the woods. Reaching the trees, more by gravity than leg-power, they plunged into the gloom, leaving the smaller rocks to slow and settle and the bigger ones to crash into the trunks.
After the glare of the mountain, Abbie was blinded by the darkness. But Mr Dabbings was making plenty of noise, snapping and crackling through the trees behind Chester, who seemed to know the way out. Blood thundered in her ears. Her chest was ready to split. But still she stumbled on. No way would she rest until they’d cleared these ghastly woods.
At last light broke through the trees. She staggered out of the undergrowth and flopped onto the moor, gasping for breath.
***
Klench heard the others crashing ahead through the woods. He stopped. Then he turned right and crept between the trees towards his tent.
He sat down on his reinforced air-bed and put his head in his hands. What to do? Wait for them to leave the island then continue his treasure hunt? ‘Vot treasure?’ he muttered. Grandma was right: there wasn’t any.
Phone Brag right now to fly over and fetch him? ‘Vot fetch?’ he snorted. Brag would never come if he had no treasure.
Head out of the woods and surrender?
‘Vot nonsense!’ Mummy shrieked.
There was his answer. If it was bad enough for Mummy, it was good enough for him.
***
‘At least the landslide’s stopped.’ Henry shielded his eyes with his hands and peered up the mountain. Hearing the distant rumble of rocks, they’d all hurried out of Abbie’s hut. Or rather Henry had hurried, while Matt and Ursula had made a chair with their arms and carried Coriander. But their view had been blocked by the dust cloud that covered the mountainside.
‘I just pray no one was up there,’ said Coriander, easing herself down to sit against the wall.
26
Klench’s Confession
Grandma and the Incas were the last to emerge from the woods. Hand in hand in hand, they staggered out and collapsed on the heather.
When she’d got her breath back, Abbie turned to Mr Dabbings. ‘Where’s your phone? Now we know where everyone is, you can call Bundy.’
He needed no encouragement. Fishing the phone from his rucksack, he made the call. ‘Bundy’s on his way. We’ll go to the huts, get the others and head for the beach.’
Everyone jumped up except the Incas. Chunca jabbered and pointed at the woods.
‘Master say we cannot leave,’ translated Bacpac. ‘Not until we find stoutest crook. He run off in trees.’
Grandma snarled. ‘That selfish lump. After all I’ve done for ’im – ’e couldn’t even manage one teeny good turn.’
‘It’s not even a good turn,’ said Perdita, ‘ending someone’s life. You’d think it would be right up his wicked street.’
‘No,’ squeaked a voice. They looked up. Klench was staggering out of the woods. ‘It is up different street entirely.’ Keeping his hands firmly behind his back, he blinked round the group. ‘Zat is vot I try to explain on mountain. You see …’ he bit his lip. ‘In my whole life, I …’ he took a deep breath, ‘I never killed no vuns.’
There was a stunned silence. Of all the biggest, whoppingest … Abbie tried to arrange her mouth round the word ‘lies.’ But it froze.
His crimes raced through her mind. Kidnapping Coriander in the zoo, holding them hostage in the hair museum, running a hotel for supercrooks, smuggling animals, money laundering, robbery, Chinese-burning toddlers and pensioners. Most involved guns, but none actual murder. She’d always thought it was luck that had saved them. But could it possibly have been Klench himself?
She was suddenly back in the Amazon jungle last Christmas. Along with Perdita, Coriander and Grandma, she was staring down the barrel of Klench’s gun while he explained his plan to shrink their brains. When Grandma had asked why he didn’t just kill them, what had he said? ‘Killink is borink.’ Had that just been an excuse? Hubris Klench was many things: cruel, spiteful, pompous, greedy, wheedling, creepy, nitpicking. But a killer?
‘I cannot do it,’ he whimpered. ‘I have stomach for many thinks, but not murder. Plus, I am tired of eefil doinks. My body is free but my mind is broken. I give ups, Grandma. Take me back to jail and teach me to be goods.’
Abbie stared at the dust-streaked, droopy-shouldered, deflated beach ball. Maybe it was exhaustion speaking, maybe despair, but that was the nearest he’d ever come to remorse. Two words flashed across her mind. Words that made as much sense together as ‘hot snow’ or ‘Yippee, maths.’
‘Poor’ and ‘Klench’.
Poor Klench? She gouged her palms with her fingernails. Don’t be crazy. He’s fooling us.
But his face was as grey as a mushroom and his arms were raised in surrender. ‘Zere is nothink more for me here. No treasure, no peace. Take me back to prison, Grandma. Only in chains can I be free.’
‘With pleasure.’ Grandma folded her arms. ‘As soon as you’ve put these fellows out of their misery. Tit for tat.’
‘I cannot tat.’ Klench shook his head wildly, as if trying to ward off a wasp. ‘Shut up, Muzzer.’ He blinked at Grandma. ‘For vunce Mums agree viz you. She tell me to be a man and kill zese fellows. But I cannot.’
‘But they want to die!’ Perdita jumped up. ‘Don’t you see? You’ll be doing them a favour.’
Klench scrunched his lemon peel eyebrows. ‘How many times must I tell you – I never do anyvun favours but myself. And if I killed zese chaps, myself vould be vay upset.’
Bacpac was translating rapidly. Chunca jumped up, ran to Klench and tried to grab his arms. But they were clamped firmly behind his back. Klench jerked away. The Emp shook his fists.
‘Master say you selfish as snake and piggy as peccary,’ said Bacpac. ‘He say anyone who disobey Son of Son of Sun will be sorry.’
Klench shrugged. ‘Not as sorry as if I obey.’
Bacpac laid a calming hand on his master’s arm. But Chunca had torn off his earmuffs. Throwing back his head, he yelled at the sky.
‘Uh oh,’ said Bacpac in a trembly voice. ‘Now he tell Granddad to kick up stink.’
Mr Dabbings clapped a hand to his mouth. ‘He can’t actually control the sun, can he?’
‘Course not, you great flowerpot,’ snapped Grandma. ‘’E just thinks ’e can. ’E can’t control anythin’ any more. That’s the point. ’E’s got nothin’ to live for.’
Mr Dabbings stood up. ‘I’ll thank
you not to call me a flowerpot, you old battleaxe.’
‘Don’t you insult my mother,’ said Dad.
‘But that’s exactly what she is.’ Terrifica put her hands on her hips.
Marcus nudged Abbie. ‘And she’s a young one.’
‘How dare you compare my grandma to … aagh, what’s that?’ A shiver rose out of the earth and up Abbie’s legs.
Dad strode over to Chunca who was still shouting at the sun. ‘Stop it!’ He clapped a hand over the Emp’s mouth.
Bacpac snatched it away. ‘At last Granddad listen. Do not mess with Inca power.’
Abbie blinked up at the sun burning a hole in the sky. Had it really answered the Emperor, shaken the ground at his command? She didn’t fancy staying to find out.
They set off towards the huts. Thank goodness there were no more tremors. The moor stretched ahead, still and solid, not a whisper of wind stirring the tiny purple flowers of the heather.
Looking back, Abbie saw Grandma dragging Bacpac by one hand and Chunca by the other. With his free hand the Emp was alternately shouting at the sky and shaking his fist at Klench, who trailed them at a careful distance.
***
‘There they are!’ shouted Henry. He was standing with Ursula at the top of the ridge squinting across the moor.
‘Who?’ Coriander called up the slope.
Ursula checked. ‘Everyone. Perdita, Mr Dabbings, Abbie’s grandma – and the rest.’
‘Thank goodness.’ Sighing with relief, Coriander sank back against the wall.
‘Oh, and there’s someone else behind them. A real chunker. Kind of waddling more than walking.’
Coriander shrieked.
‘Get down!’ yelled Matt, who’d been rewrapping Mr Binkles round her ankle. ‘He might have a gun.’
Henry half ran, half fell down the slope. Ursula dived onto her stomach. Peering over the ridge, she called, ‘Doesn’t look like it. And now he’s heading off to the left.’
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