“Giddy up!” Johann clucked his tongue, trotting around like a horse.
“I’d like to see my stepdad on it. Teach him right for selling me and not my sister.”
“You were probably the bad daughter. That’s why he sold you.”
The bickering went on, and the day passed quickly, as days filled with hard work often do. Teddy and his sister used the boring machine to bore holes in anything their colleagues handed them: plane wings, train tracks and other nameless pieces of metal. They found some comfort in mechanical work: it had the power to numb the pain, and banish their thoughts.
By lunch, when the children were served hot walrus soup by the guards, Honey had almost forgotten what she was doing in Santaville, and Teddy could barely keep his eyes open.
“I didn’t know working could be so hard,” he yawned, slurping his soup.
“Neither did I,” said his sister. “Is this all we’re having for lun…”
Erasmus skidded to a halt before them, horror written all over his face.
“There’s been an accident. Nico… the pressure machine melted her hand!”
The wounded girl was led out by a guard, her arm wrapped in a towel. The dwarf opened a trapdoor, and they both disappeared down a winding staircase, narrow like a screw, to a hellish red glow beneath. The heavy lid clamped shut behind them, the words Infirmary visible in the gloom, along with many bloody handprints. The roar of the machines drowned out her sobs, but in the flickering light of the ceiling lamps, Honey had seen her tear-stained face, contorted with pain and fear.
“We don’t have the right equipment to work in this factory,” Honey said angrily. “No one even explained what we have to do! It’s as if they want us to get hurt. Real factories have engineers and foremen, workers and electricians. We’re only children!”
“I saw the name Emeli on the wall of the cupboard I woke up in,” Teddy remembered. “I don’t think there’s anyone called Emeli here.”
“Not anymore,” Erasmus mumbled. He shrugged. “Another accident.”
“I wish Mr Helgarsson was here,” Clementine said quietly. “He would know what to do.”
“I wish the baker was here, too. He’s the best chef in the world. His pastries taste just like Mum’s.”
“The Survival Skills teacher,” Honey said thoughtfully. “There surely is a shortage of staff around here.”
Teddy lowered his voice. “Shall we try finding him at the bakery, Honey? I don’t think I can finish my soup. It tastes very fishy.”
“Neither can I.” Honey pushed her bowl away. “We could try.” She peeked over her shoulder to make sure no one was listening. Factory work was taking its toll, and most of the workers seemed on the point of nodding off. She sighed. “I don’t think we have lessons later. And if we’re careful, we’ll be back by the end of lunch.”
“Honey, look.”
A guard was leading another wounded girl out towards the mysterious trapdoor. With a shiver, Honey wondered if the ‘infirmary’ even existed. It looked to her like the only nurses in Santaville were the good old dentists of the deep – the sharks – and the only way they cleaned wounds was by eating you alive. The girl’s arm was on fire, which the guard made futile attempts at extinguishing with a wet cloth, trying to prevent the flames from climbing onto her own sleeve.
The dwarves walked around the dining hall, scrutinising the children, their large heads bobbing on their shoulders like fat Halloween pumpkins.
A narrow table, lined with stools, ran along the wall under the row of barred windows. Teddy crouched under it, pulling his sister beside him. But they soon realised they’d made a mistake. It was the worst hiding place in the world.
“They’ll see us!” Teddy gasped.
“Too late. We need to find Fridrik.” Honey wished she was as small as a mouse as she scurried through the metal legs of the stools.
The table seemed to go on forever.
“Oh, thank goodness.” They’d reached the end, and with the same sickening feeling in the pit of their stomachs as when they were late for register, they skittered over to the door.
In the deserted courtyard, the two siblings searched the desolate landscape for a bus stop or a public phone, of which there was no sign, and they kept looking nervously over their shoulders.
They listened. A blur of grey and white was speeding towards them like a tornado. A tornado that barked.
The dogs.
Honey grabbed her brother’s hand, and they ran. They ran so fast that their feet barely touched the ground, but within seconds Honey felt hot breath on her skin, and heard the sound of ripping cloth.
The Raymond siblings ran, with no thoughts and no emotion other than sheer terror, and by the time they reached the slippery stairs, they were as out of breath as deflated balloons.
But they were still alive.
Standing outside the store, they watched the dogs clawing the frozen stairs.
“It’s locked. We haven’t got the key,” screeched Honey, tapping on the glass with her fists. She could see the neat shelves, the white sheepskin on the cashier’s seat. They were so close. So close.
The dogs snarled, dragging themselves up the steep climb on their bellies.
If only she could make the glass vanish…
The pin. Quickly, Teddy took it out from his pocket and dipped it in the lock. They breathed with relief when the sliding door was slammed just as the dogs pounced on it.
“I only have one question,” Teddy said, breathing hard and giving Blanche a bit of walrus belly he had saved from his soup to nibble on.
“What?”
“Who wins that bet?”
Honey smiled. The mention of their bet made her feel a little better about the treacherous situation they were in. It reminded her of Chess Cottage and the cosiness of their lives, even if those lives were now just a distant point in the past.
“We don’t know until we find Santa Claws,” she said matter-of-factly. “But first you have to tell me everything you know.”
22. Fish-flavoured Crisps and Reindeer Stock
The general store was empty, row after row of aisles and shelves. The slanted wooden ceilings were shrouded in dust and cobwebs. Honey could see the dead insects trapped in the silky threads, black dots with crisp wings, and spotlights shone through the webs like distant lighthouses in the fog.
Teddy recounted everything from the moment he woke up in the narrow cupboard, to the sinister room with the sketches of torture devices, and the sumptuous bedroom where Santa resided with his masked girlfriend. He finished on a rather dramatic note with the murder in the pantry.
“Claus VS Claws,” Honey said thoughtfully. “What killed Eska?”
“A throwing knife. I heard a funny sound, and then the dwarf lady was dead. You could see the knife from her chest. The blood was around it like a big poppy.”
Honey nodded. “A throwing knife. Do you know who the killer was?”
“Yep. It was Santa. Fridrik was with him, and he said he’d handle it from there. Hey, look at this.”
Teddy was holding a hot chocolate sachet, a look of triumph on his face.
Honey looked unsure. “You first. It might be poisoned.”
From a hissing coffee machine in a corner, Teddy filled a cup with hot water and let the content of the sachet melt away before taking a large gulp. Moments later, he spat the caramel brew all over the floor.
“Eew! It’s fish stock! I’m sick of meat! What do Eskimos eat for dessert?”
“Fish cakes,” his sister answered ruefully.
The clock ticked on the dusty wall, and the children saw they had another fifteen minutes until lunch break finished. Judging by the day’s menu, food poisoning was a high possibility, so it shouldn’t have surprised anyone that the new kids took their tim
e in the toilets. They crept along the aisles, peering at the jars of pickled herrings and frozen clams, examining the freezers where huge walrus heads stared glumly from the ice.
A display of guns drew Honey’s attention. Small girly pistols, shooting guns and harpoons, machine guns, bows and arrows, rifles and daggers, camping axes and throwing knives, swords and spears, tomahawks and machetes. This was the most incredible arsenal Honey had seen in a place that wasn’t a museum.
“If we’re going to get out of here alive,” she said, “we need to be able to defend ourselves.” Her distorted reflection quivered in the curved, silver blade of a stylish knife.
“Sure,” agreed Teddy, who couldn’t take his eyes off another sharp knife. “But what to choose?”
Honey had seen the knife, too. She picked it up and held it in her palm for examination. “This is a Shogun. They only come in collections. Two hundred pounds apiece. Mum won a Shogun set at The Chef of the Year Competition.”
Teddy blinked, his eyes wide. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Whoever hurt Mum,” Honey said, choking on the words like on a mouthful of hot chillies, “had access to the house. This is Shogun number six, the knife that’s been missing from our kitchen.”
“Are you going to nick it?”
“I sure will. If that guard had been able to untie her hands on the garotte vil, she might have escaped,” said Honey, pulling the knife off the wall. The knife was small enough to fit inside her boot, and it was sharp enough to cut through it, too. “I don’t like the idea of carrying a knife, especially one that can cut through the carotid artery as if it was butter.” She gave an apologetic smile. “Mum did her apprenticeship as a butcher’s assistant, remember. Her final test was to kill a lamb with one stroke. The lamb was unconscious in thirty seconds. Dead in two minutes.”
Teddy whistled. “What if someone finds it and uses it on you?”
“Do you have a better idea? Listen, I hate violence, too, but sometimes it’s a necessary evil.”
“Like when you’re dealing with psychopaths in the middle of nowhere.”
“Precisely.”
A jar of sardines clattered down from a shelf and smashed into pieces. Oil oozed from it, filling every crevice on the tiled floor.
“I’ll be iced!” Someone swore loudly, and within seconds, Black Russian’s weather-worn face appeared in the gap left by the smashed jar on the shelf. His small, mean eyes squinted at the empty space.
Honey grabbed Teddy, holding the hand with the knife over his mouth. “Quick, over there!”
She dragged him behind a shelf.
“What the heck are you doing?” Teddy hissed when his sister relaxed her grip.
Honey dropped her arm. “If he sees us, we can say that I’ve gone mad and taken you hostage. If he doesn’t do as I say, I’ll cut your throat.”
“As if he would mind! He was going to cook me for lunch! Get away from me with that! You’re nuts!” Teddy rubbed his neck, scowling at his sister.
Peeking through the jars of sardines, red cabbage and pickled seal eyeballs, the Raymonds watched Black Russian. He tottered about on his short legs like an overweight duck, choosing ingredients for a meal.
“Reindeer stock, check, dried kittiwake livers, check, matured seal rib with maggots, no, can’t smell that anywhere…”
“I hope that’s not our dinner. We better stock up on something edible before we leave,” whispered Honey, and she and her brother filled their pockets with fish-flavoured crisps and some rock-hard bagels.
The chef had used an entrance concealed by a fake freezer. They could see the gaping hole. Bits of rubbish from the nearby bin floated in the chilly draught, as if a huge mouth was slowly vacuuming the room into the long, dark corridor. Tapping the tiled floor with his high heels, Black Russian hummed to himself.
“His fiancée’s dead, and he’s singing. That’s just nuts.” Teddy looked disgusted.
Honey chewed her lip. “There’s something else. What’s with all these secret entrances?”
“Santa likes them.”
“Yes, but why bother? Aha. Just as I said.”
The dwarf opened a trapdoor and lowered himself through it. His rotund body jiggled down with some difficulty, and, after much twisting and grunting, he vanished underground. The two siblings listened to the scraping, thumping and shuffling, their ears glued to the floor.
“Can you hear anything?” Honey asked her brother.
“I think he just farted.”
“Well, okay, but what I mean is… Something’s not right here. There’s more to this place than meets the eye.”
“Meaning?”
“Well, first, it seems that someone wants to give us clues. There are secret doors everywhere, and adults know how much children like secret doors. It’s as if they want us to give in to temptation. We were both almost dead, but we didn’t die.”
“That was luck.”
“Dad says that luck is nothing but very careful planning, and as much as I hate to quote him, I think he’s right.” She frowned in concentration. “There are weapons at hand, and someone’s taking the time to teach us skills. Child slaves are treated much worse. You said a throwing knife killed Eska. Throwing knives are used in circuses.” Her face darkened, remembering the night at the circus when she caught a glimpse of Mum’s friend. The knife thrower in the arena was outside, with Mum. “And now, Mum’s Shogun knife is for sale, thousands of miles from home.”
“Do you think…” Teddy swallowed, and his voice dropped to a whisper. “Do you think Santa killed Mum?”
“I think,” Honey said, ducking under a fake polar bear skin in the fancy dress section of the store just as the chef scrambled back out carrying a dog-eared, food-splattered cookery book, “that there is no Santa. Which is what I always said before. Something fishier’s going on.”
Black Russian’s Christmas tune returned to the dead silence of the store and Honey realised they hadn’t heard a single carol this year, apart from the carol the man who called himself Santa sang as he carried them across their own garden in a sack.
23. The Hidden Quarters
Honey watched Black Russian disappear down the secret corridor with a feeling of great relief. The door closed behind him, concealed by an enormous freezer, not before a waft of cooking smells seeped out into the empty store. So, his revolting kitchen was nearby.
She frowned. Truth was, she hated bearded dwarves. Just the sight of them made her break out in a cold sweat, although she never said so when Mum read Snow White to her. The tiny, red-capped creatures seemed to leap off the pages, their smiles turning upside down, their axes and hatchets glinting in the light of the bedside lamp.
She’d seen dwarves, that night at the circus. A whole lot of them.
Honey could see their outlines flickering through the tents. A dwarf held a woman’s hand over a luminous globe. His beard fell in ringlets all the way down to his ankles.
For a moment, Honey thought he looked straight at her. His mouth opened in a grin. Was it her imagination, an illusion of shadows and light, or did the fortune telling gnome really have long teeth like those of a rabbit?
Mum rushed out just as the silvery knife twisted through the air, missing the woman on the wheel by millimetres. Honey saw the train of her white cloak slithering down the dark passage, up the stairs and out of the tent.
She had been the first to go after her, out in the starlit night. The air was thick and crisp. The metal bridge wobbled under her feet. Mud puddles littered the ground, like mirror shards reflecting the milky moonlight. Something stirred in the shadows. A thin wisp of smoke twisted through the trees.
She’d been the first to come out. The only one to see. Mum and the man with blonde hair.
The same man who was throwing the knives. But how could
it be? That man was still in the arena. She could hear the thudding of the knives hitting the wood.
And then Teddy and Dad arrived, just as the man’s silhouette vanished in the shadow of a tent.
She never said a word.
But what if she was wrong in protecting Mum? What if she was hiding vital clues from the police? What if Mum’s lover murdered her, and what if he’d used one of the sharp knives to cut her body? Skin tissue from Mum’s body was found in the woods…
“Are we going in?”
Honey jolted. “We’ve been lucky so far, but we don’t know what the future holds,” she said, using one of her mother’s fancy expressions, “so if something happens to us…”
“We have the knife,” Teddy blurted out. “And this is our chance. A one off.”
“You’re right,” sighed Honey.
The Raymonds tiptoed to the trapdoor, making as little noise as possible, and yanked at the hatch. The ladder wound through the silky, sticky darkness, a darkness that wrapped around them like a cloak with every step they took.
The sound of Honey’s voice made Teddy lose his grip. “This place feels habited,” she whispered.
Teddy said nothing, concentrating on regaining his balance.
“Where’s the light switch? Aha.” Violent light flooded the dungeons, the brightest light they had seen in days. It was brighter in here than in the freezing dormitory, or in the gloomy factory, and certainly brighter than the convalescent Arctic day with its creepy twilight. And it was warm, too. But Honey wasn’t thinking of their outrageous sleeping quarters, the illegal factory, or even the depressing place where the sun didn’t shine.
At the bottom of the stairs, Honey and Teddy stood frozen, like two statues of ice. Before them, a room littered with Christmas decorations, otherwise sparsely furnished, resembled a spooky cave. In a corner was a window, over which a lacy curtain was firmly drawn. And in every other corner of the room, photographs smiled at them from the walls.
Honey looked at her brother, her heart beating fast. In his eyes, she saw her own fear.
Santa Claws Page 19