I angled my head around the mass of ginger fur and found I was staring into the chilly eyes of Rosa’s uncle, the spy. Another face popped up behind his shoulder; a dead-pan Chinese, or possibly Malay, lad wearing a duffle coat.
“What the hell . . ?”
“ . . are we doing here? I might ask the same thing of you, Magnus Arkonnen.”
“I . . .” Then I noticed the metal walls and metal floor: metal everywhere, even the metal springs of a metal bed inches above my head. This wasn’t hospital.
“I don’t know. What am I doing here? What’s going on?”
Rosa’s uncle crouched down by the side of my pillow wearing his menacing face.
“Well, it looks like you’ve been gathered into the fold, Magnus. Tea and cake and a first aid box; all mod-cons provided. I’d suggest that somebody wants you to recuperate from whatever you’ve been through, somebody very close to home, indeed. Your uncle, say.”
“My uncle? What are you talking about, man?” The mists were beginning to clear a fraction and I remembered something. “I was abducted from hospital . . that was it! A nurse doped me with chloroform and ran off with me! I’ve been kidnapped!”
My breath began coming in fits and starts and a cold sweat tingled on my upper lip.
“Now stop that. No need to get yourself into a lather.”
“I’ve been in a car crash and got two broken arms and two broken legs and now I’ve been kidnapped, man!”
I’d started to make whooping noises between words and even the cat panicked and leapt off my chest.
“I said, calm down. It’s all in the family, don’t you see?”
I didn’t see anything - hadn’t seen anything for days - except that I’d a cracking headache and had turned into this man who wore his nerves on the outside, like his coat.
“Mr Upshott,” the lad tapped on the spy’s shoulder. “Excuse me, Mr Upshott.”
“Not now, Tamang. This is rather interesting.”
“Mr Upshott, I really think you should . .”
“Why the abduction, I ask myself? They wanted him out of hospital because we’d have found him and be questioning him any minute, that’s a given, but . . why the abduction without his consent?”
“We are moving!” The lad shouted.
“Christ, we’re not are we? Up on deck. No time to lose. Jump in and swim if you have to.”
I heard them go, their footsteps clattering against the metal floor. Odd words pierced the red mist of panic. Deck? Swim? Were we on a boat? What the hell had happened to my life? There was no time to come up with an answer to my own question because the footsteps came clattering right back.
“Under the bed.” The spy’s face re-appeared, inches from mine. “Mention we’re here and we’ll show no mercy, Arkonnen. The judge will come down so hard on you, thirty years of hard labour in a Siberian mine would be a picnic by comparison.”
I gaped at him. I’d reached the far side of astonishment, mystification, whatever you wanted to call it. I didn’t understand anything and no longer expected to. Either I turned my face to the wall, or I didn’t (not that I could move it much, either way). So, bring it on, I thought. Bring the madness on.
And that’s when my Aunt Dilys showed up.
“How are you, Magnus? Feeling any better?”
She had a pink dress and a bobbly, white cardigan on and was clutching the cardi around her, like she was feeling the cold.
“I haven’t got my sea-legs yet,” she said, pulling the only chair in the room up to the side of my bed. It screeched against the metal floor.
“I fetched your cat for you. I expect you’ve seen him.”
She sat down, crossing beige stocking-ed legs and folding her hands in her lap. I noticed the hands twitch; like fish when they’re nearly, but not quite, dead. It came to me that I liked this woman even less than I liked her husband. There was silence while she waited for me to ask her what was going on. I didn’t.
“You should be quite comfortable.”
I cleared my sand-papered throat:
“You couldn’t have waited until I’d got out of hospital? For this trip to wherever it is we’re going?”
“No,” she answered, flatly. She was wearing a bracelet of multi-coloured beads and began to twist it round and round. “This is for the best. No point in hanging about in hospital when you could be with your family, is there? Reginald thought I should look after you until you’re quite better and it’s all blown over, Magnus, and I’m happy to do it. This is all your uncle’s idea.”
A dab of a smile, so quick it’d been and gone before you knew it.
“All what’s blown over?” I asked. “I thought you said I’d saved Uncle Reg’s life. What needs to be blown over, Aunt Dilys?”
“We have a nice place in Kent, near the sea,” she ignored me, “and we’ll have a pleasant trip down and make a bit of a holiday out of it. Let’s hope the weather stays fine.” She carried on twisting that bracelet round and round her wrist; her wrist so thin, I could see blue veins beneath the white of it. “Reginald is already there, so he can answer any questions you might have later.” She glanced around the cabin. “Would you like a cup of tea and a slice of cake, Magnus? It’s nearly teatime . . oh!”
Her bracelet came apart in her hand and red and green beads bounced onto the floor, rolling all over, under the chair, the table, the bunk I was lying on.
“Oh, that’s too bad!” She exclaimed and went to bend down to retrieve them from beneath the bed.
I blinked and saw Rosa Stone running down the road in her red dress and green shoes. My cousin Terry. Uncle Reg’s black sedan, his hand sticking out of the window with a gun in it.
“It’s all come back,” I said, abruptly. “I’ve remembered the whole thing.”
She paused with her knees bent and, slowly, straightened up. Nothing in her face altered in any way.
“Uncle Reg tried to abduct my friend Rosa,” I said. “We were in his car and he was threatening her with a gun and I jumped on top of him to try to stop him shooting at her. And that was when we crashed.”
“Oh, no,” she said, calmly, “I don’t think that can be right. Reginald would never do a thing like that, Magnus. You’re not well, dear; don’t you worry about it at the present moment. Reginald will clear it all up for you later, as I said. Now,” she was distracted, “where do they keep the broom?”
Aunt Dilys opened and closed a few cupboards.
“Bother!” She said. “Bother, bother, bother! And I liked that bracelet, too.” She headed to the ladder that led up on deck. “Let me just find the broom; I can’t abide all this mess about the place. Then we’ll have a cup of tea and a slice of my nice Dundee.”
Her footsteps receded, her heels tap-tapping on the metal ladder that led out of the metal cabin where she’d imprisoned me. I moaned, but it wasn’t from any pain; it was sheer, blind panic. There wasn’t a pain in the world that could make me panic like this. Had he killed Rosa, or had I managed to divert the car in time? Waves of panic, each one bigger than the last, crashed over my head and I started whooping again.
There was a rustle from under the bed and the spy and his sidekick slid out on their backs.
“His wife!” The spy exclaimed. “Who’d have thought it! My secretary is Reg Arkonnen’s wife. And you appear to be an innocent party in all this, Magnus. What a turn up for the books!” He bent over me. “That’s an odd sound you’re making. Not got whooping cough, have you?”
“Mr Upshott, there is no time for that. The lady will return and we cannot hide beneath the bed, not when she is so determined to sweep,” the sidekick cried. “Do you have a plan? Should we hit her on the head with a frying-pan and commandeer the boat?”
The spy ran a languid hand through his thick, black head of hair and considered his options.
“Well now, I’m not sure that is such a good idea, tempting though it may be. Far better to let her take us to her husband, Trojan horse-style, if you see what I mean.”
“Excellent,” said the lad, speaking very quickly, “then you hide on the top bunk, pressing yourself against the wall as much as possible, and I will lie on the far side of Mr Arkonnen, underneath his blankets. And . .” he cocked his head to listen, “ . . we will do it now.”
He made a neat job of diving across me without disturbing any of my injuries.
“Jayagaon Tamang,” he said. “Hello,” and then he buried himself under my blanket.
The whooping stopped, but I let out another deep, despairing moan.
“Bad pain?” A muffled voice whispered beside me.
“It’s not the pain, man. It’s my friend. I think my uncle may have murdered her.”
“Oh dear,” he whispered. “I am so sorry to hear that.”
“Ssh!” A sharp hiss came from the top bunk.
“Rosa!” I moaned. “Oh, Rosa!”
“One minute . .” Mr Tamang’s face popped up right next to mine. “I don’t think . .”
“Ssh!”
There was a light clanging of careful footsteps on the metal ladder and Mr Tamang shot back under the blanket.
“There we are!” Said Aunt Dilys. “We’re just past the Tower of London and about to go under the bridge. The river’s a bit whiffy, but it’s a magnificent view, I must say. Just think of all the terrible deeds that went on in that place, Magnus; all the disembowelling and torture and that,” she went on, gaily, as she swept. “I’d plump for the rack as my favourite. So simple and yet so clever. What’s yours?”
I didn’t reply, but tried turning my face to the wall.
“Ow!”
“Hurts, does it? Would you like a couple of aspirin?”
“No, thank you.”
“Suit yourself.” She finished sweeping and sat down to pick the beads of her bracelet out of the dustpan, placing them on the table one by one. “But I’m sure you won’t say no to a nice cup of tea. Let me just finish this and I’ll put the kettle on.”
I watched her in amazement, sorting out those beads like she was panning for gold in the Klondike.
“How can you live with yourself, Aunt Dilys?” I burst out. “Knowing your husband is a cold-blooded criminal who may have killed a young girl?” I gave it to her hot and strong. “And your son’s no bloody better; a juvenile delinquent who’d do God knows what for the price of a fizzy drink. They may have kept you in the dark, but you should know that aiding and abetting is a bloody serious crime. You could do a good, long stretch for this, woman.”
She jumped up from her chair with her hands on her narrow hips.
“Don’t you ‘woman’ me, young man,” she hissed. “What kind of a way is that to speak to your elders and betters? And all that bad language, too! Your mother would turn in her grave if she could hear the way you speak.”
“Ha!” I laughed in her face. “You’re talking semantics when you’re up to your neck in murder and kidnap. Get your bloody priorities straight.”
“There you go again; it beggars belief! And with all the education you’ve had. It’s wasted on you, do you know that?” She was spitting at me now, she’d got so cross. “Some of us . . well . . who knows what we could have become with your education . . but your generation . . you’re all the same . . handed it on a plate . . you just don’t know you’ve been born!”
Her white face had become blotched with pink and she was actually trembling.
“Louts!” It shot out of her mouth like she’d gone into spasm. “Hooligans, the lot of you! We work our fingers to the bone and we get nothing . . nothing . . in return. Look what I’ve done for you here,” she gestured around the cabin, “ . . why, I’ve a good mind to rip the blanket off your lazy back and tip you off the bed; let you sleep on the cold, hard floor and douse you with bilgewater!”
That’s when I should’ve come up with something to placate her, should’ve apologised for my dirty mouth and asked for some of her damn cake. (I curse myself for the hothead that I am - that I couldn’t say those simple, simple things.)
“You’re off your rocker, woman!” I rose to the bait like a dead fish. “Clap me in irons and put me to the bloody rack, why don’t you? That’d be right up your street!”
So she took hold of the corner of my blanket and ripped it clear off the bunk and there was Mr Tamang, crouching by the wall.
“Aargh!” She leapt a foot in the air. “Who . . ? What . . ?”
“Jayagaon Tamang,” he said. “So sorry to disturb you.”
He rolled over me as delicately as before and stood up.
“Good afternoon, Mrs Arkonnen . . for I gather you are Mrs Arkonnen.”
Aunt Dilys grabbed the broom and brandished the handle at him.
“Don’t you come another step further!”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Who’s this Chinaman, Magnus?” She panted. “What’s he doing in your bed?”
It was difficult to know what to say, to be honest.
“Wait a minute . .” she nearly dropped her broom, “I know you, don’t I? I’ve seen you at the office. You’re a spy!”
“It’s kind of you to say so, Mrs Arkonnen, but I am not a spy. I work in the technical department. And I believe you are on the secretarial side, is that correct?”
She didn’t reply, but whipped around and grabbed the cake knife from the table behind her, so that she grasped the broom in one hand and the knife in the other.
“Now we’ll get some answers. What are you doing here?”
“I am sorry,” he bowed his head, “I cannot disclose that information. But you may rest assured, Mrs Arkonnen, that I know very little of your case.”
“You’ve been ear-wigging since the barge set off, haven’t you?”
She approached him warily, as if he were an unfamiliar animal from the outer reaches of the world, and jabbed at the air around his face with her knife.
“Who sent you?” Jab, jab. “What are you after?” Jab, jab.
“My name is Jay Tamang and I am a mere observer. May I ask that you please stop doing that, Mrs Arkonnen?”
His politeness seemed to get right up her nose, because she revved up with the cake knife, swiping it round his body like she’d taken up fencing.
“Please, Mrs Arkonnen,” he asked, quietly.
“Stop it, Aunt Dilys!” I cried.
But she wasn’t having any, she was that busy working herself up into an uncontrolled frenzy.
Mr Tamang’s hand shot up, so fast it was near-on invisible to the naked eye, and relieved her of the knife, at which she promptly swung her broom handle and dealt him an almighty conk with it. The man crashed, head-first, onto the metal floor. And stayed there. He lay spread-eagled on the ground, unconscious if not worse. It felt like whole minutes passed and, still, he didn’t move. A trickle of red seeped out from behind his black hair and collected in a small pool on the silver floor.
“Look what you’ve done now, you bloody madwoman. Have you killed him? Have you?” I shouted at the top of my voice.
She glanced at me, still breathing heavily, her complexion still patched with pink like some terrible skin disease.
“Shut up, you,” she said, and her eyes looked like they’d died in her face.
Then she straightened up and, carefully, propped her broom up against a cupboard, before bending to pick up the cake-knife that was still lying in Mr Tamang’s hand. She wiped the handle on her skirt and replaced it next to the cake. Then she went over to the ladder and shouted up to the deck.
“Severs!” She shouted. “Mr Severs! Down here, please. Straight away.”
Somebody shouted back down at her.
“I’m sure it can steer itself for a second. Just leave the steering, please. Come down here and bring the strongest rope you’ve got, Mr Severs.”
A stocky, middle-aged man in a flat cap and collar-less shirt appeared in the cabin, dragging a coil of rope that must have been six inches in diameter. When he saw Mr Tamang lying on the floor, his eyebrows shot up.
/> “How did ‘e get aboard?”
“I don’t know, Mr Severs, but I’m very cross about it. Goodness knows what Reginald will have to say when he finds out.”
“Is ‘e dead?”
She leant over Mr Tamang and prodded his coat with one finger.
“I don’t know. Possibly. Possibly not. Serve him right if he is; trying to attack an English lady with a knife.”
She went over to the kitchen tap and washed her hands thoroughly, dousing the sink with bleach while she was at it.
“Just truss him up and carry him up on deck, please, Mr Severs. If he’s still alive, I have a few ideas that should encourage him to speak. If not, we’ll drop him in the Thames.” She looked thoughtful. “Out past Rotherhithe, perhaps, where the tides are stronger.”
I was speechless. I think I opened and shut my mouth and some kind of horrified squawk emerged of its own accord.
“And as for you, young man,” she shook her head, sadly as she followed her lackey - the small, rope-bound figure of Mr Tamang in his arms - up the ladder.
“No cake for you. Not until you learn how to behave.”
The spy waited until they’d gone before he clambered down from the top bunk. He sat on the only chair, pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and offered me one.
“She won’t be back for a bit,” he observed. “She’s got other fish to fry.”
He lit our fags with his lighter and held mine for me while I inhaled deeply.
“Are all your family complete lunatics, Magnus?”
Anger flared up inside. That and the aftermath of shock.
“Where were you, then?” I spat out. “What kind of spy leaves his partner to fend for himself like that?”
“The kind of spy who can see the bigger picture, I suppose.” He let out a sigh. “Well, Magnus Arkonnen, what the blazes am I to do with you?”
We stared at one another.
“I suppose I’d better let you in on the game,” he finally looked away, off into thin air. “Its codename is Operation Crystal Clear . . and it’s all about glass.”
He took a sound drag of his cigarette, held it deep down in his lungs, then blew a perfect smoke-ring in the air.
The Yellow Glass Page 17