The Secret of the Night Train

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The Secret of the Night Train Page 8

by Sylvia Bishop


  At that, Marguerite was firmly back to confusion again, and this time Max joined her. She made a small beard of confusion out of her plaits. “What? I thought her name was Celeste Le Blanc?”

  “Nope,” said Klaus firmly. “I chatted to her on the last train. I like to get to know my fellow passengers.” He paused his needles a moment to tick off all the things that he had learned on his fingers: “Suzanne Leroy, works at the post office in Paris, lives with her boyfriend Paul, two cats and a parrot.” He smiled, pleased with his findings, and resumed knitting.

  Max twizzled her plait-beard. Paul? Then who was M? Did it matter anyway, if M had been writing to another woman entirely? She tried to hold all of it straight in her head, but the memory of Rupert’s phone conversation kept getting in the way and making it difficult to think straight.

  “Now, Max,” said Klaus. Max could tell that he was doing that motherly voice, where you sound extra cheerful and extra sensible to make everyone feel better. He pointed a needle at her. “I haven’t really talked to you yet. Report for duty! Full name? Where are you heading? Spill the beans!”

  “Max Morel,” said Max. “I’m going to Istanbul to visit my great-aunt Elodie.” And she stared pointedly out of the window, to make it clear that she didn’t want to be cheered up, and she wasn’t going to talk any more. They were up in the mountains now, chugging through dense fir forests. Trees filled their windows, snowy branches pawing at the carriage as they rushed past. Max felt much too hot.

  Ester had been silent throughout the whole episode, chewing and glaring, but at Max’s words her head rose up out of her furs.

  “Elodie Morel?” she hollered. “You’re related to Elodie Morel?”

  Despite herself, Max looked around at that. “Yes,” she said. “Do you know her?”

  “Yes!” Ester gave the table an enthusiastic slap. “I knew her back when she was still Elodie Yavuz, before her Mr Yavuz popped his clogs. Haven’t seen her for years, though. The last time must have been – oh – the Berlin auction of ’67. I had no idea she’d changed her name back to Morel.”

  “Berlin?” Marguerite echoed. “’67?”

  “Yes.” The table got another good slap. “Absolutely unbearable woman. She outbid me on the Bamberg Crystal Penguin. Well, well. Elodie Morel’s great-niece.”

  Max looked from Marguerite to Ester, and back again. Marguerite was staring at Ester as though she was seeing her properly for the first time.

  “Excuse me, mon chou,” she said, “I’m feeling rather unwell. I might just have a quick lie-down.” And her eyes flickered briefly to Max, and Max knew with absolute certainty that “lie-down” meant “follow a hunch about Ester Rosenkrantz”. Her heart quickened. She tried to look concerned about Sister Marguerite’s health, but her face went all jumpy, and she couldn’t remember how she was supposed to arrange it.

  Marguerite’s look had unsettled her. If it had been anyone else, Max would have said that she looked afraid.

  As Marguerite bustled out of the breakfast car, Klaus stood, and was with her in two enormous strides. “Here,” he said, tucking a huge arm around her, “lean on me a bit. You are looking peaky. Do you feel faint?”

  “Thank you, Klaus, but I’m quite all right. Don’t worry yourself.”

  “Nonsense! I’m seeing you safely to bed. You’ve gone pale…” And Klaus steered Marguerite through the door, arm still clamped around her, refusing to be brushed off. The door slid shut behind them, shuddering as it banged into place.

  Ester looked at Max. Max looked at Ester.

  “Well, well,” said Ester, “Elodie Morel’s great-niece. What a small world!” She licked her lips, chasing the last of her breakfast, and settled back down into her furs.

  Outside, snow began to tumble from the sky, covering up the tracks, smothering everything it touched.

  Klaus was a suspiciously attentive nurse. When they pulled into Bucharest Nord, he was still at Sister Marguerite’s berth-side, clicking away at his endless knitting and telling her gentle-stories-to-cheer-up-an-invalid. Even when Max arrived to “look after her”, he wouldn’t go. He insisted on helping her off the train.

  “Let’s get you some sweet tea,” he said firmly, once they were all on the platform.

  To be fair to him, Marguerite was looking pale.

  “No need,” she said, extra firmly. “I’m going to find the ladies’ toilets.” This was a small victory: Klaus couldn’t see a way to go with her, although he insisted on seeing her to the door.

  Max was going to follow and find out what Marguerite was thinking, but Celeste sailed in ahead of them, so they still couldn’t talk privately. Instead, Marguerite handed her some crumpled Romanian money – leu. “We’ve only got fifteen more minutes before the Bosfor,” she said. “Get us some lunch, mon lapin, and we’ll talk on the train.”

  Never had the word “talk” sounded weightier. “Talk” staggered out of Marguerite’s mouth, carrying the load of all the morning’s revelations, and of all the thoughts she was keeping to herself… But Klaus was still standing there beaming and remarking on the weather, so for now Marguerite just squeezed Max’s hand and disappeared down spiral steps to the toilets.

  “Too cold for my taste,” Klaus concluded, “but so beautiful.”

  “You shouldn’t be so happy,” Max snapped. “A man fell off our train. It’s bad.” And she stomped off to get lunch, leaving Klaus looking crestfallen.

  Bucharest Nord was wide and grey, opening out on to a row of tracks that cut black curves through the snow, stretching out to the horizon.

  Any other time, Max would have longed to explore. Now she barely even saw it. Rupert gone. Celeste possibly called Suzanne. Ester a friend – or, rather, rival – of her own great-aunt. And what had Sister Marguerite realized about Ester?

  The Bosfor was already waiting for them. Max found her seat in a daze, and sat nose-to-window. It was strange to think that it was less than two days since she had sat like this on the TGV, just a girl feeling a bit homesick.

  She was homesick again. At that moment, she would have given a hundred heartbreak diamonds for her own red armchair at the top of her own house. The memory of that chair was so overwhelming, so much more real than anything around her, that it took her a moment to realize the sickening, terrible thing that was happening. When she did realize, she nearly cried out.

  The Bosfor was moving.

  The Bosfor was moving, and Sister Marguerite was not in her seat.

  They picked up speed. Bucharest Nord rushed away from them as the Bosfor pulled out, and out, and out, on unstoppably to Istanbul.

  She’s probably just sitting in the wrong seat, Max told herself. But even though she was an optimist, there was a great yawning pit in her gut, because she didn’t believe that at all. She hurried up the train, scanning all the cars, praying for a glimpse of crumpled wimple, of long grey sock. She hurried back down again. She did that twice more, as if she might somehow have failed to notice the world’s tallest nun. Then she sat back down in her seat, and cried.

  There was one other person in her car, a lady dressed all over in a powdery purple. She half smiled, half frowned at Max in a concerned bid to be kind, and said something in a soothing voice. Max couldn’t understand her – she was speaking Turkish – but it wouldn’t have made any difference, unless she happened to be saying, “Don’t worry, Sister Marguerite has not been hurt by whoever pushed Rupert off the train, and they will not be hurting you either, and everyone is safe, and I have got your red velvet armchair here for you.” And she probably wasn’t saying that.

  For the first time, Max didn’t care who it was who’d stolen the diamond, and pushed Rupert, and vanished Sister Marguerite. She just wanted them to stop.

  But she realized, as she took some gulping-great breaths, that knowing who they were truly mattered now. She didn’t know what they had done to keep Sister Marguerite from the train, but she had to find out, and somehow make things all right again. Marguerite had promised t
o keep Max safe, but Marguerite was gone. It was up to Max.

  So she took some more of the gulping breaths, held on to her plaits, and thought.

  What had Sister Marguerite realized? Ester knew Great-Aunt Elodie, and had visited Berlin, to bid for a crystal penguin. What had that told her?

  And what had she left the restaurant car to look for? Something in their sleeping car – which had also become Ester’s sleeping car. Whatever it was, Klaus Grob – Die Eiserne Hand security – had put himself firmly in the way. Max would bet the heartbreak diamond itself that the answer was waiting in Ester Rosenkrantz’s luggage. She would have to take another look. And the sooner the better. She didn’t fancy sneaking about at night, when anyone could be waiting for her in the shadows, ready to get rid of another nuisance. She would go now.

  But how to distract Ester and Klaus? She needed an idea, and fast, but she was still having trouble thinking in straight lines.

  The woman opposite her had been rummaging in her handbag, and she finally produced a cookie, with great triumph. She wafted it kindly at Max. Max did her best to explain, via head shaking, how extraordinarily useless a cookie would be at that moment. Her throat tightened with sadness. The woman was so kind, and so ordinary, and so unlikely to bother herself with diamond thieves on trains. Max missed Marguerite painfully.

  When they rumbled over the Danube River, leaving Romania behind and crossing into Bulgaria, she still hadn’t come up with an idea. Gradually they left the snow, and chugged past valleys stiff with frost, and swollen black streams, and still she didn’t have an idea. Even though she was an optimist, her hope wobbled.

  The sky began to spit rain, and the drops raced each other down the window. A spider crawled ponderously across the pane.

  And that was when Max found that she did have an idea, after all.

  She tried putting her hand in front of the spider, but this spider knew a human hand when he saw one. He crouched stubbornly still every time she went near him. So Max tore a page from her notebook, took Sister Marguerite’s jelly-bean jar from her suitcase, cupped it over him, and took him by surprise from underneath with the paper. He waved a leg in feeble protest.

  “Sorry,” Max said. “If it helps, I know how you feel.”

  The powder-purple lady was now truly worried about her. Max smiled reassuringly – or as reassuringly as she could manage, with a face smudged from crying and a trapped spider in her hands – then she set off down the corridor once more.

  Celeste was at the window, staring out, as usual.

  Ester and Klaus’s car was in the next carriage, thankfully, away from Celeste’s gaze. Max cupped the jar to the crack at the bottom of the door, and slid away the paper.

  “Good luck,” she whispered.

  The spider spidered off, not bothered. Spiders do not really worry about good luck and bad luck. For spiders, the world is just made up of flies and not-flies.

  Max backed off into the corridor of her own carriage, and watched through the window, trying to look casual for Celeste’s benefit. For a while there was only the sound of a baby crying, and the usual train-rattle.

  Just when she began to think that the spider must have threaded itself into a nook somewhere unseen, there was an enormous roar, followed by some very high-pitched croaking. Double-quick, Ester was pelting down the corridor to the next carriage over. Klaus was in close pursuit. The door to the carriage slammed behind them.

  Quickly and silently, Max entered the carriage from the other end, and slipped into their car.

  The suitcase was stored under a seat. Max heaved it out. It really was heavy.

  She searched it hastily, heart pounding at every noise from the corridor. If she heard them coming, she could shove the case back in place and make up an excuse for being there, but she had to be quick if she was going to find anything. And no Le Goffian half measures. She felt in every pocket, shook out every shoe, and peered at hairbrushes and hats for any unexpected bumps. She double-checked that all the pear drops really were pear drops. She unstopped a bottle of perfume that smelled overwhelmingly of Ester – a sugary sort of rose – and examined the elaborate stopper, looking for the red wink of a diamond. Nothing.

  And at that moment the train gave a huge jolt, and a bag fell from the rack overhead, smashing into the bottle.

  Glass shards rained on to the floor. Perfume sloshed all over Max, who instantly smelled of a whole garden of roses. A lot went on the spider as well, who waved his legs at her in reproach. In the world of spiders, rose perfume is very much not-flies.

  But there was no time to worry about the spider, because just then Max heard someone coming up the corridor, with the footsteps of a man built like a small mountain. A man recruited by Die Eiserne Hand. A man who could very easily throw you off a train if he found you meddling where you shouldn’t meddle.

  She shoved the suitcase back in place, but there was still the small matter of the glass all over the floor, and the shards that were clinging to her jumper, and the fact that she smelled like a hundred Esters all at once. The stopper of the bottle rolled pointedly across the floor. (It hit the spider, which was definitely not-flies; and it is a shame that spiders don’t understand the idea of bad luck, because this spider was certainly having some.)

  From what Max could make out, Klaus had paused to coo at the crying baby that she had heard earlier. She had to think fast.

  Above her there was a window showing a slice of sky, set into a square of metal in the ceiling. It looked a bit like her own skylight, except that under the window were the words SADECE ACIL DURUMLAR. Max didn’t speak Turkish, but the words were in the shade of red that always means emergency and danger, wherever you go.

  Well, this was an emergency. And small slices of sky, you will remember, made Max feel like she could go anywhere and do anything.

  Sometimes, this feeling was a bit misleading. Other times, like now, it was very stupid.

  When Klaus’s footsteps resumed, Max was already on the seat, and undoing the catch on the emergency roof hatch. Half a second later, she was scrambling up on to the back of the seat, and poking out through the roof.

  The little slice of sky opened out into huge-huge-endless sky, and howling wind, and suddenly Max was a lot less sure about her plan; but by this time she looked as suspicious as it was possible to look, and Klaus would certainly know what she had been up to. And she really didn’t want to be thrown off a train in the middle of the Bulgarian countryside. So she wriggled her legs through, crouched on the roof of the train, and slammed the hatch shut.

  She was just in time. But there was no time for relief: there was only horror.

  Wind screamed past her as though it was fleeing something, and it pulled at her skin as if it would tear it from the bones, and battered her lungs when she tried to breathe. The rain flew at her. The noise deafened her. She had to get back inside.

  She began to crawl, very slowly, plaits flying behind her like flags.

  She only just saw the tunnel in time.

  Throwing herself flat on the train, Max barely missed the tunnel roof. The frozen air of the tunnel hit her like a wall of water. For a few long seconds, there was only blackness, and the tortured wind. Then they burst back out again.

  She crouched, now alert for anything overhead, and when she felt sure of her balance she began to crawl up to the end of the carriage. The gap between this carriage and the next turned her stomach. But there was no other way forward, and Max had to find the next door. She stretched forward her hands first – then followed them with her right foot, then her left – and crossed the divide.

  She carried on crawling. This must be, she thought, what the spider felt like. Scuttling along in a world that was enormous and full of meaningless noise and always likely, with a sudden swoop, to kill you.

  Being a spider, she decided, was horrendous.

  At last, she reached the next hatch. She had to lie flat for a minute more to avoid some low-hanging wires that crackled and sparked a
s the train passed. Then she heaved the hatch open, wriggled her body around (oh, horrible, horrible) – and clambered, shaking, back into the train.

  She was at the end of a corridor. It was empty. She collapsed with relief on to the floor.

  It was stupidly dangerous, said Sister Marguerite’s voice in her head. But since you’ve pulled it off, I’m glad.

  For several minutes, Max just lay there in the blissful quiet, curled up tight, shaking. All her resolve began to weaken. She missed Sister Marguerite and her mother and her home and she wanted, more than anything, to just be taken care of for a moment. But nobody was going to do that.

  Then she had a thought, and the thought was enough to make her get up and clean her blackened hands, even though they still shook; and go to her carriage for clean clothes that wouldn’t give her away with the stink of roses; and hasten back one more time to the carriage of Klaus Grob and Ester Rosenkrantz, before Ester recovered from the spider.

  This was the thought:

  She had never noticed that there was more than one way into a train before. It had never occurred to her to look. Would she have noticed if there was more than one way into a suitcase? And that suitcase had been much heavier than it should have been.

  Celeste was still in the corridor – as always – and there was no way for Max to avoid her gaze. She watched Max hurry back and forth, eyebrows raised. “Busy day, Max?” she asked.

  But Celeste was a lot less scary now that Max had spent time clinging to the roof of a train. So she just said “Yep!” and charged past, leaving Celeste to stare after her, and wonder.

  Ester and Klaus were still gone: the spider had done well. Everything but Ester’s pear drops was in exactly the same position. Klaus must have just reached in and grabbed them, not spotting the glass. Max pulled the suitcase out again.

  She heaved it on to each side in turn, searching.

  There! A long, thin hole, hidden on the bottom edge. A hole that just might take a key.

 

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