by Lauren Child
‘But I’m looking for—’
‘No access. . . hey, wait a minute. Are you a kid?’ He peered at her. ‘You shouldn’t even be here, I’ll get someone to escort you down.’
Ruby didn’t wait for that. ‘It’s OK sir, I’m going.’ And she turned back before he could march her down to the hotel lobby. Once on the floor below, she began searching for a window that might open. The only way up to the roof was to climb out of the window and scale the outside of the building. It was as she was trying to find a suitable window to exit from that she felt a strange vibration down her spine and then she could have sworn she could hear a tiny voice, tinny and insistent, and it seemed to be calling her name.
‘Ruby?’
She stopped and reached her hand down the back of the jumpsuit. What she pulled out was the fly barrette.
‘How did you get there?’ she said to the barrette.
‘What?’ said Hitch, his voice crackly and distant.
‘Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you,’ hissed Ruby into the fly transmitter.
‘What are you doing kid? You should be in the ballroom of the Circus Grande but you seem to be heading for the roof.’
‘He’s here,’ she said.
‘Who’s here?’
‘Claude.’
‘Who’s Claude?’
‘The Little Canary’s son.’
‘Who’s the Little Canary?’
‘Celeste, the acrobat the one who did all Margo’s stunts,’ said Ruby. ‘Look, it doesn’t matter, all you need to know is that I know what’s going on, Claude is the skywalker, he’s here to avenge his mother’s death, he’s got this wrong idea that Margo Bardem’s the one responsible for destroying his mother’s life.’
All the time Ruby was talking she was working on the window trying to force it open. Where was her watch when she needed it?
‘Kid, what are you doing?’ said Hitch, ‘I’m getting interference.’
Ruby had taken the barrette and was picking the window lock. ‘Claude has been collecting up things that used to belong to his mother – the paperweight, the shoes, the poems, the tie-clip, the orchid. Celeste gave them to George Katsel, when they got engaged – he, being less than a lovely person, either lost them or gave them away.’
HITCH: ‘I hear weather, are you opening a window?’
RUBY: ‘I’m trying to prevent a crime.’
HITCH: ‘We’re on it Redfort.’
RUBY: ‘You’re not, you don’t understand.’
HITCH: ‘What exactly don’t I understand? There’s no way the skywalker or Claude, whatever you want to call him, is going to kidnap Margo.’
RUBY: ‘He’s not here to kidnap her.’
HITCH: ‘He’s not?’
RUBY: ‘No, he’s here to murder her.’
HITCH: ‘Murder her? How do you figure that?’
RUBY: ‘The movie tonight, Feel the Fear, is about a character who plummets to her death from a high wire. Margo plays that role; Claude is gonna ensure life imitates art.’
HITCH: ‘Why?’
RUBY: ‘He wants to make his mother visible again, don’t you see that’s what this whole thing is about? He’s collecting Celeste’s things, tapping us on the shoulder, reminding us who she was and Margo is the final tap on the card because Margo stole Celeste’s spotlight and now Claude is taking the light back. Everyone will remember Celeste the Little Canary. Until the day when those who brought you low have fallen – he wrote that on Celeste’s grave and Margo is going to be the one who falls and Claude is going to make it happen.’
HITCH: ‘He can’t get near her, kid, not a chance. There is no way he can get inside either building, we have it covered.’
‘You don’t get it,’ said Ruby her voice clear and steady.
‘He’s already here.’
Chapter 50.
Go
‘MISS BARDEM?’
The actress turned around.
‘Why yes. . . but where did you appear from?’ She looked him up and down, this man dressed entirely in black. ‘Are you part of the security team?’ she asked. ‘It’s just, well, I only opened my door for a moment, to ask for some tea, and I didn’t see anyone come in.’
‘No, but then you wouldn’t.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘That’s not important.’
‘You shouldn’t be here,’ said the actress.
‘Neither should you,’ said the figure in black.
Margo Bardem looked puzzled. ‘Is there something I can do for you?’
‘That depends, do you know how to bring back the dead?’
‘I’m sorry?’ she whispered. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘No, you’re not sorry, how could you be sorry? You stole everything from my mother, all she loved. First the applause then the man she adored, and then worst of all you stole her –’ his voice cracked – ‘from me.’
‘I think you must have confused me with someone else.
I don’t know your mother, I have no idea what you are talking about.’ She had played this role so many times on the screen, it was second nature to her. Keep calm, she thought, never show your fear.
‘Let me jog your memory,’ said the man. ‘Those yellow shoes, were they ever really yours? Did anyone ever ask you to actually try to slip your foot into them?’
Miss Bardem turned pale. She was feeling around for the phone; it was somewhere under all the bouquets of flowers and well-wisher cards. ‘You are clearly out of your mind. I would like you to leave, young man.’
‘I know, Miss Bardem, but we can’t always have things our own way. At some point our luck must run out.’
‘My audience is expecting me, I have to be on stage very soon.’
‘Not quite yet, you have almost one hour.’
‘But somebody will be up any minute, to do my hair, my make-up, any minute now. . .’
‘I’ve read your biography, Miss Bardem, you like exactly one hour all to yourself before you appear in public and don’t you always do your own hair? Of course you do – you used to be a hairdresser before you were a big star, remember?’
Margo Bardem bit her lip and nervously twisted the bird-shaped ring on the fourth finger of her left hand.
‘That ring for instance, wasn’t it meant for someone else?’
‘It was a present from George Katsel – for my work in The Cat that Got the Canary.’
‘And you did get the canary, didn’t you? And when you got her, you killed her.’
‘What can you possibly mean?’
‘You killed the Little Canary.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘The Little Canary, Celeste, you killed my mother.’
‘But I hardly knew her. She filmed the dancing scenes, sure, the stunts on the high wire but—’
‘You don’t have to know someone to destroy them.’
‘But how could I have destroyed her? I mean, I wouldn’t, I couldn’t.’
‘You stole her role, you pretended it was you dancing on the wire, you made her disappear.’
‘But I didn’t,’ pleaded Margo. ‘You must know I had no say in it.’ She was almost begging now. ‘Don’t you see? That’s the movie business, they don’t want to break the illusion, the producers said it would ruin my career if I let it be known that it wasn’t me up there. They said that I would be fired. It’s just acting, just a job.’
‘Just a job?’ spat the man. ‘Just a job, you say. Perhaps you work for money but my mother was an artist, walking the high wire was her art!’
‘What do you want from me?’ she pleaded.
‘I want you to bring her back, make her visible.’
‘But how?’
‘You admit the truth, tonight. Instead of introducing that film of yours, show everyone that she was the one who danced on the high wire, she was the talent and you were just the face, a spineless puppet.’
‘And then. . . you’ll let me go?’
‘Oh,’
he said. ‘I’ll let you go. Don’t you worry about that. I will most definitely let you go.’
Her eyes widened as she caught his meaning. ‘I can scream,’ said Miss Bardem.
‘Louder than anyone in showbiz,’ said Claude.
Margo Bardem nodded, a slow knowing gesture, she understood what he was saying. ‘You mean they will assume I am practising for the show tonight. . . and no one will come?’
Claude nodded his head. ‘Why would they, they know you are perfectly secure.’
She put down her yellow gloves; she didn’t think she would need them after all.
‘Let’s take a walk, shall we,’ he said.
‘Where are we going?’
‘Out,’ said Claude, his eyes looking up.
The actress gulped. ‘I have a fear of heights, you know.’
‘I know,’ he said, ‘that’s why you never did your own stunts.’ He looked at her. ‘But that’s all about to change.’
He pointed to the dressing table. ‘Get climbing,’ he said.
She didn’t argue; she didn’t see the point. Instead she stepped onto the table and looked at him with pleading eyes.
‘Where do you expect me to go?’ said Margo. ‘There’s no exit in this room, none but the door.’
‘You are mistaken. There is one right above your head, it leads to the roof, I used to play up there when I was a boy.’
He took the broom leaning against the wall and climbed up beside her and, using the handle, he pushed at a section of the ornate ceiling, dislodging one of the panels and revealing a trap door.
‘Liars first,’ and as he said these words so he dropped a perfectly blank card onto the table. The final loyalty stamp invisibly in place.
Tap tap tap tap tap tap.
The coded bumps and dips spelling out the number 29 14 27. The final word would be, GO.
Chapter 51.
Interference
HITCH WAS RUNNING UP THE STAIRS OF THE SCARLET PAGODA. He had already alerted the security team – Ruby couldn’t be right about this, it didn’t make any sense, but still he ran.
‘Kid, what do you mean he’s already here?’
‘I saw him in the cemetery,’ said Ruby. ‘I followed him to the Circus Grande, I watched him stare up at the building, I felt sure he was preparing to climb. I figure he’s going to skywalk over to the Scarlet Pagoda from the hotel rooftop.’
‘Kid, you’re out of your tree here – for one thing, how could he know Margo isn’t at the Circus Grande? Not even the Twinford PD has that information.’
‘He knows everything, don’t you see that?’ Ruby by now was leaning out of the window, her face turned skywards, assessing the climb. ‘He grew up with performers, he met Margo a long time ago, he knows her superstitions, about where she has to be before a performance, knows which dressing room she will be in. . . he just. . . knows.’ Ruby hauled herself up onto the windowsill and ducked out onto the ledge.
‘Your voice sounds weird kid, what are you doing? I’m getting a feeling that you might be about to do something dangerous.’
‘Security have closed off the roof access so I’m going out the window.’
‘In a dress?’
‘Relax,’ said Ruby. ‘I’ve changed. I’m wearing the jumpsuit you gave me.’
A pause.
‘Why do you need to get up on the roof?’ Hitch asked.
‘I need to find the wire – he’ll be walking a tightrope to the Pagoda, he’ll climb in from the roof. He knows this building like the back of his hand.’
‘Kid, the place is surrounded.’
Ruby ignored him. ‘If I can just locate the wire, then I can follow.’
‘You don’t need to follow,’ reasoned Hitch. ‘If you’re right about this, the skywalker will be spotted before he gets close.’
‘You could have the whole army out there, he would still get past them,’ said Ruby.
‘How do you figure that?’
‘Because. . . he’s invisible.’
Hitch stopped running. ‘What?’ he said. ‘Are you talking about ghosts again, Redfort?’
‘No, I’m talking something state of the art, I saw it with my own eyes. I saw him wrap himself in something and then he disappeared. He can make himself invisible.’
Silence.
‘Hitch, you there?’
‘Yeah. . .’ Hitch was sending messages to all agents.
‘It must have been what Nine Lives meant when I heard her in the vacant building talking to the skywalker. She talked about the suit that protected him – she meant an invisibility suit, it’s why I couldn’t see him, it’s why she couldn’t see him, it’s why no one has caught him and it’s why he can make it into the Scarlet Pagoda – into Margo’s dressing room – without being seen.’
‘You’re serious kid?’
‘What, don’t I sound like I’m serious?’
Silence. But not a shocked silence. A thoughtful silence.
‘Does this have to do with that prototype that went missing?’ said Ruby.
Silence.
‘You not talking, that means yes, right? This is what was taken from the Department of Defence. . .’
He paused. ‘Listen kid, let me handle this. Just hang tight, stay right where you are. I’ll be—’
‘No,’ said Ruby, ‘I’m going after him.’
‘Ruby, don’t do that, just wait for backup, I’m on my—’
But she just continued to climb. The wind whistled around her. The ground was very far below, but she didn’t look down.
‘Ruby—’
‘I’ll see you up there,’ she said.
‘Kid, what is it with you and orders?’
They were on the roof now, the birdman’s light feet tripping across the jade tiles, the actress stumbling and slipping, firmly gripping her captor’s arm, eager not to slide to her death.
‘Where. . .’ she gasped, ‘. . .where are we going?’
Margo Bardem turned to face him but he was not there, he was gone, vanished. For one solitary second she thought he had abandoned her there on the roof – she looked up at the dark sky and thanked whatever force might be watching over her – until, that is, she realised her arm was still in his firm grip.
He was gone from her sight but not gone from her side, and she felt herself pulled towards the roof’s edge, stepping closer and closer to the dizzying drop between the Pagoda and the Hotel Circus Grande. She could see the clusters of fans standing outside the hotel – autograph books in hand, waiting for their star to exit and walk the red carpet.
Little did they know she was about to make the exit of a lifetime – she was about to fall screaming from the sky.
Who could have imagined how closely Margo Bardem’s final seconds of life might imitate her art.
There weren’t a whole lot of footholds on the upper tier of the Circus Grande and Ruby was relying on her finger strength to pull herself up and onto the large ledge that ran around the building, a couple of feet below its top. Ruby hauled herself up and over and crouched behind the parapet trying to figure out what her best move might be, and then she saw a very strange sight indeed.
Margo Bardem, holding onto a man who wasn’t there, and stepping towards the almost invisible wire that ran between the Scarlet Pagoda and the Circus Grande.
Claude pushed her to the roof’s edge. ‘You fooled everyone into thinking you could do it once – do it now. Your fans want to see you walk the high wire.’
Looking down, Margo could see the crowds gathered to watch the guests and VIPs, the celebrated actors, directors, assorted movie people, all making their way along the red carpet.
Then she looked across, and saw the thin wire, stretching to the hotel roof. It couldn’t be more than an inch thick. ‘You’re not serious?’ she said.
‘Deadly,’ said Claude. He looked at her, puzzled. ‘You must know that has to be your destiny?’
‘My destiny?’
‘If you can walk all the way acr
oss then you deserve to live; if not then it is only fair you meet my mother’s fate.’
Margo glanced down at her public. ‘This can’t be happening,’ she whispered. ‘I’m sorry about your mother, I’m sorry you lost her, I’m sorry she had her heart broken by George Katsel, but you must see that it was not my doing. The Cat never loved anyone, he was only interested in himself – your mother lost nothing when she lost him.’
‘She lost me, is that nothing?’
‘Of course not. . . I didn’t mean. . .’
‘Walk, or I’ll make you fly.’
Margo, not knowing what else she could do, put one foot on the high wire. For a moment she thought she saw a young girl on the roof of the hotel opposite. She must be going half crazy with fear. The wind was a gale and she was walking to certain death. One foot wrong and she would be lost.
Searchlights were skating across the sky, announcing the finale of the film festival, flash bulbs popping as the stars arrived, and all this happening as the thriller above them played out unnoticed.
The fly barrette crackled and Hitch’s voice came through.
‘You there kid?’
‘Yeah.’
‘There’s no time to clear the area, there’s no time to set up a safe fall,’ said Hitch. ‘I am going to have to try and grab her but I need a little more time.’
‘OK,’ said Ruby.
‘You feeling fearless?’ asked Hitch.
‘What do you want me to do?’ said Ruby.
‘How good’s your balance?’
‘Excellent.’
‘You trust me kid?’
‘Totally,’ she said.
Chapter 52.
What a spectacle
MARGO BARDEM WAS TRYING NOT TO WHIMPER – she was an actress from the good old days of movie-making and was considered a tough cookie, a lady who could roll with the punches, but this was no ordinary role. This was life and death.
‘You have to pull it together,’ said Claude, ‘or you will definitely fall. Whatever you do, don’t look down.’
‘What, are you crazy, I’m not even looking up.’ It was the sort of line Margo Bardem had become famous for.