Idea in Stone (41 page)

Peter squeezed his hand. “That would be nice.”

“I don’t know what to do, Peter. I can’t find my father anywhere, and I really need some help with all this. It sounds crazy, since I came this far just to get away from her, but—”

“You want to talk to your mother.”

“Yeah, I do. But she won’t talk to me.”

“You should get that box back, the one you pawned.”

“Maybe.”

“You should. She said you should open it when you’d had a change of heart. Sounds like you have.”

“Okay,” said Stefan. He looked at Peter’s face and smiled. “I wish we had a handful of those chocolates. We could go out for a walk.”

“Have sex somewhere.”

Stefan laughed. “Yeah, I was thinking something like that. I want you back. I don’t want to wait for the trial. It’s too far away, and I don’t think we’ve got that long. I also don’t trust that the judges will see past how all this looks. We’ve got to do something to get you out.”

“It’s got to be Friday when I go to the court. After that, I’m back here for months, and there’ll be no way for me to get free.”

“Friday, then. I’ll think of something, and I’ll meet you at the courthouse.”

“Yeah. In the meantime, go back and see Kreel at the pawn shop and get your box back. It’s probably still there. Nobody ever buys anything from him.”

“Okay,” said Stefan, still smiling at him.

“Okay,” said Peter, doing the same in return.

Their hands locked across the table.

“I’m going now,” said Stefan.

“Doesn’t look like it.”

“Alright, maybe I’m not.”

The warder loomed above them. “Time’s up,” he said.

Peter stood up and rounded the table to hug Stefan tight. The warder pulled them apart. “Ach, you’re just jealous,” said Peter to the warder with a laugh. “Don’t worry, there’s plenty to go around. I still love you.” He pointed a gun-finger at Stefan and shot it. “See ya, lover.” The warder led him out a door through which Stefan was not allowed to follow.

Twenty-Five

Spirit-levelled

Stefan let go of the shop door and it swung shut with a clatter. Mister Kreel spun around behind his counter, looking at Stefan with one eye then twisting his head around to regard him with the other.

“Uh, good morning,” said Stefan.

“What d’yeh want?” asked the man.

Stefan produced a slip of paper from his pocket, his half of the pawn ticket. He held it out. “I gave you something a few weeks back. I’d like to claim it.”

Kreel held the paper out to the left side of his head and looked at it. His other eye was still trained on Stefan. “Hmph,” he grumbled, and handed the ticket back. “Yeh cannae have it.”

Stefan was prepared for a struggle. “You paid me a hundred and fifty pounds for it. I’m willing to give you two hundred to get it back.”

Kreel shook his head.

“Three hundred.”

Kreel shook his head again.

“Five hundred pounds.”

The man laughed, showing teeth like chipped ivory piano keys. “No. Yeh cannae have it because it’s no here anymore.”

Stefan paled. “Where is it?”

“I sold it.”

“To whom?”

“Ach, ah cannae tell yeh that. Ah could get in trouble if I telt yeh that.”

Stefan looked around the shop at the tarnished musical instruments, the old televisions, and the sound systems. The counter he leaned on, he noticed, was full of old watches and jewellery. On the counter was a record-book. Kreel saw him looking at it, and caught his eye, as much as he was able to. “What if,” said Stefan to the man, “I gave you the money anyway, and you went into the back just for a moment?”

“Ah
could
use some tea,” said Kreel.

Stefan pulled a roll of notes from his pocket and counted out a hundred pounds. Weeks ago, it would have flattened him, but now he had access to the play’s royalties, he didn’t care about the money. He just wanted the box back, and with it, his mother.

Kreel left the counter, and Stefan leafed through the book. It took him several minutes to decipher Kreel’s handwriting, then to sort through the entries. Finally, he found one marked “Peruvian box” with the name “MacMillan” beside it. His heart sank: a surname wasn’t enough to go on. He’d just been had.

Kreel returned from the back of the store with a cup of tea. “Whups,” he said, reaching across to close the book, “ah shouldnae be leaving that open for all the world to see. People come in here and snoop around—yeh’d think this was the bloody
Royal Museum of Scotland
.”

There was something in the way Kreel stressed the words. Stefan looked up at Kreel, who nodded at him. Stefan smiled and nodded back.

“Thank you, Mister Kreel.”

“Nae bother,” said Kreel.

~

Stefan stopped at the museum’s information desk and asked for an employee named MacMillan. “He works in education services,” said the guide. Stefan asked where that was and got directions. He walked to the older of the two conjoined museums, looking up at the ornate white birdcage ceiling of the main lobby, then passed through a display of modern inventions to a split staircase with deep red carpet. One floor up, he found the department he was looking for, which had an imposing set of wild-looking wooden doors bracketed on either side with what looked like narrow, unfinished wooden bookshelves piled with found objects like a bleached animal skull and a small antler.

Stefan pressed the buzzer and someone came to the door. “Mister MacMillan?” he asked the man.

“Yes. Can I help you?”

“In fact,” said Stefan, “you can.”

The man led him inside and took him to his desk. It was covered in stray objects—a stuffed seagull with its wings spread, several piles of papers, some shells, and the Voice Box.

“It’s about this box, actually,” Stefan said, reaching for it.

The man picked it up before Stefan’s hand reached it. “What of it?”

“Well, see, it was a gift from my mother, and I really shouldn’t have sold it.”

“Mmm. Yes, but you did. This doesn’t belong in a pawn shop. It’s too precious for that.”

“You know what it is?”

“I’ve read about them before, but I’ve never seen one. And this one is in such good condition.” He traced a finger over the carvings in its dark wooden surface. “I’ll have to contact my associate in Peru to find out exactly when this was made and what region it’s from.”

Stefan laughed. “It’s not from Peru. That’s just something my friend told the shopkeeper.”

“No, it
is
Peruvian.”

“Oh!” said Stefan. He fingered the roll of money in his pocket. He’d made another trip to the bank before this visit, and now he wondered how much the man paid for the box. “Well, like I said, it was a gift from my mother, so I’m wondering how much you’d take for it.”

MacMillan laughed. “I’m afraid it’s not for sale. You obviously have no idea how valuable this is to the museum.”

“Yes, well, I’m afraid you have no idea how valuable it is to
me
,” said Stefan. “I’m willing to give you back whatever you paid. But whether you take my money or not, I’m leaving with it.”

“I don’t think so,” said the man.

“Don’t test me,” warned Stefan rising in his chair.

“Don’t threaten me,” said the man, reaching for the telephone on his desk.

Stefan grabbed the stuffed seagull and threw it at MacMillan. The man wrestled with the bird’s outstretched wings while Stefan grabbed the Voice Box and ran for the door. As he fumbled with its lock, Stefan saw MacMillan making a call on his phone. He burst out onto the staircase landing, and saw a portly man in a museum jacket listening to a walkie-talkie. The man looked up at Stefan and started toward him, and a second guard ran up to join him.

Stefan bounded up the stairs. He saw a third guard through a doorway, answering his walkie-talkie. Stefan swerved away and continued up the stairs to the next floor. He ran into a room full of glass display cases and counters full of marine life models. There was only one way out of this room, so he ran for that exit.

Stefan found himself on a large rectangular balcony that looked down on a room below. Its inside edge was lined with waist-high glass-topped counters. Inside were plaster models of fish. Scanning around, he saw the exit on the other end of the room, but a security guard was coming through it. He looked back to the door he’d just entered through and saw the other two guards running toward him.

Putting the Voice Box in his good jacket pocket, he climbed up onto the display-counters. The guards walked slowly toward him as he stepped gingerly along the counters’ length. A pane of glass crunched beneath his left foot and he crushed a model of a prehistoric fish. He stretched his arms out to balance himself. Fighting his instincts, he looked down to the room below. Hanging there, halfway between him and the floor, was the skeleton of a sperm whale—a giant spine, two hand-like fins, and an enormous head like a cross between an elongated cow skull and a shoe-polishing brush.

He looked at the guards, who each shook their heads at him. He carefully put one foot then the other on the railing, steadying himself with a hand on a post. Taking a deep breath, he launched himself out from the balcony.

He hit the whale-skull hard, but managed to get a hand-hold where it parted in the middle. He kicked his dangling legs, then managed to brace them against one of the tusk-like protrusions that once formed the great mammal’s jaw.

Below him were several crusty-looking rhinos and two giraffes with peeling fur. He chose the larger of the two giraffes. Steadying himself again, he angled his body and leapt down. He hit the giraffe’s neck, raising a cloud of dust. He hugged the neck tight as it listed to one side at an unnatural angle, letting him down to the ground slowly before breaking off completely. He glanced up and saw all the security guards in the building looking down at him from above. He waved and ran off.

~

As Stefan walked in the direction of the temple building, the sun gave a final burst of yellow light, then vanished.

He’d got the box back, but lost all of the previous day doing it. Peter was scheduled for the Sheriff Court tomorrow, and Stefan still had no plan for freeing him. In his desperation, he called Rab for a plan. Rab resisted at first, but Stefan reminded him that if it hadn’t been for Peter, he would be the one in jail. “You owe him this,” said Stefan. Rab agreed, and told him that he’d gather everyone together to work out a plan to get Peter free.

Something about the route had changed, and Stefan grew confused as he walked a tangle of side-streets. He found himself lost down a narrow cobbled lane and stopped, looking back and forth.

Something moved ahead of him. Stefan stepped up onto the pavement and clung close to a wall. He saw the movement again, and recognised the scratchman from his oversized hat and cloak, and the strange luminescence of his eyes, blinking in the dark. “What do you want?” Stefan called out. The figure moved tentatively toward him. “What?” demanded Stefan. It made him more annoyed than afraid now, and he had an instinct from their last meeting that it wouldn’t hurt him.

Stefan’s determination to help Peter made him bold. “What? Cat got your tongue? Look, I don’t know what you want, but I’ve got to meet some people.”

The scratchman shook his head.

“Sorry, I’m going,” said Stefan, starting to move past it.

The scratchman put his hands on Stefan’s chest to stop him, using a fraction of the force he knew the creature was capable of. It continued to shake its head at him.

“You don’t have a say in this. I’m going to see Rab, and we’re going to figure out a way to get Peter free.” He angled his way past the scratchman, ignoring the plaintive look on its face.

~

The meeting finished two hours later, and everyone poured from the temple back into the night. The plan was set, and Stefan was happy, convinced that they had a good chance of getting Peter back.

The scratchman moved from doorway to doorway, following him home. Stefan knew he was there, but ignored him. He caught a brightly-lit bus to head back home and saw the scratchman watching him through the window as the bus pulled away.

~

“I’ll get it, Mum,” said Rab, pulling a T-shirt over his head. He pulled the front door open.

“Mister Robert Donovan?” asked the police constable.

Rab rubbed at his face, blinking into the morning light.

~

“Where
is
he?” asked Stefan.

“Don’t worry,” said one of the gang who’d assembled to execute Rab’s plan. “Everyone’s in place. No matter which way the van approaches the court, there’ll be people there to stop it.”

“Right,” said Stefan. “You’re right. It’s all good.” He winced as he said the words: in his experience, people only said “It’s all good” when things were completely buggered.

~

The metal door of Peter’s cell slid open. He’d been waiting anxiously for hours. A warder led him past rows of doors that had been whitewashed so many times that the interior of the building looked like the exterior of a battleship. The stairs to the ground floor were metal painted a jarringly bright red.