Laura Marlin Mysteries 2: Kidnap in the Caribbean (22 page)

It was a sobering thought. They looked along the vent. Scraping noises indicated that the gang was already in pursuit. Either they fled into the unknown or they’d be back at the pool, swimming with the octopus.

They ran. Or, they would have run had they had more energy. Unfortunately the tunnel was mostly uphill. They were effectively climbing the Soufriere Hills. Since they’d had nothing to eat or drink since early that morning and since the air in the tunnel was stale and foul, they soon ran out of steam. A stitch bit into Laura’s side.

A yellow stripe of light swept across their backs.

‘They’re coming,’ panted Tariq. ‘We have to move faster.’

Laura paused to massage the pain in her side. She gritted her teeth and thought of Skye. If something happened to her, who would take care of Skye? She took a deep breath and picked up the pace.

The swinging yellow light grew brighter. Their pursuers were hard on their heels. Laura risked a glance over her shoulder. Janet Rain and Little were gaining ground.

They were about to run again when she grabbed Tariq’s arm. ‘Stop, I think I felt something.’

There was panic in his eyes. ‘Laura, if we hesitate, we’re … dead.’

‘Cool air. I think I felt cool air.’

He didn’t argue. He knew as well as she did that a cold breeze could indicate an exit of some kind.

They backtracked a little way, a terrifying prospect with their pursuers pounding towards them. But Tariq’s torch found it almost immediately – a crevice between two rocks, worn smooth by the elements. It was incredibly narrow but there was a chance that a child could squeeze through it. Ignoring Laura’s protests, he made a stirrup of his hands and lifted her up. ‘If I’m not out in one minute, forget about me and run for your life.’

Laura’s voice was muffled as she strained to squeeze through the gap. ‘Tariq, I’m not leaving you. Not ever.’ But even as she said it she knew that Janet and Little must be almost upon him.

She was out in the night, in the sharp sweet air, when she heard Janet’s muffled voice say to him: ‘It’s all over, kid. One move and you’re dead.’

‘Don’t think,’ Laura told herself. ‘Just act.’ She reached down and Tariq’s palms touched hers. ‘Jump!’ she yelled, and pulled with all her strength.

Tariq’s feet found a purchase on the tunnel wall and his head and shoulders emerged from the hole. His face changed. They’d grabbed his ankles.

Laura flung herself on the ground and threw her arms around his chest. ‘Leave him alone,’ she screamed. ‘Leave him.’

He kicked frantically at the monsters below, but it was like battling quicksand. Millimetre by millimeter they dragged him down.

‘Run, Laura,’ Tariq said weakly. ‘Save yourself.’

Laura’s muscles felt as if they were on fire, but she gripped him even tighter. ‘Tariq, will you shut up and fight.’

He kicked out again and there was a curse from below.

‘By dose,’ moaned Little. ‘You’ve broken by dose.’

His gripped slacked and Tariq shot out of the hole like a champagne cork from a bottle, barefoot. There were outraged shouts from below as his captors realised that all they had of him was his shoes. And more cursing when they discovered that the hole was kid-sized. Not even Little, with his emaciated, marathon-runner frame, could fit through it.

‘This is not the end,’ Janet Rain screamed through the gap. ‘This will never be over until we’ve got you and your uncle. We’ll hunt you to the ends of the earth. Mr A will insist on it.’

‘Good luck with that,’ Laura shouted down. ‘You’re in a lava tunnel and the volcano is erupting.’

There were a few more threats, followed by the echo of fleeing footsteps. The message had hit home.

The children embraced under the night sky. Then they pulled apart, looked at each other and said together: ‘The volcano!’

They were on the lower slopes of the Soufriere Hills, just beyond the perimeter fence of Marine Concern. Two reservoirs of water winked in the moonlight.

‘Laura,’ Tariq breathed. ‘Look up.’

A fountain of orange sparks spewed from the top of the volcano. Billowing clouds of red smoke followed, along with molten snakes of black steam and rock. They streamed down the mountain with a tremendous hissing.

‘A glowing cloud,’ Laura said in awe. ‘Heading our way at 700kmph.’

She was spent. She had nothing left to give. Even if it were possible to outrun the volcano, which it wasn’t, her body simply was not up to the task.

They started to run, but Laura pulled up with a savage stitch after only a few paces. ‘I can’t run any more. Not another step. Tariq, you go. Go while you—’

‘First, I’d never in a million years abandon you,’ said Tariq, raising his voice above the hissing monster. ‘Second, there’s nowhere to run to.’

There was a ripple of white and then a black shape came hurtling out of the darkness. ‘Skye!’ Laura could have sobbed with relief. ‘Oh, Skye, I’ve been so worried about you.’

But though the husky was clearly overjoyed to see her, he was not his loving self. After giving her face a couple of quick licks, he began tugging at the bottoms of her jeans with his teeth.

‘He’s saved us twice before,’ Tariq said. ‘Maybe he knows something we don’t.’

They could see every detail of the swirling red smoke and the lemony glow beneath as a forcefield of gas and rocks sped roaring towards them. It was Laura’s nightmare come to terrifying reality.

Faced with the prospect of being incinerated, Laura found to her surprise that she was not nearly as afraid as she’d thought she might be. The conviction that, against all odds, she and Tariq would escape or be rescued blazed as brightly inside her as the molten core of the volcano itself. They had too much to live for. Too many things to do.

Skye barked and worried at her jeans once again. Laura grabbed Tariq’s hand. ‘The reservoir. He wants us to run to the reservoir.’

They flew towards the nearest tank with the volcano steaming after them. The water was as black as oil. There was no telling how deep it was, or what lurked beneath it.

Laura hesitated. ‘What if it’s full of sharks? Or worse, snails or jellyfish?’

The glowing cloud was so near they could smell its fiery breath. ‘We’ll have to take our chances,’ yelled Tariq. ‘Just jump.’

They held their breath and jumped.

NEVER IN HER
life had Laura seen so many shades of blue. There was soft greeny-blues and pale smoky blues, French blues, Prussian blues, blues like old worn denim, cornflower blues and blues that made your heart feel peaceful.

In the midst of them all was a strip of sparkling white beach. While walking along it earlier that morning, Laura had found a pink conch shell. She’d put it on her bedside table in the room of the private Antiguan villa they’d been loaned for the week. When they returned to Cornwall, she planned to take it with her as a present for Mrs Crabtree, whose wise words had followed her throughout this adventure: ‘There’s a reason people often put “trouble” and “paradise” in the same sentence, you know. The two words tend to go together.’

The villa came with its own yacht. Her uncle loved to sail and after breakfast that morning he’d taken her and Tariq out into the bay. They’d been drifting on the current, watching rainbow shoals of fish dart in and out of pink and purple blossoms of coral, when a pod of dolphins showed up. Laura would never in her life forget the experience of watching the dolphins play. Their graceful, muscular bodies leapt, somersaulted, and streaked beneath the boat. The spirit of them, their sheer joy at being alive, infused the air around them. It was impossible not to smile in their presence.

One brave dolphin came so near to the yacht they could have reached down and touched it. It chirruped, squeaked and grinned cheekily at them. Then, with a tremendous thwack of its tail, it darted away, leaving them drenched and laughing.

‘You look blissed out,’ Tariq teased Laura as they sailed back to shore.

‘I am,’ Laura murmured dreamily. ‘In total heaven.’

He grinned. He was blissed out too, just not for the same reasons. Oh, the private villa, delicious food and heavenly stretch of beach were wonderful, especially for a boy who’d known the terror and hardship that Tariq had before meeting Laura. But his past had also taught him that there are more important things in life than beautiful surroundings. Friendship, loyalty and kindness were what counted. That he had found those qualities not merely in his best friend, but in her uncle as well, made his heart feel full to bursting.

He would have laid down his life for Laura knowing that she would, in a second, do the same for him. In St Ives and on Montserrat, she’d proved it.

Back at the villa, Laura threw a Frisbee for Skye before settling into a shady hammock on the verandah. The husky lay on the white boards beside her, washing his sandy paws and licking at his damp belly. He hated to be dirty. He cleaned himself until his wolf-dark fur was once more pristine.

‘Be careful what you wish for,’ Matron had said time and time again to Laura at Sylvan Meadows. But though Laura would never again buy a raffle ticket, she had no regrets. Everything had worked out for the best.

Not, of course, that it had seemed that way when she’d been sitting at the bottom of a dark tank of water with her lungs burning. At that moment, things had been as bad as they could be.

When she heard Skye barking, she’d propelled herself to the surface, followed closely by Tariq. The husky had heaved himself out and they both used him as a crutch to do the same. Then the three of them had lain still for a long time, gasping for oxygen and coughing in the sulphuric air. Tariq and Laura had used their T-shirts as masks to protect themselves from the toxins, and the boy had tied his handkerchief around Skye’s muzzle to protect the dog’s lungs. The mountain still streamed with scarlet ribbons, but the area around them was clear.

What happened next was like a sequence from a dream. Headlights came swerving out of the darkness. The Land Rover and attached caravan bounced into view.

Rupert threw open the door. ‘We really must stop meeting like this,’ he said. ‘Can I offer you a ride?’

When the smoke finally cleared the following morning, Marine Concern had been buried beneath a carpet of grey ash. Thanks to Rupert’s Early Warning system and Tariq’s email, the Gannets had been saved from the volcano and almost all the gangsters, including Little and Large and the men who’d posed as pirates, were in custody. Almost all. Janet Rain was missing, presumed dead, and Rutger had escaped. Mr Pike was going to jail as soon as he was released from the hospital. He was missing a couple of fingers after losing a battle with a shark.

‘Couldn’t have happened to a nicer man,’ remarked Laura.

Her uncle had had plenty of adventures of his own. He’d been kidnapped from the
Ocean Empress
in exactly the way that Laura guessed – in the conjurer’s box. The pirates had taken him directly to Marine Concern, where he’d been held in a dank dungeon dripping seawater until shortly before the children saw him tied to a chair above the pool.

During his stay in the dungeon, Calvin Redfern had expected to be tortured. He’d imagined that the gang would want to take immediate revenge on him for his past success in disrupting the operations of the Straight A’s and arresting numerous high-ranking members of the gang.

‘Instead, they tormented me by telling me that the two of you had been kidnapped and were being held in Antigua. They didn’t let on that you’d escaped. They contented themselves with driving me out of my mind by hinting at how Celia and Sebastian were making you suffer. They promised that my day of suffering would come, but claimed they were waiting for someone. I was certain that that someone would be Mr A.’