Open Sesame (25 page)

And then, at the very bottom of the bag, he found something he couldn’t remember having taken from the safe. On the other hand, it hadn’t been in the bag before, so it must have come from the safe. He picked it up, turned it over in his hands, and stared at it.

It was a box.

Well; more sort of a little jar, or urn. What the hell… ?

Somebody’s ashes, maybe? No, too heavy for that. He shook it. It rattled. He put it down quickly. He wasn’t a superstitious man; ladders played too great a part in his life for him to have any hangups about walking under them and as far as he was concerned, black cats were only bad luck if you accidentally trod on them when walking stealthily through someone’s kitchen at night. But there were definite bad vibes coming from this jar thing. He felt a strong urge to take the bloody thing, find a river, and throw it in.

Stupid! If it came from a safe, it stood to reason there was something valuable in it. A right fool he’d look if he chucked it on a skip and it turned out to be full of diamonds. But what was in it?

Only one way to find out. (Likewise, there’s only one way to find out the answer to the question: ‘What’s it really like falling twenty-seven storeys onto a concrete floor?’) He took a deep breath and opened the lid.

Inside was another jar, or urn. Identical, except slightly smaller. He opened it. Inside was another jar, or urn. Inside that, another. Inside that, another. All told, there were thirty-nine of them; and inside the thirty-ninth—

‘Jesus!’ John Fingers II jumped back as if he’d been bitten. There was something alive in the jar.

It was getting bigger, too. All the jars were getting bigger. He, crouched in the corner, terrified, as all thirty-nine jars swelled up like balloons until they were the size of oil-drums.

There were things in all of them. Hell fire, he muttered to himself, what is this? Instant freeze-dried horror movie, just add boiling water?

‘Boiling water?’

The voice came from inside one of the jars. Perhaps it was just the singular acoustic properties of sun-dried terracotta, but it sounded awful. John Fingers II gave a little scream and tried to back away, but some fool had left a wall lying about just where he wanted to back into. He slid down into a little heap.

A head appeared over the rim of one of the jars. First a purple turban, with a big red jewel in it; then a pair of burning coal-black eyes, a long thin nose, a thin moustache with twirly ends, a grinning mouth and a little pointy beard. Similar heads were popping up all over the place; thirty-nine of them. John Fingers closed his eyes and hoped to God for all he was worth that this lot were in fact the police and he was just about to be arrested.

‘Skip.’

‘What?’

‘Where the hell are we?’

‘How the hell should I know? Hey, this place is weird!’

‘How did we get here, then?’

‘Search me. Last thing I knew, some bird was pulling my lid off and pouring boiling water all over me.’

‘Hey, that’s it! Maybe we died.’

‘You feel dead, Hanif?’

‘How the hell should I know? You think I got a season ticket or something?’

‘Don’t feel dead. I think you get all cold and stiff.’

‘What, you mean like being cooped up in a jar for six hours?’

‘Talking of which, why don’t we all get out of these poxy jars?’

‘Good thinking, Skip.’

‘Hey, Skip, there’s someone over there. Look, down in that corner, by the wall.’

‘So there is … Hey, lads, look!’

‘Isn’t that…?’

‘Course it is! Wow, are we glad to see you! How the devil did you get here?’

John Fingers looked up, feeling like a lone rabbit facing thirty-nine oncoming lorries in the middle lane of a motorway. ‘You talking to me?’ he croaked.

‘Course we are. Hey look, Skip, I mean Aziz, it’s him!’

‘Where’d you get those funny clothes?’

‘He looks well on it, anyway. Hey, what’s it like here? And where are we, anyhow?’ John Fingers inched away, slithering sideways along the wall. ‘Am I supposed to know you people?’ he asked.

The one called Aziz looked at him strangely. ‘Of course,’ he said.

‘Really? You sure you haven’t mistaken me for someone else?’

Aziz grinned. ‘Come off it, Skip,’ he said.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

‘And six means I get an extra muezzin on Aleppo, giving me three suits in baulk and two on the line, repiqued in green makes four thousand nine hundred and twenty-three, add ninety-three for the slam above the line makes six thousand and sixteen, plus four for his spurs makes six thousand and twenty, and it’s on a double Carpet so that’s twenty-four thousand and eighty, but I also get twenty for the finesse, making a grand total of twenty-five thousand and I win’

‘I hate you,’ said Akram.

‘I don’t care,’ Michelle replied happily, sweeping the pieces into her corner. ‘And that makes forty-eight games to me and, oh dear, none to you, what a shame, never mind, mugs away, your go.’

‘Don’t want to play any more.’

‘Your go.’

‘This is a silly game.’

‘Your go.’

‘We have been playing this game,’ Akram said, ‘for eighty-four hours non-stop. Bloody fine kidnap this turned out to be.’

‘You started it.’

‘I think I’ll call the police and give myself up.’

‘Okay,’ Michelle said, setting out the pieces. ‘But we’ll finish the set first. Your go.’

‘You sure you haven’t played this game before?’

‘Course I’m sure. But I think I’m slowly getting the hang of it. Are you going to throw those dice, or are you waiting for tectonic shift to move them for you?’

‘I’ve had enough of this game. Let’s play Dragons’ Teeth instead. You ever played Dragons’ Teeth? You’d like it.’

‘Throw,’ Michelle growled sternly, ‘the dice.’

‘All right, all right… Oh balls, double one.’

‘Hah!’

‘I’d offer you money to go away,’ Akram said, ‘but I’ve only got a five pound note and some copper. Which reminds me,’ he added. ‘What happens to employees who stay away from work for four days without even phoning in to pretend they’re ill?’

‘Usually,’ Michelle replied, ‘they get the sack. Why?’

‘Pity,’ Akram said, ‘I was just starting to like it a lot there. Did I happen to mention I got promoted to assistant manager?’

‘Only about sixty million times. Pretty academic now, I’d have thought. Now then - oh wonderful, double four. Now, do I want the Emir’s Palace, Samarkand? Might as well, I suppose.’

Akram cupped his chin between his hands. ‘It was inevitable, I suppose,’ he sighed. ‘It’s the bloody story catching up with me, I guess. You settle down, get a job, think you’ve escaped and then wham! there it is again, standing behind you breathing hot narrative down the back of your neck. Tell you what,’ he added. ‘I’ll bet you. If you win this game, I’ll let you go free. How does that sound?’

‘Chicken. Admit it, you just can’t take being beaten by a woman.’

Akram scowled. ‘Woman be blowed. As far as I’m concerned, any life form whatsoever that beats me at Racing Genie by a margin of forty-eight to nil is probably pushing its luck. If I ask you nicely, can I concede the last two games?’

‘No,’ replied Michelle, ‘I want to see you squirm.’

‘How do you do that, exactly? I’ve always thought of it as basically wiggling your head about while trying to make your shoulder blades touch each other.’

‘You’ll find out soon enough. Now stop chattering and get on with the game.’

‘What about your job, though? Won’t they be wondering where you’ve got to?’

‘I’ve been kidnapped,’ Michelle replied. ‘You don’t have to go to work if you’ve been kidnapped. Ask Helen of Troy or anyone.’

‘Or your father,’ Akram persisted. I’ll bet you he’s worried sick.’

‘No he isn’t,’ Michelle replied promptly. ‘I phoned him when you went to the loo.’

‘Oh. Right. And what did he say?’

‘Never redouble on only two utilities unless you’re finessing in baulk. He was right, too.’

‘Hey, that’s cheating.’

‘No it isn’t.’

‘Yes it is.’

‘No it isn’t.’

Akram stood up. ‘Do you think this is some sort of happy ending?’ he speculated. ‘I mean, happily at forty-eight to nil depends on which side of the board you happen to be, but ever after is starting to look like a definite possibility.’

‘Sit down and throw the dice.’

Akram shook his head. ‘No offence,’ he said. ‘I mean, it’s been great fun, if perhaps a little one-sided, but I think I’ll give it a bit of a rest for now. Do you realise,’ he added, ‘that my whole life is now in total ruins?’

‘Oh come on. You’ll get another job, I’m sure.’

‘It’s not that,’ Akram replied. ‘Just think, will you? For I don’t know how long, probably since Time began, I used to go round in a sort of little loop of robbing, killing and getting scalded to death by that bastard Ali Baba. Fine. I escape from all that, and I come here, with the sole intention of catching him and torturing him to death. The bastard stymies me again. But that’s fine, because for the first time in my lives I can see this little tiny ray of hope which says to me, Akram, you don’t have to do this kind of stuff any more. And that’s marvellous. I get a job, do something useful with my life, I don’t have to be a villain or a hero. And then you come barging in—’

‘All I wanted was a hamburger.’

‘All I wanted was to be real. You come barging in, and all that goes out of the window, I’m back to where I was, but at least I’ve got a chance of getting my revenge on Ali Baba because I’ve got you. And now that’s all stuffed up on me, because we’ve spent the last couple of days playing some damn kid’s game, I couldn’t kill you even if I wanted to, and your criminally negligent, stony-hearted excuse for a father isn’t prepared to lift a finger to rescue you. Excuse me, I have to go and feed the phoenix.’

Michelle looked at him. ‘You don’t want to kill him any more, do you?’

‘Of course I don’t,’ Akram snarled. ‘What the bloody hell good would killing the feckless jerk do me? Absolute waste of everybody’s time.’

‘Then don’t,’ Michelle replied.

‘What?’

‘Don’t kill him.’ Michelle shrugged. ‘Don’t kill anybody. I know it sounds a bit strange at first, but you’ll get used to it. They say the after-breakfast murder’s the hardest one to give up. Once you’ve learned to do without that, you’ll find kicking the habit entirely will be surprisingly easy.’

Akram gestured impatiently. ‘You think it’s that easy, you stupid bloody mortal? You really believe I can just…’

‘Yes.’

Fang opened her eyes.

‘Where … ?’ she croaked.

A bright light, as hard and unfriendly as the headlights of an oncoming truck, hit her in the eyes. She started to wince away, but found she couldn’t.

‘Ah,’ said a voice above her. ‘You’re awake.’

The reason she couldn’t move, she discovered, was that she was tied up. Her memory was racing, like the wheels of a car stuck fast in mud. The last thing she could remember was a smell. Gas …

‘This,’ said the voice, ‘isn’t going to hurt a bit.’

Gas. A huge cache of teeth; and she’d been piling them up and wishing she’d brought the block and tackle, when suddenly there’d been this foul sweet smell, and then her arms and legs had stopped working.

‘Not a bit. This is going to hurt a whole lot.’

She remembered. ‘Aaaaagh!’ she said.

She’d gone back to the dentist’s surgery where they’d found the safe, because she’d been convinced there were teeth hidden around the place somewhere. And just as she’d found this mind-bending hoard, a light had blazed in her eyes and the gas had hit her and she’d realised that she’d been set up; Ali Baba had put out that great big stash of teeth as a decoy, and she’d flown straight in. She craned her neck to see what was holding her arms and legs. Dental floss.

‘You certainly took your time coming back,’ Ali Baba was saying. He was holding the drill in his right hand. ‘For a while there, I thought I’d misjudged you. Now you’ve got two choices.’

‘Eek.’

‘Either,’ he went on, switching on the drill, ‘you can tell me where that bastard’s holding my daughter, or else I’ll fill you full of amalgam. What’s it to be?’

‘I’ll talk.’

‘You do that. While you still can.’

Another lesson learnt the hard way; never underestimate a dentist. As he unwound the dental floss, he explained that as soon as he’d opened the floorsafe and found the sixpence she’d left there, he’d known that the way to find Michelle was through her.

‘I knew you’d come back for the teeth,’ he said. ‘It was just a matter of being patient. And now, here you are. You’re being very sensible, by the way. You probably haven’t seen the really big drill. It’s thicker than you are. You wouldn’t have liked it at all.’

She contemplated making a run for it; but that ceased to be a practical possibility when he took a great big lump of silicone impression material and moulded it round her foot, like an old-fashioned ball and chain. There’d be no chance of hobbling two steps together, let alone flying, with that stuck on the end of her leg.

‘Did you ever see Marathon Man?’ he was saying. ‘No? Pity. It’d make scaring the living daylights out of you so much easier if we shared a common frame of reference. Never mind, I’ll just have to do the best I can with crude physical violence.’

‘I said I’ll talk,’ Fang squeaked, as he revved the drill. ‘Please,’ she added, as he slowly and ghoulishly counted out forty-six silver sixpences, explaining as he did so that he was old-fashioned enough to believe in payment in advance. ‘I’ll take you straight there, I promise.’

‘I’m delighted to hear it. Well then, no time like the present. Just wait there a moment while I get a few things.’

He squished the ball of tacky silicone down onto the arm of the chair, imprisoning her while he tucked the gun into the waistband of his trousers and wrapped the sword in a black bin-liner. ‘You have no idea,’ he said cheerfully, ‘how much I’m looking forward to this. Which is strange,’ he added, ‘because ever since I arrived on this side of the Line I’ve tried my best not to inflict gratuitous pain and injury, and now here I am getting ready to slice your friend up as thin as Danish salami. I guess it’s a case of the exception that proves the rule. Ready?’