South by South East (9 page)

“Tomorrow,” he replied.

And then it was gone, kicking up a cloud of dust, and we were alone with the wind and the wheat.

Really alone.

I looked behind me. Nothing. I looked ahead. Nothing. The road was just two lines that ran together and the bus was already a speck at the far end. The wheat rippled gently in the breeze. It was a hot day. The sun was beating down and with no hills and no trees there were no shadows. We were in the middle of a giant frying pan. And there was no sign of Charlotte.

Tim looked at his watch. “She’s late.”

I could hear a faint droning. At first I thought it was a wasp. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something small passing in front of the sun. But it wasn’t an insect. It was a plane, spraying the crops about two or three kilometres to the south. I watched as it flew in a straight line, parallel to the horizon. I could see it more clearly now, an old wooden propeller plane with two sets of wings on each side, like something out of the First World War. It was leaving a silvery cloud behind it, thin drops of pesticide or something drifting down onto…

“That’s funny,” I said.

“What’s that?” Tim asked.

“That plane’s dusting crops where there ain’t no crops.”

The plane turned sharply and began to fly towards us. I could hear the propeller chopping at the air. The engine sounded angry. For a long time I just stood there watching it. Maybe it was the heat. Maybe I was tired. I didn’t realize I was watching my own death.

But then the plane swooped down and before my brain had time to tell me what was going on my legs were hurling me out of the way as the whole thing sliced through the air millimetres above where my head had just been. Tim shrieked and threw himself in the other direction. For a moment everything went dark as the plane blotted out the sun. The propeller whipped up the surface of the road, stinging my eyes. And then it was gone, climbing upwards and at the same time turning for the next attack.

Tim got to his knees, coughing and blinking. I don’t think he’d quite understood what was happening. “Low flying…” he muttered.

I nodded. “Any lower and it wouldn’t need wings.”

“Do you think…?”

But even Tim had worked out what I was thinking. It was Charon. Somehow he had found out about our meeting with Charlotte.

I remembered now how scared she’d been on the telephone. Maybe she’d been followed. Maybe she was already dead.

Charon was up there. And we had nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Because that was exactly where we were. Nowhere.

I was still wondering which way to run when the plane swept down again. And this time there was an even more unpleasant surprise. Two of its wings were fitted with machine-guns. I saw the sparks of red and heard the chatter of the bullets. A section of the road leaped up at me, the tarmac shattering. Tim dived to one side and I tried to follow him but then something punched me hard on the shoulder and I was thrown on my back. The plane rushed past, the wind battering and blinding me. I knew I had been hit but I didn’t know how badly. I was hurting all over.

But then the plane had gone and somehow I had got to my feet. I looked round for Tim. His face was white but it could have been dust. The plane was banking steeply, preparing for the next attack. Third time lucky…?

We only had one chance. “Come on!” I shouted. “The wheat!”

“I can’t!” Tim was frozen. The plane had almost completed its turn.

“Why not?”

“My hay fever…!”

“Tim!” It was incredible. Charon had us right in his sights and Tim was worrying about his hay fever. Any minute now he’d have more holes in him than a Swiss cheese and the next time he sneezed, he’d do it in fourteen directions at once. But this was no time to argue. Ignoring the pain in my shoulder, I grabbed hold of him and pushed him off the road.

The plane dived again, invisible this time, and a great patch of wheat tore itself apart spectacularly around me. Tim sneezed. At least he hadn’t been hit. But this was hopeless. We could stumble through the field until the whole thing looked like a plate of cornflakes but we’d end up as the free gifts in the middle. Eventually Charon would pick us off. We had to do something. Now.

And then I saw them. They’d been left in the middle of the wheat and they had both fallen over into a sad and useless heap. They were made of wire and old broomstick handles with punctured footballs for heads. Scarecrows. Even the most cowardly of crows wouldn’t have been scared by them but they’d given me an idea.

I searched for the plane. It was at its furthest point, turning again. Then I yelled at Tim. “Take off your jacket!”

“Why?”

“Just do it!”

I pulled off my own jacket. It hurt me and as my sleeve came free I saw that it was soaked in blood. But it would just have to wait. I grabbed hold of one of the scarecrows and threw it towards Tim. Miraculously he’d got the idea without my having to explain it. We had no time. The plane had almost completed its turn, a shimmering dot in the face of the sun. I hoped that Charon would be blinded by the glare, that he wouldn’t see what we were doing. I’d managed to get my jacket onto the smaller scarecrow. It hung off the wooden framework clumsily and the football face – black and white and half deflated – looked nothing like mine. At least, I hope it didn’t. I glanced back. The plane had completed its turn. It was coming at us, out of the sun.

“Tim…?”

He’d hung his own jacket onto the other scarecrow. Carefully, we leaned them against each other, shoulder to shoulder. They swayed but stood upright like two drunken friends. The noise of the plane reached me and I almost felt the wheat shiver behind me.

“Duck!” I shouted.

We threw ourselves into the wheat at the same moment as the bullets erupted again. I looked up and saw the two scarecrows only a metre or two away cut in half by the scythe of gunfire. The plane roared overhead. And then it was all over. The plane continued the way it had come, disappearing in the distance. The scarecrows lay in tatters on a bed of shredded wheat. The wind stroked the rest of the crop as if trying to soothe it after what had happened.

We stood up. We wouldn’t be wearing our jackets again. The bullets had turned them into so many handkerchiefs. Tim gazed up at the sky, “You think it was Charon?” he said.

“Who else could it have been?” I replied.

“A farmer…”

“What? Using machine-gun bullets to spray the crops?”

Tim considered. “Maybe it was an organic farmer.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”

There was a long silence. I found I was unconsciously gripping my arm. I could feel the blood seeping through my fingers.

Tim was deep in thought. At last he spoke. “If it was Charon,” he muttered, “he’ll think we’re dead now. And if he thinks we’re dead, he won’t try and kill us.”

“Right,” I agreed.

Tim brightened. “Well, I suppose that’s a shot in the arm.” Then he saw the blood.

“Nick!”

“What?”

“You’ve been shot in the arm.”

“I know.”

Tim took a step forward. His face had gone a cheesy-white and I knew what was about to happen. And a moment later it did. With a little moan, he crumpled and joined the two scarecrows, stretched out in the heat. He never had been able to stand the sight of blood.

I just stood where I was, clutching my arm. It was hurting more now, but that was good. It reminded me that I was still alive.

“Now, this won’t hurt…”

Why do doctors always say that before they hurt you?

Dr Monika Bloem wasn’t even a doctor. She was a vet. We’d found her farmhouse just outside the Flavoland as we’d walked back towards the city. I wasn’t too happy about being treated by someone who was more comfortable with dogs and rabbits, but I didn’t have much choice. I’d left about half a litre of my blood in a dotted line along the road and although it may have looked pretty, I didn’t have enough to continue it all the way to Amsterdam.

Dr Bloem (it rhymed with “room”) was a short, serious woman in a white coat. She had a neat clinic lined with cages of various sizes, and it was easy to see that she was married to her work. Her best man had probably been a goat.

There were pictures of animals everywhere – even in the frames on her desk. She had only agreed reluctantly to treat a human being. And she had fed me two lumps of sugar first.

Sure enough there was a moment of excruciating pain as she probed my wound with a pair of tweezers but then she was backing away with a red, glistening bullet firmly trapped between the prongs.

“You are feeling all right?” she asked. Her English was accented, not as good as her surgical skills.

“Well, I’m still a bit faint…” Tim began.

She glared at him. “I mean your brother.”

I flexed my arm. “I’m OK, Dr Bloem,” I said.

“You are lucky, I think.” The doctor dropped the bullet into a kidney tray. It hit the bottom with a dull clang. “A centimetre to the left and it would have hit an artery.”

“Yeah,” Tim agreed. “And it could have been worse. A centimetre to the right and it would have hit me!”

Dr Bloem unwrapped a packet of bandages. “You know, I think you are not telling me the truth,” she said as she did it. “How did the bullet get into the arm?”

“Well…” I began. This was tricky. We hadn’t had time to make up a sensible explanation and our story – like my arm – was full of holes.

“Your brother said you were hurt in a car accident,” Dr Bloem went on.

“It’s true!” Tim explained. “It was the driver of the car.”

“Yes,” I added. “He accidentally shot me.”

Dr Bloem didn’t believe us but she wrapped the bandage round my arm and tied a knot. “It is finished,” she said. “You should be OK now.”

“Thanks, Doc.” I tried the arm again. It was throbbing but most of the pain had gone.

“So how will the two of you get back to town?” Dr Bloem asked. “I would take you but I have another patient. He’s a little horse.”

“Has he tried gargling?” Tim said.

Dr Bloem ignored him. “You can walk – but it’s a long way. So maybe you should ask for a ride. There’s a big house just one kilometre up the road. Near a windmill.”

“What’s it called?” I asked.

Dr Bloem smiled at me. “It’s called the
Villa de Winter
,” she said. “The Winter House.”

I’d never seen a house quite like the Winter House. It was built out of red and white bricks but not with any pattern. The colours seemed to zigzag across the walls, colliding with each other, then bouncing away again. The whole building could have been put together by a thief. The towers had been stolen from a castle, the windows from a church, the grey slate roof from a railway station.

The house was set back from the road. Tim and I had climbed over a fence to get in and we were squatting some distance from the building itself, spying on it through a bush.

“Do you think this is where Charon lives?” Tim asked.

I nodded. “This is where McGuffin came before he was killed.”

“Right.” Tim gazed at the house. “If only we could see through the wall.”

“We can!” I said.

“How?”

“The window…”

We broke cover and sprinted across the lawn to the side of the house. Our shadows reached it first. There was nobody in sight, but now I could hear the sound of a piano drifting out of one of the windows. I recognized the music – but only just. It was Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata”, but played very badly. It occurred to me that the pianist might be missing a finger.

“Listen!” I nudged Tim.

“Is it a record?” Tim asked.

“Yes. Nobody’s ever played it that badly.”

Tim’s mouth dropped open. “Charon!”

“It figures. He killed McGuffin. And now he’s murdering Beethoven.”

We had both been crouching down but now I straightened up and tried to lever myself onto the window sill above me. Tim was horrified. “What are you doing?”

“It could be our only chance to see what Charon looks like,” I said.

And it could have been. But just as my fingers grabbed hold of the woodwork I heard a car. It was coming up the drive, heading for the main entrance. I dropped down again and squatted next to Tim. At the same time the piano playing stopped and I heard a door close. There were two dustbins just beside us. I edged closer to them, using them to hide behind.

The car had stopped. Two men got out. I recognized them, although I had only seen them once before. They had faces you were unlikely to forget. Scarface and Ugly – the two men from the skating-rink. The gravel crunched under their feet as they walked towards the door. The noise made me think of the skates in Rushmore’s back, and I swallowed hard.

Tim was staring after them. I tugged at his sleeve. “Let’s go in,” I whispered.

He opened his mouth to argue but I didn’t give him time. There was a door just on the other side of the window and, for once, luck was on our side – it was open. Making sure that Tim was still following me, I went in, up a short flight of steps and into a corridor paved with black and white tiles – like in one of those old Dutch paintings. The corridor must have led into a hall. I could hear voices in the distance, the two guests being welcomed. There was another door on our left. It opened into a large room with a desk, four or five antique chairs and a grand piano. It had to be Charon’s room. I slid across the polished floor and found my feet on a Chinese rug.

“What are we doing?” Tim hissed.

What
were
we doing? Already I could hear the rap of footsteps making their way back along the corridor. Charon was about to come in with his two friends. If they found us there, I doubted they’d invite us to stay for tea…

“Quick!” There was an alcove to one side, half-covered by a heavy, ornamental curtain. We ran behind it and pulled it the whole way across. A second later, Charon and the two new arrivals walked in.

I heard them close the door and come into the room. Someone was talking in rapid Dutch. I couldn’t understand a word of it, nor did I recognize the voice. A second person spoke. I didn’t recognize his voice either. But this time I did understand one word of it. The name Waverly. Why were they talking about the head of MI6? Rushmore had told us that there was some sort of secret connection between them. Was that what they were discussing now?