The Switch (14 page)

“Me too,” Doll moaned.

“You and me . . . we was ’appier before we met Finn,” Eric went on. “I mean, we was never in any trouble. A bit of shop-lifting, maybe. There was always the smash-and-grabs, of course. We did thieve a couple of cars. A couple of dozen, now I think about it. And then there was the pickpocketing. But apart from that, we was honest people, you and me. Honest, decent people.”

“We should never ’ave fallen in with ’im,” Doll muttered. “’E’s an ’orrible man and no mistake.”

The subject of their discussion was pacing up and down with his walking stick about a hundred yards away in front of the roller coaster. In fact, Finn was staggering as much as pacing. He had drunk half a bottle of gin—and the other half was still in his pocket. Another great ball of rain fell down, hitting him on the shoulder. Finn swore, wiping water away from his nose and chin. Somewhere in Great Yarmouth, a clock struck midnight. Finn peered through the darkness. A car had appeared at the entrance to the boardwalk. A white Rolls-Royce.

The car stopped and Sir Hubert Spencer got out, carrying an attaché case with a silver combination lock. The thunder rumbled again.

Sir Hubert closed the door behind him and walked through the amusement park, passing between the silent machines. His feet rapped against the concrete, the sound all around him as if he were being followed by a crowd of invisible body-guards. But he seemed to be on his own. As he passed in front of the ghost train, Eric and Doll Snarby shrank from sight, then quickly looked back the way he had come. The Rolls-Royce was on its own in the street. Nothing was moving. Eric raised a hand with the thumb up. Finn saw the signal and nodded.

Neither Eric nor Finn had seen the figure who had been hiding in the back of the car. Neither of them was watching as the door slowly opened, then clicked shut again. But even as Sir Hubert Spencer walked the last few steps up to the roller coaster, Spurling slipped out of the car and hurried into the shadows. A streetlamp glimmered on something metallic that he held in his hand. But a moment later he was gone, swallowed up by the darkness.

Sir Hubert Spencer walked up to Finn and stood, towering over him. Two more different men would have been hard to imagine. Sir Hubert was dressed in an expensive raincoat, his hair immaculate, his face grim and businesslike. Finn was as sly and as shabby as ever, leaning on his walking stick, one eye blinking over the tattoo. The two of them were worlds apart, and yet as they drew close their eyes connected and each seemed to recognize something in the other.

“Good evening, Sir Hubert,” Finn began.

“Let’s not waste words,” Sir Hubert snapped. If he had noticed Finn’s peculiar tattoo, he showed no reaction. “You have my son?”

“He’s safe, Sir Hubert. And very near. Do you have the particulars?”

“The what?”

“The money!”

“Where’s the boy?”

“The money first!”

There was a long pause. Sir Hubert seemed unwilling to open the attaché case and suddenly Finn was suspicious. “You do have the money?” he demanded. “You haven’t tried anything fancy, I take it?”

“Of course I haven’t,” Sir Hubert replied. “What do you think I am?”

Finn’s lips stretched in a sly smile, dragging the cobweb. “Oh, I think I know what you are, Sir Hubert,” he murmured. “I’d say you’re pretty much the same as me, although I dare-say there aren’t many who’d suspect it. You’re wondering how I know? Well, it takes one to know one, as my old mum used to say before she went on the bottle. Oh yes—you got your fancy title. You got a position. But I can see what’s what and I can smell it too, and you’re not going to try and tell me any different, are you!”

Sir Hubert laughed. “All right,” he said. “Why not admit it? You’re a rogue and so am I. But there is one difference between us, Mister . . .”

“Finn. Archibald Finn. What is the difference, Sir Hubert?”

“Only this.” Sir Hubert’s face twisted with contempt. “I am successful. Immensely, stupendously successful. But you’re nothing. A petty criminal. That’s the difference between us, Mr. Finn. I’ve gotten away with it. But you’ve been caught!”

Sir Hubert raised his hand and Finn shrank away, lifting his own walking stick as if in self-defense. But Sir Hubert wasn’t going to hit him. The movement was only a signal. Finn saw it and understood its significance too late.

A shot rang out, astonishingly loud in the wet night air. Finn screamed as a bullet hammered into his shoulder, throwing him forward into Sir Hubert’s arms. For a moment the two men stood there, locked together, their faces almost touching.

“You cheated me!” Finn whined.

“Of course I cheated you!” Sir Hubert smiled. “That’s what I do!”

Desperately, Finn lunged for the attaché case and managed to rip it away from Sir Hubert’s grasp. The case fell open and suddenly Finn was surrounded by hundreds of scraps of paper, tumbling and scattering around his feet. Newspaper. Sir Hubert hadn’t brought a million dollars. He hadn’t brought any money at all.

“No . . .” Finn whimpered. His shoulder was on fire, blood trickling down his neck.

Sir Hubert laughed a second time.

And then two searchlights exploded into life and there was the roar and clatter of engines as two police helicopters came in low, flying over the sea. Somewhere a whistle shrieked. There was another roll of thunder and immediately after it an amplified voice that could have come out of the clouds themselves.

“This is the police! Stay where you are! We are armed! Do not attempt to move!”

But Finn was already moving. Cursing and weeping at his bad luck, he had stumbled away from Sir Hubert, dropping the worthless attaché case. He had dropped his walking stick when the bullet hit him and his empty hand was clamped over the wound. Now he searched for a way out. But it was too late. Two police cars tore in from opposite directions, skidding to a halt outside the main gate. Uniformed police poured out of them while more men with dogs suddenly appeared at the edge of the park and began to spread out in a line. Then the helicopter searchlights swung in on him and Finn froze. He was trapped by the light, blinded and flattened by it like a germ on a laboratory slide.

“Stay where you are!” the voice commanded again. It was coming from the first of the helicopters that now hovered over him, whipping up the dust and sending the blank paper notes flying. “We are armed!”

For a moment Finn was lost in a dust cloud. He realized he had one chance and he took it. With a great shout he hurled himself over a low wall and onto the tracks of the roller coaster itself. And then he was away, staggering toward the corner and the first ascent. By the time the police had reached Sir Hubert, Finn had gone.

A thin gray man in a blue-and-silver uniform had marched up to Sir Hubert. This was the chief detective in charge of the operation. His name was Jones. He was in his late fifties with the drawn, skeletal face of a man who never slept. “What happened?” he demanded. “Who fired the shot?”

“It was him!” Sir Hubert replied. “He had a gun. When he saw there was no money, he tried to kill me.”

“But it looked to me like he was the one who was hit, sir,” Jones said.

“Yes,” Sir Hubert explained. “I managed to get hold of the gun. He pulled the trigger and he hit himself.”

The detective gazed at Sir Hubert. He was obviously puzzled by something. But he didn’t speak.

“The man’s getting away!” Sir Hubert shouted, pointing at the roller coaster. “Why don’t you get after him?”

The detective nodded. Three policemen jumped over the wall and began to run down the track. All of them were armed.

Meanwhile, Finn had reached the highest point of the roller coaster, a length of track that ran flat for just a few feet before plunging down again in what would have been the biggest thrill of the ride. For a few moments he stood there, swaying. The two helicopters buzzed around him, their searchlights sweeping across him without settling on him. Finn batted at them, a miniature King Kong. They were giving him a headache. He wanted them to go away.

Climbing the track had taken all his strength. He had lost blood. There were little pools of it behind him, every few steps. He looked at it, marveling. A terrible, deafening burst of thunder came rolling in from the sea and he almost lost his balance. As he swayed on the metal track the night exploded, smashed by a massive bolt of lightning. The light danced in Finn’s eyes and he sang out drunkenly.

“It’s all over for you, Finn,” he cried. “This time it’s the end, old friend. There’s nowhere for you to go now.”

He glanced around, alerted by the sound of men climbing. The three policemen were already halfway up the track, using their hands as well as their feet to move forward on the rain-swept surface.

“Go away!” he shouted. “Leave me alone!”

The policemen squatted down, their guns aimed at Finn. “Throw down your weapon!” the nearest one shouted.

Finn threw back his head and laughed. “One last drink!” he shouted, but the wind snatched away the words before they could be heard. “A toast to Sir Hubert lousy Spencer and his rotten, stinking son. And a toast to prison! Back to prison we go! Back to the old cell!”

He reached into his pocket.

The three policemen, believing he was going for his gun, opened fire as one.

For a moment Finn stood there on the track, his arms outstretched, his face twisted in a ghastly smile as if he were welcoming the storm and the night that was rushing in to take him. Then he plummeted forward.

Still hiding in the ghost train, Eric and Doll Snarby watched Finn as he seemed to dive into death. There was a last high-pitched scream. The two of them covered their eyes. But months later they would still be unable to sleep, remembering the dreadful thud as the body hit the ground.

 

 

The ambulance came about twenty minutes later.

With the police still combing the boardwalk, Finn was carried into the ambulance, his body covered by a blanket. Detective Jones watched the body go. It was half past twelve but the night seemed to have gone on forever. He sighed and shook water from his head as a younger policeman approached.

“Sir?”

“Yes!”

“There’s still no sign of the Snarbys, sir. But we found this . . . next to the ghost train.” The policeman handed Jones a radio transmitter, dripping wet. “Apparently they’ve got a caravan, sir,” the policeman went on. “Across the road.”

Jones slid the transmitter into his pocket and nodded. “Then that’s where we’ll find Tad Spencer,” he said.

Three minutes later, the detective and his men had the caravan surrounded. Sir Hubert Spencer had followed them over and was watching with keen, narrowed eyes. The door to the caravan was closed, but the lights were on behind the windows. Apart from the raindrops hitting the roof and bouncing off, there was no sign of movement. The rain was falling so hard now that it seemed almost solid, a single mass of water. The detective drew his raincoat around himself and shivered.

He gave a signal and about a dozen policemen hurried forward, their feet splashing down in puddles as they closed in on the caravan. But Jones wasn’t taking any chances. He had guessed the kidnap victim was in the caravan but he still didn’t know who might be with him. He lifted a megaphone and held it to his lips.

“This is the police!” Even amplified, his voice was almost drowned out by the rain. He turned up the volume. “The caravan’s surrounded,” he called out. “Open the door and come out with your hands up . . .”

The rain lashed down. The door of the caravan remained closed.

Jones sighed. He put down the megaphone and walked forward. There were just ten yards between him and the caravan. He didn’t try to run.

With Sir Hubert and all the other policemen watching, he reached the door. He opened it. A dozen guns were raised. A dozen men waited to run forward.

Jones shook his head. The caravan was empty. There was nobody there.

And it was then that the radio transmitter that he had put in his pocket suddenly crackled into life. The detective pulled it out and stared at it. It was the last thing they had expected.

“This is Bob Snarby,” came a voice, and it was Bob Snarby’s voice even if it was Tad who really spoke. “I’ve got the kid and I’ve got a knife. I’ll give ’im up . . . but only to Sir Hubert Spencer. If ’e wants the kid back, ’e’ll find ’im in the Mirror Maze. Back in the park.

“We’re in the Mirror Maze. But Sir Hubert’s got to come alone. No tricks. I’ve got a knife and I’ll use it. I want to see Sir Hubert and I want to see him alone.”

He had guessed Sir Hubert would double-cross Finn and at ten minutes to twelve he had crept out of the caravan taking Bob Snarby—his hands still tied and his mouth gagged—with him. The two boys had been in the amusement park when Finn had fallen to his death. Afterward, they had slipped into the nearest attraction to hide.

It was only when he was inside that Tad realized where he was. Flicking on the flashlight that he had brought from the Snarbys’ caravan, he had been astonished by the sight of about a thousand reflections of himself, leaping out of the darkness. He swung the flashlight left and right and was dazzled by the thousand beams of light that shone back at him. And behind the light, everywhere he looked, line after line of Tad Spencers stared back, an army of scrawny, fair-haired boys, standing there, their faces grim. And Bob Snarby was also there, of course. Line after line of him, dripping wet and shivering, his hands securely tied.

He was inside the Mirror Maze.

Tad flicked off the radio transmitter and set it down, wondering how long it would take Sir Hubert to arrive. He had no idea what would happen to him when this was all over, but he supposed he would end up in jail. He no longer cared. It seemed to him now that everything had led to this moment, a last meeting with the man who had almost had him killed. Tad knew that he couldn’t go to the police. No matter how terrible his crimes, Sir Hubert was still his father. But there was one thing that he could do. Somehow he would make his father recognize him. He would tell him about the switch and everything that had happened since. He would tell him what he knew about ACID and Beautiful World.