The Turnarounders and the Arbuckle Rescue (5 page)

‘Unlucky,’ said Burrowes.

‘Yeah.’

Burrowes returned to the table and shuffled papers. ‘Ranulf,’ he said, thoughtfully. ‘An unusual name for someone your age.’ He looked at Ralf expectantly.

Ralf shrugged. ‘My d
ad was an historian. It’s Norse – it means ‘wolf’.’

Burrowes snorted and went back to the file. ‘Let’s leave this for the moment,’ he said finally. ‘You go and sit with the others. There’re a few things I need to do before I ask you anything else.’

Ralf hauled himself to his feet and walked towards the door. His hand was on the handle when Burrowes did it – that thing coppers always do. Just when you think it’s okay to relax, they throw something else at you.

‘One last thing –’

Ralf paused, hardly breathing.

‘When did you last visit the circus?’

‘Never been.’

‘Then how did you know Vitallian Ambrose?’

‘Never heard of him.’ Ralf turned the doorknob and left the room.

It was a funny thing. Ralf’s mind was buzzing with it as he walked across the main office towards the four other kids. He’d been completely honest with
Burrowes all the way through the interview. But what he’d said about Ambrose wasn’t quite the whole truth. He didn’t know Ambrose, but the name did seem really familiar. What was more; it was connected with a feeling of intense, gut-wrenching fear.

CHAPTER THREE

The Hooded Man

Ralf joined the others just in time to be taken to a waiting room. On the way each of them took a furtive look at the others. They didn’t seem special. There was no reason for any of them to think that, after today, they would see one another again. They sat in uncomfortable silence reading, or pretending to read, the posters on the walls.

Ralf opened his book but couldn’t concentrate, so drifted to the window where he froze in surprise. Could he be seeing things? The Hooded Man was on the opposite side of the street, but it was a different street this time and a different side of the building. Ralf could just make him out, standing in the shadow of a tree, and he could see the long pole-like thing he was carrying. It looked like – no, it couldn’t possibly be a scythe – could it? No one would be allowed to walk around Central London holding a dirty great blade like that! Ralf couldn’t see the man’s face but the covered head was tilted as if it was looking at the very window in which he was standing. What did he
want
? Shuddering, Ralf went back to his seat and in a display of nonchalance he didn’t feel, threw his feet up on a chair.

It was at this point he realised that he was still wearing his slippers.

They were tartan and had little green Loch Ness Monsters on the toes. He wore them because they were the only present that Gloria had ever given him and he knew it pleased her to see him in them. When he saw his feet, though, he could have quite cheerfully strangled her.

He looked up to see the boy with the cards staring at him. ‘I didn’t have time to change them,’ he said, embarrassed. ‘I’m Ralf, by the way.’

As a conversation starter it was fairly weak but, Ralf consoled himself, the others weren’t exactly ‘normally’ dressed either.

‘Leon,’ the tall boy replied. He waved the cards into a fan in his hands then shuffled them snappily. ‘I was at Circus Club.’ He seemed relieved to get this explanation out in to the open. ‘I was juggling when they got me – nearly took my own head off with a cabbage.’

‘So you don’t normally wear –’

‘Only, when I’m on a unicycle.’

‘Got me coming out of Temple,’ the suited boy announced. ‘The name’s Seth, unfortunately. Seth Gold. But I shouldn’t complain, I’ve got a cousin called Abba.’

Meanwhile, the boy with the bobble hat who, Ralf now saw, was much younger than the rest of them had started moving the furniture around.

‘Er – I don’t really think you should be doing that, you know,’ said Seth nervously.

The boy grinned. ‘What are they gonna do? Arrest me?’ He pushed three padded chairs in to a line and lay down on them. ‘This is gonna take enuff time,’ he said, making himself comfortable. ‘Usually does. I been up all night and some of us need to get some kip, innit.’ He pulled his hat down over his eyes and turned to the wall
. ‘The name’s Alfie, in case you’re interested.’

Seth’s owl eyes blinked once then turned towards karate girl, who was sitting with her arms crossed in angry silence. ‘What happened with you, then?’

‘Fairly obvious where I was,’ she snapped. ‘I was getting ready for a tournament.’ Her soft Welsh accent was in sharp contrast to her tone. ‘I really wanted to get her too! Last time I fought her, she broke my collar bone.’

The boys didn’t really know how to respond to this. Fortunately, the girl took their silence as disbelief. ‘Well, it was a long time ago. I’m Valentina.’

‘Do we call you Tina?’ Seth asked chattily.

The girl smiled brilliantly. ‘If you want me to hit you.’

Bloodshed was avoided by the reappearance of D.I. Burrowes who slammed the door open with such force that the handle dented the wall.

‘Well, one of you has got friends in high places and no mistake!’ he barked, his face purple.

‘I would have done it anyway – forensics have just come in – but I’ve been instructed to let you all go.’

Ralf let out a long sigh and relaxed his shoulder muscles. He saw Valentina unclench her fists and Leon start shuffling his cards again. Alfie, looking rather disappointed, hauled himself into a sitting position and adjusted his hat while Seth beamed.

‘You four can sign out now,’ Burrowes growled, waving towards the open door. ‘I just need to get a few more details from you!’ It was Ralf he was pointing at. Fabulous.

‘Well, go on. Get on with you!’ Burrowes spat. ‘You just better hope that I don’t see any of you again – especially you, Alfie Lightfoot!’ he roared. ‘YOU!’ he jabbed a finger at Ralf ‘COME WITH ME!’

Ralf watched him storm across the office. Burrowes collided with two desks, knocked over a pile of papers and looked at a secretary so aggressively that she spilled her tea.

‘He looks a bit cross,’ said Valentina, thoughtfully.

‘He looks like he’s going to explode!’ said Leon.

‘I’m not su
rprised,’ said Seth. ‘I bet my grandfather’s given him a real mouthful. He’s broken about a hundred rules questioning us like this.’

Alfie nodded then nudged Ralf with his elbow. ‘Don’t tell him nuffin, bruv,’ he said in a low voice. ‘He should have an adult there for interviewing you and he knows it.’

‘Right.’

Ralf shuffled after Burrowes feeling a weird sense of disappointment, suddenly, like he’d read the first chapter of a book, only to find the rest of the pages were blank. He looked back at the others. They were in a row, grey from the harsh electric light, a hole in the middle where he’d just been standing and suddenly he forgot to breathe. The memory of the photograph he’d found during his first week with Gloria flashed into his head. He hadn’t looked at it for nearly a year but the similarity between the two images was striking, and so was the feeling of ‘Knowing’ that filled him. It was more than just the way they were standing, more than the light, the serious expressions on their faces. They could have been the same people. The idea made his heart thump. That photo had been
over seventy years old!

He wasn’t moving quickly enough for the detective. ‘WOLF Osborne!’ Burrowes yelled mockingly from the door of his office.

Because he was now running, Ralf didn’t see Leon’s expression when Burrowes called him ‘Wolf’. The boy’s face was a mask of shock and the cards in his hands showered to the floor.

‘Shut the door.’

Burrowes got straight to the point. ‘You lied to me earlier. No, don’t bother to deny it,’ he said as Ralf opened his mouth to speak. ‘Your body language told me all I needed to know. When I asked you about Ambrose you said you’d never heard of him. That wasn’t true.’

Ralf needed a moment to clear his head, to swallow down the sickness he felt, but Burrowes kept firing questions at him.

‘I’m supposed to have a grown-up here when you talk to me,’ Ralf said, hoping desperately that Alfie was right. ‘Why can’t I go with the others?’

‘IN A MINUTE!’ Burrowes roared. ‘I’m not mucking about here. I know the rules.’ He gave a sly smile. ‘But I don’t always play by them.’

He slapped a bright yellow flyer on to the table and stabbed at it with a shaking finger. Ralf was startled to see an inked outline of The Hooded Man in the centre of the page, with the words
‘Swann’s Circus Presents: The Amazing, Astonishing Vitallian Ambrose’
in bold type across the top. Underneath, in a slightly smaller typeface, the public was urged to
‘Cross his palm with silver and the future will be revealed.’

Ralf felt sick. ‘Is this the man you want to know about?’

‘What can you tell me about him?’

‘He’s outside.’

‘That’s not funny.’ Burrowes eyes were stony. ‘He’s dead. And it wasn’t a nice way to go.’

Ralf’s face burned but his lips were thin and white with anger. He jabbed a finger at the window. ‘You’re wrong! He’s right out there in the street!’

Burrowes stopped pacing and came back to the table. His voice was quieter now. ‘We found Ambrose yesterday in the middle of the River Thames. He had house bricks in his pockets.’

Frustrated, Ralf glared at Burrowes but remembering Alfie’s warning he kept his mouth firmly closed.

Burrowes’ nose was a centimetre away from his own. The stench of stale coffee made Ralf want to retch. ‘Ralf. You have to help me here!’ Burrowes was yelling now. ‘I’ve got a delinquent martial arts expert, a genius computer hacker, a juggling magician, a ten-year old career criminal and
you
in the frame. You all know something about it but none of you are helping. I can’t find any record of a Swann’s Circus anywhere. I need you to tell me what you know!’

‘I don’t know anything,’ Ralf said. He turned his face away and decided not to answer any more questions. This was a good move, as it turned out, because he couldn’t. Burrowes’ next question practically knocked his Nessie slippers off.

‘Then can you please explain why the dead man had all your names and addresses on a piece of paper in his pocket?’

He couldn’t explain, of course. The question was intended to make him nervous and get him thinking. It did both.

Ralf was reeling as he left the police station. But things were about to get even more complicated. As he struggled with the turnstile outside and stepped into bright sunshine, he saw Leon waiting for him. ‘Look,’ Leon began earnestly. ‘This is going to sound a bit mad –’

Ralf shook his head and attempted a smile. ‘There’s been quite a lot of mad today.’

‘It’s just – well – I think I know you. I…’ At first Ralf didn’t see what had made Leon break off but when he did, his mouth dropped open too.

The Hooded Man was on the other side of the street.

They both stared. A second later, they were running across the road.

‘Hey!’ Ralf shouted but The Hooded Man did not appear to hear him. Instead, he drifted into a crowd heading towards the river. The boys followed, dodging between pedestrians, keeping their eyes on the back of the dark figure. Ralf’s Nessie slippers slapped loudly on the hot tarmac and each footfall jolted up to his knees but he pressed on. For the first hundred metres he was focused only on catching up with The Hooded Man and finding out what was going on, but then a thought struck him. He knew why he was running, but what on earth was Leon doing?

‘You know him?’ Ralf called out between breaths.

Leon’s face was a picture of perplexity. ‘No… just seen him … a lot. Always there when something weird happens…’

You can say that again, Ralf thought, but he didn’t say it because the wind was knocked out of him by the appearance of Alfie.

‘He’s heading for the bridge!’ the boy shouted. ‘I’ll cut him off!’ and with that he gave Ralf a quick nod and hared off up an alley. Him too? This was getting ridiculous. Just as Ralf was thinking this, though, he noticed something even more odd. Both he and Leon were dodging around to avoid bumping in to people, but The Hooded Man was moving smoothly and in a straight line. It was the strangest thing. People seemed to step out of his way at the last possible second, not looking at him, but swerving unnaturally is if to avoid a hole they might fall down.

Although
The Hooded Man looked as if he was taking a leisurely stroll and they were running flat out, neither of them was able to catch up. Twice, Leon was within grabbing distance of the cloaked back, but the next second the man was far ahead again, a small figure in the rapidly swelling crowds. It was a pretty nifty trick, especially for someone who was supposed to be dead. How was he
doing
it? Ralf was beginning to get a painful stitch in his side but he was determined. He was in middle of something very strange. A plot? A mystery? He wasn’t sure what exactly, but all his instincts screamed that The Hooded Man would be the key to finding out. He kept running.

As they approached Westminster Bridge the crowds got thicker and it was only the rapid thud of extra footsteps that made him realise he and Leon were not the only ones running. Seth and Valentina were there too. Valentina’s lips were set in a grim line but she was loping along comfortably, hardly out of breath. Seth, on the other hand, looked pained and there was a glint of fear in his eyes that Ralf was sure must also be in his own.

‘Stop!’ he yelled at the back of the hooded figure. ‘We just want to talk to you!’

The four got curious glances from confused pedestrians who couldn’t seem to see who they were shouting at. To everyone else on the street,
The Hooded Man may as well have been invisible. People glared at the children or cracked embarrassed, uncomfortable smiles.

There was a pungent smell in the air, that ozone-sharp earth smell you get just before a storm. Great, Ralf almost laughed, on top of everything else, now it was going to rain!

Suddenly, there was a shimmer in the air – a wobble – just ahead of them. The others must have seen it too because there were gasps and Seth tugged at his arm.

‘I see it,’ Ralf croaked. ‘What the –?’

But he didn’t finish his question because now there was more than just a shimmer. Everything changed. London was still there, washed out and thin in the background, but there was also a row of beamed and whitewashed houses with overhanging second stories and thatched roofs. Cobbles had replaced the smooth modern tarmac and Ralf found himself dodging piles of straw and horse dung as he ran. There were vendors selling chestnuts, oddly clothed men unloading bales of brightly coloured cloth from a horse and cart, live chickens for sale.