He was ready. He would need some beginner’s luck, but he was sure he could do it – provided nobody looked up and saw the crane moving. He pushed with his left hand again and this time waited as the jib of the crane swung all the way round past Putney Bridge and over the River Thames. When the jib was pointing directly over the barge, he stopped. Now he manoeuvred the cradle with the hook. First he slid it right to the end of the jib. Then, using his other hand, he lowered it; quickly to begin with, more slowly as it drew closer to ground level. The hook was solid metal. If he hit the barge, Skoda might hear it and Alex would have given himself away. Carefully now, one centimetre at a time. Alex licked his lips and, using all his concentration, took careful aim.
The hook crashed into the deck. Alex cursed. Surely Skoda would have heard it and would even now be grappling with the door. Then he remembered the ghetto-blaster. Hopefully, the music would have drowned out the noise. He lifted the hook, at the same time dragging it across the deck towards him. He had seen his target. There was a thick metal stanchion welded into the deck at the near end. If he could just loop the hook around the stanchion he would have caught his fish. Then he could reel it in.
His first attempt missed the stanchion by more than a metre. Alex forced himself not to panic. He had to do this slowly or he would never do it at all. Working with his left and right hands, balancing one movement against the other, he dragged the hook over the deck and then back towards the stanchion. He would just have to hope that the ghetto-blaster was still playing and that the sliding metal wasn’t making too much noise. He missed the stanchion a second time. This wasn’t going to work!
No. He could do it. It was the same as the funfair … just bigger. He gritted his teeth and manoeuvred the hook a third time. This time he saw it happen. The hook caught hold of the stanchion. He had it!
He looked down. Nobody had noticed anything wrong. Now … how did you lift? He pulled with his right hand. The cable became taut. He actually felt the crane take the weight of the barge. The whole tower tilted forward alarmingly and Alex almost slid out of his seat. For the first time he wondered if his plan was actually possible. Could the crane lift the barge out of the water? What was the maximum load? There was a white placard at the end of the crane arm, printed with a measurement: 3900KG. Surely the boat couldn’t weigh that much. He glanced at the computer screen. One set of digits was changing so rapidly he was unable to read them. They were showing the weight that the crane was taking. What would happen if the boat was too heavy? Would the computer initiate an automatic cut-out? Or would the whole thing just fall over?
Alex settled himself in the chair and pulled back, wondering what would happen next.
Inside the boat, Skoda was opening a bottle of gin. He’d had a good day, selling more than a hundred pounds’ worth of merchandise to the kids at his old school. And the best thing was, they’d all be back for more. Soon he’d only sell them the stuff if they promised to introduce it to their friends. Then the friends would become customers too. It was the easiest market in the world. He’d got them hooked. They were his to do with as he liked.
The blond-haired man he was working with was called Mike Beckett. The two of them had met in prison and had decided to go into business together when they got out. The boat had been Beckett’s idea. There was no proper kitchen, no toilet and it was freezing in winter … but it worked. It even amused them to be so close to a police station. They enjoyed watching the police cars or boats – going past. Of course, the pigs would never think of looking right on their own doorstep.
Suddenly Beckett swore. “What the…?”
“What is it?” Skoda looked up.
“The cup…”
Skoda watched as a cup of coffee, which had been sitting on a shelf, began to move. It slid sideways, then fell off with a clatter, spilling cold coffee on the grey rag they called a carpet. Skoda was confused. The cup seemed to have moved on its own. Nothing had touched it. He giggled. “How did you do that?” he asked.
“I didn’t.”
“Then…”
Beckett was the first to realize what was happening – but even he couldn’t guess the truth. “We’re sinking!” he shouted.
He scrabbled for the door. Now Skoda felt it for himself. The floor was tilting. Test-tubes and beakers slid into each other then crashed to the floor, glass shattering. He swore and followed Beckett – uphill now. With every second that passed, the rake was becoming steeper. But the strange thing was that the barge didn’t seem to be sinking at all. On the contrary, the front of it seemed to be rising out of the water.
“What’s going on?” he yelled.
“The door’s jammed!” Beckett had managed to open it a crack, but the padlock on the other side was holding it firm.
“There’s the other door!”
But the second door was now high above them. Bottles rolled off the table and smashed. In the kitchen, soiled plates and mugs slid into each other, pieces flying. With something between a sob and a snarl, Skoda tried to climb up the mountainside that the inside of the boat had become. But it was already too steep. The door was almost over his head. He lost his balance and fell backwards, shouting as – one second later – the other man was thrown on top of him. The two of them rolled into the corner, tangled up in each other. Plates, cups, knives, forks and dozens of pieces of scientific equipment crashed into them. The walls of the barge were grinding with the pressure. A window shattered. A table turned itself into a battering-ram and hurled itself at them. Skoda felt a bone snap in his arm and screamed out loud.
The barge was completely vertical, hanging above the water at 90 degrees. For a moment it rested where it was. Then it began to rise…
Alex stared at the barge in amazement. The crane was lifting it at half speed – some sort of override had come into action, slowing the operation down – but it wasn’t even straining. Alex could feel the power under his palms. Sitting in the cabin with both hands on the joysticks, his feet apart and the jib of the crane jutting out ahead of him, he felt as if he and the crane had become one. He only had to move a centimetre and the boat would be brought to him. He could see it, dangling on the hook, spinning slowly. Water was streaming off the stern. It was already clear of the water, rising up about a metre every five seconds. He wondered what it must be like inside.
The radio beside his knee hissed into life.
“Crane operator! This is base. What the hell do you think you’re doing? Over!” A pause, a burst of static. Then the metallic voice was back. “Who is in the crane? Who’s up there? Identify yourself!”
There was a microphone snaking towards Alex’s chin and he was tempted to say something. But he decided against it. Hearing a teenager’s voice would only panic them more.
He looked down. There were about a dozen construction workers closing in on the base of the crane. Others were pointing at the boat, jabbering amongst themselves. No sounds reached the cabin. It was as if Alex was cut off from the real world. He felt very secure. He had no doubt that more workers would have already started climbing the ladder and that it would all be over soon, but for the moment he was untouchable. He concentrated on what he was doing. Getting the barge out of the water had been only half his plan. He still had to finish it.
“Crane operator! Lower the hook! We believe there are people inside the boat and you are endangering their lives. Repeat. Lower the hook!”
The barge was high above the water, dangling on the end of the hook. Alex moved his left hand, turning the crane round so that the boat was swung in an arc along the river and then over dry land. There was a sudden buzz. The jib came to a halt. Alex pushed the joystick. Nothing happened. He glanced at the computer. The screen had gone blank.
Someone at ground level had come to their senses and done the only sensible thing. They had switched off the power. The crane was dead.
Alex sat where he was, watching the barge swaying in the breeze. He hadn’t quite succeeded in what he had set out to do. He had pl
anned to lower the boat – along with its contents – safely into the carpark of the police station. It would have made a nice surprise for the authorities, he had thought. Instead, the boat was now hanging over the conference centre that he had seen from Putney Bridge. But at the end of the day, he didn’t suppose it made much difference. The end result would be the same.
He stretched his arms and relaxed, waiting for the trapdoor to burst open. This wasn’t going to be easy to explain.
And then he heard the tearing sound.
The metal stanchion that protruded from the end of the deck had not been designed to carry the entire weight of the barge. It was a miracle that it had lasted as long as it had. As Alex watched, open-mouthed, from the cabin, the stanchion tore itself free. For a few seconds it clung by one edge to the deck. Then the last metal rivet came loose.
The barge had been sixty metres above the ground. Now it began to fall.
In the Putney Riverside Conference Centre, the chief constable of the Metropolitan Police was addressing a large crowd of journalists, TV cameras, civil servants and government officials. He was a tall, thin man who took himself very seriously. His dark blue uniform was immaculate, every piece of silver – from the studs on his epaulettes to his five medals – was polished until it gleamed. This was his big day. He was sharing the platform with no less a personage than the home secretary himself. The assistant chief constable was there and also seven lower-ranking officers. A slogan was being projected onto the wall behind him.
Silver letters on a blue background. The chief constable had chosen the colours himself, knowing that they matched his uniform. He liked the slogan. He knew that it would be in all the major newspapers the next day – and, just as important, a photograph of himself.
“We have overlooked nothing!” he was saying, his voice echoing around the modern room. He could see the journalists scribbling down his every word. The television cameras were all focused on him. “Thanks to my personal involvement and efforts, we have never been more successful. Home Secretary…” He smiled at the senior politician, who smiled toothily back. “But we are not resting on our laurels. Oh no! Any day now we hope to announce another breakthrough.”
That was when the barge hit the glass roof of the conference centre. There was an explosion. The chief constable just had time to dive for cover as a vast, dripping object plunged down towards him. The home secretary was thrown backwards, his spectacles flying off his face. His security men froze, helpless. The boat crashed into the space in front of them, between the stage and the audience. The side of the cabin had been torn off and what was left of the laboratory was exposed, with the two dealers sprawled together in one corner, staring dazedly at the hundreds of policemen and officials who now surrounded them. A cloud of white powder mushroomed up and then fell onto the dark blue uniform of the chief constable, covering him from head to toe. The fire alarms had gone off. The lights fused and went out. Then the screaming began.
Meanwhile, the first of the construction workers had made it to the crane cabin and was gazing in astonishment at the fourteen-year-old boy he had found there.
“Do you…?” he stammered. “Do you have any idea what you’ve just done?”
Alex glanced at the empty hook and at the gaping hole in the roof of the conference centre, at the rising smoke and dust. He shrugged apologetically.
“I was just working on the crime figures,” he said. “And I think there’s been a drop.”
SEARCH AND REPORT
At least they didn’t have far to take him.
Two men brought Alex down from the crane, one above him on the ladder and one below. The police were waiting at the bottom. Watched by the incredulous construction workers, he was frog-marched off the building site and into the police station just a few buildings away. As he passed the conference centre, he saw the crowds pouring out. Ambulances had already arrived. The home secretary was being whisked away in a black limousine. For the first time, Alex was seriously worried, wondering if anyone had been killed. He hadn’t meant it to end like this.
Once they got to the police station, everything happened in a whirl of slamming doors, blank official faces, whitewashed walls, forms and phone calls. Alex was asked his name, his age, his address. He saw a police sergeant tapping the details into a computer: but what happened next took him by surprise. The sergeant pressed ENTER and visibly froze. He turned and looked at Alex, then hastily left his seat. When Alex had entered the police station he’d been the centre of attention, but suddenly everyone was avoiding his eye. A more senior officer appeared. Words were exchanged. Alex was led down a corridor and put into a cell.
Half an hour later, a female police officer appeared with a tray of food. “Supper,” she said.
“What’s happening?” Alex asked. The woman smiled nervously, but said nothing. “I left my bike by the bridge,” Alex said.
“It’s all right, we’ve got it.” She couldn’t leave the room fast enough.
Alex ate the food: sausages, toast, a slice of cake. There was a bunk in the room and, behind a screen, a sink and a toilet. He wondered if anyone was going to come in and talk to him, but nobody did. Eventually he fell asleep.
The next thing he knew, it was seven o’clock in the morning. The door was open and a man he knew only too well was standing in the cell, looking down at him.
“Good morning, Alex,” he said.
“Mr Crawley.”
John Crawley looked like a junior bank manager and when Alex had first met him he had indeed been pretending that he worked for a bank. The cheap suit and striped tie could both have come from a Marks & Spencer “Boring Businessman” range. In fact, Crawley worked for MI6. Alex wondered if the clothes were a cover or a personal choice.
“You can come with me now,” Crawley said. “We’re leaving.”
“Are you taking me home?” Alex asked. He wondered if anyone had been told where he was.
“No. Not yet.”
Alex followed Crawley out of the building. This time there were no police officers in sight. A car with a driver stood waiting outside. Crawley got into the back with Alex.
“Where are we going?” Alex asked.
“You’ll see.” Crawley opened a copy of the Daily Telegraph and began to read. He didn’t speak again.
They drove east through the city and up towards Liverpool Street. Alex knew at once where he was being taken and, sure enough, the car turned into the entrance of a seventeen-storey building near the station and disappeared down a ramp into an underground carpark. Alex had been here before. The building pretended to be the headquarters of the Royal & General bank. In fact, this was where the Special Operations division of MI6 was based.
The car stopped. Crawley folded his paper away and got out, ushering Alex ahead of him. There was a lift in the basement and the two of them took it to the sixteenth floor.
“This way.” Crawley gestured to a door marked 1605. The Gunpowder Plot, Alex thought. It was an absurd thing to flash into his mind, a fragment of the history homework he should have been doing the night before. 1605 – the year Guy Fawkes had tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament. Oh well, it looked as if the homework was going to have to wait.
Alex opened the door and went in. Crawley didn’t follow. When Alex looked round, he was already walking away.
“Shut the door, Alex, and come in.”
Once again, Alex found himself standing opposite the prim, unsmiling man who headed the Special Operations division of MI6. Grey suit, grey face, grey life … Alan Blunt seemed to belong to an entirely colourless world. He was sitting behind a wooden desk in a large, square office that could have belonged to any business anywhere in the world. There was nothing personal in the room, not even a picture on the wall or a photograph on the desk. Even the pigeons pecking on the window-sill outside were grey.
Blunt was not alone. Mrs Jones, his senior officer, was with him, sitting on a leather chair, wearing a mud-brown jacket and dress, and – as usual
– sucking a peppermint. She looked up at Alex with black, bead-like eyes. She seemed to be more pleased to see him than her boss was. It was she who had spoken. Blunt had barely registered the fact that Alex had come into the room.
Then Blunt looked up. “I hadn’t expected to see you again so soon,” he said.
“That’s just what I was going to say,” Alex replied. There was a single empty chair in the office. He sat down.
Blunt slid a sheet of paper across his desk and examined it briefly. “What on earth were you thinking of?” he demanded. “This business with the crane? You’ve done an enormous amount of damage. You’ve practically destroyed a two million pound conference centre. It’s a miracle nobody was killed.”
“The two men in the boat will be in hospital for months,” Mrs Jones added.
“You could have killed the home secretary!” Blunt continued. “That would have been the last straw. What were you doing?”
“They were drug dealers,” Alex said.
“So we’ve discovered. But the normal procedure would have been to dial 999.”
“I couldn’t find a phone.” Alex sighed. “They turned off the crane,” he explained. “I was going to put the boat in the carpark.”
Blunt blinked once and waved a hand as if dismissing everything that had happened. “It’s just as well that your special status came up on the police computer,” he said. “They called us – and we’ve handled the rest.”
“I didn’t know I had special status,” Alex said.
“Oh yes, Alex. You’re nothing if not special.” Blunt gazed at him for a moment. “That’s why you’re here.”