“Just say—left or right.”
“Left.”
“Left?”
“Right.”
“Right?”
“No, I mean . . . left’s got to be right. Left!”
I pushed the switch to the right. The alarm bell rang. Tim screamed. But the clock just went on ticking. Mickey Mouse grinned at me. I felt all the strength drain out of me. I’d done it.
It took me half an hour to untie Tim. My hands were still shaking at the end of it. At last he stood up, took one last look at the bomb, and went off to get dressed.
I sank limply into his chair. I’d done it. I still couldn’t believe it. Upstairs I could hear Tim thumping about in the bedroom. I sighed. He could at least have remembered to say thanks.
PENELOPE
Ma Powers had left a bit of food in the kitchen and Tim cooked lunch. He burned the toast and his eggs weren’t so much scrambled as cemented, but I was hungry enough to eat anything. It’s funny how extreme danger can give you a big appetite. I’d had two close calls in less than twenty-four hours and it seemed like my stomach was celebrating. I’d drunk three cups of coffee and eaten half a pack of biscuits before I knew what I was doing. If I stayed in this game much longer I was going to get fat. Or dead.
I told Tim what had happened since I’d left my encounter with Big Ed and my night with Mr. Palis. We thought of phoning the teacher again but there didn’t seem much point.
“So who was it, then?” Tim asked.
“Who?”
“The person who cut you free from the railway.”
I shrugged. “I’ve no idea. At least, I thought I’d seen him somewhere before but . . . in the rain, it was impossible to tell.” I cast my mind back to the night before. “I don’t even know how he found me—if it was a he. I was in the middle of nowhere. Nobody knew I was there. It doesn’t make sense . . .”
There was less to puzzle about in Tim’s side of the story. In fact, I could more or less guess what had happened to him without asking. Left alone with Johnny Powers and with me mysteriously gone, he would have been lucky if he’d lasted ten minutes.
And that was about it. Johnny had gotten back from wherever he’d been to find me missing. He’d questioned Tim and he hadn’t liked the answers. Suspicion is a fast-growing seed and with Tim around it had had plenty of fertilizer. He hadn’t been invited to the big gangster meeting in the afternoon. The atmosphere during dinner had been as frozen as the fishsticks Nails Nathan had served. Tim had gone to bed early only to be dragged out at dawn. Johnny had decided not to take any chances. Tim had been tied up and gagged . . . and the rest I knew.
“Did he say anything?” I asked.
“He didn’t say anything nice,” Tim muttered.
“I’m sure.” I sighed. “But did he say anything that might tell us where he is now?”
Tim thought for a moment. “He told a sort of joke just as he left,” he said. “That guy Needles Nathan had fixed up the bomb and he said it would blow us both sky-high. Then Powers said that was okay because by the time you got back, they’d have gone underground.”
“Underground? Was there anything else?”
“Yes. That was when he put the hat on me. He said something about going to the bank. But he hoped that when the bomb went off, they’d be able to hear it.”
Tim had told me what I wanted to know. If Powers hoped to hear the explosion, that had to mean he was somewhere near. “Going underground” could mean he was simply hiding or it could mean something more. As for the bank, that didn’t make any sense at all. For one thing, there were no banks in the area and anyway this was Sunday. They would all be closed.
I hadn’t said anything, but Tim must have read my thoughts because he suddenly bolted upright in his chair.
“You’re not going to look for him, are you?” he groaned.
“What other choice do we have?” I asked.
“How about going home and forgetting all about it?”
“The police are still looking for us,” I reminded him.
“For you,” Tim said.
“For us. You helped me escape, remember?”
And so we left. Tim had changed into more ordinary clothes and I was still wearing the gear that Mr. Palis had given me. As always, there was nobody around in Wapping, but if anyone happened to pass, they probably wouldn’t give us a second glance. I’d found a small backpack in the cupboard upstairs and I took that, too—to make me look more ordinary, I told Tim.
But that wasn’t quite true. I’d defused the bomb, and while the switch in the junction box remained on the right, I was fairly sure that it was harmless. So I took it with me in the backpack. Who could say? It might come in handy.
We spent the rest of the day going around in circles. The light was failing before I realized that we were, too. We hadn’t found anything. There were a hundred and one places Powers could have chosen to hide out in . . . empty apartment buildings, construction sites, half-built houses, and even derelict mobile homes.
“If only Snape hadn’t gotten killed,” I muttered.
We’d paused for breath, sitting on a low wall beside Wapping High Street. My prison shoes were still pinching and I’d walked enough for one day.
“I thought you didn’t like him,” Tim said.
“I didn’t. But right now he’s the one person we could go to. He knew the truth. He might be able to help us.”
We didn’t speak for a while. Then Tim frowned. “Are you sure there aren’t any banks around here?” he asked.
“Banks?”
“I’m sure that’s what Powers said. He was going to the bank.”
“But the banks are closed.”
“So? He could still rob one.”
Banks. Banks . . .
Suddenly it hit me. I felt so stupid I could have hit myself. We were sitting only half a minute away from the biggest bank in London and I hadn’t even thought of it. I got to my feet and threw my backpack across my shoulders, forgetting for a moment what was inside. It would have been just my luck to blow myself to pieces just as I was getting somewhere.
“Where are we going?” Tim asked.
“To the bank,” I said.
I retraced the steps we’d taken the morning we’d arrived, back between two warehouses and out onto the jetty. I stopped at the end and looked around. As I remembered, it gave me a good view of the edge of Wapping. Tim caught up with me and stopped, scratching his head. “What are you doing?” he demanded.
“The bank, Tim,” I said. I pointed. “The riverbank. That’s what Powers was talking about. He’s got to be somewhere here. Right now we’re probably looking at him.”
But what were we looking at? First there were the warehouses—King Henry’s Wharf on the one side, St. John’s on the other. Cranes perched on the vertical walls like gigantic grasshoppers, feeding on the brickwork. Farther away were the new apartments and more jetties with the silver-gray water lapping at their legs. And there was the abandoned houseboat, moored to the dock. There was still something strange about it. I’d noticed it the first time I’d seen it, but now I couldn’t remember what it was. I looked more closely. There was something wrong, but suddenly it didn’t matter anymore.
The sun was low and it was hard to see, but I could still make out the single word painted on the side of the boat. I might have seen it before if I’d been looking for it. Like all houseboats it had a name. And the name was Penelope.
“That’s it!” I said. “Penelope!”
Tim had seen it, too. “So when Powers said he was going to Penelope . . .” he began.
“He was talking about the houseboat. That must have been where his meeting with the Fence was.”
“But you said he went into the station.”
“He did.” I thought back. “He must have realized he was being followed. So he used the station to lose me.”
“So what do we do now?” Tim asked.
“Now? We have a closer look at that boat.”
/> But that was easier said than done. We followed the road around again only to find that the dock was blocked off by a tall gate with barbed wire at the top. There was no way we could climb over it and no way around the side. That only left one alternative. Fortunately the day had been warm.
“You’ve got to be joking!” Tim exclaimed when I told him.
“You don’t have to come,” I muttered, unbuttoning my shirt.
“There’s got to be another way . . .”
“Can you think of one?”
Tim thought. Then he unbuckled his belt.
“You’re coming with me?” I asked.
“Somebody’s got to look after you,” he said.
We left our clothes and the backpack at the end of the jetty and, wearing only underpants, slipped into the river. It had been a warm day, only the Thames hadn’t noticed. The water was freezing. By the time I’d gotten in as far as my knees, I couldn’t feel my toes.
The current was strong and it was moving against us. Tim followed me, doing a dog paddle that would have disgraced a dog. As well as being around zero degrees, the water was also filthy. A lot of nasty things floated past on a level with my nose. I tried to swim faster, but every three strokes I took I was pulled back two. Fortunately it wasn’t too far to the boat. But it was still a good five minutes before I hauled myself out.
And that wasn’t easy either. The deck of the Penelope was a long way above the water, and although I pulled on the side of the boat, it refused to tilt. In the end, Tim had to help me up, pushing from underneath and disappearing under the surface himself at the same time. Then I was lying on the deck, reaching out for him while he coughed and spluttered with a dead fish caught behind his ear. Somehow I pulled him out.
I don’t quite know what I was expecting to find on board. I certainly wasn’t going to catch Johnny Powers there. In fact, the only thing I was likely to catch was pneumonia. And once we’d gotten inside, it looked as if the whole thing had just been a big waste of time.
The boat was empty. There was one big cabin contained in a sort of wooden box with narrow windows and a wide doorway leading onto the deck. The wheel and the engine controls would have been mounted outside, but they were long gone. The Penelope was a rusting hulk, nothing more. A single room about the size of a bus, floating on the Thames with nowhere to go.
Tim was standing in the corner, shivering. The fish, hanging beside his face, stared at him.
“Why do I ever listen to you?” he began, stammering on every word as his teeth beat out a flamenco rhythm.
“Wait a minute . . .” I cut in.
It wasn’t much to go on. It certainly wasn’t worth the swim. But now I reached down and picked it up. It was a piece of black-and-white paper, crumpled into a ball.
“What is it?” Tim asked.
“It’s a piece of black-and-white paper, crumpled into a ball,” I said. I opened it up and read a single word—Licorice. As chewed by Johnny Powers. “He was here,” I said.
“Well, he isn’t here now.”
“No. But maybe he’ll come back.”
“Nick . . .”
“All right,” I said. “Let’s move.”
Together we made our way back onto the deck. I was still vaguely aware that there was something wrong. The Penelope wasn’t behaving like a boat should. I didn’t know what it was, but there was something fishy about it. And I wasn’t just talking about the one behind Tim’s ear.
Midnight in Wapping. Tim and I were hiding in the half shell of a house directly opposite the gate that led to the dock where Penelope was moored. We’d been there roughly six hours. And six hours had never been rougher. We hadn’t been able to dry before we got dressed and our clothes were damp and itchy. We were frozen and exhausted. Nobody had so much as driven past for an hour and then it had only been a taxi on its way home. It was a pitch-black, moonless night. Even the stars hadn’t bothered to show up. The only light came from a streetlamp a few yards away, a dull glow that reflected in the windows of the empty boat.
So what were we doing there, watching a deserted dock on a deserted river in a deserted part of town? I couldn’t really answer that question myself. It was just that somewhere inside me I was sure that the dock was the key. I was determined to stick with it. Powers had been there once. He might come back. And the Fence might come with him.
“Nick . . . ?” Tim asked drowsily. I thought he had fallen asleep.
I was about to reply when it happened. It was so totally unexpected that for a moment I thought I must be imagining things. But Tim had seen it, too. His hand gripped my arm. A light had gone on. Inside the empty houseboat.
A moment later, a figure appeared, climbing over the deck. He had opened the cabin door from inside and was walking down toward us, toward the gate.
“Where did he come from?” I whispered.
“He must have swum,” Tim said.
“But he isn’t even wet.”
“Another boat, then?”
“Did you hear anything?”
Tim shook his head. Meanwhile the figure had reached the gate and was opening it, turning the padlock with a heavy brass key. He was dressed in dark trousers and shirt. He looked up and down the road, checking that there was nobody in sight. Then he went back to the boat.
“It’s impossible . . .” Tim hissed.
“Sssh!”
There was a soft rumbling and a truck appeared, its tires crunching on the gravel. For a moment I thought it was going to drive right past, but then it stopped and reversed, coming to a halt with its back only a foot or so from the gate. It was the sort of truck you see outside houses when people are moving. The back folded up like a venetian blind. Two men got out and moved toward Penelope.
The first man—the one in the dark clothes—had been joined by three more, each of them carrying a crate the size of a tea chest. They were walking out of the boat as if they had been there all evening. But I knew that wasn’t the case. The boat had been empty when we explored it. It had never been out of our sight since. So where had the men come from—and for that matter, the crates?
And that was only the start. The five men must have made a dozen journeys to Penelope and each time they returned to the truck they were carrying something more. First there were some more crates. Then there was a rack of coats, a stereo system, another dozen crates, and finally two oil paintings, each of them bigger than the cabin they’d just come out of.
By now they’d managed to fill an entire truck from an empty boat. The two men got back inside and it drove off—only to be replaced by a second. Then the whole procedure began again. This time they carried three antique tables, six crates, two rolls of carpet, four life-size statues, and—to cap it all—a grand piano. The piano had to wait for a third truck to arrive. The way things were going I wouldn’t have been surprised if a ninety-piece orchestra had followed.
“It’s impossible,” Tim muttered for a second time.
And I had to admit, he was right. It was impossible. You must have seen that trick magicians do on the stage. They show you an empty hat and then they pull out a rabbit. Well, imagine the same thing only with an elephant and you’ll get the general idea.
The whole operation took an hour. At last the third truck moved away. The man in the dark clothes locked the gate and went back to the boat. The light went out and then everything was just as it had been before it started.
For a long time neither of us spoke. Then Tim broke the silence. “Nick,” he said, “do you think you could have missed all that when you searched the boat?”
“Missed it?” I almost screamed. “You were there, too. The boat was empty. We’d have had to be blind to miss it. I mean . . . where do you think it all was? Under the licorice paper?”
I closed my eyes, trying to work it all out. Penelope . . . I’d realized there was something screwy about it from the very start. And now I remembered what it was. It hadn’t rocked. The morning we’d arrived in Wapping, I’d seen it. The Thame
s water chopping and swelling but the boat standing fast. Like it wasn’t actually floating.
And then I thought about Johnny Powers. I followed him when he’d “gone to Penelope.” I knew what he’d meant by that now. But he hadn’t gone anywhere near the dock. So maybe . . .
“Let’s move,” I said.
“Where?”
I smiled at Tim. “Where do you think? To the Wapping subway station.”
UNDERGROUND
The subway system had shut down for the night, but just for once luck was on our side. The station must have been being cleaned, as the door was open and the lights were on. Not that they were expecting anyone to break in. What was there to steal after all? A ticket machine?
Even so, we crept in as quietly as we could—in case there was someone around to stop us. At the last minute I managed to stop Tim from trying to buy a ticket and we headed for the stairs. Then it was back down the winding staircase and onto the platform where I had lost Powers the first time. The station was as silent as a tomb. The arched brickwork could have come straight from a cemetery. All it needed was a couple of coffins to complete the picture.
We walked to the end of the platform and gazed into the endless night of the tunnel. There would be no trains for at least five hours. I assumed that meant there would be no electricity in the tracks either. If I was wrong, I might be in for a nasty shock in more ways than one. But I had to be right. The tunnel stretched underneath the Thames. Somewhere there had to be another passageway leading to . . . But I still had no idea what I’d find at the other end.
“Nick,” Tim whispered. “I don’t think there’s going to be another train tonight.”
“Tim!” I thought I’d explained it to him already. “We’re not taking a train.”
“Well, if you’re hoping for a bus—”
“We’re walking!”
“Down there?” Tim stared at me, his mouth as wide as the tunnel’s.
“It’ll be easy.”
That was when the lights went out. The darkness hit us, a right hook between the eyes. There must have been somebody in the station after all because a moment later I heard the clatter of the iron gate being drawn across the entrance. Then there was nothing. No sound. No light. You had to pinch yourself to be sure you were still alive.