Silvertongue pinched the fat woman’s car key from under my pillow, did he? No. This time no excuses will do Dustfinger any good. Because he took something else too – something of mine.’
Involuntarily, Dustfinger put his hand to his belt, as if he were afraid that Basta’s knife could call out to its master. One of the dogs raised its head and tugged Basta on towards the trees.
‘He’s found something!’ Basta lowered his voice. ‘The stupid creature’s picked up a scent!’
Ten more paces, perhaps fewer, and he would be among the trees. What were they going to do? What on earth were they going to do?
Flatnose was trudging along after Basta with a sceptical expression on his face. ‘They’ve probably scented a wild boar,’ Meggie heard him say. ‘You want to be careful, they can run you right down. Oh no, I think there’s a snake there. One of those black snakes. You’ve got the antidote in the car, right?’
He stood there perfectly still, rooted to the spot and staring down at the ground in front of his feet. Basta took no notice of him. He followed the snuffling dog. A few more steps and Mo would only have to reach out a hand to touch him. Basta unslung the shotgun from his shoulder, stopped and listened. The dogs pulled to the left and jumped up at one of the tree trunks, barking.
Gwin was up there in the branches.
‘What did I say?’ called Flatnose. ‘They’ve scented a marten, that’s all. Those brutes stink so strong even I could pick up their smell!’
‘That’s no ordinary marten!’ hissed Basta. ‘Don’t you recognise him?’ His eyes were fixed on the ruined hovel.
Mo seized his opportunity. He sprang out from behind the tree, seized Basta and tried to wrench the gun from his hands.
‘Get him! Get him, you brutes!’ bellowed Basta, and obviously the dogs were willing to obey him this time. They leaped up at Mo, baring their yellow teeth. Before Meggie could run to his aid Elinor seized her, and held her tight no matter how hard she struggled, just as she had done before back in her own house. But this time there was someone else to help Mo. Before the dogs could get their teeth into him, Dustfinger had grabbed their collars. Meggie thought they would tear him apart when he dragged them off Mo, but instead they licked his hands, jumping up at him like an old friend and almost knocking him down.
But there was still Flatnose. Luckily, he wasn’t too quick on the uptake. That saved them – for a brief moment he simply stood there staring at Basta, who was still struggling in Mo’s grip.
Meanwhile, Dustfinger had hauled the dogs over to the nearest tree, and he was just winding their leashes round the cracked bark when Flatnose came out of his daze.
‘Let them go!’ he bellowed, pointing his shotgun at Mo.
With a suppressed curse, Dustfinger let the dogs loose, but the stone Farid threw moved faster than he did. It hit Flatnose in the middle of the forehead – an insignificant little stone, but the huge man collapsed in the grass at Dustfinger’s feet like a felled tree.
‘Keep the dogs off me!’ called Mo as Basta fought to get control of his gun. One of the dogs had bitten Mo’s sleeve. At least, Meggie hoped it was just his sleeve. Before Elinor could restrain her again she ran to the big dog and seized its studded collar. The dog wouldn’t let go, however hard she pulled. She saw blood on Mo’s arm, and she almost got hit on the head with the barrel of Basta’s shotgun. Dustfinger tried to call the dogs off, and at first they obeyed him, or at least they let go of Mo, but then Basta succeeded in freeing himself. ‘Get him!’ he shouted, and the dogs stood there growling, not sure whether to obey Basta or Dustfinger.
‘Bloody brutes,’ shouted Basta, pointing his shotgun at Mo’s chest, but at that very moment Elinor pressed the muzzle of Flatnose’s gun against his head. Her hands were shaking, and her face was covered with red blotches as it always was when she was worked up, but she looked more than determined to use the gun.
‘Drop it, Basta,’ she said, her voice unsteady. ‘And not another word to those dogs! I may never have used a gun before but I’m sure I can manage to pull the trigger.’
‘Sit!’ Dustfinger ordered the dogs. They looked uncertainly at Basta, but when he said nothing they lay down in the grass and let Dustfinger tie them to the tree.
Blood was trickling from Mo’s sleeve. Meggie felt herself turn faint at the sight of it. Dustfinger bound up the wound with a red silk scarf that soaked up the blood. ‘It’s not as bad as it looks,’ he assured Meggie, as she came closer, feeling weak at the knees.
‘Got anything else in your rucksack that we can use to tie him up?’ asked Mo, nodding at the still unconscious Flatnose.
‘Our friend with the knife here will need some packaging too,’ said Elinor. Basta glared at her viciously. ‘Don’t stare at me like that,’ she said, jamming the barrel of the gun into his chest. ‘I’m sure a gun like this can do as much damage as a knife, and believe you me, that gives me some very unpleasant ideas.’
Basta twisted his mouth scornfully, but he never took his eyes off Elinor’s forefinger, which was still on the trigger.
There was a length of cord in Dustfinger’s rucksack, strong if not particularly thick. ‘It won’t be enough for both of them,’ Dustfinger said.
‘Why do you want to tie them up?’ enquired Farid. ‘Why not kill them? That’s what they were going to do to us!’
Meggie looked at him in horror, but Basta laughed. ‘Well, fancy that!’ he mocked. ‘We could have used that boy after all! But who says we were going to kill you? Capricorn wants you alive. Dead men can’t read aloud.’
‘Oh, really? And weren’t you planning to cut off some of my fingers?’ asked Dustfinger, tying the cord round Flatnose’s legs.
Basta shrugged. ‘Since when does a man die of that?’
Elinor jabbed the barrel of the gun into his ribs so hard that he stumbled back. ‘Hear that? I think the boy’s right. Maybe we really ought to shoot these thugs.’
But of course they didn’t. They found a rope in the rucksack that Flatnose had brought with him, and it gave Dustfinger obvious pleasure to tie Basta up. Farid helped him. He clearly knew something about tying up prisoners.
Then they put Basta and Flatnose in the ruined house. ‘Nice of us, right? The snakes won’t find you quite so soon,’ said Dustfinger as they carried Basta through the narrow doorway. ‘Of course it’ll get pretty hot in here around midday, but maybe someone will have found you by then. We’ll let the dogs go. If they have any sense they won’t return to the village, but dogs don’t often have much sense – so the whole gang will probably be out searching for you by this afternoon at the latest.’
Flatnose did not come round until he was lying beside Basta under the ruined roof. He rolled his eyes furiously and went purple in the face, but neither he nor Basta could utter a sound because Farid had gagged them both, again very expertly.
‘Wait a minute,’ said Dustfinger, before they left the two men to their fate. ‘There’s something else – something I’ve always wanted to do.’ And to Meggie’s horror he drew Basta’s knife from his belt and went over to the prisoners.
‘What’s the idea?’ asked Mo, barring his way. Obviously the same thought had occurred to him as to Meggie, but Dustfinger only laughed.
‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to cut a pattern in his face the way he decorated mine,’ he said. ‘I only want to scare him a little.’
And he bent down to cut through the leather thong that Basta wore round his neck. It had a little bag tied with a red drawstring hanging from it. Dustfinger leaned over Basta and swung the bag back and forth in front of his face. ‘I’m taking your luck, Basta!’ he said softly straightening up. ‘Now there’s nothing to protect you from the Evil Eye and the ghosts and demons, black cats and all the other things you’re afraid of.’
Basta tried to kick out with his bound legs, but Dustfinger avoided him easily. ‘This is goodbye for ever, I hope, Basta!’ he said. ‘And if our paths should ever cross again, then I’ll have this.’ He tied the leather thong around his own neck. ‘I expect there’s a lock of your hair in it, right? No? Well, then perhaps I’ll take one. Doesn’t burning someone’s hair have a terrible effect on him?’
‘That’s enough!’ said Mo, urging him away. ‘Let’s get out of here. Who knows when Capricorn will realise these two are missing? By the way, did I tell you that he didn’t burn quite all the books? There’s one copy of Inkheart left.’
Dustfinger stopped as suddenly as if a snake had bitten him.
‘I thought I ought to tell you,’ said Mo. ‘Even if it does put stupid ideas in your head.’
Dustfinger just nodded. Then without a word he walked on.
‘Why don’t we take their van?’ suggested Elinor when Mo headed back to the path. ‘They must have left it on the road?’
‘Too dangerous,’ said Dustfinger. ‘How do we know who might be waiting for us down there? And going back to it would take us longer than going on to the nearest village. A van like that is easily spotted, too. Do you want to set Capricorn on our trail?’
Elinor sighed. ‘It was just a thought,’ she murmured, massaging her aching ankles. Then she followed Mo.
They kept to the path, because the snakes were already moving through the tall grass. Once a thin black snake wriggled over the yellow soil in front of them. Dustfinger pushed a stick under its scaly body and threw it back into the thorn bushes. Meggie had expected the snakes to be bigger, but Elinor assured her that the smallest were the most dangerous. Elinor was limping, but she did her best not to hold the others up. Mo too was walking more slowly than usual. He tried to hide it, but the dog-bite obviously hurt.
Meggie walked close to him, and kept looking anxiously at the red scarf Dustfinger had used to bandage the wound. At last they came to a paved road. A truck with a load of rusty gas cylinders was coming towards them. They were too tired to hide, and anyway it wasn’t coming from the direction of Capricorn’s village. Meggie saw the surprised expression of the man at the wheel as he passed them. They must look very disreputable in their dirty clothes, which were drenched with sweat and torn by all the thorn bushes.
Soon afterwards they passed the first houses. There were more and more of them on the slopes now, brightly colour-washed, with flowers growing outside their doors. Trudging on, they came to the outskirts of a fairly large town. Meggie saw multi-storey buildings, palm trees with dusty leaves and suddenly, still far away but shining silver in the sun, a glimpse of the sea.
‘Heavens, I hope they’ll let us into a bank,’ said Elinor. ‘We look as if we’d fallen among thieves.’
‘Well, so we have,’ said Mo.
22
In Safety
The slow days drifted on, and each left behind a slightly lightened weight of apprehension.
Mark Twain,
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
They did let Elinor into the bank, despite her torn tights. Before that, however, she had disappeared into the ladies’ room of the first café they came to. Meggie never did find out exactly where Elinor hid her valuables, but when she returned her face was washed, her hair not quite as tangled, and she was triumphantly waving a gold credit card in the air. Then she ordered breakfast for everyone.
It was an odd feeling to be suddenly sitting in a café having breakfast, watching perfectly ordinary people outside in the street, going to work, shopping, or just standing about chatting. Meggie could hardly believe they had spent just two nights and a day in Capricorn’s village, and that all this – the bustle of ordinary life going on outside the window – hadn’t stood still the whole time.
Nonetheless, something had changed. Ever since Meggie had seen Basta hold his knife to Mo’s throat it had seemed as if there was a stain on the world, an ugly, dark burn mark still eating its way towards them, stinking and crackling.
Even the most harmless things seemed to be casting suspicious shadows. A woman smiled at Meggie, then stood looking at the bloody display in a butcher’s window. A man pulled a child along after him so impatiently that the little boy stumbled, and cried as he rubbed his grazed knee. And why was that man’s jacket bulging over his belt? Was he carrying a knife, like Basta?
Normal life now seemed improbable, unreal. Their flight through the night and the terror she had felt in the ruined house seemed more real to Meggie than the lemonade that Elinor passed over to her.
Farid hardly touched his own glass. He sniffed its yellow contents, took a sip, and went back to looking out of the window. His eyes could hardly decide what to follow first. His head moved back and forth as if he were watching an invisible game and desperately trying to understand it rules.
After breakfast, Elinor asked at the cash desk which was the best hotel in town. While she paid the bill with her credit card, Meggie and Mo examined all the delicacies behind the glass counter. Then, to their surprise, they turned round and found that Dustfinger and Farid had disappeared. Elinor was very worried, but Mo calmed her fears. ‘You can’t tempt him with a hotel bed. He doesn’t like to sleep under any roof,’ he said, ‘and he’s always gone his own way. Perhaps he just wants to get away from here, or perhaps he’s round the next corner putting on a performance for tourists. I can assure you he won’t go back to Capricorn.’
‘What about Farid?’ Meggie couldn’t believe he had simply run off with Dustfinger.
But Mo only shrugged his shoulders. ‘He was sticking close to Dustfinger all the time,’ he pointed out. ‘Though I don’t know whether he or Gwin was the real attraction.’
The hotel recommended to Elinor by the staff in the café was on a square just off the main street that passed right through the town and was lined with palm trees and shops. Elinor took two rooms on the top floor, with balconies that had a view of the sea. It was a big hotel. A doorman in an elaborate costume stood at the entrance, and although he seemed surprised by their lack of luggage he overlooked their dirty clothes with a friendly smile. The pillows were so soft and white that Meggie had to bury her face in them at once. All the same, the sense of unreality didn’t leave her. A part of her was still in Capricorn’s village, or trudging through thorns, or cowering in the ruined hovel and trembling as Basta came closer. Mo seemed to feel the same. Whenever she glanced at him there was a distant expression on his face, and instead of the relief she might have expected after all they’d been through, she saw sadness in it – and a thoughtfulness that frightened her.
‘You’re not thinking of going back, are you?’ she asked at last. She knew him very well.
‘No, don’t worry!’ he replied, stroking her hair. But she didn’t believe him.
Elinor seemed to share Meggie’s fears, for she was to be seen several times talking earnestly to Mo – in the hotel corridor outside her room, at breakfast, at dinner. But she fell silent abruptly as soon as Meggie joined them. Elinor called a doctor to treat Mo’s arm, although he didn’t think it necessary, and she bought them all new clothes, taking Meggie with her because, as she said, ‘If I choose you something myself you won’t wear it.’ She also did a great deal of telephoning, and visited every bookshop in the town. At breakfast on the third day she suddenly announced that she was going home.
‘I’ve already hired another car,’ she said. ‘My feet are better now, I’m dying to see my books again, and if I see one more tourist in swimming trunks I shall scream. But before I leave, let me give you this!’
With these words she passed Mo a piece of paper across the table. It had a name and address on it in Elinor’s large, bold handwriting. ‘I know you, Mortimer!’ she said. ‘I know you can’t get Inkheart out of your head. So I’ve found you Fenoglio’s address. It wasn’t easy, I can tell you, but after all there’s a fair chance that he still has a few copies. Promise me you’ll go to see him – he lives not far from here – and put the copy of the book still in that wretched village out of your mind once and for all.’
Mo stared at the address as if he were learning it off by heart, and then put the piece of paper in his new wallet. ‘You’re right, it really is worth a try!’ he said. ‘Thank you very much, Elinor!’ He looked almost happy.
Meggie didn’t understand any of this. But she knew one thing: she’d been right. Mo was still thinking of Inkheart; he couldn’t come to terms with losing it.
‘Who’s Fenoglio?’ she asked uncertainly. ‘A bookseller or something?’ The name seemed familiar, though she couldn’t remember where she had heard it. Mo did not reply, but gazed out of the window.
‘Let’s go back with Elinor, Mo!’ said Meggie. ‘Please!’
It was nice going down to the sea in the morning, and she liked the brightly coloured houses, but all the same she wanted to leave. Every time she saw the hills rising behind the town her heart beat faster, and she kept thinking she saw Basta’s face, or Flatnose’s, among the crowds in the streets. She wanted to go home, or at least to Elinor’s house. She wanted to watch Mo giving Elinor’s books new clothes, pressing fragile gold leaf into the leather with his stamps, choosing endpapers, stirring glue, fastening the press. She wanted everything to be as it had been before the night when Dustfinger turned up.
But Mo shook his head. ‘I have to pay this visit first, Meggie,’ he said. ‘After that we’ll go to Elinor’s. The day after tomorrow at the latest.’
Meggie stared at her plate. What amazing things you could have for breakfast in an expensive hotel … but she didn’t feel like waffles with fresh strawberries any more.
‘Right, then I’ll see you in a couple of days’ time. Give me your word of honour, Mortimer!’ There was no missing the concern in Elinor’s voice. ‘You’ll come even if you don’t have any luck with Fenoglio. Promise!’
Mo had to smile. ‘My solemn word of honour, Elinor,’ he said.
Elinor heaved a deep sigh of relief and bit into the croissant that had been waiting on her plate all this time. ‘Don’t ask me what I had to do to get hold of that address!’ she said with her mouth full. ‘And in the end the man doesn’t live far from here at all – about an hour’s car journey. Odd that he and Capricorn live so close to one another, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, odd,’ murmured Mo, looking out of the window. The wind blew through the leaves of the palms in the hotel garden.
‘His stories are nearly always set in this region,’ Elinor went on, ‘but I believe he lived abroad for a long time and moved back here only a few years ago.’ She beckoned to a waitress and asked for more coffee.
Meggie shook her head when the waitress asked if she would like anything else.
‘Mo, I don’t want to stay here,’ she said quietly. ‘I don’t want to visit anyone either. I want to go home, or at least back to Elinor’s.’
Mo picked up his coffee cup. It still hurt when he moved his left arm. ‘We’ll get it over with tomorrow, Meggie,’ he said. ‘You heard Elinor – it’s not far away. And by the end of the day after that you’ll be back in Elinor’s huge bed, the one that a whole school class could sleep in.’ He was trying to make her laugh, but Meggie couldn’t. She looked at the strawberries on her plate. How red they were.
‘I’ll have to hire a car too, Elinor,’ said Mo. ‘Can you lend me the money? I’ll pay you back as soon as we meet again.’
Elinor nodded, her gaze lingering on Meggie. ‘You know something,