The caller explained his business. ‘Tom Jenks. Plumber. Mr Bilt needs one urgently, apparently. I’m due to see him at ten, but I’m a little early. Wondered if he might be with you, that’s all. Obviously not. No worries. I’ll sit outside in the van and wait.’ He turned away.
Penny Perfect let out a hesitant, ‘Oh.’
Tom Jenks stopped and looked back at her for a moment.
‘You’re welcome to come in and have a cup of tea, if you like?’ The hinges creaked as she changed the angle of the door to ‘friendly’.
Tom Jenks billowed the pockets of his suit.
And just for a second, a millisecond perhaps, Ralph noticed that his mother’s eyes widened a little. She stroked her neck as Tom said, ‘Love to’, then pampered her hair and seemed terribly flustered to find a sticky patch of marmalade gelling up her fringe.
Flustered and red. Unmistakable signs. His mother liked Tom Jenks.
Fair enough, thought Ralph. He’d rather have the plumber’s happy blue eyes instead of the ominous chips of flint that were such a feature of their next-door neighbour. He shut the door and hurried to the kitchen.
His mother was already in kettle mode, tea bags and mugs appearing like magic. She was going for the biscuits, the chocolate ones, no less, when her industry abruptly stopped short. Falling back against the sink, with her fingers steepled to her mouth she said, ‘Actually, could I be extraordinarily cheeky and ask you a favour?’
Ralph studied Tom Jenks and could tell by the growing admiration in his eyes that he’d probably do anything for Penny just then.
‘The tap drips,’ he said, short-circuiting his mother’s request.
‘Ralph!’ she snapped, crossing her arms in a protective fashion (as if that would stop her face glowing red). ‘That might not have been what I was going to ask.’
Well, it’s a bit too soon for a date, Ralph thought, though saying that would have seen him grounded for a year. He shrugged and looked at the grinning Tom Jenks.
With surprising confidence, Tom bracketed his hands around Penny’s arms and gently moved her away from the sink. ‘Mmm, that’s going to cost you,’ he murmured.
‘Oh dear,’ she sighed, ‘how much exactly?’
‘Cup of tea and a biscuit, I reckon.’
Penny blushed triumphantly and emptied half a pack of bourbons onto a plate.
Mr Jenks opened the under-sink cupboard and knelt down to turn off the cold water stopcock. ‘Hello, you’ve got an ant in here.’ He surfaced with it, dancing on his hand.
‘Don’t squash it,’ said Ralph.
‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ said Tom. He opened the back door and put the creature out.
Ralph smiled at his mum, who lifted an eyebrow. Now that made two of them who liked Tom Jenks.
‘So,’ the plumber stated boldly, somehow managing to whistle and talk and eye up Penny’s figure (and plumb) all at once, ‘what’s your theory on this house that’s gone missing?’
‘House?’ said Penny, arranging the bourbons in an artistic fan.
‘Front-page news,’ said Tom. He nodded at the paper as he clamped the cold tap and wrenched it loose. ‘Whole thing disappeared over the weekend, somewhere up in a remote part of Yorkshire. Uninhabited, derelict place. Not a brick left. Paper reckons it was abducted by aliens.’
‘A house?’ repeated Penny.
‘Aliens?’ echoed Ralph. ‘Why would aliens steal a house?’
‘Seen the price of property on Mars?’ Tom quipped.
Ralph scowled at the joke and looked at his mum. Together, they turned the paper around. On the front was a picture of a muddy field. A bemused policeman was standing in a puddle on the spot where the house had allegedly been. In the background, two sheep were looking on dumbly. The headline simply read: SPIRITED AWAY.
‘But that’s ridiculous,’ said Penny, shaking her head. ‘A house can’t just disappear like that.’
‘Could if there’s a gang on the job,’ said Tom.
Ralph shuffled his chair. The word ‘gang’ made him think of Kyle Salter. What had happened to Kyle, he wondered? Like the mysterious missing house, the bully hadn’t been seen for some time.
‘Twenty or thirty able blokes could take it down in no time, I reckon. Stack it up on lorries, brick by brick, then drive it away under cover of darkness. It’ll turn up as Lego in an aircraft hangar or a hay barn, you’ll see.’
‘But why?’ asked Penny. ‘What’s the point?’
Tom shrugged his broad blue shoulders. ‘Prank, I expect. Someone, somewhere, must be having a good giggle.’ He clanked the tap and a fountain of water bubbled out of the joint. ‘Aha, there’s your culprit.’ He dug out a washer with a screwdriver blade, then rattled around in his box for a new one. Within seconds it was fitted and the leak was fixed.
‘Thank you,’ said Penny. ‘You’re very kind.’
‘No problem,’ said Tom. He sat down and took a bourbon.
Ralph drummed his fingers on the table top. ‘Do you believe in aliens?’ he asked.
‘Oh, Ralph,’ said his mum.
‘Not really,’ laughed Tom. ‘I do believe in ghosts, though. I saw one once, in my grandma’s kitchen, washing socks on an old scrubbing board. Whoever stole that house could be in for a shock. According to the paper, it was haunted.’
‘Oh,’ went Penny, touching her heart.
She jumped as a door banged shut somewhere.
‘That sounds like Mr Bilt returning,’ said Tom. ‘Unless you’re hiding a ghost as well?’
Penny forced her lips into a wobbly smile, making Ralph wonder what had troubled her the most: the idea of a wailing ghost or the disappointment that Tom would soon be on his way.
The plumber stood up. He popped two biscuits into his pocket and drank his tea like a man with a dragon’s furnace for a throat. ‘Mr Bilt says there’s quite a bit of work to be done, so I expect we’ll see each other again.’
‘Oh, yes, I expect we will,’ said Penny, diverting her eyes from his face to the floor. She gave her hands work to do, tidying the table. ‘We’ll look forward to that, won’t we, Ralph?’
‘Yes,’ said Ralph, who felt sure that in Tom Jenks he’d have a strong ally in his quest to investigate Mr Jack Bilt.
But as the plumber clanked his tools down the hall once more, neither Ralph nor his mother could possibly have guessed at the strangeness to come. When Tom Jenks waved his fond goodbye, little did they know it was the last they would see of him for quite some time.
Like Kyle Salter and the house in Yorkshire, the plumber was about to completely disappear.
Here Comes Old Nick
Stop.
Let’s take a moment here to step inside the mind of young Ralph Perfect. What must be going through his busy brain now? A brain enlivened by the world of books ever since it discovered that wonderful ability to turn words into magical moving pictures. What must such a boy, his imagination stirred by all that he has seen, be making of his slightly sinister neighbour?
First, there is still no explanation for the spring-heeled dive of the odious Kyle Salter. How did that bully get into that hedge? Did Jack release some strange kind of force field? Some hidden energy? Some untapped power as yet undescribed by the laws of physics? Or is his strange dog, Knocker, truly an agent of the devil, Beelzebub? Did it bark and cast a transforming spell that heaved the bully high into the air? Or was it merely that Kyle was scared out of his pants and leapt a little further from trouble than expected?
The mind boggles. Particularly Ralph’s.
And what of the woodworm devouring Annie’s joists? Since witnessing that peculiar phenomenon, Ralph, inquisitive soul that he is, has surfed the outer limits of the internet for answers. He has looked up every genus of wood-boring beetle that munched its way through the Ark (two by two), but nowhere has he read that these creatures could carve up a sturdy beam of wood with the force of a dozen high-powered drills, making clouds and clouds of motes in the process. Somehow, Annie had been tric
ked. Tricked into believing her house was falling down. Tricked into giving up her home too cheaply. So if nothing else, Jack Bilt is a fraud and a thief.
And Knocker. What about that leg of his? So perfectly formed and yet so tiny. This irregular canine anomaly has been rapping Ralph’s forehead from the inside out. Ralph is fully aware, of course, that certain human people have suffered disabilities similar to this. He once saw a man in the local shopping centre with a normal body but arms the size of a newborn baby. His mother had explained explicitly to him that this was the wretched side-effect of a drug treatment now no longer in use. Consider, then, the whirrings and stirrings in the darkest corners of Ralph’s imagination when he sees that stunted leg on Knocker. Has the dog been forced to take a drug? Has his mother, Penny, stumbled on the truth in naming Jack as some evil kind of scientist? A demented doctor? A modern Viktor Frankenstein? A madman who lives on hundreds and thousands?
What on earth is going on in the house next door?
Why, for instance, is it so, so quiet? Since the day Ralph popped round with a small pack of scouring pads (and promptly had the door closed hard in his face), hardly a squeak has been heard from next door. No sounds of unpacking. No TV. No music. Had it not been for the toilet, flushing, Ralph might have been forgiven for thinking Jack was dead.
And spying from the garden was impossible now. For there were blue sheets hanging in the large bay windows. No curtains. No lace. Just ugly, plastic sheets that in all probability had ‘keep-out’ watermarked on their surface. Whatever was going on within those walls, Jack Bilt had no intention of the world outside knowing anything about it.
But Ralph had seen things. Lots of things. Bell jars. Yes, there were definitely bell jars. The glasses of science. The vessels of chemistry. Ralph had seen Jack carrying them in. Usually at night, when Midfield Crescent was cloaked in mist and owls were hooting and mice were scurrying and bats were occasionally seen flitting through the lamplight. Without binoculars or a suitable pirate eyeglass, it had been impossible to see inside the jars. But with a mind like Ralph’s, who needed binoculars? There were specimens in the jars, he was sure of it. Experimental samples. Foul tests. Strangely-contorted unfamiliar creatures floating in soupy straw-coloured fluids that would sting your eyes when the lids were removed. All hidden in the cellar, tucked under the house. Deep in the darkness where the mushrooms grow.
Specimens.
Tests.
Jars.
And a fish tank. A fish tank, yes. Jack had dragged it from the back of his van one night and immediately thrown a blanket across it. He had staggered down the path with the tank in his arms, stumbling over the bags of sweating rubbish that were stacking up outside Annie’s once-loved door, cursing poor Knocker for getting under his feet.
A fish tank. Covered up and carted inside. Fish? Why? Jack doesn’t seem the type to be keeping guppies.
And now comes the biggest mystery of all: what has happened to the plumber, Tom Jenks? A fortnight has passed since the tap was fixed and the bourbons were slipped into the pocket of his boiler suit, and not a clank of his tools has been heard in the Crescent. All the grand and merry expectations that Ralph and his mother had constructed for the plumber have dripped like the tap and slowly run dry. Excuses have been found, illnesses suggested. But now, disappointment is all that fills their hearts.
Until this morning, when another new face appears in the Crescent. A thick-necked, small feather duster of a man. Suited but dishevelled. Loafers on his feet. Wispy grey hair and a peppery moustache. A man you might say at first glance was an oaf, an idiot escaped from the village up the road. But looks can be deceptive; this man is not an oaf. He has eyes like a hawk. They are used to solving mysteries.
He also has a name. And a most impressive title.
Detective Inspector Nicholas Bone.
Known to his comrades in the force as ‘Old Nick’.
When the doorbell spilt its note up the stairs, Ralph was on his bed with his head wrapped up in the world of Jack. Something else had occurred to him: he hadn’t seen the builder build a single thing. No hammers hammering, no saws buzzing, no concrete mixers churning slop. Not even a trademark radio blaring. The blackbirds in the garden had been more industrious. Spiders had webbed. Snails had shelled. Ants had built colonies deep underground. But Jack had not lifted so much as a plumb bob. Was it, then, a cover? Did he call himself a builder to avoid attention? How far would an evil scientist go?
‘Ralph, can you come downstairs a moment?’ His mother’s voice dragged him to the front door.
The visitor wiggled his moustache at the boy.
‘This is Inspector Bone,’ said Penny. ‘He’s a policeman, Ralph. He wants to ask some questions about Mr Jenks. Do you remember Mr Jenks? Tom, the plumber?’
‘Yes,’ said Ralph. Of course he remembered. Why was his mother looking so pale?
‘Do you want to come in?’ she said.
‘No, thank you,’ DI Bone replied in a voice as thick as tomato purée. His accent lay somewhere to the south and west. Somerset, maybe. The Mendip Hills. He stepped backwards and looked at the house next door. ‘It’s this chap, Bilt, I’ve really come to talk to. Can’t seem to raise him. Wondered if he might be with you, that’s all?’
Ralph saw his mother gulp. Wasn’t this what Tom had said the day he’d arrived? ‘No,’ she said, her voice cracking with undisguised worry. ‘Is Tom all right? He came here to do some work two weeks ago.’
Bone studied the upstairs windows of the house, a cupped hand blotting the sun from his eyes. ‘Yes, I know. It was written in his diary. The first of three calls he was due to make that day.’
Due to make? Penny scrunched her top into her trembling fist.
‘The day he disappeared,’ the policeman added, just as the door to Jack’s house burst open.
‘Ah,’ said Bone, nipping smartly round the party wall to face the builder. ‘Mr Bilt? Been knocking your door for several minutes. Thought for a moment you were trying to avoid me.’
‘Ablutions,’ said Jack. ‘Even Her Majesty has a small throne.’ He slanted his dark eyes sideways at Ralph.
‘Quite,’ said Bone and flashed a police identity card. He then asked Jack if he’d seen a Thomas Peter Jenks in these parts? He showed a picture of the plumber. A family picture: Tom cuddling a child, a dog at their feet. This turned Ralph’s stomach and made his mother gulp. They’d seen it on the telly, this kind of thing.
‘Ah,’ Jack said, with a grisly sneer. He dragged a broken-toothed comb through his lanky hair. ‘I do remember him. Course I do. Quoted me a price for some boiler work. Sky high, it was. Astrobloomin’nomical. Didn’t take him on. Didn’t like him much. Made jokes about the dog. Very unpleasant.’
No, thought Ralph. That didn’t sound right. The Tom he’d met wouldn’t hurt an ant. He’d have pitied Knocker.
DI Bone smiled tight-lipped at the terrier. ‘Mind if I take a look inside?’
Yes! Ralph cracked his knuckles in triumph. Now the evil would surely be uncovered. His mother tutted and nudged him hard, Tone it down, will you? But Ralph could see in her soft, green eyes that she was secretly wanting this too.
But if Ralph was expecting the wily builder to make a sudden run for it up the Crescent, he was about to be sorely disappointed. Jack, instead, did a very odd thing. Raising his arms until his undersized jacket lifted out like a pair of wings, he said, ‘You can frisk me if you like.’
Hrow, went Knocker, as if posing the question none of the humans dared to ask: why? Why would Jack invite a copper to check his pockets?
Double bluff, thought Ralph. He blurted out: ‘Do it.’
‘Ralph?!’ His mother took the opposite view.
So did Old Nick. ‘I don’t think that will be necessary,’ he said.
Jack shrugged and seemed a little disappointed. With a sweep of his hand he invited Bone in.
Five minutes later, the policeman came out.
Ralph was in the street, pretending to be
sweeping up fallen leaves. He heard Bone say, ‘Thank you. I shouldn’t think we’ll need to bother you again.’ And down the path he came, flapping his tie like the tail of a kipper. ‘Bye, son,’ he said, as he got into his car.
‘What did you find?’ Ralph gibbered. He was staggered to see the detective leaving without Jack Bilt cuffed firmly to his arm.
‘An old sofa, a week’s worth of washing-up, an aquarium, some pot plants, a cuddly toy. Why?’
Ralph wasn’t sure. He blabbed something out. ‘Tom said there’d be a lot of work next door.’
The detective nodded. ‘Looks like your neighbour’s going to gut the place and sell it on at a handsome profit. Unless he turns it into a house of mirrors. The house that Jack Bilt. There’s one for you.’
‘But where’s Tom?’ Ralph bleated.
Bone slammed his door shut. His electric window glided down. ‘That, I don’t know. But I’m working on it. Sometimes people just take off, son, for reasons only they can answer.’
Up went the window again.
But you can’t just leave, thought Ralph. Jack’s evil. Didn’t you see his vile experiments? Or ask about his watch? Or check Knocker’s leg? You’re a detective. You can’t trust a man who sugars his tea with hundreds and thousands. Didn’t you at least go into the cellar?
The car roared into the distance.
Right, that does it, Ralph thought. He turned and glared at the blue plastic sheets. Now there was only one thing for it. He was going to have to get inside and snoop around himself.
Breaking In
It came to him in a flash, the way to break in. Doors and windows were difficult and criminal. What he had to do was think like a small thing: like an ant. Ants were no respecters of boundaries. Where there was a crack, they made for it. Where there was a weakness, they dug and dug until a passage opened up.