‘Where’s Sam?’ said Millie.
‘Mm? Oh . . . Yes! That’s why I’m here.’ The sirens were getting louder. ‘We’ve got a problem, Millie. Our room’s on fire and I’ve lost Sam.’
Millie looked up. ‘You’ve lost Sam?’
‘We split up to look for you and now . . .’
Blue lights were flashing on the wall and there was the familiar sound of revving engines. Millie put her hands over her temples, remembering in an instant how one wrong turn seemed always to lead to another, until total chaos descended. Her time with Sanchez in Colombia had been so simple and calm. How was it that complications kicked in whenever she came near Ribblestrop?
‘First you crash into our car,’ she cried. ‘Then your brother nearly gets me killed! Now you lose Sam, the most helpless kid in our school!’
‘Now hang on!’ said Ruskin, angrily. ‘Sam went to look at the lorry! How was I to know—’
‘We gotta go,’ said Flavio. He drew the curtain fully back and got one leg over the windowsill.
‘Why did Sam go and look at a lorry?’ said Millie.
‘We thought Oli might be there. Oli loves big vehicles and we noticed this one earlier on—’
‘What lorry are you talking about?’ said Flavio. He was half in, half out of the window, cigarette between his lips. Violetta watched him.
‘Hmm? It’s the big one, parked out the back. It’s got a Scammel Coupler, which is the coupling device he wants to build—’
‘That’s my truck,’ said Flavio, quietly.
‘Is it?’ said Ruskin. ‘It’s parked in a corner, kind of away from everything else.’
‘Listen,’ said Flavio. ‘It’s parked there so no one goes near it!’ There was a note of panic in his voice. ‘Whass your little friend gonna do? Man, I knew I shouldna come in here! We better go look!’
Flavio leaped out into the car park. Millie was at the window too and could see the truck, picked out in its parking lights. Beyond it, there was a confusion of blue lights and fire-men. Then they all heard a sudden, furious snarl; the panther on the bed jolted awake and answered with a ferocious roar. Oli leaped backwards, slamming himself into a wall, and the picture that hung beside him dropped to the floor, glass shattering. The panther was on her feet and Millie screamed.
Flavio looked wild-eyed. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Come this way – follow me! We better move!’
They piled out of the window and ran. The panther followed immediately, brisk as a guard-dog. In moments they were by the iced-up truck and the roaring was now constant. There were the sounds of rattling chains and a violent noise that sounded like splashing. The truck was rocking backwards and forwards, wood creaking. Flavio dipped under the trailer to the other side; the children did the same. It was too dark to see clearly, but what looked like a tarpaulin lay torn from its hooks, tangled over the truck’s wheels. Revealed was a cage and the bars looked distorted. The stink of animal was stronger than ever, a real farmyard smell of dung and animal breath.
‘Sam?’ shouted Ruskin. ‘Sam!’ He peered into the cage.
‘Stay away, stay under the truck!’ said Flavio. He sounded terrified. He leaped up at his cab, fumbling with keys. He yanked the door open and reappeared with a huge flash-light. ‘Sam?’ he shouted. ‘Oh my – this is bad . . . This is not what I need . . .’
He shone the light into the cage and there was a flurry of angry beasts, caught in the beam, backing away from it. Their eyes were on fire, glinting diamonds. They bared their teeth: there was a flurry of movement and the crashing of chains, and the children saw the dangerous fire of tiger-stripes. One of the beasts swung round and cuffed at the light with a paw. Through a partition was something humped and black. Beyond that, small creatures scuttled in straw and set up a desperate squeaking. Over it all, though, was the terrible sound of metal clanking and grinding over wood.
‘Oh man,’ said Flavio.
‘What?’ said Millie. ‘What’s happened?’
‘She’s gone. I knew I should of put her on the chain, but . . . This is bad!’
‘Who’s gone?’ said Ruskin. ‘At least Sam isn’t in the cage, at least he’s got more sense than that.’
‘Sushamila. She’s the only one was loose. Damn it, man: I told him, it’s cheap rubbish, man, it’s a-falling to pieces; he says, fix it up, we fix it up. Oh boy . . . She so hungry, you see. I ran outta food yesterday. They ver’ hungry.’
‘Oli, what have you got?’ said Ruskin.
Oli had found something in the grass close by. He held it up to the torchlight. It was a black-and-gold cap, wet and misshapen. It had a chewed look about it.
‘Lord,’ said Ruskin. ‘This could be serious.’
‘Hey, hang on,’ said Flavio. ‘Don’ jump to any conclusions; thass jus’ somebody’s old baseball cap, man, you don’t know—’
Millie said, ‘Was Sam wearing his cap for the fire-drill?’
Both boys nodded.
‘You know Sam,’ said Ruskin, softly. ‘He was proud of his cap.’
‘Put your stuff in the cab,’ said Flavio.
‘Why?’
‘We gotta move. Is not as bad as you think. I know what to do.’
‘What about Sam?’ said Millie. ‘What’s happened to Sam?’
‘I find him, don’t panic! He’ll be OK; she won’t hurt him!’
They were by a small, scrappy area of wasteground. A little copse had survived the concrete development, along with a few square metres of bramble, which led down to the dual carriageway. This separated the Sleepeasy from a housing estate. Flavio stepped into the long grass and swung the torch left and right; then he gave out several piercing whistles. He was answered by a single gust of wind and a snarl from Violetta, who had climbed up into the cab and was watching.
‘OK. You, Millie . . . You come with me.’
He looked at Ruskin and Oli. ‘You drive a truck?’
Ruskin blinked several times. ‘I’ve driven a van,’ he said.
‘You can work a gearbox, yes? Go slow, OK? Stay in a low gear, no problem. You see the garage? Go past, you come to a roundabout. Second left, half a mile. There’s a little lay-by, got a little snack bar.’
He shoved a huge bunch of keys into Ruskin’s hands. ‘After the snack bar – all the space you need, OK? You park up there and we get your friend. I meet you in five minutes. Come.’
The boys stood motionless. Flavio stepped briskly onto a narrow path and whistled again. He peered into the undergrowth.
‘Do what he says,’ said Millie.
She ran past Flavio and waited for the torch beam to pick its way through the trees. ‘Sam?’ she called.
The path brought them steeply down to a subway under the road. Flavio broke into a run and they both descended, through the tunnel and up the other side. There was a shoe on the tarmac. A little black school shoe.
‘Sam!’ yelled Millie.
‘Sam!’ shouted Flavio and he whistled again: a long, plaintive whistle. Then silence, but for someone revving an engine. ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Just listen.’
He swung the torch slowly, left and right. The winter grass was high; the trees threw shadows and it was hard to make out anything at all. Black shapes, patches of bramble. They stood quietly, letting the torch illuminate swathes of empty wasteland. In the distance there was the hideous sound of gears mashing and more sirens wailing.
‘Poor kid,’ said Millie, softly.
‘Jus’ keep still,’ said Flavio. ‘I know Sushamila. You smell something?’
He moved the torch slower, picking through the undergrowth. Tree trunks, the tangled nettles and thorns. Then, unmistakable, because they were luminous and still, sudden in the grass: a pair of eyes, unblinking.
Millie stepped behind Flavio and he went down low on his haunches. It was a cat, for sure. It was low in the grass. Flavio kept the beam full on its face and was still as a rock. A minute passed – maybe he was letting the beast get used to his presence. Then – so slowly – h
e took a pace towards it. The fur was bleached out in the torchlight, but along the contours of powerful shoulders, you could see the brown of a lioness. As Millie and Flavio stared, the lioness drew her lips carefully back and snarled. Her rear end rose up and she seemed to slither away from the beam. Dipping her head, she picked something out of the grass and dragged it. She was nursing a kill.
‘Sushamila!’ whispered Flavio urgently. ‘Give that up!’
Whatever the beast had was heavy and she didn’t want to give it up. She lifted whatever she’d caught and moved backwards again.
Flavio moved forward, Millie behind him still. She saw the second shoe under her feet, and she knew for sure then that she was watching her dear friend Sam being dragged through brambles.
‘Sushamila!’ said Flavio. His voice took on an angry tone. ‘You give him up now! Whatever you got, you give it up! Give!’
The lioness backed a little further off, transfixed by the light. This time she didn’t drag her kill; she looked at Flavio and twitched, angrily.
Flavio approached cautiously. ‘You stay back,’ he said to Millie. But she had no intention of staying back: she stuck to Flavio closely, and so – after some time – they came to the little bundle in the grass. She knelt by the body and the lioness stared, the huge head on one side, the eyes mad and glassy.
Sam was in a foetal position, knees tucked up under his chin. He was soaking wet – the back of his blazer was thick with saliva.
Expertly, Flavio felt for a pulse in the neck. ‘He’s alive,’ he whispered.
At first, they couldn’t unfold the boy. His breaths were coming in high-pitched pants. After a few minutes of gentle massage and comforting words, he relaxed a little: enough to put his head up and gasp for oxygen.
Millie admitted later that what she dreaded was the sudden gush of blood: the sudden revelation that the child’s torso had been clawed right open and he’d been holding in his guts all this time.
In fact, as they lifted him and he let his knees down, they could see that he was unscathed. No limbs hanging by a thread; not even a bite mark. He was bruised, yes: after all, he’d been carried between powerful gums. He’d also been licked by a tongue that on its own weighed nearly four kilos and was rough as granite. His eyebrows were gone, but his flesh had not been torn.
Sushamila, it turned out, was the oldest animal in Flavio’s ex-circus and was senile. She had lost her teeth and claws years before and was nearly blind. She had smelled Sam wandering around outside and in some jungle-fantasy of her own had mistaken the boy for one of her many cubs from years ago. She made assumptions: her child was wandering defenceless in the cold. The old maternal instincts stirred. She’d done what any good mother would do: she took the struggling, helpless thing to shelter and gave it a good wash. Then she kept it safe and warm. Apart from the bruising, Sam’s worst injuries were nettle stings.
Chapter Five
Oli had worked out the gears of Flavio’s truck and his brother knew how to use the clutch. As the vehicle shifted forward, they steered together.
They rolled onto the roundabout very slowly. A flurry of cars swerved and braked; Ruskin ploughed on, shaking them from him. Only Oli noticed – in the wing mirror – the second trailer obliterate a bollard.
‘First left?’ said Ruskin.
‘Second right,’ said Oli.
‘Right the way round? Back where we’ve come from?’ Ruskin turned the wheel harder and removed a whole flowerbed of shrubs from the roundabout’s edge.
‘We’re oversteering,’ said Oli. ‘Try and keep her further out.’
‘You’re right. You forget just how long you are, and – she’s a heavy old thing, isn’t she? Ooh!’
‘You’ve hit the kerb.’
‘Power steering is a marvellous thing,’ said Ruskin. ‘But so hard to judge. I’m going to have to go round again, aren’t I?’
‘Well, we just passed the turning – I saw the little van. And there’s a police car behind us, Jake.’
As Oli spoke, the sirens wailed, and in the mirrors the boys saw not one, but three police cars, and another fire-truck. Racing down the dual carriageway towards them was an ambulance.
‘That fire’s taken hold,’ said Ruskin. ‘If that woman had used a bit of common sense . . .’
‘Careful, they’re overtaking. Slow down.’
‘That’s not clever, on a roundabout. There they go . . .’
Ruskin had slowed to crawling-pace and the emergency vehicles – thinking he was trying to let them past – sped either side and away to what was indeed a considerable fire. A mushroom of black smoke was spreading slowly in the darkness and there was a whole orchestra of sirens. The boys inched round to the exit Flavio had described and Ruskin managed to ease them into it.
‘We’re a long way from school,’ said Oli, noticing the sign. ‘Indicator, Jake! You know what Mum says when Dad forgets.’
‘Sorry. Now, I’ve got to get this thing into the lay-by – that’s going to need skill. I hope the animals are OK.’
‘You’re on the grass.’
‘There seems to be way too much play in the steering wheel – I’m wondering . . . oops. I’m just wondering—’
‘Careful!’
‘. . . if this thing’s been properly serviced. Have I hit something?’
‘That was the burger-van.’
Joe’s burger-van catered for those who couldn’t face or couldn’t afford the Family Roadgrill. Even in the winter it had a few plastic tables and chairs out on the grass, and from six in the morning till eight in the evening it did a good, friendly, value-for-money trade. Joe had been a trucker himself, so loved to see the lorries roll in. He always felt a little sad locking up and cycling home to his bungalow on the estate nearby. His wife used to pull his leg by suggesting he slept in the van if he still loved the road that much.
How lucky he didn’t.
The corner of Flavio’s trailer ripped into the little thing like a can-opener, stripping out the front and concertinaing it onto the road. Ruskin wrestled the cab to the right and got round it: the second trailer gave it another hard cuff as he came in to park and spread boxes of burgers all over the grass. The animals were manic now, but in the satisfying exhalation of his air-brakes, Ruskin didn’t hear them. Handbrake on: engine off. A safe arrival.
The boys jumped down and there, clambering up the bank, were Flavio, Millie, Sam – and Sushamila, led by a black-and-gold tie.
The walk had revived Sam, though he was a little unsteady. Without eyebrows, he had a surprised look, which seemed appropriate. Oli and Ruskin embraced him like a soldier back from the war, and they sat on the kerb as the boy did his best to describe the sensations of being carried in the mouth of a beast four times your size. Flavio put Sushamila in the trailer and did a quick repair of the damaged floor. Ruskin returned Sam’s cap and Sam smartened himself up as best he could.
‘What now?’ said Millie.
‘Back to where we stayed,’ said Sam. ‘We’re meeting Captain Routon there. The headmaster said to expect him early.’
Millie looked at the lights and the smoke.
‘I think we should probably avoid that place,’ she said. ‘Do you realise, Oli, you’ve caused a major incident on your first day? In fact, you’ve caused a major disaster.’
‘I’m gonna go,’ said Flavio. ‘There’s a lorry park a couple of miles from here. We make a call from there, OK?’
Millie said, ‘Did you say you were out of food for the animals?’
‘I got no money at all. Every last bit I gave that woman for the room.’
‘Give me a hand, Oli. I can see a solution.’
Twenty minutes later, they were ready to roll. Oli wrote the note and stuck it, with a piece of Millie’s gum, onto the burger-van’s smashed up wall. The animals were well-fed, and calm.
Sir,
We are taking the precaution of not leaving our name and address, because we have done a number of illegal things and are hoping not
to be caught. But we do not want you to think too badly of us.
Your excellent burgers have not gone to waste. They have fed hungry animals and hungry people. We hope you will be relieved to know that the wrecking of your van was a pure accident, and not an act of mindless vandalism by kids. We can only afford fifty pounds, which is a fair bit of the pocket-money we are carrying. One of us says you are probably insured, so might even make a bit, which we certainly hope.
We are really sorry for the inconvenience we have caused and if we come by this way again we will definitely eat here – if your business survives, that is. We much prefer it to the Family Roadgrill, which is way too expensive for what you get. A hot chocolate, for example, is now an unbelievable price, and I bet yours is better. Crazy!
Sorry not to sign this note with our names, but that would obviously make catching us rather easy.
TTFN and good luck.
The original note appears as an Appendix in the Somerset Police File, which was copied to D.C.C. Cuthbertson of the Devon and Cornwall Police. The offences Jacob Ruskin refers to were ultimately taken into consideration in the final police prosecution.
Chapter Six
The next morning saw a further series of connections as different journeys inched forward. Breakfasts were going on all over the world: a complex network of cookers, cups, dishes, knives, and forks. For example, in the crypt under Ribblestrop Towers, six elderly monks were eating porridge from wooden bowls. Over their heads, thirty-seven thousand feet up on a British Airways’ 747, a slim, blond boy called Miles, in a grey shirt and a black-and-gold tie, drank fresh juice, while the chef prepared his omelette. His mother was still sleeping in the seat next to his. She would want only rosehip tea when she awoke.
Captain Routon was already on the road, speeding up the motorway having breakfasted on a Mars bar. Brother Doonan and Father O’Hanrahan were dozing fitfully in a hospital waiting room. The restaurant wouldn’t open till nine-thirty due to staff-shortages, and the coffee-machine accepted money but refused to give drinks. Lady Vyner – the proud and insomniac owner of Ribblestrop Towers – ate Marmite on toast, with a glass of early-morning rum. Little Lord Caspar, grandson and heir to the estate, had a chocolate pancake. The orphans were finishing yet more jellies from the cancelled party, whilst Tomaz was in his glorious home under the ground opening a can of pineapple chunks.