“Look, Lenny …” I began, trying to be reasonable.
“Button it, kid,” he snapped.
Kenny and Benny came over, each carrying a large bucket of wet cement. They glanced at Lenny. He nodded. As one, they tipped them up. The stuff poured out sluggishly, like cold porridge. It splattered down into the bath, covering my shoes and rising about fifteen centimetres up my legs. I could feel it seeping through my socks. It was icy. And it was heavy, too. My shoes were pressing against my toes. They were only sneakers and already the cement was oozing through them. I wiggled my toes. Lenny pressed the gun against the side of my neck. “Keep still,” he said.
“But it’s wet …” I complained.
“Don’t worry, kid. It’s quick-drying. You keep still and it’ll set in no time.”
Two more buckets followed the first and two more went after them. By the time Kenny and Benny had it finished, the cement came all the way up to my knees. If anyone had seen me – sitting there with my legs in a bath staring out across the Thames – they’d have thought I was mad. But nobody would see me. It was dark now. And the fog had got thicker. Like the cement.
Lenny wasn’t even bothering to massage my neck with his gun any more. The cement had almost set. I experimented. Carefully I tried to lift my right foot. I couldn’t do it. That was when I began to get really afraid. Talk about having one foot in the grave – I had both feet and most of my legs. I was glued to the bathtub and I knew that any minute now they’d pick it up and drop it into the river. I – it – we would sink like a stone. I’d spend the rest of eternity in an upright position.
They say that when a man drowns, his whole life flashes before him. Mine did that now but it was all over in about five seconds. That made me sad. It had been a short life and I’d spent far too much of it at school.
I heard a sort of glugging sound coming from the Thames. That made my ears prick up. A boat. It was getting closer. For a moment I was hopeful. It might be a river police boat. Or perhaps a dredger of some sort. But Fred had been waiting for it. The grey curtains of fog were pushed aside by the bow of a sleek, white cruiser. A rope was thrown out of the darkness. A gangplank was slid over the edge and made steady on the bank. The Fat Man walked down it.
He was dressed in a dinner jacket with a mauve bow tie and a white silk scarf hanging loose around his neck. He nodded at Fred and the others and then strolled over to me. Without saying a word, he leant down and tapped the concrete with his knuckles. That made my heart lurch. The stuff was already solid. I couldn’t even feel my feet. He straightened up. The four thugs formed a rough circle around us. And I can tell you now, circles just don’t come any rougher.
“No wisecracks today, Nicholas?” the Fat Man demanded. “Nothing funny to say?”
“You’re a loony, Fat Man,” I said.
“And you, my boy, are a fool. You were lucky to escape alive from the Hotel Splendide. But now your time has run out.”
“What have you got against me?” I asked. “What did I ever do to you?”
“You lied to me,” the Fat Man said. “Worse still, you defied me. I gave you forty-eight hours to find something for me. Find it you did not.”
“Well …” I said. “How about a second chance?”
He sniffed. At the same time, Fred moved forward. He’d opened the shoulder-bag and taken out the Maltesers. He handed them to the Fat Man. The Fat Man looked at the bottom, holding them to the light so that he could read something. “Perfect!” he whispered. That threw me. How had he found out about the Maltesers? He’d never mentioned them before. He must have read the expression in my face because he smiled. “You’re wondering how I discovered what was inside the dwarf’s package?” he asked. He turned round to the boat. “Professor!”
I peered through the swirling fog. A second figure appeared at the top of the gangplank and made his way unsteadily down. He stood at the edge of the circle of light, blinking at me. Quentin Quisling, the Professor. He shook his head. “You gave me the wrong box, sir,” he said in an accusing tone of voice.
“So the Professor came to me,” the Fat Man continued. “A wise decision. A very wise decision. Did you know that the Professor designed them in the first place? You see, the Falcon needed a key – but a key that didn’t look like a key. He had too many enemies. The Professor created the bar-code—”
“But why Maltesers?” I asked. The information wasn’t going to be much use to me, but I wanted to know.
The Professor shrugged. “I like Maltesers,” he said.
“And now I have them.” The Fat Man smiled. The smile stretched his skin across his cheekbones like an elastic band. “And soon, very soon, the Professor will tell me what they open—”
“And then you’ll kill him too,” I interrupted. I had nothing to lose. I was only minutes away from the end. I could feel the chill of the cement spreading through my entire body. I turned to the Professor. “You don’t think the Fat Man will share the money with you, do you?” I said. “Once you tell him your secret, you’ll be joining the queue at the bottom of the Thames.”
“It’s fifty-fifty …” the Professor mumbled but I could see he had his doubts.
“I’ll see you in Hell, Professor,” I said.
The Fat Man was furious. His face had gone white and the veins in his neck were standing out so far they were threatening to snap his bow tie. “Throw him in!” he yelled.
He stepped back. At once, Lenny, Benny and Kenny moved in on me. They bent down and a moment later I was in the air, bath and all, being carried towards the Thames. Don’t let me kid you. I like to think I’m smart. Sometimes I act older than I am. But right then I would have screamed and cried and torn my hair out if I’d thought for a single second that screaming and crying and tearing my hair out would do any good.
The river drew closer. The Fat Man watched. The three men shuffled forward.
They were about two metres from the edge of the water when the spotlight cut through the fog and the darkness. It came from high up, somewhere behind me. It was hard to tell. The night seemed to rip apart, torn into shreds by the beam. The fog boiled furiously in its grip. The gangsters stopped as if frozen.
There was a crackle in the air. Then a voice boomed out, amplified by a loudhailer.
“This is the police. Stay where you are. You’re surrounded.”
Lenny, Benny and Kenny dropped me. I crashed to the ground but remained standing up. The Fat Man ran for the boat. He still had the Maltesers. The Professor stumbled after him. Lenny took out his gun and fired in the direction of the spotlight. I tried to dive for cover but I was about as capable of that as an oak tree. There was an answering shot. Lenny was blown off his feet. His gun clattered to the ground.
“Don’t move,” the voice commanded. “We’re armed.” It was a bit late to be telling Lenny that.
The Fat Man had reached the boat and turned round, stretching out a hand for the Professor. But the Professor was nowhere near him. Half-drunk and short-sighted he ran forward, missed the gangplank and dived into the Thames. Benny, Kenny and Fred scattered and ran for cover. But now the whole area was swarming with men. They were throwing black shadows as they sprinted through the glare.
The Professor couldn’t swim. He was floundering in the water, shouting for help. But the Fat Man couldn’t wait. The police had almost reached the boat.
The boat’s engine roared and it swung away from the bank. At the same moment the Professor let out a ghastly scream. He’d been in the water. He’d been close to the propellors. Too close. I was glad I couldn’t see what the Fat Man had accidentally done to him.
Benny, Kenny and Fred were arrested. I saw them thrown to the ground. The whole building site was lit up. And I was still standing in the middle of it all, knee-deep in cement.
And then I felt the bathtub being dragged slowly towards the river. I couldn’t believe it. There was a figure squatting, struggling, pulling the bathtub along the gravel. With me in it.
But then
I heard a familiar voice. Snape’s voice.
“No, Boyle,” he said. “You can’t push him in. We’ve come here to rescue him. Go to the car and get a chisel.”
IN THE BATH
Snape and Boyle drove me back to the flat. I was cold. I was wet. And I was fed up. My trousers, shoes and socks were ruined and my legs weren’t feeling much better. My throat was sore and my nose was blocked. They’d got my feet out of the cement but I could still feel the cement in my blood and there was nothing they could do about that. And I’d lost the Maltesers. It had been a bad day. I was glad it was over. If I’d known it was going to be a day like that, I’d have stayed in bed.
They came in with me and I made them some coffee. While the kettle was boiling, I tried to call Lauren. I thought she might be worried about me. But there was no answer. I flicked on the hot-water tank for a bath and went back downstairs. Snape and Boyle had made themselves comfortable in the office. I fixed us three cups of coffee and took them in. I didn’t like them and they didn’t like me. But like it or not, they’d saved my life. The least I could do was give them a cup of coffee.
“All right,” I said. “How did you find me?”
“We were watching the flat,” Snape told me. “We saw you go in and we saw you taken out. Lucky for you. We followed you to the Thames. When we saw what was going on, Boyle here called for back-up on the radio.”
“Why were you watching the flat?” I asked.
Snape let out a sniff of laughter. “Why do you think? In the last few days we’ve been receiving some of the craziest reports I’ve heard in thirty years. A young boy blows up a hotel in the Portobello Road. A young boy pushes a grand piano out of a fifth-floor window. A young boy goes berserk in Selfridges and leaves forty hysterical children and a dead Santa Claus behind him. You’d think London was crawling with lethal young boys. Except they all fit the same description. Yours.”
“I can explain,” I said.
“I’m delighted to hear it. You’ve been making life very difficult for me. You’ve upset Boyle …”
“I’m upset,” Boyle agreed.
“… and you’ve done more damage than the Germans managed in two world wars. And I thought your brother was a menace!”
“Where is Herbert?” I asked.
Snape’s eyes narrowed at that. “We released him at lunchtime. We couldn’t hold him. To be honest, we didn’t want to.”
“Well, I haven’t seen him.”
I wasn’t particularly bothered just then. It was strange that Herbert should have just disappeared, but I could understand it. He’d probably gone to Aunty Maureen in Slough. He’d hide out there until the heat was off. I shivered. Herbert hadn’t paid the gas bill for the flat. The heat had been off for two weeks.
“Did he tell you everything?” I asked.
“Well … Herbert and canaries have a lot in common.”
Snape held out a hand. “I want the Maltesers,” he said.
“I don’t have them,” I said. “The Fat Man took them.” Snape’s eyes narrowed a little more. “If you don’t believe me, you can search my bag.”
“I already have,” Boyle muttered.
“The Fat Man took them,” I repeated. “When you arrest him you can get them from him.”
“Arrest him?” Snape twisted his neck until the bone clicked. “That may not be so easy.”
“Why not?”
“It’s a question of evidence, lad. We haven’t got anything on him. Nothing concrete—”
“What about the stuff he was burying me in?”
“You don’t understand!” Snape was distressed. “He’ll deny he was ever there. He’ll say it was a case of mistaken identity … in the fog. He’ll have an alibi.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “So that’s it, then,” I said. “If the Fat Man goes free, he’ll find the diamonds and that’ll be the end of it.”
“You should have given us the Maltesers in the first place,” Boyle said.
“Sure.” I nodded. “And if the Fat Man had come strolling in and claimed them as lost property I suppose you’d have handed them over.”
That made Boyle scowl again. But Snape stood up. “You’ve got a lot of questions to answer,” he said.
“Are you arresting me?”
“No. You’ve had enough for one day. We’ll talk to you next week. Like you say, the Fat Man has the Maltesers and that’s the end of it. We’ll be in touch.”
I showed them to the door. Snape stopped in the doorway and turned round. “Happy Christmas,” he said.
I’d forgotten until then. It was Christmas Eve. “Yeah … Happy Christmas, Chief Inspector,” I said. “And to you, Boyle.”
Boyle grunted. He probably didn’t even know what Christmas was.
An hour later I was lying in the hot water with the soap bubbles up to my neck and Herbert’s plastic duck floating around my feet. My body wasn’t a pretty sight just then. What with the ropes, the cement and the general manhandling, I had more bruises than I cared to count. But it felt good in the bath. I needed to relax. It was time for some serious thinking.
What did the Maltesers unlock?
I knew the answer. I knew I knew the answer.
It had to be something near Herbert’s flat. Johnny Naples had left Notting Hill Gate with the Maltesers and a pair of scissors. By then he’d found the answer. He knew where he was going and he went to Fulham. But he’d been followed – and rather than lead anyone to his destination, he’d come to us. So it had to be something near. But what was there near the flat connected with the Falcon?
Four days later we’d found Naples dying. He’d managed to say two things: “The Falcon” and “the sun.” I assumed it was sun. Henry von Falkenberg didn’t have a son … at least, not one that we’d heard about. But what had the sun got to do with the Falcon? Nothing … unless he’d been talking about another falcon. Maybe not a man. A bird. Or a statue of a bird.
And then I thought about the Maltesers themselves and about a phrase that Clifford Taylor had used. The journalist had described the laser as “the shining light.” The sun was a shining light, too. But the phrase bothered me. I’d seen those words somewhere before. The Maltesers.
When the Fat Man had taken them, he’d looked on the bottom. I’d already tricked the Professor once. He’d told the Fat Man to find something, to check that they were the real ones. Henry von Falkenberg would have had to mark them in some way. And there was an easy way.
“You’ll see that there’s a number with thirteen digits underneath.”
That was what the journalist had said. And I knew that number. I’d read it so many times that I’d learnt it off by heart: 3521 201 000000. That number was the final clue.
I pulled the plug out with my toes and wrapped a towel round my body. Then, still dripping water, I went downstairs. It took me an hour before I found what I was looking for but there it was – a piece of paper with another number on it. I’d written that number myself on the day of the Falcon’s funeral.
There were thirteen digits on the Maltesers box – but the last six of them were all zeroes. Cross those out and you’d be left with seven digits.
A telephone number. And I knew which telephone it rang.
That was when our own telephone rang. The noise of the bell was so sudden, so loud, that I almost dropped the towel. I went into the office and picked it up.
“Nick Diamond?”
The voice was ugly with hatred. I didn’t believe a voice could hate that much.
“Gott,” I said.
“We have your brother.”
That took me by surprise. Herbert? But that was the way Gott worked. He’d snatched Lauren, then me. Why shouldn’t he add Herbert to his list?
“If you don’t give us what we want,” Gott snarled, “he dies.”
I didn’t have what they wanted, but I wasn’t going to say that. Because suddenly I knew everything. It all made sense. I should have seen it a long, long time before.
“Come
to the cemetery,” I said. I was talking even before I knew what I was saying. “I’ll meet you at the Falcon’s grave. Tomorrow at twelve o’clock.” I hung up.
I didn’t want to get into any arguments.
Then I opened the drawer of Herbert’s desk. On the day we had first met the Fat Man, he had given us a card with his telephone number. I called it now, hoping there would be someone in.
“Yes?” It was a flat, neutral voice.
“I want to talk to the Fat Man,” I said.
“He’s not here.”
“It’s important I get a message to him.”
“Who is this?”
“Nick Diamond.”
There was a pause. Then the voice said, “What is the message?”
“I know what the key opens,” I said. “And I’m willing to do a deal. Tell the Fat Man to be at Brompton Cemetery tomorrow. At the Falcon’s grave at five to twelve exactly. Alone. Have you got that?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” I hung up on him too.
After that I made one last call. That was the hardest to make. It cost me three and a half million pounds. But the way I looked at it was like this. The Fat Man had the Maltesers. Gott (and maybe Himmell) had Herbert. And I had the answer. If I’d planned things right, it would all sort itself out the next day at noon.
If I hadn’t … well, we were meeting in a cemetery. At least they wouldn’t have to carry me far.
I just hoped it would be a sunny day.
THE SHINING LIGHT
There are only about three or four days in the year when the Brompton Cemetery is more or less empty – and Christmas Day, of course, is one of them. That would suit my plans. Witnesses were one thing I could do without. It was eleven forty-five when I walked up to the Falcon’s grave. There was nobody in sight. Fortunately it was another crisp, cloudless day. The sun had no warmth, but it was bright. At least the weather was on my side.
I stood beside the Falcon’s grave. The earth was still fresh where they’d buried him, like a sore that hasn’t healed. It would take the grass time to grow over it – but where better to find time than in a cemetery? I looked at the memorial, that Victorian telephone box with the stone falcon perched on top. There’s an old saying. I thought of it now. “You can’t take it with you.” But the Falcon had – or at least, he’d tried his best to. I read the inscription on the memorial. I’d read it before.