The Billionaire’s Curse (7 page)

He closed the heavy oak door, reassured by the click of the brass latch behind him. The shower was warm and relaxing, the bed welcoming and comfortable. Gerald couldn’t believe how exhausted he was. He leaned across to flick off the bedside lamp and let the darkness wash over him. It had been a bit of a day. He listened as the sound of his breathing filled the room, and his eyelids closed.

The bedside light suddenly sparked back to life. Gerald flung himself from under the covers and onto the carpet. He scurried across the floor and threw open the door to the closet. He tossed his shoes aside and hauled out his beaten old backpack, tore at the zipper, and grabbed what he was looking for: a buff-colored envelope, about the size of a large notebook. He carried it back to the bed, his great-aunt’s writing clearly legible in the lamplight:
NOT TO BE OPENED UNTIL AFTER MY FUNERAL. AND
G
ERALD
, I
MEAN IT!

Gerald flipped the envelope over and cracked the wax seal. He lifted up the flap and tipped the envelope upside down.

Out fell a jumble of loose sheets of paper and newspaper clippings, as well as a bundle of small envelopes, tied together with brown string. Gerald spread everything across the bed and tried to make sense of what looked like a scrapbook that had been torn apart at the spine.

He picked up a sheet of notepaper. It was decorated with a floral design and covered in an old lady’s handwriting—the same writing as on the front of the envelope. He lay on his stomach and read the note:

Bit late to be asking me that now! Gerald thought. He read on.

G
erald’s eyes locked on the word
murdered
. As if the day hadn’t been bizarre enough. He continued to read:

Gerald was so tired he wasn’t sure what to think. Was this for real? A joke? The ramblings of a madwoman?

Had Gerald’s eyes bulged any farther they might have bounced onto the blankets like soggy Ping-Pong balls. Someone wanted to kill him? He turned the note over to read on, but the back was blank. On the edge of panic, he rifled through the papers on the bed hunting for the rest of the note. But among the mess of clippings and official-looking documents he could find nothing that matched. He shoved his hand back into the envelope. It was empty. He cast wild-eyed about the room, not sure what to do. Then he leaped off the bed and flew across to the door, pushing hard against the brass bolt to lock it. He gathered all the bits of paper, stuffed them back into the envelope and shoved it under his pillow. He lay back down on the bed and pulled the covers under his chin, his eyes still threatening to pop out of his skull. When he finally fell asleep, the bedside lamp was still on.

Gerald woke with a start. He was in a strange bed in an unfamiliar bedroom. Sunlight seeped through a gap in the heavy curtains and the faint sound of birdsong rose from the street below. Gerald checked his watch: seven o’clock, Monday morning. He sifted through the random thoughts rattling around inside his skull. He remembered where he was: London. His great-aunt’s house. His murdered great-aunt’s house. He shoved his hand under the pillow. The envelope was still there. Gerald’s heart sank. He hoped it had been one of his ridiculous dreams.

Sitting cross-legged against a pile of cushions, Gerald turned the envelope over and over, desperate to look inside but also petrified about reading any more about murder. About his great-aunt’s murder. About his murder. He swallowed hard and pulled out the sheaf of papers. This time he sorted them, building a number of small piles on the bedspread: a stack of newspaper and magazine clippings, some typed pages, the bundle of envelopes tied with string, and the handwritten note from Great-Aunt Geraldine that had shaken him the night before. He was relieved to turn up another page of the same floral notepaper, also in Geraldine’s handwriting:

Gerald shook his head. School holidays weren’t meant to be like this. Who was this professor? What was this diamond? And how was he supposed to know what to do? Gerald read the note three times but it was still no clearer. Then, as if a door in his brain swung open, he jumped from the bed and grabbed his jeans from the floor. He fished into the pocket and pulled out the page from
Oi!
magazine that he’d found on the jet. He flattened the crumpled paper and looked again at the photograph of his great-aunt Geraldine: the photograph of her, an old man in a dinner suit, and an enormous…

“Diamond,” Gerald breathed out loud.

He stared at the egg-shaped gem in the picture.

This diamond would certainly be any girl’s best friend…priceless Noor Jehan diamond…much-awaited opening of the new India exhibit this week…rumored to be insured for £100 million…on display until September…

Gerald’s eyes were drawn to the pile of newspaper clippings. He fanned through the stash of stories. Every one was about the Noor Jehan diamond: about how Geraldine had donated a large sum of money to bring it out from India; about how it was the first time the diamond had left that country since its discovery, expertly cut and polished, nearly eighteen hundred years ago; and about its daring theft from the Reading Room at the British Museum a few days before. For the next twenty minutes Gerald read about the break-in. How the room was locked from the inside and there was no sign of how the thief escaped. Rumors that the policeman on duty was found asleep on the floor with two roses sticking out of his buttocks. Another clipping outlined a theory that the thief had hidden inside a statue of an elephant. The last article featured a photograph of a fierce-looking man with bushy eyebrows and an unruly red beard, his sharp eyes boring holes out of the page. According to the caption, the man was Professor Knox McElderry, curator of the India exhibition. The story said that Professor McElderry had hurled the newspaper reporter out of his office and threatened violence if he ever returned.

Gerald tried to soak it all in. His mind was awash with questions about murder, stolen diamonds, elephants, and fierce professors, but one thing was clear: He had to get to the British Museum as soon as possible. He had to escape his newfound prison.

Gerald got dressed and grabbed his battered backpack. It was now almost eight and he needed to get moving. He put the newspaper cuttings and the other documents back into the large envelope. He picked up the bundle of smaller envelopes tied with string and was about to do the same with them when he realized he still hadn’t opened them. He undid the brown twine and spread them on the floor. Geraldine had scrawled a few short words on the front of each of them, but they made no sense to Gerald. One was labeled “Fraternity,” another was “Family Tree,” and a third was a string of random shapes: the number 10, a circle with a line through it, a Y, an arrow, a triangle. One envelope caught Gerald’s eye. In Geraldine’s handwriting on the front was: “Young Billionaire’s Survival Kit.” He tore the flap and pulled out a small leather wallet. He flipped it open, let out a low whistle, and counted out two thousand pounds in crisp new notes. He also pulled out a black American Express card, with a neat Gerald A. Wilkins embossed on the front. He searched the other pockets and flaps of the wallet and found a passport photograph of his great-aunt and a small pocket mirror. Taped to the back was a square of paper. Gerald peeled it off and unfolded another note in Geraldine’s handwriting:

Gerald turned the mirror over and gazed at his reflection, smiling to himself. He was starting to like his great-aunt Geraldine. But his smile disappeared at the sound of a sharp knock on the bedroom door.

“Breakfast is served in the dining room.” It was Fry. His humor had not improved overnight.

“Yeah,” Gerald called out. “I’ll be right down.”

He shoved the unopened envelopes in with the other documents and looked for a hiding place. Geraldine had said trust no one, and Fry was a good enough place to start. He finally settled on a spot in the back of the closet, under a loose corner of carpet. He stuck an old suitcase on top, closed the closet door, and locked it. He stuffed the key and wallet in his pockets and hurried down to breakfast, his backpack slung over his shoulder.

A long solid-oak dining table was set out with a selection of juices as well as a steaming platter of eggs, bacon, cooked mushrooms, tomatoes, hash browns, and a couple of things Gerald didn’t recognize.

“What’s this?” Gerald asked Fry, picking up a lid from a silver tray and poking a fork at the shriveled contents.

“Kidneys and black pudding,” Fry replied from his position by the sideboard.

“Kidneys!” Gerald gagged, dropping the lid with a clatter, splashing water onto the polished table. “For breakfast? No thanks. And what’s a black pudding?”

Fry flinched at the sight of water on the table. He rushed across to wipe up the drops. Then he replaced the lid squarely on the tray, taking care to make sure the table setting remained immaculate.

“The main ingredient of black pudding,” Fry said, his face just inches from Gerald’s, “is blood. Lots and lots of blood.”

Gerald looked into the blank mask that was Fry’s face and swallowed.

“Uh, I think I’ll have some toast,” he said.

Fry marched back to the kitchen, muttering to himself. Gerald noticed some newspapers on the sideboard and wandered over to leaf through them. Every one led with the amazing story of the instant boy billionaire. There were photographs of Gerald rushing into the church with his parents for the funeral and shots of him climbing into the back of the Rolls for the journey home. Gerald had forgotten about the media pack. He went to a window that looked down on the street, and sure enough, at least thirty photographers and reporters were still parked on the pavement. A couple of the photographers had lenses trained on the front windows, and the moment Gerald’s face appeared a shout went up from below. Egg-and-bacon rolls and cups of coffee hit the footpath as breakfasts were tossed aside and cameras were hoisted toward Gerald. He waved a couple of times, which had as much calming effect as prodding a stick into the middle of an ants’ nest. Then he poked out his tongue and closed the curtains.

Gerald sat at the table and thought. If he was to get out of the house, the front door was not going to provide an easy exit. And after the Rolls snuck in via the rear lane the previous day, it was likely that the media would be covering the back door as well. Then there was the small issue of getting past Mr. Fry.

Just then, the butler appeared with a plate of warm toast, which he placed in front of Gerald, then fussed around, deftly wiping some crumbs from the table into his palm. As Gerald watched Mr. Fry rearranging the newspapers into a tidy pile on the sideboard, an idea popped into his head. He took the wallet from his back pocket and pulled out his shiny new credit card. Between mouthfuls of toast and honey, he spun it between his fingers.

About an hour later Gerald positioned himself in a quiet corner of the ground-floor drawing room and waited. From this spot, he could keep an eye on the front door, as well as see through to the kitchen and the only door that led to the back drive. He flicked through the pages of one of the morning papers. In the kitchen Mr. Fry cleaned up after breakfast, a crisp white apron over his dark suit. Then from outside, there was a sudden clamor of voices. Gerald went to the window and looked between the curtains. There were three delivery vans at the front door and the drivers were busy handing out boxes of pizza to the photographers and reporters, together with trays of coffee.

“From the young man inside,” one of the drivers announced. “He says he’s sorry if you dropped your breakfast earlier.” The free food and drink was too much for the media pack to resist. Hands grabbed at whatever they could take, upending pizza boxes across the footpath. Gerald grinned as the shouts outside grew louder. He let the curtains fall and wandered across to the kitchen.

“Mr. Fry,” Gerald said, idling over to the butler. “The people outside seem to be dumping pizza boxes in the flower beds.”

“They’re doing what?” Fry was incensed. He dashed out of the kitchen and straight through the front door, almost slipping on a slice of ham-and-pineapple pizza on the doorstep before hurling himself headlong into the feasting mob.

“What do you disgusting people think you’re doing?” he demanded.

Gerald leaped into action. As soon as Fry disappeared out the front, he scooped up his backpack and dashed through the back door, vaulting the porch railings onto the white-pebbled driveway below. He dropped to his stomach behind the Rolls Royce and inched forward to peer around the front wheel. His suspicion that there would be photographers in the back lane had been correct. He spied at least three between the bars of the tall iron gates, looking uneasy about the commotion coming from the front of the house. Gerald’s entire escape plan depended on these photographers doing one thing and doing it quickly. He didn’t have much time. He breathed heavily and waited. The tallest of the snappers was pacing about and looking increasingly anxious—the noise from the pizza riot was getting louder. Gerald could hear snatches of conversation in the lane: “…something’s up…missing it…boss’ll kill me…”

The tall photographer grabbed his camera gear and sprinted up the alley. The other two looked at each other, then set off in pursuit, cameras and lenses dangling and bouncing over their shoulders. Gerald got up from his hiding spot and skittered across the drive to the back gate. The first two photographers had already rounded the corner. But the last one, the burly photographer with the red vest, was making heavy work of it.

“Come on!” Gerald hissed to himself. “Hurry up.”

The fat photographer was still twenty yards short of the corner when one of the pizza vans appeared around the bend. The man had to throw himself up onto the curb to avoid being hit as the van raced past. He turned with a volley of abuse at the driver. But as the van slowed and then stopped at the back of Gerald’s house, the photographer came to a stuttering halt. From inside the back gate, Gerald could see that he was going to have to move now, even though the lane was not deserted. He slammed his hand onto the release button and slipped through the sliding gate, straight into the open passenger-side door of the delivery van.

“Where to?” the young driver asked. “This is a bit of fun, innit?”