The Borribles: Across the Dark Metropolis (19 page)

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Authors: Michael de Larrabeiti

Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Fantasy & Magic

BOOK: The Borribles: Across the Dark Metropolis
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‘I will, I will,’ said the Queen Mum at the top of her voice. ‘I might just piss off to the local nick and tell ’em about all the stolen property they could find here … and you’d be the one to spend six months in Holloway, not me. Make you wash they do, Madge. And there’s no drink. I’d be revenged then, nicely revenged.’
Now Madge lost her temper. She pushed herself up from the armchair and, although staggering a little, she seized an empty bottle by the neck and smashed it against the edge of the table; the jagged glass made a deadly weapon.
‘You ain’t telling no one nothing,’ she said, ‘you bleedin’ hyena. I’m going to cut yer throat, you see if I don’t.’ Madge advanced and raised the bottle out in front of her, eyes mad, hair wild about her face.
The Queen Mum fell back several steps, enticing Madge on, taunting her. ‘You drunken old mare, they’ll have you for child murder they will, I’ll make sure about that. If them two kids in the cage croaks of pneumonia I’ll have something to tell Old Bill then.’
Madge could take no more. She screamed with all the power of her lungs and leapt at her enemy, shoving the broken bottle at the Queen Mum’s neck. Quick as she was the Queen Mum was quicker. She slipped to one side of the table, avoiding the onslaught, raised her hands to her sacking shawl and pulled it from her shoulders. As Madge turned to renew the fight the Queen Mum whirled the sack above her head and with the end of it she caught Madge a blow across the temple. Madge stumbled and the bottle fell from her hand and
smashed to the floor. The Queen Mum whirled the sack again, twice, three times round her head; faster, faster, then thump! The corner of it caught Madge once more on the temple and there was a cracking sound like a coconut splitting. Madge pitched to the floor, face down, and then rolled over on her back to stare blindly up at the light bulb. Her eyes blinked a few times and blood trickled from her nose. Her last breath was expelled from her lungs in a long wheezing rattle. Madge was dead.
A smile slowly grew on the Queen Mum’s lips. She replaced the sack on her shoulders and stepped towards the body. She pushed it with her foot, then she kicked it hard, twice. ‘You cow,’ she said quietly, ‘I promised you I’d get you one day and so I have. No one sends the Queen Mum to prison and gets away with it, no one. Now you’ve had your last drink and fought your last fight. Good riddance.’
One by one the Borribles emerged from the alcove and stood by the table staring down, their mouths dry. MacMungall still snored; an empty bottle rolled from his hands and clinked on to the floor but did not break.
‘She’s killed her,’ said Twilight.
‘Course she has,’ said Napoleon. ‘What did you expect, three clean rounds and a win on points?’ He knelt and examined the bruise on the side of Madge’s head. ‘How did you do it, Queenie?’ he asked. ‘How did you kill her with an old sack?’
The Queen Mum sniffed professionally and said, ‘That old sack has a big lump of lead sewn into the corner. I’ve killed men twice the size of her before now, mate. I’ve had to, sometimes.’
Napoleon stood and looked at the Queen Mum with new respect. He also took a catapult from his pocket, just to be on the safe side. ‘Where do you think the key is?’ he asked.
The Queen Mum inspected every Borrible in turn. Each one of them now had a makeshift catapult in his or her hand. She smiled. ‘Saint Fairy Anne,’ she said. ‘I’m proud of yer; you don’t trust no one and that’s right, of course, but I ain’t going to go back on yer. Come over here.’
She led the way to the brick wall directly behind Madge’s armchair and, taking a knife from a pocket in the side of her skirt, she began to
scrape away at the mortar. ‘I saw her put some stuff in here years ago,’ she explained. ‘Old Madge thought I was drunk but I’m never that drunk.’
One of the bricks loosened and then another. The Queen Mum levered with the knife blade, the bricks fell to the floor and a black hole appeared. The woman cackled and shoved an arm into the wall, up to the elbow, and felt around for a second or two. At last she turned, triumphant, holding a large iron key. ‘Here it is,’ she said, but she made no attempt to hand it over.
‘Give it us,’ said Napoleon. ‘We want to be on our way.’
‘Yes,’ said the Queen Mum. She squinted craftily down at the Wendle. ‘Certainly, but first I want you to tell me that you don’t want nothing else out of this hole … That’s in return for me getting the key for you, like.’
‘Of course not,’ said Chalotte scornfully. ‘We don’t want anything that Madge had, nothing at all.’
The Queen Mum stared deep into Chalotte’s eyes until she was satisfied, then tossed the key into Napoleon’s outstretched hands. ‘Just as well Borribles ain’t interested in money,’ she said, ‘otherwise this ere might not have turned out quite so friendly.’
Napoleon ignored the woman and turned to his companions. ‘Some of you better tie old Hughie into his armchair,’ he said, ‘just in case he wakes up and decides to be brave. Me and Knocker will go and get Ninch and Scooter.’ Without waiting for a reply he spun on his heel and, stepping over the still sleeping meffos, he set off for the back of the cavern. Knocker followed him and there, in the blackest corner of all, by the light of a torch, they found an iron ring attached to a wooden hatch. They flung this open and underneath discovered an iron-barred door with a heavy lock in the middle of it. The key fitted, moving easily, and pulling upwards with all their strength the two Borribles managed to lift this door as well, throwing it down with a resounding clang. The meffos stirred in their sleep but did not woke.
Knocker led the way now, descending green slimy steps, his torch shining weakly into a kind of steam, rising thick and white, smelling of mushrooms.
At the bottom of the stairs Knocker and Napoleon found themselves
in a cell; there were two bunks and a bucket and that was all. Black water streamed down the walls and gathered in wide puddles on the uneven flagstones. In each bunk, wrapped in a tattered blanket and shivering with cold, lay a cowering and whimpering figure. It was Ninch and Scooter and they lifted their heads when they saw the light; their eyes reflected, full of terror, in the beam of the torch.
‘Leave us alone, Madge.’ It was Ninch’s voice, strained, near to breaking point. ‘We ain’t done nothing.’
‘It’s us,’ said Knocker. ‘We’ve come to get you out.’
Scooter rolled out of his bunk and his feet splashed on to the floor. ‘Oh Knocker, at last. I thought you’d come in the end but it seemed like years.’
‘It’s been six days,’ said Napoleon. ‘We’ve been as quick as we could.’
Knocker went across the room and helped Ninch out of the top bunk. He was surprised to feel how light the acrobat was. He felt like a bag of sticks and he was shaking uncontrollably.
‘Come on,’ said Knocker. ‘We’ll have to get you out into the light and get some dry clothes on you. I’m surprised you’re still alive.’
‘So am I,’ said Ninch. ‘So am I.’
The two captives were half walked and half carried from the dungeon and taken back to where the rest of the Adventurers, wasting no time, were now searching for their rucksacks. Ninch and Scooter sank to the floor. Warm clothes were found for them and they were given food and drink. The Queen Mum tipped some brandy down their throats and then sprawled at ease in Madge’s armchair, staring at the rivulet of blood that crept out of her victim’s nose, along the side of her cheek and on to the floor.
‘What’s that?’ cried Ninch, pointing at the body.
The Queen Mum laughed and folded her arms in contentment. ‘That’s Madge,’ she said, ‘that is—or was. Quiet ain’t she? I had to give her a clout round the brains.’
‘That’s murder,’ said Ninch.
‘It most certainly is,’ said the Queen Mum. ‘It was also justice. It was her or you, you know. You’d have been dead in a couple of weeks down that Black Hole of Calcutta. You should see yourself.’
It was true. Both Ninch and Scooter looked like ghosts, with their faces pale, their cheeks sunken and their skin tinged with lichen. They trembled continually and were too weak to stand for any length of time without help. It was certain that they would not be able to travel very far until they had rested for several days.
‘And what’s that?’ asked Ninch again. He pointed at a large leather holdall that nestled on the Queen Mum’s lap.
She laughed once more and unfolded her arms. ‘This is Madge’s ill-gotten gains,’ she said, pulling at the zip and opening the top of the bag. ‘There’s more money here than they’ve got in the Bank of England. She must have been salting this away for years. Stealing from meffos, enticing strays off the stations, nicking their stuff when they was drunk or asleep; killing them too I should think.’
‘What are you going to do with it?’ Ninch said. He glanced over his shoulder, but the Adventurers were still trying to gather together what remained of their possessions.
‘Do with it?’ echoed the Queen Mum. ‘I’m going to save it for me old age, Petal. There’s jewellery too, enough to keep me in luxury for the rest of me born natural.’
‘Hm,’ said Ninch. ‘Enough to share out, is there?’
The Queen Mum stared at Ninch and her nose twitched. ‘No,’ she said, ‘there ain’t.’ She got to her feet and shoved the bag out of sight at the bottom of her pram, covering it over with a square of old blanket. ‘I’d better get out of here,’ she said. ‘There’ll be hell to pay when them others wakes up and finds Madge dead and her treasure gone. I want to be far away when that happens, like Australia.’
‘And us,’ said Knocker. He came up to Ninch and Scooter and threw them a raincoat each. ‘Put them on,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to get on the road. It’s dark out.’
Vulge limped over to Knocker with the other Adventurers behind him all prepared to continue their journey.
‘What d’yer reckon, Knocker? What can we do?’
Knocker scratched his head. ‘Not much choice,’ he said. ‘It’s Hobson’s really. We ain’t far from Sussworth’s abattoir, but we can’t do anything for Sam with Ninch and Scooter in the state they’re in. Best thing would be to find some empty house nearby and while they’re
resting we’ll go on a scouting expedition and see what we can find out. I reckon that’s best.’
The Queen Mum looked up from packing her pram. She had her raincoat on now and the strip of polythene was tied round her head. ‘I know where you can hide,’ she said. ‘Not far from here. Ha! No one knows London like me. Inside out I knows it.’
‘Where?’ asked Napoleon.
‘Just turn right out of here, under the railway, you’ll come to York Way; there’s a big blank wall. You turn right again into Wharfdale Road, back of the canal, then into Balfe Street. You’ll see an old block of flats there, huge, due for demolition and boarded up. I’ve spent many a night in there. Coppers never go in … too scared. Some of your lot there, I think. Borribles … funny to look at they are. All right though, always left me alone.’
Napoleon hoisted his rucksack on to his shoulders. ‘Well, we’ve got all the food and stuff we’re going to find here,’ he said. ‘We might as well get going.’
The Adventurers went carefully towards the exit, stepping softly round the meffos in their way so as not to waken them. The huge bar that closed the double doors rested in its sockets just above their heads.
‘That’s no problem,’ said Stonks. ‘We’ll just get underneath it and push upwards one way and it’ll swivel down the other.’
The Adventurers did exactly as Stonks suggested and with them all working together the iron bar was easily moved and the gates opened. As was to be expected the thump of the iron bar and the creak of the rusty hinges roused one or two of the meffos from their drunken sleep, but their eyelids only flickered for a moment and if the sight of the escaping Borribles penetrated as far as their tired brains it certainly did not register. They groaned, rolled over and went back to sleep. They would be drunk for days yet.
One person did wake and he discovered himself tightly bound into his own armchair. That person was Hughie MacMungall. Slowly his mind stirred into life. Gradually he became aware of the Queen Mum standing before him, hands on the push bar of her pram, dressed for the road. He licked his lips and said, ‘Gi’ us a drink, woman, I canna
move. My body must be paralysed with thirst.’ But then he looked down at his arms and noticed what had happened to him and when he looked up again he saw that the Queen Mum was smiling a smile. of triumph. She laughed now and went to the table and picked up a bottle of red wine. The Borribles stood hesitant on the threshold of the open door, the black night behind them, and they watched. MacMungall shook his head and his eyes rolled helplessly as if all the muscles to them had been cut. ‘Oh, Madge,’ he moaned, his voice pathetic and low. ‘Oh, Madge, where are you my love, my life, where are you?’
For a moment the Borribles thought that the Queen Mum might strike the helpless man with her bottle, but that was not her intention. She unscrewed the top, stepped close to MacMungall and simply upended the contents on to his head and face, letting the red liquid splash over him, fill his eyes and run in and out of his mouth, soaking his chest.
MacMungall cried out weakly and struggled to sit upright but could not. ‘Oh, where’s my Madge,’ he whimpered. ‘Where’s my wee girl, where is she? I canna live without my Madge.’
The Queen Mum threw the empty bottle on to the floor and it smashed. ‘You’ll have to, me old china,’ she said, and stood back, pointing to Madge’s body lying half under the table. The blood was now thickly congealed on the corpse’s face.

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