The Borribles: Across the Dark Metropolis (22 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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‘So,’ continued Sussworth, twitching his face at Hanks, ‘what do you think of them?’
The sergeant pushed himself upright. ‘Well, sir, I gave them the once-over as they came in. They certainly look like Borribles,’ he said. ‘In fact they look more like Borribles than some Borribles do.’
‘Excellent,’ said the inspector, and he jumped to his feet and dodged round the desk like a matador avoiding a bull, his steps delicate but urgent. He continued his progress and danced towards the Borribles in waltz time, finally teetering to a stop in front of them. There he clenched his hands into fists, stretched his shoulders towards the ceiling and switched his moustache from side to side as if he were trying to scratch his ear lobes with it. All this effort made his eyes bright with a mad fire.
‘I want you volunteers to understand,’ he said, ‘the responsibilities and dangers you are undertaking. Borribles are nasty, Borribles are a social enemy; above all there are these Southfields assassins, and I will have them here, in front of me, their ears littering the floor. I have their names engraved on my heart. I know them all: Knocker, Chalotte, Napoleon Boot, Orococco, Bingo, Stonks, Twilight, Vulge, Torreycanyon, but, perhaps worst of all. …’ Sussworth’s voice rose to a scream, he brandished his fist and leapt up and down, his spittle spraying over the faces of the four Borribles like acid ‘ … perhaps the worst of all is that animal-lover, Sydney. Ah, but I have the horse and she’ll never see that again. Safe in an abattoir it’s kept, roped to a wall at tail and head. And it is your duty, you dwarfs, to patrol the streets and to see that no Borrible gets anywhere near it. That horse is dirty and filthy and the Borribles love it; it’s their pride and joy and I have sworn to wipe it from the face of the earth.’
Sussworth drew in a deep breath and pushed his face close to Knocker’s. ‘Haven’t I seen you before, dwarf?’
‘I don’t think so, sir,’ answered Knocker. His mind went blank with fear.
‘It’s just that we’ve made ourselves up to look so much like Borribles,’
interrupted Treld, touching her gold and blue hair, ‘that you think we are Borribles, and that’s what’s upsetting you.’
‘You’re the type of thing I mean exactly,’ said Sussworth. He switched his attention to the girls. ‘I mean you look ghastly and horrid enough to undermine society all on your own. The Borribles will love you, yes, certainly, and the ears! Oh, Hanks, never have I seen such wonderful appendages.’ He stared closely at Napoleon. ‘Look at that, Hanks, excellent again. With dwarfs like this on the streets the Borribles will not escape me now.’ The weakest of smiles flickered on Sussworth’s lips for a millisecond before dying like a broken filament in a light bulb. He turned twice on his heels and banged them together, ending up to face the huge map of London which covered part of one wall.
The inspector pointed south of the river. ‘These layabouts,’ he began, ‘were last seen in a definite location somewhere between Clapham Common South Side and Brixton High Road. We have good reason to believe that the aforementioned are making their way in a roundabout fashion towards a certain abattoir, which is here.’ Sussworth pointed to Baynes Street. ‘It is here also,’ he continued, ‘that the equus is incarcerated in order to ensure its eventual transformation into mincemeat. It is guarded night and day by twenty men with another fifty within call, and then there’s the dwarfs … Not quite sure how many there are of them … lots anyway.’ Sussworth drew a deep breath, bowed at the map as if to a large audience and then pirouetted until he faced his sergeant. ‘Have I said everything, Hanks?’ he asked.
Hanks leant out from the wall again and his powerful hands stroked his enormous belly and it quivered with pleasure. ‘Just the two dwarfs who have disappeared, sir. Worth a mention, sir, I always say. We ought to keep our eyes peeled for their bodies.’
‘Quite so,’ said Sussworth. ‘I was about to remind you to remind me.’ He addressed the Borribles once more. ‘There were two of your sort sending back tip-top intelligence—disappeared. Haven’t had a word from them since they left us at Clapham South …’
‘Aristotle Rule,’ murmured Napoleon.
‘Quite,’ said Sussworth, not understanding what the Wendle had said. ‘I fear that throats may have been cut …’
‘Soon will be,’ murmured Napoleon again.
‘Yes,’ said Sussworth, ‘if you find Scinch and Nooter you must give them every available assistance, get them back to me. They will be in possession of masses of information and I need it.’
‘Oh they’ll be coming back to you,’ said Napoleon. ‘I’ll see to that myself.’
‘Good,’ said Sussworth, and he jerked his elbows like a cockerel its wings. ‘Well that’s it, Hanks, send them on their way. Tell them to report by telephone, emergency services only, secretly, you know.’ And with this parting remark the inspector gyrated back to his seat like a man fencing with the three musketeers all at once. Arrived at his chair he fell into it and closed his eyes with exhaustion. Now nothing of him moved save the tiny moustache, which still quivered doubtfully on his upper lip like a swallow undecided about migration.
The constable at the table began to shuffle his papers together and Hanks rolled to the caravan door and opened it.
‘Come on you dwarfs,’ he said. ‘Out. The inspector’s had a very busy day, he never stops. He’s got to rest and I’ve got to eat. By the way you’d better have the password … it’s “Blancmange”.’ ‘Blancmange,’ said Knocker. ‘What’s that for?’
‘For us,’ said Hanks. ‘You see we have to be able to tell who you are or we might take you for real Borribles. You wouldn’t like that. So if a policeman thinks you are a Borrible just say “Blancmange” to him and he’ll realize you’re one of ours and let you go.’
Napoleon smiled a smile of infinite cunning. Knocker had never seen him smile so broadly. ‘You mean,’ said the Wendle, hardly able to believe what Hanks had told him, ‘you mean that all we got to say is “Blancmange” and your coppers will let us go?’
‘That’s the whole point,’ said Hanks, ‘the whole point.’
‘Well,’ said Napoleon, ‘that’s ace, that is, really ace!’
Hanks nodded, preoccupied, his thoughts turning towards food. He pushed the Borribles through the door and down the steps. ‘I know it is,’ he said. ‘I invented it.’ And with that he went back into the caravan to cook his supper, having first closed the door firmly behind him. He was very, very hungry.
It was past midnight when Knocker and Napoleon and their two Conker companions arrived at the rough plank hoarding that surrounded the Caledonian tower block. Two guards let them in with hardly a word, and they crossed the lightless yard and climbed silently to the third floor and entered the flat, where the Adventurers waited for them, their faces anxious. Chalotte smiled with relief as the four scouts came into the room; she lost that smile when she saw Knocker’s expression. He walked to the table, took his hand from his pocket and threw down two plastic ears. There was a gasp of astonishment from everyone in the room. Swish and Treld threw their plastic ears on the table too and then went into the kitchen to help themselves to some bread. Napoleon closed the front door behind him and leant against it with folded arms. No one was going out that way without his say-so. There was silence. The Adventurers got to their feet and stared.
‘Ears,’ said Bingo. ‘What poor blighter are they off?’
Knocker pointed at them, his face grim. ‘They aren’t off anyone,’ he said, ‘but they look real, don’t they? It’s Sussworth’s latest little trick and we’ve all been fooled by it. Right along the line. It’s a wonder we’re still alive.’
‘That’s right,’ said Napoleon. ‘Sussworth’s got these midgets and dwarfs all over London with ears like that stuck on ’em, pretending to be Borribles … and what’s worse we’ve had two of ’em with us, all the way, and we risked our necks for ’em.’
Chalotte picked up one of the ears. ‘Ninch and Scooter,’ she said.
‘That’s right,’ said Napoleon. ‘And as far as I’m concerned they’re going out that window and down to the ground so fast they’ll think they’re brick pigeons. Where are they?’
‘Gone,’ said Stonks. ‘One minute they were here, the next gone.’
‘We thought they’d just nipped out to get some food,’ said Sydney.
Napoleon swore and shook his fist at everyone in the room. ‘You idiots,’
he shouted. ‘And what about the Aristotle Rule, eh? Them dwarfs weren’t s’posed to go out on their own … Now we’re in trouble, you bloody imbeciles.’
‘How could we be suspicious when they’d been through all that with Madge?’ said Twilight.
‘Yes,’ said Torreycanyon. ‘They followed us after the escape from Clapham South; they came on the river with us even though they were scared.’
‘That was their bleedin’ job,’ screamed Napoleon. ‘All they had to do was stay with us and tell Sussworth where we were and what we were doing.’
There was another silence for a while. Vulge went into the kitchen to make some tea and Orococco said, ‘What happened with you lot? How did you get on?’
Knocker fell on to a chair with a sigh. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘We found the slaughterhouse and we’re pretty sure Sam’s in there, but he’s guarded by about twenty coppers with fifty in reserve. We’ll have to get past them.’
‘And what about Sussworth,’ asked Chalotte, ‘where’s he?’
Knocker looked at her and smiled. ‘We got mixed up with a bunch of dwarfs,’ he said, ‘being recruited. We were taken right into the caravan and there he was. That’s how we got the ears.’
‘You saw Sussworth?’ exclaimed Chalotte.
Knocker nodded. ‘And Hanks. We were in there ages. We had to listen to a speech on how to deal with Borribles if we caught ourselves. He knew all about us—names, everything.’
‘It was scary,’ said Swish, coming back into the room from the kitchen. ‘They even inspected our ears … I thought it was all over.’
Vulge went round everybody with mugs of tea and Napoleon snatched one from the tray, advancing into the room. ‘We can’t stand about nattering,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to pack up and be on our way before those two dwarfs get back here with half the Metropolitan Police, because they’re going to, you know.’
‘Oh no they ain’t,’ said a strained voice from the door, and the Borribles looked in that direction and saw Scooter leaning there.
Before anyone else could move, Napoleon had thrown down his tea, crossed the room and seized Scooter by the throat. He shook the
dwarf, as if to loosen his teeth, and thrust him into a chair. ‘I’m going to kill you, Sunbeam,’ said the Wendle, ‘permanent.’ He raised his fist to strike the prisoner but Chalotte jumped forward and laid her hand on Napoleon’s arm.
‘Wait,’ she said. ‘He’s wounded.’ Looking closer the Borribles could indeed see a dark bloodstain at the top of Scooter’s left arm and it was spreading. Chalotte removed the dwarf’s jacket and then, with her knife, slit the sweater and shirt; both garments were sopping wet with blood. There was a deep gash in the shoulder.
‘I’ll get some water,’ said Sydney. ‘We must stop the bleeding.’ And she went into the kitchen.
Napoleon sneered. ‘Don’t bother,’ he said. ‘When I’ve finished with him he won’t need blood.’
‘Let’s hear what he has to say,’ said Chalotte, ‘then we’ll decide. Say your say, dwarf.’
Scooter looked at the circle of faces and he saw no friendship. Sydney returned from the kitchen with a kettle full of cold water and bathed the wound. When it was clean she began to wrap it in white rag which she tore in strips from an old shirt. The dwarf winced with the pain but then began: ‘Ninch said we had to run,’ he said, ‘because he thought that you might find out the truth about us if you found Sussworth’s caravan …’
‘We did,’ said Knocker.
‘But I wanted to wait till you got back, so we hid along by the canal. We saw you all right, and we heard enough to realize that you’d tumbled us.’
- ‘What are we wasting time for?’ asked Torreycanyon. ‘He’s admitting it. Nap’s right … out the window.’
Knocker held up a hand. ‘Scooter, did you shop us on Clapham Common; was it you lot who told the SBG where we were and got Sam captured?’
Scooter dropped his head on to his chest and closed his eyes. ‘Yes,’ he said.
The Borribles went very very quiet. Chalotte bit her lip and could think of nothing to say. Sydney stopped dressing the dwarf’s wound.
‘He’s got to go,’ said Napoleon, lifting his arms and then dropping
them. ‘He can’t be trusted. He’s a spy and we know what everybody does with spies.’
‘Listen,’ said Scooter suddenly. ‘I came back to tell you this … I didn’t have to; I could have been clear away.’
‘Go on then,’ said Chalotte. ‘You’ll have to make it good.’
Scooter nodded. ‘Ninch got us the job. He saw the advertisement. He went to see Sussworth first and when he told us about it he made it sound really exciting, you know, special training, catching escaped criminals. Ninch stuck our ears on too; told us what Sussworth had said, and all us acrobats believed it, every word. How did we know any different?’
‘You shouldn’t take anything on trust, that’s why,’ said Vulge bitterly.
‘I know that now,’ said Scooter, ‘but at the time Ninch convinced us all. He was fed up with being a dwarf in a circus with people laughing at him. He told us there was a huge reward if we captured you. “Nobody laughs at you when you’ve got pockets full of money,” he said.’
‘And nobody’ll laugh at you when you’re dead and buried,’ said Napoleon.
Scooter went on with his explanation. ‘“That’s for me,” Ninch said. “I ain’t going to be no clown no more.” And he told us what to do if and when you turned up. So Ninch phoned Sussworth and when the fight was going on he showed the law where Sam was and then afterwards made us pretend to be captured like the rest of you … You see Sussworth wanted to use us to find out more things about you, during the interrogation like; that’s why he put us back in the cell when we’d had some grub … so you’d see us in the morning. But the others wanted to go home and when the Buffonis let us out they did.’
‘Oh, Scooter,’ said Sydney, her eyes red. ‘How could you be so rotten? What harm had Sam ever done to you? To betray him to Sussworth for money to be turned into catsmeat. I don’t understand it.’
The dwarf lowered his head, his face scarlet with shame. ‘I thought I was working for law and order,’ he mumbled.
Napoleon looked round the room. ‘I’m happy to take him outside if no one else will. You can find what’s left of him in the canal tomorrow morning.’
Scooter raised his head; a tear trickled across the dirt of his skin,
blood seeped into his half-tied bandage. ‘I didn’t know you then. I didn’t know how much Sam meant to you, what Sam was. I wasn’t your friend then. I am now.’
‘Friend!’ said Orococco with scorn. ‘Some friend!’
‘I mean it. I liked being with you lot, even though we were on the run. I felt proud for the first time in my life. I would never have told Sussworth anything if I’d known you right from the beginning, and I don’t think Ninch would have either but …’
‘But what?’ asked Napoleon.
‘Well, he couldn’t think of anything else but the money and how he wouldn’t have to work in a sideshow any more, how he wouldn’t have people laughing at him.’
Chalotte stepped closer to the dwarf and finished tying the bandage on his shoulder. ‘How did you get this wound?’ she asked.
‘Ninch and I quarrelled tonight. He’d got worse since Madge locked us up in that cellar. He seemed to blame it all on you, on Borribles. All the time he was down there, shivering and swearing, he kept telling me how he was going to make you pay for it; how he was going to live in luxury for the rest of his life thinking of you lot with your ears clipped, growing up, working … Adults, just like us.’
‘What did you quarrel about,’ said Knocker. ‘Tell us that.’
‘Well, I ran off with him at first because I was frightened of what you’d do when you found out about us. I just wanted to get out of the way, but Ninch wanted to carry on with the job, get you all captured. I said I wouldn’t. I said that we’d been through so much with you that we were just like you now … You trusted us. I was for coming back to warn you but he drew a knife and stabbed me and pushed me into the canal. He watched me thrash around for a while and then I pretended to go under, drowning. Then he ran away up the towpath, towards Camden Town.’
‘Gone to get Sussworth,’ said Knocker. ‘We must get moving.’
‘No,’ said Scooter. ‘He won’t tell the SBG right off; he told me his plans, remember. He thinks that if he tells Sussworth where you are the Woollies will catch you and Sussworth will take all the credit. What he’s going to do is go straight over to Camden and round up some of the other dwarfs; there’s loads as didn’t look young enough
for Sussworth to take on, tough they are. Ninch wants to capture you himself. That way he could screw as much money out of Sussworth as possible. He wants all the glory and all the reward.’
As he finished speaking Scooter’s eyes flickered and the light went out of them. He clutched at his stomach, rolled forward and fell from the chair to the floor, unconscious. Fresh blood darkened his bandages.
Chalotte knelt by his side. ‘He’s probably got a gutful of that canal water,’ she said. ‘It’ll kill him. Pass that mug of tea there.’
‘Tea be blowed,’ said Napoleon. ‘Can’t you see that this is all a load of old codswallop? A knife wound, a dip in the canal. Easy. I bet they did this just so they could get a spy back in our camp.’ The Wendle’s face hardened. He leant over and pushing Chalotte to one side he grabbed at the false plastic ears Scooter was still wearing and ripped them off, one after the other, pulling at them so savagely that the strong glue pulled away the real skin and the tops of the ears began to bleed. ‘Look there,’ said Napoleon. ‘Ordinary ears. He’s an adult, a midget, a spy, a traitor.’
Chalotte stepped astride Scooter’s body. ‘I believe him,’ she said. She stood in the middle of her friends and looked at their faces. ‘This wound in his shoulder, it wasn’t for fun. It’s deep and it won’t stop bleeding. It’s full of dirty canal water. It could kill him. His temperature’s low; he’s shaking. He couldn’t put all that on. He didn’t have to come back to warn us.’
‘Whatever we do,’ said Knocker, ‘we can’t talk in front of him any more.’
Bingo looked down at the bloodstained figure. ‘We won’t have to,’ he said. ‘By the time he comes round we’ll be miles away.’
‘He couldn’t follow us at all from the bottom of the canal,’ said Napoleon.
‘Hang about,’ said Chalotte, and her voice sounded so shocked that the others took notice immediately. She was kneeling again, trying to staunch the blood flowing from the dwarf’s ears. ‘Look here, under where the false ears were, they’ve been growing, his ears, see … pointed. They’re more pointed than a normal’s ears but not as pointed as ours. I didn’t think it was possible, an adult going Borrible. Perhaps he was telling the truth, after all.’
The Adventurers crowded round Scooter and examined the evidence. Chalotte stood up, amazed, and found Knocker staring at her. ‘This is not possible,’ he said. ‘Adults cannot go Borrible.’
Chalotte tossed her hair over her shoulders. ‘I know,’ she said, ‘but perhaps no adult has ever spent as long with Borribles as Scooter has. Who knows? I don’t.’ She looked mystified. ‘But just think what it could mean.’
‘It could mean a lot,’ said Torreycanyon, ‘but we can’t stand around talking all night. What are we going to do with him?’
‘Leave him here,’ said Knocker, ‘like Bingo said. We’ll ask the Conkers to keep an eye on him.’

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