The Castle (6 page)

TWELVE

W
hen I came to, my head felt as though an army of removal men had spent the day stamping on it. It hurt even more than my muscles had been hurting before, and I didn't think that was possible. Now I thought about my arms and legs, they still hurt. Everything hurt.

It was dark. I tried to move and couldn't – my limbs were pinned fast. In my growing panic, it took a while for my aching brain to realise that I wasn't chained up or buried alive – I was still tucked inside the trunk. I couldn't stay here any longer. My muscles had to stretch or they'd explode.

Pushing myself hard against the wardrobe door, I tumbled
out, taking one of the dresses with me. I lay on the floor with my eyes tight shut, too scared to see where they'd imprisoned me.

More silence.

A soft and eerie silence. And something fuzzy under my cheek. As I gingerly opened one eye, the room seemed out of focus. Then I slowly realised it was because everything was beige. Beige carpet, beige wood, beige padding on the walls and ceiling. Only the desk, the trunk and the clothes rail stood out as being different, grouped together in one corner.

Slowly, very slowly, I sat up and looked around. The room was full of bright light, like something out of a sci-fi film. I half expected to find myself in some strange mental health facility or, to be honest, a spaceship – I was still very woozy – but instead I saw an empty bedroom. A big one, with floor-to-ceiling windows. Okaaay. Not expecting that. Really not expecting that.

I must have sat there for five minutes, suppressing the urge to groan, while my muscles tried to remember how to work again, and my head tried to stop hurting quite so much. When I thought I could move without being sick, I crawled over to the nearest wall and touched it. It was padded with the softest leather. That's why it looked so strange. It was like being captured inside a vast beige quilted handbag, flooded with light.

Fighting the urge to throw up, I crawled across to the wall of windows to see what was outside. I lay flat on the carpet and peered out. What I saw didn't make sense for a moment. I squeezed my eyes shut, then looked again.

Blue sky, everywhere, and sun blazing down. No buildings. No streets. Just sea, as far as the horizon, and boats. This enormous bedroom was on a
boat
. And it must have put to
sea ages ago, because there was no sign of Southampton anywhere.

There was a balcony outside the window with two sun loungers on it, and below that I could just about make out the front of the boat – far away, and elegantly pointed, white and sleek and
huge
.

I looked back. The main feature here was the bed, draped in pale gold silk. Above it were two familiar-looking pictures of yellow sunflowers and blue irises. Opposite was a vast flat-screen TV, set into the padded leather, with two pale wood doors either side of it. One of them, I thought, must lead to a bathroom. Which is when I realised that I still desperately needed the loo.

That gave me the energy to move, and move quickly. The first door I tried led on to a large empty corridor and I had to suppress a shriek as I shut it fast. It took a moment to get my breath back. Behind the second door, though, was a room lined entirely in white marble, with copper taps and a copper bath. And a burnished copper toilet, ready and waiting.

After that, I began to feel better. The bathroom was silent, except for the distant hum of the engines, which I hadn't really noticed before. I sat where I was for a while and started to think.

Was this a cruise ship? No – too small. But it was still very much bigger than any boat I'd ever been on, except the ferry to France. And the bedroom was grander than any room I'd been in in my life, apart from the trip to Buckingham Palace. I thought about the leather padding, the silk on the bed. Also those pictures of sunflowers and irises, which really seemed very familiar. A thought occurred to me. I risked going back into the main room, tiptoeing across the thick, soft carpet, where I checked out the paintings.

Both were real, not posters. Both were signed with the word
Vincent
. A helpful little plaque set into the frame said
Van Gogh.
I swallowed. I was in a floating art gallery.

This was no ferry. This was the kind of boat that sheikhs and Russian billionaires used. Pop stars tweeted pictures of themselves on balconies like the one outside when they went on holiday. I'd managed to get myself accidentally kidnapped on to a
superyacht
.

Luke
seriously
had to know about this.

Yeah, and how was I going to tell him? Semaphore?

Minor detail: at least three people on this boat wanted me
alive and kicking.
The captain had places he could put me where no one could ever find me – I'd heard him say so. This place was
amazing
, but about as safe as the back of that van, which was NOT AT ALL.

However, nobody, it seemed, knew I was here yet. Before they found me, there had to be a way of contacting Luke, or someone, and telling them where I was. I looked around and the place was bristling with technology. There were two phones by the bed – one big, one small – and a bank of polished steel remotes with helpful labels saying things like
lights
,
curtains
,
sound
. But I didn't dare touch any of them, in case they alerted someone that the room was being used.

I tried my mobile again. Still as dead as ever. I did find a charger in one of the bedside drawers, but the lead didn't fit. I was on a boat that could probably send signals to Mars, and I couldn't even send a text.

So no Luke, no coastguard. No rescue.

On my own, surrounded by bad guys and water.

Stupid. Crazy. Stupid. Girl.

I imagined calling Mum in Barbados:
Er, right, so I'm on
this superyacht and . . .
I tried to turn it into a joke, but it wasn't funny.

Why did I have to climb into that STUPID VAN? Was Dad a prisoner in that house in London all along? If so, I was moving further away from him every minute.

Sorry, Dad. I didn't mean to mess up like this.

There was nothing to do but hide. They'd catch me, probably, but I had to put off the moment for as long as I could.

Outside the cabin door a noise started up, loud and harsh. It startled me so much it took a while to realise it was a vacuum cleaner. Someone was moving up and down the corridor with it. Couldn't go out there.

I looked round the room again. No
way
was I going back in that trunk. Not for now, anyway – my muscles simply couldn't take it. I examined the room more carefully.
Think, Peta, think.
The wall opposite the windows was covered in panels of padded leather. The nearest panel had a handle in it. Creeping across, I turned the handle and pushed.

I was looking into a small, dark room: a closet, lined in pale, polished wood. It had rails for suits or dresses, and box-shaped shelves for dozens of shoes. There were already two silk robes hanging from padded hangers on one of the rails. I saw something embroidered on the pocket of the nearest one. I looked more closely. It said
Princess Nazia
.

Oh, great, so the princess was coming and this was her cabin, and she could be here at any moment, maybe with Vacuum Person hot on her heels. I didn't know if I was too scared to cry, or just too tired.

The closet also contained a long wooden box – slightly coffin-like, but big enough for a small, frightened girl. I opened it up. It was full of four identical beige cashmere blankets. It wasn't perfect, but I could take some of the
blankets out and wedge the lid open with something so I could breathe. Anything was better than the trunk.

I had to lie on my side and curl my arms around my knees to fit inside, but it wasn't as bad as before. Trying to ignore the darkness in this room, and memories of every horror movie I'd ever seen involving coffins – which was many, none of which ended well – I focused on controlling the shaking.

Don't think about the bad stuff, Peta. Think about something good, something far away from here.

I tried doing times tables in my head, but the numbers wouldn't work. According to Dad, captured soldiers learnt to recite long texts from memory to stop themselves going mad. I couldn't remember anything except nursery rhymes. So, huddled up in my coffin, I quietly hummed ‘Incy Wincy Spider' to myself.

Up the water spout . . . washed poor Incy out . . . dried up all the rain . . . up the spout again . . .

Over and over.

THIRTEEN

I
must have slept. When I woke up I was sore and stiff, but not as badly as before. I decided to risk peeping into the main cabin to see what was happening.

It was still empty. By now, the beige had turned to pink. Out at sea, the sun was slowly sinking to the horizon.

My stomach rumbled. On top of being super-scared, furious with myself and freaked-out by all the beigeness, I was also starving. I finished the chocolate and three dead Haribos I found at the bottom of the backpack. They hardly helped. I sat for hours in the closet but nobody came: no princess, not even a cleaner.

Eventually the outside lights on the boat were turned off
and stars filled the sky. I thought about Granny. She must be frantic by now. She'd have called the police. Worse – she had probably called Mum.

I pictured the scene. Mum would be on her way home, maybe on some emergency flight, clinging to ‘Rupe' for comfort. Meanwhile, the police would check the CCTV cameras at Rye station to see which train I'd caught, and there would be no sign of me. Even if a Year 7 came forward to say they'd seen me on the coach, they might trace me as far as the Houses of Parliament and then . . . 
poof!
Gone.

Back at the inn, there would be the message for Mum on my laptop –
I love you. It's OK. It's not about you.
That had seemed so reassuring when I wrote it, but what would she think when she got back and read ‘It's not about you'? Rude.

I desperately racked my brains for something I might have said or done that would lead the police to me. There was my research into the Wahools, and Luke would tell them about the house on Eaton Square, and maybe even about Max. But none of them knew about the van. Would anyone think, ‘Ah – Mr Wahool's yacht left Southampton this morning, let's see if she's secretly on it'?

No, they wouldn't. They would think I'd just run away from home, because I'd done it before. And the police didn't waste too much time looking for runaways.

Stupid stupid stupid girl.

I'd run out of chocolate, ideas and hope. All the time, the boat ploughed on through the waves. When I stole a look through the windows again, we were still in the middle of the ocean. It felt as if the journey would never end.

By 3.15 in the morning, the aching hollow in my stomach became even worse than the terror of being caught. I was on
a
superyacht
, for goodness' sake. The boat must be groaning with food, and surely everyone would be in their cabins, asleep, by now? I just had to find something to eat. If I got caught, I got caught, but my stomach was close to not caring any more.

I climbed out of the blanket box, putting on the darkest layers I had, and my windproof jacket, so that from far away I might look like one of the crew. Possibly. From a distance. Well, it was worth a try. Noiselessly, I went into the bedroom and opened the cabin door. All I could hear in the silence was that steady hum of the engines and my own pulse throbbing in my ears.

The corridor ahead of me was long and wide, thickly carpeted and dimly lit by glowing glass panels set into the ceiling. It was just like how I pictured a posh hotel.

OK. Imagine you're in a posh hotel, Peta. A friendly, posh hotel, where as long as you're very quiet, nobody will catch you
alive and kicking.
Then you can breathe.

It helped. I crept along quickly, listening for danger. On the left was a doorway set into the wall, with a button beside it. A lift. This boat had an actual lift! Presumably that's how they'd brought up the furniture, with me in it. On the right was a small gym (naturally – superyacht) and a room crammed with Panama hats and Gucci deck shoes in different shades of white and cream. Beyond that was a dining room (superyacht), but no kitchen, or food.

The final door opened on to a large, deserted sitting area, facing the back of the boat. Enormous white leather sofas and low glass tables were scattered around. Crouching, I ran past them and ducked down near the glass wall at the back. Outside, I could see a deck with a large dark shadowy rectangle on it. The rectangle rippled in the moonlight. I had to
double-check. Yes, it really
was
a swimming pool.

Suddenly, I spotted movement on a lower deck. I pulled back. Several metres below me, a blond-haired crewman was patrolling the boat, looking out to sea. He hadn't seen me, but I realised it was time to stay away from the windows. Keeping low, I returned to my hunt for food.

A long, sinuous piece of furniture ran along the far wall of the saloon, glimmering reddish-orange in the moonlight. Copper. There was a lot of copper on this boat, I realised. Behind it, mirror-backed cabinets stocked bottles of every possible kind of alcohol.

Yes!

It was a cocktail bar. When you live in a hotel, you learn a few things, and one is that where there is a bar, there is bar-food. One of my Saturday jobs at the inn was to stock the bar shelves with snacks. My stomach rumbled at the very thought as I ran round behind this one, crouched down and checked it out.

Perfect!

From the back, it looked achingly familiar. Shelf after shelf, neatly arranged with tempting-looking foil packets of crisps and nuts of every sort. By now, I'd half expected that if I found anything at all, it would be caviar or quails' eggs or something weird and over the top, but even billionaires liked crisps and nuts, it seemed. I could have cried with happiness.

OK, so I did. For a few moments, I admit I cried with happiness. I was tempted to scoop up an armful of packets to take with me, but people would notice that. Instead, I lifted two from the back of each row. Eight rows. Sixteen packets. Once I'd carefully rearranged the rest, you'd hardly know they were gone.

*

Ten minutes later, back in the closet, and full to the brim with peanuts and salted almonds, I felt better.
Much
better.

When we were out camping, Dad always made sure we sat down to eat our rations long before I ever thought we needed to. But Dad said food can make an enormous difference to your mood. It's one of the reasons the enemy starve you if they capture you – to make you too depressed to resist or escape. I should have packed more chocolate, but peanuts and salted almonds TOTALLY ROCK.

I rethought my situation. Here I was, on a
superyacht
, surrounded by famous art works, great daytime views and now, night-time access to unlimited bar snacks. Marco and Ingrid were having to explain how they'd let a fourteen-year-old girl slip through their clutches, and meanwhile, the girl in question was getting ready to snuggle under a cashmere blanket, a couple of decks away.

Yeah. Take that, kidnapper dudes.