The House of Puzzles (2 page)

‘Eep!’ he cried.

The security guards sent reinforcements through the doorway like hockey pucks. They
all fell short of the target and ended up on their backs. The gallery was fast resembling
a turtle farm on prank night.

Alphonse rustled about in his fake belly. A ceramic blade pierced through Liberty’s
front and sliced another gash in the priceless canvas. Alphonse stepped through,
stomping on the face of a dead revolutionary as he went.

‘Sorry,’ he muttered.

Another security guard sailed by.

Alphonse dropped to his knees and stabbed the blade into the painting, cutting out
the messenger boy’s satchel. He quickly rolled the thirty-centimetre-square piece
of canvas into a cardboard tube and stowed it inside his coat.

He stood and looked back to the guards writhing on the floor. Their swearing was
almost, but not quite, drowned out by the ongoing wail of the sirens. Alphonse waved
them a cheery farewell and turned to the exit on his right.

There was a commotion from the opposite doorway. Two guards had a colleague by the
hands and were about to launch him into the gallery.

Un. Deux. Trois!

The man soared into the room as if fired from a slingshot. He careered across the
parquetry, his boots skating over the surface.

Alphonse set off, unconcerned, towards the other end of the gallery. The guard cannoned
on, tucked up like a downhill skier. Then he reached for the taser on his belt.

Alphonse glanced back just as the guard fired the weapon. Twin electrodes spat from
the barrel, as fast as a cobra’s strike. They bit Alphonse square on his back pocket.
Fifty thousand volts discharged straight into the box of ‘strike anywhere’ matches
that Alphonse had stowed there.

The art thief’s backside exploded in a ball of orange flames.

‘EEP!’ he cried and launched forward, yanking the Taser from the guard’s grasp. His
cries accompanied the clatter of the taser as it dragged behind him, still attached
to the probes that were skewered into the seat of his burning trousers. His hands
flailed, trying to beat out the fire that engulfed his buttocks. The taser bucked
up and hit the floor hard, discharging another jolt down the wires. Alphonse soared
into the air with a howl. He raced to the entrance and scrambled up the escalator,
just as a platoon of ten armed gendarmes flew past him in the opposite direction.

The last of the police looked back at the shrieking man with the flaming trousers.
He shouted a commanding
STOP!
but Alphonse had already disappeared into the daylight.
The gendarmes raced to the up escalator. But, by the time they reached the top, the
Falcon had commandeered a passing motor scooter and was zipping away through the
traffic.

Every few metres as he travelled along the Rue de Rivoli, Alphonse Poulet bobbed
into view, smoke pouring from his pants and the taser blasting another jolt of electricity
to launch him out of the saddle. His screams echoed through the winding laneways
of the French capital well after the Parisian police had given up the chase.

Chapter 1

The convoy of luxury coaches rumbled off the narrow country road and passed beneath
a weathered wooden archway. Automatic gates slid shut behind the last of them with
the clanking finality of the delivery door at an abattoir.

Had it been summer and sunny and warm, the coach tyres might have kicked up a golden
haze of dust across the words that were carved into the top span of the arch:
To
strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
But as it was the dead of winter and
it was Scotland, there was no sun and no warmth and no dust. There was just murk
and drizzle and mud.

And cold.

Bone-shattering cold.

The five coaches continued along a winding tree-lined lane that finally opened out
onto a broad driveway where they rolled to a stop in a chorus of hissing air brakes.
The doors opened and the buses disgorged their passengers. Two hundred boys and girls
stumbled out into the gloom, stretching their arms and rolling their shoulders, trying
to ease out the cricks and folds of a long day on the road. Teachers staggered out
after them, even more bent and creased than their students. They tried their best
to get their charges into some version of order.

Sam Valentine paused at the bottom step of one bus and peered out at the dismal view
that lay beyond. ‘I don’t like the look of this one bit,’ he muttered. His head suddenly
jerked backwards as he was shoved sharply between the shoulder blades and propelled
out the door like a reluctant cannonball.

Ruby Valentine and Felicity Upham appeared in the bus doorway behind him, zipping
up fleeces and yanking beanies over their ears. ‘Don’t be such a whinge pot,’ Ruby
said to her twin brother, rubbing her gloved hands together. ‘This is going to be
fun.’

Ruby and Felicity stepped down, straight into a pothole full of muddy water.

A moment later Gerald Wilkins tumbled out of the bus, wiping sleep from his eyes.
His hair was a mop of neglect, and drool trailed from one corner of his mouth. He
adjusted a sling that held his right arm and joined his friends at the side of the
coach to collect his backpack.
Despite his arctic parka and cashmere scarf, the afternoon
cold took Gerald’s breath away. Even the youngest billionaire in the world could
not arrange for much joy in a Scottish winter.

Somehow, the teachers from the St Cuthbert’s School for boys and the St Hilda’s School
for girls managed to shepherd the milling mob of thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds
inside a long wooden building and usher them towards a doorway at the far end.

Gerald fell into step beside Ruby just as Sam was getting wound up. ‘All I’m saying
is I thought going to a posh boarding school might involve a bit of luxury, that’s
all,’ Sam said. ‘Comfy beds and hot-and-cold-running servants. If I wanted to do
hard labour in a highland jail I’d hold up the Bank of Scotland.’

Ruby prodded a finger into her brother’s belly. It disappeared up to the second knuckle.
‘You need to harden up,’ she said. ‘There’s a few too many of Mrs Rutherford’s sausage
rolls packed in there. Ten weeks of camp food and outdoor activities might do you
some favours.’

Sam gave a sullen grunt. The last thing he wanted was a diet of lukewarm baked beans
and forest hikes.

They followed the sheep-trail of students into an enormous circular hall. A fire
blazed in a large stone pit in the centre of the floor, embers shooting up to a conical
chimney that hung like a brick stalactite from the ceiling. Sam unzipped his jacket
and let the warmth wash over
him. ‘That’s a bit better,’ he said. He stared at the
flames for a moment. ‘I wouldn’t mind some marshmallows, though.’

Teachers barked orders and pointed fingers. Finally, with everyone in the room and
students wrangled into two concentric rings around the fire, a hush of anticipation
fell over the assembly.

Into the midst of all this barely contained excitement strode a slight man. His sandy
hair was cut short and was greying at the temples. His moustache was trimmed with
military precision. He made his way through the seated students to the fire pit.
He gripped a clipboard under one arm and held the other at his back, clamped in tight
at the waistband as if he was worried his trousers were about to collapse around
his ankles. The man cleared his throat and looked at the students over the top of
his half-moon reading glasses.

Two hundred sets of eyes stared back at him. The only sound was the crackle of the
fire.

The man cleared his throat again: a dry flinty rasp, as if from a crow suffering
from asthma.

Ruby leaned in close and whispered in Gerald’s ear, ‘Who’s this?’

Gerald nudged Ruby with his shoulder and gave her a look that unambiguously said
Shush!
Gerald knew only too well who the man was, and he had no desire to draw his
attention.

But, like a guard dog raised on raw meat and
frequent beatings, the man sensed the
movement. His head remained perfectly still but his eyes, twin spheres of fun detection,
swivelled in their sockets and zeroed in on Gerald and Ruby. Gerald was sure he saw
the man’s nostrils flare.

For a third time, the man coughed. ‘For those of you who do not know me,’ he said
in a tone of parade-ground clarity, ‘I am Dr Crispin, headmaster at St Cuthbert’s.’
His eyes locked on Gerald’s and remained there long enough to pass on the clear message:
Do not test me, boy
. To Gerald’s enormous relief, the headmaster disengaged and turned
a slow circle to eyeball the entire hall.

‘Welcome to the young ladies of St Hilda’s and the young gentlemen of St Cuthbert’s
to the annual Year Nine Highlands Retreat.’

Dr Crispin paused.

There was no response.

Finally, a teacher from St Hilda’s started clapping and a ripple of applause swept
the room.

Seemingly satisfied with that, Dr Crispin continued. ‘This term in the Scottish highlands
is the one time our two fine schools come together each year. It will be a great
challenge for all of you, but also a tremendous educational experience. For the next
ten weeks you will be tested in ways many of you will never have experienced before.
For some the challenge will come in the form of a twenty-mile cross-country hike—’

Gerald felt Ruby shift by his side. He glanced around
to find her beaming at the
prospect of a trek through the Scottish wilderness.

‘—for others,’ Dr Crispin continued, ‘the challenge will exist in being cut off from
the comforts of home: no television, no phone, no home-cooked meals or parents to
serve you like little kings and queens.’ There was a shuffling movement on Gerald’s
other side. Sam was staring at the floorboards, a look on his face as if someone
had just cancelled Christmas.

‘Whatever the challenge, you will emerge the better for it at the end,’ Dr Crispin
said. ‘Miss Frobisher will now have a few words to you about discipline and—’ Dr
Crispin cleared his throat one more time, ‘—self-control.’

A tall woman crossed to the centre of the room. She was dressed in Burberry waterproofs,
and Gerald thought she looked ready to embark on a twenty-mile hike there and then.

‘Good afternoon, girls and boys,’ she began brightly. ‘I have the honour of serving
as headmistress at St Hilda’s, and I fully endorse Dr Crispin’s comments. The term
ahead will be the highlight of your time at school. Friendships will be forged that
will last a lifetime. But a word of caution. We are all here together for the next
ten weeks. Two hundred thirteen- and fourteen-year-old girls and boys living in close
proximity, with less than the usual levels of supervision. It is a time of great
excitement during a period in your lives when some of you are experiencing strong—’
she searched for the right
word, ‘—emotions. You must keep those emotions, and other
urges, under control at all times.’

A light titter ran around the room.

Gerald leaned in to Ruby and whispered from the corner of his mouth. ‘What’s she
talking about?’

Ruby whispered back, ‘They don’t want us snogging each other all term.’

Gerald’s cheeks flushed red. It was at some stage during the next ten weeks that
he planned on asking Ruby to be his girlfriend, with the expectation of a considerable
amount of snogging to follow.

As the buzz from the assembly grew louder, Dr Crispin stepped forward. ‘Quiet!’ he
snapped, his eyes burning. ‘Just keep your blasted hands to yourselves.’ The hall
dropped into a dark silence. ‘There is to be no hazing, teasing or bullying of any
description,’ Dr Crispin continued. ‘Anyone who offends will answer to me.’ He gave
another look of total distrust to the students around him. ‘Before you are allocated
to your cabins, our new mathematics teacher, Mr Beare, has an announcement.’

Gerald looked with interest to where the headmaster was indicating. Since returning
from Christmas holidays a week before, Gerald had found that a number of new teachers
had been hired. Gerald was yet to meet his new maths teacher. A man stepped out from
against the far wall and smiled. Where Miss Frobisher appeared ready to launch herself
up Ben Nevis at a moment’s notice,
Mr Beare looked like the effort of ordering a
pint at his local pub would require a lie down and a damp cloth across the forehead.
Broad of girth and multiple of chin, he appeared to be the outcome of a science experiment
involving a middle-aged man and an excess of pork buns.

‘Hello everyone,’ he said, almost running out of breath from the effort. ‘I will
talk to you all in more detail about this later, but I want to let you know about
a special event that will take place during the time we’re all here at the Captain
Oates Outdoor Education Centre.’ He paused again, as much for effect as out of necessity,
and took a deep breath. ‘Every year at this camp the schools run the Triple Crown.’

A flutter of recognition sounded from some in the room.

‘Some of you may have heard of it. It involves three challenges that follow the camp
motto:
To strive, to seek, to find
. I’m told that in the one hundred years that St
Cuthbert’s and St Hilda’s have been conducting these camps, no one has ever successfully
completed the Triple Crown. To be the first would be an extraordinary honour. I encourage
you all to participate and to participate with vigour.’ Mr Beare ended with an exhausted
wheeze and staggered back to his stool by the wall.

Dr Crispin waited for the buzz to die down. Ruby didn’t say a word, but Gerald could
almost feel the excitement radiating from her body.

‘Remember,’ the headmaster said, ‘this term is the
opportunity of a lifetime. Do
not squander it.’ With that, he dismissed the students into the care of their teachers.

Gerald was happy to find that he and Sam would be sharing a cabin with four other
boys. Gerald and Sam agreed to meet up with Felicity and Ruby at teatime in the dining
hall and went to collect their packs. Gerald winced as he slung his bundle onto his
shoulder. ‘This busted collarbone is going to slow me down,’ he said to Sam. ‘Why
don’t you go ahead and grab us a bunk together?’ Sam agreed and jogged off in search
of their cabin.