The Liberators (3 page)

He flicked through the rest of the newspaper, moodily speeding past articles he had no interest in (‘
Ten ways to stay slim this Christmas!
'; ‘
How will the global credit crunch affect YOU
'). There was a big feature piece in the Londoners' Diary about two brothers who were ‘taking London by storm'. They looked interesting and he began to read. Julius and Strawbones Luther-Ross had thrown a party the night before, for some charity or other, which had taken place in a disused warehouse on the Thames. Those guests who had found the warehouse (several had not, as it was so obscure, and had wandered the banks of the river for hours) had discovered a sort of private play going on, and had been drawn into secret rooms, given champagne, and had generally been alternately frightened and amused.

Engrossed, Ivo hardly noticed the door to the café being pushed open wildly, and two people come rushing in. One of them dashed past Ivo's table and knocked over his mug of tea, spilling it all over his paper.

‘Hey!' he exclaimed. But when he looked round, he couldn't see anything. He turned to the door and saw a man enter, a blue T-shirt flapping on his skinny body, and jeans looking somehow out of place. He was angular and pasty, his mouth curving in a sneering smile, his brown hair ruffled and unkempt. A pair of glasses hovered anxiously on the bridge of his nose. Ivo watched him storm right into the café, look around, then accost the waitress. She shrugged. The man gesticulated, and then cast round the room again.

‘You,' he said, pointing at Ivo. ‘Did you see a boy and a girl run in here?'

Ivo shrugged, and said, ‘No.' Something stirred in his memory.

The man looked around, cursed loudly, then strode out and banged the door shut. One of the waitresses was mopping up the spilled tea and offering Ivo another cup.

‘Don't worry,' said a voice. ‘We'll get it.'

Ivo looked up to see a boy and a girl, faces flushed with laughter and running.

‘Sorry about that,' said the girl, sitting down at Ivo's table. Her long, thin face was friendly, her eyes a dark blue, her hair very blonde. She was wearing a military-style jacket which was slightly too big for her.

‘That is the last time I'm helping you two out,' said the waitress, smiling at them.

‘Thanks, Jeannie. Three teas, please,' said the boy. He had almost the same face as his sister, a little rounder perhaps, and his eyes were the same shade. The only difference was that his hair was black, and short, and shiny. He was skinny, and nervy, like a new- born foal, thought Ivo.

When the waitress had brought them teas and tutted at the boy, they introduced themselves. The girl was called Miranda, the boy Felix. Their surname was Rocksavage, a name which Ivo instantly liked. Felix was the elder by eighteen months – he was nearly sixteen – though Miranda said he often behaved as if he were younger. They were home for the Christmas holidays too. Most of their friends, they said, were skiing, or in the country, or on beaches somewhere, and it was very bad luck on them being in London.

‘There's nothing to do,' said Miranda, flopping her head down on to the table and sighing theatrically, but when she looked up again Ivo saw that her eyes were laughing, and he couldn't help laughing too.

‘Really? There's nothing to do in London?' he said. This came as something of a shock to Ivo, who'd always imagined that you could never be bored in London. ‘At least you're not in Devon,' he said, remembering the emptiness of the fields, his nearest friend an hour and a half away by car.

‘God I wish we were in Devon,' said Miranda. Felix raised an eyebrow, and pulled his bright red jumper sleeves down over his hands.

Mopping up the newspaper as best as he could, Ivo asked them who they had been running away from.

‘That
man
is our tutor,' said Felix. ‘He's called Perkins. I don't think he has a first name. We're meant to be doing five hours a day with him. Even,' he added mournfully, ‘at weekends.'

‘That
sucks
!' said Ivo. ‘Why are you doing that?'

‘Our
parentals,' said Miranda, ‘are, how can I put this, a little obsessive? About our marks, and so on. They want us to succeed.' She said the last phrase with a despairing look, and jangled the bracelets on her arm.

‘That's actually not true,' interrupted Felix. ‘Well, it sort of is. Basically, they want to keep us out of trouble. We didn't behave very well, and so our rentals made a deal with us. We work, every day, with a tutor, for the whole Christmas break, and then we get to go on a cool holiday at Easter. If we don't behave, then it's no holiday, and even MORE tutoring.'

‘That's not much fun, is it?' said Ivo. ‘And on Saturdays too?'

‘Yup. And on Sundays. But it's OK,' said Felix to Ivo's incredulous stare, ‘we've given Perkins the slip for the last three days, and he's too scared of our parents to tell them – he doesn't want to lose his job. God knows they pay him enough. And we get some afternoons off. Even Perkins has to live, apparently.'

Ivo laid out the newspaper, which was still just about readable.

‘You heard about this bomb thing?' said Felix.

‘It wasn't a bomb,' said Ivo, then without really thinking, ‘I was there.'

‘No way!' said Felix.

‘Yeah,' said Ivo, feeling at the same time rather proud and rather ashamed of himself for feeling proud. In order to deflect attention from himself, he spread out the paper. ‘Look,' he said. ‘It's all here in the report.' It was illustrated with pictures of the tube platform, and of disorientated passengers emerging blinking into the afternoon gloom of the streets above, their overcoats swathed around them like shrouds.

‘That's strange,' said Felix, looking closely at the newspaper.

‘What, you?' said his sister.

‘Shut up. Look at that picture.'

‘Yeah, she
is
fit, Felix, but we don't all want to look at her,' Miranda poked her brother in the ribs.

‘Shut
up
. Look.' Miranda and Ivo gazed at the tea-stained pictures, wondering what on earth it could be that Felix had spotted.

It was Ivo who noticed. He looked at Felix for confirmation, and felt his heart beating faster when Felix nodded. Standing just behind a pretty girl on whom the camera was focused was a face that Ivo recognised. It was the face of one of the men who had gone into Blackwood's carriage. And the face of the man who had chased Felix and Miranda into the café. It was their tutor.

.

Chapter Three

The bespectacled face stared out at them from the newsprint. Miranda sat up straighter, her eyes flashing uneasily; Felix leaned forwards, his face set into a quizzical expression, whilst Ivo toyed with a packet of sugar. Around them the room was hushed, the waitress rushing back and forth, the cash register ringing out every now and then. Occasionally the door would bang open and a gust of sharp cold air would enter; people would stand for a moment, blinking, and then settle into a quiet corner. A dog snuffled glumly under a table.

‘Now that is weird,' said Ivo. ‘He got on to the carriage where Blackwood died, I'm sure. And you know what was even weirder? They were trapping Blackwood. He was running away from them, I know it.'

‘What do you think he was doing there?' asked Miranda. ‘Perkins, I mean. Do you think he's got something to do with the bomb? Oh my God I can't believe it. If he has, our parents will go
crazy
. . . oh my God, Felix, how can you just
sit
there when something like this happens?' She kicked her brother, who threatened to punch her back in mock anger, curling his hand up into a fist, and distorting his face into an excellent imitation of a sneer.

‘It
wasn't
a bomb,' said Ivo. His voice made the two stop.

‘Well, I don't know what to call it. What would you call it?' There was a challenge in Felix's voice.

Ivo shrugged. He was feeling uncomfortably hot. Suddenly this friendly café seemed to be closing in on him, the builders at the table next to him appeared larger, more threatening, the waitress to be glaring at him, and slicing through his thoughts was the image of the hand, soft, glistening, bloody, three times as large in his imagination as it had been in real life.

‘I'd call it murder,' said Ivo.

‘Murder? Who was murdered?' said Miranda, leaning forward, her eyes lighting up with interest. ‘We love a good murder story. We've got all the Agatha Christies, and Felix has started on Dorothy Sayers, but I don't like those so much, do you?

‘Not really,' said Felix. ‘Although I quite like those Father Brown ones, have you read those?'

Miranda began speaking in a reporter's voice. ‘Intrepid ace Ivo Moncrieff stumbles upon a conspiracy and saves the day!'

Felix joined in, laughing, but Ivo cut through it.

‘I don't . . . This is serious. This is real, and it's . . .' He stopped, not wanting to mention the black stone, and the strange words which Blackwood had said before he had died. ‘
Koptay thurson.
Remember:
Koptay thurson
.' He had known he would die, Ivo had seen that in his eyes. This was his last, desperate act, giving the object to a boy he didn't know. And why had he done that? It would be mad, an empty gesture, unless . . . unless he had not wanted those following him to get it. Which must mean that it was important, and, now Ivo had been entrusted with it, that he too was in danger. Those people, and the tutor, Perkins, could they really have torn Blackwood apart?

‘I need . . .
I
need
to find out what happened,' he said. He felt in a choking way that a net was being drawn around him, that the dim, vague future was forming into a clearly defined and dangerous path. His quiet life had so far been undisturbed by anything more exciting than being told off by his housemaster for having an untucked shirt. Now he was embarking into the unknown, and it was scary, and it was exhilarating.

Miranda pushed her hair back, tying a blue scrunchie round it. ‘I wonder if this has got something to do with what Perkins was up to the other day? I hope not.' She lifted her tea in her long white hands.

‘You know what?' said Felix. He aimed a jet of air at his purple-black fringe. ‘I think you should come with us.'

‘Why's that?' said Ivo, folding up the newspaper and stuffing it into his rucksack.

‘We found something
strange
. . . you should see it. It might help you find out about what happened. Who knows?'

‘Yeah, and if it doesn't, it's pretty cool anyway.'

‘What is it?' said Ivo.

‘That, you'll have to wait and see. Coming?' said Felix, in a deep voice.

Ivo nodded, pleased that he had made two friends so quickly. They left the tiny café, paying for the teas, joking with the waitress as they did so, and then Miranda grabbed Ivo's arm, leading him out into the street. Horns beeped aggressively, sirens wailed in the distance, a pall of fear hung over London as its citizens mobbed around, uncertain of the dangers that hid in their midst. Ivo felt it creeping into the cracks of buildings, emanating from the ground itself.

It was raining, and they began to run, slowly at first, then leaping over puddles, whooping round corners, and Ivo began to feel free and happy. They dashed through knots of startled pedestrians, drab workers on their way back to offices; laughing and shouting, they then turned a corner.

‘Hey,' said Ivo. ‘This is where I'm staying. My aunt and uncle live here.' Charmsford Square, it was, though it looked far from charming, the houses looming grey and grim. ‘Lydia and Jago Moncrieff.'

‘Awesome!' said Felix. ‘We're on the corner.'

They headed over there and jumped, jostling, up the stairs to the door, Ivo suddenly anxious that Lydia might spot him out of the window.

‘Quick,' he said, as Felix fumbled with his keys, and soon they were all piling into the hall. ‘What about Perkins?' said Ivo.

‘Perky? It's OK, he'll have taken himself off to the Science Museum or something so he's got something to show our rentals. He'll buy a souvenir and pretend he took us with him. He did that the other day.'

‘He'll run out of places to go soon, and
then
he'll be in trouble.' Felix and Miranda laughed. They had a very similar way of laughing, and Ivo felt an envious pang as he watched the siblings share their joke. As they marched on ahead he trailed behind them, feeling shy and awkward.

Ivo looked around in amazement. Their house, identical on the outside to his aunt and uncle's, was inside nothing like the comfortable, homely clutter of 43 Charmsford Square. It was all steel, black and white squares, abstract sculptures and acres of empty space. The whole right wall of the hall was an aquarium, filled with tropical fish, glowing with blue light; and the stairs that led up to the first floor were made of glass too. Ivo watched an octopus making its way up, and let out a small gasp.

‘You like?' said Miranda, her face tinged from the blue glow.

Ivo nodded, dumbly. ‘I . . . I think so,' he said, although he wasn't exactly sure whether
like
was the right word to describe his feelings.

‘Ma's an interior designer. This is like, the
eighteenth
time she's changed the inside. You can never put anything down in this house because you never know when everything will change,' said Felix. ‘It is
so
annoying. I once left my iPod on a green chair in a green room, and when I came back downstairs about three hours later the whole thing had gone. There was like a red chair and some builders and Ma said she'd no idea where my iPod had gone. Dad hates it even more.'

‘Yeah, he's always leaving papers on the table and finding them gone. And he's a politician,' continued Miranda. ‘Lots of secret files and stuff.'

‘Yeah,
secret
,' said Felix sarcastically.

‘So where are we going?' said Ivo.

‘I just need to get a couple of torches, and then we'll show you.' Felix disappeared off down the corridor; Ivo stood fascinated by the aquarium, watching the fish. Miranda sat, somewhat disdainfully, in a chair, tapping her foot on the ground.

‘Where are your parents?' asked Ivo.

‘Ma's at her office, in Mayfair,' answered Miranda, ‘and our father works in Whitehall somewhere. Pretty dull, actually. They know your aunt and uncle – they've been to Christmas parties over there. I know I heard Daddy asking if we should get Lydia to paint Ma.'

At this point Felix returned, grinning. ‘You two getting on OK?' he said. Miranda made a face, and Ivo blushed slightly.

‘Come on,' said Miranda impatiently, and opened the front door, ushering Felix out, who made a mock bow as he left. Miranda turned to Ivo and grimaced, shooing him out in front of her. Back out in the cold, Felix pattered down the steps, jumping down the last couple, and gestured to them to follow.

‘So . . . what's up?' said Ivo, slightly nervously.

‘Well, last week,' said Miranda, ‘me and Flixter gave old Perky the slip. It was Tuesday, and our parents were really busy, and there was no one else in the house, and so we thought we'd just leave. So we did. We thought we'd wait for him to leave too, and then we'd go back in the house. We were hiding in the square garden, and we saw him go out, and then, I don't know why, we thought it might be funny to follow him, because . . .

‘Because,' chimed in Felix, ‘we couldn't really believe that Perkins had any sort of existence outside our house.'

‘I mean, you know, you've
seen
him,' said Miranda. They were walking along the south side of Charmsford Square, the side on which the Rocksavages had their house; the Moncrieffs were on the northern side. They turned right, down towards the Marylebone Road, and crossed it at the lights, jumping up and down from the cold.

‘And we followed him, laughing quite a lot, obviously,' said Felix, ‘and really not being very good spies at all.' They entered a small side road, on which there was nothing but an abandoned office block and a couple of half-derelict houses.

‘We were just about to give up and go home,' continued Miranda, ‘when we saw him stop here.' She pointed to the office block. It looked very dejected. There wasn't a single window that didn't have a crack in it, and it was plastered with signs that read ‘
DANGER
' and ‘
CONDEMNED BUILDING
'.

‘So he went in
here
?' asked Ivo.

‘We didn't actually see him go in,' replied Miranda.

‘But he must have,' said Felix.

He led them round the side of the building. Ivo shivered, both from the icy air and from excitement. He exchanged a glance with Miranda, and felt that she shared his trepidation. Felix raised an arm, pointing at a pair of doors that looked like they led into a cellar. ‘He came round here and then disappeared. He must have gone in here.'

‘So whaddya think?' said Miranda. ‘Shall we have a look?'

‘We didn't go in before,' said Felix. ‘Miranda was scared.'

‘
Miranda
was scared? You were the one who suddenly started squealing.'

The siblings stood facing each other for a moment in silence, and then turned to Ivo, who nodded quickly. Felix bent his head once, as if confirming his thoughts about Ivo, and said, ‘Good man. Help me open these.' He aimed a kick at the doors, and Ivo did so too. Thump after thump, they kicked at them, until eventually the lock caved in.

Miranda jumped from foot to foot, rubbing her hands. ‘God, I'd go in there now anyway,' she said. ‘It's so cold out here.'

Ivo peered into the opening. He could just about make out a flight of steps leading down into the darkness. He stopped at the edge.

‘You all right?' said Felix.

Miranda was already on the third step down.

‘Can't catch me!' she called, and, suppressing his fears, Ivo followed her, Felix coming close behind.

Blackness. Ivo could hear his heart thumping.

The passageway was musty. It was tall enough to stand up in, and wide enough for Ivo not to be able to touch both walls at once. He could hear the earth around him, full of subtle noises. He imagined creatures slinking in their tunnels, the tube trains sliding in and out of platforms like hideous white snakes, fat with their human cargoes. Ahead he could hear Miranda feeling her way along the walls, occasionally giggling and shrieking a little. Behind him was Felix, relaxed, whistling under his breath.

Something jumped at him – a face, ghastly, half-illuminated. Ivo faltered for a minute; it was Miranda. She pointed the torch at her own face, showing only her cheekbones and her forehead.

‘What is this?' said Ivo, in hushed tones.

‘Who knows? Follow me.'

Felix appeared. ‘Here, take this.' He pressed something cold and hard into Ivo's hand. ‘Maglite. Come on.'

They crept on. Damp filtered through Ivo. After about five minutes or so, during which Ivo began to feel that he was becoming hypnotised by the darting beams of light from the torches of Felix and Miranda ahead of him, his own showing up patches of damp and mould and brick, the wall that he had been running his finger along came to an abrupt end.

‘Look,' said Felix. ‘There's a door here.' A faint light was coming from the other side. Felix took the handle. ‘Ready?' They looked at each other.