Ribblestrop (36 page)

By ten o'clock, it was just getting brutal. Sam, Henry, Sanchez,
and Ruskin appeared, but nobody heard them. The noise was tremendous and the acrobatics terrifying.

Millie, meanwhile, was stuck in her shed.

Things were getting increasingly complicated and she was sitting on her lawnmower in silent despair. For one thing, she could hear the noise and knew a party had started. More worryingly, she knew she was being watched again and she wasn't sure she'd be able to get out: there had been rummaging round the shed for the last half hour and the sound of footsteps. Her brain was melting from the information Sam had given her and she was desperate to act. She had no interest in the past and no interest in clockwork toys—she didn't even care about whether or not Lord Vyner had been murdered. She recognized the name “Jarman” and the stuff about pigs' brains obviously tied in with the creatures in those ancient jars—but she was no nearer knowing how Professor Worthington or the headmaster fitted in, and Sam had forgotten to ask anything about what was going on
now
. The sense of urgency and helplessness was like physical pain: they had to go down again and find evidence! And what about Tomaz—why was she the only one convinced he'd never made it home?

She made her decision and stood up. She stuffed a few clothes under the duvet and put a small pail on the pillow, which she covered with the sheet. She lit her candle and, yes, in candlelight the body looked semiconvincing. She had a flashlight, she had a knife, she had the map—it was now or never. She pressed gently at the door, intending to crawl silently: the door was jammed.

She pressed again and felt the resistance. Somebody had wedged the door shut and it wasn't giving an inch. How lucky she always followed the double-exit strategy—a survival mechanism handed down by every villain Millie had ever worked with. Always have a secret exit: never get cornered. The shed window was fixed shut, but Millie had loosened the glass in her first week, knowing there'd be a point someone would try to contain her. She removed it now and rolled out over the sill. Then, catlike, she made for the east tower.

*

When she opened the orphans' door the noise was like a physical force. The room was as hot as a sauna and Israel was swinging like Tarzan, a rope round his ankles, trying to swat children off a bunk bed with a pillow. She clutched her brows in despair and shouted. She jumped and grabbed, but she couldn't make herself heard—even Sanchez, Henry, Sam, and Ruskin were all intent on the game. At one point she was picked up bodily by someone she never even saw and hurled to the ground. She managed to stagger to the side, where a warm ball of rum-soaked sugar was pressed into her hands. She shouted louder, but there was no point. If the party continued like this, surely Miss Hazlitt would come barging in—but what could a mob like this do anyway?

“Listen!” she screamed for the tenth time. She searched for Sanchez, but he was hanging from the top of a wardrobe by his fingertips as Podma clung to his knees and pulled. Sam was on Henry's shoulders involved in a tug-of-war with a bedsheet, and Ruskin was on hands and knees hunting for his glasses. In despair she marched up to Sanjay, snatched an empty bottle from his hands, and hurled it against the far wall.

“We need to talk,” she said in the sudden silence.

“Why?” said Israel.

“We've got to go down. All of us.”

Everyone stared. Everyone was panting. One by one, the children dropped from their perches and came closer. Millie was surrounded.

“Sanchez, have you told them what we saw?”

“No,” said Sanchez. He looked a little ashamed of himself, though he was smiling. One of his shirtsleeves had been ripped clean from his arm and was in Eric's hand.

“Have you told them what Sam found out?”

“Not yet. I was waiting—”

“Can we finish the game?” said Ruskin. “You could be on our side, as they've got Henry.”

“No,” said Millie. “We've got a job to do, and you're behaving like a crowd of kids! Where's Anjoli?”

“Look!” said someone.

“Ah!” said one of the smaller orphans. Everyone turned and saw that a little orphan had opened a window and was trying to catch sparks that were dancing past in little flurries. He was transfixed.

“Last term,” said Millie, “there was a boy called Tomaz . . .”

But the orphans were moving to the windows, where the sparks were now rolling in little billows of smoke. The boys were talking in their own language and suddenly they moved back as one, as a sheet of redness lit the glass.

“What is that?” said Ruskin. “It looks like fire.”

The word had been said—that dangerous word. It was whispered again now and it caught and crackled between them all. “Fire . . .” they said. “It's fire!”

“It can't be,” said Sanchez. He elbowed his way to the front and pressed his face against the windowpane. “I don't believe it,” he said. “It's the roof!”

Just at that moment, as Henry let out a great sob of horror, a column of light shot upward and nobody was in doubt. As if to confirm the nightmare, a bell began to clang wildly. There were distant cries and a woman's voice started to scream. It was unmistakable then, because the voice was thin and desperate, sailing over the rooftops—she was crying for help and the bell became frantic and constant. Like a flock of birds, they moved together. Some managed to grab shoes and blazers, others just ran barefoot. They piled out of the door and were leaping the stairs, three, four at a time.

Sam said, “It can't be, can it?” but there was no one to answer him. Asilah was in the lead, but when he cannoned out into the corridor and raced to the doors, he found them locked. Children were piling down the stairs still as those at the bottom tried to fight their way back up. The door had never been locked before.

Somehow the tide turned and Sanchez led everyone back to the left, then a right. It was the back way and they were wasting precious time. They now had to go through the herb garden and round the front of the building.

The main doors were locked as well and the glow was fiercer. They could hear a roaring, and everyone knew that awful, furnace sound. They saw a tower of flame licking upward and they ran even faster. The bell was louder too—the type you ring by hand—and Miss Hazlitt's voice was screeching over and over again, “Help! Help us here!”

Israel shouted, “Follow me, I know another way!”

He led the way to where the school van was parked and the children flooded through a narrow arch into the courtyard. Millie had lost her bearings for a moment and she couldn't see at first. She couldn't understand, because looking up, the new roof seemed to be intact and safe. The fire was coming from somewhere else—her little yard, separate from the kitchen and the hall. Another plume of sparks rose over the dividing wall and something detonated like a bomb, the air around them suddenly charged with the stink of gas. Somebody was screaming and there were adult voices yelling orders. But most terrifying of all was the unending, rising roar of the flames as they devoured Millie's little wooden shed.

“She's in there, she's in there!” yelled a voice.

Henry was cowering backward from the heat; Professor Worthington was there, so was the headmaster. Sanchez tried to force everyone back, but Millie fought her way to the front, ducking under his arm. She knew, somewhere she had known, and she'd been a fool not to anticipate this. Her shed was the furnace.

Someone's arms enclosed her and dragged her back. The wooden walls were simply sheets of flame and something else exploded inside. She could feel her eyebrows singeing, and there was a clamor of voices shouting about water and a hosepipe, and the fire bell kept on ringing like madness.

Then, above the whole cacophony was Captain Routon's voice. He'd just arrived on the scene; he was in his pajamas and he was roaring like a madman, “Millie! Millie!” He was pounding on the burning door, standing in the flames. He crashed at it with his shoulder, dragged it backward, but the door wouldn't give. He
was beaten back by the heat; he turned away smouldering. His jacket was blackening.

The shed roof was ablaze now; a hosepipe began playing a stream of water, uselessly, over the inferno. Then Captain Routon, with no heed to his own safety, sprang at the flames and began to hack the timbers away with his bare hands. The door was down. He found something, some burning timber or tool and started to swing it wildly. Bits of flaming wood and cloth flew left and right as he struck. Then he moved into the fireball—at least he had boots on—and the walls disintegrated about him.

Millie couldn't speak. She saw inside. She saw her own bed and it was rolling in fire. The flames were over it like a fluid and there was an awful sighing as the mattress was consumed. She could see bedsprings and the whole black chassis with a burning pail turning to liquid. Captain Routon was on fire too. He'd dropped his weapon and was searching madly, moving like a drunk man. He kicked the bed over, he turned in the blaze, searching and searching. The headmaster appeared beside him. He'd grabbed the hose and was trying to drench the captain. And then, suddenly, as if someone had pulled a lever, because the shed was so small the flames began to die. The inferno divided itself into a few ragged curtains and fell to the floor. The flames were extinguished in the gravel.

Captain Routon dropped to his knees, panting and moaning.

Then Professor Worthington was shouting, “She's there, Routon! She's there!” and every head was swinging round. A gap formed around her and Millie stood with her mouth open. It was dawning on her what the captain had been doing. He could barely lift his head and he certainly couldn't stand. His face and head were a mass of dirt and stubble, and Millie realized the new smell, the barbecue smell, was cooked human flesh. He was lifting his hands, and they were as cumbersome as claws: they'd been roasted. His dry lips were moving and over and over again he was blubbering, “Oh Lord, thank you . . . Oh my sweet, sweet . . . thank you . . .” but the words
were indistinct because his tongue wouldn't work and he was weeping.

Millie was embraced by Professor Worthington. She had never been held so tight.

“I'll get my car,” said the headmaster. “He needs a hospital.”

“How did it start?” said Millie.

Routon was mumbling and moaning, and it was Sanchez who got under his arm and tried to lift. That was when the big man howled in pain.

Millie was feeling very sick and very cold. She was trembling all over: shock was kicking in as the adrenaline reduced. She had survived; she was alive; she should be dead. She should have been burned to a crisp inside that shed, stretched out on the metal of that bed . . . She saw herself for a split second, naked on the springs. Charcoal black, teeth bright white between charred lips. She had survived.

And there was a new terror as well, which fought against any relief.
Sheds don't catch fire. Fires are started. If fires are started, somebody started this one. That means somebody wants me dead
 . . . As the thought solidified, as the lump of certainty formed, there was a sharp whistling sound and the crack of a whip. Something flew past in the night air, close to her face.

She looked to her left. One or two of the orphans had heard the noise, but there was still too much going on. Captain Routon was being helped back toward the kitchen by Sanchez, Asilah, and Sanjay. The noise came again, and this time Millie felt a rush of air pass her ear. There was a buzzing mosquito noise and a sharp snap. Sanjay had heard it too and now he pointed to the ground some three meters behind.

An arrow was sticking out of the earth: only a few centimeters of the shaft were visible. Sanjay looked up, followed the trajectory, and pointed at the south tower. The top window was in clear view, and there was a figure leaning out, something huge in his arms.

“Caspar,” said Sanjay.

Millie was to think later how slow reflexes could be. She was standing still, looking at Caspar and Caspar's new crossbow. She was a stationary target, offering herself; the child was leaning out as far as he could, lining up his third, lethal shot. It was only when that third arrow smacked into a nearby door, millimeters from her head, that Millie really understood.

She threw herself to the side and never found out if a fourth shot came. She rolled and was on her feet again, cowering to the wall. There was another door and she backed through it into the corridor. To one side was the wide staircase to the headmaster's study and she felt safer under cover.

Miss Hazlitt was standing there, with a bell in her hand. She wore an expression of both rage and astonishment; it left her mouth twisted half open. “Stay where you are!” she said.

Then, from off to the right, another voice—one word she didn't understand at first.

“Assassin!”

The voice was behind and above her; it came from the stairs. People wanted her dead; they were trying to kill her. Two attempts, and now?

“Assassin!” screamed the voice again.

Something mechanical ratcheted hard and fast, and even Millie recognized the sound of a shotgun.

“You shot him in the bath!” yelled the voice, and Millie turned, stepping wildly. She was off balance; she swung drunkenly into a large clock she'd never noticed before—where could she run? It was Lady Vyner, pale as a ghost, moving down the stairs toward her. She had a shotgun in her hands and was raising it. “I know what you are!” she was shouting. “I know what you did!”

Millie threw herself at the door of the school. Locked, of course. She huddled against it, tearing at the bolts. She was crying and panting now, the hysteria taking hold.

“Millie, wait!”

Sanchez had appeared and was calling her. He hadn't seen Lady Vyner. The door wouldn't budge. She could hear Israel and
perhaps somebody else, their feet on the stairs. The bolts of the door were so stiff Millie's hands were bleeding. She smashed at the metal, waiting to die.