The Explosionist (10 page)

F
OR THE SAKE OF THE
war-preparedness effort, Miss Henchman had recently decreed that all fifth-and sixth-form girls must have regular driving lessons. Sophie’s first session fell that Tuesday afternoon. As she and a handful of other girls waited in front of school, Miss Chatterjee drew up in her dashing Crossley roadster.

Sophie would have loved to go for a drive with Miss Chatterjee, but a mantle of shyness held her back. When Miss Chatterjee patted the seat next to her, a sixth-form girl hopped in; the teacher tooted the horn at the rest of them and drove off.

Miss Henchman herself pulled up next in a sedate black Austin and was joined by Fiona.

As the next few cars came by and girls jumped in and drove off, Sophie’s hands grew clammy. It was a relief not to have to go with Miss Henchman, but what if they ran out of teachers?

Sophie and another fifth-form girl called Jenny were the last ones standing when two cars pulled up in quick succession. Jenny got into the first, a saloon driven by Matron, and Sophie found herself—oh heavenly good fortune!—climbing into the passenger seat of Mr. Petersen’s adorable little bottle-green PG.

“Hello, Sophie,” he said as he pulled back out into the road. “I thought I’d drive us out toward Arthur’s Seat, and then we’ll switch places and you can take a turn or two around the hill. The thing for today is to begin getting a feel for the machine; it’ll be fairly deserted out there at this time of day, so you needn’t worry much about other cars.”

It was both thrilling and terrifying, Sophie discovered, to find herself alone in a car with the object of her affections. Fortunately she didn’t have to look directly at Mr. Petersen. He had rolled up his shirtsleeves, and her gaze fell to the veins and muscles of his forearms. People talked utter rubbish about the differences between men’s and women’s minds, but it was hard not to be struck with the difference between their hands.

She would die if he ever found out about her crush!

All too quickly they reached the lower slopes of Arthur’s Seat. The road up the hill was barely wide enough for two cars to pass. As Mr. Petersen pulled over in the Cat’s Nick lay-by, Sophie fervently hoped they wouldn’t meet a car coming in the opposite direction.

Terror at the idea of operating the motorcar suddenly pushed everything else out of her head. What if she crashed it? A small whimper came out of her throat.

Mr. Petersen politely pretended he hadn’t heard.

“You won’t find it difficult, you know, Sophie,” he told her as they got out of the car and switched seats. “Just remember, left foot on the accelerator, right foot on the brake, right hand for the manual brake. Your left hand should always rest on the navigation wheel.”

The car’s electrical system included a dynamo, a starter motor, and a battery. Sophie put her hand on the plastic knob of the starter and pulled it out as far as it would go. Then she took a deep breath, released the knob, and felt the car’s motor spring to life.

“Harder on the accelerator. That’s right, rev it a bit. Feel the power?”

Sophie experimented with different levels of acceleration. It was certainly comforting to think of the hand brake holding the car in place even if she did something stupid.

“All right, let the hand brake go. Go on. You know, the
car’s not going to run away with you, you can take it a bit faster than that….”

Once she had pulled out of the lay-by and around the first corner, Sophie relaxed a little. Mr. Petersen continued to talk, a stream of babble that calmed Sophie down rather than teaching her anything she didn’t already know.

“Most motorcars in Scotland are powered by fuel cells. A fuel cell is similar to a battery, except that whereas batteries run down, you can keep fuel cells going indefinitely by pumping in more chemicals. Thomas Edison invented this particular version in the 1880s; you put in hydrogen and oxygen, and the cell converts them into electricity, the only by-product being perfectly pure drinking water.”

Sophie had a moment of panic when she pressed the accelerator by accident instead of the brake and the car surged forward, but Mr. Petersen didn’t stop his monologue, and she soon calmed down again.

“Ironically, given that Edison was an American, his invention never really caught on over there. You’ll find a few fuel-cell enthusiasts in the Americas, of course, but most of their motorcars are powered by a filthy and wasteful method called internal combustion. All very well if you’re an American sitting on top of huge petroleum reserves, but that kind of reckless consumption doesn’t suggest a very sensible attitude toward the future!”

Mr. Petersen proved better at teaching practical things than abstract ones. He did not object when Sophie asked him to draw a diagram to clarify the principle behind the three-point turn or get angry when she couldn’t make the car go in reverse.

“It’s an old car, and the transmission’s a bit dodgy,” he said. “I’ve been meaning to take it in to be serviced. Consider this a useful reminder.”

After an hour and a half, Mr. Petersen checked his watch.

“Ready to drive us back to school?” he asked.

“No!” Sophie said. Her hands were aching with the strain of holding the navigation wheel, and the muscles in her legs felt extremely shaky.

If only she hadn’t had to concentrate so hard on driving! It certainly wasn’t at all what the phrase
romantic tête-à-tête
brought to mind.

“Sophie, I’m disappointed in you! I thought you had a more adventurous spirit. I’ll take over, shall I?”

“Thank you,” Sophie said.

They switched seats and drove back toward school.

“I hope we’ll have time for another lesson before the end of term,” Mr. Petersen said.

Oh, he must think Sophie a complete idiot for being so tongue-tied! She forced out a few words at exactly the same moment as Mr. Petersen started speaking again.

“I’d like that—”

“I’ve been meaning to ask—”

The wheel jerked in the teacher’s hands and they narrowly missed hitting a lady crossing the road at the corner.

As the lady shook her fist at them, Sophie suddenly realized that Mr. Petersen was at least as nervous as she was.

“Good thing I wasn’t the one driving just now, eh, Mr. Petersen?” she said, hoping her voice didn’t sound too quavery. “What were you about to ask me?”

“I’m looking for someone to help me for a few hours a week in the laboratory,” he said hurriedly, his eyes fixed on the road. “Would you be willing to put in some time reorganizing the supplies in the balance room?”

This was so much the kind of invitation that Sophie received in her daydreams, she was afraid at first she must have misheard him.

“
Would
I?” she said.

But Mr. Petersen was shaking his head.

“What am I thinking? Of course you wouldn’t. You’re probably absolutely swamped with work between now and finals—forget I ever mentioned it; I’m sure I can find someone else—you must think I’m a thoughtless idiot—”

“No,” said Sophie, finding her voice, “that wasn’t what I meant at all. Oh,
please
let me do it!”

“Are you sure, Sophie?” said Mr. Petersen. Sophie
thought he sounded both guilty and relieved. “I’m confident you’re the best one for the job,” he went on, “but the last thing I want is to put you in a difficult position. I won’t think any less of you if you say you won’t do it, you know.”

“I really want to do it!” Sophie said. She would simply
die
if he refused her services out of misguided scruples.

“Well, if you’re sure, I’m going to accept,” said Mr. Petersen in an apologetic manner, “but you can always back out later if you find the arrangement’s more trouble than it’s worth. When will be the best time for you to fit the work in? Tuesdays and Thursdays, perhaps?”

Inwardly glowing, Sophie agreed to meet him at half past two on Thursday afternoon. This must have been what he meant to ask her the morning the bomb went off. Surely Mr. Petersen was the kindest and most gentle person imaginable!

By now they were back at school. Mr. Petersen let Sophie out at the side door and drove off.

“D
ID
M
R
. P
ETERSEN REVEAL
his
dark secrets
while you were in the car together, Sophie?” said Priscilla.

Sophie grunted a denial and kept her head buried in her history textbook.

“Perhaps Sophie used her feminine wiles to get him to tell her about the bombings?” Jean added.

“
What
feminine wiles?” countered Priscilla.

Both girls went into fits of laughter.

While Sophie tried hard to ignore them, a knock came at the study door. Jean opened it, letting in one of the younger students.

“I’ve got a message for Sophie,” said the girl, eyes fixed on
the floor. Sophie took the folded note from her hand and began reading.

“Where did you get this?” she asked the little girl.

“From a boy,” the girl said. “He came up to the fence at the back of the playground and called me over to him. When I told him we weren’t allowed to receive messages from boys, he said he was a good friend of yours and that Matters of the Utmost Importance depended on your getting it.”

“What did he look like?” Sophie asked, ignoring the others’ snickering.

“Tall and fair, I suppose,” said the child doubtfully. “Oh, and he sounded as if he might be a tiny bit foreign, though he had very good English.”

“Thank you,” said Sophie. “If you see that boy again tomorrow, tell him I’ll be there when he says. Not a word to any of the teachers, mind.”

“Oh, no,” said the little girl, looking absolutely terrified.

As soon as she had gone, the others demanded to know what was going on.

“It’s a friend of mine,” she said reluctantly. “You know, that Hanseatic boy I see sometimes at the professor’s house, the housekeeper’s nephew.”

“Sophie, you never said anything about a boy!” Nan said. “You were supposed to go to the professor for language lessons, not for secret assignations!”

“Don’t be such a bad sport, Nan!” Priscilla said. Priscilla was often accused of being boy-crazy while Sophie was famous for not being interested in boys, so it was natural for her to leap at the possibility of Sophie coming over to the boy-liking side of things. “I think it shows real initiative, Sophie, going off like that to meet a boy. Are you in love with him?”

“Of course not,” Sophie snapped. “Mikael’s my friend.” She couldn’t stop herself from blushing. “It’s not what you think,” she added helplessly.

“Sophie’s meeting a boy!” Priscilla crowed. “Sophie, is he desperately in love with you?”

“No, he’s not,” said Sophie, hating how stiff she sounded. How nice it would be if someone
was
desperately in love with her—but it seemed a wildly unlikely prospect, and Mikael had certainly never thought of such a thing. “Mikael does want me to meet him tomorrow at four o’clock in the groundsman’s shed,” she said. “You’ll help me do it, won’t you?”

In the end, though Sophie waited in the shed for more than half an hour, Mikael never came. How maddening of him to be so careless about the time! She would be in hot water if she didn’t hurry back to the dormitory, and think of how mortifying to have to explain to the others that she’d been stood up.

Beneath the irritation, though, Sophie felt a twinge of worry. What if something had happened to Mikael?

It was with a horrible sense of inevitability at supper that Sophie looked up to see a pair of uniformed police constables enter the refectory.

A teacher pointed toward Sophie, and a moment later they began to move in her direction. For one frightening moment she was sure they had come to arrest her for breaking the out-of-bounds rule, before realizing how preposterous that was.

Sophie was still chewing a stringy mouthful of gristle when the constables stopped on the other side of the table.

“Sophie Hunter?”

Sophie nodded.

The other girls at the table stared. Priscilla reached for Sophie’s hand and squeezed it in reassurance.

“I’m WPC Taylor and this is my colleague PC Martin,” the woman constable said. “We’ve been sent to fetch you down to the central police station. We believe you may be in a position to clear up certain aspects of the story told by a young man who was apprehended earlier this afternoon at the Balmoral Hotel.”

Sophie folded her napkin and set it beside her plate, carefully adjusting the knife and fork. Her legs felt trembly when she pushed the chair back from the long table and stood up.

“My friend’s not a thief,” she said urgently. “He—”

“Oh, it’s not a question of burglary,” said the other constable, smacking his lips. “The boy was found standing over a dead body. He’s a murder suspect.”

Murder!

“Mikael would never—,” Sophie began to protest.

The woman constable laid a hand on her shoulder to silence her.

“No names, please,” she said, glaring at her partner as if he’d already given too much away. “The investigation has been turned over to the antiterror squad, and as far as they’re concerned, the less said the better.”

Whatever could the antiterror squad want with Mikael? This was worse than Sophie could possibly have imagined.

“Because you’re a minor,” the constable added, “you’ll need an adult to come with you to the station.”

Sophie looked helplessly around her. The teachers all looked as stunned at the girls.

Then Miss Chatterjee stepped forward.

“I will accompany Sophie,” she said. “Miss Hopkins, will you please tell Miss Henchman where we have gone?”

“When will you be back?” asked the biology mistress.

“We can’t guarantee the girl won’t be needed for a considerable amount of time,” said the constable ominously.

“Nonsense,” Miss Chatterjee said with great firmness. “Sophie must be back at school by ten o’clock at the very
latest. If you need her for longer, it’ll simply have to wait until tomorrow. You can’t keep the child hanging about the police station until all hours. In fact, it occurs to me that we might be well advised to wait until tomorrow in any case, and to telephone the school solicitor in the meantime.”

The woman constable flinched at the word
solicitor
. “That won’t be necessary, madam,” she said, her manner more conciliatory than before. “There’s no question of Miss Hunter being considered a suspect. But this is a matter of national security, and it’s essential we resolve matters as soon as we can.”

“Very well, then,” said Miss Chatterjee. “Perhaps I’ll just mention, though, that our headmistress is quite close to the advocate general; I hope she will not feel any need to call upon that friendship.”

Then, as the constables stood speechless, she added, “Well? What are we hanging about here for? I received a distinct impression of there being no time to waste.”

She turned her head and gave Sophie an almost imperceptible wink, a gesture of solidarity that brought tears to Sophie’s eyes.