The Witch's Daughter (9 page)

Mr Campbell said something low, and Toffee Papers
answered
impatiently, ‘Oh—all right. I'll leave my torch where they'll find it. As long as I have a chance to get clear. Once those kids begin to talk, there'll be dead trouble.' He laughed, and his laugh echoed coldly against the walls. ‘For you, too, so you'd best not be too tender-hearted. You're in this, up to your neck …'

Campbell said slowly, ‘We should warn Mr Smith …'

‘And lose our own chance?' Toffee Papers voice was
indignant
. ‘What good would that do? Three of us locked up instead of one, that's all. Smithie can look after himself. He's good at that. I'm all right Jack—that's
his
motto. He's had it easy enough, these last years, sitting on his bottom up here, riding round in a Jaguar. And it's all his fault, when all's said and done—the whole thing was his idea from the beginning. Months he spent, getting to know me, talking me into it …
And then getting me to go stealing that kid's ruby. Risky to leave it,
he
said, it turned out to be risky for
me
, didn't it? Fat lot he cared …'

Tim could hold himself in no longer. He was in a wild fever of rage. He launched himself round the bend in the tunnel and straight at Toffee Papers. ‘You beast, you horrible beast … you could have
killed
my Dad …' He catapulted straight into Toffee Papers' soft belly. Toffee Papers grunted and tried to catch hold of him, but he was a fat man, out of condition, and Tim got in several extremely satisfactory blows before Mr Campbell took him from behind, picked him up by the slack of his jacket and shook him as if he were a dirty puppy. Then he threw him on the ground, so hard that Tim felt as if the breath had been driven from his body.

The two men stood over him as he sprawled, half on one rocky step and half on another. Toffee Papers' eyes were streaming: one of Tim's wild punches had landed on his nose. His face was red with temper. ‘You …' he began, let out a long, hissing breath and lifted his fist. Tim rolled in a ball to protect himself, but Campbell caught the other man's arm. ‘No need for that,' he said quietly. ‘Time's running short.'

He turned and clumped down the stairway, round a bend in the tunnel and out of sight. Once his hurricane lamp was gone, Toffee Papers' torch seemed to give very little light.

Tim said, ‘You mustn't leave us here. You
cant
…'

Toffee Papers smiled.

Tim tried to control the tremor in his voice. ‘You told Mr Campbell you'd leave us the torch. You will, won't you?'

There was a little
click.
For a moment, coloured points of light swirled in front of Tim's eyes, then all was blackness, a cold, dead, empty blackness. He gave a little cry and Toffee Papers laughed. He switched on his torch again: behind its pale beam, Tim could see only the bones of his flat face and the pale shine of his eyes.

‘D'you think I'd be such a fool?' Toffee Papers asked softly.

Tim thought: I can follow him, creep behind the light. Then, when he's got in the boat, I can run and get help …

Toffee Papers said, ‘No games, young man. No stalking games. I wouldn't want to hurt you. And
you
wouldn't want to scare your little sister, would you? She'd be scared if you left her.'

That was true, Tim realised. He couldn't leave Janey.

‘So you just stay like a good boy,' Toffee Papers said in an encouraging, uncle-ish voice. ‘Look after the girls until
someone
comes. Keep them cheerful. I wouldn't want to think either of them were scared or unhappy …'

He sighed, with what seemed genuine regret. In the torch beam, his eyes looked moist and sad. ‘It's bad luck the way things have turned out. Really bad luck …'

Tim thought: I can't trust him. He changes too quickly—angry one minute, sorry the next. How could you trust a person like that? He had said he would telephone from Trull, but would he? And if he didn't …

It was no time to be brave. He said, softly and despairingly, ‘Please don't leave us, Mr Jones. Not without a light.
Please
…'

‘Sorry, old chap,' Toffee Papers said. ‘Really sorry …' And, shaking his head sadly, he turned and followed Mr Campbell, round the next bend in the tunnel and out of sight …

*

Tim crawled back to the inner cavern on hands and knees, one hand on the wall of the tunnel. At least he had not come far, he could find his way back. But the brief journey taught him one thing: he could never, in this frightful darkness, find his way back through the maze of tunnels to the beach. There was nothing they could do. They would have to stay here, until help came.

If
help came …

‘I
DON’T MIND STAYING
here,’ Janey said. ‘It’s nice, being in a cave, even if it is a bit cold. I like the noise my singing makes.’

And she began to sing, beating in time and occasionally stopping to listen to the echo.

Tim had told her that they had decided to stay here for a little, while the men explored the cave further. There was no point in frightening Janey. But he beckoned Perdita to the far end of the cavern and told her more of the truth: that Toffee Papers was in a hurry to get to Trull, and had deliberately abandoned them there.

‘He
said
he was sorry,’ he whispered, and then added, rather viciously, ‘Crocodile tears.’

Perdita didn’t know what a crocodile was. This seemed to interest her more than Mr Jones’s eagerness to get to Trull. Tim tried to explain.

‘Are there crocodiles in England, then?’ she asked, when Tim had told her there were none on Skua, only in far-away, foreign places.

Tim sighed, and embarked on a geography lesson.
Geography
was not one of his best subjects, and, even if it had been, it would not have been easy to explain where Africa was to a girl who had never seen a map or a globe. Perdita was left with a rather confused impression that if she took the steamer to Oban and then turned right and walked for a while, she would eventually come to Africa which was full of sand and camels—sort of cows with humps, was how Tim described them—and naked black men and crocodiles. ‘Why is it all sand? Why is it
hot? Why doesn’t it rain? Why are the men black?’ she asked—on and on until Tim grew tired and answered sullenly. ‘Oh,
I
don’t know …’

She looked surprised. ‘Perhaps I’ll find out more when I go to school. Though you don’t seem to have learned much,’ she added thoughtfully. Then she frowned. ‘Why …’

‘Oh
no,
not
again,
’ Tim groaned.

‘Just one more thing,’ she pleaded. ‘Why crocodile tears? Do crocodiles cry?’

‘It’s just a saying. It means he wasn’t really sorry, just liked to think he was. I mean …’—he tried to think it out—‘I
suppose
it means that crocodiles often have water in their eyes because they live in rivers, but they eat you up, just the same.’ For a second, he was rather pleased with this explanation, but then the import of it struck him with a shock of horror. It could mean, in this case, that Toffee Papers might feel sorry enough to say he would send someone to find them, but he might not be sorry enough to
do
it. ‘If he doesn’t tell anyone we’re here,’ he began, and stopped. Perdita was older than Janey, but there was no point in frightening her either. Unless …

‘Are you really a witch?’ he asked suddenly.

‘I can see through walls and round corners …’ Perdita began happily, but Tim stopped her.

‘Oh, I know all that. But can you see in the
dark.
Could you get us out of here?’

Perdita was silent.

‘
Try
,’ Tim urged her. ‘Shut your eyes and
try
…’

Perdita shut her eyes. ‘What do you want me to see?’

‘Just … just if you can see the way out.’

She stood still, her eyes obediently closed. Her face was expressionless and secret, and, watching her, Tim felt a sudden lifting of his heart. Suppose there were witches, after all? He didn’t believe in them, at least, he hadn’t believed in them, but now he wanted to, very much. Perhaps that was a part of
magic: if you believed in a thing, it would help it to come true. Determinedly, he shut his own eyes and stood, tense and rigid, while his lips moved silently. ‘I believe in witches, I believe in witches, I believe in witches …’

‘What
are
you doing?’ Perdita asked in an amazed voice. He opened his eyes and saw she was staring at him.

‘Nothing,’ he said self-consciously. Then, ‘
Was
it
any
good
?’

She shook her head. ‘I tried to think about the way we came in. But I can’t. I couldn’t find my way out in the dark. Not in the pitch black.’ She shivered suddenly. ‘What if no one comes with a light?’ she said, her eyes wide and startled.

‘Don’t be frightened,’ Tim said gently. She looked so little and thin, as young as Janey …

‘I’m not …’ Perdita stopped. She had a new feeling, one she could not remember having before, a sort of icy shudder,
running
down her chest and into her stomach as if she had just swallowed something very cold. ‘Am I frightened?’ she
whispered
, and all Tim’s pity vanished, and he had a brutal desire to shake her.

‘If you’re not, you ought to be,’ he said. ‘If he doesn’t tell anyone where we are, or tells them too late …’
Of
course
he
wouldn’t
telephone
from
Trull,
he suddenly realised. It wouldn’t be safe for
him.
He would wait until he got to Glasgow or London or some airport where he could get a direct connexion to South America. He might wait even longer: Tim had a horrifying vision of Toffee Papers’ tender conscience acting in a week’s time, on the other side of the world. ‘Then we’ll die,’ he said bleakly. ‘We’ll be dead of cold and starvation …’

Perdita’s lip began to tremble. He said quickly, ‘What kind of magic
can
you do? I don’t mean seeing round corners or thinking you’re flying …’

Perdita said slowly, ‘I can make Annie do things sometimes. If I stare and stare. Or, if I’m in bed, I can make her come
upstairs
and say goodnight to me.’

That
wasn’t magic, Tim thought resignedly. Sometimes, when his mother and father had been angry, and sent him to bed in disgrace, he had done that sort of thing himself:
concentrated
hard and willed them to come up to him. It usually worked, but only, he recognised regretfully, because they were sorry they had been mean to him. Still, it was a chance. Their only chance.

‘Could you make Annie come here?’ he said.

Perdita laughed. It was an odd sound in that murky cave. ‘Oh she couldn’t,’ she said. ‘She’s too rheumaticky. She gets it in her knees terribly badly, this time of year.’

Tim thought this a curiously practical argument for a witch. But perhaps she knew her own business best. ‘Well,’ he said slowly, ‘someone else, then. Anyone would do, though perhaps it would work best if it was someone you knew well. I mean, you can fix your mind on them better.’

‘I don’t know anyone else, except Mr Smith,’ Perdita said.

Mr Smith. Mr Smith was a crook. The leader of the gang. This much Tim had gathered when he was listening to Toffee Papers, but he had not paid the discovery much attention until now: he had been far too worried about their immediate plight. Now, he thought a minute. All that talk of Mr Jones’s about hiding the loot in a safe place—well, Skua was a safe place, wasn’t it? As safe as you were likely to get. There was no
policeman
. No one came, or hardly ever. If you just sat still and minded your own business …

‘When did Mr Smith come to Skua?’ he asked.

Perdita thought. ‘Not last summer, not the summer before, but the summer before that. The summer I was eight.’

‘Three years.’ Tim whistled softly. ‘He
must
be the leader of the gang?’

‘What is a gang?’ Perdita asked and Tim tried to explain to her about gangs and jewel thieves and organised robberies. It was as difficult as explaining about Africa. Tim realised that
although she had listened to him, when he read out the
newspaper
story on the beach, she had not really understood what it was about. There were no criminals on Skua and Perdita had never seen television or read a book. Understanding this, he tried to make his explanation as simple as possible, but her expression remained perplexed.

‘But Mr Smith’s not a bad man,’ she said finally. ‘He’s been good to me and Annie.’

Tim drew a deep breath and began to say that perhaps even a bad man could be good in parts, when Janey called to him.

‘Tim, Tim … where are you? I’m bored with singing.’

‘Coming,’ he shouted across the cave, and then whispered to Perdita, ‘Make Mr Smith come to find us then. Try
hard.
’

He went over to Janey who was looking sulky. ‘You’ve been away ages,’ she complained. ‘And I’m getting cold and I’m getting hungry.’

‘We weren’t far. Just the other side of the cave.’

‘Looking for rubies? Did you find one?’ Janey asked eagerly.

‘No. I don’t think there are any.’

Although he had determined not to worry or frighten Janey, he could not quite keep the misery out of his voice. She felt for his hand and squeezed it encouragingly. ‘Never mind, Tim. When the police catch our burglar, you’ll get your own ruby back, won’t you?’

Precious little chance of catching Toffee Papers, Tim thought glumly. By the time they got out—
if
they got out—Toffee Papers would be miles away on the other side of the world. And the jewels, too—or rather, his share of them. Tim sighed. If only they could escape before Mr Smith disappeared, too! He sighed again, longingly: newspaper headlines flashed in front of his eyes. BOY CAPTURES JEWEL THIEF.
MYSTERY
OF MISSING JEWELS SOLVED—BY TIM HOGGART. QUEEN REWARDS GALLANT BOY
DETECTIVE
.
SUPERINTENDENT SAYS: THIS IS THE KIND OF BOY WE WANT IN THE POLICE FORCE.

Perhaps that last headline was a bit long. It could be put under one of the others, in smaller print. Tim sat, his eyes half-closed, dreaming.

‘I tried,’ Perdita said beside him. ‘But I don’t think it will work.’ She paused. ‘Mr Smith said, if I played with other children I’d lose my Powers,’ she said. Then her face crumpled. ‘I don’t want to stay here, Tim …’

Tim glanced apprehensively at Janey, but she said
composedly
, ‘If Perdita wants to go now, I don’t mind. I’m getting a little bit cold. Shall we go, Tim?’ And she stood up, waiting. Waiting for Tim to take her hand and lead her out of the cave and home.

Tim looked at her helplessly and the full horror of their
predicament
really dawned on him for the first time. ‘We’ll die,’ he had said to Perdita, but he hadn’t really believed it then: it had just seemed like a story he was telling himself. Now,
looking
at Janey, he knew it wasn’t a story.

‘Oh—don’t let’s go yet. It’s such fun here.’ He heard his own voice as if it belonged to someone else. A scared someone else.

‘What’s the matter? You sound funny.’ Janey put her head on one side and frowned, the way she did when she was trying to hear what people meant, rather than just what they said.

Tim swallowed hard. He mustn’t tell her the truth, not yet. The best thing would be to keep her happy, playing with her and singing, until she got tired and went to sleep. There was no point in frightening her unnecessarily. Someone might come to find them after all. And, even if they did not, there was still no point in Janey knowing how really terrible their situation was. Even if she came to understand in the end, it might be easier for her when she was weak and apathetic with exhaustion and hunger. That would be like being ill, perhaps. When he had had measles, last year, he had felt so weak afterwards that
he would not have minded much if someone had told him he was going to die. As long as he stayed with her and held her close, it might not be so dreadful for her. As long as he stayed alive long enough, so she could die in his arms …

There was a horrible great lump in his throat. He forced his voice over it. ‘Let’s sing something, shall we? All together? What about
Row,
row,
row
down
the
river
…’

Janey touched his hand. ‘Have you got a stomach ache?’

‘He’s frightened,’ Perdita said. ‘I’m frightened, too. It’s a horrible feeling, like feeling sick. I never had it before.’

Tim said quickly, ‘It’s because she’s stopped being a witch and become like an ordinary person. Witches are never
frightened
and they don’t have shadows and their hands are always cold. Hers aren’t cold now.’

‘They never were,’ Janey said. She was not to be diverted. ‘Why is she frightened, Tim? Why are you frightened?’

Tim pulled a warning face at Perdita, but he was too late: she had already begun to speak. ‘Because we can’t get out of the cave,’ she said. ‘Mr Jones brought us in here and left us here and he’s gone away with the light. And Mr Campbell too. Tim says it’s because Mr Jones is a jewel thief and a bad man and …’

‘Toffee Papers!’ Janey said in a loud, excited voice. ‘
Was
he the burglar, Tim? Did he steal your ruby?’

Tim told her what he had learned, spinning out the tale as long as possible, hoping that she had not really understood the full meaning of what Perdita had said, or, if she had, that she would forget it in the excitement of hearing the mystery solved.

‘He ought to be put in prison,’ she said when he had finished. ‘Knocking our Dad down. And if that Mr Smith is a robber too,
he
ought to be put in prison. We’ll tell Mr Tarbutt and he’ll see to it, won’t he? Let’s go back and tell him now.’