Monster Mission

Chapter Nine

Stanley Sprott, Lambert’s father, had had a good time in America. He had bought three factories and a cinema and turned out a family living in a house next to the cinema so that he could bulldoze it and build a Fast Food restaurant. There had been a court case and a fuss because the family had a disabled child and a sick mother, but Mr Sprott had won. He always did win because he knew how to hire the best lawyers and now, as the chauffeur drove him in his Mercedes from the airport, he reckoned that his trip to the States would earn him a clear million dollars.

Beside him in the car sat his bodyguard, Des, a large man with small eyes and an even smaller brain. Des had only learned to read when he was 25 and he liked to show that he could do it, so as they stopped for the traffic lights he looked at the posters on the wall of the police station and said: ‘There’s some mad aunts been on the rampage, kidnapping children. They’re offering a thousand pounds reward if anyone’s got any info.’

Mr Sprott thought this was very funny.

‘Aunts!’ he snorted as the car moved on, leaving the pictures of Aunt Coral and Aunt Etta flapping in the breeze. ‘Trust the police to be fooled by a bunch of aunts!’

Mr Sprott had a very low opinion of the police, who had tried to interfere with some of his enterprises and been thoroughly foiled.

Arriving in his house, he stood for a moment in the hallway and looked about him. He had the feeling that somebody who should have been in his house, was not.

But who? Who was it that was not there? While Des went to turn off the burglar alarms and look for letter bombs, Mr Sprott thought about this.

Well, for one thing his wife was not there. But there was nothing strange about that. His wife had faxed him from Paris to say she was going to go and buy some more clothes in Rome, and she had faxed him from Rome to say she was going to buy some more clothes in Madrid.

So it wasn’t Josette Sprott who should have been there and wasn’t, and it wasn’t the housekeeper who always had two hours off in the afternoon.

Which meant that it was his son, Lambert.

‘Lambert!’ bellowed Mr Sprott, standing in the middle of the hallway.

No answer.

‘Get him on the intercom,’ Mr Sprott told Des.

But though all the rooms were connected electronically, Lambert did not appear.

Mr Sprott was not alarmed, but he was surprised. He had told Lambert when he was coming back and the boy, though an awful sniveller, was fond of his father.

Mr Sprott went to his study, sent out for a secretary, and was soon deep in his business affairs.

But when the housekeeper came back in the early evening, Mr Sprott was reminded of his son once more.

‘Didn’t you bring Lambert, sir?’ she asked him. Her voice was hopeful. She really hated the boy.

‘How could I bring Lambert? I haven’t got him. I never had him — he’s staying here with you.’

‘No, he isn’t. There was a message saying he was joining you in America. It was left by the aunt — she said there’d been a call.’

‘The aunt? What aunt?’

‘The aunt from the agency. She took Lambert to the zoo and when I got back the boy was gone.’

The flapping posters, the notice of the reward, ran through Mr Sprott’s mind. They didn’t seem so funny now.

‘I’m sorry, sir, but—’

‘Be quiet.’ Mr Sprott was scowling. ‘I’m going to the police. Tell Merton to bring the car round.’

But at that moment, very faintly, a telephone rang upstairs.

It was his personal phone, or rather one of them. Mr Sprott bought mobiles like other people bought matches and now he couldn’t remember which one it was or where he might have left it. Under his bed? On the lavatory cistern? In the cocktail cabinet?

‘Find it,’ he ordered, and the bodyguard and the secretary and the housekeeper ran all over the house trying to follow the sound.

It was Mr Sprott who reached it just as it was about to stop ringing. It was under a pile of mono-grammed underpants in his chest of drawers.

‘Hello!’ he shouted. He was a man who always shouted into telephones. There were some strange noises; a sort of gulping sound followed by a gabble. ‘Speak up, damn you. I can’t hear you!’

‘It’s me, Daddy. It’s Lambert. I’ve been kidnapped! You’ve got to come and get me!’ More gulping, more tears. What a cry-baby the boy was!

‘All right, Lambert. I’ll come and get you, but where are you? Speak clearly.’

‘I’m on an island. It’s an awful place—’

‘What island? Where is it?’

‘It’s in the sea.’

Stanley Sprott rolled his eyes. ‘Yes, Lambert, islands are usually in the sea. But where? Which sea?’

‘I dunno — they won’t tell me — but it’s cold. There aren’t any coconuts. I’ve been phoning and phoning you every day.’ He broke off, gulping again. ‘My battery is running out.’

‘Lambert, please think. Are there any other islands near by?’

‘There’s a couple on one side.’

‘What side. East? West? North? South?’

‘I dunno. The sun comes up behind them, I think. It’s awful here — it’s weird. There’s these aunts; they’re mad and they give me drugged food. You’ve got to come, you’ve got to! There’s one after me now!’

The line went dead. Mr Sprott stood for a while thinking. An isolated island with two islands to the east of it. And — unbelievably — a posse of aunts.

He gave his orders. ‘I want the Hurricane made ready. I’ll pick her up at London docks. Get a couple of armed men aboard and see there’s plenty of ammunition. Pick them carefully; this mission is secret!’

The Hurricane was his yacht — a converted patrol boat and his pride and joy.

It was only then that he went to the police. He would not trust them to find Lambert — that job he would do by himself without telling anybody — but he might as well find out if there were any other clues.

That evening a third picture appeared on the walls of the police station, and in bus shelters and public libraries. This was of Aunt Myrtle, as remembered by the housekeeper and the man who fed the seals in London Zoo. It was even more peculiar than the other two pictures. Aunt Myrtle seemed to be standing in a high wind with her mouth open, and once again no one came forward to say they had seen her.

But Stanley Sprott’s team of researchers were already marking down all the islands in the North Sea and the Atlantic with two islands to the east of them. And the Hurricane, with a full complement of arms on board, lay ready at the docks.