South by South East

STAGE FRIGHT

Twenty-four hours later we found ourselves on the platform of Central Station in Amsterdam. We’d paid our bill at the Van Bates Motel and bought two tickets to England. That was the end of our money. And here we were at the end of the line.

“I don’t get it,” Tim said. He’d managed to get rid of most of the flour but I noticed his hair was still a bit white at the sides. Maybe that was permanent. After the experiences of the last few days I wouldn’t have been surprised. “I thought we weren’t going back to England,” he went on.

“We have to,” I explained. “We’ve got to warn the Russian — Boris Kusenov. He can’t trust Mr Waverly. Because it looks like Waverly is the one who is paying to get him killed.”

“Right.” Tim thought about it. “And he can’t trust anyone with hammers.”

“Yeah. You tell him that.”

But that was still a puzzle. We had seen Charon handling an antique white hammer. But what was he going to do with it? Bludgeon Kusenov to death?

And there was something else. South by south east. McGuffin’s dying words. In all the excitement I had almost forgotten all about them. But we still hadn’t found out what they meant.

“Nick!” Tim pointed.

It was the last person I’d expected to see. Charlotte Van Dam was walking along the platform, dressed in a light suit, carrying a handbag. I thought she was going to see us but at the last minute she forked off to the left and went into a smart cafe to one side.

“What’s she doing here?” I muttered.

“She must be taking a train,” Tim suggested.

“I know that,” I said. “But where to? And why didn’t she meet us in the wheatfield?”

Tim considered. “I don’t know. Let’s ask her.”

“Yes. Let’s ask.”

The cafe at platform 2b resembled something out of an Agatha Christie novel, all wood panelling and marble bars with waiters in white aprons and tea that came in bone china, not plastic cups. Charlotte was sitting by a window that looked back out over the platform towards the trains. A waiter was serving her with a cup of hot chocolate and a croissant that could have been a late lunch. It was two o’clock. Our train to Ostend left at twenty past.

We went over to her. She saw us and for a moment there was something in her eyes that wasn’t exactly pleasure. It was there and then it was gone. She smiled and stood up.

“Tim!” she exclaimed. “I’ve been so worried about you!” She kissed him lightly on the cheek.

Tim blushed. “You have?”

“Of course I have. Ever since I read about that ice-skater getting killed…”

“Rushmore,” I muttered.

“The late 86,” Tim added.

“Yeah,” I said. “They finally got his number.”

Charlotte sat down and waved us both to a seat. “So tell me what’s been happening to you,” she said.

Tim shifted uncomfortably. “Charlotte,” he began. “We went to the Flavoland like you said. But you never turned up.”

She shook her head, guiltily. “I know. I couldn’t.”

“Why not?” I asked.

She looked up. “Oh Tim — Nick… I’ve lied to you.”

“I don’t believe you!” Tim said.

“I have. You see… I’m not really a mystery writer.”

Tim frowned. “What do you write then, Charlotte?”

“I don’t write at all!” She took a deep breath.

“I’m a spy,” she said. “I work for the Dutch Secret Service — like 86. I couldn’t tell you before because I’m working undercover. You see, I’m on the track of Charon too.”

“That still doesn’t explain why you didn’t meet us,” I said.

“I was going to. But at the last minute I found I was being followed. There were two men. One of them had a scar.”

“Short and ugly,” Tim muttered.

“Yes. It was a short and ugly scar. I had to get away from them. But by the time I’d shaken them off, it was too late to come.”

Tim turned to me. “You see,” he said. “I told you there would be an explanation.”

“How did the two of them get on to you?” I asked.

“I don’t know. It’s Charon. He seems to know everything I do before I do it. I can’t move without…” She broke off. Her eyes were staring out of the window. “Oh my God!”

I twisted round. And suddenly I felt tired.

They hadn’t seen us yet but Scarface and Ugly were on the platform outside. And they were about to come in.

“It’s them!” Charlotte whispered. She had stood up and the colour was draining from her face. “We’ve got to split up.”

“Right.” Tim turned to Charlotte. “I’ll go with you.”

“Thanks, Tim,” I said.

But Charlotte was already moving away, making for the kitchens at the back. “No. You go your way. I’ll go mine.”

Tim opened his mouth to call after her. But she’d already gone.

She’d left her gloves on the table. I picked them up. They’d make a nice souvenir for Tim.

Then Scarface and Ugly arrived.

There were two exits from the restaurant. As they came in one, we went out the other. A staircase led down, away from the platform, right next to the restaurant. We took it. It looked like we’d just have to give the two-twenty Ostend train a miss.

The staircase took us down and out of the station. I didn’t need to look to know that Scarface and Ugly were after us. I could hear the grunts and protests of innocent bystanders as they were brutally shoved out of the way.

“In here!” I shouted.

Tim didn’t hear me. As I dived into a building on the other side of the road, I saw him disappear round the corner. We had split up again, but maybe that was for the best. At least one of us might get away.

I skidded to a halt and looked around me. As I’d run in, I’d thought the building was a library or perhaps a museum. But now I saw that it was in fact a small, old-fashioned theatre. There was a ticket-office beside the door and a poster showing an old man in an evening suit. There were cards tumbling out of his hands and the name, Mr Marvano, written underneath. A magician — just what I needed. Maybe he could help me disappear.

The show had already begun. The ticketseller was reading a newspaper and there were no ushers on the door. I tiptoed through the foyer and into the darkness of the auditorium. I just hoped Scarface and Ugly hadn’t seen me go in.

Mr Marvano was standing on the stage, an old man with a round, pink face and silver hair, looking rather sad in his tails and white bow tie. As I came in he had just finished some sort of trick with a cane and a silk scarf. He had turned one of them into the other. There was a thin pattering of applause. Mr Marvano picked up a pack of playing-cards and began to explain the next trick in Dutch. I took a seat in the back row. There were plenty of empty seats.

It was cool inside the theatre. I could feel the perspiration beading on my face. I wondered how much of the show I would have to watch before it was safe to go out. It didn’t make any sense. How had Scarface and Ugly managed to turn up at the station? Charlotte had said that Charon seemed to know everything she did — before she did it. How? In London, at the ice-rink and now in Amsterdam, Charon always seemed to be one step ahead.

There was more applause and I glanced at the stage. A Queen of Spades was rising, seemingly on its own, out of Mr Marvano’s top pocket.

“Was this the card you picked?” the magician asked. He said it in Dutch but I understood anyway. I’d seen it, and heard it all, before.

Somebody appeared, walking down the aisle, and stopped at the end of my row. I looked round and froze. It was Scarface.

I half rose, planning to slide out the other way. But another shape loomed out of the darkness, blocking that way, too. Ugly had come round the other side. I was trapped between them.

The magician was calling something out from the stage. Ugly produced what looked like a folding comb and pressed a button on the side. It was a flick-knife. About twenty centimetres of steel sprang out of his fist, slanting towards me. Scarface began to move closer. Ten seats and he would be on to me. I had a wall behind me and people in front. I had nowhere to go.

Mr Marvano had finished what he was saying. There was a long pause. Ugly was closing in from his side, too. The flick-knife flashed momentarily in one of the lights trained on the stage. I looked back the other way. Scarface carried no weapon but his fingers, long and skeletal, stretched out towards my throat.

“And now, please, I require a volunteer from the audience.” Mr Marvano had tried it in Dutch and found no takers so now he tried English. Only three seats separated me from Scarface on one side and Ugly on the other.

My hand shot up. “I volunteer!” I shouted.

Every eye in the theatre turned to look at me. A spotlight swivelled round and everything went white as it hit me in the eyes. Scarface and Ugly froze where they were, just outside the beam. Somehow Ugly had managed to spirit away the knife. Ignoring them, I clambered over a seat, almost landing in the owner’s lap. But a moment later I was away, moving towards the stage while the audience urged me on with another round of applause. For the time being, anyway, I was safe.

Mr Marvano had wheeled a big, multicoloured box onto the stage. It was about the size of a washing-machine with a round hole in the top and about a dozen slots around the sides. I didn’t much like the look of it but it was too late to back out now. Mr Marvano grabbed my hand and beamed at me through teeth that looked even older than him.

“And what’s your name?” he asked, again in English.

“Nick.”

“Nick. Thank you. And now, Nick, I am telling you the trick.”

He wheeled the box towards me and opened it. It was empty inside. But now I saw that if I knelt down inside it and if he closed it, I would be neatly trapped with my head protruding from the round hole at the top. I didn’t much care for the idea. For a moment I thought of making a break for it and trying to find a way out of the theatre. But I had lost sight of Scarface and Ugly. And while they were around I was safer here, on the stage, in the light.

“I am calling this the Mexican dagger box,” Mr Marvano said. He repeated the words in Dutch. “Now I am asking you please to step inside.” I hesitated, then stepped in. The audience watched in silence but I could barely see them behind the glare of the spotlights.

I knelt down. Mr Marvano closed the box shut and pressed four studs, locking it. I tried to move. But the box must have been smaller than I had thought. I was completely trapped, with the wooden sides pressing against my back, my shoulders and my arms. From the outside it must have looked like I was taking a Turkish bath. I wasn’t too happy about being on the inside. What was it he had said about Mexican daggers…?

“The box is locked — here, here and here,” the magician explained. “And now I will get the Mexican daggers.” He waved a finger at me. “Don’t go away!”

There was no chance of that. Painfully, I swivelled my head round and watched him as he ambled off the stage. The audience laughed and I realized I probably looked even more stupid than I felt. There was a rack of silver knives hanging in the wings, but no sign of any technicians or stage hands. Mr Marvano reached out to take the knives.

But then Ugly appeared, suddenly looming up behind him. He lashed out with a fist, catching Mr Marvano on the side of the jaw. The magician crumpled. Ugly half-caught him but then let him fall, at the same time dragging off his tailcoat. It was a neat trick, but I was the only person who had seen it. A moment later, Scarface stepped out from behind the curtain. Quickly, he put on Mr Marvano’s jacket. Then, pushing the rack of Mexican daggers, he walked onto the stage. The audience stirred, puzzled. I smashed an elbow against the side of the box. My old wound from the wheatfield flared up again. The box didn’t even creak.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” Scarface said. He spoke in English, perhaps for my benefit. “I’m afraid Mr Marvano has been taken ill. So he asked me to finish the trick.”

He snatched up one of the daggers. It was even more lethal than Ugly’s switchblade, about twenty-five centimetres longer with a wide, curving blade. The handle was decorated with some sort of fake Aztec design. Maybe the dagger was fake, too. But from where I was sitting, it certainly looked real.

Slowly he advanced towards me. I had never felt more helpless. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. All I could do was watch. And Scarface was enjoying every second of it.

He smiled at me, a smile that was full of hatred.

“Wait a minute…” I began.

“The first knife, ladies and gentlemen,” Scarface said.

He slammed it in. I shut my eyes and winced. Was I dead? Was I even wounded? I opened my eyes. Scarface looked as surprised as I did. The knife had certainly gone in the box one side. It had come out the other. But it didn’t seem to have gone through me.

The audience was surprised, too. They seemed to have woken up now. Perhaps they could tell that this new magician had a quality that the last one had lacked. Complete insanity, for example. They broke into louder, more enthusiastic applause.

Scarface picked up two more knives. Snarling, he plunged them into the box. Both of them passed right through without even scratching me. The audience clapped again.

Snarling and muttering to himself in Dutch, Scarface picked up the rest of the knives. There were twelve in all. One after the other he stabbed them into the box, each time waiting for me to cry out and then exit into a better world. But none came close. I was untouchable.

By now I was doing a good impersonation of a pin-cushion. The audience was delighted. There were no more knives left and, for that matter, no slots in which to stick them. But Scarface hadn’t finished. His hand went into his pocket and when it came out he was holding Ugly’s switchblade. He pressed the button and the blade shot out.

The audience fell silent. He bent down over me. I could see the veins throbbing under his skin and one of his eyes had developed a twitch. “There are no more holes, Diamond,” he hissed. “This one is for you.”

“Thirteenth time lucky?” I asked.

He snarled. “You were a fool to meddle in our affairs.”

“I was only doing it for the medals, Scarface,” I said.

“Goodbye…”

He took careful aim. This time he wasn’t going to bother with the box. His eyes were on my throat, right underneath my chin. Slowly, deliberately, he lifted the switchblade in his hand.

The audience waited. In the wings, Ugly leered at me over the unconscious body of Mr Marvano. The switchblade stopped, high above me.

I shut my eyes and waited. There was nothing else I could do.