The Falcon's Malteser

FAIRY CAKES

I wish somebody had told me it was Knock Out Nick Diamond Week in London. It had happened to me twice in two days and I was getting a bit tired of it. Being knocked out isn’t so bad. It’s waking up that’s the real problem. Your head hurts, your mouth is dry, and you feel sick. And if it’s pitch-dark and you’re locked up in the back of a van that could be going anywhere, it’s pretty scary, too.

I was still in London. I could tell from the sound of the traffic and from the number of times we stopped. Once—when we were at a traffic light or something—I heard vague voices outside and thought of hammering on the side of the van. But it probably wouldn’t have done any good, and anyway, by the time I’d made up my mind, the van had moved off. A few minutes later, we stopped again. The door was pulled open. There wasn’t a lot of light left in the day, but what there was of it streamed in and punched me in the eyes.

“Get out,” a voice said. It was a soft voice, the sort of voice you’d expect to float on the scent of violets. It had a slight German twang. I’d heard that voice once before.

I got out.

The first thing I saw was a road sign. It read: BAYLY STREET SE1, which put me somewhere on the south bank of the river, opposite the financial district. I looked around me. This was warehouse territory. The old brick buildings rose five stories high on both sides of the road, the narrow gap of sky in between crisscrossed by corrugated iron walkways, hooks and chains, pipes and loading platforms. A hundred years ago, Bayly Street would have been on its feet. Twisted fuel cans, broken roof tiles, and yards of multicolored cables spilled out of the deserted buildings like entrails. The street was pitted with puddles that seemed to be eating their way into the carcass.

Another sign caught my eye, bright red letters on white: MCALPINE. It was a death warrant in one word for Bayly Street. There’s nothing more destructive than a construction company. They’d gut the warehouses and build fancy apartments in the shell. Each one would have a river view, a quarry-tiled garage, and a five-figure price tag. That’s the trouble with London. The rich have got it all.

There was a man standing beside the van, holding a silenced gun that he was pointing in my direction. He might have been a gangster, but he went to a smart tailor. He was dressed in a pale gray suit with a pink tie. His shoes were as brightly polished as his smile. A moment later, the driver’s door opened and a second man got out. He was dressed identically to the first, except that his tie was a powder blue. They were both short and thin and both wore their hair parted down the middle—one dark, one blond. They were both approaching fifty and had spent a lot of money trying to back away again. Their slightly plastic faces had to be the work of a slight plastic surgeon. Know what I mean? Cut out the fat, take up the wrinkles, retone the flesh, thank you, sir, and make sure you don’t sneeze too violently.

“This way,” Blondie said, gesturing with the gun.

“After you,” I replied.

“I don’t think so.”

There had to be men at work on a construction site nearby. I could hear them now, their hydraulic drills jabbering away in the distance, the mechanical grabbers churning up the mud. I thought of making a break for it. But there was no chance. There was nobody in sight and they’d have shot me down before I’d gone ten feet. The driver had walked across to a heavy wooden door and unlocked a padlock the size of a soup plate. It led into a room like an abandoned garage: bare concrete floor, burned-out walls, junk everywhere. For a nasty minute I thought that this was it and that I was about to reach the last full stop, but there was a staircase in one corner and Blondie steered me toward it. We went up five flights. Each floor was the same—derelict and decaying. But then we came to another door and another padlock. The fifth floor was different.

It was a single, undivided space and about as big as a tennis court, only it would be difficult to have a game—not with a grand piano parked in the middle. It had a large, wide window—more like a French door really—reaching from floor to ceiling, but being five stories up, it didn’t lead anywhere. The room was furnished with a gray carpet, gray silk curtains, and a silvery three-piece suite arranged around a white marble table. There was an unpatitioned-off kitchen with a tray loaded with cups and plates for tea.

The dark-haired man went into the kitchen while Blondie waved me over to the sofa.

“And who are you?” I asked, although I already had a good idea.

“I’m William,” Blondie said. “And that’s Eric.” He gestured.

“Gott and Himmell,” I muttered. The two German schoolboys from Eton. That gave me a complete score on Snape’s blackboard.

“We thought it was time we invited you to tea,” Gott went on. “I do hope you like fairy cakes.”

The kettle boiled. Himmell filled the pot and brought the tray over to the table. “Who’s going to be mother?” I asked. They both raised their eyebrows at that. I couldn’t believe it. These were meant to be the Falcon’s two right-hand men, but they looked about as dangerous as my two maiden aunts. But then I remembered the way they’d brought me here and the fact that there were two dead bodies to be accounted for. They might look like a joke. But they could still make you die laughing.

Himmell poured the tea into china cups decorated with roses interlaced with swastikas, and then handed out the fairy cakes. I didn’t feel like eating, but it looked like he’d made them himself and I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

“Who plays the piano?” I asked. Polite conversation seemed like a good idea.

“We both do,” Gott said. “But now, my friend, it’s your turn to sing.” Himmell laughed at that. I didn’t. I’ve found funnier lines in a Latin dictionary. “You have something we want,” Gott went on. “Let me explain, Nicholas . . . if I may call you Nicholas? A charming name.”

I bit into the fairy cake. It tasted like dish soap.

“We were following the dwarf the day he visited you and your brother. We didn’t know then what he was carrying. We searched your apartment that evening, but we found nothing. Then we ran into Miss Bacardi.”

“Is she here?” I asked.

“You’ll see her soon enough. She told us about the Maltesers. Most . . . unusual. So we went back to your flat for a second time. That was the day of the Falcon’s funeral. We were certain that we would find the Maltesers then. But after we’d broken in, we were surprised. Who was the man waiting for us?”

“His name was Lawrence,” I said. “He was the chauffeur of the Fat Man. He was after the Maltesers, too.”

“It was unfortunate for him.” Gott sighed. “He said some very hurtful things. So Eric hurt him. In fact, he killed him. I have to tell you, Nicholas. Eric is a lovely person. Lovely. But he gets moody sometimes. And when he’s moody, he shoots people.”

I smiled at Himmell. “Nice fairy cakes,” I said.

“We still want the Maltesers,” Gott said. “We know your brother is in jail. And we know you know where they are. So either you tell us now or . . .”

“Or what, Gott?” I asked.

“It would be a terrible shame,” he replied. “You’re a very nice boy. Really very sweet. How old are you?”

“Thirteen.”

“Yes—far too young to end up in a plastic bag with six bullets in your chest. Would you like some more tea?”

Himmell filled my cup. He didn’t seem to have quite as good a grasp of the English language as his friend. They were both still smiling at me with their plastic smiles and I wondered if, after the face-lifts, they were capable of anything else. Gott finished his tea and smacked his lips.

“Thank you,” he said. “You do make a lovely cup, Eric.”

“Anudder cup?”

“Nein danke.” He turned to me. “So where are they?”

I’d been thinking. I’d have been happy to tell them if I thought it would get me out of there. But somehow I didn’t believe it. Once they’d gotten what they wanted, they wouldn’t need me and I’d be in that plastic bag like a shot. And I mean shot. I had to buy time. Given a bit of time, maybe I could find my way out of this jam.

I coughed. “Well, it’s a bit tricky . . .” Himmell’s face fell. He was still smiling, but I figure his nose and chin must have sunk a good half inch or so. “I mean, I do have them. They’re at Victoria Station. In a luggage locker. But Herbert has the key.”

“The number?”

“Um . . . one hundred and eighty!” I’d been making it up as I went along and I sang out that number like an auctioneer after a final bid.

“At Victoria Station?”

“Yes. But you can’t open it.”

He lifted the gun. “I think we can.”

Gott got to his feet and strolled over to the piano. Then he sat down on the stool and rubbed his hands over the keys. I stood up. “Thanks for the tea,” I said. “If that’s all you wanted to know—”

“You’re not going anywhere.” Gott played a chord. “Eric!”

Himmell had a few cords of his own. I don’t know where he’d gotten the rope from, but there was nothing I could do. While Gott played a tune on the piano Himmell tied me up. He did it very professionally. My hands went behind my back, where they were introduced to my feet. By the time he’d finished, I couldn’t even twitch in time to the music and I could feel my fingers and toes going blue as the blood was cut off. Gott finished his little recital and stood up.

“Well, Nicholas,” he said. “We’re going to Victoria Station.” He looked at his watch. “We’ll be back around five. And if you’ve been lying, we’ll bury you around five-thirty.”

I tried to shrug. I couldn’t even manage that with all the ropes. “If this is what they teach you at private school,” I said, “I’m glad I went public.”

“Take him into the back room,” Gott snapped. “It’s time he met our other guest.”

Himmell picked me up and carried me across the room. I’m not heavy, but he was still stronger than I thought. There was a door at the far end, beyond the piano. He drew back a metal bolt with one hand and opened it.

“When are you going to let me out of here?” a voice demanded. A voice I knew.

Himmell threw me down on the floor. I found myself sitting opposite Lauren Bacardi. She was tied up just like me.

“Company for you,” Gott said.

He closed the door and locked it behind him. A minute later I heard the two Germans leave for Victoria Station. I wondered what they’d find in Locker 180. I wondered if there even was a Locker 180. I just knew that I had until five to get out of here. I’d bought myself time okay. But I wasn’t too keen on paying the price.

With an effort, I tried to put them out of my mind. I looked around at Lauren. “Hi,” I said.

“I know you,” she said.

“Yeah. Nick Diamond. We met at the Casablanca Club—the night they came for you.”

She nodded. “I remember. Thanks a bunch, Nick. I was enjoying my life until you came along.”

She was still dressed in the glitzy clothes she had worn for her singing act, but the fake jewelry was gone and she had washed off some of the makeup. She looked better without it. She was sitting in the corner with her knees drawn up, a plate and a mug on the floor beside her. There was no furniture in the room, which was about as big as a large walk-in closet. It was lit by a single small window that would have been too high up to reach even if we hadn’t been tied up. I gave a cautious tug at the ropes. In the movies, there would have been a piece of broken glass or something for me to cut them with. But it looked like I was in the wrong movie.

I gave up. “I’m sorry about this,” I said. “But I didn’t lead them to you.”

“No? Then who did?”

It was a good question. How had they found out about her? “You told them about the Maltesers?” I said.

She sniffed. “Why else do you think I’m still alive?”

“Enjoy it while you can,” I said. “They’re going to be back at five and they’re not going to be very happy. I strung them a line out there. When they get back, I reckon they’re going to want to string me up with one.”

“Then we’d better move.”

“Sure. If I can just get across to you, maybe you can get at my ropes with your teeth and—”

I stopped. Lauren Bacardi had wriggled. That was all she had done, but now the ropes were falling away from her like overcooked spaghetti. It was incredible. I tried it myself. But while she got to her feet, unhooking the last loop from her wrist, I stayed exactly where I was.

“That’s a real trick,” I said. “How did you do it?”

“Before I became a singer I worked in cabaret,” she told me. “I was the assistant to an escape artist . . . Harry Blondini. I spent two and a half years being tied up. Harry loved ropes. He used to wear handcuffs in bed and he was the only guy I ever knew who took his showers hanging upside down in a straitjacket. He taught me everything he knew.”

By now she was kneeling beside me, pulling the knots undone. “Why didn’t you escape before?” I asked.

“There was no point. The door’s barred from the outside. There’s nothing I can do about that. And even if I could reach the window, it’s too small for me to get through.”

Too small for her, but when she gave me a leg up about fifteen minutes later, I found I could just squeeze through. Gott and Himmell hadn’t bothered to lock it. Why should they? They’d left me tied up, and anyway, it didn’t lead anywhere. It was five stories up and just too far below the roof for me to be able to scramble up there. I paused for a moment on the window ledge, my legs dangling inside, my head and shoulders in the cold evening air. I could see men working on a construction site in the distance and I shouted, trying to attract their attention. But they were too far away and, anyway, there was too much noise.

I looked down. It made my stomach heave a little. The pavement was a long, long way below. I could see the French windows that led back into the main living room about ten feet away. If I could break in through them, I could open the door and let Lauren out and at least we’d be on the way to safety. But the windows were too far away, and although they had a narrow ledge of their own, there was no way I could reach it. Unless . . .

This was a warehouse and like all the other warehouses it had a hook on a metal arm jutting out of the wall—in this case exactly halfway between the two windows and about a yard above them. In the old days it would have been used to hoist goods up from the street on a rope. The rope was gone, of course. But rope was at least one thing we had in plenty.

I squeezed myself back into the room.

“No way out—eh?” Lauren muttered.

“There might be.” I explained what I had in mind.

“You’re crazy,” she said. “You can’t do it.”

“I’ve got to do it,” I said. “Better crazy than dead.”

Ten minutes later I was half in and half out again, but this time with a length of rope around my waist. We’d taken the rope that Himmell had used to tie us up and knotted it into a single length. There was a good twelve feet of it. I held the slack in my hand and now I began to swing it a bit like a lasso. Then I threw it, holding on to the end. The loop flew out toward the hook, missed, and fell. I pulled it in and tried again. I hooked it on the fourth attempt.

So there I am, five stories up, leaning out of a window. There’s a rope leading from me to a hook and then back again, and I tie the end around my waist, too. Remember that isosceles triangle I mentioned? Well, it’s a bit like that. The two windows are the lower corners. The hook is the point at the top. All I have to do is jump and the rope will swing me across like a pendulum from one side to the other. At least that’s the general idea.

I didn’t much like it. In fact I hated it. But I was running out of time and there didn’t seem to be any other way.

I jumped.

For a giddy second I swung in the air, one shoulder scraping across the brickwork. But then my scrabbling hands somehow managed to grab hold of the edge of the French windows. I pulled, dangling in midair, supported only by the rope, my legs kicking at nothing. I pulled with all my strength. And then I was crouching on the ledge, trying hard not to look down, my heart beating in my chest like it would rather be someplace else.

I stayed where I was until I’d gotten my breath back, afraid of falling back into space. The ledge could only have been six inches wide and my whole body was pressed against the windowpanes. Without looking back into the street, I reached down and pulled off my shoe. Slowly I lifted it up. It was cold out there, but the sweat was running down inside my shirt. My eyes were fixed on the grand piano on the other side of the window. Somehow looking at it made me forget where I was and what I was doing. I held the shoe firmly in one hand, then brought it swinging forward. The heel hit the window, smashing it. I dropped the shoe into the room, then, avoiding the jagged edges of broken glass, slipped my hand through, found the lock, turned it. The window opened. With a sigh of relief I eased my way inside, then untied the rope and pulled it in after me.

I hadn’t gotten very far, but at least I was still alive.

Gott and Himmell had left the tea things out. I put my shoe back on and took a swig of milk out of the jug. Then I went over to the door and drew back the bolt.

Lauren raised an eyebrow when she saw me. “So you made it?” she said.

“Yeah,” I said. I would have said more, but for some reason my teeth were chattering at about one hundred and fifty miles per hour. It must have been even colder out there than I’d thought.

Lauren tried the door that led to the staircase. It was locked. Then she strolled across to the broken window and looked out.

“That’s great, Nick,” she drawled. “We’re out of the closet but we can’t get out of the room. There’s nobody near enough to hear us shouting for help. You’ve sent our German friends on a wild-goose chase, and when they get back they’re going to string you up and use you for target practice. We don’t have enough rope to climb down with and we don’t have any guns.”

“That’s about it,” I agreed.

“Then you’d better think up something fast, kid.” She pointed out of the window. “Because here they come right now.”