The Switch Read online

  And now he had climbed fifty feet up the side of a building and he wasn’t even out of breath! Tad didn’t want to admit it, but it was true. He was proud of himself. He was pleased.

  Letting go of the ivy with one hand, he reached out for the window. This was the difficult part, but he knew he had to keep moving. At least three minutes had passed since he had begun the climb. Finn had given him five. The police would be here in fifteen. Carefully, he swung his weight from the ivy onto the windowsill. Then he pulled himself up and in.

  It was only at the very last moment that he lost his balance. Half in the house, half out of it, he suddenly found himself flailing at the air, his center of gravity hopelessly lost. Even then, some instinct saved him. He knew that he could topple backward and down or throw himself forward and in. He took the second option, twisted in midair and dived forward. His shoulders passed neatly through the window. Unable to stop himself, he pitched forward, then fell to the floor with a crash. The noise seemed deafening, but nobody came. Nobody had heard. So Finn was right again. It seemed that there was nobody in the house.

  The window had opened into a storage room, stacked high with suitcases and tea chests. Tad could just make out a door in the half-light and crept over to it. The door led out to a corridor with, straight ahead of him, a flight of stairs going down. Tad tiptoed out.

  Someone had left a light on in the hall. Tad hurried down four flights of thickly carpeted stairs past paintings by Rubens and Picasso. A huge chandelier hung over him and a gold-framed mirror reflected his image as he scuttled over to the front door. Tad was certain now that the house was empty. It had that feel. His own feet rapped out a brittle sound on the marble slabs in the hall. A grandfather clock ticked. But nothing else stirred.

  He reached the front door and slid off the security chain and drew back the bolts. The door opened and there was Finn, standing in front of him, his glasses two brilliant white discs as they caught the streetlight.

  Finn lifted his walking stick and pushed Tad aside. He hurried into the house and closed the door behind him. There was a sheen of sweat on his forehead and a vein in his neck was throbbing rapidly. The spiderweb was pulled taut.

  “What the devil happened?” he hissed.

  “What do you mean . . . ?” Tad began.

  “You made the devil of a racket at the window, Bobby-boy. An ’orrible racket. I’d have heard you three blocks away.”

  “I fell,” Tad replied. “Anyway, what does it matter? The house is empty. You said so yourself.”

  Finn half smiled. “Got a tongue in your head, have you?” he snarled. “That sounds more like my old Bob.” He glanced at his watch. “Seven minutes,” he said. “We’d better move.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “We’ll start with the safe. On the second floor.” Leaning on his stick, Finn hurried toward the stairs and began to climb. Tad followed, saying nothing.

  They had reached the first landing when the door opened.

  Finn saw it first and stopped. He was on a landing above, five steps below the level of the door, with Tad just behind him. A man in a blue silk dressing gown and leather slippers stepped out. He was in his sixties with silver hair and a gaunt face and Tad didn’t need to ask his name. It had to be Lord Roven. The owner of the house was looking down at them, clutching a heavy silver candlestick as a weapon in his hand.

  “Stop there!” he said in a cultivated voice. “I heard you come in the window and I’ve already called the police. You might as well wait where you are and make it easier on yourselves.”

  Finn looked over his shoulder at Tad and snarled at him with the cobwebbed side of his face. “You little fool!” he hissed. “You little idiot! I told you, didn’t I? All that blooming noise!”

  Tad took a step back. Everything was swimming again. He felt sick. He just wanted to disappear.

  Finn turned back to Lord Roven. “What are you doing here?” he demanded. “Wednesdays is your bridge night.”

  Lord Roven frowned. He shook his head slowly. “It’s Thursday . . .” he said.

  “Thursday!” Finn almost shouted the word. A tic had appeared at one of his eyes, making the cobweb dance. “Thursday?” he whimpered again. “Then it’s not my fault, is it? It was a perfect plan. Perfect! I just got the day wrong, that’s all!”

  Then everything seemed to collide with itself. Tad would never be quite sure what happened—or when.

  The shrill sound of a siren cut through the night. Finn took a step forward. Lord Roven moved toward him, reaching out as if to grab him. Finn dropped his ebony walking stick—or part of it. When Tad looked again, he was still holding the handle, but the rest of the stick had fallen away and an ugly length of steel protruded from his hand. A sword stick, Tad realized. But Lord Roven hadn’t seen it. Whether Finn lifted the sword or whether his victim walked onto it, Tad couldn’t say. But the next thing he knew, Finn had laughed out loud, a single cry that danced in his throat. At the same time Lord Roven groaned and fell to the floor. Then there was a screech of tires. A blue light flashed on and off through a downstairs window. A hand hammered at the door.

  “The kitchen!” Finn hissed, snatching up the rest of his walking stick. “We can get out the back way!”

  “You’ve killed him!” Tad whispered.

  Finn swore and then grabbed Tad by the throat. For a moment their faces were pressed so close that they touched and Tad could feel the stubble of the man’s beard rubbing against his own skin. “I’ll kill you too if you don’t move!” he snarled. “Now—come on!”

  The thumping on the door continued, harder now, and a second police siren echoed across the square. Finn ran down the stairs—five steps at a time—and slid across the marble hallway. Tad followed. He could just make out a uniformed shape through the stained glass next to the front door, but he ignored it, twisting around to follow the passage back past the grandfather clock. Then Finn grabbed hold of him and pulled him through an open doorway even as a booted foot crashed into the front door, splintering the wood and smashing the first of the locks.

  Tad found himself in the kitchen, a long, narrow room all white and silver with French windows leading into a garden at the end. Finn was already trying the handles, but they were securely locked.

  “Stand back!” he ordered. As Tad obeyed, he raised his walking stick, then brought it whistling through the air into the glass. The window shattered at exactly the same moment as the front door was kicked in. Tad heard the falling wood, the sound of voices shouting in the hall. “Move!” Finn commanded.

  Tad followed Finn into the garden. The lights on the police cars were still flashing and the bushes and trees loomed up on him, flickering blue against the night sky. The garden was surrounded by a low wall with other gardens on each side.

  “Split up!” Finn hissed. “Confuse ’em. We got more chance that way. Meet back at the caravan . . .” Then, before Tad could stop him, he hoisted himself over the wall and disappeared down the other side.

  Tad swung around. Two policemen had stepped out of the kitchen and were standing in the garden. Slowly, they began to approach, and Tad realized they were afraid of him.

  “All right . . .” one of them began.

  Tad turned his back on them and ran. He felt his feet first on the grass, then in the soft earth of the flower beds. His scrabbling hands found the garden wall and he pulled himself up, half expecting the two policemen to grab him and pull him back. But he had been too fast for them. He twisted over the top of the wall and fell, squirming down the other side.

  “There goes one of them! On the other side!”

  A heap of garden rubbish had broken his fall. Tad stood up and brushed some of it away. There were more whistles, more shouts. Lights had gone on in the adjoining houses, illuminating the gardens that ran along the back. Tad looked one way, then another, then began to run. He reached another garden wall and threw himself over it. Then another. He had forgotten all about Finn, didn’t care if he had been caug
ht or not. Tad couldn’t stop. A window opened in one of the houses and somebody shouted. He came to a garden fence, kicked out at it with his foot and broke through.

  He found himself in a narrow alleyway. Down one end he could see flashing lights and hear voices. The other end was dark and silent. That was the direction he chose.

  Tad never knew how he got away without being arrested. But the alleyway led to a main road and suddenly he was in the clear with no policemen in sight and the chaos of Nightingale Square far behind him. He ran for an hour and only stopped when he could run no more.

  He had escaped from Finn. He had escaped from the Snarbys. But now he was on his own and wanted for murder. He had little money, nowhere to go. Tad found an entrance to an office and slipped inside, burying himself in the shadows. He was still there six hours later when the first of the traffic hit the streets and the city of London woke to another day.

  HOME

  Bacon sandwich and a cup of tea, please.”

  Tad had found his way to a run-down café in a Soho back-street. He was the only customer. He paid for his breakfast using the last of his money and chose a table in the farthest corner. He had bought a late edition of the morning paper and now he opened it, thumbing through the pages.

  He found the murder of Lord Roven in a single column on page four. There was a photograph of the house in Nightingale Square and a headline that read BRUTAL MURDER IN LONDON’S MAYFAIR. The report concluded that the police had chased two intruders, a man and a boy, but both had escaped. So Finn hadn’t been arrested either! Tad didn’t know whether to be pleased or sorry. If Finn was free, he couldn’t lead the police to Tad. On the other hand, he would almost certainly be looking for Tad himself. After the disaster of the failed break-in, Tad didn’t like to think what would happen if he were found.

  Tad bit into his sandwich and actually found himself enjoying it. He should have been terrified or in despair, but the truth was that he was neither. He felt confident . . . even calm. As he sat in the café with his elbows on the table and his long hair falling over his eyes, Tad wondered if he was changing in some way that he couldn’t understand.

  A couple more people came into the café and ordered coffees. Neither of them even glanced in his direction. Cupping his hands around his tea, feeling the warmth, Tad tried to work out his options.

  He was a thirteen-year-old, on his own in London, wanted by the police. He knew that he had been seen at Lord Roven’s house and it surely wouldn’t be hard to track him down. And what then? The fact was that it had been Tad who had broken into the house and let Finn in. He was as responsible for the old man’s death as if he had held the sword himself. If the police caught him, he would go to prison. It was as simple as that.

  He had to get out of London. He knew that. But with no money in his pocket, it wasn’t going to be easy.

  Briefly, he considered going back to the carnival. Whatever he thought of them, Eric and Doll Snarby would look after him. And they’d take him with them when they moved to the carnival at Great Yarmouth. But if he went back to the Snarbys, he would be going back to Finn. Tad remembered the look on Finn’s face as he stabbed forward with the sword. He shivered and took a sip of tea. He couldn’t go back to Finn. There had to be another way.

  And that was when the idea came to him.

  Go home.

  Not to the Snarbys but to his real parents and his own home. Sir Hubert Spencer had a house in Knightsbridge—only an hour’s walk from where he was sitting now. It was his only chance. He had considered it before, when he was at the carnival at Crouch End. But things had been different then. He had been too frightened to think straight, too frightened to act. Tad had come a long way since then. He was certain now that he could make his parents believe what had happened to him. After all, he knew everything about them. He could describe things that only their true son would know. All he had to do was talk to them.

  He finished his breakfast and set off, up through Green Park and on toward the heart of Knightsbridge. He followed the road past Harrods department store and thought sadly of the times he had visited it with his mother. Lady Geranium used to take him there on his birthday and let him choose his own present. One year it had been a grand piano (although he had never played it). The next he had chosen the entire chocolate department. But now, of course, they wouldn’t even have allowed him through the door.

  The Spencers’ London home was in a quiet street on the other side of Harrods. Number One Wiernotta Mews was a pale blue house on three floors with a kitchen and dining room in the basement. Tad had a bedroom on the first floor and slept there whenever the family was visiting London. He wondered if they would be there now.

  It was eleven o’clock and the mews was empty. The other home owners were probably all at work. Tad crossed the cobbled surface and reached for the bell. It was only then that he had second thoughts. If the Spencers were at home and he rang the bell, Spurling would probably come to the door. And what would the chauffeur see? A dirty, disheveled boy whom he wouldn’t recognize. The door would be slammed before Tad had a chance to explain.

  Tad sighed. It would be much easier to explain things once he was inside the house. But how was he to get in? Break in—for the second time in twenty-four hours? Then he remembered. His mother always left a spare key in one of the baskets of flowers that hung on either side of the front door. Tad quickly found it, opened the gate and followed the metal stairway down to the kitchen entrance.

  As quietly as he could, he slipped the key into the lock and turned it. The house was silent. Tad stepped inside.

  He stood for a few seconds in the quarry-tiled kitchen. His heart was pounding in his chest and he had to remind himself that he wasn’t a thief. He wasn’t breaking in. This was his house. He lived here. Even so, when he moved forward it was on tiptoe and his ears were pricked for the slightest sound.

  He passed through the kitchen and crept upstairs. The first floor consisted of a single open-plan room with leather sofas, Turkish carpets and a huge wide-screen TV. A spiral staircase led upward and he followed it to the second floor, where his own bedroom was located. He stopped in front of a door, tapped gently and went in.

  The room was just as he had left it—evidently nobody had been there in the last few days. His bed, with its quilt patterned like a giant dollar bill, was freshly made. His London toys, books and computers were exactly where he had left them. Tad ran his hand over one of the surfaces, taking it all in. He had come home! Quickly he stripped off his clothes and went through into the adjoining bathroom. He didn’t care if anyone heard him now. He turned on the shower and stood for ten minutes in the hot, jetting water. It was as if the shower were washing away not just the dirt but all the memories of the past week. He dried himself in one of his own American towels. He had never appreciated how soft and warm they really were.

  Outside, he heard a car pull up. A door slammed and a voice called out. He recognized it at once. It was his mother! His parents had arrived.

  He felt a surge of excitement. In just a few moments he would see them again, talk to them, tell them what had happened. They would be shocked, of course. But once they understood, they could all begin again. The nightmare would finally be over.

  Moving quickly, Tad pulled some clothes out of the closet and tried to get dressed. It was only now that he realized he had a problem. The boxers he was holding were obviously several sizes too big. The pants were the same. Reluctantly, he picked up Bob Snarby’s clothes and put them back on. At least they fit, and washed and groomed, he felt a bit more like an ordinary boy, less like a street urchin. Even so he was nervous. What if his parents refused to listen to him? What if they simply threw him back out on the street?

  He could hear footsteps coming up the stairs. Tad thought for a moment, then went over to a drawer beside the bed, opened it and pulled out a checkbook. It was his own checkbook, and he was certain that he would still be able to sign Tad Spencer’s signature. There was over ten thousand do
llars in his current account; his pocket money for the past six months. Whatever happened, that money was now his.

  He had just shoved the checkbook into his pocket when the door to the bedroom opened. Tad stared. He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting, but whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t this.

  A short, fat, dark-haired boy in a ginger-and-brown-checked suit had just walked in and was staring at Tad with the same shocked expression with which Tad was staring at him. Tad tried to speak. He felt the bed pressing against the back of his legs and he sat down. The other boy smiled.

  And that was when Tad knew. He had thought at first that he was looking at himself, and in a way, of course, he was. It was his own body that had just walked into the room, but there was somebody else inside it. And the suddenly narrowed eyes—the cruel smile—told him who that somebody was.

  “Bob Snarby!” he whispered.

  “Tad Spencer!” the other boy replied. “I been expecting you.”

  FACE-TO-FACE

  Bob Snarby closed the door and moved into the room. Tad watched him with a sense of wonderment. His first thought was how fat this boy was, how arrogant he looked with his puffed-out cheeks and slicked-back hair. But then he remembered that he was actually looking at himself! Bob was wearing one of his own favorite suits. The Rolex watch that his mother had bought him was on the other boy’s wrist. Tad realized that he was jealous, that he disliked Bob Snarby on sight.

  But it wasn’t Bob Snarby. It was him! Tad rested against a chair, thoroughly confused.

  For a long minute the two boys stared at each other; Bob Snarby in Tad’s body and Tad Spencer in Bob’s body. At last Tad spoke.

  “Do I call you Bob or Tad?” he asked.

  The fat boy smiled. “I suppose you can call me Bob,” he said. “You know that’s who I am.”