South by Southeast Read online

  “Quick!” There was an alcove to one side, half-covered by a heavy, ornamental curtain. We ran behind it and pulled it the whole way across. A second later, Charon and the two new arrivals walked in.

  I heard them close the door and come into the room. Someone was talking in rapid Dutch. I couldn’t understand a word of it, nor did I recognize the voice. A second person spoke. I didn’t recognize his voice either. But this time I did understand one word of it. The name Waverly. Why were they talking about the head of MI6? Rushmore had told us that there was some sort of secret connection between them. Was that what they were discussing now?

  It was infuriating. I was stuck behind the curtain with Tim. I couldn’t understand a word that was being spoken. And I couldn’t see anything either. Why had we even bothered to come in? I glanced at Tim. There was a tiny chink of light on one side of his cheek. I followed it back to the curtain. The curtain was torn! I hadn’t noticed it before but there was a small hole, right in the middle. I leaned forward and put my eye against it, trying not to move the material. I could feel my heart pounding against my chest. At last I was going to see Charon!

  But it wasn’t to be. Charon had chosen the antique chair that had its back to the curtain. Looking through the hole I could see Scarface, smoking a cigarette in the chair opposite him, and Ugly, standing to one side. But Charon was concealed.

  And then he spoke. It was a single word and I didn’t understand it, but at least I had heard his voice. It was a chesty sort of voice, not deep. Had I heard it somewhere before?

  His hand stretched out and I saw the four fingers open in a palm-up gesture. At the same time, Ugly hurried forward with a small white hammer. It was another antique, probably made of ivory. What were they doing with it? Ugly jabbered away for about one minute and I got the sense that they were wrapping things up. If only Charon would stand up … every nerve in my body was screaming at him to get out of the chair.

  It was Scarface who got to his feet. He walked across towards the curtain and I was forced to retreat from the eyehole, away into the shadow. There were more mutterings behind him. The door opened and I knew even without looking that Charon was on his way out. Sure enough, when the door closed, the room was silent. I had been that close to unravelling the biggest mystery of all. But not quite close enough.

  “Have they gone?” Tim whispered.

  “They’ve gone…” I pushed back the curtain and went out into the room. Charon might have left but his desk was still there. I just hoped he didn’t lock his drawer.

  “Did you see his face?” Tim asked.

  “No. But I heard a bit of what they said. They were talking about Mr Waverly.”

  I pulled open the top drawer. I’m not sure what I was looking for. Would Charon have a driving licence, a photograph of himself, a credit card?

  Surely there would be something to tell me who he was? But the drawer was empty apart from three paperclips, a comb, a small mirror covered in some sort of powder and a half-smoked packet of cigarettes.

  It told me nothing. I wasn’t thinking. It should have told me who Charon was.

  I tried the second drawer. And that was where I found it. It was an ordinary cheque, made out for the sum of four hundred thousand guilders. Payable to “Charon Enterprises”. And signed by…

  I showed it to Tim. “Four hundred thousand guilders!” he exclaimed. “That’s…” But as usual his mathematics wouldn’t stretch that far.

  “It’s about £120,000,” I said. “But look at the signature.”

  Tim read it. His eyes bulged. “Mr Waverly!”

  “That’s right,” I said. “Mr Waverly is the one who’s paying Charon to kill Kusenov.”

  “But why?” Tim demanded. “He was the one who wanted to stop Charon.”

  “I know.” I pocketed the cheque. None of it made any sense – but at least I had some sort of evidence against Waverly. “Come on.” I moved towards the door. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Let’s take the window,” Tim said, moving the other way.

  “And keep it quiet. OK?”

  He opened the window. Alarm bells exploded throughout the house.

  It was too late to argue now. We dived head first through the window together, hit the grass in a somersault and staggered to our feet. A door crashed open behind us and I glimpsed Scarface hurtling towards us. But I was already halfway across the lawn, running with all my strength towards the undergrowth that might offer somewhere to hide. There was a bang and something whizzed past my head. My arm was suddenly hurting again. Hadn’t I been shot at enough for one day?

  We jumped over the first shrubs and sprinted on through the rough woodland at the edge of the house. Ugly had joined Scarface. I heard him shout something in Dutch. There was a second shot. Tim screamed. I wheeled round.

  “Are you hit?” I demanded.

  “No. I stepped on a stinging nettle.”

  “We’ve got to find the road.”

  We found the road about thirty seconds before Scarface and Ugly found us. Even as we climbed over the fence and dropped down on to the tarmac, the wood was torn to splinters by another burst of gunfire. But there were no cars on the road. No buses. Nothing. We still hadn’t got away.

  “Where now?” Tim panted.

  “There!”

  Dr Bloem had said the Winter House was near a windmill and there it was, a few hundred metres away, its huge sails turning slowly in the wind.

  It was our only hope. We had nowhere else to hide and I knew that Scarface and Ugly would be over the fence – or perhaps through it – in seconds. With Tim close behind me I crossed the road. There was only one door and it was open.

  One way in. One way out. It was only when I was inside that I realized we were trapped. Worse still, Scarface and Ugly had seen us go in. I saw them now, guns in their hands, slowly crossing the road towards us. Scarface was smiling. It made his scar bend in the middle so that it was like the point of an arrow. And the arrow was pointing at me.

  “They’re coming after us!” Tim was close to panic. “What are we going to do?”

  “Hide!”

  Tim went one way. I went another.

  The inside of the windmill was like nothing I’d imagined. In fact it seemed bigger inside than out with a mass of slowly turning wooden beams, wheels and great stones all meshing together like the workings of some fantastic clock. Four separate staircases ran up in different directions. One led to a door that opened on to an outer gallery, and this was the one I chose. I felt trapped inside the mill. If anybody was going to shoot me, I’d prefer it to be in the open.

  I scrabbled up the staircase – it was more like a ladder – wondering which way Tim would go. But I didn’t have time to worry about him. Even as I reached the top and the sunlight, I saw Scarface grab the bottom of the ladder and start up. Maybe fifteen seconds separated us. I had to find somewhere to hide.

  But where? I was on a narrow wooden platform that circled all the way round the windmill about four metres above the ground … too high to jump. There were no other doors. I could run round and round in circles. But there was no other way up and the way back was blocked. A great shadow swept over me as one of the sails sliced down, cutting diagonally across the platform.

  The sail…

  I knew it was a crazy idea even as I started moving towards it. If you think a windmill’s sails are slow and gentle, think again. Even when the wind is down they move at speed and they’re strong enough to stun an ox. I was just lucky this wasn’t a windy day.

  As the next section of the sail swung round I leaped forward and grabbed it. Somehow my hands found the rough wooden framework behind the canvas. My arms were almost pulled out of their sockets. But an instant later, without any effort at all, I had been jerked off my feet and into the air, spinning round with the sail in an enormous, sickening, heart-stopping circle.

  I clung on desperately. At the same time I kicked out with my feet and managed to find a grip between the wood and the
canvas. I was left pinned to the sail – like a fly on flypaper as it spun me silently round and round, the green grass whirling away, the blue sky streaking in. It was as if the whole world were being stirred in a gigantic pot.

  I shut my eyes. I couldn’t watch.

  But would Scarface see me? I could imagine him standing on the platform, circling it once, searching for me. Would he look up? I was behind the sail so unless he was standing at the back of the windmill I had to be hidden from him.

  The windmill must have turned thirty times. I’d lost count after the fifteenth revolution. Everything I’d eaten in the last two days was threatening to leave my stomach. My arms and legs were groaning, feeling the weight of every turn. The wind dropped again. The sail slowed down. I’d had enough. As the platform veered up at me, I let go and fell in an untidy heap onto the hard wooden surface. If Scarface was still there, if he shot me now, it would only come as a relief.

  But Scarface had already gone. I was too giddy to get to my feet but as I lay there, exhausted, I saw the assassins running across the fields below. They must have assumed I’d jumped down and got away. Then the nasty thought struck me.

  Had they found Tim?

  It was another five minutes before I found the strength and the balance to get up. Even then the ladder down was a nightmare. I could still feel the motion of the sail inside my head and the ladder twisted away from me like a snake. It was ominously silent below. The only sound was the grinding of the massive stone as it turned in endless circles, crushing whatever got in the way into dust.

  There was no sign of Tim.

  Using my hands to keep myself upright, I staggered round the lower level. There were great sacks of flour to one side and, at the back, a loose heap of the stuff, stretching half-way up the wall. The platform above my head was empty. The door leading out was closed.

  “Tim!” I shouted. “Where are you?”

  Silence. I was starting to worry.

  “Tim! It’s all right! They’ve gone!”

  Then something moved. I turned round. The loose flour, piled two metres high against the wall, was shifting. It was like watching a miniature avalanche.

  A hand reached out, clawing at the air. The whole pile broke open and I was just able to make out a figure, fighting its way free. Flour was everywhere, billowing out into the air. Somehow Tim had managed to bury himself in it. Now he was free.

  He stood there, completely white from head to foot. Maybe Ugly had shot him and this was his ghost.

  “Hab day gob?” he asked.

  There was flour in his nose and mouth. He sneezed. Flour cascaded out of his hair and a little pink circle appeared around his nose and mouth.

  “Have they gone?” he tried again.

  “Yeah. Are you all right?”

  “I’m all white,” Tim mumbled. At least, that’s what it sounded like.

  “Let’s move.”

  We stalked out of the windmill, Tim leaving white footprints behind him. The sails were still turning slowly behind us.

  In the last twelve hours we’d been machine-gunned through a cornfield and stitched up by a vet. We’d found Charon’s headquarters and we’d come infuriatingly close to seeing Charon. We’d stolen Mr Waverly’s cheque and we’d almost been shot getting away with it.

  And now we were dead on our feet. We needed a bath and a long, long sleep. Because you had to admit – both of us had been through the mill.

  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 café 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 café 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.