The big doors to the train shed were open. It was gloomy inside, and the air was thick with the heavenly smell of diesel oil and coal dust.
‘Wow,’ whispered Ozan as they clapped eyes on the vintage black tank engine with blood-red buffer beam and pistons. It was polished up as if it were new. A tall chimney sprouted up from the circular boiler face, which was framed by a triangle of three lanterns.
The shed was wide enough to accommodate the two engines and several carriages. The blue Bombardier TRAXX was on a wider set of rails a couple of metres from the Class 99.
‘Hello?’ Hal called out, to see if they were alone, but there was a clatter of tools and Aksel emerged from the shadows in grease-stained overalls. He greeted the boys with a grunt as he picked up a rag to wipe his hands.
Hal pointed at the tank engine. ‘Beautiful.’
Aksel nodded and patted the loco.
‘Can we look?’ Hal said, pointing to try and communicate. ‘Go on the footplate?’
Aksel nodded, and stepped back to allow Hal and Ozan to climb up.
Eagerly Hal grabbed the rail and pulled himself into the cab. Ozan was a step behind him. The brass pipes shone; there wasn’t a mark on them. A fire had been laid in the boiler, but not lit. He realized Aksel was getting the loco ready for the funeral tomorrow.
‘This is the regulator,’ Hal said to Ozan, pointing to the lever. ‘That’s the steam chest pressure gauge.’ He pointed at the dial in front of him. ‘Main boiler pressure gauge.’ He pointed to another dial, then touched a red wheel. ‘Injector steam valve.’ He put his finger to a switch in a pipe. ‘And this, I think, is the whistle.’
‘Good.’ Aksel nodded, looking impressed.
‘You can drive a steam train?’ Ozan was astonished.
‘Well, no, it takes years of training, but I know how they work.’ Hal dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘How are we going to get into the carriage without Aksel seeing?’
‘I’ll ask him to show me where the sledges are,’ Ozan replied.
‘Good idea.’
Ozan jumped down from the footplate, speaking to Aksel in German. Hal looked down and saw that hanging over the collar of Aksel’s T-shirt was a gold locket. He shifted to get a clearer view. The oval of gold was the size of his thumb, with an ornate floral engraving, in the centre of which was a pair of initials that sent a chill down Hal’s spine.
Aksel pointed to the back of the train shed, sending Ozan to get the sledges on his own. Ozan shot Hal an apologetic look.
‘Aksel?’ Hal clambered down the ladder. ‘Do you understand English?’
‘Little,’ Aksel raised his hand, pinching his thumb and forefinger close.
‘Were you here when Alexander Kratzenstein died?’
The muscles around Aksel’s eyes tightened at the question, but he gave a curt nod.
‘Who found him?’
‘Bertha.’ Aksel’s eyes lost their focus as he remembered. ‘She scream and scream.’
‘What did you do?’ Hal whispered.
‘I run. I find her in the dark.’ He patted his chest. ‘I carry Alexander home.’
‘His face . . .’ But Hal didn’t need to finish. Aksel’s eyes grew dark, and his nostrils flared as he shook his head, and Hal knew he’d seen the expression of horror. ‘What do you think happened?’
‘Frau Babelin,’ Aksel growled, his hand going to his locket as he turned his head towards the house. ‘They must pay.’
‘Aksel? Wo bist du? ’ Connie called into the shed.
Aksel hurriedly stuffed his rag into a pocket and ran a hand through his hair. ‘Hier,’ he called out, walking into the light of the open door.
‘Eine der Ziegen fehlt. Es gibt ein Loch im Zaun. Ich denke sie ist entkommen!’
‘Hello,’ Hal came to Aksel’s side.
‘Good morning, Harrison.’ Connie smiled. ‘What are you doing here?’ Hal looked at the tank engine and Connie laughed. ‘Of course! I’m sorry I must take Aksel away. There’s nothing he likes better than talking about how that machine works, but one of Arnold’s goats has escaped. I need Aksel to help me find it and get it back in the pen.’ She stared at Hal for a second, then said, ‘You are not wearing your glasses today?’
Hal felt like she’d just thrown a bucket of icy water over him. He’d left his glasses beside his bed. He’d been so keen to investigate that he’d forgotten about his disguise. ‘I don’t want to break them. I’m long-sighted, I only need them for closeup stuff. We’re having a snowball fight, then going sledging.’
As if by magic, Ozan came forward dragging a pair of red plastic sledges, and Connie laughed. She linked her arm through Aksel’s, and the pair of them walked away in the direction of the goat pen.
‘Quick,’ Hal whispered.
Ozan let go of the sledge ropes and hurried after Hal, who’d run to the carriage they’d travelled in from Berlin.
‘Did you see the locket round Aksel’s neck?’ Hal whispered. ‘It has two initials engraved on it – a G and a B.’ He looked at Ozan, waiting for him to make the connection.
‘Gobel Babelin?’
‘Why would he have a locket with her initials on? Do you think Aksel could be related to her?’
The boys exchanged an alarmed look.
‘Let’s be quick, before he gets back,’ Hal said, trying the door to the carriage. It opened with a squeak. The two boys stepped inside and looked around. ‘We mustn’t move anything, or, if we do, we must make sure we put it back exactly where we found it.’
They each took a side of the carriage and made a thorough sweep of each shelf and surface, meeting at the desk below Alexander’s portrait.
‘What are we looking for?’ Ozan asked.
‘Alexander Kratzenstein’s will,’ Hal said.
Ozan stiffened. ‘His will? But won’t Clara have that already?’
‘It’s missing – that’s why the adults are all shouting at each other,’ Hal replied, cursing himself for letting that bit of information slip out. Remembering that he was meant to be long-sighted, he lifted out a plastic folder of letters from the top desk drawer and clumsily dropped it to the floor scattering the pages. ‘Drat! I wish I’d brought my glasses.’ He waved at the letters on the floor. ‘I can’t read these.’
‘You couldn’t anyway. It’s all in German.’ Ozan gathered the pages together and began to look through them.
‘Does any of it look like a will?’
‘No, it’s all letters between Alexander and some company,’ said Ozan. ‘I’ll keep looking.’ He passed the wodge of pages to Hal, who returned them to their plastic folder. At the top of the papers Hal noticed the logo of the firm that was corresponding with Alexander Kratzenstein was a zigzag of three mountain peaks above the word Stromacre.
‘There’s nothing here.’ Ozan checked the last drawer. ‘We should go before Aksel comes back.’
There was one other place that Hal thought Alexander’s missing will could be, but he didn’t relish the idea of going back into Bertha’s room.
CHAPTER TWENTY
DEAD MAN’S PASS
The two boys, each dragging a sledge, marched out of the train shed on to the untrodden snow.
‘There’s Hilda and Herman!’ Ozan nodded towards the courtyard entrance, and Hal saw the pair rolling a snowball the size of a pumpkin. ‘They’re making a snowman.’
‘Where did you disappear to?’ Hilda called out, waving.
Ozan pointed to the sledges by way of reply. ‘Wait till Hilda hears what you saw on Aksel’s locket,’ he said. ‘She’ll freak out.’
‘Don’t say anything in front of Herman. We don’t want to frighten him.’
‘We came out to find you,’ Hilda said, looking from Ozan to Hal, obviously unhappy about being left behind. ‘Why did you sneak off without us?’
‘Hal wanted to look at the steam engine,’ Ozan said, and Hal nodded. ‘And I found the sledges. We were just coming to get you.’
‘If we go to the other end of Dead
Man’s Pass, it’s downhill all way back to the house,’ Herman said. ‘It’s really fun to sledge down the rail tracks.’
Excited by this idea, they set off towards the pass. Ozan pulled on his gloves and scooped up some snow, packing it solid in his fist and then firing it at Hal, who jumped back just in time.
‘Missed me,’ Hal crowed as Hilda aimed a snowball at the back of Ozan’s head, scoring a direct hit.
Hal threw a snowball at Herman, missing on purpose. Herman’s retaliatory snowballs were small, but he was a good shot. He fired a barrage of snowballs at Hal and the three powder bombs exploded one after another on Hal’s chest, shoulder and upper arm. The four of them chased each other, laughing and dodging, firing and feigning, along the railway tracks, but their laughter died away when they reached the mouth of Dead Man’s Pass.
‘I see the skull,’ Ozan said. ‘There, in the wall of the pass. That overhanging rock is the forehead and below it, see those holes?’ The gaping cavities that made the top of the face were devoid of snow. ‘They are the eyes. That triangle gap between them is the nose.’
‘There’s no mouth,’ Hal said. He looked at Herman. ‘Is that it? Is that the skull face Arnie was talking about? It’s not very spooky.’
Herman nodded. ‘Opa puts pumpkin lanterns in the eyeholes at Halloween. It looks spooky then.’
The rails curved into the pass, and Hal was surprised by how narrow it was – no wider than a farm track. The towering rock walls made the cutting feel claustrophobic, and once they were inside, the acoustics amplified that feeling. Any noise in the pass echoed off the walls, but all sounds from the outside world were silenced.
Hal had to admit that, from inside the pass, the skull was scarier. The eyes glared down at him, unblinking, and the lack of a jawbone gave the impression that it had opened its mouth wide, as if to swallow them up. He recalled Arnie’s story of encountering the witch here and him saying the eyes were glowing. He could see how that would be terrifying. He looked around, wondering where Alexander’s body had been found, but the snow had covered up all possible clues, including Uncle Nat’s tracks from last night. Was that why his uncle had come out here? Did he want to check for clues before the snow fell? Hal realized that would have been a good idea.
‘The mist looks like the Brocken’s breath,’ Hilda said, looking up at the flattened peak of the mountain and the icy vapour lacing through the treetops. ‘We won’t have a blue sky for long.’
‘I changed my mind.’ Herman shivered, ‘I don’t want to go sledging. I want to go back and finish the snowman.’
‘Don’t be afraid,’ Ozan said, linking arms with Herman. ‘We’ll take care of you.’
Herman laughed nervously. ‘I’m not afraid.’
Hilda took Herman’s free hand and gave him a comforting smile. ‘If you’re worried, we can go back . . .’
‘I’m not scared,’ Herman insisted, looking terrified. He shook them off and grabbed the ropes of Ozan’s sledge, marching through the pass, dragging it behind him.
Hal hurried to fall in step beside him. ‘How about we go on the sledge together? It’ll go much faster. We may be able to ride it all the way back to the house.’
Herman nodded, but didn’t reply.
The pass was the length of three lorries, end to end. When they came out the other side, Hal saw that the railway track merged with another, which climbed the Brocken. A dark forest of gigantic fir trees lined the slopes either side of it.
The four children set up their two sledges on the narrow rails of the track.
‘We’ll go first,’ Ozan said, as Hilda clambered on to the front of their sledge, taking the steering ropes in her hands. Resting his hands on her shoulders, Ozan ran forward fast, pushing the sledge off, then dropped to his knees behind his sister. They rocketed down the pass, whooping and yelling, their jubilant shouts bouncing off the rock walls.
Herman laughed as Hilda and Ozan shot out of the pass at the other end, both coming off the sledge and landing in a heap in the snow. He looked at Hal. ‘Start slower. We’ll pick up speed, but not so much that we’ll fall off the rails.’
Herman sat at the front with his knees up against his chest, holding on to the steering rope. Hal sat down with his legs out straight, either side of Herman.
‘You ready?’ Hal asked, reaching behind him and grabbing a rail with each hand. Herman nodded and Hal pushed off.
They slid slowly at first and Hal leaned forward, helping the sledge pick up speed. He glimpsed something move above them and looked up. At the top of the pass, his eye caught the whirling of grey cloth, then he heard the scattershot of falling stones. ‘Let go of the ropes! ’ he shouted, flinging his arms round Herman and launching them both off the sledge. As they landed in the snow, Hal tightened his grip round the boy and rolled, so that Herman was sandwiched safely between the rock wall and Hal.
With a thunderous clatter, a landslide of stones and snow smashed down on to their empty sledge.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
WITCH’S PRINTS
‘Bist du in Ordnung?’ Hilda cried as she and Ozan ran to the entrance of the cutting.
Hal looked up cautiously, fearful of more missiles from above, but Dead Man’s Pass was silent. He patted Herman. ‘We’re OK. Come on.’ He got to his feet and helped Herman up, who was staring with horror at the battered sledge.
‘We could have died,’ he whispered, his breath coming in wheezes.
‘No,’ Hal replied dismissively, trying to hide how shaken he felt. ‘We might have got a bump on the head and had a few scratches, but that’s all. Come on, let’s get out of here.’ He grabbed the sledge ropes and Herman’s hand, then hurried towards Hilda and Ozan.
‘You saved my life.’ Herman looked at him with wide eyes. ‘Thank you.’
‘What are cousins for?’ Hal replied with a warm smile.
‘Are you OK?’ Hilda asked.
‘What happened?’ Ozan asked.
‘I think the snow, and your whooping, dislodged some loose stones,’ Hal lied. ‘I heard them falling, and rolled us to safety.’ He pulled the sledge forward so they could see the dented and slashed plastic. ‘Good job, really.’
‘Oh!’ Hilda gasped, then seeing that Herman was shivering she put her arm round him. ‘That must’ve been a terrible shock, Herman. Are you all right? You know what we all need? Some breakfast. Come on, let’s go back to the house. I’m starving.’
‘There are stones on the track,’ Hal said, not moving. ‘We should clear them. It’s dangerous to leave them there.’
‘I’ll help you,’ Ozan said.
‘We’ll meet you back at the house,’ Hal said, and Hilda nodded, walking Herman away from Dead Man’s Pass.
‘Quick, come with me,’ Hal said, hurrying back along the track, looking up. When they reached the rockfall, Ozan bent and started clearing them off the tracks, but Hal tugged his arm. ‘We need to find a way up, he whispered. ‘Someone was up there just before the stones fell.’
Running through the pass, studying the walls, Hal saw there was no way up. At the other end, where they had set their sledges, he spotted goat footprints in the snow, and a track up the incline that wove between fir trees. ‘This way,’ he called, not waiting for Ozan as he climbed higher, slipping and sliding on the snow, using the trees to propel himself along. The shock of what had happened in the pass was only now sinking in and he was angry. Had someone sent down that shower of stones on purpose?
By the time they reached the crest of the cutting, Hal knew whoever he’d seen up here was long gone.
‘We’re too late,’ he said as Ozan scrambled up beside him.
‘You said it was our shouts and the snow that caused the stones to fall,’ Ozan said, leaning against a tree trunk as he paused to catch his breath.
‘I said that so Herman wouldn’t be frightened. I saw someone.’
‘What did you see?’
‘A grey cloak.’
‘No face?’
Hal s
hook his head.
‘Do you think it was the witch?’
‘Or someone looking like the witch,’ Hal said, climbing on to a boulder. He turned slowly, scanning the landscape, taking in every detail of what he saw around him, first in the foreground at his feet, and then expanding his view, taking in details further away, right up to the horizon. He looked for shadows among the tree trunks, movement beyond the pass. The snow helped. He saw his and Ozan’s footprints, and then a set of larger prints in the snow.
‘What are you doing?’ Ozan asked, climbing up beside him.
‘Looking.’ Hal pointed to the set of large footprints. ‘I was right. There was someone up here. You can see deep footprints where they kicked those stones free.’ He jumped down, placing his own foot beside one of the larger prints, then removed it. ‘I’m a size six. This print is much bigger, and look – it has a round toe. It looks like a man’s boot.’
‘If we had a camera, we could take a picture.’
‘I’ve got a notebook.’ Hal pulled it from his pocket with his pen. ‘I could try and draw it?’
‘Um, okay,’ Ozan said, not looking convinced.
‘You keep a lookout.’ Hal didn’t want Ozan to watch him draw. He needed to make his picture appear basic, but wanted to get the difference in scale of the two footprints, and the tread on the perpetrator’s boot, right.
Ozan nodded, and scanned the horizon from the rock, like Hal had.
Hal quickly sketched his own footprint and then, beside it, the larger boot print. He guessed the boot print was a size ten – definitely a man’s shoe. He drew the chunky pattern on the sole, noticing it was worn down on the inner heel.
‘Hal . . . someone is moving down there.’ Ozan pointed in the direction the footprints led.
‘Let’s see if we can catch up with them,’ Hal said, putting his pocketbook away, as Ozan jumped down.
The pair half ran, half slid down the rocky hillside, trying to stay low and catch up to their quarry.
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