by K. M. Peyton
‘Arnie is a real threat to their success – you think about it,’ John Pike pointed out. ‘No-one suspects what they’ve done. Only Arnie. Arnie knows more than is good for him.’
‘But so do we, now,’ Jodie said.
‘Yeah, that’s what I’m worried about!’
‘You don’t think—!’ Nutty stopped bouncing and leaned over the seat, breathing down Christian’s neck. ‘He’ll murder all of us?’
Hoomey started to cry. He stared out of the window, trying to convince himself he was on holiday, having a great time.
‘He can’t,’ Jodie said bluntly. ‘There’s too many of us!’
The road hairpinned upwards. Christian crashed gears valiantly but managed to keep the old car from stalling. The gravelly surface spun out from beneath the spinning wheels and there was a strong smell of burning rubber. But the gradient eased gradually and the road came out on to a high plateau. On the left beyond a flattish stretch the land dipped into a deep gorge with a stream in spate running down towards a far valley; the hillside reared up steeply beyond, with a crown of rocks standing black against the rain-steely sky. Ahead there was sparse forest with high mountains beyond, and mountains rimmed the view to the right. There appeared to be nowhere to go ahead, but the road slashed on across a sea of heather and the tail-lights of the Citroen were still in sight, fireflies in the gathering gloom.
‘Does he know we’re following him?’ John Pike wondered.
‘If he does, I wouldn’t have thought he’d have his lights on,’ Christian said. ‘That’s why I’m not using them.’
‘He’s slowing down,’ Nutty said.
Christian lifted his foot a fraction off the floor.
‘He’s going left! There can’t be a road down there?’
The ground fell away in that direction, but there was no doubt the rear-lights were bouncing downhill. Shortly they disappeared. Christian accelerated again.
The detour was solved when they came to a fork in the road. A cart-track fell away to the left where the Citroen had gone. A footpath direction sign pointed the way.
‘Antrim Falls,’ they read.
Christian accelerated onward, not taking the side road.
What are you doing?’ Nutty squeaked.
‘We stand more chance if we can surprise him! It can’t be far down there – Pike and I’ll run down. If we take the car he’ll hear us as soon as he stops his own engine.’
‘We’ll come!’ the girls cried with one breath.
‘No! If we want help we’ll yell. Otherwise stay here!’
His voice was sharply General-ish. The girls subsided, scowling, and the two boys sprinted away downhill, leaping across the heather. They were dressed in their orchestra gear, black trousers, black jerseys, white shirts and pale grey ties, and in the murk faded quickly. They seemed to move exceedingly fast.
Jodie and Nutty sat, deflated, realizing how scared they were. This was a bleak place to be in with a murderer and doing nothing was harder than speeding to the rescue.
‘Suppose—?’ Jodie started, and hesitated.
Hoomey was shivering. The landscape was grey in every direction, save for a lemon-yellow streak of fading sunlight over the far mountains. It was still and windless; the rain was like a drifting mist, and the booming of the stream as it hurtled down its narrow gorge was loud on the evening air.
‘It can’t be far away – hark at it,’ Jodie said.
‘Perhaps he’s going to throw him in,’ Nutty said. ‘Good way to get rid of anyone.’
They opened the windows and sat waiting, listening. A cool breeze riffled the heather and a hare ran away ahead of them down the track. Nutty found her initial excitement draining slowly away and a nasty feeling, much like fear, taking over. The scene was not cosy in any way at all, the grey premature dusk stealing up from the valleys with faint lines of mist lying in the crooks and declivities all round them. The booming of the water through the nearby gorge was suggestive and chilling. The heat of the moment had worn off and it was clear that there was only one reason why the Russian murderer had taken that downward path towards the Falls. Nutty found herself shivering, but the awareness of Jodie’s tense, hard face watching the valley without a show of any emotion tightened her resolve. The boys might need them and, if they did, need them pretty badly.
Christian and John Pike were fit with their tough school sports experience and negotiated the rough ground only marginally slower than the Citroen ahead of them. The rear-lights shone strongly as the car lurched and braked down the uneven road. The boys had to slow down, doubled closely into the heather.
They both knew they needed a plan.
‘Attack him first?’
‘He’s very powerful . . . get as close as we can . . .’
‘He must be going to chuck him over the bridge—’
‘Cripes! If he does—’
The ground fell sharply away, suddenly, and on the other side of the stream the hillside crowded close, boulder strewn, making a sudden deep gorge into which the water fell with a hollow booming noise. With trees clinging to the steep sides and an ancient arched bridge over the lip of the waterfall, the murder venue chosen by Ferretface was a tourist beauty spot, complete with car park, litter bin and National Trust collecting-box. The spray from the Falls made a mist against the black hillside and the dampness was like a cold shroud settling over their faces as they watched the black car. It went past the car park and came to a halt on the threshold of the bridge.
Christian and John Pike scrambled down the bank of heather, the noise of the waterfall covering the sound of their approach. Fast as they ran, they were still out of reach as Ferretface ran round to the passenger seat and dragged Arnold bodily out on to the road. Arnold seemed to have no fight and made no resistance, very small and limp in the grasp of his adversary, dragged without a struggle to the parapet of the bridge.
Christian and John Pike screamed with one voice and leapt violently off the steep heather bank. The Russian turned and they saw his astonished face, white and gleaming below them. But immediately, convulsively, he scooped up Arnie’s legs, shoved them over the parapet and with one quick shove sent him toppling over the top.
‘No!’
The shock horror of his action galvanized the two boys. They veered off and plunged down the side of the gorge at a pace which in cold blood was suicidal. The waterfall fell unimpeded into a deep pool below them and then overflowed over a wide lip into lower pools and wild, foaming reaches which they could hear, if not see, in the spray-shot gloom. Falling rather than climbing down the cliff, they grabbed branches and, tufts of ferns as best they could to steady progress, sending down showers of loose rock. Once Arnie’s body went over the lip and down into the rocky reaches below it would be pounded to death, such was the spate of water after the incessant rain – they both knew that. But the drop into the deep pool was not a killer. Save—
‘He can’t swim!’ John Pike jerked out. ‘He told me!’
Christian made a grab for a birch branch which broke off in his hand and fell the last three metres into the deep pool. The water was ice-cold and he came up feeling that he had had his chest smashed in. The falling stream above roared in his ears so that he had to shout to John Pike, dithering on a ledge above him.
‘Where – where—?’ But he had no breath in his body.
John Pike pointed. Christian tossed his hair out of his eyes and looked across the foaming pool, feeling awesome currents tugging at his legs, already taking him off willy-nilly away from the bank. He was a strong swimmer and not frightened, only frightened of not getting Arnie before he went over the top. Or sank. He panicked momentarily, not seeing anything else in the pool.
‘Over there!’
John Pike was pointing all the time, hopping about on his ledge like an agitated monkey.
Christian swam in the direction indicated, across the pool, and felt himself plucked and buffeted so that he came up against the sill without meaning to. The rocks s
eemed to crash into him, and the pull threatened to take him over the top. It was very strong and terrifyingly persistent, like a giant hand shoving. He swam against it, facing the waterfall, fending off with his feet, far more frightened than he wanted to be. If he had to come back with Arnie it would be touch and go to make it. Yet he knew there was no getting out on the far side: the rock was sheer, even over-hanging, and there were no ledges at water-level to offer sanctuary.
He could see Arnie now, bobbing like discarded litter on the far side, slowly approaching the sill. He was holding his face above water and dog-paddling, but merely keeping afloat. As he came out from the rocks he started to be swept more and more rapidly towards the sill.
There was no time to lose. Christian kicked himself off and swam towards him with his powerful crawl, resisting the current by the sheer strength of his stroke. He closed gradually with Arnie who, seeing deliverance, started to panic. His face went under, bobbed up once, and went under again.
Christian threshed down, catching him by his loose jersey. He turned on to his back and kicked with all his strength to get back under the relative tranquillity of the far wall of rock, heaving Arnie with him, cupped under the chin. Pure funk, made a splendid impetus. The roaring of the water made it seem that there was no world outside this treacherous pool; it was like being thrown into a deep pit and pressed down and in and kept there.
And ‘kept there’ was the relevant phrase, he realized, as he homed suddenly into a perfectly still and currentless back eddy under the wall of the far rock. Kicking so hard, he found there was suddenly no resistance, and he came up quite violently against the rock wall, nearly knocking himself out. The relief was tremendous. He relaxed, and heaved Arnold into a more comfortable grasp. Arnold was squeaking incoherently like a drowned hamster, but mercifully not wriggling overmuch.
John Pike was still on his ledge, but Christian could hear nothing he was shouting for the sound of the water. He indicated as much, and John Pike then went into a great mime, sweeping his arms round in circles, and Christian gathered that he was suggesting it might be better to come back to the bank beneath him by swimming behind the waterfall, rather than across the sill. Christian thought it was worth a try. There was a big scooped cave of rock behind the foaming cauldron where the water hit bottom, and it looked positively calm and peaceful. Whether it was, remained to be seen.
‘Just relax, Arnie. I’ll take you. But don’t flail about, for goodness sake. I won’t let go.’
Arnie’s wet hair stood straight up as if an electric current was running through it. He seemed to have taken in the situation, but was, quite understandably, jibbering with fright and quite unable to make conversation. Christian took him in a firm grip and kicked off hard, heading for inside the waterfall. To his great relief the water was comparatively undisturbed. Several backwashes buffeted them about but there was no gripping current tearing them to where they didn’t want to go, only the impressive sight of ten metres of water plummeting down from heaven with a roar like thunder to land far too close to their eardrums. Somehow Christian managed to remember that a steamer made a trippers’ journey round the back of the Niagara Falls – had John Pike remembered this nugget of information? He kicked on, the icy cold beginning to get to him, cramping his lungs. Swimming with Arnold in tow was no joke.
John Pike had managed to decamp to water level and was holding out the substantial branch which had broken off in Christian’s hand. It made a sort of harbour wall and Christian was relieved to stop swimming and take it in his grasp. John Pike heaved him in and leaned down to swap his hand for the branch.
‘Take Arnie!’ Christian muttered. For a little lad he was a ton weight to tow.
There was only a tiny bit of bank, a ledge of rock from which John Pike leaned down to extend one hand, the other held fast to a useful and well-rooted alder sapling. Arnold reached out and was hauled ashore like a bundle of wet washing, then Christian, and the three of them started to climb up the bank before they froze to death. There was no breath for talking. Arnold was in a state of trance and needed much pulling and shoving. He was shaking and ghost-white and could not speak.
‘Shock,’ said Christian. ‘And he’s had a bang on the head – he might be concussed.’
‘Cripes, d’you think that rat is still up there, waiting for us?’ Pike stopped suddenly.
They were halfway up the cliff-face – both good climbers, it seemed easier going up than coming down – and the gorge was dark and the rain now lashing down. Christian stopped, surprised he hadn’t thought of the possibility himself. Then he shrugged.
‘Hope for the best!’
But the car had gone. When they dragged Arnold over the last slab of rock they found the tourist beauty spot deserted. Coming down the track towards them was Mildred’s old Cortina with Jodie at the wheel.
‘He drove back down the valley, the way we came up! As soon as we saw him go we came down.’
‘Thank heaven for that! Here, help get Arnie in the car – he’s just about all out.’
They explained what had happened and the girls hauled out the blankets Mildred used for cocooning her harp in and handed them to the dripping boys.
‘Put the heater on!’ They all crowded back into the car, and Jodie reversed it into the car park and out again, heading back up the hill. The rain slammed down and the sky ahead was black. They were all talking at once, astounded by their adventure.
‘He’s a murderer!’
‘Suppose you’d been too late! Poor old Arnie! Are you OK, Arnie?’
Arnold still felt close to death, but knew he wasn’t any more, which helped his brain if not his body. The warmth of his orchestral friends was reviving him.
‘Lucky you were in time to fish him out!’
‘Cor, suppose—?’
‘Shut up, Hoomey!’
The car’s wheels spun and Jodie had no lower gear to change into.
‘Who’s volunteering to push?’
Christian said, ‘It’s almost out of petrol.’
‘I was pretending not to notice,’ Jodie said.
John Pike and Nutty got out to push and they managed to get going again.
‘I don’t think we should drive down in these conditions,’ Christian said. ‘It’s asking for trouble. Besides which, the petrol gauge is on zero.’
‘And the tyres are all bald,’ John Pike said.
‘There was a stone house up the valley,’ Nutty said. ‘We noticed it while we were waiting. One of those old hunting lodges, or a bothy or something. Empty, but it had a roof and windows and things. We could wait there till it gets light again.’
‘They might come looking for us – a helicopter! Fort Knox, I mean, not the Russians. If we don’t turn up, they’ll be worried. Well, they ought to be.’
‘Old Ferretface’ll fob them off – tell them we went joyriding in the opposite direction.’
‘Go on! If he’s got any sense he’s on his way back to Russia by now! When we get back and tell ’em—’
‘Wish we were back now!’
There was little comfort in the prospect ahead. Jodie gained the fork and turned up the valley. There was nothing to be seen but the rain-swept hillsides under the low, black-bellied cloud, not even any more a comforting streak of sunset. If Nutty hadn’t pinpointed the position of the hut while they waited they would never have seen it this time, but the headlights picked out a particular boulder and the thin walking track that left the road. When Jodie turned off the lights, they could see after their eyes became acclimatized the darker blob of the square hut against the featureless background. They all sat for a moment in silence, not wanting to get out.
‘It might be locked.’
Hoomey, unexpectedly, found a torch down the side of the back seat. He switched it on and found it worked.
‘I say, well done, Hoomey!’ The others were fulsome in their praise, so that he suddenly felt less useless. They all had a cast round for anything else useful but only came up with a
London street map and a packet of jelly babies, neither of which seemed likely to improve the night ahead. Reluctantly they piled out and started up the hillside in single file, John Pike leading with the torch. They were extraordinarily ill-clothed for the conditions, in their best black patent-leather shoes. The girls only had white blouses and black skirts, not even comfortable jeans, and they were all soaked through by the time they had slipped and slithered up the peat-slimy path. The door opened on a latch.
They piled in.
Hoomey swooshed the torch round. ‘Cor, we’re in luck!’
It was a climbers’ bothy, made from an old stalking lodge, and better maintained than most. It was clean and dry and had a fireplace with cut wood stacked beside it and, on a stone ledge above, some old stumps of candle and two tins of baked beans.
‘Matches?’
They were all soaked and shivering. The torch searched furiously.
‘There’s the cigarette lighter in the car,’ Jodie said. ‘It might light one of the candles.’
‘Let’s have a look first.’
There was an old cupboard with a few more relics in it: a nearly empty bottle of tomato ketchup, some paperback thrillers . . . a box of matches! Jodie opened it and found it full of used duds.
‘Oh, no!’
She emptied it on the earth floor and scratched over them, triumphantly surfacing with one unused match.
‘How’s that for luck!’
‘Light a candle!’
‘No, wait,’ Christian said. ‘It’s a fire we want. We must get it ready first. Before the candle.’
John Pike started tearing pages out of the paperbacks. The stacked wood was in fairly thick logs and there was little tinder, but some of it was birch and Christian started tearing off streamers of bark.
‘Keep the torch still, Hoomey!’
Nutty was impressed. ‘You trained as Boy Scouts or something?’
‘We do survival training at school. Try and get some splinters off the logs. You’ve got good fingernails.’
Arnold reckoned he was a survivor, but this country was something different. He could not stop shaking and thought he was going to pass out.
