She rubbed at her left leg, to put the life back into it, and ducked into the chimney. She lifted her left shoe and set it against the opposite wall. She braced herself, then lifted the other leg, pressing her back against the wall. Slowly, painfully, she began to wriggle upwards, her knees shaking with the effort.
‘Good!’ Arkady whispered.
Her head was inside the chimney; then her torso and shoulders. She breathed in, and soot pressed against the back of her throat.
Then a sound, so quiet it could be the breath of the house, made Vita freeze.
It was Silk’s voice. ‘Someone’s coming!’
Frantically Vita clicked off her torch and edged herself higher, dragging the skin of her back against the wall, until the whole of her body was wedged inside the chimney. She could see nothing except blackness. There was a barely audible scuffling as the others dived for hiding places.
And then the door opened.
Vita, peering down past her own body at the floor, saw the room illuminate with torchlight, followed by slow footsteps.
She squeezed her eyes shut. It was like an agonising, hideous game of hide-and-seek.
The footsteps came further into the room. Vita’s spine was aching, and the dust in her throat was starting to sting. She fought back the urge to cough.
The feet sounded as though they were retreating. The light moved towards the door; then it hesitated, and flicked once more around the room. There was a thud; it sounded as though the guard had kicked a sofa. Dust billowed suddenly up the chimney, and Vita’s body convulsed as she let out the smallest sound – a strangulated, muted cough.
The feet paused. Then another man’s voice came down the corridor, too faint to hear, but the impatience in it was clear. The man in the room grunted. Feet strode out, closing the door behind them.
There was silence. Then, in the quietest of whispers, Samuel spoke. His voice was near the chimney.
‘Are you all right in there?’
‘Yes,’ said Vita. ‘Who was it?’
‘The guard,’ said Silk.
‘You said they’d be digging,’ said Arkady.
‘I thought they would be,’ said Vita.
She tensed every muscle, and gritted every single tooth, and pushed herself the last six inches higher into the chimney. It was narrower now. In the wall to the left of her, at the height of her shoulder, she felt the sudden chill of iron.
She switched on the torch.
She could see her knuckles, skinned and stained with something dark and wet. She could also see, set into the door of the safe, a dial. Slowly, her arms cramped and hands fumbling inside the chimney, she turned it.
The door clicked. It was almost impossible to open, in the small space, with her own head and shoulders in the way. She peered in.
There was nothing. No box, no green gleam of an emerald.
Cold misery swooped over her. She edged a hand in, keeping the other braced against the wall.
Her hand met a handful of papers – some full sheets, some scraps. She dragged them out, and stuffed them, for want of a better place, down her front. Then she wriggled downwards, until the dark ground was close enough to drop. She landed, painfully, on top of her own leg, and stood. It was a struggle not to cry: not from the pain, but from the doubt that had swept over her.
The other three stood clustered around the mantelpiece in complete darkness.
‘Anything?’ whispered Silk.
Vita gave a tiny shake of her head. ‘This is all there was,’ she said. She fished out the papers from her top, folded them tightly into a block of paper the size of her palm, and stuffed them into the waistband of her skirt.
There was a pause, in which Vita tried to haul her heart up from the floor.
‘Don’t look like that,’ said Samuel. ‘Is there anywhere else it could be?’
‘Presumably,’ said Silk, ‘it could be anywhere in the entire house.’ Her voice was tight with nerves. ‘Which – I don’t know if you noticed – is a large one.’
‘Did your grandpa ever talk about other hiding places?’ said Arkady. ‘Do you have a Plan B?’
Slowly Vita nodded. She had hoped so hard that she wouldn’t have to use it.
Arkady brightened. ‘I knew you would! Where? Tell!’
‘There’s a place my grandpa discovered when he was just a kid – but I was so sure it would be in the safe!’
‘Where is it? Tell!’
Vita swallowed. ‘In the turret.’
‘The same turret that you said is about to collapse?’ said Silk.
‘That one,’ said Vita. ‘Let’s go.’
They went single file down the corridor, glancing over their shoulders, until they reached the end of the hallway. It widened to another sweeping staircase, broad enough for them to run up four abreast. It had once been polished, and it still gleamed a glorious rich oak, but it was pockmarked with woodworm and damp. One side was lit by the moon.
Vita led the way, keeping to the shadowy side, where the stars could not reach them. Her muscles were so tense she could feel them contracting under her skin.
At the top of the stairs, there was a hallway, exactly as she had known it would be, waiting for her as if she had been there a dozen times before. She remembered everything she had taught herself, and the relief of it was like a gasp of oxygen in the night.
Vita turned left. As they crept along the corridor, a wooden plank creaked under Arkady’s foot, as loud, it seemed to Vita, as a scream, and they all froze.
The house fell silent. It settled back into its dust and majesty.
‘It’s OK,’ said Vita.
Suddenly a noise like a cannon shot rang out. Silk, Samuel and Arkady flattened themselves against the wall, but Vita ran to the window. Only one thing could be that loud, here, in the middle of nowhere: the sound of a huge chunk of wood slamming into place. Outside the front door was the jetty, and moored at the jetty was a small boat, its chrome edging glinting in the moonlight.
‘The front door,’ Vita breathed. Her hand went to her penknife. ‘He’s here.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
For a moment, Vita was obliterated. Instinct seized her and shook her like a rat; it told her to push the others out of the way, tear down the stairs, leap into the water and swim home.
Get out, said her blood. Leave the others. Go.
She gripped the window sill and waited for it to pass. It did, as it had always done before, and left her feeling sick to her stomach. It had felt like a sharp hour, but it had only been seconds: the others were still standing in the corridor, waiting for her to tell them what to do.
She turned to them, lifted her chin and pushed back her shoulders so she faced the night like a detective, like a cat, like an acrobat.
‘He’ll either go and check on us straight away, or he’ll go to the garden and see if they’ve found the jewel. I think that’s more likely.’
‘Yes,’ said Silk.
‘Either way, he’ll soon find out we’ve escaped,’ said Vita. ‘And he’ll start searching the house.’ She spoke so quickly her words collided, and the others leaned closer. ‘Listen. This place has twenty-six rooms. If he searches each of them properly, and starts from the bottom floor, it could take him twenty-six minutes to reach the last one.’
‘No. A minute’s a long time. More like thirty seconds per room – so, thirteen,’ said Arkady, but his eyes were beginning to shine again, as he understood what she meant.
‘The way out,’ said Vita. She spoke quickly. ‘You need to know where it is. There’s a grate in the wall, in the back of the cellar – it’s just a gap with a grating over it – it’s where the waste pipe used to be.’
‘Waste pipe? That’s your escape route? A drain?’
‘Not any more – now it’s just a grate. It’s bolted to the wall, but it unscrews from the inside. Silk should be able to use a lock-pick on it. It drops straight into the lake – that’s why it’s exit-only – so you’ll have to swim.’ She stepp
ed backwards, down the corridor, away from them.
‘He’s here. I’m so sorry – this wasn’t how I thought it would be. You need to go.’
Arkady gave a snort that sounded like a laugh. ‘We’re not leaving you here!’
‘Yes you are! We didn’t know Sorrotore would come – I would never have brought you here—’
‘What are you planning?’ said Samuel.
‘I’m going to the turret. That’s the last place he’ll look. It was boarded up years ago, when it got too dangerous. He might not even come up there. Maybe.’
‘But what if you get trapped?’ said Silk. Her voice was very quiet. ‘Vita, maybe you’re right – maybe we should leave. But if we’re going, you have to come with us. This isn’t a game; you don’t know what he might do if he finds you.’
Vita shook her head. ‘I swore.’
‘Your grandfather wouldn’t want you to do this!’ said Silk.
‘I swore.’ As urgent as the fear was the image of Grandpa – how he would take the emerald in his twisted fingers, holding it up so the light would catch its glow, and the smile that would break across his face. ‘I know it’s not a game! When I find that necklace, everything changes.’
‘Well, we’ve already wasted a full minute,’ said Samuel. ‘Go.’
‘I’m coming,’ said Silk. ‘If you’re going to be stupid, I might as well be too. There might be locks.’
‘Ark and I will keep watch on the floor below,’ said Samuel, ‘and send a signal if he comes up.’
Vita nodded. She wanted to find words that were large enough for the ache in her chest – words that were more than ordinary, day-to-day language – but there was no time, and Sorrotore might be anywhere.
So she only said, ‘Thank you,’ and ran.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Vita left her torch with the boys. She led the way down the dark corridor, one hand running along the stone wall, until she reached another staircase. She limped up it, Silk following, breathing hard. The staircase led to a landing, and more rooms, stretching left and right.
‘Left,’ she whispered.
The door at the end of the corridor was smaller than the others. It was padlocked closed.
‘All right,’ said Silk. Her face was lined, her eyebrows almost touching in the middle. She knelt, and slid her lock-pick into the padlock. She fiddled with it. A frown came over her face.
‘Who fitted this?’
‘Grandpa. It leads to the tower. He didn’t want anyone getting up there.’
‘It’s odd … It’s been chewed.’
‘Chewed? By an animal?’
Silk shook her head. ‘The mechanism’s off – like the last time someone locked it, they attacked the inside with a screwdriver. Like someone wanted to make sure nobody ever opened it again.’
Vita’s heart fell. ‘So what does that mean? We can’t get in?’
‘No,’ said Silk. She swapped the lock-pick for a longer, thinner hook from her stocking top. ‘It’s just going to take longer.’
‘We don’t have longer!’
Silk glared at her. ‘I had picked up on that,’ she said. ‘Do you have a light?’
Vita struck a match, and Silk was illuminated, her hands lightly resting on the lock, as if her fingertips could listen to its insides.
Far below, there was the sudden sound of a slamming door. Vita jerked the match and it went out, but she said nothing.
Silk drew a deep breath, fitted a new shard of metal into the lock, and did not exhale until the padlock gave a small, barely audible click. She tore it off and handed it to Vita, who shoved it in her pocket and hauled back the door. It groaned on its hinges.
Behind the door was a spiral staircase, made of uneven slabs of stone, worn smooth as marble by feet and time. A cobweb hung down from the curved ceiling, turning from grey to silver in the light of the match Vita struck.
‘If you don’t want to come,’ Vita said, ‘I would completely understand.’
Silk snorted. She did not bother to reply.
Vita started up the stairs, as fast as she could force her body to go. Silk followed, pulling the door shut behind her.
The dark here was absolute, and Vita paused on the stairs to strike another match, fumbling for the emergency candle stub in her pocket. If ever there was an emergency, she told herself, this was it.
‘How high is it?’ breathed Silk.
‘It can’t be much further,’ said Vita. As she spoke, the staircase widened to a tower room, barely ten feet across each way but vastly high. In one corner was a steep wooden staircase, leading to a door set thirty feet high in the wall, so small it was almost a window.
‘Up there?’
Together they took in the staircase. It looked half ruined; as if something had waged war on it over the years, with teeth and claws and small weaponry.
‘Woodworm,’ said Vita.
‘Is it safe?’ asked Silk.
‘I think I’ve seen safer things,’ said Vita. ‘But that’s the only way.’
‘What’s at the top?’
‘The sky,’ said Vita. ‘I’ll go first.’
She put one foot in the middle of the first step, and felt the wood dip. She took a second step, a third, and the staircase cracked like fire. Something under her foot snapped. She moved faster, on hands and knees, feeling the wood give under her palms. Silk followed; her foot went straight through one step, and she hissed but did not cry out. Vita was near the top when a sound below – far below, on the stone steps – made her freeze.
Someone was coming up to the tower.
Vita took the last steps at a run, reached the small wooden door, shoved it open and darted through. She found herself standing on the stone floor of a circular tower, open to the sky. Silk followed, shutting the door soundlessly behind her. They peered under the gap of the door, back down the wooden stairs into the dark.
The flickering light of a gas lamp drenched the small room below them. A head appeared, then a broad-shouldered body.
Sorrotore paused, breathing in dust, staring up at the staircase. The wood looked, from Vita’s vantage point, shipwrecked. He grunted, and crossed to it.
The first step he took caused the stair to splinter. He grimaced, and was just taking the second step when there was a noise – it wasn’t a door slamming, or the wind. It was a yell of triumph, a whoop! that echoed and rebounded against the walls.
‘Vita!’ A shout came filtering through the building. ‘I’ve found it!’
‘Arkady,’ breathed Vita.
Sorrotore froze. Then he turned and hurled himself back the way he had come.
‘He’s found it!’ whispered Silk. ‘Let’s go! The cellar!’
‘Wait!’ said Vita.
‘Why? Come on! Arkady found the necklace!’
‘But he wouldn’t yell if he found it! He’s not an idiot.’
Silk snorted.
‘He’s not,’ said Vita. ‘He’s smart – properly smart. There’s something wrong.’
‘But he sounded happy!’
‘What if he was trying to get Sorrotore back down the stairs? What if Arkady knew we’d been cornered?’
Silk caught her meaning. ‘What now?’
Vita’s mind spun. ‘We go back down – but quietly. Take some of the wood from the stairs as a weapon. Try to get him from behind.’
‘But if Arkady and Samuel haven’t found it down there, then it’s up here, and if it’s up here, we’re not leaving till we have it.’
‘I’m not staying up here if he’s got Arkady and Samuel.’ Vita tried to move past Silk. ‘It’s my fault they’re here—’
‘No!’ Silk pushed Vita back. ‘They would kill us if we gave up now. Where’s the hiding place?’
Vita shook herself. ‘It’s – I don’t know. It’s a loose stone in the tallest tower.’
Silk looked, dismayed, at the stones around them. ‘You’re joking. Nothing to narrow that down?’
‘No.’ The word felt heavy in
Vita’s mouth.
‘Think, Vita!’
With an immense effort, Vita hauled her mind back – out from her feet, out from her stomach, out from her panicking, roaring chest. ‘He was a jeweller,’ she said. ‘He said almost anything can be a jewel. Look for beautiful stones.’
‘They’re not beautiful! They’re stones!’
But, in the merging of candlelight and moonlight, some were more beautiful than others. Some were stern grey, but others were streaked with purple, spotted with blue, veined with white.
Vita scanned the walls, reaching out to push and pull at the stones that were speckled, or shaped like continents. Silk crouched low over the base-level stones, muttering, ‘Beautiful stones. Sure. Luxury rocks. Why not?’ under her breath.
The tower was circular, and barely five paces in diameter, but it stretched high above Vita’s head. She was just beginning to wonder what she would do if it was one of the high-set stones when she felt a sudden give under her fingers.
She looked again at the stone under her palm. It was an almost perfect square, grey, with a ragged, bluish lightning bolt running through it.
She dug her fingers into the mortar around the edge of the rock and pulled. The stone screeched, stone against mortar against nails, but it came, slowly at first, and then suddenly it was in her arms and she had dropped it on the flagstoned floor of the tower, almost crushing her own foot.
‘Silk!’ Vita’s voice was jagged with sudden, inexplicable tears. ‘Silk!’
Silk turned, and her eyes and mouth fell open. There, in the candlelight, wedged on its side in the heart of the wall, was a wooden box.
‘It’s here,’ whispered Vita.
Silk’s voice sounded husky, knocked sideways with it. ‘I didn’t believe it! I can’t believe it!’
Vita’s hands shook as she reached in and pulled the box out. Her fingers got pinched and the skin grazed off two fingertips, but she didn’t feel it.
The box was dusty and covered in bits of mortar. It was as wide and long as a child’s outspread hand. She wiped it with her sleeve, and the rich brown wood shone through. She shook it; there was no rattle of jewels, but there was the muffled thud of something wrapped in cloth. She dug her nail under the lid and tried to open it.
The Good Thieves Page 14
