‘You can say that again, Tom,’ said Joel. ‘When we were on the truck and Mike McCain was shooting at us from the ice cream van, he was only inches away from hitting us.’
‘And only seconds away from shooting me after the crash,’ added Maggie. ‘But you should have seen him keel over when Tom shot him with those darts. Oh, and about those darts, Tom.’
Tom froze, remembering the anaesthetic he had persuaded Maggie to acquire from Mr Green.
Aunt Emily looked at the three of them over the rims of her glasses and made for the kitchen. ‘I can see you three have a bit of catching up to do, so I’ll leave you to it.’
‘We’ve spoken to Dad about the propofol,’ Maggie whispered, when she had gone.
‘Yes?’
‘We didn’t have much choice, given that Mike McCain was found unconscious at the scene of the crash!’
‘You gave him a triple dose, Tom, so he was like Sleeping Beauty apparently!’ Joel added.
‘And what did your dad say?’
She looked at Tom and grinned. ‘He said, “If that’s what it took to save my daughter’s life, I won’t be complaining”.’
‘But if it weren’t for you two, I wouldn’t be here now,’ Tom replied. ‘There was a moment when I was getting into the shaft to escape and they were about to find me. I thought it was the end. Then I heard a message on the radio that they had spotted me outside. I’m guessing that was you guys? That was my final chance to escape. And just in time!’
‘What do you think happened to Rufus Clay?’ said Maggie.
‘The news report on the fire says that the owner perished with the farm,’ said Joel.
‘That’s what he wanted people to think,’ explained Tom. ‘But the fire was not an accident – it was all planned as a way of destroying any evidence and allowing him to escape.’
‘So you think he survived?’
‘Definitely,’ replied Tom. ‘When I was in his room, right at the end of his interrogation, I saw that he had a tiny personal submarine. It looked like a small torpedo, with a propeller at the back. Designed to pull a single scuba diver along.’
‘Cool,’ said Joel.
‘Then, when I went back with Skylark, I saw him take it out of the cupboard and do a runner. I’m pretty certain that while the others took their chances in the river he will have gone past the overflow and carried on in the aqueduct to come out somewhere else. Maybe he went against the current in the other direction. But he’ll be miles away by now.’
The next day the interviews began. The first was with the local police, who were mainly interested in his kidnapping, how he had escaped, and how he thought the fire at the farm had started. They had also sent him away with a warning about breaking Civil Aviation Authority rules.
Then Tom, Maggie and Joel had spent the best part of an afternoon with a man and a woman from MI5, in which they had given detailed accounts of everything they knew and how they knew it. Yet, despite the mass of eyewitness details that they provided, none of it, they were told, would be enough to get the members of the gang who had been arrested actually convicted and locked up. The photos Tom had taken inside Clay’s office were of interest but would only link Clay himself to any crimes, not the other members of the gang, and they were far from conclusive. Official records pointed to nothing more sinister than an ice cream factory, and every scrap of material evidence had been destroyed in the fire. Or was at the bottom of the lake, Tom had pointed out.
And this was the reason for the silence. It was an ongoing investigation, and they had been sworn to secrecy until further notice. The official story remained unchanged: a delinquent boy who tried to ram the Queen’s boat, and the quick-thinking intervention of ‘local youth Ryan Snaith’.
‘Totally gutting,’ Maggie said in exasperation, as they headed outside for some fresh air.
‘Also totally understandable,’ Joel replied.
But the last interview was different. Tom had been summoned back to the interview room alone, and he was told to wait to be discharged. He was expecting PC Clark to walk in clutching some forms. Instead a black man with aviator-style sunglasses, wearing a leather jacket over a polo shirt, came in.
‘Hello again,’ he said, as he sat down comfortably on the other side of the table.
Tom remembered the Puma pilot, who had chased and jammed Skylark on that Saturday morning. It seemed like a lifetime ago. He shook Tom’s hand with a warm smile and introduced himself as Squadron Leader Richard Riley.
‘Congratulations, Tom,’ he said, ‘and apologies.’
‘I—’
‘I’m not part of the investigation, you understand? But I’d really like to know the whole story. If you don’t mind.’
Tom hesitated, but then remembered the helicopter bringing the soldiers to the farm, and taking Victoria Juniper and the other terrorists away when they tried to escape on the Invincible. And so he told him everything. Squadron Leader Riley listened intently, eyes fixed on Tom, occasionally nodding or asking a question. He seemed particularly interested in Skylark’s role, and in the other drones Tom had made. When it came to explaining everything that had happened at the farm, including Tom’s escape from his cell, using Gnat, discovering the plot to bring down the Red Arrows, and how Tom had escaped through the Thirlmere Aqueduct, he leant back in his seat and puffed out his cheeks in amazement.
‘I wanted to apologize for not believing you when I jammed your drone.’
‘It’s OK,’ said Tom. ‘You were just doing your job.’
‘But I wonder if the feeling was mutual?’ He pulled back his sleeve to reveal the winged messenger tattoo on his wrist. ‘You thought I was one of them, didn’t you, which is why you didn’t know if you could trust us? I was seconded to the Signals for a while, but I don’t think my paths crossed with Rufus Clay.’
Tom reddened. ‘I’m sorry too. Maybe if I had done, I would’ve saved a whole lot of trouble.’
‘Maybe. Maybe not.’ Suddenly Squadron Leader Riley leant forward. ‘As I say, I didn’t know Rufus Clay. But I did know your father, Tom. Tony was my instructor. He taught me to fly fixed wings, before I transferred to rotary, and he went off to fly F3s in Iraq. He was a great man, your dad. He’d be very proud of you, Tom.’
CHAPTER 41
The following day, Tom heard footsteps on the gravel outside and Maggie burst through the door.
‘Tom! Everybody’s looking for you!’
‘Just a sec.’
‘What on earth are you doing now? Haven’t you had enough of all that?’
Tom had his digital gaming goggles on and was making precise movements on the flying controls.
‘Come on, we’re going to be late.’
‘I’m nearly there. Just one . . . more . . . inch . . .’
‘We’re all waiting for you at the harbour – Emily, Joel and our mum and dad.’ Maggie gestured needlessly towards the open door from where there was a sudden squawking from the magpies across the lawn.
‘Ahhh! No!’ Tom shook his head in frustration.
‘Now you really do look like you’re playing a computer game – and losing!’
‘Gotcha!’ he said at last, through clenched teeth. ‘Tell them I’ll be right there.’
Twenty minutes later they were all gathered on the aft deck of Matilda.
‘Mmmm,’ said Maggie, looking at Jim through a column of smoke. ‘We could smell those burgers from miles away.’
Jim pointed with a pair of tongs to a basket on the roof of the cabin. ‘Here, Maggie, if you bring me those rolls, you can help me put them in. Tom, how about you get everyone a drink? Nice bit of wood, by the way!’
Tom scrambled down to the galley to fetch some glasses. He’d cut a length of hazel from a tree at the edge of the garden to replace his stick which had been lost in the aqueduct. He hoped Jim was not going to make a fuss of him. So far he had been thankful that the return to normality had been exactly that. There had been no cluster of journalists waiting outside the ho
use; no letter from the Queen to say thanks for saving her life; nothing public at all to restore his reputation.
When he came back on deck Jim looked at him and winked. ‘He’s done well, hasn’t he, Emily?’
‘All from the comfort of his workshop,’ said Maggie, smiling at Tom.
Tom took a bite of his burger and felt himself reddening. Out on the lake the Teal was curving through a junior boat race, spinnakers ballooning as a dozen mirror dinghies rounded a buoy and started tacking down wind.
‘You’ll have to explain all that business, Thomas, dear,’ said Aunt Emily. ‘I knew you were an inventor, but I never would have guessed that you were flying little aeroplanes around the skies, spying on people and catching criminals.’
Tom found every face looking his way. They all knew by now about his traumatic escape through the tunnel of his own worst nightmares. He caught Maggie’s laser eyes, which before had made him feel like a rabbit startled in headlights, but now he didn’t look away. And with some surprise, he found himself smiling at the way things had worked out. Let the world think what it liked about him and Snakey. What did it matter? He had real friends. Snakey only ever had minions, and he’d lost those too now.
‘We haven’t caught them, though,’ stated Joel. ‘Not properly. It sounds like they’ll get away with it after all!’
‘How do you mean?’ asked his mother.
‘We lost the memory card. Which was my fault.’
‘What memory card?’ asked his father.
‘Containing enough photographic evidence to bring the whole gang to justice,’ Maggie explained. ‘It got wet, and went missing while it was drying on the kitchen windowsill.’
‘We assumed it was Snakey, Podge and Sam,’ said Joel. ‘But it turned out that what they took was Tom’s phone. And that’s how they knew where we were camping. We left Tom a message on his phone with the exact location. Another schoolboy error.’
‘It wasn’t, though, was it?’ said Maggie. ‘I mean, in the end?’
Her father looked at her. ‘How do you mean, Maggie?’
‘Well, if they hadn’t tracked us down at the tarn, we would have slept peacefully through the night, and never have realized Tom had escaped at all. We would have woken up in the morning and we would have been too late to do anything.’
‘That’s right, Maggie,’ said Jim. ‘You were there with the distraction just in time. Even old Snakey had a purpose in the big scheme of things.’
‘But,’ said Joel, coming back, as ever, to facts, ‘I’d give anything to know what happened to the memory card. If Snakey didn’t take it, who did?’
Tom got to his feet now and coughed as if he were about to perform a magic trick. He pulled something out of his pocket and held it out.
‘The magpies took it,’ he said.
Every eye on the deck of Matilda now focused on the shiny square of metal resting in his palm.
‘You get so used to them squawking in the cedars, you forget they are there at all. But this morning I was walking to the workshop and I saw one hopping across the lawn, and that gave me an idea. I made some simple robotic pincers and sent Skylark up.’
Aunt Emily picked up the little memory card between a thumb and finger and looked at it with wonder. ‘So this little thing has all the information needed to put those people behind bars?’
‘That’s right, Aunt Emily. In fact, it has thousands of photos on it.’
‘So that’s what you were doing!’ said Maggie. ‘When I came into the workshop to tell you to hurry up. You were trying to grab this from the magpies’ nest with good old Spylark.’
‘Actually I had already got the chip by then. At that point I was trying to grab something else I’d seen in the nest.’ Tom reached into his pocket again and held his hand out to Aunt Emily.
‘Oh, Thomas! My engagement ring. Your little aeroplane got this down from the nest?!’
This was followed by laughter and applause, after which Jim served a second round of burgers and Tom topped up everyone’s drinks. The conversation broke up and people chatted cheerfully, filling in the gaps about things they hadn’t heard, elaborating on things that had already been said. Tom described Heron Holme to Maggie and Joel and promised that he would take them there and camp with them and they would make sure Snakey didn’t come anywhere near.
After a few minutes, Maggie stood up. ‘It’s time.’
They put their plates and glasses on the cabin roof and looked out to where the sky met the serrated edges of the high fells.
There was a light southerly wind blowing, and the red ensign on the stern of Matilda snapped in the clean bright air. A pair of seagulls were wheeling over their heads, streaks of white against the blue summer sky.
Jim saw Tom glance at them. He caught his eye and nodded.
Then there was a burst of sound from the south. The momentary silence it left was like a vacuum, and then it came again, louder this time, as nine red Hawks screamed up the valley at full power, the surge of their engines ricocheting from the mountain walls and filling the air. Like a single machine with one mind, the planes tilted on to their sides and formed a perfect diamond, which tracked the length of the northern end of the lake, disappeared over the horseshoe of fells to the north for a moment, then returned and regrouped, roaring over their heads, corkscrewing south, red, white and blue smoke trails drifting over the water. No one was speaking on the deck of the boat, but all eyes followed the diminishing dots as they passed over the islands at Birthwaite Bay, banking and rolling, the sound now a distant rumble. Heads moved in unison with the jets as they formed a new shape and began to climb. Two single planes at the front, then two side by side, then another two spread further apart like a pair of wings, then three at the back like a tail.
‘What are they doing?’ asked Maggie.
‘Blackbird loop,’ said Tom. ‘Watch, they’re coming back.’
Faces were all turned upwards, as the group dropped into a near-vertical dive. They were right in front, over the lake, below the summit of Raven Howe, when they entered the curve and pulled up into a loop.
‘Wow!’ said Maggie, clapping.
‘Carousel,’ said Tom, as two planes passed each other at what looked like a few feet apart. ‘It’s the most dangerous-looking manoeuvre.’
‘Champagne split,’ he explained as the jets hammered up to vertical, then down and split in all directions.
‘Ah, this is my favourite,’ he said. ‘The mirror roll. Two of them fly an inverted barrel roll with three others in formation. The minus G will be terrible in there.’
The houseboat was in prime position for the display. Out on the lake, yachts bobbed about, their sails flapping as every eye looked skyward. But on Matilda it felt as if the display was just for them.
‘This is the end now,’ Tom said. ‘They’re getting ready for the heart and spear. Two of them will do a half-loop with smoke to form a heart, then a third will come streaking across it with smoke to form a spear. Watch.’
The two red aeroplanes looked tiny as they prepared for their final manoeuvre. Then they were right in front of them again, red smoke forming a perfect heart as they each pulled into a half-loop. But there were four planes, not two, now heading towards the centre.
‘Strange,’ said Tom.
Three of the planes were diving vertically inside the heart, white smoke on and then off to create three vertical lines.
‘They’re writing something,’ said Maggie.
Everyone on the deck of Matilda had their hands on their foreheads to shade their eyes from the sun. Eight of the Red Arrows had dispersed over the mountains and there was just one more remaining in sight now. It cut across into the heart. Smoke on, and off. On and off. Two horizontal strokes across the verticals.’
‘They’re saying thank you,’ Maggie said.
‘No, they’re not, Maggie,’ said Joel. ‘Look, they’ve finished. It’s a kind of thank you. But it just says, “T. H.” Thank you, Tom Hopkins!’
&
nbsp; Everyone clapped and cheered. Tom, leaning on his stick, red-faced, made a bow, grinning broadly.
Over the fading sound of the engines, the cry of a gull could be heard as the valley and the lake with its sparkling bays and wooded islands and the gentle bracken-covered fellsides returned to their usual tranquillity.
‘How brilliant,’ said Maggie. ‘The Red Arrows actually wrote your initials in the sky, Tom!’
Jim looked at Tom. ‘Yes, it is brilliant, Maggie, my girl. But you know what’s even better?’
‘What?’
‘He didn’t need it.’
Tom caught Maggie’s eye and they watched the sky soak up the last wisps of smoke like a sponge. How big and bright the sky is, Tom thought. How very bright and very big. No, he thought to himself, he had everything he needed right here.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Getting Spylark airborne has been a thrilling adventure, the enjoyment of which has been deepened beyond words by the kindness and support of the amazing ‘ground crew’ who have made it possible.
I am very grateful to a number of friends who have read the manuscript, or provided encouragement, or just decent coffee, along the way. Thanks especially to Zachary Walkingshaw and Daniel Goody for being willing test pilots and enjoying the flight, the Heron family for sunset yacht trips in the name of primary research, and the Fortescue family for cheering from afar (I hope Spylark takes off down under!). I am also extremely grateful to Finn Sorsbie for visualizing Tom’s world so helpfully with the map in the front of the book, and to Coralie Tomlinson for teaching me how to use commas!
I owe a debt of thanks to my parents for teaching me to love the lakes and mountains we were privileged to call our home, and to treat the written word with the respect it deserves. Thanks, too, to Rick for passing on the love of flying.
Although it is my name on the front of the book, writing a novel is not a solitary task, and no author could ask for more than the extraordinary privilege of being welcomed into the Chicken House team. I am very thankful indeed to my editor Claire McKenna for her hard work, attention to detail and kindness throughout. It’s also been a joy to work with Laura Myers, Lucy Horrocks, Elinor Bagenal, Kesia Lupo, Jazz Bartlett, Sarah Wilson, Rachel Leyshon and Rachel Hickman, all of whose expertise and wisdom I have hugely appreciated and learnt from. In particular, I want to thank Barry Cunningham for believing that the story could take flight in the first place. Having Barry’s creative genius and enthusiasm on tap is a first-time author’s dream.
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