by Philip Webb
But then again, I’ve heard this kind of “rock solid” lead before. “Come on, Wilbur. We ain’t saying you’re wrong, but it’s a bit flimsy, innit? I mean, how do you really know about them connections that lead to this British Museum gaff?”
Erin points at the comic. “Are you saying someone wrote the story that way on purpose, so you could see all the links?”
“What’s so special about the Captain Jameson adventures, Wilbur?” goes Peyto.
Wilbur juts out his chin like we’re all ganging up on him. “I don’t know. I just like them. To start with, I just collected them cos I wanted to see what happened next.”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, but how come you got all those flippin’ hunches in the first place?”
Wilbur clams up.
“Where did you find this issue?” tries Peyto.
“In the back of a clock. They’re always hidden away like that – up chimneys, in mattresses.”
“So what made you look there?”
“I found the first one, issue four, by accident. Sort of. I had this funny feeling when I went through the door, so I searched round really carefully. I liked the story, so then I kept an eye out in the next building we scavved, case there were any more tucked away.”
“No wonder you’re so slow at scavving if you’re turning everything upside down like that!”
“They’re always in the same kind of places – you know, where the bed’s in the same room as the kitchen, all untidy, usually above a little shop …”
“As if it’s been the same person living in those places?” goes Erin.
“Yeah. And I always get that feeling when I walk through the door, like a tingling in my head, like I just know there’d be another Captain Jameson adventure if only I search hard enough for it.”
We all give each other a look. Cos this is us just going deeper into the barmy reaches of Wilbur’s Special World …
“Perhaps it’s got something to do with the building where you found this issue,” says Peyto. “Can you point it out on the map?”
“I remember every building we’ve scavved,” he goes, like it’d be stupid not to. He studies the map for a bit, then points south of the river. “Here, Redriff Road near the park.”
Peyto sticks a pin into the map next to Wilbur’s finger. Erin takes the comic and starts leafing through it.
“Then there was issue eighteen. I found that in John Roll Way near the Tube station …”
I hold the lighter up to the map as Peyto sticks in another pin.
“Then Crucifix Lane – just where it bends round …”
“This is strange,” mutters Erin. She edges closer to the flame, with her nose buried in Wilbur’s comic.
But I ain’t listening cos I’m glued to the map. And it’s starting to look like Wilbur and Gramps ain’t so bonkers after all …
“Whitefriars Street, just next to Tudor Street. There were three issues right there, but that’s all I’ve got so far.”
“Jeepers creepers,” I whisper. Cos all the pins make a straight line, as the crow flies, northwest across the river. I’m trying to get my head round that, cos we’ve been sent every which way on scav shifts – there ain’t never been rhyme nor reason to it. It’s just where the gangmaster lands up. But maybe there’s dozens of issues on that line and Wilbur’s only chanced on a few of them.
Meanwhile, Peyto’s taken off his belt and he holds it up against the pin markers to see where the line’s headed. He turns to me with a grin.
“Look, Cass.” His finger rests on a spot of unscavved territory. “It’s on the same line. Whoever was hiding the comics would eventually have ended up right here – the British Museum. Wilbur’s right.”
“Whoever was hiding them was making them, too,” goes Erin.
“Eh?”
“They’re not printed, look.”
And she’s right. She shows me a fancy bit of writing on the back page where the ink’s smudged. It ain’t just a throwaway ten-a-penny comic, it’s a proper drawing.
“What’s it say?” I go.
“It’s the artist’s signature. Not the full name, just the initials.” She beams at me. “MB – for Morgan Bartlett maybe?”
That clinches it. I gather Wilbur up and plant a smacker on his forehead. Cos it really does sound like we’re on our way this time. But then I suddenly remember Gramps. And he’s proper taking his time about getting that spare battery for his flashlight …
I charge out of the cellar and up the steps. The trapdoor’s still open, but the hut’s empty. Peyto and the others ain’t far behind.
“Maybe he only pretended the flashlight didn’t work,” goes Erin. “Then he hid by the steps to eavesdrop on us.”
“But why’s he just disappeared?” Peyto runs to the edge of the clearing. “Where’s he gone?”
“He wants to find it first,” says Erin flatly. “He’s gone without us.”
For a moment I’m floundering for another reason why he ain’t here no more. Cos I don’t want to believe he’s gone and pulled a fast one. He might be a nutty old duffer, but still, you don’t expect your own flesh and blood to carry on like that.
Peyto’s voice is panicky. “But we were helping! We were all figuring it out together.”
“He doesn’t know us, don’t you see?” goes Erin. “How does he know what we’d do with it if we found it first? He can’t afford to trust us. Not after all these years of searching for it by himself. He means to beat us to the British Museum.”
My heart turns cold then. “Yeah, but what’s he gonna do with it? Keep it or give it to the Vlads?”
And I’m still trying to figure it out, how he thinks he can outrun us – he’s quick for an old geezer, but he’d never last the pace – when suddenly Peyto leaps up and charges off into the trees.
“Hey, wait!” I call after him. “Where you going?”
He stumbles as he turns round. “Where do you think? Come on! We have to get to the dinghy before he does!”
NIPS OF TIME
Even as we hare off, I feel somehow it’s the wrong thing to do, but I’m caught up in the dash. I suppose the thought of getting stranded this side of the river spurs us on. Still, it bugs me that we ain’t thinking things through. Anyway, after charging through the woods, we’re all strung out and it dawns on everyone that there’s a long way to go. So we try and pace it, saving our breath, going at the rate of the slowest, which is Wilbur. I might be a plodder but I can keep going for ages, so I end up chivying everyone along, making sure we stick together.
It must be five miles and then some along dirt tracks from Battersea Woods to the Jubilee tunnel entrance, and we’re all done in when we get there at last. But it’s a proper relief to see that the dinghy’s still there. The water’s much higher – just like Wilbur said it would be during daylight – but there’s still a pretty wide gap up to the tunnel roof.
“Man, them Underground pumps ain’t working so great now, eh?” I go. “Let’s hope they don’t pack up while we’re paddling across, or we’re kippered.”
“Let’s hurry up, then,” goes Peyto. “In case it rises any higher and we have to wait till it gets dark.”
“How come the dinghy’s still here?” I go. “Gramps didn’t have that much of a head start – and let’s face it, he ain’t exactly built for speed, is he? It’s like he’s just left us the boat.”
Peyto’s already up on the platform, lowering the dinghy into the water. “Not necessarily. You said yourself he can’t move very fast. We may have left him behind already. And what does it matter? Let’s just be glad the boat’s here. Maybe your gramps has got another way across.”
“But that’s what worries me! If he don’t need the dinghy, then how’s he crossing the river?”
I hang back, trying to picture what Gramps would do with the same facts we’ve got.
“What’s the matter, Cass?” Peyto snaps. “Let’s just go! We know where the missing flinder is and so does he – it’s a race!”
Peyto glares at me, and I know he’s thinking about his mother, about how this museum might hold the answers for him. And he’s got to be desperate to get there, to know one way or another. But this time we’re going out on a proper limb.
“If we cross the river this time in broad daylight, then we ain’t coming back any time soon. You know that, right? It’s all or nothing. On a kid’s comic from a hundred years ago.”
And no one’s got an answer to that.
Peyto finishes lowering the dinghy in silence. Wilbur’s keeping it zipped, too, probably hoping that if he keeps his head down, I won’t send him back home.
I touch Peyto’s arm while he’s fussing with the winch ropes, busy avoiding my eye.
“Look, I never said I’m bailing out. I know it looks like we’re onto something here, but I just want us to figure stuff through.”
Wilbur gets in the dinghy then and fishes out the maps. He’s made his stand clear, and I know he’s testing me. And it’s probably safer if Wilbur’s with me where I can keep an eye out for him. Probably. But the truth is, I ain’t got the heart for a scrap. We’re in this together now and there ain’t no pulling out.
“All right,” I go. “Fair enough, I’m with you; this museum hunch has to be worth a go. But it’s proper dangerous north of the river, so we’re doing things my way. Agreed?”
Peyto grins as he hands me a paddle. “Agreed.”
And so we set off, but I ain’t feeling that good about it. There’s something about the whole business with Gramps that’s still nagging at me, though I can’t nail it down. Plus I keep thinking about Dad grafting through his lonely shift. And I think about what he’ll do when he finds out we’re gone. I ain’t scared of the fallout – things are way beyond that. I just wish there’d been some way to let him know we’re all right, but that can’t be helped now.
As we get closer to the north bank, the drone of the crushers gets louder and louder, another day of London getting chewed to brick dust. Wilbur shows me the route he’s sussed out from the maps. The museum is just north of where Shaftesbury Avenue crosses Oxford Street.
After tying up the dinghy, we get up on a slag heap near the tunnel mouth to spy out any patrols. And we’re in for a shock.
Out on the water toward Hungerford Bridge is a Vlad ship.
It’s way bigger than the usual launches, its bows lifting maybe thirty feet from the surface, its decks bristling with gun turrets and missile launchers. Some other dinghies are bobbing about nearby, and I can make out the heads of divers and yellow marker buoys. Troops on the ship deck are using some serious lifting gear to pull something up from the river.
Then we watch in horror as the sleek black shape of the shuttle rises clear of the water.
“Can’t we summon it?” whispers Erin. “You know, get it away from them?”
“What, and let them know we’re here?” goes Peyto. “Anyway, if we summon it, we’ll end up back at the Aeolus and then what?”
Erin’s starting to get all jittery. “We should never have brought the shuttle back to the same place! The whole army would’ve seen us launch from this exact spot when we were with Cass. Of course they’d go searching for it here when they saw us splash back down into the river! Why didn’t we think?”
“Calm down. It’s done now,” goes Peyto.
“But we have to do something! What if they use it to get to the other sleepers?”
“They might be able to dredge it up, but they won’t get inside. Not without a flinder,” says Peyto.
“You sound pretty sure about that,” I go.
“It’s practically indestructible in lockdown mode. It’s for scouting planets, so it’s stronger even than the Aeolus. They won’t be able to breach that hull. Not without destroying it. Maybe it’s a good thing they’ve found it – it’ll keep them occupied for a while.”
“I should have sent it deeper, into the riverbed,” groans Erin.
“No, it takes too long to summon. It only came in the nick of time last night, remember? Look, it doesn’t matter right now. Let’s worry about retrieving it when we have to.”
So we crack on. The crushers are going full pelt all the way up Whitehall. We pinch some spare bins, load up with rubble, and wander between crusher queues. Around Trafalgar Square it’s just rammed, but we slip through OK cos all the attention’s on old Nelson, who’s nose-down in a crater of his own making. Scavs are swarming all over him with metal cutters, and it looks like he’s spurting sparks of fiery blood.
Finally we sneak away from the action one by one into Charing Cross Road. And that’s where we hit the first piled-up skeletons in the street.
“Scav prep teams have been here. We’ve got to go easy, case there’s Vlads about,” I whisper.
“What?” Erin’s just gawping at the heaps of bones.
“All these stiffs piled up means the area’s getting prepped. They clear the streets so crushers can get in. Look, we can’t hang around; it’s too dodgy.”
Peyto takes Erin by the hand to move her on. Wilbur’s just staring at his feet – he gets upset when a horse cops it, let alone a person. I chivy him along, all the while keeping my eyes peeled for troops, but the farther north we head, the quieter it gets, till the scav zone’s just a distant buzz. This is where we’ve got to go careful, cos there ain’t no excuse for us to be here.
Up by Oxford Street we come to the limit of the prep-ping area, where my know-how of the streets drops off. All the way down every road are bushes growing out of drains, and rotting cars, and people lying where they’ve snuffed it – unscavved territory. It’s the kids that get to me. I spot a bunch of them huddled together in the back of a car. Paper skin, hollow faces, falling into their own ribs … The driver is facedown over the steering wheel – Mum or Dad maybe? Where was they going? Wilbur’s gone all still and he’s staring at them with tears in his eyes.
“Hey, Wilbur – don’t look at them. Come with me, mate.”
It takes a little while to get through to him, but finally he comes to his senses.
“Let’s go. Hold my hand and look at the sky, all right?”
Following the map, we skirt round this overgrown square and find ourselves at last at the open gates of the British Museum. The courtyard up to the steps is clear – no bodies, which is a bit weird. Maybe the museum had been closed on Doomsday. It’s a creepy old gaff all right – just these dark windows and columns gone black with ivy. A couple of pigeons break for cover as we hurry across the paving.
I’m counting on having to break in, which ain’t that easy for museums what have precious stuff inside, but the front door is all busted in already. And I don’t like it, cos that means we ain’t the first here. Still, things look quiet as we step into the main chamber with its white marble floors and curved walls. The ceiling’s made of these glass panels that probably looked beautiful in their day but now they’re plastered with bird crap, and they cast shadows over the place that make it look more like a clearing in a wood. It stinks of cats, and there’s a fair bit of bird crap on the inside, too, piling up from a bunch of nests near the roof. There ain’t no sign of Gramps, though, or anyone. It’s deathly quiet.
But across the marble floor, straight ahead, is the entrance to the circular library room. Wilbur whips out his comic and scurries off.
“Wilbur! Wait!”
I charge in after him. And stop dead. We’re too late.
Every single book has been ripped down from the shelves. They lie scattered about, covers open, all over the place. Whoever’s been here ransacked the place in a real hurry. Wilbur’s hunched over his comic, trying to work out where the fake chart would have been mounted. But it’s a waste of time. All the shelves are bare and there ain’t no hidden gap.
“Seems like a dumb place to hide the flinder anyhow,” I go.
Everyone just stares at me. Peyto and Erin both look heartbroken.
“Stands to reason. I mean, soon as someone fancies a read and pulls a book down, then, h
ey presto, there it is. As hiding places go, it’s rubbish.”
“Now what?” goes Erin.
“Well, someone’s got it – maybe Gramps,” I go.
“No one’s got it,” says Wilbur.
“You sound pretty sure about that.”
“Look, all the books have been pulled down. Every last one. Look how many there are. What’s the chances of finding it behind the very last book? It was never hidden here.”
I gawp at him then. Cos this window into the workings of Wilbur’s mind is making me dizzy.
“OK, if it ain’t here, then where is it, genius?”
“Maybe we’re in the right building,” says Erin. “It’s just not in this room, that’s all.”
And if Wilbur was already in love, he’s died and gone to heaven now. Cos Erin’s right on song with this clue business. And I have to admit, now we’re here, it only makes sense to keep looking.
“Wouldn’t whoever pulled the books down still be in the building, especially if they didn’t find the artifact?” goes Peyto, snatching glances over his shoulder to the main chamber.
He’s right. I creep to the edge of the library and peer out, straining to listen. But there ain’t nothing except the faint scuffling of cat claws.
“OK, it seems quiet enough, but let’s scout around first, make sure the place is empty.”
The museum rooms all lead off the main chamber. Wilbur reads them out to me – “Ancient Egypt and Assyria,” “Oriental,” “African,” “European.” They’re even dingier than the main chamber and they swarm with movement when we poke our heads in – troops of cats, skittering over statues and glass cases, mewling in the shadows.
There’s a gift shop full of dusty souvenirs and postcards, some loos in the basement, and a sweeping staircase that leads up to another level. There ain’t no sign of anyone else. If Gramps was here earlier, looks like he’s legged it now. My hopes take a nosedive, though, cos this place is huge. If it turns into a straight search for Halina’s missing flinder, it could take us weeks. Weeks we ain’t got.
As the afternoon shadows draw in, I glance round and everyone’s all in. Except Wilbur – running off to read yet another plaque.
