‘Jeez!’ Kai gasped. He took a step forward.
‘Don’t come near!’ Raven hissed. ‘I’ll slash her throat if you do.’
CHAPTER NINE
There was a single second of silence in the room.
Bird Girl spoke first. ‘What d’you want?’ she whispered.
‘Shut your face!’ Raven brought the knife up to Bird Girl’s eyes. ‘See this? I’ve used it before. I’ll take your tongue out if you speak again.’
‘Raven,’ Kai said desperately. ‘We gotta think this through.’
He could see that Raven was tipping over the edge. Her hand was trembling, her mouth and eyes twitching.
‘Jam that door shut,’ Raven ordered him. ‘Don’t want any witnesses.’
Kai backed up against the door. His mind was racing, trying to work out how best to calm Raven down.
‘The café might have CCTV; so might the street.’ Kai talked in a soft tone of voice, aware of the dumb appeal in Bird Girl’s terrified gaze. ‘If something bad happens here then our cover is blown and we never go free. We need to think what Spartacus would say, what he’d do if he was here.’
The mention of Spartacus had an effect on Raven, for she acknowledged that Spartacus was a person who’d helped her. The knife was unsteady in her hand.
‘I reckon we should find out where those photos were sent,’ Kai suggested.
Raven jerked her head in a half-nod of agreement.
Kai looked at Bird Girl, and asked the question Spartacus had asked every Cage Fighter. ‘What’s your story?’
‘My little sister is missing.’ Bird Girl was shaking so much she could hardly get the words out. ‘I’ve been trying to find her. Following clues. I think she’s being kept prisoner behind the closed-up wall of the old Langsdaine Underground Station.’
‘We don’t keep people against their will,’ retorted Raven. ‘None of the Cage Fighters would—’
‘Shhh!’ Kai shot her a warning glance. In her stressed state Raven was saying too much. ‘Where did you send the photos you took? To a newspaper?’
Bird Girl shook her head. ‘My Cloud,’ she said.
‘Give us the password then,’ said Raven. ‘We’re gonna delete them.’
‘Please.’ Bird Girl began to cry. It was a piteous sort of sobbing. ‘Please, please don’t delete the photos. They’re the only lead I have of where she might be. Nobody else cares about her any more. Not the police, nor Social Services. I’ve got to get in there and search for her.’
Kai and Raven exchanged glances.
‘Your little sister isn’t in that tunnel,’ Raven said shortly, ‘and that’s a fact.’
‘How can you know for sure?’
‘We just do,’ said Kai.
‘Is that your squat? Do you live—’
‘It’s us that asking the questions,’ said Raven. ‘Not you.’
‘If you know where that tunnel leads I’d pay you to take me there.’ Bird Girl spoke quickly. ‘How much do you want? I’ve got money on me. Not much, but I could go to the ATM.’
Someone rattled the handle of the toilet door.
‘We can’t stay here,’ Kai said.
‘We can’t let her go,’ said Raven.
‘We could contact Spartacus,’ said Kai. ‘He might be OK with us letting her go if she promises not to publicize this or say anything about what she’s found out.’
‘I don’t trust her.’
‘What other option do we have?’
‘This.’ Raven swiped the air with her knife.
‘Don’t be daft, Raven. We wouldn’t get far on the streets before we were caught. And where would we go? We couldn’t go back to the dens in case we left a trail to the others. We’d be held for days and interrogated nonstop. They’re allowed to do that now. You can only hold off the police for so long, and if the newspapers get wind of this then we’re done for. Our secret would be out and we’d betray Spartacus too.’
The word ‘betray’ made Raven falter. She brought the knife close to the girl’s eyes. ‘Is that a deal? We let you go and you say nothing to no one?’
Bird Girl looked at the knife in Raven’s hand then looked at Kai. To Kai’s amazement she slowly shook her head.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I’ll only promise to keep quiet if you take me with you so I can look underground for my sister. Otherwise you can kill me right now.’
‘You don’t know what you’ve got yourself into here,’ Kai said.
‘No, I don’t,’ Bird Girl replied. ‘But what I do know is that I don’t care what you guys are up to. All I’m interested in is finding my sister. If you’re familiar with the tunnels then maybe you could help me do that.’
There was a rap on the toilet door and a voice said, ‘Whatever’s going on in there, can you finish up quick-like, ’cos I got an urgent need.’
‘We haven’t decided how this is gonna play out yet,’ said Kai, ‘but we’d better move somewhere else, that’s for sure.’ He picked up Bird Girl’s rucksack and shoved the laptop and camera inside.
Raven slipped the knife into her sleeve and Kai realized that she must have always carried it there. She saw his glance and gave him a defiant look. ‘Don’t look at me like that. I wasn’t strong enough to complain about the hostel warden. I was on my own and it was the only protection I had.’
Pulling up the hood of his top Kai shouldered the rucksack and opened the toilet door. ‘Sorry, mate,’ he said to the girl who was hopping from foot to foot outside.
Raven pushed Bird Girl ahead of her and they left the café. ‘Where are we going?’ she asked Kai as they got into the street.
‘It’s Spartacus’s decision whether she’s allowed into the group. One of us has to stay with her, while the other one goes back and asks him what we’ve to do.’
‘Where can we take her so that she doesn’t make a run for it while that’s happening?’
‘I won’t run off,’ said Bird Girl.
‘No one said you could speak!’ Raven stamped her boot on the girl’s foot.
Bird Girl grimaced in pain but she didn’t make a noise.
‘I know a place we can keep her,’ said Kai. ‘It’s where Sarema and Gita were hiding out before they joined us. We can walk there. In a line,’ he added, ‘with her between us.’
‘You lead the way,’ said Raven. ‘I’ll go last.’ As they got into position Raven leaned over Bird Girl’s shoulder. ‘Remember I’ve got my knife,’ she said. ‘You try to run and I’ll bury the blade in your back.’
CHAPTER TEN
The abandoned skip where Kai had found Sarema and her twin was in amongst a pile of rubble and tree branches, and far enough away from the canal towpath not to be noticed by any passer-by. Kai dragged a long thin plank from where he’d hidden it under some bushes and placed it up against the side.
‘This is how Sarema and Gita got in and out,’ he explained. ‘There’s a slide on the other side. When the twins were living here they’d pull this plank up after them so no one could follow and they’d be safe. You go first.’ Kai indicated for Bird Girl to climb the plank.
‘May I have my rucksack?’ She held out her hand. ‘Please?’
‘No way!’ Raven waved her knife menacingly. ‘Do as you’re told and get on with it!’
Bird Girl walked slowly towards the plank.
Kai spoke to Raven in a low voice. ‘I’ll stay with her while you go and tell Spartacus what’s happened. Avoid Langsdaine Park in case anyone in the area of the park or the old Langsdaine Tube station noticed the kerfuffle earlier and is snooping about. Maybe try the school entrance. You’ll get picked up on one of Tech’s monitors. Give the “help” signal and whoever is on monitor duty will let Spartacus know and he’ll send someone up to meet you.’
Raven gave a watery smile. She never went in the tunnels unless someone was with her.
‘Breathe deep, breathe slow,’ said Kai, ‘and you’ll be fine.’
To his surprise Raven gave him quick hug. ‘Thanks.’<
br />
She’d spoken so fast that Kai wasn’t sure if she’d actually said it. He decided to believe that she had. But she’d definitely hugged him. And that was a big step for her. In their previous lives, the Cage Fighters had been through tough times which made them suspicious and mistrustful of others. Of all of them, Raven was the most wary. It had taken Kai weeks to establish their friendship and for her to tell him that she’d been in trouble with the police and run away from whatever place she’d been sent to live. Spartacus was the only person who knew every individual’s history. He didn’t ban them from sharing their stories, but he didn’t encourage it either. ‘Look to the future,’ was one of his sayings. ‘We’ve all got a past we’d like to forget.’
Kai felt privileged that Raven had shared more of her past with him. He watched her negotiate the barbed wire that fenced off the towpath and begin to run towards the main road. When he turned round, Bird Girl had stopped and was crouched on the plank.
‘Hurry up!’ Kai raised his voice. ‘You’re almost above the trees there. We don’t want anyone catching sight of you.’
Bird Girl didn’t move. ‘How do I know that you’re not going to tip me in there, pull the plank away and leave me to die?’
‘Why would I do that?’ said Kai. He came to stand underneath Bird Girl. Her eyes were grey, the grey of a stormy sky. They showed fear, but also determination. He saw then that she wouldn’t go quietly into the skip. He’d sent Raven away too early. He should have kept her – and her knife – here, until Bird Girl was inside.
They stared at each other. He realized she’d deliberately not gone far up the plank. She’d been waiting until he was alone because she was thinking about jumping to the ground. She’d probably been working out her escape while he was talking to Raven. Estimating the height from the plank to the ground and the terrain she’d have to cover in order to outrun him to get to the fence, over it, and onto the path.
The trees were beginning to bud but were quite bare, so from where she was positioned she would see that the path was empty. Beyond that was rough wasteland and then more trees. In the distance was a common where folk exercised their dogs.
But that was much further away. The dog walkers didn’t venture here. In the weeks during which Kai had visited this area he’d never met anyone. The nearby water wasn’t a main canal. It was a side channel, probably used years ago for coal barges to tie up. There was no one around to help Bird Girl, even if she screamed – and he could see that it was dawning on her that he was taller and stronger, and would catch her.
He watched her shoulders sag at the hopelessness of her situation. She glanced at the top rim of the skip. And, in a moment of clarity, he saw the scene from her point of view and appreciated her fear. Once she was in there she was trapped. Kai understood then that, despite the odds, Bird Girl was going to try to make the run.
She looked at Kai. ‘Uh, OK.’ She smiled. ‘I guess going inside the skip is the best option for me.’
Kai smiled back at her, pretending he believed her. But he was a fighter. Could sense a feint before it happened. And earlier, he’d been fooled by Leo in the Cage. He wasn’t about to let it happen again. He prepped up, ready to grab her and bring her down. Just as she tensed herself to spring off the plank there came, carried on the wind, the distant sound of children somewhere. They were calling to each other in whatever game they were playing. Bird Girl raised her head, hearing it the same moment Kai did.
And Kai suddenly knew what to say. ‘Take a minute to think about your situation,’ he said. ‘You’re desperate to find your little sister. You think she’s in the old tunnels of the London Underground. If you alert the police it’ll take you ages to convince them. By the time they arrive she could have disappeared. You might never reach her. You know by now that me and Raven can take you into the tunnels. We are the best chance you have of finding her.’
Kai held Bird Girl’s gaze. She was listening to him.
‘If we were going to murder you I’d have kept Raven, and her knife, here with me. And’ – he tapped the rucksack – ‘I’ve got your camera and laptop.’
Bird Girl looked at the rucksack and bit her lip.
Kai was fumbling in the dark, but he might have found a chink in her armour. He took the rucksack from his shoulder and held it out. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘It’s yours.’
Bird Girl stretched down and took the rucksack from him. Still she hesitated. ‘Are you following me into this skip?’
‘Yes,’ said Kai. ‘I can’t wait out here in the open.’
‘How do I know I can trust you?’
‘You don’t,’ he said. ‘It’s a risk you have to take.’ He unzipped his hoodie and opened it wide so that she could see there were no inside pockets. ‘I don’t carry a knife.’
Bird Girl nodded. ‘OK.’ Placing her hands on each side of the plank, she began to crawl towards the top.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Kai saw Bird Girl look down into the skip. She glanced back at him in surprise and then disappeared over the edge.
Kai ran to the top of the plank and heaved it up behind him. He joined Bird Girl where she was standing at the foot of the slide he’d set up to take him safely down to the bottom of the skip. Sarema and Gita had used the same plank of wood for outside and inside the skip, but what no one knew was that after they’d left, Kai had gone back to the skip. Outside he’d piled up earth, chunks of masonry and heaps of branches to conceal it and then made himself a second ‘home’.
He’d installed a plastic chute from a kid’s outdoor play unit that he’d found in a dump. To drain off rainwater he’d attached an angled pipe to it which went through a hole in the bottom of the skip. Inside the skip Kai had built a rough shelter, dry and vermin-free. Plenty of spiders, but no mice or rats as far as he could tell. He’d set traps for them and they were empty. Any food he had he kept in tins. The roof of his shelter was sound and it too had a gutter leading to his drain. It would be his bolthole after the Cage Fighters project was finished. Give him somewhere to hide out while he made his plans. By that time he would have enough cash to travel to one of the islands he wanted to visit, find a cheap caravan let, and get by on casual work.
‘Is this where you live?’ Bird Girl asked, pointing to the small wooden hut that took up half the floor space of the skip.
Kai didn’t reply. He was beginning to regret coming here, but he hadn’t been able to think of anything else. They’d needed somewhere to go and Raven had looked as if she’d use her knife at any moment. He opened the hut door and gestured to Bird Girl to go in.
‘Oh!’ she gasped. ‘Oh, it’s lovely.’ She turned to look at Kai. ‘Did you do the decoration?’
Again Kai didn’t answer.
The walls of the hut were covered with myriad magazine and newspaper photographs.
‘The beach in Bali,’ said Bird Girl, reaching out to touch one. ‘It’s beautiful. Have you been there?’
Kai shook his head.
She examined the rest of the images, reading out the names as she went:
‘Zanzibar, Madagascar, Goa, Skye, Sark…Oh, I see! They’re all islands.’
He definitely shouldn’t have brought her here. She was too observant. Now she was trampling through the private parts of his soul.
Bird Girl’s brow furrowed in a way that should have made her unattractive, but didn’t. ‘Oh,’ she said softly. ‘This is your personal stuff.’ She stopped looking around and sat down cross-legged on the floor. ‘I’m sorry if I was being intrusive.’
‘It’s OK.’ Kai affected not to be bothered. It was a strategy he’d learned. Don’t let people know the things you cared about. If they knew, then they had power over you. They could use it to punish you or make you sad or angry.
Like Evil Eddy used to do.
‘Oh, sorry,’ Eddy would say in a syrupy voice as he picked up one of Kai’s childhood models and bent a piece. ‘I seem to have damaged your itsy-bitsy toys.’
Kai had long s
ince given up model-making but his mum had arranged some of his more complicated constructions along his bedroom windowsill. ‘They’re not toys,’ Kai had shouted in rage and frustration. ‘They’re models.’
‘Models? Models!’ Eddy had repeated what Kai said, adopting a sing-song voice as though speaking to a baby. ‘Are you referring to your itsy-bitsy cutesy model toys?’ And he’d keep goading him until Kai’s temper flared into violence and he’d rush at Eddy, arms flailing, his feet kicking at his shins. Eddy would laugh and hold him at arm’s length until Kai was exhausted, on the verge of crying. Then Eddy would pick him up and dump him on his bed and say, ‘Time for itsy-bitsy baby boy to have a nap.’ And march off, whistling.
When Kai’s mother came home from work Eddy would show her the bruises and scratches on his arms and ankles. ‘I was trying to help Kai with his homework when he got in from school. But he was fooling about with his models and then he broke one and tried to blame me. Went berserk, so he did. Lost his temper.’
‘We need to talk about this.’ Kai’s mum had tried to make peace between them.
Kai refused to speak, but Eddy chatted away while he served dinner. ‘Typical teenage behaviour.’ He winked at Kai’s mum. ‘Don’t you worry about it, love. Kai and I will sort it out eventually.’ He gave Kai a hard calculating stare. ‘Won’t we?’
Kai bolted his food and went to his room. Later his mum came to speak to him.
‘Did you kick Eddy?’
‘Mum, I—’
‘He’s got a bruise the size of a football on his leg.’
‘But he started it—’
Her eyes went round with horror. ‘You mean Eddy kicked you?’
‘No. I didn’t mean that.’
‘Has Eddy ever hit you?’
Kai shook his head. ‘No.’
At the time that had been true. To begin with, Eddy’s way of bullying involved play-act wrestling games where he yanked Kai’s arm up his back and gave him sly nips and skin twists. But when Kai tried to explain this, his mum patted his hand.
Caged Page 4
