The lid of the plastic box slid open. Oz followed instructions and, after wiping, placed the ring in a steel bowl. Bendle pressed a button, and the lid of the white box slid shut. There was a hissing noise, and a minute later a lid slid open on the other side of the glass. Bendle put on some surgical gloves and a mask before reaching into the box and taking out the ring. He took it over to the desk, switched on a lamp and put on a pair of elaborate brass goggles, which had an amazing array of lenses bolted onto the sides. He sat, flicking in various lenses as he studied the ring up close. Oz, Ellie, and Ruff stood in silence, exchanging questioning glances for two whole minutes before Bendle lifted up the goggles and turned to Oz.
“Worthless trinket,” he muttered. He got up, walked across to the box, and pressed a switch; two seconds later, the ring appeared on Oz’s side.
“Discard your apron in the refuse bin on the other side of the door as you leave,” said Bendle, turning his back on them.
“Wait,” said Oz desperately. This wasn’t going at all the way he’d planned. “So, this isn’t the ring you were looking for?”
“Are you deaf?” Bendle said, turning back with an irascible scowl. “Of course it isn’t. Please leave as quickly as you can.”
“There were others where we found this,” Ellie said.
Bendle tilted his head. “Others?” He peered at them, almost as if he was seeing them for the first time.
“Other rings like this,” Ruff said. “Ceramic rings and… stuff.”
Bendle’s eyes widened, and he took a step towards them. “What do you know of the ceramic ring?”
“We know it’s a collector’s piece,” Oz said.
“It goes without saying it’s a collector’s piece; otherwise, I would not be interested.” He shook his head. “The agreement still stands. But I will pay no more than the fifty thousand we agreed on. I explained all this to your colleague… What was his name again?”
“Rollins,” said Ellie quickly. Oz threw her a glance. Mentioning the name of the man who had tried to kill him in the basement of Penwurt was a dangerous ploy. Still, if it caught Bendle off-guard…
“Rollins? Rollins?” Bendle’s eyes bulged with irritation. “I don’t know any Rollins. No…it was Mac something. McClelland. Yes, I explained to McClelland that I would have the money waiting for him. But now you turn up with a piece of junk. I won’t be taken for a fool.”
“When exactly did you say this to McClelland?” Oz asked.
“I know the date exactly,” Bendle snapped. “I remember every date. It was Thursday the fourteenth of August, 2008.”
No one spoke, but something was happening to Bendle. The lines on his furrowed brow were deepening by the second.
“How old are you?” he asked in a slow and dubious voice.
“Thirteen,” Oz said.
“You would have been nine when McClelland called. You know nothing at all about him or the ring, do you?” he said, eyes narrowing.
“We know quite a lot about the ring,” Ellie began.
“You’re spies,” Bendle said suddenly. “Filthy little meddling spies.”
“No,” Oz said. “Like I said, I live at Penwurt…”
“I have no interest in where you live,” Bendle said. “This has been a complete waste of my time. Leave.” Once again he turned his back on them.
“Good idea,” Ruff said and turned away.
Ellie looked concerned. “Mr Bendle, we’re sorry, but we need to find out about the ring. We didn’t know you were ill.”
Bendle turned slowly. “Ill? I am not ill.”
“What’s all this stuff, then?” Ruff asked, waving a hand over his gown and poking at his paper hat.
“Precautions,” Bendle said in a tone that implied it was completely normal to have hermetically sealed doors in your house and that all guests should decontaminate themselves before talking to you. “Did you know that a thousand species of bacteria live on the human skin alone? You are all walking biological weapons. But I, as you can see, take precautions.”
“This bloke is barking,” whispered Ruff out of the side of his mouth.
“I heard that,” Bendle snapped. “I am not barking. I am merely clean.” He peered at them, his eyes intense. “I can see the germs crawling all over other people’s skin. Millions of them moving, waiting to leap onto me…” Bendle suddenly snapped back to himself. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To contaminate me. Get me out of here and into a hospital so that you can get at my collection.”
“No,” Oz said. “We’re not here to cheat you or to contaminate you…”
“Doors lock. Gas!” Bendle snapped.
They heard a mechanical thunk from the door. Something started hissing above them. Oz’s gaze shot upwards. He hadn’t noticed the array of copper pipes and brass globes running along the ceiling. A wispy stream of mist was jetting out from thin nozzles on each of the globes.
“It is my own concoction of anaesthetic and chemical sterilizing agents. Works very well on mice and rodents.” Bendle smiled. “Haven’t tried it on anything as big as you up until today.” Through the glass, he displayed a brown-toothed smile at them.
“Anaesthetic?’ Ruff asked in a panicky voice, his eyes darting between the misty jet and Bendle on the other side of the gas.
“Having you unconscious will give me more time to decide what to do with you,” Bendle said. And the matterof-fact way he said it sent a chill through Oz that was reflected in Ruff and Ellie’s faces.
“We have to get out of here,” Ellie said.
Oz could smell something sweet and cloying and sickly as the gas reached his nostrils. Ruff was right. Bendle was barking. Ellie ran to the door and tried to prize it open, but the metal stayed sealed tightly shut.
“Soph,” Oz said urgently. “We need some help here.”
“I deduce that the door is voice-activated. I will mimitate your voice so it matches Bendle’s.”
“But what should I say?” Oz said.
“I suggest ‘door open,’” Soph said.
“Open door,” Oz said, and his voice emerged with Bendle’s high-pitched tone. Nothing happened.
Ruff had started coughing, and Ellie was crouching low, trying to breathe with the sleeves of her sweatshirt over her mouth as a filter.
“Try ‘door open,’” Ellie said urgently in a muffled voice.
“Door op…” The gas caught in Oz’s throat and he began to cough. His eyes were beginning to water badly, too. There must have been something irritating in the gas.
“Come on, Oz,” Ruff urged.
“Okay, okay. Door open! Door open!”
Instantly, the steel doors leading off the corridor hissed open, Oz grabbed Ellie, and they stumbled through with Ruff right behind them. Mercifully, the next corridor was gas-free, but sprinklers immediately went off above them and started coating them with a chemical-smelling liquid. Their paper hats and plastic aprons started to smoke slightly where the liquid fell.
“Oz!” yelled Ellie.
They sprinted for the next door and Oz yelled “Door open” again. Ahead, the steel doors slid apart, and they ran into the corridor outside the porch area. Oz kept shouting “Door open, door open” in Bendle’s voice as they ran, and within seconds, they were out on the driveway, tearing at the aprons and hats that were melting even as they pulled them off and fumbling their shoes on in a mad, hopping dance.
“You okay?” Oz yelled at Ellie and Ruff as they ran towards the gate.
“My face is burning,” Ruff said.
“Use your hat to wipe it off,” Ellie urged.
They’d gone halfway up the drive when they heard an engine cough into life, followed by a repetitive whirring. They slid to a stop and listened.
“What is that? A mower?” Oz asked.
“Nah,” Ruff said. “Too small.”
“Sounds more like a model…”
“…helicopter?” Ellie said. She was pointing back at the house where the source of the noise
was coming around the bend.
“Airship drone,” whispered Ruff.
It was as good a description as any. The thing was an elaborate construction of brass and steel with a ribbed, sausage-shaped balloon at its centre and whirring copter blades above and on both sides. Oz had never seen anything like it, but it looked very manoeuvrable and was heading straight for them.
“Spread out and make for the gate,” he shouted. The drone was aiming for him. He had time to feint right and then turn left before the copter dropped something on the spot where he’d been standing a second before. Over his shoulder, Oz caught sight of a small spherical object descending. There was a squelchy splat, and he saw a yard-wide pool of liquid splash over the ground. It solidified instantly. Oz gasped. It looked like a nasty way to hunt for rats and mice. He tried to imagine one of those balloon bombs hitting his face and shuddered. He looked up; the drone was making for Ruff, who ducked under a rhododendron bush as the thing flew over and dropped another bomb.
Oz did a zigzag run for the gate and saw two more bombs drop before he felt he was near enough to try voice activation again.
“Gates open,” he shouted.
The gates trundled open with agonizing slowness. Then they stopped and started closing again.
“Bendle’s blocking you,” Ellie yelled as she skidded to a stop, with Ruff close behind.
“Soph?” Oz said. “What can we do?”
Oz heard her answer in his head. “If we can get to the intercom, I will reprogram the mechanism to your voice.”
Ahead of them, the drone had taken up a hover position in front of the gate.
“We could rush it,” Ellie said.
“It’ll get one of us for sure,” Ruff panted.
“Sticks,” Oz yelled. “Get sticks to throw. It’ll have to go upwards. That way, it’ll be less accurate.”
They grabbed anything they could find from the grounds and began lobbing missiles at the drone. As expected, it went upwards, out of harm’s reach. Oz took his chance. He sprinted forwards and got to the pillar with the intercom.
“Now what?” Oz asked.
“Press the button. I will do the rest.”
Oz reached around and pressed the out-of-sight black button. Above him, the drone hovered, scooting left and right away from Ruff and Ellie’s throws. But it soon found a level out of their range and then centred itself.
“It is done.” Soph said. “Use your own voice.”
But before he could say anything, Oz heard Ellie’s urgent shout: “Oz, look out!”
From high above, the drone—or rather Bendle, who was obviously flying it remotely—had twigged that launching one balloon from that height would be hit or miss. So instead, he launched half a dozen balloon bombs. Oz saw them falling towards him like massive rain drops. A collision was inevitable.
“Soph?” Oz said—or did he think it?
“Order the gates to open, Oz,” Soph said calmly.
“Gates open,” Oz shouted as all six bombs exploded in midair—or rather, hit the tutamenzon field Soph had thrown around him. Previously, the three of them had considered this protective shield nothing more an interesting little quirk of the obsidian pebble. A party trick in which they’d made Ruff hold the base unit and hurled things at him. Watching him flinch as books and shoes and old socks almost, but never quite, hit home had been great fun. But its true value now came to the fore as the balloons ruptured a foot above Oz’s head, sending a waterfall of blue fluid cascading all around his body, six inches from his face. With a chemical crackle, it solidified into a murky bubble. The high-pitched buzz of the drone was instantly cut off, along with the hiss of leaves in the wind, birdsong, and Ellie and Ruff ‘s shouts. He was cocooned.
Oz did not consider himself claustrophobic, but the sudden, crushing silence and the disappearance of the visible world drove a spike into the fear centre of his brain. He tried to imagine what this must have felt like to the poor animals Bendle hunted. Cut off from sight and sound, and, without Soph’s protective shield, cut off from air as well. Then there was the chemical smell, sweet and sickly, like strong glue, searing the tender membranes of his nose.
Panic pumped adrenaline into his blood. He had to get out. He hurled himself at the barrier, fists beating, voice yelling, feet kicking. The smell made everything ten times worse, sending his imagination on a terror-fuelled trip. What if the mad, germ-fearing Bendle was more than he seemed? What if he was an alchemist? What if he could conjure spells? What if Oz had already been transported to some airless desert, trapped in a sealed sarcophagus to slowly roast…
“Oscar, please stop.”
Soph’s voice broke in on his nightmare.
“You are still in the grounds of Chivyon house. I will augment Ellie’s voice for you.”
“Oz, we’re going to push it over, okay?”
The muffled words sounded a long way off. Then the milky blue covering around him began to topple. Two seconds later, he felt two sets of hands upon him, guiding him backwards out of the carapace and pulling him to his feet.
He blinked in the daylight and drank in the cool, fresh air. His ears rang, and he fell to his knees to retch as the stink of the chemicals left his body. He didn’t object as they hauled him to his feet and dragged him out through the gate on quivering legs. They encouraged and cajoled him, and after fifty yards, he could stand on his own and half-
run.
Above them, they heard the drone.
“Think it’ll follow us?” Ellie asked with an anxious glance over her shoulder.
“Don’t know,” Ruff said.
They hurried back to the road bridge, and by the time they reached the towpath, the buzz of the drone’s whirring engine was finally fading.
They paused to look back up the lane, and Oz felt Ruff ’s and Ellie’s eyes rake over him.
“There was a gas,” Oz muttered in between gasps. “Some sort of chemical that made you…like you were going to suffocate… I couldn’t hear or see. It was like I was all alone a long way away.”
“DEEMET,” Ruff panted, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.
“What?” Ellie gave him one of her what-are-you-talking-about looks.
“DEEMET, Dr Evil’s Even More Evil Twin,” Ruff explained, as if the word were something he heard on the news every day.
The look of incredulity on Ellie’s face was enough to bring a much-needed smile to Oz’s. “Come on,” he said, “let’s get out of this place before anything else happens.”
“Yeah,” Ellie agreed, “and before Ruff can come up with any more gibberish.”
Soon, they were back in the park, with the village of Bog Sturgess in view over the bridge, looking as serene as ever. There they stopped to catch their breaths again. Ellie handed out bottles of water from her backpack, and they drank greedily and splashed it over their faces.
“What was all that about?” Ellie asked
“Good question.” Ruff wiped water from his face with his T-shirt.
“He was completely bonkers.” Ellie said.
“Bonkers squared,” agreed Oz. “But I think it was worth it.”
“Worth it?” Ruff protested. “Gassed and then attacked by a robo-copter-drone thingy with suffocating splatter bombs worth it? Did I miss the bit where it wasn’t totally buzzard?”
“Knowledge is our reward, Ruff,” Ellie said.
“Knowledge of what?” Ruff demanded.
“That someone called McClelland tried to sell him the ring in 2008, you gonk.”
“Never heard of him,” Ruff said and drained his bottle of water.
“Exactly,” Oz nodded. “So now we have a totally new lead.”
Chapter 9
The Missing Student
They managed to get the last three seats on the number 56 bus back into Seabourne. Ellie and Oz had decided talking about what had happened at Chivyon House would not be a great idea, in case they were overheard. As a result, Oz was left to stare out of the window at the passing traffic w
hile his mind whizzed along at a hundred and fifty miles an hour, throwing out questions like hand grenades. Why was Bendle living like a recluse in a mansion? What would have happened to them if Soph hadn’t been able to throw up her tutamenzon field or to imitate Bendle’s voice and open the doors? How was Ruff going to survive another hour without eating anything? As it was, Ruff had stopped talking to them because their insistence on going straight back to Oz’s place meant he’d missed lunch.
Luckily, Mrs Chambers was in when they returned mid-afternoon.
“Goodness me,” she said on seeing the three of them trudge in. “Hard day at the coffee shop?”
“We got sidetracked. Any chance of some food, Mum?”
“Pasta be okay?”
“Mmmm,” Ruff said with feeling.
By five, they’d been watered and fed and were sitting in Penwurt’s library. The room, as always, smelled of varnished wood and old books. Whenever Oz sat in one of the old leather chairs, he always got a delicious waft of polished leather that recalled his dad, who had spent every spare minute in the library when he’d been alive.
“Right,” Oz said, calling up Soph. “McClelland. What can you tell us?”
Soph shimmered in front of them. “I have correlated the dates provided by Mr Bendle with existing directory databases. There were twenty McClellands listed in the telephone directory for Seabourne.”
“Twenty?” groaned Ellie. “It’ll take ages to get around all of them.”
“That may not be necessary, Ellie. Students do not always show up on council registers, nor have listings in telephone directories, but they are registered with their universities.”
“So you think this McClelland bloke was a student?” Ruff asked. He was in a much better mood now, having refuelled on half a ton of pasta.
Soph turned her bright-eyed gaze upon him, and, as always, Ruff flinched slightly. Not for the first time, Oz thought Ruff was still just a bit scared of her.
“I have also found an archived newspaper cutting of the time, which may be relevant,” Soph said.
In front of them, a six-foot projection of a page from the Seabourne Post appeared. The article read—
The Beast of Seabourne Page 14
