by Lyn Gardner
Viktor looked as if he was about to weep.
“Come along, boy,” said Ethan. “Let’s give you that shot. You know that I’ve got your best interests at heart. I’ve invested a lot in you.”
Viktor didn’t have the strength to argue. He just wanted to lie down and sleep for a week.
It was turning into another wild night down at the river. The snow was coming down in great squally blasts and the wire was becoming treacherous. Jack almost slipped twice as he walked gingerly towards the river’s edge. He shivered. His thoughts were as dark as the night. There were still another ten days before he’d sleep in a warm comfortable bed again.
The nights were always the longest. Sometimes, when he was lying in his flimsy hammock being buffeted by the wind and feeling the damp seep into his bones, he fantasised about soft, warm duvets, fluffy eiderdowns and clean white pillows. He felt as if he hadn’t slept for a year. Everything he did required an almost superhuman effort. For the first time in his life, he doubted his own strength and ability to succeed in the task he had set himself.
He unclipped his safety wire and stepped on to firm ground. “The wire’s slippery,” he said to Pablo, gruffly.
“I’ll deal with it,” said Pablo. He helped Jack into the small shelter. There was just one other member of the team there, at the ready with hot food and drinks and warm, dry clothes. It would just be the two of them on duty that night, taking turns to check that nobody went near the wire.
Pablo stuck his head out of the tent. The snow had turned to sleet, the extra-wet kind that always finds a way to get down the back of your neck. He slipped on Jack’s heavy duty cagoule, with its distinctive JM on the back, clipped on the safety harness and started to wipe off the build up of grease that could make the wire so treacherous. He was concentrating so hard that he didn’t notice the figure on the bridge filming him.
The alarm bell buzzed to warn Jack that he had just ninety seconds to get back on the wire or he would be in breach of the rules. It was so snug in the little tent. He stood up rather reluctantly and Pablo appeared at the flap of the tent and passed him back his distinctive cagoule. Jack put it on and trudged back down to the river. He had a long night ahead of him. He stepped back on to the wire at exactly 1.10am.
In the small shelter, Pablo rolled out his sleeping bag. “I’m going to get my head down for a few hours, Dave. Wake me at 5am and I’ll take over the watch. And wake me if Jack makes contact.”
The other man nodded. He went outside and sat under a canopy they had rigged up to keep off the worst of the rain. It was freezing. He felt as if his toes had turned to ice. He watched Jack descend safely into his hammock then glanced back at the little tent. He could hear Pablo snoring. Dave put on his headphones to listen to some music. It would help to keep him alert and awake. And that was why he didn’t hear someone coming up behind him or feel the handkerchief soaked in chloroform being pressed over his mouth and nose until it was too late.
A few minutes later, a man wearing a coat with JM on the back could be seen stepping off the wire and quietly making his way up towards the shoreline, looking about shiftily as if worried he might be spotted. He headed swiftly into the maze of narrow streets around the bridge and into the shadows. Once there, another man handed him a new jacket and a cap. The man put them on and walked swiftly away.
Pablo woke with a jerk at 4.50am. He was alone. Through the tent flap he could see Dave sitting out front, watching the wire. He hoped the guy had stayed awake for the last four hours. There had been some lapses in the past few nights.
He pulled on some extra layers and went outside. Dave murmured that all was well and then headed off home. The rest of the team would be back at six. Pablo settled down in the shelter with a black coffee. He knew that it was the dark hours before first light that Jack found most difficult and he often came off the wire shortly after 5am for a break. Pablo watched as the first rosy tints of morning began to streak the sky. The time ticked by. Pablo smiled to himself. Maybe Jack was actually having a rare good night’s sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Olivia and Tom walked into the classroom together.
“Oh,” said Olivia, “I’ve forgotten to call Kasha back again. He left a message saying he wanted to talk to me…” She tailed off. There was something very strange about the atmosphere in the classroom. Most people were gathered around one of the computers in the corner of the room. When Kylie saw Olivia, she nudged Connor. People fell silent and turned round to stare.
“What is it?” asked Olivia, urgently.
“I think you’d better see this, Livy,” said Kylie. “We thought you must already know about it.” She shrugged and looked worried. “But it seems we were wrong.”
“Jack…?” asked Olivia, with a quiver in her voice.
The other children parted like a sea to let her see the screen.
Cheat! screamed the headline to the news story, which said that, last night, Jack Marvell had been spotted leaving the wire and checking into a hotel near Tower Bridge. One of the receptionists had filmed him on her phone. Underneath there was a link to an interview with her.
“I recognised him at once,” said Tilda Soames. “We have lots of well-known people staying here. We’ve even had that lovely Kasha Kasparian. So I knew who the man was as soon as he walked in. I’ve always been a bit of a fan of Jack Marvell. But not any more! He checked in under another name and the room was already booked and paid for. But he seemed so shifty that I filmed him as he headed for the lift. I was so disgusted that somebody of his reputation should be cheating in this way. I knew it was my duty to contact the newspapers.”
The video she’d made had been posted below. Olivia clicked on it and gasped.
It wasn’t the greatest quality and the man had a cap pulled down low over his head, but it certainly looked very much like Jack. He moved very much like Jack did and had all the same mannerisms.
Olivia knew it must be a forgery, but she couldn’t bear for people to think that her dad was a cheat.
She stood up, knocking over her chair, and ran from the room and out of the Swan towards the river, closely followed by Tom.
“It just gets worse and worse,” said Pablo, gloomily. They had retreated to the tent to get away from the photographers and TV crews that were everywhere. “Somebody else has come forward with more video evidence that Jack wasn’t on the wire last night.” He touched his phone and the video began. This time, Jack had been filmed in Tooley Street, asking directions to the hotel. Olivia’s heart was racing. Again the film was pretty blurry, but it certainly looked and sounded a lot like Jack.
“It must be a fake,” she said.
Pablo sighed. “Of course, but the people putting this stuff out are convinced it’s not. Apparently, they’ve grilled the receptionist and the night porter backs her up. He thinks it was Jack, too.” He paused. “And there’s worse. There’s a film showing me on the wire wearing Jack’s jacket shortly before he checked in. The implication is that I was impersonating him while he slipped away to a hotel for the night. There’s even another bit showing him coming off the wire at 1.42am.”
“So why were you on the wire last night?” asked Tom.
“I was cleaning off the grease,” explained Pablo. “It’s got to be done regularly for safety reasons. There was nothing odd about it, except that unfortunately I’d borrowed Jack’s jacket when I did it. I didn’t know someone was secretly filming me.”
“But you must be able to swear that Jack went back on the wire at 1.10am and didn’t come off the wire again until 7.12 am?”
Pablo looked worried again. “That’s the problem. I can’t swear that, and neither can anyone else. I certainly saw him step on to the wire at 1.10am and I saw him come off at first light. I can also swear that he didn’t come or go between 5.02am and 7.12am because I was watching the wire. Plenty of other people were with me from six o’clock, too.”
“But what about between one and five, then?” asked Olivia.
“I was asleep, and the guy on watch has confessed to falling asleep almost as soon as he sat down, and he didn’t wake up again until just after four-thirty. It’s odd, because he’s normally completely reliable. So, anybody could have come and gone on the wire during that time. We don’t have a leg to stand on.”
“It’s such bad luck,” said Tom.
“I don’t know how much is down to bad luck,” said Pablo. “Most nights there are at least three of us here all the time, sometimes more. It was as if somebody knew that there were only going to be two last night. I’m beginning to think that we’ve got a mole in our midst.”
Just then, a woman popped her head round the flap of the tent. “He’s coming off, Pabs,” she said.
Pablo stood up with a sigh. “This isn’t going to be pretty.” He turned to Olivia and Tom. “I think you two’d better go. You are not going to want to see this.”
But Olivia refused to leave so they went and stood by the end of the wire. Jack moved along it like a man walking towards his own execution. On the bridge there was a loud crowd of people shouting, “Cheat! Cheat!” As he reached the end of the wire there came the sound of hundreds of camera shutters clicking.
“Are you going to make a statement, Jack?” called the reporters. But Jack said nothing. His face was grey and his eyes looked dull. As he tried to walk towards the tent he was jostled and pulled about by the press, which wasted precious seconds of his break.
“Are you going to give up?” cried one.
“What do you feel about the loss of your reputation?”
“Are you a cheat, Jack Marvell?”
Olivia couldn’t bear it. “He’s not a cheat,” she shouted. “He’s the most trustworthy person in the whole world. And I’m going to prove it.”
Pablo pushed them into the tent and closed the flap. Olivia threw herself at Jack’s neck. He gave her a small, sad smile.
“I hope you can prove it, Liv. Because otherwise I’m finished.”
When Olivia and Tom got back to the Swan, Alicia, Aeysha, Georgia and Eel were waiting for them in the hall. Eel ran towards her sister and hugged her.
“We saw you on the TV, Livy! You were amazing.”
“You were,” said Alicia and she looked quite tearful. “We were all enormously proud of you.”
“We all totally believe in Jack,” said Aeysha, quietly. “We know he’s no cheat.” Olivia smiled gratefully at Aeysha as she continued, “We’re going to do whatever we can to help you prove that he’s been set up. We’ve got to find who’s responsible.”
“We do,” said Olivia. She just wished she knew where to start.
The bell rang and the hall filled with Swans scurrying to their next lesson. When they saw Olivia and the others standing in the hall, they all went quiet. Some averted their eyes and looked embarrassed, a few muttered “Sorry” as they passed by. None of them had seen Olivia’s outburst on the TV yet.
“Come,” said Alicia, “let’s go up to my office and have hot chocolate and talk.” Once again the sea of children parted to let Olivia, Alicia and the others make their way up the stairs. As they neared the top, they passed Alex Parks. He was very pale.
“Livy, I’m very sorry about your dad,” he said, in a whisper so quiet she could barely hear him.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Olivia clapped mechanically as the two children on stage finished singing to huge cheers from the back of the Cavendish Hall, where their families were sitting. She’d barely registered the song. She’d been too busy turning over what had happened to Jack in her mind and trying to see if there was something she’d missed. Aeysha had said she wouldn’t mind if Olivia hadn’t felt like coming to the song contest finals, but Olivia had promised to support her friend and she wasn’t going to go back on her word now, especially as Tom hadn’t been able to make it either.
The children who had just finished singing were propelled towards the front of the stage by the show’s host to face the judges, who were sitting at the front of the auditorium behind a long table. One of the judges started talking about the song and what had impressed her and the things that the songwriters might do to make it even better. Another talked earnestly about key changes and technical stuff that was a complete mystery to Olivia.
She looked at the clock on her phone. It was lucky that Aeysha was the second contestant of the sixteen finalists, or Olivia would be late for the Dream rehearsal at Campion’s. She had had to stuff her costume into her rucksack together with the high-wire that Sebastian Shaw had asked her to bring along for an idea he wanted to try out. She’d positioned herself at the end of a row near an exit so that after Aeysha had sung her song, and the judges had said their piece, she would be able to slip quietly away.
Aeysha appeared on stage and sat down on a chair with her guitar. Olivia could tell that she was really nervous because she always flicked her hair when she was anxious. The judges gave the signal and Aeysha began playing.
Olivia recognised the song immediately. It was the one she had heard Aeysha playing to Kasha. She’d obviously been working on it further because it was different, more subtle and layered. It was interesting, thought Olivia, the way Aeysha had taken one thing and by just changing a few notes had transformed it into something else.
She guessed that’s what art was, a constant borrowing and changing. She’d read enough Shakespeare to know that he seldom made up his own plots, but borrowed them from other writers. Some might call it stealing, but Olivia knew that it was taking inspiration. She listened to the end of the song and smiled. In this instance it was as if Aeysha had stolen from herself, taking what she had originally written and making it into something new and better.
The applause was very loud and very appreciative. It wasn’t just Aeysha’s family who were making a racket. Everybody in the hall was aware they had heard something special. Olivia clapped as hard as she could, delighted that her friend had set the bar so high for all the other contestants. Olivia didn’t know much about music but she felt certain that Aeysha’s song would be the one that everyone else would have to beat.
Aeysha moved to the front of the stage, ready to receive the judges’ comments. The first one said how refreshing it was to hear a song that was genuinely original, and that he’d never expected to hear a song of that calibre in the competition. He thought that, if she wanted it, Aeysha had a promising future ahead of her as a songwriter.
As he was speaking, Olivia could see one of the other judges bobbing up and down at the end of the table as if she were agitated about something. Lucie Groves was the name written on the place card in front of her. The next judge started to give her comments. “I agree with everything that has been said,” she said. “This is a truly original piece of work…”
“Actually,” interrupted Lucie Groves, standing up. “I must intervene. I can’t listen to this any more. I know this song. Well, something very like it. I don’t think this song is original at all.”
Aeysha had gone a deep red colour. “I’m not sure what you’re suggesting, Lucie,” said the head of the judges. “Do you mean that this child is pretending to have written this song?”
Lucie Groves looked embarrassed. “Maybe we should discuss this in private,” she said, glancing at an increasingly tearful Aeysha.
But at the moment, Aeysha chose to speak. “You think I’ve copied it from someone!” she cried, desperately. “But I wrote it, I promise I did.”
The whole hall was buzzing and the judges were all talking to each other. “It’s my song,” said Aeysha. “I would never steal somebody else’s work.”
Aeysha’s mother rushed up on to the stage and glared at the panel like a lioness protecting one of her cubs. She held the sobbing Aeysha in her arms. “My daughter is not a cheat,” she said, with quiet dignity.
“I’m making no accusations,” said Lucie Groves. “But I know this song, or something very like it. That very distinctive part in the chorus, the bit that makes it so original.”
“Because I am Kasha Kasparian’s record producer,” said Lucie Groves, “and something very similar is on his as yet unreleased album, which nobody except me and a very few people have even heard yet.”
Olivia gasped, and thought back to the day when she had heard Aeysha play Kasha the song at the Swan. She knew what she had heard and she knew for certain that the song was Aeysha’s, or at least ninety per cent Aeysha’s. It wasn’t Aeysha who had stolen the song from Kasha but the other way round.
She suddenly remembered the missed calls from Kasha and how she’d thought there was something odd about his voice saying he wanted to talk to her.
The judges were conferring. They turned to the audience. “We’re going to take a short break to try and sort this out. Please bear with us.”
They walked up the short flight of steps on to the stage and ushered Aeysha and her mother towards the wings. Aeysha kept repeating tearfully: “I didn’t steal it. I’d never do anything like that.”
“Wait!” cried Olivia. The judges on the stage turned back towards her expectantly. “I know that Aeysha didn’t steal the song. I’ve heard her sing it before. I heard her sing it to—”
Olivia was about to say Kasha’s name but Aeysha interrupted her. “No, Livy. You can’t have heard it before.”
Everyone looked at her.
“That’s pretty much an admission of guilt,” said Lucie Groves, with an unexpected gentleness in her voice. “I don’t know how you got hold of the song but…” She suddenly hit her forehead. “Of course! Kasha said that he was doing some songwriting workshops, it must have been when he was writing his song.” She looked at Aeysha. “Did you go to those? That must be where you heard it and copied it.”
“These things do happen,” said one of the judges kindly. “You hear something, store it in your subconscious and then you write pretty much the same thing without realising what you are doing. Maybe that’s what happened, dear?”
