Olivia put the piece of glass inside a pouch she carried in her pocket. ‘That’ll keep it safe.’
Meanwhile the two cars had driven out of the gate, which always opened automatically for outgoing traffic. It was about to close again when another car arrived from the outside. Lavitch ran over and pressed the button to hold the gate open. He was obviously expecting the visitor, who drove into the car park in a tiny metallic blue vehicle, the sort sometimes known as a Bubble car, but which was in fact, a Fortwo.
The car drove up in front of the old mansion. Lavitch yanked the car door open. A little man in a steel-grey suit slid himself out, and gave Lavitch a curt nod. Lavitch acknowledged his nod by slamming the car door behind him, which made the man jump, then accompanied him towards the revolving doors.
Billy said, more loudly than he intended, ‘I know that man. He’s the jeweller we saw this morning. He’s got Granddad’s diamonds.’
‘You didn’t tell me anything about diamonds.’ Olivia stood up and pushed through the bushes. ‘Let’s find out what’s going on.’
‘Wait! What about Lavitch? He’ll be guarding the front door.’
‘We can go through the Sick Bay.’
‘We don’t know where the man’s going. It’s a big building.’
Olivia sighed. ‘The only people in the building, as far as we know, are the women upstairs. So that man must be coming to see them. Or at least one of them.’
‘Maybe. What if the women have separated? What if they’re scattered around the building?’
‘With the size of that feast,’ said Olivia, peering out of the bushes, ‘they’ll be there for a half an hour yet.’ She made sure she wasn’t seen by the security camera, then ran across the yard. Billy followed a few seconds later, thinking that it wasn’t long since they’d done this already. They edged along the wall, found the key under the stone, and let themselves in. ‘I’m keeping this in my pocket,’ said Billy. ‘In case we have to leave in a hurry.’
Olivia shrugged. She was focused on finding the jeweller.
The corridor from the Sick Bay was as silent and empty as before. There was no one in the area beyond the Staff Only door, but in the foyer, at the bottom of the stairs, Lavitch was standing with the jeweller. Lavitch had his back to the corridor. He was speaking into the walkie-talkie he held in his left hand. His right hand was still bandaged from where he’d got it caught in the revolving door yesterday.
The jeweller was so short he could have fitted comfortably under Lavitch’s elbow. He wiped his brow more than once while his eyes flicked from one side of the room to the other. In his hand he carried a box, an identical box to the one he’d put Mr Mumberson’s diamonds into that morning.
‘Yes, he’s here now,’ said Lavitch into the walkie-talkie. ‘Right.’ He looked down at Adiblo. ‘She’ll be here in a minute. They’re finishing afternoon tea.’
‘I don’t want to disturb her...’
‘You won’t be disturbing her. She’s very pleased to hear your news. She insists on seeing you straightaway.’
The jeweller looked pale, and his hands were shaking. Billy was worried about staying where they were, with Lavitch so close at hand. He knew that even though the man was large in every respect he could move very fast. But he really wanted to know why the jeweller was here, and what he intended doing with his grandfather’s diamonds.
The stairs echoed the clatter of a single pair of high heels. Ms Nordal appeared and stood a few steps above the two men. ‘Mr Adiblo?’ she said, without a trace of welcome on her face.
‘Yes, that’s right. You’re Ms Venska?’ He bowed his head, as though he was standing in front of the Queen, and then had to look up at her from under his eyebrows.
‘Venska Nordal.’ She didn’t offer to shake hands. ‘Let me see the diamonds.’
Adiblo handed the box up to her. ‘They’re uncut, as I said on the phone. They’re worth a great deal of money.’
‘I’m not unfamiliar with the value of diamonds, Mr Adiblo.’ She opened the box, and was immediately captivated by its contents. ‘Beautiful. Beautiful.’ She seemed unable to take her eyes off the jewels. ‘Some scruffy old fool brought them in, did he?’
‘How did you know that?’ asked Adiblo. ‘I didn’t say a word to Mr Lavitch as to how they arrived.’
‘I know exactly where these diamonds came from, Mr Adiblo. I recognise their quality. They were stolen from my sister’s diamond mine, no doubt on the day she was murdered.’
‘What?’ The rest of Adiblo’s body joined his hands in trembling. ‘I know nothing about their origin. I contacted Mr Lavitch because he said, when he visited me the other evening, that you were interested in anyone wanting to sell diamonds.’
Venska attempted a smile, to reassure him. ‘There is no reason for you to be afraid, Adiblo. However, the person who brought these to you has every reason to be afraid. He is a thief. We will make sure he is caught. Today.’
Billy and Olivia glanced at each other.
‘Furthermore,’ said Venska, ‘you will not pay this thief any money whatsoever. The diamonds do not belong to him. They belonged to my sister while she was alive. Now they belong to the other members of her family.’ She closed the box, and put it in a pocket in her jacket. ‘You can tell the old fool the diamonds have been returned to their rightful owners - if you see him before I do.’ She signalled to Lavitch. ‘Show him out.’
Adiblo’s bottom lip quivered. ‘But he entrusted them to me. He’ll think I’ve stolen them!’
Venska ignored him, and walked back up the stairs. Lavitch turned the jeweller around, almost lifting his feet off the floor, and marched him to the revolving doors. He gave the doors a push, and shoved the jeweller through them (much more neatly than his own attempt to get through the previous evening). The jeweller barely managed to stop himself tumbling down the wide steps. Without looking back, he ran to his car, and drove quickly to the gates, which opened for him. He was in such a hurry to get away that he almost crashed into another car coming along the road. The motorist blared his horn, and Adiblo braked so hard he banged his head on the windscreen.
When Lavitch returned to the stairs, Venska called from above. ‘Come up here, Lavitch.’ Billy and Olivia heard the stairs creak under the guard’s heavy tread.
As soon as his footsteps had retreated along the upstairs corridor, Billy said, ‘We need to get home and tell Granddad.’
Soon afterwards they were back in the safety of the bushes. ‘That’s two pieces of evidence we’ve got,’ said Olivia. ‘Your Dad’ll have to believe you now.’
‘Except that Grandad told me it was a secret about the diamonds. I don’t even think Grandma knows.’
‘We’ll soon find out.’ Olivia pushed through the door. Stevedore, who’d become tired of playing with the skateboarders, was waiting in the bushes on the other side and began to bark uproariously. Olivia squashed his head against her chest and told him to shut up. To Billy’s amazement, he did.
When they reached sixty-nine Fivefold St, Adiblo’s Fortwo car was parked outside. ‘What’s he doing here?’ asked Billy. Through the front windows of the house, he could see his Grandad leaning over the jeweller, his angry face only inches from Adiblo’s nose. Billy’s grandmother was there too; she looked as though she was about to knock her husband’s head off. Their discussion was loud enough to hear from the outside, though Mr Adiblo’s squeaky voice was barely audible above the other two.
Billy and Olivia ran into the lounge. The three arguing adults didn’t notice them. Jerry was standing by the door with his teeth clenched tight. He gave Billy a nod, and scowled at Olivia and the dog.
‘It’s not my fault,’ said Mr Adiblo to Mr Mumberson. ‘I took the jewels to Ms Nordal with the best of intentions. She advertised that she was looking for diamonds. I assumed she was trustworthy.’
‘Wait till I see her!’ shouted Mr Mumberson. ‘In fact, I’ll go there right now and give her a piece of my mind.’
‘Calm down,’ said his wife. ‘The things weren’t yours to sell in the first place.’
‘Of course they were mine. That...witch...never paid us a cent for twenty years of work - of slavery! They were my due wages.’
Mr Adiblo began to shake again. ‘What did you call her...?’ he asked quietly.
‘The witch. Grimhilda!’
‘But Ms Nordal said - she said she was her sister.’
Mrs Mumberson crumpled onto the couch. Mr Mumberson’s eyes opened much wider than they’d managed to do for several years.
It all became clear to Billy. Before he could open his mouth, however, Olivia beat him to it. ‘Venska’s a witch! And so are her twelve sisters!’ The Mumbersons stared at her. ‘That’s why the window was repaired so easily,’ she said to Jerry. ‘They did it by magic.’ She turned to Billy. ‘That’s how they made themselves a feast without doing any work.’
‘For the last time, Olivia,’ said Jerry, banging his fist on the wall, ‘there is no such thing as magic!’
‘Look!’ she said, not at all worried by his fury. She took out the pouch, opened it, and showed him the sliver of glass. ‘We found this in the Sick Bay. It’s a piece of the window I broke. They missed it when they cleared up.’
‘I told you not to go near the Factory!’
Billy had never seen him so angry. ‘I’m sorry, Dad...’ he began to say, but Olivia again interrupted, ‘This is proof!’
Jerry snorted. ‘That could be anything. How do you know it belongs to the window in the room? It could have come from anywhere.’
‘Dad, listen,’ said Billy. He pulled his father to an armchair, made him sit down. ‘You need to hear what happened this afternoon.’ As quickly and clearly as he could, told him what they’d seen and heard. Jerry kept interrupting, until his mother told him to shut up and listen.
‘You should believe your son, Gerard,’ she said.
‘I’ve worked in the Factory for several years,’ said Jerry. ‘It’s like any other business. Everything’s normal. Nothing’s changed since The Triple W Sisters took over.’
‘Except restructuring,’ said Mrs Mumberson.
‘All right, except restructuring. But they get the job done. And there are only three Sisters, Olivia, not thirteen.’
‘If they’re not sisters, Dad, they must be cousins. We saw them. They all look the same.’
‘Perhaps they only talk about themselves as sisters, said Mrs Mumberson. She sat with her arms wrapped tight around herself. ‘Didn’t Grimhilda go on about her sisters all the time?’ she asked her husband. ‘Didn’t they despise her?’
He was thinking about something else. ‘What does the W stand for in Triple W, Jerry?’
‘The Triple Which Sisters,’ Jerry answered. ‘It’s their company name.’
‘Triple Witch?’ asked Mrs Mumberson, spelling it out: ‘W...i...t...c...h?’
‘Of course not. Which. Like, which way to the police station.’
‘You don’t think they’re going to open the mine again,’ said Mrs Mumberson, to her husband. ‘You don’t think they’ll kidnap us all over again, do you?’ She burst into tears.
Mr Mumberson hadn’t seen her cry since the day they’d arrived at Grimhilda’s mine, twenty years ago. And then it was only for a few moments. She’d refused to let Grimhilda know how she felt. He sat down beside her and took her hand. ‘Whatever they’re up to, I don’t think they’re going to open Grimhilda’s mine again.’
Billy remembered something. ‘One of them said it was only...’
‘Only a little time before the T,’ interrupted Olivia. ‘Did she mean before they had afternoon tea?’
‘Of course not!’ said Billy. ‘It was much more important than that. Don’t you remember, the plump one said in one or two days we’ll have it back...’
‘And no one can take it away again!’ finished Olivia. ‘I remember. It wasn’t the T, it was a word that started with T. It sounded like she was going to say something like...treadle. Then she stopped.’
‘It wasn’t treadle,’ said Billy. ‘We don’t know what she was going to say. It might have been trees for all we know.’
‘She wasn’t going to say trees. It was trend...or treble...or tremble...or...Treasure!’ Billy said the word at the same time.
The four adults repeated it. It was as if the word had escaped into the air and they were all trying to catch it.
‘Rubbish,’ said Jerry. ‘Treasure. There’s no treasure at the Factory anymore. All the valuable paintings and antiques and silverware were sold off years ago. Before the mansion was turned into the Factory.’
‘The Triple Witch Sisters,’ whispered Olivia.
‘Who did they take the business over from, Gerard?’ asked his mother, who’d now stopped crying, after wiping her eyes with her apron.
‘The grandson of the man who used to own the old Mansion. He was good too. Best boss I’ve ever had. Built the business up from nothing. Put the Extension on because things were doing so well.’
‘Why did he sell up then?’ asked his father.
‘Don’t know. Came out of the blue. One day he was our boss. Next day he gets everyone together in the Town Hall - there was a lot of us by then - said he’d been made an offer he couldn’t refuse. He was going on a long holiday. Next day the Which Sisters changed all the signs and logos. And the locks. Apart from having different bosses, nothing else changed. But the company’s expanded even further.’
‘So why were they talking about treasure?’ asked Olivia. She was like a dog with a bone.
‘I told you,’ said Jerry. ‘There’s no treasure anymore. You don’t know what they were talking about.’ He gave an exasperated sigh. ‘Why don’t you take your smelly mutt home. Leave us to sort it out!’
‘Gerard!’ said Mrs Mumberson. She put her arms out to Olivia. ‘Come here. It’s all right. He’s a permanent grump.’ Mrs Mumberson wrapped Olivia in a hug. ‘Forget about the treasure, Olivia. It won’t make you happy.’
But Billy could see Olivia wouldn’t be happy until she knew whether there was treasure. If necessary she’d ask the Which Sisters about it face to face.
Mr Adiblo hadn’t said anything for a long time. He edged towards the lounge door. ‘I’ll take my leave now. If you’ll excuse me.’ His forehead was covered in sweat and he was wriggling inside his steel grey suit.
Mumberson was about to ask him what he was going to do about the diamonds when his wife said, ‘Mumberson!’ so severely he stopped with his mouth still open.
And then they heard a police siren heading up the street. And then it stopped outside their house. A few moments later the front door shook under three loud knocks. Billy looked out the bay window and saw two policeman standing on the front door steps. One very large one, and one very skinny one.