CHAPTER

EIGHTEEN

 

 

Escape! – The friends are followed – Alfie to the rescue –

Betrayed again – The mechanical hound –

“I wonder when he’ll be back...”

 

 

AT SIX THAT evening Jani’s pacing back and forth was interrupted by a soft tapping at the bedroom door. It was the twin-set and pearls woman, asking if she would prefer to take dinner in the dining room or to have it delivered to her room. Jani selected the latter option, and fifteen minutes later took receipt of a trolley bearing grilled salmon, asparagus and sautéed new potatoes, with a crème brûlée dessert, accompanied by a glass of rosé wine – a far better meal than that provided by the Russians the previous evening. Jani had had nothing to eat since breakfast and, despite the sickness that still lingered at Sebastian’s treachery, and apprehension at her imminent escape attempt, she managed to enjoy the meal.

Later she drew a hot bath and soaked herself for an hour, finding the process both mentally and physically relaxing. She dried herself and dressed, then considered descending to the library and selecting a book. But she had no desire to come upon one of her captors and be forced to indulge in smalltalk, and she doubted she could have concentrated on a book, anyway.

At ten o’clock she heard movement outside her door, and then the sound of a key turning in the lock. She crossed the room and tried the handle. The door was locked. She hurried over to the sash window and found that it slid upwards with ease. She peered down and smiled. The brickwork around the window was sheathed in a thick mat of ivy, which would provide a perfect ladder to facilitate her escape. The sun was going down in the west, filling the summer night with roseate light; there was no one in sight across the extensive lawns and woods surrounding the hall. She closed the window and paced the room.

She would wait until half-past midnight, then climb through the window and conceal herself in the trees beside the outer wall.

The final hour before one o’clock seemed to expand to fill an aeon. She sat on the bed and went over and over her plan; of course the success or otherwise of her escape depended upon Sebastian. He had seemed genuine in his contrition, and in his vow to assist Jani and so regain her trust. But what if, when he considered his options away from her influence, he decided that his loyalties lay not with her but with the Bolshevik cause?

She consulted her watch. It was a minute before half-past twelve. She turned off the bedside light, crossed to the window and peered out. A half moon rode high in a clear sky, illuminating the lawns. She leaned out, a warm breeze lapping her face. The grounds were in silence and she detected no movement below.

She straddled the windowsill and gained her footing in the tenacious raft of ivy below the window. She turned and felt for a lower foothold, gripping the sill until her footing was secure. She kicked into the growth, scrunching the old ivy beneath the new and, little by little, lowered herself down the front of the hall. The descent was easier than she’d imagined, the gnarled roots and tendrils of the ivy providing ready-made hand- and foot-holds. Her only concern was the desiccated dust of dead leaves that threatened to send her into a sneezing fit; she pursed her lips and turned her face away from the dust created by her descent, and a minute later reached the flower bed.

She crouched, very still, and looked right and left along the façade of the hall. There was no sign of movement, and the only sound that interrupted the silence was the occasional hooting of a distant owl.

Rather than head off across the open lawn before the house itself, she crept along the front wall, then crossed the drive to a stretch of topiaried privet. Her heart beating fast, she slipped behind the hedge and paused, listening. She expected to hear shouts and sounds of pursuit, but still the only sound was the lonely ululation of the owl.

She hurried across the lawn in the shadow of the hedge, thinking that so far her escape had been remarkably simple. She wondered at the security measures in place at the hall; apart from locking her door, her captors seemed to have done nothing to prevent her absconding. She wondered if there might be sensors on the outer walls, or even patrolling guards. But if the latter, then she saw no sign of them as she approached the northern wall. She came to the tall oak tree she had singled out to Sebastian, crouched in a nearby rhododendron bush, and peered out.

In the light of the half-moon, she consulted her watch. It was seven minutes to one. She had a clear view of the ridge of the perimeter wall, fifteen feet above her head. She concealed herself in the shrubbery, waited and listened. The owl had ceased its hooting and a perfect silence reigned. The loudest sound she could hear now was her heartbeat, its pulse thumping in her ears.

One o’clock came and went. She listened out for the sound of a car engine, but heard nothing. She told herself that this was to be expected: Alfie would hardly be foolish enough to drive right up to the wall, alerting potential guards.

She considered everything that might have gone wrong to prevent Alfie and Anand from carrying out the rescue: a failure to locate a rope ladder in time; a mechanical breakdown... or had Sebastian been unwilling to contact Lady Eddington?

She was jolted from this pessimistic reverie by a rattling sound high above. She looked up but saw nothing. The rattle sounded again, and this time she made out the serpentine shape of a rope ladder jerk over the ridge and rattle down her side of the wall.

Jani’s first impulse was to dash from her hiding place and climb the ladder, but she urged herself to caution. She had no guarantee that her friends were on the other side; what if Sebastian had betrayed her again, and the Russians awaited her?

Her best course of action, she reasoned, was inaction. She crouched on her haunches, hugging her shins, and stared up at the ladder slung over the wall.

A minute passed, then two. Whoever awaited her beyond the wall would sooner or later wonder at her non-appearance, scale the ladder and show themselves. All she had to do was sit tight and wait.

Another minute elapsed and Jani was frantic with impatience. What if there were a patrolling guard, and he chose this very moment to do his rounds, discovered the ladder and Jani crouching there...?

She was wondering whether she should discount her own wise counsel and scale the ladder anyway when she heard a faint sound. She moved her head, listening. Someone was scrambling up the outer wall, his breathing stertorous.

Jani backed further into the protection of the flopping rhododendron bush in case a Russian head should show itself. She moved aside a fan of leaves and peered upwards, holding her breath.

She made out the top of a head, and then the head itself rose above the ridge of the wall like a miniature full moon – and Alfie Littlebody peered down into the grounds.

Faint with joy, Jani rose from her hiding place and waved up at Alfie. He raised an arm and waved back, then disappeared from sight. Jani hurried to the wall and gripped the ladder, looking over her shoulder. The façade of the hall showed through the trees, moonlight glinting from its hundred windows.

Jani began climbing, finding the ascent far more difficult than the descent from her room. Though she could grip the rungs with her hands well enough – albeit scraping her knuckles once or twice – the ladder’s rounded rungs were hard up against the brickwork and she could only gain limited purchase with her toes on the rungs. It fell to her arms to take her weight and haul herself up the face of the wall, and she was panting with exhaustion by the time she reached the ridge.

She lay on her stomach along the top of the wall and peered down, hear heart quickening at the sight of Alfie and Anand standing below, waving up at her.

The descent was much easier, thanks to Alfie holding the ladder away from the wall. She lodged her feet on rung after rung and climbed down in seconds.

She hugged Alfie to her, almost weeping with relief, and then embraced Anand’s scrawny frame. “It’s so good to see you again!”

“Jani-ji!” was all Anand could say, his face streaked with tears in the moonlight.

Alfie hauled the rope ladder back over the wall and bundled it under his arm. “This way,” he said, indicating a rutted lane with high hedges on either side.

Anand led the way, Jani following. Alfie whispered, “I left the car on the lane half a mile away. We’ll be in London within the hour.”

Even now, as she hurried along in the company of the people she most trusted in all the world, she expected a belated pursuit – fearing alarm bells or shouts to sound in their wake. Her escape had passed in textbook fashion, and a part of her was disbelieving that it could have gone so well.

Presently she made out the dark, boxy shape of a Riley Tourer in the shade of a beech tree. Only when they were driving away from the hall, she told herself, would she feel wholly at ease.

She had expected to see Sebastian in the driving seat, prepared for a quick getaway – but Alfie slipped in behind the wheel and Anand opened the passenger door and waved her in. He jumped into the back seat. “Now full speed ahead, Mr Alfie!”

As Alfie started the engine and the car lurched from under the tree and along the lane, Jani looked around the car, her stomach turning sickeningly. “But where is Sebastian?”

Hunched over the wheel, Alfie glanced at her. “He and Lady Eddington met us this afternoon and we made plans to rescue you. He said he’d meet us this evening and come along, but he never turned up.”

“We waited for fifteen minutes, Jani-ji,” Anand said, “but feared we might be late, so we set off.”

Jani’s heart sank, and she wondered at his motivations in not meeting Alfie and Anand. Surely, to show his loyalty, he would have obeyed her request to be here tonight. She tried to persuade herself that there was some innocent explanation for his absence.

She turned to Alfie, then smiled over her shoulder at Anand. “You weren’t hurt when the British stopped the lorry?”

Anand laughed. “We put up a fight, Jani-ji, but the thugs were armed with clubs. They pulled us from the cab and chased us off while others drove you away.”

“The only thing that hurt,” Alfie said, “was our pride. And of course we were beside ourselves with fear for your safety.”

“But all’s well that ends well!” Anand cried out. “All we have to do now is help Mahran escape from gaol.”

“On that score,” Jani said as the Riley tore along the darkened country lane, “I have news. The Russians have captured Mahran.” And she relayed what Lord Consett had reported yesterday.

“If the task of rescuing Mahran from Newgate was hard enough,” Alfie grunted, gripping the wheel, “then it’s all the harder now. He might be anywhere.”

“Do you think they might have taken him out of Britain?” Jani asked.

Alfie thought about it. “Impossible to say. They want the three ventha, and preferably all together. They know that you possess one of them, and that Mahran knows where the second is. They might have smuggled Mahran from the country for safekeeping, or then again holed up somewhere until, they hope, they can apprehend you.”

“It means that we must protect Jani with our lives,” Anand said in almost a whisper.

“And I have every faith in you,” she said. She sat back and, in a flight of fancy, dreamed that the reason for Sebastian’s non-appearance was that he was too busy trying to trace the whereabouts of the abducted alien.

“The main thing is that we return to the safety of London and rest,” Alfie said. “We’ve all been through a lot of late. We need to consider the matter with clear heads.”

Anand told Jani, “Lady Eddington gave Alfie the keys to her friend’s flat in Highgate.”

She looked from Anand to Alfie. “But is it safe? If the authorities–”

Alfie interrupted. “Lady Eddington assured us that it’s quite safe.”

Jani sank lower into the seat and stared ahead at the rushing countryside illuminated in the double cone of the car’s headlights. The thought of a comfortable bed and a long sleep was delicious.

Alfie glanced at the rear-view mirror, frowning.

Jani looked at him. “What is it?”

“Oh, nothing. Just another vehicle, I think.”

Anand turned around on the back seat and peered out. “But its lights are not white,” he reported, “but red.”

Jani turned and peered through the rear window. She made out the distant pair of crimson lights, but it was hard to tell just how far away the vehicle might be.

“Probably one of the new-fangled roadsters that are coming on to the market now,” Alfie said.

“How far are we from London, Alfie?” she asked.

“Another forty minutes should see us in Highgate.”

Anand reported, “Now there is another vehicle behind the first one. And the car with the red lights...” He paused. “It must have turned off the road because I can’t see it now.”

The wash of the new car’s headlights illuminated the interior of their own car. Jani peered through the rear window; the vehicle was perhaps thirty yards behind them, but coming no closer. She told herself that they had no cause for concern.

As if reading her thoughts, Alfie said, “There are bound to be other cars on the road, Jani, even at this hour.” But he sounded far from sure about this, and she noticed that he’d increased speed.

Five minutes elapsed and the following car drew no closer, and Jani began to relax. When they eventually reached Highgate she would sleep till noon, then consume a huge breakfast and later, over coffee, discuss the situation with her friends.

“Hello, what’s this?” Alfie said, surprised.

Jani looked up. One hundred yards ahead, the lane was blocked by a car that had evidently skidded and slewed sideways.

Alfie slowed down, peering ahead.

“The car behind us has stopped,” Anand reported, “and... Mr Alfie, two men are climbing out.”

Jani reached out and gripped Alfie’s tweed sleeve. “Look.”

She indicated the car blocking the lane. The front door had opened and two men, muffled in greatcoats despite the summer weather, eased themselves out and stood in the lane side by side.

Jani whispered, “I don’t like this at all.”

She stared at the tall figure approaching their car, and her heart skipped a beat. “The Russian,” she hissed.

“What?”

“It’s the Russian I saw in the Harley Street surgery the other day!” she said. “Alfie, do you have your light-beam?”

He nodded, tight-lipped. “But I have a better idea,” he said. “Jani, Anand – hold on tight and get down!”

“But what–?” Jani began, ducking, as Alfie revved the engine and the car surged forward. Anand let out an excited yelp. Jani heard a gunshot. Alfie was crouching low over the steering wheel, an expression of determination on his usually bland features. The car swerved, and through the quarter-light on the driver’s side she made out the blur of an overcoated figure leaping out of the way.

She remembered the car blocking the lane, and was about to point this out to Alfie when their car struck something with a glancing blow, and she knew they’d winged the Russian’s vehicle. The jolt sent her crashing painfully against the door. The Riley careered off the road and whipped through undergrowth, Alfie cursing under his breath as he fought to control the vehicle. She heard another shot, then another, and the rear window exploded with a loud detonation.

“Anand!” she cried, twisting in her seat.

A tousled head popped up, grinning. “I’m still alive and kicking, Jani-ji!”

“Get down!” she commanded, and the boy vanished from sight instantly.

She peered through the windscreen. Alfie had manhandled the car back onto the lane and was accelerating. The headlights cut two dazzling cones in the darkness. She wondered if it were too early to assume they’d successfully eluded the Russians.

Russians, she thought sickeningly.

Anand was kneeling on the back seat now, singing out, “We’re leaving them behind, Mr Alfie! The second car is stuck in the ditch!”

She peered through the rear window and made out distant headlights, diminishing rapidly as they tore away from the scene of the intended ambush. Alfie swung the car left at a T-junction, and then took a sharp right turn. Jani glanced at the speedometer: they were nudging sixty miles an hour and the hedges on both sides sped past in blur.

Alfie was breathing hard and sweat sheened his forehead. He turned and grinned at her. “I think we’ve eluded them, Jani!”

“Excellent driving, Mr Alfie!” Anand cried.

Jani found herself reaching out and gripping Alfie’s thigh. “Well done,” she said.

Alfie slowed the car and sat back, releasing a long, pent-up breath. “I’ll take a longer, alternative route into London,” he said. “I don’t think they stand a chance of tracing us now, but to be on the safe side...”

Anand said, “But how did the Russians know where we were, Jani-ji? I am sure that we were not followed from London.”

She shook her head in the darkness, glad that neither Anand nor Alfie could see her pained expression. She sat back in her seat, going over and over her conversation with Sebastian the previous day and wondering at his lies, his treachery.

She gripped the edge of her seat and tried not to cry.

Five minutes later Anand tapped her shoulder. “Jani-ji, I think you should know – we are being followed again.”

Her heart jumped as she turned and peered through the rear window. She made out the pair of red lights they had seen earlier. “But what on Earth could it be?” she said.

“At least it’s not the Russians,” Alfie said.

As she watched, the red lights approached at speed, and the vehicle – or whatever it was – sped past their car in a small, dark blur.

Alfie stamped on the brakes and swore.

Jani was flung forward, bracing her arms against the dashboard as the Riley came to a sudden halt. She stared through the windscreen at the object that had planted itself foursquare in the middle of the road before the car.

Jani found herself laughing with almost hysterical relief.

Anand hung between the front seats and joined in her laughter. “But it’s Fido!” he cried.

The mechanical hound rose from its haunches and approached the car.

“Open your door and let it in, Anand,” Jani ordered.

“Ah-cha!” he said, opening the rear door.

Jani turned and watched as the hound jumped up onto the backseat, its bulk dwarfing the boy in the cramped interior and its weight making the car rock.

Anand reached out tentatively and patted the hound’s metal flank. “I never thanked you for saving my life in Greece, Fido.”

Jani stared at the mechanical hound. “Have you been following us all the way from Kent?” she asked. “And what might you have done had the Russians succeeded in stopping us?”

Alfie glanced at her. “It’s my guess that Fido would have intervened – and to the detriment of the Russians,” he added.

“But why is it following us?” Anand asked. “What does it want?”

“I don’t know,” she said. The hound’s crimson eyes stared at her, its peculiar reek of hot metal and engine oil filling the car. “But I think that before long we’ll find out.”

Alfie started the engine and accelerated along the road.

A combination of the heat from the dog, and the rocking motion of the car as it sped along the country road, lulled Jani into a troubled slumber. Within seconds a host of dream images were crossing her mind: a dark church, its spire spearing a star-filled night sky; then Jelch, the elongated man-thing from the race known as the Morn. He was bound hand and foot, and curled in the corner of a whitewashed room. The image of church and Morn seemed in some way connected, but in her dream Jani could not work out how. Then she was running through the church, towards Jelch, but it seemed that no matter how fast she ran in a bid to reach him, he moved further and further away.

She woke with a start and looked about her.

They were on the outskirts of London, evidently: small red-brick houses passed on either side, interspersed with warehouses and factories. Oddly, the image of the church persisted in her mind’s eye. She still felt incredibly drowsy.

“How long...?” she began, slurring the words.

“You’ve been asleep more than half an hour, Jani.”

“That long?” It seemed as if only minutes had elapsed. “I feel terrible.”

“Well, after what you’ve been through...” Alfie smiled at her.

In the back, Anand had wound down the window and stuck his head out to cool himself, his hair flapping in the headwind. Beside him, the dog stared at Jani, its crimson gaze intense.

She looked away, uneasy.

Her vision swam, and she could not banish the vision of the dark church.

She recalled the minutes she had spent in the lifeboat with the mechanical hound back in Greece, before Alfie and Anand had discovered her. The dog had stared at her then, disorientating her mentally – as if looking into her mind.

It was doing the same thing now, and she wondered if the visions in her dream – of the church and Jelch – had been planted there by the creature.

They were passing through darkened streets, still south of the Thames, and Jani was overtaken by the sudden notion that they should not cross the river. When they came to a junction and Alfie slowed down, Jani said, “No, turn right.”

“But Highgate is to the north, over the bridge,” Alfie said.

She shook her head. “I know this might sound fantastic, but I think Fido doesn’t want us to go there. Or rather...” She stopped.

“Go on,” Alfie said, obeying her and turning right.

“I think he wants us to go somewhere south of the river.” She turned and stared at the dog, uneasy at the idea of its reading her thoughts. “I’m right, aren’t I? We should keep to the south of the river?”

The dog stared at her, then lifted its right paw, reached through the gap between the seats, and rested it on her shoulder. The paw was the weight of a gold ingot. She shrugged it off with difficulty. “This has something to do with the church, right?”

“The church?” Alfie said, glancing at her.

She explained about the visions. “And Jelch?” she said, staring into the hound’s eyes.

The image of the Morn, bound and incarcerated, entered her head again, and Jani understood. “No, it’s not Jelch,” she murmured to herself. “It’s not Jelch, it’s Mahran! Am I right?”

Again the dog lifted its club-like paw and lodged it on her shoulder.

“Jani-ji,” Anand said. “What does it mean?”

She pushed the paw from her shoulder. “I don’t know. Unless...” As the vision of the Morn persisted, she knew she was right. “I think Fido knows where Mahran is, and is leading us towards him.”

The dog lifted its paw between the seats again and dropped it on to her left shoulder like a deadweight.

“The church!” she cried, suddenly realising. “The Russians are holding Mahran in a church!”

The red eyes drilled into her consciousness, and she knew she was correct.

Alfie glanced at her. “It’s reading your mind?”

“More than that, Alfie. It’s... it’s implanting visions, giving me what seem like intuitions. I feel we need to be heading east, that Mahran is being held...” She closed her eyes, concentrating. She saw the church again, and next to it a line of elm trees and an open space. “He’s being held in a church next to a park. I’m sure I’ll know where it is – or rather Fido will instruct me – when we’re closer.”

They came to a junction and Alfie glanced at her.

“Straight on, and then veer left, towards the river.”

“We’re approaching Battersea. There’s a park there.”

Jani stared out at darkened houses and shop fronts; there was no other traffic on the road and the streets were eerily quiet. They came to another junction and Jani indicated left, and shortly after that she pointed right, bizarrely navigating her way through a section of city she had never seen before.

They passed open parkland on their right, flanked by dark trees. A hundred yards up ahead she made out, with a strange jolt of recognition, the spire of a church against the stars.

“There!” she cried out, pointing.

Alfie slowed and drew the car to a halt at the side of the road, fifty yards from the church. Jani turned to the hound and said, “Mahran is there, in the church, isn’t he?”

Again Fido lifted his paw and flopped it on to her shoulder, where it sat like a weighty epaulette. A wash of affirmation surged through her head.

“What now?” Alfie said.

Jani stared at the church. “I intend to take a closer look.”

“Is that wise?”

“Just a look,” she told him, “to reconnoitre. We need to work out exactly where Mahran is being held.”

“If he’s being held there,” Alfie said.

“I’m certain he is.” She pointed. “I’ll cut through the park and approach the church from the side.”

“I’ll come with you,” Alfie said.

“Me too,” Anand chipped in.

“Very well.” She opened the door and climbed out, joined on the pavement by Alfie and Anand. The mechanical hound chose to remain in the car, and Jani was unsure how she felt about this. It would have been comforting to have had the hound by her side.

They found a gate in the railings and hurried across the grass. The church cut a black silhouette against the night sky, like a great ship on a becalmed and darkened ocean. Jani felt her pulse quicken as they came to a hedge that flanked the churchyard, hurrying along its length until she reached a painted timber gate. She turned a circular metal catch and pushed, then slipped through followed by Alfie and Anand.

A series of headstones stood like lop-sided dominoes in a swathe of unkempt grass. Jani crossed to a table-stone in the lee of the building and crouched. She could tell, from the state of the windows along the side of the church, that it had long since been deconsecrated and given over to other uses: some windows were boarded over, the stained glass in others pocked with dark holes.

She was about to suggest to Alfie and Anand, crouching beside her, that they should cross to the building and attempt to peer inside, when a noise froze the words on her lips. They ducked down as the sound of a door opening was followed by voices. They grew louder, passing along the side of the church perhaps ten yards from where Jani was concealed. She peered up and over the stone slab when she judged the men had passed, and made out a tall figure beside a smaller, barrel-chested man.

She looked at Alfie. “Russians!” she whispered.

The men passed from sight around the front of the building. She heard the sound of an engine starting up and a vehicle driving away. The pair had come from a small annexe at the back of the church. She pointed to it and led the way across the graveyard.

The solid timber door was locked, and a window to its right was barred on the outside. Jani stood on her tiptoes and tried to peer in. She made out, through the dusty, cobwebbed panes, a dark interior, its far wall illuminated by a shaft of moonlight.

She felt that strange, cerebral jolt of recognition again as she made out a whitewashed wall. But she was unable to see if the room contained Mahran.

“What now?” Anand asked.

“It will be light soon,” she said. “We don’t have the time, or the means, to do anything now.”

“I suggest we repair to Highgate,” Alfie said, “and consider how to proceed when we’ve slept and have a good meal inside us.”

Jani led the way across the graveyard, through the gate and across the park. When they approached the car, Jani saw that the rear door was wide open and swinging on its hinges.

Jani peered inside, but there was no sign of the mechanical dog.

“Well, he did his duty in leading us here,” she said, “and now he’s gone off on his own errands. I wonder when he’ll be back.”

“Or if he’ll be back,” Alfie said. He examined the shattered locking mechanism, then managed to lodge the door shut.

“Oh, I somehow think we’ll see the hound again,” she said.

They climbed into the car and Alfie set off north, across the Thames to Highgate.

They were silent for a time, before Anand hung between the front seats and said, “I’ve been thinking, Jani, Mr Alfie.”

“About?” she asked.

“About how to free Mahran,” he said. “I was about to tell you earlier about my plan to free him from Newgate gaol. Well,” he went on proudly, “the church certainly isn’t Newgate, so I think my idea will work even better!”

Jani stared at the boy. “Tell us,” she said.

He beamed at her. “When we have reached Highgate,” he said, “over a pot of Earl Grey tea.”