CHAPTER FIVE

A crash loud enough to shake the floorboards came from somewhere down the corridor.

Sorrotore jerked as if he’d been shot. He darted for the door. People in the large party room were exclaiming with pleased surprise at the unexpected drama.

‘What was that noise?’ called the woman with the diamond-studded feather in her hair. ‘It sounded like smashing ice – did the little girl break your heart?’

The door to the study slammed shut, and Vita was alone. She stood in the middle of the room. Her upper lip was beaded with sweat, and she was breathing as if she had run miles.

Suddenly the sash window wrenched upwards, and a girl clambered in over the sill.

‘Come on!’ she said. ‘Quick. This way.’

It was the blonde waitress.

Vita stared at her. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Later. Out the window.’ Her accent was not American but Irish, and perhaps a little English. ‘Come on.’

‘We’re miles up!’

‘Come on! Fire escape!’

Vita ran across the room. The window opened on to a metal balcony, with a long metal ladder leading to a platform below; which led, in turn, to more balconies, more ladders, and the ground.

Vita swung her leg over the edge of the sill.

‘Faster.’ The waitress spat on her palms and led the way down the first ladder, her hands and feet swift and confident. The final ladder did not reach the pavement; the girl hung by her hands for a second, and dropped. Vita, her hair blowing in her eyes, took hold of the ladder, counted to three, and fell. She tried to land on her right leg, but even so it sent agonising shock waves through her left foot, and she bent to rub at her ankle, ducking behind her hair to hide the pain.

‘What was that crash? Was that you?’ she said.

‘Not here,’ said the girl. ‘Come on.’

They crossed the road and began walking away from the Dakota, mingling with the crowds.

Vita’s left foot was throbbing at every step, and her patience was running thin. ‘Tell me what happened!’ she said. ‘Now, or I’ll shout.’

The girl sighed. ‘I was listening outside the window.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you noticed me … working.’

‘Stealing?’

‘Working. And you didn’t say anything. But I wanted to check – check you weren’t ratting. So I listened. And all I could hear was that man, Sorrotore, trying to con you.’

‘Con me?’

‘Yeah. I know what a con artist sounds like.’

‘How?’

The girl sounded surprised. ‘Well, I am one.’

‘I thought you were a pickpocket.’

‘Both. And a lock-pick, too.’

‘Really?’

They were passing a blue mailbox; the girl pulled a long sliver of metal from her stocking, bending over the lock on the front. ‘Yes, really.’ The box clicked open.

Vita glanced behind her. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Sometimes there’s money in the envelopes. But that’s dirty work, because you don’t know who you’re stealing from. I don’t do that, not any more.’

‘Close it!’ said Vita. ‘Someone will see!’

The girl kicked it closed. ‘But I used to con for a living, when I was young. It was horrible – it’s the worst job there is, worse than post-lifting, even – but I learned how to sound like Sorrotore did, how to sound hurt and wounded and patient and forgiving when I lied.’ She glanced behind her, saw a car slow as it drove past, and pushed Vita down another road. ‘Did you notice how he got angry? The best defence, when you’ve done something wrong, is anger.

‘So I was outside the window, wondering why a grown adult’s trying to put something over on a kid. And I thought I’d do something.’

‘What did you do? What was the noise?’

‘I spilt some red wine on my uniform, so’s I’d have an excuse to go to the kitchen to get a cloth. Then I saw this room with this white china statue of that man, Sorrotore, in it – just his head – and it looked so handsome and noble that I wanted to kick it. I only gave it a tap, though – just so the wind could have done it – and it fell on the floor and smashed.’

‘Ah,’ said Vita.

‘And then I crawled back on to your window sill and dragged you out.’ She looked Vita up and down. ‘So … what were you doing?’

‘That man stole something from my family. I went to ask for it back.’

The girl stared at Vita. ‘Ask for it back?’ She snorted. ‘Listen – and I say this speaking as a thief – that’s insane. Ask for it back! You wouldn’t last three minutes in the Bowery!’ She seemed almost angry. ‘You don’t know anything about the real world, do you? People like you are dangerous!’

‘Like me?’ Vita bristled.

‘Stupid! Naive! Hopeful!’ They turned a corner and the girl stopped abruptly. ‘Not that way,’ she said.

Two boys, a few years older than Vita, stood leaning against a doorway.

‘Who are they?’

She turned on her heel. ‘People I don’t want to talk to.’

There was a shout, and two sets of running steps came after them. ‘Hey! Hey, Silk!’

The girl made a rude gesture across the street. ‘Ach, get out of it!’ she called.

‘Is that your name?’ asked Vita. ‘Silk?’

The taller of the boys began to run. ‘Silk! Hey! Don’t you walk away – you owe us! What you got from tonight?’

But Silk had darted across the road and disappeared among the crush. The boys followed, leaving Vita standing, her head whirling, on the dark pavement.

Vita thought of Silk’s words: ‘stupid’, ‘naive’, ‘hopeful’. She did not feel naive. She did not feel, precisely, hopeful: it was not hope that burned in her stomach and heart, but grim determination. And Vita was not stupid: she could feel the speed with which her mind spun and flashed. Her brain built things; plans, pictures, stories. Especially plans.

She pulled the map from her pocket and set off in pursuit, towards the Bowery.

There was trouble, when Vita returned, but Mama was exhausted, and Vita explained she had lost track of time exploring, and the lecture she received was not, overall, as furious as it might have been.

Vita retreated to her bedroom, and took out her red notebook. She saw again, with a thump of guilt, that she was still wearing the ring. She found some soap in the bathroom, coated her thumb in it and eased the ring off, hiding it in the pocket of her coat.

Then she filled her fountain pen with black ink, covering her fingers in the process. She bit down so hard on her lip it drew blood, and she began to write:

I found the girl outside a pawnbroker in the Bowery. She didn’t want to listen, but I made her: I told her I’d go to the police if she didn’t give me five minutes. I wasn’t proud of that, but I did it. I needed to.

I said, ‘I’ve got a plan. I need help. And I can pay you.’

I told her everything I know about Hudson Castle. I’ve never been, but I’ve heard Grandpa’s stories a thousand times.

I told her about the lake, and how the house is built right in the middle of the water. I told her about the burglar bars, which my great-grandfather put on every window, after the robbery of 1888. He put in unpickable locks, too, on every door. Grandpa always called it ‘the old fortress’. Nobody can get in. Nobody can get out.

And I told her the plan:

We’re going to steal back Grandpa’s emerald.

The Castle is impossible to break into. Luckily, we don’t have to.

The emerald, Grandpa says, is hidden in the family’s old hiding place. Which means under the paving slabs by the fountain in the walled rose garden.

There are two guard dogs. They bite. So I need someone to tame them.

She said, ‘You could just kill them,’ but I ignored her.

There’s a wall around the whole garden. So I need someone to help me get over it.

And the rose garden, Grandpa says, has a door with a lock the size of your head. I need someone to pick it.

I need a team. We’d leave New York on a late-night train, so that it’s dark. We would break into the garden, dig up the emerald, break out again, and be back at Grand Central Station before midday. Nobody will know we’ve been there.

And we’ll sell the emerald, and get a lawyer, and get back the house, and Grandpa will have a home. And then he’ll be able to breathe again.

Silk said no.

She had listened, her face clenched and sceptical, until Vita had finished. ‘I don’t have any money right now,’ said Vita, ‘but once we’ve sold the emerald, there would be enough to pay you a fee. A proper one.’

Then Silk shook her head. The look in her eyes was too old for a child.

‘No. Even if it wasn’t insane – which, incidentally, it absolutely is – I never work with anyone else. I don’t do teams.’

‘Never?’

‘No. I’ve been asked before.’

‘But if—’

‘I don’t care about buts or ifs. I can’t get caught. Will you understand that? I can’t. The police – they’d want to know who my guardian is, and then they’d work out I haven’t got one, and then I’d be a ward of the state before you can say “But if”.’

‘This is different. I have a proper plan. Plans are the thing I’m good at.’

‘You ever stolen anything before?’

‘Well, no, not exactly—’

‘Exactly. Every new person you work with is just another chance of getting caught. No.’

‘What about those boys? I saw you with them—’

‘I don’t work with them. I owe them – or they say I do. Once I pay them off, I’m never doing any of that again: not pickpocketing, not lock-picking, not anything.’

‘I know that! I could see – from your face – back at the party – I could see that it wasn’t simple. But this is different – it’s stealing back.’

‘No.’

‘Would you consider it if I said I’ve found a way that you couldn’t possibly get caught – because I have! I swear.’

‘No.’ And Silk shifted away, her back an effective punctuation mark. ‘Leave me alone.’

But Vita did not write that in her red book. Because she did not intend to take no for an answer.