Authors: Rohan Gavin
3 of a Kind (23 page)
Darkus stared up into the sky, raindrops splatting into his eyes, which were blinking in shock and disbelief. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Tilly managed a heart-rending scream. Jackie quickly grabbed both of them, trying to turn their faces away, but they refused.
Darkus watched as the world started turning before his eyes. The walls of the adjacent buildings began to slant and distort; firemen in high-visibility jackets ran inside the smoking pyramid, which took on even greater proportions, stretching in all directions, threatening to completely consume him. The thunderclouds warped and shuddered. The lights of the hotels elongated into long, continuous streaks. His eyes rolled back and he felt himself starting to pass out.
Bill wiped his own eyes on his sleeve, then spotted something a short distance away, among a mess of glass shards and plaster. He ambled into the road and picked it up.
It was a tweed walking hat, shredded and frayed.
‘Alan …’ the Scotsman whispered.
Darkus saw Uncle Bill holding up the hat in dismay and the final threads of his consciousness worked themselves loose. The last thing he remembered was the ground racing up to catch him …
FULL CIRCLE
Five Months Later …
Darkus was never one to believe in paranormal phenomena. Maybe it was his mother’s sensible nature; or a reaction against his father’s bizarre ideas, which had been such a feature of his short childhood. But now, believe in them he must, and believe in them he did.
Following their return from America, Darkus and Tilly spent the summer together at Wolseley Close, doing their best to be ordinary teenagers. Clive had been confined, once again, to a court-ordered stay at a mental health facility, in Somerset this time. Jackie diplomatically referred to it as a ‘much-needed break’, though Darkus suspected his stepfather would be away quite a bit longer than the phrase implied.
The Winner’s Circle
had abruptly been taken off-air due to rumours of Clive’s unacceptable behaviour on set, and it was swiftly replaced by a wildlife programme.
In secret, both Darkus and Tilly obsessively studied the loose ends of their last case: an extraordinary one, which had taken them across continents, facing their darkest demons and their greatest foes, culminating in an explosion that had allegedly claimed the lives of every soul on the top floor of the hotel. Every soul, that is, except one …
Incredibly and contrary to all the laws of science, Alan Knightley had been found physically intact, three floors down from the explosion. He had been covered in rubble, white with plaster dust, and had sustained several fractures and a severe head injury, but he was alive.
His mind, however, was another matter. It had apparently retreated back to its protective state of trance-like unconsciousness. Uncle Bill arranged for a bed and the best possible care, courtesy of University College Hospital in central London. As word travelled, Darkus and Jackie experienced an outpouring of goodwill. Miss Khan brought flowers once a week. Even Chief Inspector Draycott delivered a box of chocolates and a ‘get well soon’ card, although his handwriting was so poor it was impossible to decipher – despite being studied by an accomplished young detective. Darkus suspected that even Draycott found life a lot less exciting without his father around.
Once Knightley had been settled into his hospital room and his every need attended to, Bill invited Bogna
to take a spin on the London Eye with him. Having secured his own private capsule, at the top of the first revolution Bill plucked up the courage to dig in the depths of his voluminous overcoat and take out an engagement ring, which he then nervously fumbled and dropped – the fateful ring working its way ingeniously through a floor vent and plummeting one hundred and thirty metres into the River Thames below. After a stream of curses, followed by profuse apologies, Bill dug deeper into his overcoat and produced a Hula Hoop from a forgotten crisp packet, which Bogna accepted instead. They then embraced with such force that the capsule visibly rocked on its hinges, causing great alarm to the fellow travellers on the big wheel.
Meanwhile, Tilly found that her father’s welcome absence gave her a chance to get to know Jackie better. Still reeling from the revelations about her own mother, Tilly routinely shared heart-to-hearts with her stepmum, often combined with visits to the hair salon. Strangely, Tilly started to dress more like Jackie, and Jackie started to change her hair colour frequently and for no apparent reason. Tilly realised that perhaps the mother she had craved had been under her nose the whole time.
Under the guise of completing her GCSE coursework, Tilly still followed the aftermath of the explosion via her online contacts in the dark cloud. Darkus suspected
that – having discovered her mother had been alive all those years, albeit working for the enemy – it would be even more difficult for Tilly to accept her death a second time. It would take several more months, or even years, to retrieve and piece together the DNA from the scene. The familiar faces they’d seen around the Combination conference table had all been notably absent from public life: no photos, no reports. The same went for their former classmate Brendan Doyle, last seen unconscious on the thirteenth floor. It was as if the villains had vanished without a trace. Darkus convinced himself that the Combination had all perished – with the exception of Morton Underwood, who had slept through the entire drama, confined to his own hospital bed just outside London, in a self-induced trance, and still under twenty-four-hour guard. But deep down Darkus knew that, lacking definitive evidence, it was just as possible that the Combination had
all
survived.
However, if there was a winner of the game, it was Darkus – for it had proved to him, beyond a shadow of a doubt, who he was: a
detective
, just like his father.
Through summer, autumn and then winter, Alexis Bateman, still bedecked in tweed, took to arriving at the house with food parcels for Darkus, claiming that his
spirits needed lifting. Which spirits, precisely, was another matter. For the parcels were often discreetly accompanied by books on the paranormal, with outlandish theories about everything imaginable, which Darkus consumed with great appetite, leading him to the inevitable question: how had his father survived the explosion? Had he hatched an escape plan that he hadn’t shared with his son? Had he been provided access to another dimension? Or had he just been unbelievably,
extraordinarily
lucky?
Finding himself back in the solace of his father’s hospital room, Darkus wondered whether he had stepped through another dimension himself. Or even stepped back in time to the events preceding his first investigation. For here he was every weekend, back at his dad’s bedside, watching the gentle pulse of the ECG machine sketching a green mountain range across the monitor. Only this time Darkus was joined by two other visitors …
Jackie gently squeezed Knightley’s hand, carefully avoiding the tube running up the sleeve of his gown to an intravenous drip. Her former husband slept a dreamless sleep, except for an occasional flutter of the eyelids, or an even more occasional flare of the nostrils. His hair was neatly parted, his chin was clean-shaven and he looked younger than ever: the way he looked when they first met.
On the other side of the bed, Tilly kept vigil beside Darkus, both watching for any response from Knightley – the way a pair of fishermen might watch the still surface of a lake, waiting for a ripple that means the bait has been taken. They received no such ripple.
In the distance, Big Ben began its solemn toll across the capital, running in counterpoint to the jangle of Christmas bells that were presently ringing in the holy holiday. The bed was surrounded by gifts, which may or may not ever be unwrapped.
‘That concludes our report for today,’ said Darkus. ‘The Case of the Cracked Combination is, for now … still open.’
‘When the DNA samples come back, we’ll make sure you’re the first to know,’ added Tilly.
‘Well, the second or third, technically,’ Darkus corrected her.
‘My bad,’ Tilly admitted.
‘Don’t beat yourself up, remember?’ Jackie told her.
‘OK … Mum,’ she replied, still wincing slightly at the word, until it was met by a warm smile from Jackie that seemed to say:
one day at a time
.
Footsteps squeaked across the linoleum as a female nurse appeared through the door behind them, clutching a clipboard. ‘Time’s up, I’m afraid.’
Jackie looked up, disappointed.
‘Merry Christmas, Dad.’ Darkus smoothed his father’s furrowed brow.
Tilly squeezed Knightley’s arm, then Jackie tenderly kissed him on the cheek.
‘Can we leave the radio on?’ she asked. ‘He loves Christmas music.’
‘I don’t see why not,’ replied the nurse.
Jackie reached over and switched on a small radio by the bedside. A rousing performance of ‘Silent Night’ rattled out of a single speaker.
Knightley twitched and a brief flicker of consciousness crossed his face, causing all three of his visitors to stop in their tracks.
Darkus felt a rush of expectation soar through him: the prospect of a new case; a new adventure; the return of his beloved parent and partner in crime-solving. But after several moments, with no visible change in his father’s condition, the catastrophiser went quiet, and Darkus reluctantly put it down to a false alarm. He put on his tweed hat, then gently closed the door as the music came to an end.
The voice of the announcer came over the radio: ‘That was “Silent Night” by Franz Gruber. The perfect combination of Christmas carol and lullaby … The perfect
com-bin-ation
…’
Knightley & Son
Knightley & Son: K-9
Knightley & Son: 3 of a Kind
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Bloomsbury Publishing, London, Oxford, New York, New Delhi and Sydney
First published in Great Britain in January 2016 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP
Bloomsbury is a registered trademark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Copyright © Rohan Gavin 2016
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
eISBN 978 1 4088 6008 3
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