Shoes for Anthony (28 page)

I reached up to retrieve it, twisting the silver tube to the left as I did. The hook caught on the rope and I heard a small, distinct click.

‘Did you hear that?' I said, going up on my tiptoes to pull it down. I looked at the hook. It had changed position. ‘It's moved round,' I said, touching it lightly with my fingertip. ‘What does that mean?'

‘Pull it,' said Fez, standing at my shoulder and peering down. ‘P'raps it's got something inside it?'

‘Secret code, like?' said Ade. ‘Go on, Ant.'

Pinching the hook between two fingers, I pulled upwards. There was another quiet click and something appeared from the base of the tube.

‘Well,' said Bozo, ‘will you look at that?'

I turned the tube upside down to reveal a small, corrugated metal rectangle, fully extended. I pushed the hook back down. It disappeared. I pulled it. It came back out again. ‘What is it?' I said, looking to the others.

Fez took it and laid it in the palm of his hand. ‘Has to be a tool for something. Special, like.'

‘Dunno,' I said, tilting my head. ‘It sort of looks like a key. But not one I've ever seen before.'

‘Key for what?' said Ade.

I shrugged and stared down at the strange metal object in Fez's hand, and as I did, I was consumed with a feeling of cold and certain dread. No good would come of this. Of that I was absolutely sure.

‘Must be something up in the den. Meet after tea. We'll head up there,' said Ade. He held his fist out. ‘Bloodsies.'

‘Bloodsies,' we replied. The pact sealed.

The news from Pontypridd was not good. Father was still on oxygen, heavily sedated. His breathing had got worse and the fear that pneumonia would set in was fast becoming a reality. All we could hope for was that he would somehow pull through. ‘He's a fighter, Mam,' said Emrys, arms folded. ‘He's given his whole life to that mountain.'

‘That's what I'm worried about,' said Mam, sinking into her chair.

Alwyn was running a wet flannel across the back of his neck at the kitchen sink. They'd been up the mountain all day, sweeping through bracken, checking bogs, but all they'd found was the parachute Piotr had used when he'd leapt from the plane. ‘We tore the silk up,' he called out to us from the kitchen. ‘I got a bit for Bethan.' He gestured over his shoulder to a neat white heap of material on the parlour dresser. I picked it up, letting it melt through the gaps in my fingers.

‘Enough for skirt, at least,' said Piotr, coming up behind me. ‘So delicate,' he added, fingering its edge. ‘And yet somehow it keeps a man in the air. Where did you find it?'

‘About a mile from the crash site,' said Alwyn, reaching for a tea cloth. ‘Wind would have taken it further but it was wrapped round some gorse. Mam says you saw Arthur Pryce today? You reckon this German would hand himself in if he wasn't up to no good?'

Piotr gave a small shrug. ‘If I landed here by accident,' he said, with a small shake of his head, ‘I'd surrender. If I didn't, I wouldn't. He's up to no good. Or he's already dead. That's my guess.'

I let my hand drift to my pocket. The metal tube was sticking into my leg. I wanted to tell my brothers, Mam, Piotr. But it was bloodsies. And that was that. Bad things happen. I wouldn't make that mistake twice. I tightened my fingers around it. The burden was mine.

‘Bumped into Alf coming off the mountain,' said Emrys, tapping the end of a newly drawn cigarette against the mantelpiece. ‘He's been up the pit. Three months closed, they reckon. Best estimate. Looks like Bethan's the bread winner now. Though I've got my Home Guard wages, mind.'

‘Tuppence ha'penny?' said Alwyn, tossing the used tea cloth back towards the sink.

‘Better than nothing, innit?' said Emrys, striking a match. ‘And nothing is what we'll be bringing in. Till the pit reopens.'

‘Hello, hello!' said a voice from the doorway. It was Arthur Pryce and he was smiling.

‘A policeman, twice in one day,' said Mam, heaving herself out of her chair. ‘If you've come back for that cup of tea, Arthur, then you're going to be sorely disappointed.'

‘No tea, ta,' said Arthur. ‘It's St Athan. They want you up there, Captain Skarbowitz. I gave them the description I wrote down, but I couldn't quite read my handwriting. So I just said “small black eyes and half a finger”. Anyway, they've asked if you can pop up there. You can borrow the van, if you like? I don't need it.'

‘They've taken their time getting interested, innit?' said Emrys. ‘You'd think with what's kicking off they'd need the practice killing a German.'

‘Rumour has it they're going to scramble a few Mosquitoes,' said Arthur, tucking his helmet under his arm. ‘See if they can spot him from the air.'

‘They'll not spot half a finger from the air, Arthur,' said Mam, rolling her eyes.

‘No,' replied Arthur, with a nervous swallow. ‘Still. I said I'd ask. Do you know how to get there, Captain Skarbowitz? I can't come with you. My mother's boiled a gammon.'

‘I think I'll be fine. I remember way. Unless you want to come with me, Ant?' Piotr glanced over towards me.

A small charge of panic coursed through me. I couldn't go. I had to be up the mountain. I shook my head. To my relief, Piotr didn't protest.

‘You can bring Bethan back,' said Mam, lifting her housecoat from the rack of hooks in the hall. ‘She'll be glad for the lift.'

Piotr smiled. ‘Then that's sorted. I shall take van.'

‘Arthur!' sounded another voice from the hallway. We all turned to see Hughes the Grocer. He was panting heavily and had clearly been running. ‘Arthur!' he called out again. ‘It's Old Morris. He's had some clothes taken from the back of his salvage shop. Reckons it has to be the German.'

‘How does he know?' said Alwyn, coming into the parlour, his face urgent.

‘Because there's a bit of uniform stuffed behind a crate. Come on,' urged Hughes. ‘I'll show you.'

Everyone surged towards the street. That was my cue. I slipped out after them, but instead of following them down Scott Street, I turned up, heading towards the dark of the mountain.

In one pocket I had the strange metal key. In the other I had four bullets, taken from the cup on the dresser.

We all needed to feel safe.

‘Put the bullets in there,' said Fez, as Ade cocked open the pistol.

‘Do they even fit?' said Bozo, frowning.

‘Hang on,' said Ade, with a pout, his small fingers fumbling. ‘It's fiddly.'

I was feeling anxious. ‘Don't shoot unless you have to,' I said. If Emrys found out I'd taken those bullets, I was for it. ‘When you're done, you have to give 'em back.'

‘Stop frettin', man,' said Ade. ‘If I have to shoot, it means we've got the German, and if we've got the German, we'll be bloody heroes. Nobody'll have our guts for a few bullets then, will they?'

Fez and Bozo murmured in agreement.

Ade tried to shut the pistol, but it was no good. The bullets didn't fit. ‘Christ, man,' he grumbled. ‘Wrong size, innit? We can't go without a gun. Ant, run back to yours and get Emrys' rifle.'

I looked at him, startled. ‘I can't do that. Don't be daft.'

‘It's fine,' said Ade, tucking the pistol back into the top of his trousers. ‘He'll not notice, no how,' said Ade. ‘We'll be up and back with the German before he even blinks an eye. Get on with it, man.'

I stood, frozen. This felt deeper in than I wanted to be. Borrowing bullets was one thing, taking the rifle was another.

‘I can't,' I said, my voice quiet and pleading.

‘If you don't, I will,' said Ade, his eyes insistent. ‘Come on, Ant. It's no fuss.'

‘Yeah.' Fez nodded. ‘It's no fuss, man.'

Emrys had left the rifle leaning up against the dresser. The house was quiet apart from the steady, dull beat of the clock on the parlour mantelpiece. Something in the kitchen was quietly bubbling. ‘Mam?' I called out.

Nothing.

I stood in the doorway into the parlour and stared at the rifle. It was only wood and metal, nothing, really, and yet it was everything. Father wouldn't want me doing this, of that I had no doubt, but this danger was something I felt incapable of turning from. I thought of Piotr. He'd take it and wouldn't think twice: a proper man who would risk all to protect his own. Somewhere, deep inside me, there was a knot of something brave. Get on with it, Anthony. Take the rifle.

I walked silently towards the dresser and placed my hand around its barrel.

There was a sudden noise from the back kitchen. I looked across to the doorway, frozen.

‘Is that you, Ant?' I heard my mother call, and I was gone, running out of the house and towards the tinder track, the rifle heavy in my hands.

Dusk was rolling towards us from the hills. The air had turned cold and over a far mountain, bruised clouds were gathering. ‘Rain's coming,' said Bozo, wind blowing through his hair.

‘Good,' said Ade, throwing the loaded rifle over his shoulder. ‘If he's out, he'll need to find shelter. Bracken won't save him from the wet.'

‘Hughes the Grocer reckons he's been at the back of the salvage shop,' I said, pointing back down towards the tinder path. It wasn't too late to stop all this. An uneasy ache was settling between my ribs. ‘That means he's in the village. P'raps we should look round there first, like?'

‘Nah,' said Ade, picking up a small flat stone by his foot. ‘If that thing is a key, we gotta see what it fits, innit? If he needs it, it's important, like. He'll not stop.'

A crow landed on a low branch overhanging the brook ahead of us. Ade put his weight onto his back foot and flung the stone at it. He missed, but only just, and the crow, with a loud caw, flapped off up the mountain. ‘Right, then,' he said, rubbing his nose with the back of his hand. ‘Let's get at it.'

A thin mist of rain, light but penetrating, had started to fall, making the jumper I was wearing heavy and damp. Bozo's spectacles kept misting over and every now and then he'd stop to wipe his one unplastered lens clean. There was little chatter. We wanted to keep quiet so we could be alert to every overturned stone, every crunch of bracken. I looked up for the red kite but she was nowhere to be seen. Dark clouds were rolling harder. She knew to stay out of it.

It took us longer to get to the den than usual. Ade insisted on checking every nook and cranny along the way. ‘Tracks,' he told us, tapping the ground with a stick. ‘We need to keep a look out for tracks.'

None of us knew how to identify a lost German's tracks but occasionally, one of us would point at a broken twig, a flattened patch of bracken, and we'd gather round it making suitable noises. But we didn't know what we were doing and even though I knew every step of this mountain, I had never felt more lost. In the distance, there was a grumble of thunder. The ache in my chest intensified.

The den was as we had left it. If the German had been there before, he certainly hadn't been there again today. Ade flipped open the old biscuit tin at the back. ‘Sarnie's still there,' he said, his voice filled with disappointment. ‘Mind you, he probably knows we're on to him. Taking the food would be too obvious, like. He's probably watching us right now.'

We all turned and scanned the darkening horizon. Shadows shifted at this time of night and stones became strangers. I wondered if he was out there, standing, looking at us, wondering what to do, thinking about what was in my pocket, thinking how he could take it. The small metal tube in my pocket felt like a lead weight. I didn't want the responsibility. If he came, I'd give it up gladly.

‘Pass me that key thing, Ant,' said Ade, holding his hand out. ‘Let's have a look at it again.'

I reached into my pocket and pulled it out, its brightness dulled in the drizzle. Ade lifted it from my upturned palm, regarding it in the same way Father sometimes looked into the back of his opened fob watch: his face full of wonder and curiosity. I stared at him and realised that Ade had a face I could never imagine old. Not like Bozo. Mam said Bozo had the face of a fifty-year-old man, ancient before his time, but Ade had something springlike running through him: the boundless energy, the sense that nothing was impossible.

‘It has to be a key,' he said, pulling on the coiled hook. ‘And a secret one at that. If it wasn't secret, like, then it wouldn't have a secret way of turning into one. And if it is secret, then that means that whatever it's meant to open is secret. That's what I think.'

‘Yeah,' said Fez, tilting his head, ‘but what's it meant to open? That's the point, innit?'

‘Has to be something from the plane,' said Ade, turning back towards the pile of plundered items we'd ransacked a week earlier. ‘Something with a hole in it.'

‘What shape hole?' said Bozo, wiping his glasses again. ‘It won't look like a normal keyhole, will it? That's not a normal key.'

‘Dunno,' said Ade, squinting again at the small, corrugated rectangle. ‘Sort of that shape, innit? Squiggly, like.'

‘He had a good go at the radio,' said Bozo, pointing towards it. ‘P'raps it's that?'

Ade flipped open the lid of the radio and stared down. ‘Can't see anything that looks like a keyhole, funny or otherwise.' He peered closely at the deep gouges in its side. ‘Nah,' he added. ‘Nothing.'

Behind us, we heard the usual hum of the Mosquito squadrons heading off to who knew where. I turned and stood on the ridge, just making them out through gaps in the thickening clouds. The others, distracted, didn't seem bothered, so I saluted them by myself. It was unlucky not to.

Behind us, there was another deep rumble of thunder. The sky was blackening, the peak of the mountain disappearing into the dark cloak of the storm. The gentle drizzle that had accompanied us was gathering strength, and a thick blanket of rain began to fall. Instinctively, I returned to the shelter of the den. ‘Golden sunshine', that's what Mam called Welsh rain. But there was nothing golden about this. It was grey, it was wet and it was ferocious.