South by South East (8 page)

There was also a handful of spectators. An old lady sat knitting. She might have been aged eighty-six but I somehow doubted that she was the agent. An ice-cream seller was sitting on his own, looking depressed because nobody was buying his ice creams. The nearest he got to eighty-six was the 99-flakes he was advertising.

I glanced back at Tim. He had fallen over again. Either that, or he was trying to ice-skate on his nose.

But there was one good skater on the ice, a real professional in a black tracksuit. If you’ve ever watched ice-skaters, you’ll know that they seem to move without even trying. It’s almost as though they’re flying standing up. Well, this man was like that. I watched him as he sped round in a huge figure of eight. Then I turned back and began to thread my way through the remaining spectators.

That was when I saw them. They were sitting down in the middle of the highest row of seats with their legs spread out on the seats below them. One was tall and thin, dressed in a grey suit with a bow tie. At some time in his life he’d had a nasty argument with someone … and I mean nasty. The someone had left a scar that started just to the side of his left eye and ran all the way down to his neck. I’d never seen a scar quite like it. It looked like you could post a letter in it. His companion was shorter, dressed in jeans, white T-shirt and black leather jacket. He had hair like an oil-slick and a face that seemed to have been moulded by somebody with large thumbs. He didn’t need a scar. He was ugly enough already.

Why had I noticed them? It was simple. They weren’t watching the ice. I got the feeling they were watching me – and as I walked past them, following a line of seats a few rows below, I felt their four eyes swivelling round and sticking to me like leeches in a swamp. Even as I went, I wondered if one of them could be Agent 86. But I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to know.

The music changed from classical to jazz.

Tim fell over more jazzily this time. The professional swung round him in another smooth circle. Scarface and Ugly were still sitting where I’d seen them, only now they were looking away. I decided to ignore them.

But where was 86?

I walked up to the top row, passing seat eighty-six as I went. It was empty. I turned back and took one last look at the rink. Tim was sitting on the ice, shaking his head, and suddenly I wanted to laugh. The man in the black tracksuit had skated two figures round him. I could see the figures cut by the blades in the surface of the ice. An eight and a six.

I ran back down to the edge of the rink and called to Tim. That was a mistake. I’d allowed myself to get excited and I’d shown it. And although I only half-noticed it then, I had good reason to remember it later.

Scarface and Ugly were watching me again.

We found the tracksuit in the changing room but the skater was no longer in it. He was taking a shower. We waited until he came out, a white towel wrapped round his waist. He was a tough, broad-shouldered man. The water was still glistening off muscles that would have looked good on a horse. He had pale skin and grey, watchful eyes that reminded me of my old friend Inspector Snape. He sat down between Tim and me without seeming to notice either of us.

“86?” I said.

He just sat there as if he hadn’t even heard me. Then slowly he turned his head and looked at me with an expressionless face. “I don’t know you,” he said.

Tim took over. “I liked the skating,” he said. “You always practise figures?”

The skater shrugged. “What of it?” His English was almost perfect, but with a slight American accent.

“I’m a friend of a friend of yours,” Tim explained. “A guy called McMuffin.”

“McGuffin,” I corrected him.

The skater shook his head. Water dripped out of his hair. “I don’t know this name…”

Tim smiled. He was playing the private detective now – cooler than the ice on the rink. “Well, here’s something else you don’t know,” he drawled. “McGuffin is in his McCoffin.”

The skater seemed uninterested. “Who are you?” he demanded.

“The name’s Tim Diamond. Private eye.”

“How about you?” I asked.

“My name is Rushmore. Hugo Rushmore. I’m sorry to hear about your friend but I can’t help you. I’m just a skater. That’s all.”

For a moment I almost believed him – but the figures cut in the ice couldn’t have been just a coincidence. And without Agent 86, we were nowhere.

I decided to have one last try. “Please, Mr Rushmore,” I said. “You’ve got to help us.”

Still he looked blank. And then I remembered the ticket that I had found in McGuffin’s hotel room, the ticket that had brought us all this way. I still had it in my pocket. I fished it out and handed it to him.

“McGuffin gave us this,” I said. “Before he died.”

Rushmore took the ticket. It was as if I’d said the right password or turned on some sort of switch. A light came on in his eyes. “All right,” he said. “Let’s get a drink.”

We went up to the café terrace I’d seen before. It had a view over the rink, but either the day had got warmer or the ice had got colder, because there was so much mist you could hardly see it.

I could just make out two figures standing at the far end and thought of Scarface and Ugly but they were too far away and the mist washed them out. Rushmore was drinking a Coke and had bought us both milk shakes, which would have been nicer if someone had remembered to shake the milk.

“There’s not a lot I can tell you,” he began. “I do a little work for the Dutch Secret Service…”

“What sort of work?” Tim asked.

“That’s a secret. But I’ll tell you this much. I was ordered to look after Jake McGuffin while he was over here. His boss – Mr Waverly – was desperate to find Charon.” Rushmore paused and considered. “There was something odd going on,” he added. “Something Waverly hadn’t told Jake.”

“You mean, Waverly was keeping something back?” I said.

“That’s right. There was a connection between Mr Waverly and Charon. It was as if they knew each other in some way. Jake said the whole thing stank. But he never found out what it was…”

A connection between Waverly and Charon. It seemed impossible. After all, Waverly was the one who wanted to find Charon. It was all getting confusing. “What was McGuffin doing here in Holland?” I asked.

“He’d followed Charon over here.” Rushmore finished his Coke. “The last time I saw him he was planning to check out some old house just outside the city.”

“You know the name?” Tim asked.

Rushmore nodded. “Yes. It’s called the Winter House. The
Villa de Winter
, in Dutch. It’s about twenty kilometres from Amsterdam.”

“Twenty kilometres…” Tim tried to work it out on his fingers. He didn’t have enough fingers.

“Twelve miles,” I said. I turned to Rushmore. “Could you take us there?”

His eyes narrowed. “It could be dangerous.”

“That’s all right,” Tim chimed in. “You can go in first.”

Rushmore looked from Tim back to me. “All right,” he said. “The rink closes at six today. Come back at five past. I’ll drive you out this evening.”

We stood up.

“See you later, Mr Skater,” I muttered.

“Yeah. Watch how you go, Hugo,” Tim added. I looked down at the ice, searching for the figures that I’d glimpsed behind the mist. But the ice was empty. The two of them had gone.

We got back to the ice rink at six o’clock after an afternoon in Amsterdam. It was still light outside, but once we’d passed through the swing doors into the old building it was as if we’d entered some sort of artificial Arctic night. The ticket-seller had gone home. The lights had been turned off and the windows with their frosted glass and wire grills kept most of the sunlight out. The rink itself stretched out silent and empty, with the mist still curling gently on the surface. The music was switched off, too. But the machine that made the ice was still active. I could hear it humming and hissing like some sort of mythical creature, its pipes spreading out like tentacles, chilling everything they touched.

“Where is he?” I whispered. My words were taken by the cold air and sent scurrying up towards the rafters.
Where is he? Where is he?

I could almost hear the echo.

The mist on the ice folded over itself, rolling towards us.

“What…?” Tim began.

There was something on the ice. It was in the very middle, a grey bundle that could have been somebody’s old clothes.

“Wait here,” I said.

I walked through the barrier and onto the ice. I could feel it, cold underneath my shoes. As I walked forward, my feet slid away from under me and I had to struggle to stay upright. The ice-making pipes rumbled softly below. The mist swirled round my ankles, clinging to my skin. I wanted to hurry but I was forced to be slow.

At last I reached the bundle.

It was Rushmore. The Dutch secret agent must have been on his way to meet us, crossing the ice when he was stopped. Somebody had found out who he was and had known about his connection with McGuffin. And they had made sure that he wouldn’t help us.

He had been stabbed twice. The blades were still in his back, one between his shoulders, the other just above his waist. There was a pool of blood around his outstretched hand. It had already frozen solid.

I took one last look at the body and at the blades, long and silver and horribly appropriate. Because whoever had killed Hugo Rushmore, professional ice-skater and spy, hadn’t used knives.

They’d used a pair of ice-skating boots.

We spent the night at a cheap motel on the edge of Amsterdam. Our money was low and so were we. Rushmore had been our only link in a chain that might lead us to Charon and now he was dead. Worse still, it seemed that Charon knew we were in Amsterdam. How else could he have got to the ice-rink before us?

It was raining when we got to the Van Bates Motel. We were shown to our room by a thin, twitchy manager who didn’t speak a word of English. In the end we had to get his mother down to translate.

All I wanted was a shower and a bed but the shower wasn’t working and as usual Tim took the bed. There was a TV in one corner of the room. It was tuned to the BBC – the ten o’clock news. I didn’t want to hear the news but I was somehow glad to hear another English voice. I listened. And suddenly I was glad I’d turned it on.

There was a reporter on the screen. He was standing outside Sotheby’s, the auction house in New Bond Street, London.

“Boris Kusenov—” They were the first two words I’d heard. That was what had caught my attention— “is considered to be the key figure in the struggle for power at the Kremlin.”

The picture changed. Now the reporter was inside the auction house, standing in front of a large canvas. For a moment I thought the TV had broken. Then I realized. This was modern art.

“Kusenov is in England to bid for a canvas by the surrealist painter, Salvador Dali,” the reporter’s voice went on. “Titled ‘The Tsar’s Feast’, it depicts Tsar Nicholas II offering stale bread to his dissatisfied serfs…”

Well, that may have been what it looked like to him. To me the picture looked like a bent watch beside a pink lake being examined by two oversized amoebas. Had Kusenov come all the way from Russia just to buy this? The TV screen cut to a picture of the reporter. He answered the question for me.

“Kusenov came to Britain unexpectedly because of his belief that the painting should hang in Russia. Although it is expected to reach almost a million pounds, he will be bidding for it when it is auctioned at Sotheby’s in two days’ time.”

The reporter smirked at the camera and the programme cut back to the studio and the next news item.

“Police have completely lost the track of the dangerous criminal, Tim Diamond, who…”

I turned the set off. I’d heard quite enough about
him
.

“Kusenov,” I muttered. Tim was sitting upright on the bed. The sound of his own name had evidently woken him up. “He’s already in England.”

“Is that bad?” Tim asked.

I sighed. It wasn’t bad. It was terrible. “It means we’re running out of time. Charon could move at any moment.” I thought for a minute. “We’ve got to find this Winter House,” I said. “We need help.”

Tim’s eyes lit up. “Charlotte!”

“You’d better call her.”

Tim called her. The phone rang about six times before we were connected. Charlotte answered in Dutch.

“Charlotte?” Tim interrupted. “It’s me … Tim.”

“Tim?” There was a pause and I wondered if she’d forgotten who he was. But then she continued breathlessly. “Thank goodness you rang. I have to see you. I think I’ve found something.”

“What?” Tim asked.

“I can’t tell you. Not over the telephone. Let’s meet somewhere safe.” Another pause. I could hear heavy breathing. It took me a few seconds to realize it was Tim’s. Then Charlotte cut in again. “Just outside Amsterdam, in the Flavoland. There’s a crossroads and a bus stop. Can you meet me there tomorrow morning? At nine.”

“Tomorrow?” Tim crooned. “But that’s a whole day away!”

“I know.”

“I’ll be there.”

Tim hung up. “Tomorrow,” he said. “Just off the Flavobahn. In Autoland.”

“I heard,” I said.

And I had heard. Charlotte was frightened and Rushmore was dead. Charon, it seemed, was everywhere. How long would it be before he moved in on us?

Take a bus north out of Amsterdam and after a while you’ll come to the Flavoland. When you look for a view and find you haven’t got one, that’s when you’ll know you’re there. The Flavoland used to be the bottom of the sea until someone had the bright idea of taking the water away. What was left was a great, flat, wide, empty nothing. Dutch farmers use it to grow their crops in, and that’s all there is: fields of corn, wheat, barley and maize stretching out to a horizon as regular as a plate. There isn’t one hill in the Flavoland. There are no trees. And the birds are too bored to whistle.

There was only one bus stop in the area and it was right next to the crossroads that Charlotte had described. The bus-driver tried to stop us getting out – he must have thought we were crazy – but we insisted.

“When does the next bus arrive?” I asked.