The Crystal Code (19 page)

‘The explosion must have jolted the bars free,' Gerald said. He went to the back of the room and returned with a siege ladder tucked under his arm.

It was only after Sam helped Gerald lean the ladder up to the window that they noticed the telephone on the wall.

Ruby took one look at it, and turned to her brother.

‘You idiot,' she said.

Chapter 25

T
he ticket queue had stalled. The woman three places in front of Gerald in the line was having a long and loud discussion with the ticket seller. All progress had stopped.

Gerald shifted from one foot to the other, trying to keep his blood moving. There was heating in the bus station but it seemed to be avoiding anywhere that Gerald was standing.

‘How long will it take to get to Hadanka?'

Gerald was so lost in his thoughts that Ruby had to repeat the question, and finally flick him on the ear, before he heard her.

‘Huh? What?' he said. ‘I don't know. How would I know—I haven't even spoken with the ticket lady yet.'

‘All right—no need to get shirty,' Ruby said. ‘I was just asking.'

‘Yeah? Well don't ask stupid questions that I can't possibly know the answers to.'

Ruby stared at Gerald for a moment. ‘Feeling a bit tired and grumpy, are we?'

Gerald screwed up his face. ‘Sorry. I'm still annoyed at how the police reacted when I called them.'

‘You can't really blame them, can you?' Ruby said. ‘I'm not surprised they didn't believe you.'

‘I guess I shouldn't have said we were locked up by a four-hundred-year-old astronomer.'

‘That may have been a fundamental error.'

‘I was thinking about Ox and Alisha as well,' Gerald said. ‘And about something Brahe mentioned down in the dungeon.'

‘What's that?'

‘When he said he had no idea where our parents are. He said he'd only taken what he needed from Mt Archer.'

‘So?'

‘Well, the only people we actually saw being picked up by Brahe's goons were Ox and Alisha. Maybe he really doesn't have everyone else.'

It was Ruby's turn to screw up her face. ‘Where could they be, then? And what would Brahe want with Ox and Alisha beyond using them as hostages to get the crystal pendant?'

Gerald shrugged. ‘At least those are good questions,' he said.

Felicity ran up to them, her face beaming. She grabbed Gerald and Ruby by the arm and dragged them out of the ticket queue. ‘Come quick! You've got to see this!'

‘What is it, Felicity?' Ruby asked. ‘What's the matter?'

‘It's your parents. And yours too, Gerald.' Felicity was babbling as she hauled them into the bus station waiting room.

‘What about them?' Gerald said.

‘They're on TV!'

‘They're what?'

‘They've been released, and they're on TV!'

There was a television on the wall showing a cable news channel. Sam was standing in front if it with his mouth open.

Ruby rushed up to her brother.

‘They're free,' he said. ‘I can't understand what the announcer is saying but there's Mum and Dad, and Gerald's parents too.'

A group of adults were milling around in a large room. Reporters and cameramen were jostling to get close to Vi Wilkins. Then Vi began to speak, and Czech subtitles appeared on the screen.

‘Ladies and gentlemen of the press,' she said, assuming her natural position at the centre of attention, ‘I am pleased to say that our entire party has come through this frightful experience unscathed. Our spirits are high. We are healthy. And above all else, we are British!'

Ruby grabbed Gerald's arm and squeezed. ‘They're okay! They're all okay.' A tear ran down her cheek. ‘I can't believe it.'

‘Your mum sounds like she's taken charge,' Sam said.

Gerald shook his head. ‘Those kidnappers never stood a chance.'

Vi beamed out at the cameras. ‘And I want to let my brave little soldier Gerald know that Mummy and Daddy miss him and we'll be home very soon to squeeze his little cheeks.'

Gerald's ears turned a bright crimson. Sam opened his mouth, but before he could make a sound Gerald prodded a finger into his chest. ‘Don't. Say. A. Word. All right?'

Sam grinned. ‘Not a word. My little soldier.'

The vision on the television cut to two photographs, clearly taken from passport files.

Ox and Alisha.

The announcer continued in Czech.

‘What do you think she's saying?' Felicity looked up at the two young faces staring out of the screen, like photos on a wanted poster.

‘The police are still searching for the children.' A man in an overcoat, who had been watching the news program, leaned over them and spoke in an accent. He chucked his chin at the screen. ‘The adults were released in Miami in the United States. But there is no sign of the two children.'

Gerald looked at Ruby. ‘Mum said that everyone she was with was all right,' he said. ‘Ox and Alisha can't have been with them.'

‘So Brahe wasn't lying,' Ruby said. ‘He only took Ox and Alisha.'

Gerald nodded, then turned to leave.

‘What are you doing?' Ruby said.

‘Getting bus tickets to Hadanka.'

‘You're still going?'

‘Of course,' Gerald said. ‘Brahe has Ox and Alisha. I can't abandon them just because the local police don't believe me.'

‘But what about our parents?'

‘My mum and dad looked fine on the TV. I know you'll want to see your parents, so you should head back to the hotel and get Mr Pimbury to arrange a flight to London. But I'm going to find Ox and Alisha.'

Ruby glanced back at the television, to a grainy image of her parents among the crowd of released hostages. Then she looked back to Gerald.

‘Why do you always do this to me?' she said.

‘Do what?'

‘Put me in these impossible situations.' She pressed her lips together. ‘I can't do it, Gerald. I have to see Mum and Dad.'

Gerald nodded again. Felicity took him by the hand. ‘I'll come,' she said. ‘It's not like I've got anyone to go home to at the moment.'

Gerald squeezed her hand. He said an awkward goodbye to Sam and Ruby, then went to join the ticket queue.

He and Felicity had just climbed inside the bus, with the doors hissing shut, when Ruby thrust a shoulder into the gap and pushed herself onboard. She held the doors open long enough for Sam to squeeze through too.

Gerald couldn't hide his smile. ‘I thought you were going home,' he said.

Ruby brushed a stray strand of hair behind her ear as they shuffled down the aisle. ‘Lucky for you that I enjoy your company then, isn't it?'

Since inheriting his enormous fortune, Gerald had crisscrossed the globe in a private jet, skimmed the English Channel in a helicopter and skied down his own private mountain. He could now add to the list: crossing more of the Czech Republic than he would care to in the back of a donkey cart.

Gerald, Sam, Ruby and Felicity had tumbled off the bus from Prague in a small village in the grey light of early afternoon. The bus stop consisted of a pole in the ground and a park bench half-buried under a mound of snow. It was the closest they could get to Hadanka using public transport. From there they would have to make their own way. It was Felicity's polite inquiry of a passing farmer that had hitched them the lift in the back of the donkey cart.

Gerald shifted uncomfortably on his cushion of hessian sacks. He reached under his backside and, with a grunt of effort, extracted a gnarled turnip. ‘Oh, that's better,' he said, tossing the vegetable into the back of the cart. ‘That was right in the wrong spot.'

He pulled a horse blanket up to his chin and snuggled in closer to Felicity. The four of them were packed in tight, like pink-cheeked urchins off to market.

‘How much further is it, do you think?' Sam asked. The cart lurched over a pothole in the road, jostling them about.

‘He doesn't speak much English,' Felicity said, indicating the farmer with a nod. The man sat on an old crate at the front of the cart, reins held slack in one hand, giving the occasional word of encouragement to the donkey. ‘But I gather it's a fair way.'

Gerald shifted on his bottom again. ‘Any distance on this thing would be a fair way. My bum feels like it's about to drop off.' He glanced across to Ruby. She was staring out at the snow-draped countryside. She hadn't spoken since getting off the bus.

‘I'm curious,' she said.

‘That you are,' Sam said.

Ruby gave him an annoyed glare. ‘If Brahe didn't kidnap the adults, then who did? And how did they end up in Miami?'

Gerald tugged at the blanket, trying to keep warm. ‘I get the feeling that Mason Green might have something to do with it,' he said. He wrestled another turnip out from underneath his bottom. ‘I'm sure we'll hear all about it from my mother. Many times.'

The donkey cart rolled onwards, bumping its way along rough country roads. All around were snow-covered fields separated by windbreaks of fir trees.

‘Have you noticed something?' Felicity asked, swaying in time to the rhythm of the cart.

‘What's that?' Sam asked.

‘There's no one around.'

Sam shrugged. ‘We're in the country. What were you expecting? Mardi Gras?'

Felicity shook her head. ‘There were people around when we got off the bus. But for the last few hours we haven't seen another living soul. Not even any birds. Don't you find that kind of creepy?'

Sam let out a sharp laugh. ‘Nah.' But he did pull the rug up tight under his chin, and shifted in closer to the others.

The cart arrived in Hadanka just as the sun dipped behind the white-crested hills that surrounded the village. The temperature plummeted.

The farmer declined Gerald's offer to pay for the ride. He glanced at the setting sun and urged the donkey onwards. The cart set off at a clip and disappeared around a bend.

‘What a kind man,' Felicity said, waving after him. ‘It's nice when people take the time to help.'

‘He was certainly in a hurry to get on,' Ruby said. ‘But it was good of him to give us a lift.'

‘Yeah, yeah,' Sam said, clapping his arms across his chest to ward off the cold. ‘Renews your faith in the world. So, where to now?'

Gerald looked around them. They were in a small village square. A fountain stood in the centre—its metal centrepiece wrapped in canvas. Lights shone from shopfronts that had stared across the square at each other for centuries. Shutters on upper floors were closed. Window boxes were barren, longing for spring. The square was deserted.

One shopfront in particular caught Gerald's eye. ‘Over there,' he said, pointing. ‘That could be a hotel.'

‘Hopefully with a kitchen,' Sam said. ‘I'm starving.'

Gerald climbed the three steps to the front door and pushed his way in. He was greeted by a wave of warm air. A fire blazed in a grate in a cosy lounge area on the left, with comfy armchairs arranged on a rug before it. On the right a bearded man sat at a table, lit by a desk lamp. He held a tiny screwdriver in an enormous hand. His head was bent low as he tended to a model of a sailing ship. Metal springs and cogs littered the tabletop. It looked as if someone had gutted an alarm clock.

The man did not look up. He said something in Czech.

Gerald glanced at the others. ‘Excuse me,' he said. ‘Is this a hotel?'

The man stopped his work and raised his head. A jeweller's glass was wedged into one eye socket and a smouldering pipe jutted from his bearded mouth. Fingers of smoke crawled out of the bowl, filling the room with a pungent mixture of burning hay and rum.

The man looked at Gerald with surprise. ‘You are English?' he said in a voice leathered by age and smoke.

‘I'm Australian,' Gerald said. ‘But these guys are English.'

The man removed the jeweller's glass from his eye and studied the four travellers. The burning tobacco glowed and crackled and popped as he drew on his pipe. He expelled a ball of smoke from a cheek as tanned as a saddlebag.

‘Well, Australian and English, welcome to my hotel.' The man set down his screwdriver and pushed himself up from the table.

Ruby muttered a cautious thanks as the man hobbled towards them.

‘Come,' he said. ‘Take a seat. I don't get to practise my English very often.'

Gerald, Felicity, Sam and Ruby settled into armchairs. Gerald propped his feet near the fire and savoured being warm for the first time that day.

‘Thank you,' Gerald said. ‘We've been on the go for ages. Do you have any rooms available?'

The man prodded at the fire with a blackened poker. He dropped another log on top, sending a fountain of sparks up the chimney. ‘At this time of year, you can take your choice of room. And tonight—' he paused to prod the embers again, ‘—well, tonight you will be the only travellers for miles around.'

Felicity rubbed her hands by the flames. ‘Oh really?' she said. ‘Don't you get many tourists here?'

The man slowly turned his head towards Felicity and was about to reply when the front door banged open. A woman wrapped in a shawl and dusted with snow bowled into the room, muttering and grizzling. She carried a large wicker basket laden with vegetables. She dumped the basket on the floor and, from among the potatoes and the onions, she pulled out a long string of white bulbs, each the size of a baby's fist. With a practised kick, she hooked a wooden stool with her foot and climbed up to latch the door, straining to push the heavy iron bolt. Once the lock was in place, she strung the white vegetables from a notch on the back of the door. She stepped down and turned to face the man. The moment she saw the strangers in the room, she froze.