The Liberators Read online

  ‘Poor chap.’ It was his uncle’s voice. ‘A woman answered your phone and told me where you were. Clean out, you were. You were lucky, old horse.’

  ‘The doctor said there was nothing wrong, so he gave you something to make you sleep. You’ve slept all night. It’s morning now,’ said Lydia.

  ‘What . . . what happened?’ asked Ivo.

  Lydia looked across the room to Jago, who came across and sat down on Ivo’s bed. While Ivo’s father looked like a cheerful sort of robin, Jago looked like a hawk. Jago was the elder of the two brothers. Everything on his face was finely drawn; it always amazed Ivo that someone with such cruel features – those of a dissolute Roman or a Renaissance poisoner – should be so nice.

  ‘Awful business, it was. Evening papers had a field day. They don’t know who to pin it on – terrorists haven’t claimed it. Only one dead, they say. Seems a little odd, don’t you think?’ Jago stood up. A purring sounded, and Ivo felt a heavy, warm object land on his bed. He reached out a hand and felt soft fur.

  ‘This is Juniper,’ said Lydia. ‘She likes your bed. I’d be careful of her though, she’s pregnant.’ As if listening, the cat hissed, and jumped heavily off again, slinking into a corner.

  A buzzing noise came from Jago’s pocket and he pulled out his Blackberry; this turned out not to be the source of the buzzing and he located a phone. ‘Oh dammit. I have to go. Global economic meltdown, you know the drill, only Jago can save the day. Even,’ he said sighing, ‘on a Saturday.’ He reached across and patted Ivo on the shoulder. ‘We’ll look after you. Shame it happened on the first day of the holidays though, eh?’

  Ivo sighed. It wasn’t as if he needed to be reminded. Jago marched out of the room, the door banging shut behind him.

  ‘I’m fine, really,’ said Ivo to his aunt.

  ‘You might think that, dear Ivo, but you’ve had a nasty shock and the doctor says you’re to stay in bed. All right? Now, I’ve got a client here, so do try to be quiet. I need to concentrate,’ said Lydia. ‘And then I’m going to be working on the guest list for my charity thing. It’s at the National Gallery.’ She went over to the window and pulled open the curtains, letting in the grey light of morning.

  ‘OK,’ said Ivo, and snuggled under the sheets.

  ‘If you need anything, call down to the kitchen – the phone’s here, the number’s 21 . . . or is it 22? – it’s written here, anyway. Christine will help you with anything you need. There’s a pile of DVDs over here, and some books, and things.’ Lydia was shimmering out as she said this, her thoughts already miles away, in colour, shade, angles and light. ‘We’ll all have a lovely supper this evening.’

  Ivo nodded, and as she left he turned over and curled up. Juniper mewed in the corner, and skittered back to the bed. ‘You’re all right, really, aren’t you?’ said Ivo to the cat as she tried to get up on to his duvet; eventually she settled for a corner by the bedpost.

  Ivo was already plotting to escape. No way was he going to stay in bed all day. Besides, he wanted to find out more about what had happened on the tube. And now what his Uncle Jago had said was bait to him. This was what he’d wanted, after all. London, with all its excitement, lay in front of him.

  He also knew that if he didn’t go out and do something, he would brood. Whenever his thoughts drifted, a speeded-up slideshow flashed through his brain – the panicked, desperate look in Blackwood’s eyes, the shouts of the passengers, the bloody hand, the embroidered jacket, and the terrible coolness of the man who had been wearing it, walking slowly away in the opposite direction, and then oblivion.

  The sound of Aunt Lydia’s footsteps faded away. Ivo immediately jumped out of bed. The room was big – bigger by far than the tiny cubicle he had at school, which was just about large enough for a bunk bed and a desk. For a moment he found himself missing it – that small space which he had somehow managed to make his own, in fifteen long weeks. His room at school – his ‘bolter’ as it was called in the school slang – was cosy, and looked out on to a quadrangle that was never still, always full of students rushing backwards and forwards.

  He got up from the bed and went over to the window and looked out into the unappetising gloom of the morning. His room, he decided, was right at the top of the house. He could see the quiet square beneath him. There was a patch of green in the middle, surrounded by trees and railings. That, he thought, might be a good place to start exploring.

  Someone had unpacked for him and put all his things neatly away, and removed anything that needed washing. He noticed with a pang that a postcard from his parents had been placed on the mantelpiece, along with some money and an A–Z. There was also a key, which he assumed was for the front door.

  The room was dotted with lively pictures and shelves of old children’s books, spotted and brown with age, and Ivo felt glad to be there, the creamy wallpaper calming him somewhat. He dressed quickly, pulling on a jumper and his jeans. A thought struck him and he rummaged in his pockets.

  He found what he was looking for: the black object which Blackwood had given him. He considered it for a moment, holding it in the palm of his hand. It was made out of some sort of stone, he thought. Shrugging, he put it back in his pocket. There would be time to think about it later.

  He put his head round the door and looked out on to the landing. He was at the top of the house – a large skylight opened to the heavens, the grey December sky louring overhead. There were four other doors, all firmly closed. He edged towards the banisters and looked down. There was no sign of life. Good, he thought. Then he heard a sudden movement, saw a flash of colour.

  Just for a second, he was sure the man in the embroidered jacket was walking down the stairs. He felt an overwhelming horror and shook himself. Don’t be ridiculous, he thought, it’s a flashback, it’s not real. I’ll have loads more, probably. I’ll just have to get used to it. He breathed deeply, and poked his head back over the banisters. Of course there was nothing there. There never had been.

  He went down the staircase slowly. All along the walls were framed paintings – some, he assumed, were by Lydia. He recognised a couple of faces in portraits, cousins and so on. There were three noisily ticking clocks, two barometers (showing different readings), some maps of counties where the Moncrieffs held land (not as many as there used to be), family photographs, some posed, stiff in black and white, and others in relaxed, laughing colour, school certificates, a Venetian mask and an ‘amusing’ picture of some dogs dressed as humans relieving themselves on a street. Scarcely an inch of wall was bare. When it was, it showed cream and crimson stripes.

  His shoes made very little noise on the stairs, which had a thick blue carpet running down the middle. Down a flight he passed what he guessed were the family bedrooms. He heard voices as he came down the next flight on to the first floor, and saw a long, low room full of light through an open door.

  He caught sight of his aunt’s back as she sat in a chair, an easel in front of her, talking softly to her subject. He didn’t want to alert her to his presence, so he tiptoed past. He strained to catch sight of the painting – but all he could see was a mass of colour that had not yet resolved itself into a figure.

  He sped silently down the last flight, out into the hall, the floor of which was tiled and cool. Doors led into the drawing room, a sitting room and a study, and one more flight, which he didn’t set foot on, he guessed went down into the kitchen in the basement.

  Ivo felt a tingling all over him. It was time to test the waters of his new kingdom. London was unknown territory, just as hostile to him as the bleakness of the Mongolian steppes was to his parents. His early years had been spent at his father’s house in Devon. Trees rustled by his window, a stream that could be forded ran nearby. He had no brothers and sisters, and had grown used to being on his own in the forests and fields. But all the same, he had yearned for bustle and movement, for people, lights
and action. He went up to the huge black door, opened it, and stepped out into the street. The city, vast, abrasive, alive, was waiting.

  ‘London, you are mine,’ he said under his breath, and strode out into the street.

  Grey clouds were weighing down, filling the sky with their gloomy presence, threatening at any moment to explode in rain that had the cold sharpness of knives. Ivo pulled his coat around him more tightly. It wasn’t thick enough for this weather. He muffled his mouth in his scarf, feeling it warm up with his breath, but it soon became uncomfortable and he pulled it down, letting the wind in. He could feel it chapping his lips. Trees loomed, houses squatted, cars shot by.

  He had gone to the garden in the middle of the square, but the gates had been locked and he didn’t have a key, and when he’d tried to climb over the fence an angry keeper had shouted at him. He’d forgotten to bring the A–Z with him, but he didn’t want to risk going back to pick it up. He didn’t know in which direction he should walk to get to anywhere interesting. Even if he did, he reflected, he didn’t know where he should go.

  Sighing, he stumbled down one of the roads that led off Charmsford Square and then, wandering through a street full of chic shops and hairdressers, he came across a newsagent’s. A board in front of it screamed in fake handwriting:

  .

  TUBE TERROR

  He went in and bought an Evening Standard, and then, driven by the cold, slipped into a small greasy spoon next door to the newsagent’s. It was crammed full of formica tables, each with a bottle of ketchup and mustard nestling in the middle, a plastic menu card stuck in between the salt and pepper cellars. There was a muggy, homely smell in the air. The customers were few, and slow, muttering quietly amongst themselves.

  As he waited for the waitress to bring his tea, he settled down to read the feature:

  .

  It wasn’t a bomb. But at five fifteen on an ordinary Friday afternoon, the passengers of a southbound Bakerloo line train might have been forgiven for thinking so. Just before the train pulled into Edgware Road station, the lights went out. ‘I thought I was going to die,’ said Joan Freeman, 42, of Dulwich. ‘There was a terrible screaming. I thought, “This is it.”’ Reports are confused, but it is known that there was one fatality. Charles Blackwood, 28, was killed on that carriage by what eyewitnesses are calling ‘a terrible force’. His body was dismembered . . .

  Ivo stopped reading. The soft, glistening thing he’d seen had been Blackwood’s hand. Trying to ignore the sickness in his stomach, he returned to the paper. The waitress put a cup of tea on the cold table and he thanked her, and began to slurp at its warmth.

  The article was accompanied by a photo of Blackwood. The tea swirled uncomfortably in Ivo’s guts. The man who’d given him a black stone. His face had seemed so ordinary, and yet possessed by madness. Was everyone like that? he wondered. Did everybody carry madness inside them, like a germ waiting to multiply? He carried on reading the article.

  .

  Passengers report being taken over by an uncontrolled hysteria, leading to suspicions that some sort of laughing gas was released, though so far this has not been confirmed. Several people are being treated for shock. Police are investigating all leads, and appeal for any information.

  Ivo scanned around for a mention of the man in the embroidered jacket. There was a piece entitled ‘We all stand firm’ with a picture of the Mayor of London beneath; another read ‘MI6 Rule out Al Qaeda’; on the opposite page the headline screamed ‘Shares in massive dive’. There was no mention of the man and he wondered if anyone would have told the police about him. Somebody else must have seen him, in that jacket. Was it worth bothering the police about, when they had so much else to consider? No doubt everybody else on that tube had their story to tell and were flocking to the police stations.

  He flicked through the rest of the newspaper, moodily speeding past articles he had no interest in (‘Ten ways to stay slim this Christmas!’; ‘How will the global credit crunch affect YOU’). There was a big feature piece in the Londoners’ Diary about two brothers who were ‘taking London by storm’. They looked interesting and he began to read. Julius and Strawbones Luther-Ross had thrown a party the night before, for some charity or other, which had taken place in a disused warehouse on the Thames. Those guests who had found the warehouse (several had not, as it was so obscure, and had wandered the banks of the river for hours) had discovered a sort of private play going on, and had been drawn into secret rooms, given champagne, and had generally been alternately frightened and amused.

  Engrossed, Ivo hardly noticed the door to the café being pushed open wildly, and two people come rushing in. One of them dashed past Ivo’s table and knocked over his mug of tea, spilling it all over his paper.

  ‘Hey!’ he exclaimed. But when he looked round, he couldn’t see anything. He turned to the door and saw a man enter, a blue T-shirt flapping on his skinny body, and jeans looking somehow out of place. He was angular and pasty, his mouth curving in a sneering smile, his brown hair ruffled and unkempt. A pair of glasses hovered anxiously on the bridge of his nose. Ivo watched him storm right into the café, look around, then accost the waitress. She shrugged. The man gesticulated, and then cast round the room again.

  ‘You,’ he said, pointing at Ivo. ‘Did you see a boy and a girl run in here?’

  Ivo shrugged, and said, ‘No.’ Something stirred in his memory.

  The man looked around, cursed loudly, then strode out and banged the door shut. One of the waitresses was mopping up the spilled tea and offering Ivo another cup.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said a voice. ‘We’ll get it.’

  Ivo looked up to see a boy and a girl, faces flushed with laughter and running.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ said the girl, sitting down at Ivo’s table. Her long, thin face was friendly, her eyes a dark blue, her hair very blonde. She was wearing a military-style jacket which was slightly too big for her.

  ‘That is the last time I’m helping you two out,’ said the waitress, smiling at them.

  ‘Thanks, Jeannie. Three teas, please,’ said the boy. He had almost the same face as his sister, a little rounder perhaps, and his eyes were the same shade. The only difference was that his hair was black, and short, and shiny. He was skinny, and nervy, like a new- born foal, thought Ivo.

  When the waitress had brought them teas and tutted at the boy, they introduced themselves. The girl was called Miranda, the boy Felix. Their surname was Rocksavage, a name which Ivo instantly liked. Felix was the elder by eighteen months – he was nearly sixteen – though Miranda said he often behaved as if he were younger. They were home for the Christmas holidays too. Most of their friends, they said, were skiing, or in the country, or on beaches somewhere, and it was very bad luck on them being in London.

  ‘There’s nothing to do,’ said Miranda, flopping her head down on to the table and sighing theatrically, but when she looked up again Ivo saw that her eyes were laughing, and he couldn’t help laughing too.

  ‘Really? There’s nothing to do in London?’ he said. This came as something of a shock to Ivo, who’d always imagined that you could never be bored in London. ‘At least you’re not in Devon,’ he said, remembering the emptiness of the fields, his nearest friend an hour and a half away by car.

  ‘God I wish we were in Devon,’ said Miranda. Felix raised an eyebrow, and pulled his bright red jumper sleeves down over his hands.

  Mopping up the newspaper as best as he could, Ivo asked them who they had been running away from.

  ‘That man is our tutor,’ said Felix. ‘He’s called Perkins. I don’t think he has a first name. We’re meant to be doing five hours a day with him. Even,’ he added mournfully, ‘at weekends.’

  ‘That sucks!’ said Ivo. ‘Why are you doing that?’

  ‘Our parentals,’ said Miranda, ‘are, how can I put this, a little
obsessive? About our marks, and so on. They want us to succeed.’ She said the last phrase with a despairing look, and jangled the bracelets on her arm.

  ‘That’s actually not true,’ interrupted Felix. ‘Well, it sort of is. Basically, they want to keep us out of trouble. We didn’t behave very well, and so our rentals made a deal with us. We work, every day, with a tutor, for the whole Christmas break, and then we get to go on a cool holiday at Easter. If we don’t behave, then it’s no holiday, and even MORE tutoring.’

  ‘That’s not much fun, is it?’ said Ivo. ‘And on Saturdays too?’

  ‘Yup. And on Sundays. But it’s OK,’ said Felix to Ivo’s incredulous stare, ‘we’ve given Perkins the slip for the last three days, and he’s too scared of our parents to tell them – he doesn’t want to lose his job. God knows they pay him enough. And we get some afternoons off. Even Perkins has to live, apparently.’

  Ivo laid out the newspaper, which was still just about readable.

  ‘You heard about this bomb thing?’ said Felix.

  ‘It wasn’t a bomb,’ said Ivo, then without really thinking, ‘I was there.’

  ‘No way!’ said Felix.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Ivo, feeling at the same time rather proud and rather ashamed of himself for feeling proud. In order to deflect attention from himself, he spread out the paper. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘It’s all here in the report.’ It was illustrated with pictures of the tube platform, and of disorientated passengers emerging blinking into the afternoon gloom of the streets above, their overcoats swathed around them like shrouds.

  ‘That’s strange,’ said Felix, looking closely at the newspaper.

  ‘What, you?’ said his sister.

  ‘Shut up. Look at that picture.’

  ‘Yeah, she is fit, Felix, but we don’t all want to look at her,’ Miranda poked her brother in the ribs.

  ‘Shut up. Look.’ Miranda and Ivo gazed at the tea-stained pictures, wondering what on earth it could be that Felix had spotted.