Tanglewreck Read online

  Abel Darkwater closed his round eyes and rested both hands over his round waistcoat, and began to recite:

  ‘Yet at my back always I hear

  Time’s winged chariot hurrying near:

  And yonder all before us lie

  Deserts of vast eternity.

  ‘It is a poem written by a man named Andrew Marvell about Time. We thought – that is, the people in the Society in 1666 thought – that the winged chariot should become our emblem. Here, have one of these.’ And he gave Silver a little enamelled badge in the shape of the chariot.

  While Abel Darkwater was reciting poetry, Mrs Rokabye had stolen the watch she wanted. Sniveller had seen her, but his Master had instructed him to let Mrs Rokabye alone, whatever she did. So, feeling much warmer, now that she had committed a crime, Mrs Rokabye’s temper improved and she agreed to take a small glass of sherry with Abel Darkwater in his study.

  And she wanted to know what was happening to the men he had sent to search Tanglewreck.

  Thugger and Fisty

  Thugger and Fisty were crouching in the bushes at Tanglewreck waiting for the taxi to take Mrs Rokabye and Silver to the railway station. Mrs Rokabye had promised to give them the All Clear sign, and she did this by throwing a carrot out of the window as the taxi drove through the gates. She always had carrots in her handbag, in case Bigamist got hungry, so Silver was not surprised to see a carrot appear, though she was surprised to see her throw it out of the window.

  ‘Can’t take my country habits to the big city,’ she said by way of explanation. ‘Suppose when I opened my handbag, the carrot fell out? What would everybody think of me?’

  They’d know what a mad old bat you are, thought Silver, saying nothing, and privately concluding that even if Mrs Rokabye were to drag a whole sack of carrots through the London streets, it wouldn’t make her seem any worse than she already was.

  The taxi drove on, and as soon as it was out of sight, Thugger and Fisty scrambled out of the bushes.

  Thugger was a thick-set nasty-looking man who always wore a dark suit and a fitted overcoat. Fisty had to call him Mister Thugger, because in their organisation, Thugger was the boss.

  Fisty was thin and sinewy with a face like a ferret. He was a featherweight boxing champion, known in the ring as Flying Fisty, because of his punches. He was very fit and very mean. Not even animals liked Fisty, and animals forgive most people their crimes, but Fisty was the kind of man who kicked dogs and drowned kittens. His only friend in life was a robot-dog called Elvis, who didn’t need food or love or taking for walks or stroking or brushing. Elvis had been computer-programmed to love Fisty and bite anything that wasn’t Fisty, except for Mister Thugger.

  Thugger and Fisty walked up to the house.

  ‘Shall I smash the door in?’ said Fisty eagerly.

  ‘How many times have I told you?’ said Thugger crossly. ‘Darkwater said this is a delicate operation, all right? The Ugly Mug ’oo lives ’ere ’as left the door open. Just turn the ’andle, all right?’

  ‘All right, Mister Thugger.’

  Reluctantly, Fisty turned the handle, the door swung open, and the two gents walked into the hall.

  Neither of them had ever seen anywhere like Tanglewreck. The hall was wide as a barn, and it had two fireplaces built into the walls. The floor was laid with big slabs of polished stone, and the ceiling was supported by wooden vaulted beams. A rusty dusty suit of armour stood next to a stuffed peacock. Benches and oak chests were lined up along the walls. Somebody’s hat had been left where it was, but that was four hundred years ago.

  Fisty was smacking his leather-gloved fist into his leather-gloved palm. This job was too quiet for his liking.

  ‘All right, then,’ said Thugger, ‘one floor at a time, search the place. We’re looking for a clock or a watch with an angel on it. No mess, no damage. We got forty-eight hours before the Ugly Mug and her ugly little Muggins come ’ome. Have you programmed Elvis for the scent?’

  ‘I programmed ’im with downloads of watches and clocks from the Antiques Roadshow website. Trouble is, what if he eats it when he finds it?’

  ‘He’s a robot, he doesn’t eat.’

  ‘He swallows things, though, and then I ’ave to git me ’and up the back end an’ git ’em out again.’

  ‘Oh, shut up, Fisty, and get on with it. This place is spooky, all suits of armour and big fire grates and them pictures of their ancestors following you with their eyes, I don’t like this ’ouse at all. It’s a good thing I’m brave. Now go on!’

  Thugger and Fisty split up to search Tanglewreck.

  Now that Thugger was on his own, he was not feeling at all brave. He always claimed that he didn’t believe in ghosts but that was because he had never met one. Today, he had the distinct feeling that someone, or something, was walking behind him.

  Never mind. He took out the infrared Searcher that Abel Darkwater had given him, and began scanning the walls and floors of the library. The Searcher was another of Darkwater’s own inventions, and it was used to reveal the whereabouts of secret panels and disguised doors, and cupboards hidden behind pictures. Whenever it found something, it began to beep, and then a picture showed up on its screen. It was beeping now, straight at a portrait of Sir Roger Rover wearing his Elizabethan ruff.

  Thugger staggered under the weight of lifting the picture from the wall. ‘Why couldn’t they use a camera in those days like everybody else? This thing weighs a ton, and ’e’s an ugly mug too.’

  Thugger finally got Sir Roger off the wall, and sure enough, where the picture had been, there was a little door set in the plaster and covered in cobwebs. Thugger got out his multi-tool knife and prised open the door. He put his hand inside and pulled out an old dusty piece of paper.

  Must be a clue, he thought. Spooky houses like this always have clues behind the wall.

  He unrolled the paper, and with difficulty made out the letters written in faded ink.

  WHOEVER SEEKS THE TIMEKEEPER WILL NOT FIND IT HERE BUT THE HOUSE WILL FIND HIM.

  Thugger didn’t know what this meant, but he didn’t think it was friendly. He slammed the little door and shoved Sir Roger Rover back on his hook, a bit skew-whiff, but serve him right.

  The Searcher found nothing else in the library, so Thugger moved across the wide stone-paved hall into a small room with diamond-leaded windows and a lectern with a big old book lying open there. Thugger didn’t read books, he preferred DVDs, but the Searcher was beeping fast as an emu, so he had to stand in front of the lectern and look at the book.

  It was a book of poetry written by some demented old dead person who thought he was marvellous. A Marvell, it said, and Thugger thought it a bit rich, calling yourself a marvel, especially when you couldn’t even spell it properly, but then there were a lot of things they couldn’t do in the past, like fly aeroplanes and send text messages. Thugger was glad he didn’t live in the past.

  Then, as he was wondering why the Searcher was beeping so much at the book, and why he couldn’t get an image on his screen, two things happened at once; he got a text message from Fisty that said, ‘HELP WHERE R U?’ and before he could reply, the lectern was creaking round and round like something in a horror movie and a flight of stone steps had opened up beneath it. The Searcher stopped beeping.

  Gingerly, Thugger put his phone back in his pocket, took out his torch, and started off down the stairs.

  Things were not going well for Fisty.

  He had gone through all the cupboards and drawers in all the bedrooms and tried to make it look like nobody had been there, but whatever he did, he left a trail of socks and knickers and hair brushes and towels, and then there was Elvis the robodog lifting his leg against the beds and savaging the pillow cases.

  Spooky dump, this, thought Fisty, who had never seen a four-poster bed and couldn’t understand how you could watch TV with all those curtains drawn round you. But then, there were no TVs in the bedrooms – very weird.

  ‘Come on, Elvis, find
the watch, there’s a good robodog, find the watch and bring it to me and we’ll get a big fat reward, that’s right, and I’ll buy you a new Attack programme for your lovely little microchip brain.’

  Elvis barked happily, and the two of them trotted off down the corridor towards the west wing of the house. That would have been all right, but then Bigamist appeared.

  Elvis had never seen a rabbit. There were no rabbits in London and his circuit board had never had to memorise one. Fisty had seen rabbits, but never one like this, coal black, the size of a tabby cat, and wearing a diamond collar.

  Bigamist had seen dogs, but not dogs with metal legs and 360-degree swivelling ears, and not dogs that HAD NO SMELL. The rabbit twitched his nose, then twitched it again. The man smelt of chicken nuggets and tomato sauce, but the dog had no smell at all.

  For a few seconds, the three of them looked at each other, then Fisty decided he’d have a bit of fun. He bent down and pressed Elvis’s KILL button.

  The dog’s Mohican run of purple fake fur down his orange metal back stood on end, and his yellow tongue slavered out of his steel jaws. His black eyes flashed light-up red, and with one bound he leapt on Bigamist, took him in his mouth and threw him across the room.

  ‘Ha ha ha,’ laughed Fisty. ‘Rabbit pie tonight.’

  But Bigamist had other ideas, and he was just as nasty and mean a creature as either Fisty or Elvis, so instead of acting like any normal rabbit and dying of fright, he shot down the corridor with his enemies in pursuit.

  Bigamist knew a thing or two about Tanglewreck that Fisty and Elvis didn’t know, and he led his pursuers to the one place they least wanted to go – the dungeon.

  At the last second the wily rabbit leapt over the false floorboards, while Fisty and Elvis crashed down on them, and straight through into the dark damp dungeon below.

  As they lay in a heap on the floor they saw the rabbit’s eyes gleaming down in triumph.

  Elvis had lost one of his metal ears in the fall, and was whimpering sadly, but Fisty didn’t care about Elvis’s ear. It was his phone he was worried about – what if it had broken when it had fallen out of his pocket?

  He scrabbled round in the dark, until at last he found it, in a puddle on the floor, and keyed in his desperate text message to Thugger: HELP WHERE R U?

  But Thugger

  by now

  was very lost and very frightened in a room that opened on to a room that opened on to a room that opened on to a room that opened on to a room that opened on to a room that … room, opened, a, on to, room, room, room, room, room, room, ooooooooooooo!

  Midnight

  Everywhere?

  It was late at night.

  Abel Darkwater and Mrs Rokabye were sitting over the fire in the study. Silver was fast asleep in her bed. The great house Tanglewreck was keeping watch over its new prisoners.

  At eight o’clock that evening, Sniveller the manservant had delivered fish, chips and peas and jam roly-poly pudding to Silver in the little wooden-panelled rooms that sat by side on the third floor of the house. He put down the plate, and knocked out a huge dollop of tomato sauce on the side.

  ‘The more you eat the bigger your feet,’ Sniveller had said, putting down the plates. ‘Eat today, gone tomorrow.’

  ‘Are you talking to me or someone else?’ said Silver.

  ‘I don’t know who and neither do you. Ignorance is a closer friend than knowledge.’

  ‘Why is this house full of clocks?’ asked Silver.

  ‘Why is the sea full of fish?’ replied Sniveller.

  ‘Why do your trousers only come down as far as your knees?’

  ‘But my legs come down as far as my feet.’

  ‘But you aren’t wearing any socks or shoes,’ said Silver.

  ‘It’s after eight o’clock. No shoes or socks after eight o’clock. Wouldn’t want me to run away, would you?’

  ‘Would you run away if you were wearing socks and shoes?’

  ‘Oh, I would, if it was past eight o’clock. Yes, I would, everybody knows that. Now eat your supper and go to sleep. Tails and heads in the bed. Which is which?’

  Sniveller spun a coin in the air.

  ‘HEADS,’ shouted Silver.

  ‘Heads to the window, tails to the door,’ announced Sniveller, pocketing the coin, and re-arranging the pillows on the little iron bed. ‘That’s your head lying North and your feet lying South, all compass-like and content. Goodnight.’

  Sniveller had made a little bow and backed out of the door, sniffing his way down the stairs.

  Silver was sleepy after the journey, and the strangeness of the place, and although she wanted to keep awake, her eyes kept dropping shut. The room was warm and soft, with its low fire burning in the grate, and its two candles flickering on the table. The food was plentiful and hot, but as soon as Silver had finished eating, she forced herself to get into her pyjamas before she went to clean her teeth at the little washstand in the room. She was so tired that she couldn’t even pull faces at herself in the mirror, which was what she usually did while she cleaned her teeth.

  She was busy scrubbing away with the toothbrush when she suddenly looked up. In the mirror she saw Abel Darkwater’s face – yes, it was his face! She spun round, but the room was empty.

  Silver was feeling uneasy. She went through into the connecting room, with its little iron bedstead. The bed looked soft and inviting. She swung up her legs, then suddenly, for no reason, decided to turn round the pillows and sleep the other way. Yes, that felt better. She leaned on her elbow to blow out the candle, then changed her mind.

  ‘I won’t blow out the candle. I’ll play a game with the shadows until I fall asleep. I’ll pretend I’m on a ship sailing out to sea with Sir Roger Rover.’

  Then she thought of her daddy, and how he would have kissed her and told her not to worry about anything at all.

  ‘I wish Daddy was here,’ she whispered to herself. ‘He’d tell me what to do.’

  And Silver’s eyes were full of tears but she was brave too. She burrowed herself deep under the blankets and let herself go to sleep.

  Down in the study, Sniveller was serving wine to his Master and Mrs Rokabye.

  ‘I am going to hypnotise Silver,’ said Abel Darkwater.

  ‘I was once hypnotised,’ observed Mrs Rokabye. ‘I was told I was a chicken and I laid an egg.’

  ‘This is not seaside entertainment,’ snapped Darkwater. ‘I shall draw Silver back through Time until I reach the moment where her father tells her what he intends to do with the Timekeeper.’

  ‘If he ever did tell her,’ said Mrs Rokabye. ‘I believe that child is as ignorant as a cockle.’

  ‘Even cockles have their uses,’ replied Darkwater. ‘Silver has already fallen into a deep sleep. All that remains is for Sniveller to bring me to the child and I shall do my work.’

  Mrs Rokabye had no worries about what might happen to Silver, but she was brooding about Bigamist.

  ‘I hope your horrible henchmen haven’t upset my rabbit,’ she said. ‘When I said you could search Tanglewreck, I told you to be especially careful of Bigamist.’

  Abel Darkwater’s eyes swelled with irritation. ‘My henchmen, as you call them, seem unable to answer their mobile phones. We must assume they have failed in their mission and that possibly they are dead.’

  ‘Dead!’ cried Mrs Rokabye. ‘What are you saying, Mr Darkwater? Is it not enough that I have to pass my days in a horrible house without carpets or central heating or even a fridge, and now you tell me that there are two dead bodies there as well?’

  ‘I cannot say, but I can say that Sniveller will go back with you if you prefer, and remove any offending objects.’

  Mrs Rokabye was about to say that she found Sniveller himself an offending object, but he had returned to the room to tell Darkwater that the child was ready for hypnosis.

  ‘Are you sure she is quite asleep?’ said Darkwater urgently.

  ‘Quite asleep, Master. I put opium in the
tomato sauce.’

  ‘What a marvellous idea!’ said Mrs Rokabye, looking at Sniveller with new eyes. ‘I hope you will tell me where I can buy some. London has everything!’

  ‘I get mine from a Chinaman in Whitechapel,’ said Sniveller. ‘Three stops on the Underground and a hundred years back in Time.’

  Mrs Rokabye was looking confused and Darkwater was glaring. He took out his enormous gold pocket watch, and examined it closely, like a face in the mirror.

  ‘Excuse us, Mrs Rokabye. Help yourself to wine and chocolates, won’t you?’

  ‘Don’t mind if I do,’ said Mrs Rokabye, settling down as best she could in the hard high-backed wooden chair. Still, the wine and chocolates were very nice and she was suddenly feeling sleepy herself.

  ‘Don’t mind if I do …’ she said, as the glass slipped from her hand.

  Abel Darkwater and Sniveller made their way slowly up the stairs.

  ‘What did you put in her wine?’ asked Darkwater.

  ‘Chloroform drops,’ said Sniveller. ‘Undetectable in claret.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Darkwater. ‘Help me with the child, then carry Mrs Rokabye here up to bed. Are we heads or tails tonight?’

  ‘Heads is North-facing. Wind quite bracing,’ said Sniveller.

  ‘Heads,’ repeated Darkwater, opening the door into the shadowy room. ‘Heads.’

  Silver heard the door open, as the boards creaked under the weight of the two men. She pretended to be asleep.

  Sniveller stepped forward quickly and clipped a thick cloth, stretched like canvas, to the four upright rails of the little bed. It was like lying under a flat tent.

  Abel Darkwater drew what looked like two interlocking triangles, making a pointed star on the canvas, and in the middle of the star, he placed a ticking clock. Then he said something in a language Silver couldn’t understand, and a bright green flame lit up the room. She could see the outline of the men clearly now, at the foot of the bed.