Читать книгу The Agatha Oddly Casebook Collection: The Secret Key, Murder at the Museum and The Silver Serpent - Lena Jones - Страница 14

I’m walking over the lawns towards Groundskeeper’s Cottage when I spot two figures in the distance. One of them is Dad, dressed in his overalls. The other man stands next to a large motorbike, and is wearing black biking leathers. His face is obscured by a helmet, but I can tell that the two of them are arguing. Before I know why, I’m running. The words of the man who grabbed me outside the Royal Geographical Society start to run through my head on a loop –

Be a shame for you to wind up an orphan, wouldn’t it?

There is a knot in my stomach, like the end of a rope that links me to Dad.

Be a shame for you to wind up an orphan, wouldn’t it?

I’m getting closer, and I can hear their raised voices. Dad lifts his hand, pointing towards the park gates. The man in black reaches back, towards the bike. The bike looks like the same one that knocked over the professor this morning.

Be a shame for you to wind up an orphan, wouldn’t it?

In a fluid motion that makes my heart skip a beat, the man in black mounts the bike, kicks the machine into life and roars off, back wheel spraying clods of dry earth. Dad shouts after him, but he’s drowned out by the roar.

‘Dad, are you OK?’ I yell, running headlong into his arms.

‘I’m fine, I— Agatha, what on earth are you doing here?’

‘Are you sure he didn’t hurt you?’ I step back to look at his face.

‘Hurt me? Of course he didn’t hurt me – I was just telling him he couldn’t ride that stupid bike in the park. He’s made furrows through the lawns, look. Anyway, don’t change the subject – I got a call from your headmaster earlier. He said that you hadn’t shown up for any of your classes today. He used the word escaped.’

Bother.

I swallow. In my moment of fear, I’d forgotten that I was supposed to be avoiding Dad on my way home.

‘Ah, yes … about that …’ I say.

Dad has given me some big lectures before, but this is the biggest. Being dressed down in public, as dog walkers pass by, is the worst. By the time he sends me home, with an order to go to my room, my cheeks are burning. I trudge back to the cottage, tired and miserable. His final words are the ones that sting the most –

‘You’re not a detective, Agatha. You’re a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl. And if you carry on like this, you won’t even have a school to go to!’

I’m angry with him for saying that, but he’s right, isn’t he? I’m not a real detective, and I’ve put more than my grades at risk today. Who the man in black was, I’m not sure, but I know I don’t want to be that scared for Dad’s safety again. Perhaps it’s time to forget about investigating crimes.

As soon as I step through the front door, Oliver is mewling and winding figures of eight round my legs. ‘All right, all right, hang on …’ I mutter.

I dump my satchel in the hallway and go to the kitchen cupboard to find a tin of Yummy Cat Duck & Heart – Oliver’s favourite meal, and the smelliest in the range. His mewls go up a semitone as he races between me and the food bowl. I dump the jellied meat in the dish, trying not to breathe too deeply. He eats happily for a few bites, then breaks off and starts mewling again.

‘Thirsty? Me too …’

I pick up his empty water dish and take it to the sink. Again, Oliver is doing laps round my legs. I turn on the tap, and for a second nothing comes out. Then there’s a dribble of water, a splutter, a choke, and suddenly something that definitely isn’t water is oozing from the tap. I take a step back in shock and watch as thick red slime fills the sink.

The gloop isn’t smooth, but rough like porridge, and the colour of blood. It’s as though the sink is filling with fresh gore. It’s so thick it can barely go down the plughole, spluttering and coughing bubbles of gas. And what an awful gas it is – suddenly the kitchen is full of a sickly stench. It’s like the rotten smell of the bin I used to escape school – but worse. Whatever the stuff is, it smells dreadful.

Coming to my senses, I rush back to the sink and turn the tap off. The stuff just sits there, refusing to drain. I take a fork from the drawer and prod it. Oliver, who at first continued crying for water, catches the foul smell and retreats to the doorway, from where he glares at me.

I bend over the sink to take a closer look, stirring through the red sludge with my fork. Bubbles blossom on its skin, so thick that when I prod them, they don’t pop, only deflate. Suddenly my eyes are burning, and I start to choke. The air in the kitchen is full of fumes.

Quickly, I open the windows, then scoop the protesting Oliver and take him out to the back garden. As soon as I put him down, he runs across the lawn and leaps over the back fence. Outside again, the eerie silence covers London like a blanket. Far off there are sirens and a helicopter circling. In spite of myself I’m scared. I need to think.

After a little while has passed, I go back into the kitchen. The air has thinned out and doesn’t burn my eyes any more, but the smell lingers. Most of the slime has oozed its way down the drain by now, and I wash the remainder away with a pan of rainwater fetched from the barrel in the garden. Then I go and turn the TV on, flicking through the channels.

‘… Reports are coming in from as far west as Twickenham …’

‘… People are advised not to run any taps or flush any toilets …’

‘… Downing Street has yet to comment, but sources close to the Prime Minister say an emergency meeting of COBRA has been called …’

The newsreel shows people in protective suits going down into the sewers; people carrying buckets of red slime from their homes and tipping them down the drains; the head of the army holding a press conference near a water-pumping station. Then a man who looks vaguely familiar comes up on the screen. Just as he’s about to start talking there’s an explosive sound as Dad kicks the front door open. He’s wearing an enormous pair of fishing waders, covered in slime. His eyes are pink.

‘Dad! Are you OK?’

‘It’s in the Serpentine … full of it … bubbling up from nowhere …’

‘Oh no!’ I rush to help him.

‘Don’t! This stuff burns, whatever it is. Just put some newspaper down.’

‘Dad, are you crying?’

‘It’s just this stuff. Stings the eyes. Come on – newspaper!’

I hurry off and find an old copy of The Times, spreading enough of it for Dad to get through the house to the back garden. Dad stomps through the house, already taking off the waders. As he swears and kicks the ground outside, my attention wanders back to the TV screen – the same pictures going around: people being interviewed, people going down into the labyrinth of tunnels beneath the city. It has spread from one side of the capital to the other, affecting every house, every factory, every hospital. Nobody is safe from the choking red gunk, and nobody seems to know where it has come from.

Something is rotten under London.

I go to my school bag, where I dumped it not ten minutes before. In those ten minutes, everything has changed. To think I had considered – even for a moment – giving up being a detective! I take out my notebook and flip it open. I turn to a new page and write …