Before the Storm Page 10

‘Yes, you have it. Now think of a carriage that takes you to that future instead.’

  ‘I think I can. Sorta.’

  ‘All you have to do now is think of a carriage that can move you into the past as well.’

  ‘Oh. So ya got the carriage, like that we can see?’

  ‘No. The time machine is more like a gun. It can shoot things into the past or future, but it stays in its present.’

  Barry put his hands to his head, pressing against it as if he were trying to stop it exploding. Daniel knew that look. Barry either did not believe or did not understand.

  ‘Way I sees it, ya workin’ for the king,’ ventured Barry.

  ‘That is true,’ agreed BC.

  ‘Then I’m on yer side. I don’t believe all that shit about time carriages, but yer important. I mean anyone that’s got a gun that can blow up ’alf the bay just gotta be important. Okay, yer important, so I gotta help.’

  ‘Can you help?’ asked BC doubtfully.

  ‘Yeah! Mate, ya want to get somethin’ dodgy done, ya gotta bring in a professynal. That’s where I comes in. I can pretend I’m an artist, and spy on the German artists.’

  ‘Artists tend to be around eighteen or older,’ BC pointed out. ‘Fox looks eighteen, and Daniel could pass for someone eighteen but thin. You look twelve.’

  ‘Yeah, but that’s the whole point, don’t ya see? Me and Danny Boy can pretend to be young coves outta school and sellin’ artistic postcards.’

  ‘Which is what you will be,’ said Emily, disapproval dripping from every word.

  ‘All the better,’ said BC, suddenly brightening. ‘Barry, explain a little more of what you propose.’

  Barry the Bag was very cunning. He did actually have a number of minor burglaries in his past, but because he was what would be called streetwise in a future that did not even exist in the future as yet, he had never been caught. His bag also had a false bottom, so that when the police searched it, they found nothing more than scavenged rubbish and French postcards. Even though Emily had his real bag, Barry quickly improvised a spare, and it was this that he carried as he and Daniel set off on the next train north, along with the station bicycle and BC’s instructions of what to look for.

  Daniel had a lot to think about as they travelled. BC had put Emily in charge, yet there was no doubt that BC was running everything. Emily just passed on his orders and kept things running when he was asleep.

  ‘Wotcha think of that BC cove?’ asked Barry as they travelled. ‘Ain’t he a worry or wot?’

  ‘A worry?’ asked Daniel.

  ‘Yeah, like he said he’d kill me. Don’cha know? Like if I ’ad sixpence for every time the old man said he’d kill me, I’d never have to pick another pocket as long as I lived, but when BC says it, ya know he would.’

  ‘You could try not being dishonest with him,’ suggested Daniel.

  ‘Wot? How’s I to get by then?’

  ‘You’re already dishonest with everyone else.’

  ‘I’m never dishonest with my mate Dan the Man!’ declared Barry, patting Daniel on the shoulder.

  ‘What about those three bottles of wine you stole from my father?’

  ‘I only stole two.’

  ‘There were three, Barry. Martha’s told Emily about the latest one.’

  ‘Oh, that one. Yeah, I forgot, like in the heat of the emotion.’

  ‘And if I had been BC, you would already be a small pile of ashes that smelled a bit of stale tobacco. This is teamwork, Barry. You are in a team.’

  ‘I’ve never been in a team.’

  ‘Trust me, in a team you have to think about what’s good for everyone, not just yourself.’

  ‘Don’t like it,’ muttered Barry sullenly.

  ‘Well, do you think I like it? I have to take orders from Emily and not argue back. I hate it, but BC said to, so I do.’

  ‘I thought you was doin’ it ’cause she ’as the book on makin’ babies. I’m only along ’cause she ’as me bag.’

  ‘At first it was because of that, but not now. I want BC to think I’m, well, all right.’

  ‘At least you got a chance. BC just thinks I’m a scabby little rat who’s good at criminal activities, an’ he’s right.’

  ‘Try hard enough and BC will think you are all right. There’s something about him, you just want him to smile because you did well. I do think I would like to die fighting for him.’

  Barry shrank away across the bench of the carriage.

  ‘You gotta be jokin’!’ he exclaimed. ‘Ya mean let yerself be shot off the perch, just so he’d say “Good show” or some daft shit?’

  ‘Yes. I daydream about things like that. I know it sounds strange from someone with a sister like Emmy, but I dream about being a knight fighting hundreds of barbarians so that some girl can escape into a castle.’

  ‘Yeah? Wot then?’

  ‘Well, she looks down from the battlements and cries when I get killed.’

  ‘And that’s all?’

  ‘Yes. Don’t you dream of being a hero, and dying for girls?’

  ‘Nah, I dreams about gettin’ into Madame Plumtree’s House of … well, and … I don’t dream wot you dream, anyway.’

  ‘I want to die a hero. At first I was frightened by all this business with BC and Fox, but now … it’s like living in a dream.’

  ‘Would ya die for that batty sister of yours?’

  ‘It seems like a waste, but yes. She would have to remember me as a hero.’

  ‘Dan the Man, yer daft! That’s a better bet than the favourite in a one-horse race, and – oi, we’re at Balaclava, best be gettin’ off.’

  ‘Wait! I forgot, we don’t have tickets!’

  ‘Yeah, well yer forgot about bein’ with Barry the Bag, too.’

  Having got off the train at Balaclava, Daniel pedalled the bicycle while Barry rode in the delivery basket. Soon they were at the edge of Acland Street. Barry hid the bicycle in the bushes of somebody’s front yard, then they set off in search of anyone looking artistic and speaking with a foreign accent. They were trying to look as if they were freelance vendors of photographic artwork at a loose end, but in fact they resembled nothing more than a pair of schoolboys up to no good. On the other hand, this made them blend in perfectly, so there was no harm done.

  After trying three cafés and discovering nothing more sinister than two Italians who did not speak English, they decided to loiter out on the street for a while. Barry nudged a discarded tobacco tin with his foot, then picked it up.

  ‘Are you looking for secret messages from spies?’ asked Daniel breathlessly.

  Barry shook his head, then took another tin from his spare bag and emptied the few shreds of tobacco from the discarded tin into his own.

  ‘Not enough baccy to make a fag, but it all adds up,’ said Barry, holding out his own tin for Daniel to inspect. ‘When this lot is full, I can sell it for seven pence.’

  ‘Arkoola,’ Daniel read on the side of Barry’s tin. ‘Kangaroo Fat Oil for the Relief of Haemorrhoids.’

  ‘I sells it to old McKenzie, the ganger. He thinks it’s special, rare baccy from South America, and that I’m sellin’ it cheap ’cause I stole it.’

  ‘But surely one glance at the label –’

  ‘Silly old bugger can’t read,’ said Barry suavely.

  ‘We are supposed to be spies!’ insisted Daniel, who was beginning to feel annoyed by Barry’s attitude.

  ‘We should be spying.’

  ‘Jeez, Danny Boy, don’t you know nothin’? Spies aren’t folk wot go poncin’ about in cloaks an’ wavin’ daggers. They blend in with the crowd, they look ’armless.’

  ‘How would you know? Ever been a spy?’

  ‘I done me share.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘It’s true! In the railways, you know. Stuff gets ’alf-inched, an’, well, at the station I stands around, sweepin’ and lookin’ thick as two short planks tied together, so I hears stuff.’

  ‘Stuff?’<
br />
  ‘You know, coves talkin’ about packages missin’ and bein’ hid in places. Soon as nobody’s lookin’, snap! It’s in Barry’s bag.’

  ‘So you take it to the police?’

  ‘Nah, I makes the contents available to folk of discernin’ taste at reduced rates.’

  ‘You steal from thieves?’ exclaimed Daniel.

  ‘Shush! Keep yer friggin’ voice down!’

  ‘Barry, two wrongs don’t make a right.’

  ‘Nah, but they makes a profit, and yer conscience don’t kick up. Now then, keep an eye sharp for fag ends and baccy tins, and folk will think that’s what we’re doin’.’

  ‘If Mother ever finds out about this, I’ll never hear the end of it.’

  Barry and Daniel decided to check the cafés again, sidling into them to check the floors for unspent matches, partly smoked cigarettes, and even the occasional coin. As people got up to leave the tables, Barry finished off the discarded coffee in their cups. At the ninth café, Barry sat down at a table and actually ordered two coffees.

  ‘You said we were supposed to blend in,’ hissed Daniel.

  ‘We are,’ replied Barry. ‘We’re pretendin’ to be customers.’

  ‘But Mother says coffee is sinful.’

  ‘Bullshit. Now then, what’s the tally?’

  Daniel produced a filing card and the stub of a pencil. He looked around. One of the girls across the room looked familiar, but he could not quite place her. She had long, flame-red hair … and she suddenly turned to look straight at him! Daniel cringed down until his nose was almost touching the table as he recognised her as one of his sister’s classmates from some school family day months ago. Daniel dragged his mind back to more global problems, and began to write.

  ‘Out of nine coffee shops and cafés, three groups of people were speaking French, one was speaking Italian, and another was speaking Dutch.’

  ‘Sounded like German to me.’

  ‘I study this sort of thing at school, remember?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, each accordin’ what ’e knows an’ all.’

  ‘In short, no Germans.’

  ‘Next we’ll – there’s a copper on that table, off to yer right.’

  ‘Where?’ gasped Daniel, glancing around at once.

  A man in a shabby suit gave a slight smile in their direction, then waggled his finger from side to side. Barry spread his hands and shrugged.

  ‘He is not a policeman!’ snorted Daniel, turning back to Barry. ‘He has no uniform.’

  ‘Nah, he’s a copper spy. Constable, like.’

  ‘The police have spies?’

  ‘Yeah! Gotta be pretty stupid to be caught by one, mind, but there’s some folk wot’s that thick. Old Barrington there, like, ’e stops me an’ searches me bag, last month. Finds a florin, an’ says where did I steal it, like? I says please sir, I never done nothin’, an’ that I found it in the gutter. Old tosser keeps the florin an’ lets me go with a caution.’

  ‘But why not hide the florin too?’

  ‘To give the twerp somethin’ to find! Jeez, Danny Boy, don’t you know nothin’? That made the cove pleased with ’imself, so he calls off the search of Barry’s bag. Meantime, I has fifteen shillings in me secret bag bottom, and I now know what one more copper spy looks like.’

  ‘So the florin was a decoy.’

  ‘Yeah, sort of.’

  Daniel was very well educated and was not short of intelligence, but Barry’s sheer rat cunning had him awe-struck. Their two cups of coffee arrived, and while Daniel managed to force himself to drink his, he could not pretend to enjoy it. Patrons came and went. Daniel noticed that the girl with red hair kept staring at him. Muriel someone, that was her name. She and Emily did not like each other.

  ‘Barry, there’s a girl with a sketchbook over in the corner, to my right. Long, red hair.’

  ‘She’s ’armless,’ said Barry after flicking a glance across her.

  ‘Is her name Muriel?’

  ‘Yeah. Muriel Barker or Banker or somethin’.’

  ‘Baker?’

  ‘That’s it! Her mum’s got a shop, sells art stuff, an’ she does stuff in some art school, too. Don’t mind ’er. She’s not police, she’s not German, an’ she’s not sellin’ nothin’.’

  Barry began to break open his collection of discarded cigarettes and salvage the tobacco. Constable Barrington had five cups of coffee over the following half-hour.

  ‘I can’t see how he can drink so much,’ muttered Daniel.

  ‘Well, just watch – not right at ’im! Don’t you know nothin’? Be casual, like. There, see, ’e added a bit of the old Lady Frisky to the cup.’

  ‘Lady Frisky?’

  ‘Whisky! From that silver flask.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Reckon I could get a pound for that from Lurker the Worker. A guinea, if it was full.’

  They sat there for another ten minutes, watching people come and go. From time to time men would come up to the plain-clothes policeman, and some would slip things into his hand. Daniel began to get used to watching people out of the corner of his eye. He watched Muriel Baker a great deal. Although she was about the same age as Emily, Muriel dressed rather more exotically than Daniel’s sister, and actually wore make-up. Her mother was something to do with the local artistic community. Barry had mentioned that. Daniel found himself thinking that Muriel was rather attractive, but he hurriedly reminded himself that she was as much as two years older than him. He was so intent on watching Muriel without being seen to watch her that he suddenly realised that he had missed a very important detail amid the noise, smoke and melodeon music in the café.

  ‘The five men at that table beside Constable Barrington,’ said Daniel softly, leaning across the table and looking directly at Barry. ‘They’re speaking German.’

  ‘Yeah? Five Germans, and Foxy say that five Germans done the damage wot hasn’t happened yet. Reckon we got them spies by the danglers, Danny Boy.’

  It was at this point that Barry did the unthinkable. In his haste to dash off and speak to someone, he abandoned his bag to Daniel’s care. Daniel laid a protective hand over the bag. Constable Barrington flicked a glance his way, but did not move. Within a minute Barry was back, having realised that he had parted company with his bag. He snatched it away from Daniel without a word, then embraced it for a moment, as if trying to make up to a jilted sweetheart.

  ‘Got the word on ’em,’ Barry reported quietly. ‘Waiter back there is Luker the Lurker.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Mate of Lurker the Worker, wot’s a mate of Dad’s on the railways. The German coves turned up three months ago. All speak English with accents when they want to order, and reckon they’re artists. Can ya tell what they’re saying?’

  ‘Something about Australian wines being good, but that they would be much better if Germans made them.’

  ‘Is that right, eh? Reckon that daft BC cove was talkin’ chapter and verse?’

  ‘Something about them just does not add up,’ continued Daniel.

  ‘Yeah? You spotted somethin’?’

  ‘Well, their German is good.’

  ‘What? Danny Boy, have a brain, they’re Germans! Germans speak German better than anyone else.’

  ‘No, not quite. I speak good English, but I don’t speak it like an English teacher. Those five speak German like my German teacher. He always speaks German perfectly, so that his pupils don’t get bad habits. Trust me, Barry, their German really is too good.’

  ‘Don’t see how that helps us.’

  ‘Neither do I, but it’s worth remembering.’

  ‘Reckon we oughta get goin’ now.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Daniel, casting a hurried glance at Muriel, who was still sitting by herself and occasionally sketching something on a pad. ‘We just found the spies.’

  ‘Yeah, but old Barrington is lookin’ for ’is silver flask, an’ I don’t want to be in ’ere when the fun starts.’

  ‘You couldn’t
have stolen his whisky flask, you never went anywhere near him.’

  ‘Yeah, but Luker the Lurker did, then didn’t I just go over to whisper with Luker the Lurker?’

  ‘So you stole from the waiter what the waiter stole from the policeman?’

  ‘Er, yeah. I sorta reckon stolen stuff is lost property, an’ finders keepers is the rule there.’

  Back in the street again, Daniel stood in front of Barry as he huddled in the doorway of a closed shop and hid the silver flask in the false bottom of his bag. Presently there were raised voices from within the café, and some minutes later Constable Barrington stormed out. Catching sight of Barry and Daniel, he strode over, seized Barry by the collar, and made him empty his pockets and open his bag. Finding nothing, he turned on Daniel, searched his pockets, and confiscated two shillings and a postcard.

  ‘I’m watching you, sonny,’ he said to Daniel as he turned to go.

  Barry slapped Daniel reassuringly on the back as Constable Barrington vanished into the crowd.

  ‘He said he’s watching me,’ quavered Daniel.

  ‘Yeah, so?’

  ‘What if Mother finds out?’

  ‘Jeez, Danny Boy, the cove says that to everyone. Is ’e watchin’ ya now?’

  ‘No, but –’

  ‘Then there ya go!’

  Barry and Daniel loitered outside the café. Muriel Baker came out, paused to glance at Daniel as if to confirm that he was who she suspected, then walked on. She’s going to tell someone, thought Daniel. At least it won’t matter if she tells Emily. Moments later Barry sampled the whisky from the stolen flask, and very nearly choked. It was while Barry was bent over with Daniel thumping his back that the Germans emerged from the café. With Barry gasping for air, they shadowed the group as they wandered along Acland Street, then turned down an alley. Telling Daniel to stay and watch, Barry dashed to another laneway to flank the Germans, but soon emerged looking angry and puzzled.

  ‘Lost ’em!’ muttered Barry. ‘Did they come back out this way?’

  ‘No. There were a lot of people coming and going, but nobody that looked like them.’

  ‘Yeah? Then they either got some doorway to duck in, else they got disguises.’

  A large, black coach rumbled out of the lane and passed them. It was certainly not the sort of coach that five artists could have afforded.