‘Er, getting some air,’ Charlie said feebly.
‘Air? There’s enough air in here to fill the lungs of a thousand boys, let alone twelve.’
‘Is there?’ Charlie looked round at the eleven boys sleeping behind him. Not one had woken up, even though the matron had made no attempt to lower her voice.
‘Get back to bed!’
Without waiting for Charlie to obey, the matron closed the door. Her footsteps receded so fast Charlie imagined she must be running down the passage. In the two years he had been at the Academy he had never known his great-aunt Lucretia to run. Tonight she must either be escaping from something unpleasant, or she was late for a very important meeting.
And who would be holding a meeting at such a late hour? Only Ezekiel Bloor, Charlie decided. At a hundred and one years old, Ezekiel made no distinction between night and day. He spent his mornings dozing in his wheelchair and afternoons reading up on unpleasant spells. It was only at night that his malicious mind really came alive, and then woe betide anyone who didn’t fit in with his plans.
Charlie was about to close the window when a curious smell drifted up to him: a salty, seaweedy tang that left its taste on the tongue. It was horribly familiar. Looking down into the courtyard he wasn’t surprised to see a large figure appear in the archway. The man wore an oilskin coat and long fisherman’s boots. He moved over the cobblestones with an odd swaying stride, as though he were on the heaving deck of a ship.
Charlie raced back to his bed. Before he climbed into it, however, there was a husky whisper from the bed at the end of his row.
‘The window. Close the window.’
Charlie pulled the bedclothes over his head. He could hardly bear to look at Dagbert Endless, let alone talk to him. Dagbert kept protesting that Tancred’s near-drowning had been an accident. Even the headmaster believed his story. The school had been told that Tancred Torsson had accidentally slipped in the Sculpture room, and been drowned by water pouring from a broken tap. Charlie knew better. Dagbert was a drowner. He even boasted of his power. But neither he nor the Bloors were aware that Tancred had survived. Tancred’s friends intended to keep it that way.
‘The window. Close the window.’ This time the voice was louder. The seaweedy smell from outside mingled with the fishy stench that Dagbert sometimes gave off.
Charlie held his nose and lay still.
‘CLOSE THE WINDOW!’
The shout woke half the dormitory. Some of the boys yawned sleepily and turned over, but Bragger Braine, the bully of the second year, sat up and grunted, ‘Who said that?’
‘I did,’ Dagbert answered in an aggrieved tone. ‘Charlie opened the window and he won’t close it.’
‘Close the window, Charlie Bone,’ Bragger commanded.
His ardent follower, Rupert Small, echoed his words in a thin reedy voice. ‘Close the window, Charlie Bone.’
Charlie held his breath. He was determined not to obey Bragger Braine or his pathetic crony.
‘CLOSE THE WINDOW!’ shouted Dagbert.
This shout woke Fidelio Gunn in the bed next to Charlie. ‘Stop bellowing, Fish-boy!’ he cried, punching his pillow into shape. ‘Let normal people get some sleep.’
For a few seconds silence reigned. Charlie smiled to himself in the dark and whispered, ‘Well done, Fido!’
The whisper irritated Bragger. If his bed had been beside Charlie’s he would have thumped him. But they were half a dormitory apart and a day of thumping other people and starring on the football pitch had exhausted Bragger. He just wanted to go to sleep. The next time Dagbert repeated his demand, Bragger said, ‘Close it yourself, Fish-boy!’
Charlie waited for Dagbert to slip out of bed and close the window, but the fish-boy didn’t move. Soon the room was filled with the soft rhythmic breathing of heavy sleepers. Charlie turned over and closed his eyes.
Minutes passed. Try as he might, Charlie couldn’t sleep. A soft light insisted on creeping through his eyelids. He half-opened one eye. A bluish glow was spreading across the walls; a luminous rippling gleam, like the water in a swimming pool. Charlie screwed his eyes tight shut, trying to wish away the eerie light. This was what happened when Dagbert was nervous or excited. Perhaps he sensed Lord Grimwald’s arrival. Charlie knew that Dagbert was afraid of his father; they seldom saw each other, for Lord Grimwald rarely left his gloomy castle in the Northern Isles.
At the far end of Charlie’s row a bed creaked, and he heard quick footfalls on the bare floorboards. Someone slammed the window shut but no one woke up. Charlie curled himself up and began to drift into sleep. And then something heavy sank on to his bed, just below his knees, and a voice whispered, ‘Charlie, are you awake?’
No. I am asleep, Charlie told himself. He didn’t stir.
‘Charlie, wake up.’
He could have remained as he was, motionless, his eyes closed, but sudden anger made Charlie sit up and whisper harshly, ‘What is it?’
‘My father’s here,’ said Dagbert, his quiet voice husky and urgent. ‘I can smell him.’
‘And I can smell you,’ Charlie grunted. ‘Get off my bed.’
‘Charlie, I think I might need your help.’
‘What?’ Charlie exclaimed. ‘Me help you, after you drowned my friend?’
‘It was an accident.’ Dagbert’s whisper became a low whine. ‘I didn’t mean to.’
‘Oh, you meant to, all right,’ Charlie growled. ‘Emma Tolly saw everything. Now get off my bed.’ He kicked Dagbert in the back.
Dagbert stood up, but he didn’t move from Charlie’s side. Charlie could see his rigid form silhouetted against the glimmering blue-green wall. At last a soft grumble of words came tumbling from Dagbert. ‘You know our secret, our family curse. You know that my destiny is to die in my thirteenth year – unless my father dies before me. It has to be one of us, and now he’s here, unexpectedly, in the night, and I am twelve, Charlie. So what’s going to happen? Find out for me, please. No one else is like you, Charlie. No one else would do it.’
‘Do it yourself,’ muttered Charlie. Turning his back on Dagbert, he wriggled under the bedclothes.
Seconds passed before Dagbert said dully, ‘I’m afraid.’
‘Too bad,’ Charlie replied.
‘But I want to know why my father’s here.’
‘Well, I don’t. Not interested.’ Charlie pulled the bedclothes over his head. He waited for Dagbert’s response, but none came. Before falling asleep, Charlie opened his eyes briefly and found that the dormitory was in darkness again. Hopefully Dagbert had gone back to bed.
Charlie hadn’t been quite truthful with Dagbert. He was interested in Lord Grimwald’s arrival. In fact, he was very curious about everything that he had seen from the window that night. He just wasn’t quite curious enough to risk being caught by some of the school’s unpleasant-looking visitors.
In a dark passage leading off the great hall, two highly polished ancient doors opened into a magnificent, but seldom used, ballroom. Tonight the ballroom had been filled with chairs, and Ezekiel Bloor’s visitors sat in rows beneath four glittering chandeliers. The brilliant light reflected in the crystals was rather disconcerting to some of Ezekiel’s unwholesome-looking guests. They were people who were happier in shadow: thieves, poisoners, fraudsters, kidnappers, swindlers and even murderers. Most