except that the door wasn’t locked. I fell asleep clutching the pillow. And I dreamed. I dreamed of Tim in his gangster outfit. I dreamed of Johnny Powers and a lion and an Intercity 125 Express. I thought I heard the tinkle of a bell and somebody talking in a low voice, but then the voice became that of the judge sentencing me and I found myself strapped down and realized that I was in the electric chair with Ma Powers about to throw the switch. I saw her hand move. There was a flash of light and I opened my eyes.
The sun was shining through the window, dazzling me. I was awake. And I’d managed to tear the pillow in half.
DOORWAY TO HELL
I’d been wrong about Peregrine Palis. Okay, he had a stupid name. He was short and fat. And he taught French. But nobody’s perfect and I had to admit—as he drove me back to Wapping the next day—that he couldn’t have been more helpful. Anyone else would have called the police and turned me in. But not only did he take me back, he even bought me a new jacket and shirt from the local market. He said I could pay him back when I managed to prove my innocence.
It was Sunday and Wapping was even emptier than the day before. The rain hadn’t left it any prettier either. With no gutters, the roads had nowhere to put the water. It was lying there in wide pools, dirty mirrors reflecting a dirty sky. Mr. Palis stopped near the subway station and I got out.
“Thanks, Mr. Palis . . .” I began.
“Good luck,” he said. He was in a hurry to get away. “I hope it all works out. If you need help, get in touch.”
“I will.”
He drove off. His back wheel smashed one of the mirrors, spraying my nice new clothes with mud and water. I took a deep breath. There was nobody around. Now all I had to do was to face up to Johnny Powers and persuade him that I was still on his side.
The real worry was Tim. He’d been alone with Powers for almost twenty-four hours. I’d have been worried if it had been twenty-four minutes. They’d have asked him questions. Would he have come up with the right answers? One word out of place and he could reserve a place in the nearest cemetery. But Mr. Palis had been right. I had no choice. If I didn’t go back, Tim wouldn’t stand a chance.
I walked down Wapping High Street to the turnoff where the hideout stood—or rather leaned against its scaffolding. It all seemed quiet enough. Even so I was aware of a sort of tingling. Call it an alarm bell, if you like. Something was wrong but I didn’t know what it was. Maybe it was too quiet. Maybe it was something else. Something I’d seen or heard.
I stopped beside the front door. I lifted my finger to ring the bell, then thought better of it. Powers wasn’t expecting visitors. It would be just like him to put a dozen bullets through the door before he opened it. I went back to the window and peered through. The curtains were drawn. Were they still in bed?
I reached out again for the bell. And that was when I saw it.
It was the color that saved me. Wapping was all gray—with the occasional patches of dark brown and black. After a while, your eyes get used to it. You didn’t expect to see any color. But this was bright yellow. It was a piece of plastic, about an inch long. It was lying on the doorstep. I knelt down and picked it up. There were a couple of copper strands inside. It was a piece of electrical wiring. What was it doing there?
I looked back at the doorbell and suddenly I didn’t like it at all. Because suddenly I remembered that when we’d arrived at the hideout there hadn’t been a doorbell. It was brand-new. It had been put there specially for me.
Right then I wanted to turn around and go back to the subway station. I could go to the very end of the East London Line and sit there quietly until it was all over. But there was still a chance that Tim was inside. I made up my mind.
I followed the houses around to the back and went in the way I’d come out—up the pile of rubble and in through my bedroom window. It was harder going up than it had been jumping down. I could only just reach the windowsill, and when I finally managed to pull myself up, the window was locked. I used my elbow to break the glass. If Johnny and his mother were asleep, I’d wake them up for sure. But I didn’t think they were there. I didn’t think they’d been there for quite some time.
A little piece of yellow wire . . .
I hurried through the bedroom, noticing that Tim’s bed had been slept in. Nothing else seemed to have been disturbed. Nobody stirred as I moved out into the corridor, but walking down the stairs, I heard a sort of muffled crying. I reached the bottom and stopped dead. I think about two minutes passed before I even dared to move.
Tim was sitting in a chair, tied up and gagged. He was still dressed in a pair of pajamas—but perhaps as a joke, someone had put the gangster hat back on his head. He was staring at an object on a table only a couple of yards away from him. It was a Walt Disney alarm clock with Mickey Mouse pointing at the time with his white- gloved hands: seven minutes to eleven. But I didn’t think Walt Disney had been responsible for the rest of it. There were six sticks of dynamite attached to the clock. A yellow wire trailed away, leading to the door.
A time bomb. It was set for eleven o’clock. Ring the doorbell and it would have gone off sooner. Tim, myself, and Mickey Mouse would have been blown to smithereens.
I forced myself to move. Tim had seen me out of the corner of his eye and he was rocking back and forth and grunting. I took the gag off.
“Hello, Tim,” I said.
“Nick!” he screamed. “Get me out of here! Help! Do something! Call the police! Call the bomb squad! Where have you been? How could you do this to me?”
For a moment I was tempted to gag him again. I had to move quickly and having him yelling at me wouldn’t help. There was no time to untie him. Powers had used wire and it wouldn’t cut. The clock showed six minutes to eleven. In six minutes I might just manage to free his legs, but Tim was such a gibbering wreck that I doubted he’d be able to use them.
“This is all your fault,” he went on. “I should never have helped you escape. It’s not fair. What did I ever do to hurt anyone? I should have listened to Mum . . .”
I went over to the table and examined the bomb. It was more complicated than I’d first thought. Apart from the yellow wire there were two coils—red and blue—leading from the dynamite to the clock via a sort of black plastic junction box. The box was closed by a single screw. There was a glass cylinder next to it, a bit like a valve. The whole thing was tied together by two strips of plastic tape.
“What are you going to do?” Tim whined.
“I’m going to defuse it,” I said.
“But where is the fuse?” Tim whimpered.
“I don’t know.”
He fell silent again.
I reached out and touched the dynamite. My hand was trembling so hard that my fingers were just a blur. It didn’t go off. Five minutes to eleven. I tried to think what I knew about bomb disposal. Unfortunately it wasn’t one of the subjects they taught at school. But I’d seen films and read books. At eleven o’clock the alarm bell would ring. An electrical contact would be made. The detonator—that was presumably the glass valve—would be activated. It would be the last thing I would see.
Ringing the doorbell would have done the same thing, only earlier. How else could I set the bomb off? It could have a touch sensor of some sort, but I’d already touched it and it hadn’t sensed anything. I could cut one of the wires. But I didn’t know which one and anyway it was too dangerous. I could move the hands of the clock back. That seemed the most obvious thing to do. In fact it was so obvious that it was probably lethal.
My eyes were drawn to the junction box with its single screw. That had to be the answer. Break the electrical circuit and the whole thing would be neutralized. I’d left my knife at World’s End. I needed a screwdriver or something with a narrow blade. I straightened up.
“Where are you going?” Tim demanded.
“To the kitchen,” I said.
