School For Villains Read online

  CONTENTS

  A NOTE

  PROLOGUE

  TWO DAYS EARLIER

  THE UMBRELLAS OF FITZDOWN STREET

  BABY’S HUNGRY

  THE ACT

  THE MISER

  THE BOY WHO FARTED

  THE THING IN THE CHIMNEY

  EPILOGUE

  A NOTE

  WELCOME TO TUMBLEWATER. A large district of narrow winding streets tucked inside a much larger city. A place filled with the poorest, the weirdest, the nicest and the nastiest of people. And stories – lots of stories. Last year I became the storyteller of this place, recording all the grisly tales I came across – until I found I was in the middle of one myself. My long-lost sister Maria had been kidnapped, and before I could look for her I had to go on the run from the police and hide in the Underground, a special society of fugitives and outcasts. I stick to the shadows, stay out of sight and see all manner of dark things.

  Follow me, and together we’ll discover some of the grisliest tales, and continue the search for Maria. Don’t make a sound and we both might escape with our lives.

  PROLOGUE

  freezing wind blew in over the gravestones.

  The crowd shivered and pulled their cloaks closer around them, huddling in small groups near the scaffold. I looked around to check that my friends were still in sight. It was a dismal place – Ditcher’s Fields, the muddy graveyard where prisoners were hanged with no trial and then hurriedly buried, usually in someone else’s grave. The crowd, gathering closer now as the moment of execution approached, squeezed between the narrow lines of gravestones, or sat up on the piles of old headstones that had been dug up and cast aside.

  I moved uneasily from foot to foot, looking out for other people dressed like me, with dark hoods and scarves to hide their faces. One stood near the gate, ready to help us into a waiting carriage, and two of the others were beneath the scaffold. Only a few minutes to go now.

  Glancing at the nearby police officers, looking bored and miserable in the rain, I wondered whether we had any chance of success.

  Behind me there was a sudden buzz of chatter in the crowd that quickly dwindled to an excited whispering. A group of men was approaching the gallows, the one in the middle hidden by a canvas sack over his face, and his hands bound in chains. Now there was silence as the men began to climb the steps.

  As the spectators swarmed in around me I slipped between them until I was almost underneath the platform. There, to my disgust, I saw a group of children gathered, looking up gleefully as the men’s feet creaked across the floorboards above.

  The noose swung lightly in the wind as the men reached the platform and began to set about their business with very little ceremony. The executioner did this far too often to give it a second thought. The sack over the culprit’s head meant he could not tell what was happening until he felt the rope looped roughly around his neck.

  The officer stifled a yawn (it was not yet seven in the morning) as he watched the executioner whip the cloth from the head of the condemned. A scruffy-haired, weathered-looking man was revealed, looking down at the crowd with watery grey eyes. He blinked as the rope around his neck was tightened. Starting to feel tense, I looked around for my comrades and was relieved to see that all five of them were in place.

  The officer in charge turned to the crowd and began reading the sentence from a sheet of paper. He got to the phrase, ‘I sentence you, Mary Spokes . . .’ before frowning and looking through all the papers in his hand for the right one. The crowd laughed and shouted insults at him. Someone clapped loudly, and a chatter started out again among the cold and wet people waiting for their early-morning spectacle. Out behind the graveyard gulls were crying out over the river, and the sound of traffic was increasing – the clattering wheels on the streets, the clanking of engines and foghorns on the river.

  At last the officer found the right page and holding it up he began to read it out again with indecent haste.

  ‘On this day,’ he sighed, ‘the twenty-third of November . . .’

  Only a couple of seconds now . . .

  People clutched each other as though they were at the theatre and watching the exciting final scenes of a play.

  Suddenly the officer stopped. There was a strange creaking sound and a tremor passed up through the wooden scaffold so that all three men staggered to one side, then steadied themselves.

  The crowd laughed much louder, really delighted this time, and the officer grew furious. He mumbled the rest of the words as quickly as he could until he reached: ‘. . . and I now pronounce the sentence of DEATH upon this man—’

  A huge snapping sound cut him off. Gasping, the crowd looked to the bottom of the scaffold and saw that it had been sawn right through, and was about to topple.

  It swayed dangerously, sending all of the men on it to their knees, before with a resounding crash the wooden support gave way completely.

  People screamed and laughed at once as the platform fell sideways, taking the officer and the hangman with it, crunching into the tombstones and splattering into wet earth.

  But the condemned man stayed hanging up in the air for a moment – the rope was tied to a high branch of the graveyard’s only tree, unconnected to the platform. The untightened noose was still caught around his neck and his hands tied behind his back. The rope caught under his chin – not quite strangling him, but leaving him dangling in the air.

  ‘Twist your head!’ I shouted up at him. ‘For God’s sake, wriggle, turn, get out of it!’

  For a second I watched him twisting like a dumb animal being slaughtered and then the noose slipped and he fell with a shocking suddenness and landed in the mud. I was at his side in a moment – freeing his arms from their chains, and then pulling him along with me into the thronging chaos of the crowd.

  People were running forward and back, frightened by the crash and excited by it. Policemen were streaming through to help the official and the hangman, not noticing that the culprit had escaped.

  The condemned man seemed no less baffled by what was going on. Gasping for breath as I shoved him into a gap between two piles of old headstones, he asked, ‘Who are you?’

  I put my hand over his mouth as three more police officers ran past. Then I pulled off my cloak, revealing that I was wearing another one underneath, wrapped the first one around him and pulled the hood over his head. Looking up I could see the way through the crowd to the gate and pulled him to his feet.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ I said. ‘Move!’ I kicked him in the behind to emphasize my point.

  As we neared the gates I grabbed him around the shoulders and pretended to limp heavily, screwing up my face as though I was in pain. I cried out too, loudly and pathetically, as though I’d been injured by the falling scaffold, and making such a bawl that no one could pass by without covering their ears.

  People were streaming out of the graveyard from fear of the police, who were running past us in huge numbers. They ignored me as I approached the gate and I saw my tall friend there waiting, pointing towards a carriage.

  ‘There we go – that one,’ I said to the condemned man, pointing to a coach-and-four twenty feet away. Our escape vehicle was so close that the man who a minute ago had been so near to death couldn’t restrain himself, but ran across the street towards it.

  ‘Oh no,’ I muttered. ‘Now he’s drawing attention to us.’ At once behind me I heard the shouting of police, telling us to come back. I reached the door of the carriage right behind the condemned man and shouted to the driver to get us going. Our tall friend caught up with us, just in time to jump on the footboard and cling on to the outside of the carriage.

  ‘Faster!’ I shouted, leaning out of the window.

  Th
e driver leaned round to look down at me.

  ‘How clever of you,’ he said. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. Let me know if you have any other bright ideas.’

  I looked back as we headed up the hill. The police were streaming out of the graveyard – more than a dozen of them – and jumping in their own vehicles, or stopping other people’s and taking theirs. The first of them had already set off and were only a hundred yards behind us and beginning to pick up speed.

  Our carriage lurched left as it went around a grain cart and ducked right again to avoid an expensive-looking gentleman’s sedan. Suddenly we were at the eastern crossroads and the driver pulled us right, through the stream of traffic, so close to crashing into the passing carriages from both directions that the startled horses started to neigh.

  The carriage’s wheels creaked loudly as our weight was thrown from one side to the other. Somehow we remained upright and passed under the railway bridge as a train crossed it, its plume of sooty smoke falling over our heads like a thick curtain, and we emerged from the dark cloud driving towards a side alley, straight towards some boys playing with a dog. We shouted as one and waved our arms – the boys jumped back in the nick of time and the dog ducked between the wheels. We all slumped into our seats with relief.

  Finally our cobbled back alley came to an end, and we had to make a turning towards the main road.

  ‘Take a deep breath,’ said the driver. ‘This might get a bit shirty.’

  ‘What does he mea—’ said the condemned man, before at the crack of a whip a sudden burst of speed threw him back in his seat. I leaned back out of the window and saw a group of police on horseback following us.

  The driver whipped the horses harder and harder, and goaded them with curses. In the confusion, for a second I thought I recognized his voice and it worried me for some reason. But there was no time to care about that as we hurtled down the main road, faster and faster.

  The buildings around us grew taller as we neared the court of justice and town hall. The streets got narrower. We were picking up speed, clattering downhill, and what people there were shrieked and rushed out of our way. But one man, a farmer trying to control his pony, was too slow to react. The animal panicked and slipped its rein, and the cart wheeled backwards directly in our way.

  I saw our driver panicking too, looking left and right as the cart came closer, until at the last moment he wrenched the reins to one side, and we dashed past just in time as the cart overturned behind us.

  A miracle – the cart blocked most of the road and the horse collapsed on its side, kicking its legs desperately. The police horses all reared up and refused to go further, infected by its panic.

  ‘Thank God,’ said Uncle’s voice from behind me.

  I looked at the tall cloaked man.

  ‘Uncle!’ I said. ‘It is you! I hoped it was.’

  I looked back. The road was a crush of horses neighing, and men shouting at them to no avail. But even as I thought we had escaped, a single horse leaped over the fracas at a terrific rate, goaded cruelly by a whip which drew blood from its neck.

  ‘Anyone still following us?’ Uncle asked.

  ‘Just one,’ I said.

  ‘Have this,’ said one of the men inside the carriage as he gave me a loaded pistol. I grabbed it, terrified by the jolting of the carriage. I’m sixteen! I thought. I’ll probably blow my own head off!

  But I leaned back out and aimed the pistol nonetheless, because this was no ordinary police officer who was following us: it was someone I’d seen before. She had the slim figure of a woman and long curly red hair, but weirdest of all she wore a thick leather patch covering both her eyes that seemed to have no effect on her ability to see. To see too much, in fact.

  ‘Use it!’ shouted the driver angrily at me as I tried to aim. I definitely recognized his voice, but couldn’t think about it – now wasn’t the moment to be put off.

  A flour cart passed us and as I fumbled with the weapon to get a better aim it went off, exploding a bag of flour in a huge cloud. The farmer yelped and jumped for cover as Uncle snatched the gun off me to reload it.

  The horses were tiring as the road forked into three directions ahead of us. This had always been one of the busiest junctions in the town. It was eerie to see it empty, and I felt the driver hesitate at the strangeness of it, and we slowed for a moment. I looked back: the red-haired creature was charging through the cloud even faster than before, and gaining on us.

  ‘Go!’ I shouted.

  The driver chose at the last moment – when the red rider was almost upon us – to drag the reins towards the left turning. Our horses were exhausted, almost dead from the effort and stress, and couldn’t pull the huge weight of the carriage behind them. The front right wheel, weakened by fire, snapped and the carriage bumped for a few yards before we crashed with fantastic force into the scaffolding at the front of a shop.

  Our windows were shattered and part of the roof torn off by the impact but our momentum pulled us clear of the wreckage and I leaned out of the window again to see the side of the building, smashed open and suddenly without its supporting scaffolding, collapse downward just as the red rider passed under it. Our carriage screeched to a stop, sliding sideways along the cobbles, and we all turned to watch it happen.

  There was a brief scream of the horse as it twisted between fallen planks of wood and then its neck was crushed by a tumbling block of bricks. The dreadful red-haired creature’s legs were trapped beneath it and she put out her arms to try and protect herself, but the second wave of falling masonry was much heavier than the first. A wooden beam fell across her chest in a shower of dust and stones, and an instant later a brutally massive stone followed it, hitting the earth with a deep thunderous smash that shook all the buildings around and covering her completely.

  For a moment we all looked, wondering if it could be true that we were free, and feeling aghast at the same time – even for the worst enemy, it was horrible to watch such a death. But already the cloud of brick dust was being dampened by rainfall and disappearing.

  The driver turned from the spectacle and gently urged the horses so that we crawled forward on three wheels, scraping over the cobbles. We turned off the street on to a path beside one of the narrow canals which slid silently between many of the backstreets of Tumblewater.

  We came to a stop with a whistle from the driver, and climbed out on to the pathway. The whistle had summoned a boat from under an arch in the canal, which now stole forward until it was beneath us in the water.

  ‘You men go down to the boat,’ said the driver. ‘I’ve got to go back.’ We didn’t have time to question him as he disappeared back around the corner, we presumed for something he’d dropped. One by one we climbed down into the boat and after a wait of no more than a minute the driver returned, with no explanation, and joined us.

  One of the men who had piloted the boat towards us climbed back up on to dry land. He released the horses, and patted their behinds so they ran away.

  ‘What will you do with it?’ I asked, looking at the ruined carriage.

  Flames were still stealing back and forth over the end of the vehicle. One wheel was missing. He followed my eye and said, ‘It’ll be a pile of firewood within the hour.’

  The boat’s captain had already pushed away from the side and we heard these words as the man disappeared behind us into the distance and the gloom. In a few moments a bridge passed overhead, and he was lost to sight completely.

  We all sat back in the parts of the boat we could find to ourselves, and looked up at the light between the edges of the buildings above us. Rain spattered on our faces, and the only sound was the rowing of our guide. He turned many a corner, and manoeuvred against currents, and wove a careful course through the silent hidden waterways until he said, ‘We’re here.’

  Above the boat was a rough hole in a brick wall a few feet above water level. Realizing this was an entrance that we were supposed to use, I climbed in and found a ledge I could
sit on. The others followed until we were all sat inside in a little room. The boatman handed up his lantern and, bidding us good luck, he pushed off into the stream and was gone.

  ‘Thank you!’ I called, and all the others followed my example with a chorus of grunts of gratitude. Then we were all alone. The tall man leaned forward and turned the lamp up so we could see each other.

  The condemned man sat back in his seat, and looked at all our hooded faces in turn. Totally baffled, I couldn’t even think of a question to ask, until one of the cloaked figures reached out and took his hand.

  ‘Pleased to meet you, sir.’ And he pulled back his hood and removed his scarf to reveal – a girl. ‘Sally Dolton, at your service.’ The condemned man stared at her – as did I. Sally was my friend, whom I had never intended to put in a moment’s danger, let alone to allow her to follow me on a life-threatening mission.

  Then the two figures next to Sally took their hoods off, revealing themselves to be two other of my closest friends. They introduced themselves as Tusk and Mayrick. Now there was only the tall man, the driver and me left.

  I was glad to reveal my face. ‘It’s good to have you here!’ I said. ‘I’m so happy to have helped you escape. You don’t know me, but my name’s Daniel Dorey.’

  The tall man next revealed himself with a more sombre air. ‘They call me Uncle,’ he said, and they shook hands.

  We all looked up at the only man who had remained standing. I thought I even noticed apprehension on Uncle’s face as he looked at the stranger. Even though Uncle had organized this raid, he didn’t seem to have a clue who the driver was. Now slowly that man pulled his hood back, rolled his scarf down and introduced himself.

  ‘My name’s Inspector Rambull of the District Police. It’s a pleasure to meet you all.’

  TWO DAYS EARLIER

  ASPERS & PERI-WETHER PUBLISHING.

  Silence in the room. Mr Jaspers behind his desk, flicking through a manuscript.

  I sat before him, waiting for his judgement on the collection of tales I had delivered. I had been there rather along time, and the wait was playing havoc with my nerves.