Blue Dome (The Blue Dome Series) (7 page)

“Hey kid, I didn’t see
you pay for that!” someone shouted. The woman in the apron was still within
earshot and suddenly realised what had happened.

“Why, that thieving
little…” She turned to the man standing behind her. “Mick, get after him would
you. We can’t have people thinking it’s okay to nick our stuff.”

Mick was a lean, hungry
looking man with gaunt cheeks, a heavy set brow and large hands.

“Yeah, onto it Martha,”
he said, glaring at Bede.

“Run!” Bede shouted,
clutching the loaf to his chest and breaking into a sprint.

I was so shocked that it
took a couple of seconds for the word to actually register in my brain, let
alone find its way down to my legs. I glanced behind me to see that Mick was
now only a short distance behind us and closing the gap frighteningly quickly. I
didn’t need to think at that point – the animal instinct to run for my life had
well and truly kicked in.

“Bede!” I shouted, but he
was already ten metres ahead of me and disappearing fast. My shock was morphing
into anger amazingly quickly. I just couldn’t believe what a complete arse he’d
been, nicking the load after we’d
expressly
agreed that my ankle wasn’t
up to it. Right then I could have easily traded my brother for the loaf.

But there was no time to negotiate
a deal with Mick. He was rapidly gaining ground on us and shouting “stop thief!”
to anyone who would listen. I tried to block it out and pretend that he was
talking about someone else, just like I did at school when I was being called a
‘ging-er’. It helped, being distracted by the need to follow Bede’s back as he
weaved in and out of the crowd. Suddenly, I saw the loaf fall from his grasp
and bounce along the street. It might have been funny, had it not been for the
fact that I was really mad at him and felt like I was about to cough up a lung.

To make matters worse, my
ankle was now killing me, but there was nothing I could do except keep running.
If I stopped, Mick would have me in a second and Bede would have to come back.
I’d never seen my brother in action when it came to fighting, but Mick definitely
looked like he was no stranger to violence.

I tried to block out the
pain the same way as I had the night before, by concentrating on the sound of
my boots striking the pavement. It helped a bit, but tears of pain still
bubbled up in my eyes uncontrollably. I could see Bede in the distance, glancing
over his shoulder at me every so often. It looked like he was slowing down a
bit, but the gap between us was still getting steadily bigger. I watched him
turn down a side alley and he was gone.

The sound of Mick’s boots
pounding the ground behind me was now getting louder and louder.

“Just keeping breathing,”
I told myself as my brain began to mist with panic. I was now a long way from
the Old Town Square, and running down a myriad of small lanes and alleyways. They
all looked like the streets from the night before, except that today there were
people everywhere and I was forced to manoeuvre sharply to avoid crashing into
them. Each sudden movement jarred my ankle even more, making me wince with
pain. I knew that I was now just delaying the inevitable – Mick was going to
catch me sooner or later.

I passed a group of old
men smoking cigars and saw a woman who looked oddly out of place, standing
alone in the middle of the street. She was tall and thin and wearing a long,
blue dress that fitted her so perfectly it looked as if she’d just been
swimming and forgotten to leave the water behind. A pile of thick, dark brown
hair was perched messily on top of her head, pieces of it escaping down her neck
to meet her shoulders. She was standing completely still, just calmly watching
me hurtle towards her, with no obvious intention of moving out of the way. I
started to alter my course to avoid her as a voice behind me continued to
shout, “Stop that girl!” Glancing over my shoulder, my stomach lurched as I saw
that Mick had almost caught me up.

I swore under my breath
and was about to pass the woman in the blue dress when something startling happened.
She reached out and grabbed my arm. It was so sudden, and I was running at such
a speed, that I spun to an abrupt halt. It took me a couple of seconds to realise
what had happened.

“What are you doing?” I
said, trying to wrench myself free.

To my surprise, despite
the woman’s thin frame, she was freakishly strong and no matter how hard I tried
to prise myself free her fingers refused to budge. Mick was now only a couple
of metres away.

“Thanks love,” he said to
the woman. “That girl and her brother have just nicked some stuff off my missus.”
He stopped running and started walking towards us, flexing his huge, fleshy
hands. That was it, I was done for.

The woman didn’t reply
but simply watched, expressionless, as Mick continued to approach. He was so close
now that I could see the fine black stubble on his chin.

“I’ll take it from here,”
he said, reaching out towards me.

I recoiled, edging away from
him as much as possible, as the woman continued to grasp my arm, remaining perfectly
still. Mick took a step closer, his scaly fingers now hovering less than a
centimetre above my wrist. I braced myself to be wrenched away from the woman
and frog-marched back to the
Old Town Square
.

Then, just as Mick was
about to grab me, something really weird happened. I felt myself being hauled
sideways and bundled through a small door just behind me. Before Mick could
move, or had time to say “my missus” again, the woman had pulled the door shut
behind us, leaving Mick gaping on the street.

“What the…?” he shouted.
“Hang on, come back here! Didn’t you hear me, that girl stole from my missus!”

The door rattled violently,
as Mick beat it with his hammy fists.

“I’ll be looking out for
you, girlie, and next time you won’t be so lucky!” he shouted through the thick
wooden panels.

I listened with my ear
pressed to the door and my heart thumping in my chest as the heavy, dull thud
of Mick’s boots clomped their way back up the street.

Sprinting away from Mick,
Bede could barely remember the last time he’d run so fast. The streets were
much busier than they had been the night before, shoppers spilling randomly
across the pavements and criss-crossing the narrow cobbled paths. Bede moved
like a cat among them, slipping through the small ovals of daylight that ebbed
and flowed between the moving bodies. He got a perverse sense of satisfaction
navigating the human hurdles without hitting them. It was only after his fifth
near miss that he realised his sister was no longer following him.

Bede drew to an abrupt
halt, turned, and began scanning the crowd for a tall, red-headed girl. The
panic rose inside him as he realised she was nowhere to be seen. He quickly
began retracing his steps, his long legs snipping the pavement like a tall pair
of scissors. He was painfully aware that Mick could be lurking anywhere, just
waiting for him to reappear, and he gave each corner a wide berth.

A few minutes later, Bede
had reached the end of the last road that he could clearly remember running
down. He was now confronted by a five-way intersection, each road seemingly
identical to the next. He scanned his surroundings, trying desperately to jog
his memory, but it was no use. Apart from the ornate fountain immediately
beside him, nothing looked familiar. He’d simply been running too fast, and
everything had become a blur. As much as he hated to admit it, he felt like
crying. He forced himself to take a deep breath, calm down, and refocus. If he
just went a few paces up each of the five roads, one of them was bound to feel
more familiar than the rest.

Bede turned and was just
about to take a step towards the farthest road on the right when he almost
tripped over a short, balding, man standing immediately in front of him. The
man looked up at him with small, squinty eyes.

“That was close, son.” he
smiled. “Lucky for me you’ve got good reflexes.” Bede managed a limp half
laugh.

“Sorry about that,” he
said. He began to step forward when the man stopped him again.

“Hey, aren’t you Philip
de Milo’s son?”

“Do you know him?” said
Bede, deliberately avoiding the question.

“Yeah,” the man said,
nodding for emphasis. “Yeah, I do.” He paused, as if uncertain how to phrase
his next question. “Look, kid, is your father all right?”

Bede shrugged
dismissively. “I never said he was my dad.”

The man gave a smug
smile.

“I already
know
he’s
your dad. I was just being polite.” He narrowed his eyes shrewdly. “It’s Bede,
isn’t it?”

“How do you know my
name?”

“Don’t worry about that
now.” The man paused, furtively scanning the street. “Look, when I say I know
your dad, I mean I
know
your dad. I know about his ‘business interests’.”

“Oh, right.” Bede exhaled
heavily. “Are you one of his ‘business’ colleagues?” The man gave a short
laugh.

“Yeah, you could say
that. Haven’t seen your old man around for the last few days. A bunch of us
back at the office were wondering what was up with him. I hope he’s all right?”

Bede paused, tossing up
whether or not to tell the truth about his dad’s sudden disappearance. On the
one hand, the guy could be an undercover cop; on the other, he might be one of
the few people who could actually help. Bede studied him carefully. Even though
it was the beginning of winter and they were outside, the man seemed to be
sweating profusely.

Bede studied him
carefully.
He certainly doesn’t look fit enough to be a cop
.
Besides,
wouldn’t he have arrested me by now if he was? The fact that he seems to know
who Dad is, and that I’m his son, and that we can’t really speak properly on a
crowded street might mean that he’s worth taking a chance on
. Bede took a
deep breath.

“The truth is Dad’s kind
of gone missing. I’m actually looking for him myself.”

The man nodded as if he’d
just been told something as ordinary as the weather. Bede wasn’t sure if that
was a good sign or not.

“That’s no good, kid, no
good at all.” The man scratched his chin, thoughtfully. “Your dad’s a good guy.
More to the point, he’s one of us, if you know what I mean?” He winked
knowingly. “If it was my kid standing here on the street, Philip’d do the right
thing. I mean, that’s what are friends for, isn’t it? And your dad’s a friend
of mine. Why don’t you come with me? Can’t promise I can find your dad but I
know someone who might be able to.”

“Really?” Bede smiled,
relieved that the risk had paid off. “That’d be great.” He was about to start
following the man up the street when he suddenly remembered something.

“Before I come, I just
need to find my sister. We got separated in the market somewhere.”

“Oh, yeah, fair enough,”
said the man, “completely understand.” He began to walk away.

“Hey, wait up,” said Bede.
“Can I come and find you again once I’ve found Clare?”

The man’s lips buckled
uncertainly. “Actually, that might be a bit difficult. I need to be somewhere
in an hour, so this is the only time I’ll be calling into the office. If it’s
any reassurance, the office isn’t far – just five minutes up the road from
here. You can always come back in a few minutes and look for you sister then. Who
knows, she may have just got distracted in a shoe shop or something.” He
laughed and began to walk away.

Bede was faced with a
dilemma. If he let the man walk away now, he might lose the only opportunity he
had to find his Dad. At the same time, his sister was out there somewhere,
possibly hurt if Mick had got hold of her. The man with the squinty eyes was
now a few metres away and about to cross the road. Bede made a split-second
decision.

“Hang on,” he said.

The man paused, waiting
for Bede to catch up. They crossed the road and took the second street off the
intersection, making their way past a line of rusty grey warehouses that had
their windows boarded up. They reminded Bede of someone who’d been beaten
around the head in a bad fight.

“Not sure I think much of
Dad’s office,” he said.

The man shrugged. “Certainly
keeps any nosey gits away.”

They came to a door that
had been bolted with a large padlock. The man fiddled with something in his
pocket, before pulling out a key and quickly unlocking the door.

“This way,” he said, motioning
Bede to follow him inside. “Just hope the boss is in. He’s the one you really
need to speak to.”

Bede stepped onto the
solid, cement floor and glanced around at the cavernous space. The inside of
the building seemed just as a rundown as the outside. Huge swathes of plaster
had flaked away from the walls, leaving exposed raw, red bricks. A nest of
frayed, grimy ropes hung limply from the pulleys bolted to the ceiling. The musty
air smelt of oil and machinery. Bede followed the man to a metal staircase. He
glanced at the rickety banister, made of badly-welded iron piping, and quickly
decided against using it. After following the man up several flights of narrow
steps, Bede eventually arrived at a small landing. The man knocked on the black
door directly in front of them.

“Come in,” a low, clear voice
replied.

The door opened to reveal
a candlelit room and a man dressed entirely in black, sitting at a desk. His dark
mahogany chair looked like an antique – it was covered in deep red velvet and
had a high back which was carved in thick scrolls, reminding Bede of a lion’s
mane. The man was poring over a map that covered the entire surface of the desk.

At the window, on the far
side of the room, a woman stared out across the city, her long emerald green
dress exposing a ‘v’ of creamy-coloured skin. Her dark hair was coiled into a knot
at the back of her head. She turned to face Bede as he entered the room, her
blood-red lipstick stark against her pale face.

“Hello Bede,” she said
smoothly.

“Arlene!” Bede let out a
sigh of relief. “Thank God you’re okay. Are you here looking for Dad as well? Where
is he? Is he all right?”

The candles in the room quivered
and the man at the desk cleared his throat in annoyance.

“Morana, you’re ruining
the light,” he said curtly, leaning in towards the map.

“Sorry,” she said, smiling
insincerely and moving quickly away from the window.

“Morana?” Bede frowned,
as he glanced from Arlene, to the man seated at the desk, then back to Arlene again.
“I don’t…What’s going on?”

Arlene’s sly smile slowly
spread into a dangerous smirk.

“Oh, Bede,” she said, as if
referring to an extremely funny, private joke. “You really have no idea, do
you?”

“No idea about what?”
said Bede. “Where’s Dad, is he here as well?”

“No, your father’s not
here,” said Arlene. “And the name’s
Morana
.”

“I don’t understand,”
said Bede. “I’ve never heard Dad call you Morana.”

“That’s because he didn’t
know it was my name,” she replied.

Bede’s feet shifted
uneasily. It seemed as if a very strange game was being played and no one
seemed remotely interested in telling him the rules.

“Okay, well, Arlene or
Morana or whatever it is you’re now calling yourself, where’s Dad? Did you know
the cops were at our house? The place has been completely smashed up. Clare and
I were hiding under a bed and we heard one of them say that I’d murdered Dad.
It’s unbelievable.”

“To the contrary,” said
Morana, calmly. “It’s quite believable, since that’s exactly what I told the
police.”

 “You
what
?” Bede
swallowed hard. “Why would you do that?”

“Because, unfortunately,
at least part of it is true. I hate to be the one to tell you, but your father
is dead.”

Bede stared at her. He
could only assume she was being so casual because she was still in shock. He
took a deep breath, trying to concentrate on something other than the nausea
that was now churning in his stomach. He desperately wanted to be sick.

“What happened?” said
Bede quietly.

“It was Thursday
afternoon. We had a large consignment of reptiles at home and one escaped.
Unfortunately your father forgot that king cobras
can
actually bite.

“Thursday afternoon? At
home?” said Bede. “That’s the same day that someone broke in and trashed the
place. I…I don’t understand.”

“There wasn’t a
‘break-in’, Bede. We had to make it look like that to avoid the police asking
difficult questions. It could have jeopardised our entire operation. The police
are much more sympathetic to burglary and grieving widows than they are to
reptile smuggling.”

“So that’s why you told
the police it was me?” said Bede. “Why didn’t you just tell the truth?”

“And lose everything?”
said Morana, snorting dismissively. “Not after all the hard work I’ve put in.”

“I could get locked away
for years if I get convicted,” said Bede. “Besides, I don’t even understand why
you’re involved. You told me this was something that Dad did, that you just
played along?”

“I lied,” said Morana
simply.

Bede shook his head in
disbelief. “I don’t know who you are. My stepmother would never have acted like
this.”

Morana tipped her head
back and laughed loudly.

“Your
stepmother
!
I know, how hilarious. Five years of the most agonising acting I’ve ever had to
do in my life, pretending that I loved your father and that I liked you odious
brats. All those endless meals and tedious conversations. Well it’s over now,
Bede. The acting’s over and not a moment too soon.”

“Why?” said Bede. “Why
did you pretend all this time? Why did you set Dad up like this?”

“Because there was a lot
of money at stake. We needed a reputable front and your father was easy to
fool,” said Morana.

Bede was shocked. Who was
this woman? She looked and sounded exactly like Arlene, and seemed to know all
about the last five years when a woman called Arlene had come to live with the
de Milo family. Yet this version of her – this ‘Morana’ incarnation – was so
cruel.

“So who’s this then?”
said Bede, jerking his head towards the man sitting behind the desk. “Your boyfriend?”
He spat the word distastefully. “I guess you were screwing around behind Dad’s
back as well?”

The man behind the desk
glanced up from the map and glared at Bede with undisguised disdain.

“I’d be very careful what
I said if I were you.”

“He’s just being
melodramatic,” said Morana, explaining Bede’s outburst.

“Melodramatic?” Bede
repeated, as if he wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly the first time. “How can
you say that? How can you possibly say that, given everything that’s happened? Dad
was your husband. You loved him like Clare and I did.” He could feel his voice
wobbling as he struggled to stay in control. There would be time for crying,
but not now. Not in front of this cold bitch.

Bede took a deep breath,
preparing himself to ask the hardest question of his life. “What happened to…I
mean, where is…” Try as he might, the last few words just wouldn’t come.