Itchcraft (27 page)

‘Well, you’re right, Itch – it’s a 47 and a 79. And they’re clearly on top of each other. And Chloe has the nails.’ There was a spark to his mother’s voice which the others caught.

‘Why else would you write 47 over a 79?’ Zoe was looking over her sister-in-law’s shoulder.

‘It’s not much to go on—’ began Underwood.

‘But it is, though,’ said Lucy. ‘It absolutely is. She couldn’t have written
Gone to Spain
because her captors would have seen it. Chloe did the only thing she could. In four numbers. These are smart girls you’re dealing with here; if they had a chance to get a message to us, they’d have taken it.’

Underwood looked again at the photo from the car. Sensing a quickening in his interest, Lucy leaned forward across the table and waited till he looked at her.

‘It is just too much of a coincidence, and you know it – 47 over 79. Silver and gold,
plata
and
oro
, English and Spanish. Chloe and Jack are telling you where they are.’

There was a slight pause before the policeman nodded. ‘I’ll make a call.’

When the mayor of Madrid found out that the girl carried unconscious from the Toledo bridge was believed to be one of the two kidnap victims, he sent his expressions of regret to the Lofte family. When he found out that she and her cousin might have been forcibly brought back to Spain, he sent his private jet. A wealthy man, he had an eye on the forthcoming crisis-induced elections and saw himself as a future prime minister; Spain’s saviour. The chaos caused by the burning money had been compounded by thousands of notes in circulation turning out to be fake. Taken to banks for testing in the wake of the recent conflagration, they had failed the teller’s tests and been confiscated. Within hours the panic was nationwide. The demonstrations that had only just subsided ignited again. In cities and towns across the country, protest marches turned into riots. The police were overwhelmed, and there was talk of the army taking to the streets to restore order.

The Bank of Spain had performed the same tests as Jacob Alexander at the mining school. They too discovered picric acid, and wasted no time in saying so. The governor, along with the Prime Minister – who was hanging on until fresh elections were held – denounced the sabotage as an act of terrorism. The euro plunged all over the world, but in Spain the collapse was spectacular.

The mayor believed that, in the absence of a proper working government, he had the opportunity to show that he could run things. With the Chief of Police, he invited the Loftes to come to Madrid and make a public appeal for help in finding the missing British girls.

It had taken a while to convince the Cornwall and Devon Police that the numbers 47 and 79 were a massive clue, but when the credit card used to hire the kidnapper’s van turned out to have been issued by a bank in Spain, the arguments were over. By the time Nicholas returned from South Africa, grimfaced and pale, the Guardia Civil had already been contacted.

‘Who’s going to listen to us, Dad?’ said Itch as they boarded the Cessna Citation. ‘They have enough going on without helping us find Chlo and Jack.’

‘No idea,’ said his dad, ‘but this mayor seems to think it’s a good idea. And at least we’ll be doing something, not just sitting on our backsides or being hounded by the moronic press outside the house.’

They strapped themselves in for takeoff, and Itch realized that his father was right: anything was better than staying at home.

The suggestion had been to send over as many family and friends as could fit in the plane. He twisted round and saw Lucy talking to his aunt Zoe, and Uncle Jon talking to his mother. Everyone looked exhausted and strained, but there was a buzz to the conversation that had been missing since the kidnap; a genuine belief that they were flying closer to Chloe and Jack.

As his father typed furiously into his laptop, Itch noticed that the email subject was ‘Thorium’ and chanced a question.

‘Was the trip to Cape Town worth it, Dad? I was going to ask you before, but . . .’

Since his father’s return, Chloe and Jack had been the only topics of conversation, with endless visits, phone calls and meetings. As each day passed, they had become more urgent, more frantic. All other concerns had disappeared.

Nicholas looked up. ‘You’re right – everything’s been too hideous, hasn’t it? And it was bad in Palmeitkraal too, I’m afraid. I was hoping to rescue the Hewitt mines sale, but a new company’s been snapping up anything and everything they can get their hands on. Gold, platinum, rare earths – you name it. But the worst thing? It’s not just losing the mine, though heaven knows that’s bad enough . . . it’s that I’m partly to blame.’

Itch was astonished. ‘You, Dad? That can’t be right . . .’

Nicholas shook his head, and spoke quietly. ‘You remember I shouted at Themba after the, er, incident with Chloe at the Hewitt mine?’

‘Which you obviously haven’t told Mum about.’

Nicholas nodded. ‘I also lost it a bit with him afterwards, and used some language which could have been seen as insensitive and patronizing. Apparently Sammy particularly felt that his father had been humiliated. He told Themba it sounded like an old white mine owner talking to his black staff. So when another buyer came sniffing around, Themba didn’t fight it or tell us until it was too late. So we lost the mine, along with the lanthanum, terbium, europium and neodymium that came with it.’

‘But the spoil heaps were dangerous—’

‘Yes, they were, and he messed up, big time. But I got angry and made a mistake. So we keep looking. We still need to find new energy sources. It’s just that, next to finding Chlo and Jack, it all seems utterly meaningless.’ He slammed his laptop shut.

‘I didn’t mean to stop you working, Dad . . .’

‘It’s fine. My heart wasn’t in it anyway, and I know we’re going to have to do a big press conference. You ready for that?’

‘No – but if it helps find them . . . Had to do one when we came back from the riot. Maybe it’ll be like that.’

His father shifted in his seat. ‘I have a feeling it’ll be a bit bigger than that.’

Nicholas was right. They were met at the airport by the mayor – a powerful, broad-shouldered man with a bald head so shiny Itch thought it could almost be polished rhodium – and their every move was recorded, photographed and filmed. He greeted them all individually, fully conversant with who was who in the Lofte family, and that Lucy – or ‘Miss Lucy’, as he called her – was a friend who had been caught up in the original Madrid riot.

‘I am so sorry for your distress,’ he said first to Jude, then Zoe, and then the others in turn, as a camera crew took close-ups of his concerned face. ‘Maybe the people of Madrid, the people of Spain can help find your girls. Maybe you could tell your stories and we can see what sort of girls they are?’ He performed a small bow, and Itch saw his father bridle; this was the sort of unctuous man that he knew he couldn’t stand.

‘They basically want us to cry for the cameras,’ he snarled to Jude.

‘That might not be difficult,’ she said.

They were shown to a minibus and transported, with a police escort, to the Cibeles Palace in the centre of Madrid. It looked more like a cathedral than a town hall, which prompted the mayor to chuckle about ‘our humble office’ as they drew up beneath its huge white Gothic arches. No one said anything.

They were ushered into a small ornate lounge, and Itch spotted a familiar face: Félix Blanco, the Spanish agent who had rescued him and Chloe from the bridge, was making his way over.

‘I hope we can help find your sister,’ he said as he shook Itch’s hand. ‘The press conference won’t be easy, but once you’re done, I wonder if you and your school friend’ – he pointed at Lucy – ‘can help me? I’m still working on our little euro problem and you might be able to be of service.’

Itch shrugged. ‘Can we see how this goes? Might need to help Mum and Dad.’

‘Of course,’ said Blanco. ‘I’ll wait.
Buena suerte
. Good luck.’

The smiling mayor was ushering them through to another room which was buzzing with people. Itch’s stomach tightened: this could only be grim, he thought. He saw Jude grab Nicholas’s hand – something he hadn’t seen in years – and then felt his own hand gripped in turn. Lucy had hung back, not wanting to intrude in the family procession, but now, as they approached the pandemonium, she reached for Itch’s hand.

They emerged by a long table with seven chairs and seven glasses of water. The chatter died down as soon as the Loftes appeared; cameras were hoisted, microphones held aloft, and then journalists began calling out questions. Itch couldn’t see how full the room was: the lights were too fierce, and anyway, he was keeping his head down; but the
sound
told him it was full to bursting. And he was terrified.

If tears were what the media was expecting, they were disappointed. What they got was anger. Under the full glare of the world’s media, with dazzling lights and rattling camera shutters, all four parents spoke about their daughters, Zoe and Nicholas even managing a few words in Spanish. Gabriel described the events on the day of the kidnap, and Lucy testified to the bravery of her friends. Sitting at the end of the row, Itch watched his family as they fought to stay in control.

When it was his turn to speak, the noise from the cameras and the blinding light from the flashes reached a peak; then, all at once, there was silence in the room.
Oh help
, thought Itch.
It’s me they’re waiting to hear
. The image of him and Chloe on the bridge and the subsequent kidnap had made it the biggest news story of the day, even supplanting the ongoing euro chaos. The few TV and news radio networks that hadn’t been taking the press conference live now joined to make sure they heard the words of the fifteen-year-old English boy who had carried his sister to safety just days before. Itch felt a squeeze of encouragement on his right hand.

For a moment he was silent. He had no idea what – if anything – he was going to say; he hadn’t realized that he was going to have the final word. But as he stared into the white glare of the camera lights, he suddenly remembered watching the news on the tiny set in South Africa, then at Jack’s house after the bombings, and then in the café in Madrid. And he realized that, actually, he had quite a lot to say.

‘Er, hello. My name is Itchingham Lofte, and four days ago my sister and cousin were kidnapped in England. As you’ve heard, my brother Gabriel was attacked too. We know who took them. It was two men who are working for Greencorps – they have attacked us before. The company is run by a woman called Mary Bale, but the real power behind it is Nathaniel Flowerdew. He was my old science teacher at school, but before then he was responsible for the oil spill in Nigeria which killed seventeen people. He avoided prosecution because Greencorps allowed someone else to take the rap. Her name was Shivvi Tan Fook, and I saw Flowerdew kill her. He’s been on the run since Christmas, but I believe it was him who killed the CEOs of Greencorps, Christophe Revere and Jan Van Den Hauwe, and not the divers who are being blamed.’

There were gasps and murmurs as Itch began his speech – it was clear this wasn’t what the networks had been expecting at all. As his accusations continued, reporters started to look at each other, wondering if his comments were libellous. The mayor was looking nervous, wiping a handkerchief over his gleaming head. Itch, oblivious to what was happening on the other side of the lights, was just getting started.

‘Flowerdew is positioning the company so that everyone thinks they’ve changed. Politicians are prepared to believe Greencorps because they want to use them to get inside the oil industry. But the truth is, they should leave well alone. Greencorps is now run by a criminal and a murderer and—’

The mayor had heard enough. He’d noticed a few networks switching off their cameras; reporters gathering their things together.

‘Was there anything you wanted to tell us about your sister and cousin?’ The mayor was steering Itch back to what he saw as safer ground.

Itch looked surprised to be interrupted. ‘You know about my sister and cousin. My family have spoken about them. But you need to know who has taken them – otherwise they won’t be found. This isn’t a normal ransom—’

And Itch’s mic went dead.

He carried on speaking for a couple more sentences before realizing that no one could hear him any more. The mayor announced that they were out of time and consequently there could be no questions. It was a close call as to who was the more furious – the mayor for having his press conference ‘hijacked’, or Itch for being silenced. As the family filed back out, they glowered at each other; only the presence of the camera crew preventing a shouting match.

‘You rocked!’ said Lucy in Itch’s ear as soon as the mayor had gone. ‘That was awesome. No one else was going to say that stuff so—’ She broke off as she saw Jude coming over; Itch’s mother did not look happy.

‘What the hell was that?’ she said. There were tears in her eyes now, and a tremor in her voice. She had kept it together for the media, but her son was not so lucky. ‘We are trying to find Chloe and Jack, not make grand speeches! But you had to spoil it, didn’t you? Instead of concentrating on getting Chloe back, you had to go grandstanding and make those . . . those wild accusations.’

‘Mum, that’s not fair!’ Itch looked astonished. ‘You’d said everything about Chloe and Jack – I’d have just been repeating the same stuff. And since when was talking about Greencorps and Flowerdew “wild accusations”, anyway?’

Nicholas had appeared at Jude’s shoulder and was trying to steer her away, but she shrugged him off. She was about to go on, but then thought better of it, looked hard at her son, and stormed off.

Itch’s father leaned over. ‘She’ll be OK. I thought you were great. We might get sued, but you were still great.’

‘But maybe she was right,’ said Itch. ‘This is all about finding Jack and Chloe. Did I help that?’

‘Who knows, Itch? Who knows? But you certainly rattled some cages . . . Let’s see what comes crawling out.’

Next came Félix Blanco, still in his overcoat, his face enigmatic, impossible to read. ‘The most interesting press conference I’ve heard for a long time. The TV news anchors were busy issuing disclaimers as they pulled away. I could almost hear their directors shouting in their earpieces.’ He allowed himself a smile. ‘Quite amusing, as you might say.’