"I'll tell her. " Mo picked up a matchbox lying on Fenoglio's writing desk, opened it, and slowly closed it again.
"What about my books?" Meggie hardly dared to ask. "My book box – I hid it under the bed."
Mo put the matchbox back on the desk. "That's the one piece of good news, " he said. "No one touched your book box. It's still under the bed. Elinor looked."
Meggie took a deep breath. Was it Basta who had set fire to the books? No, Basta was afraid of fire; she remembered only too well how Dustfinger had mocked him for it. But in the last resort it made no difference which of the Black Jackets it had been. Elinor's treasures were gone, and not even Mo could bring them back.
"Elinor is flying back down here. I'm supposed to pick her up at the airport, " said Mo. "She's taken it into her head to set the police on Capricorn. I told her I didn't think she'd have much luck. Even if she had evidence that it was his men who broke into her house, how can she prove he gave the order? But you know Elinor."
Meggie nodded gloomily. Oh yes, she knew Elinor – and she understood her rage only too well.
But Fenoglio laughed. "The police! You don't get anywhere by setting the police on Capricorn!" he said. "He makes his own rules, his own laws -"
"Oh, be quiet! This isn't a book you're writing!" Mo interrupted him. "Very likely it's amusing to invent a character like Capricorn, but believe you me, it's not in the least bit funny to cross his path. I'm off to the airport. I'll leave Meggie here. Look after her."
And he was out of the door before Meggie could protest. She ran after him, but Paula and Pippo met her coming down the street. They caught hold of her, trying to make her go with them. They wanted her to be a cannibal, a witch, a six-armed monster – the characters from their grandfather's stories with which they populated their games. By the time Meggie had finally managed to shake off their little hands, Mo had long since gone. The place where he had parked the rental car was empty, and Meggie stood in the square, alone with the war memorial and a few old men gazing out to sea with their hands in their pants pockets.
Restlessly, she wandered over to the steps in front of the memorial and sat down. She didn't feel like chasing Fenoglio's grandchildren around his house or playing hide-and-seek with them. She just wanted to sit there and wait for Mo's return. The hot wind that had blown through the village overnight had left fine sand on all the windowsills. The air was cooler than it had been for the last few days. The sky above the sea was still clear, but gray clouds were forming above the hills and every time the sun disappeared behind them a shadow fell over the village rooftops, making Meggie shiver.
A cat stalked toward her, stiff-legged, tail erect. It was a thin little creature with ticks in its gray fur and ribs showing through its thin coat like stripes. Meggie enticed it over, speaking to it gently, until it put its head under her arm and purred, asking to be petted. It didn't look as if it belonged to anyone: no collar, not an ounce of fat on it, nothing to suggest it had a caring owner. Meggie scratched its ears and chin and stroked its back as she looked down the road that went around a sharp bend as it left the village and disappeared from sight beyond the houses.
How far was it to the nearest airport? Meggie propped her chin on her hands. The clouds above her were massing more and more ominously. They loomed overhead, becoming closely packed and gray with rain.
The cat rubbed against her knee, and as Meggie's fingers stroked its dirty fur an awful thought suddenly occurred to her. Suppose Elinor's house wasn't all Dustfinger had told Capricorn about? Suppose he'd also told him where she and Mo had been living? Would they find a heap of ashes waiting for them at the farmhouse? No, she wouldn't think about that. He doesn't know, she whispered. He has no idea! Dustfinger didn't tell him. She kept whispering it like a magic charm.
After a while she felt a raindrop on her hand, then another. She looked up at the sky. There wasn't so much as a speck of blue to be seen. How quickly the nearby sea could make the weather change! All right, I'll just wait in the apartment, she thought. We might even have some milk there for the cat. The poor thing weighed no more than a small damp towel. Meggie was afraid of breaking something when she picked it up.
It was pitch dark in the apartment. Mo had closed the shutters that morning so the sun wouldn't make it too hot. Meggie was shivering and wet from the fine drizzle when she entered the cool bedroom. She put the cat down on her unmade bed, slipped on Mo's sweater, which was much too big for her, and went into the kitchen. The milk carton was almost empty, but if she diluted what was left with a little warm water there was just enough for a saucerful.
The cat jumped down so quickly when Meggie put the milk on the floor beside the bed that it almost fell over its own paws. Rain was falling harder and harder outside. Meggie listened to it drumming on the paving stones. She went over to the window and opened the shutters. The narrow strip of sky visible between the rooftops was as dark as if the sun were about to set. Meggie went over to Mo's bed and sat down on it. The cat was still licking the saucer, its little tongue greedily rasping over the flower-patterned china, hoping for a last delicious drop. Meggie heard footsteps out in the street and then a knock at the door. Who was that? Mo couldn't possibly be back yet. Or had he forgotten something? The cat had disappeared, probably to hide under the bed. "Who's there?" called Meggie.
"Meggie!" a child's voice called back. Of course, Paula or Pippo. Yes, it must be Pippo. They probably wanted to go looking for ants with her again, even though it was raining. A gray paw emerged from under the bed and patted her shoelace. Meggie went out into the tiny hall. "I don't have time to play just now!" she called through the closed door.
"Please, Meggie!" begged Pippo's voice.
Sighing, Meggie opened the door – and found herself looking straight into Basta's face.
"Well, well, who do have we here?" he asked in a menacingly soft voice, his fingers around Pippo's thin little neck. "What do you say to that, Flatnose? She doesn't have time to play. " Basta pushed Meggie roughly aside and came through the door with Pippo, followed, of course, by Flatnose, whose broad shoulders would hardly fit through the doorway.
"Let go of him!" Meggie snapped at Basta, although her voice shook. "You're hurting him."
"Am I indeed?" Basta looked down at Pippo's pale face. "Not very nice of me, is it, especially since he showed us where you were hiding?" With these last words he squeezed Pippo's neck even more firmly.
"Do you know how long we lay in that filthy hovel?" he snarled at Meggie.
She took a step backward.
"A very long time!" Basta emphasized the word, putting his foxy face so close to Meggie's she could see herself reflected in his eyes. "Isn't that right, Flatnose?"
"Those damn rats almost nibbled off my toes, " growled the giant. "Wouldn't I just love to twist this little witch's nose until it's pointing the wrong way around!"
"Later, maybe." Basta pushed Meggie into the dark bed room. "Where's your father?" he asked. "This little lad, " he said, letting go of Pippo's throat and prodding him in the back so roughly that he stumbled against Meggie, "told us he's gone out. Gone out where?"
"Shopping. " Meggie could hardly breathe, she was so frightened. "How did you find us?" she whispered but instantly knew the answer. Dustfinger. Of course. Who else? But why had he betrayed them this time?
"Dustfinger, " replied Basta as if he had read her thoughts. "It's just too easy to find that fellow. There aren't so many crazy jugglers in this world who go around breathing fire and who have a tame marten, not to mention one with horns. So we only had to ask around a little, and once we were on Dustfinger's trail we were also on your father's, of course. We arrived just in time to see you drive away from the hotel parking lot, and we'd certainly have paid you a visit before now if this fool, " he said, digging his elbow so hard into Flatnose's stomach he let out a grunt of pain, "hadn't lost sight of you on our way here. We searched almost a dozen villages, wore out our voices asking questions, ran ourselves off our feet, until we finally got here, and one of those old fellows who spends all day staring out to sea remembered Dustfinger's scarred face. Where is he? Is he – er – out shopping, too?" asked Basta, with a scornful twist of his mouth,