The Underground City(44)
The Chief Constable nodded. “I do, as it happens.”
“In the vaults on the Mound.”
Archie Thompson paled and reached for his mobile. “How much?” he asked.
“Well … millions,” was the somewhat guarded reply.
“The devil there is,” muttered the Chief Constable as he got to his feet. “Come on, Jock. I’ll catch up with you at the bank! If my information is correct, we’re in for a busy night!”
The Chief Constable wasted no time. He flashed his ID at the pass door, headed back stage and collared the first person in authority that he saw.
“Where are the two kids that act as pages to Matt Lafferty?” he asked the Stage Manager.
Neil, however, had seen the Chief Constable. “Sir Archie’s here,” he whispered to Clara as the Stage Manager pointed in their direction.
“I think he wants to talk to us,” Clara said as the kilted figure strode towards them.
“Neil,” Sir Archie said, drawing them to one side and coming straight to the point, “what do you know about the bank robbers that are planning to rob the bank on the Mound?”
Neil looked startled. This was quite a different Sir Archie to the one they knew. He was using his official voice and it was obvious that the matter was urgent.
“They’ve found a way into the bank through the Underground City,” he replied. “They’ve got an old map that shows all the streets.”
“They get in through the cellars of Deacon Brodie’s Tavern,” Clara added, “and they’ve cleared all the alleyways down to the bank.”
“You don’t, by any chance, know who they are and when they plan to carry out this robbery, do you?” queried Sir Archie.
“Well, I think it might have been planned for tonight,” Neil said hesitantly, remembering what the old Codger had said. “But they won’t get anything, will they?” he added doubtfully. “Dad told me that the building’s a museum.”
“Can you describe the men to me?”
“There are two of them,” Neil answered. “Murdo and Wullie.”
“That pair!” muttered the Chief Constable.
“And there’s a third man now called Tammy Souter,” added Clara. “At least that’s what the ghosts said.”
“Tammy Souter?” exclaimed Sir Archie, “well, well,” he said, punching numbers into his mobile, “we know all about him!” Then he stopped and did a spectacular double-take. “That’s what who said?” he asked, in disbelief.
“The ghosts from Mary King’s Close,” Neil answered. “They’re not really worried about the bank but they’re afraid the crooks might let the Plague People out by mistake. The cellars that hold them are quite close to where they’re working.”
“It’s the Plague People they’re worried about,” Clara nodded, looking scared. “Mary King said that if they get out they’ll … they’ll bring the Black Death back to Edinburgh!”
20. The Big Bang
I won’t tell you what Murdo, Wullie and Tammy Souter said when they first clapped eyes on the ghosts but to say that they used very, very bad language is putting it mildly! Mind you, they were scared out of their minds, which I suppose is some excuse. Murdo, certainly, turned as white as a sheet and Tammy Souter looked much the same, if not worse.
Wullie was actually too scared to speak at all. He just looked utterly petrified as the ghosts, now visible, floated through the walls and drifted down the alleys in all their dreadful glory. Pressing himself against the wall of one of the houses, he covered his face with his hands and peered out between his fingers as the ghosts howled around them in freezing blasts of cold air. Murdo took a swing at them with his pick and Tammy tried walloping them with a shovel but it didn’t do any good, for although the ghosts looked solid enough, they were misty and insubstantial at the same time.
Wullie gave a horrified moan as an old hag screamed threateningly in front of him, her empty eyes staring and her clawed hands grasping at his face. It was too much. He let out a yell of terror and took off into the alleys at a speed that would have put an Olympic runner to shame. Murdo saw him go and with a muttered curse, dropped his pick and charged after him.
“Wullie, you fool,” he yelled, “Wullie, come back here, will you!”
Wullie, totally panic-stricken, took not the slightest bit of notice and streaked unseeing through the narrow streets of the Underground City. Such was his blind terror that he neither knew nor cared where he was going nor, as it happened, where he was putting his feet, and, as the rubble-strewn alleys were an open invitation to disaster, it wasn’t long before his headlong flight was brought to an abrupt end when he tripped over a scatter of bricks and fell flat on his face.