Freax and Rejex

“Patrick… Patrick Hunter, eight… ummm Horsham – twenty-three Elm Tree Grove.”

“Christina Carter, I’m seven and a half and… I’ve forgotten.”

“Never mind, honey,” Kate reassured her.

“Jody, fourteen, Bristol and you’re wasting your time.”

“Mason Stuart from Ashford, eleven.”

“Brenda Jenkins, ten, Epsom.”

“Rupesh Karim, Upton Park, nine.”

The next child was a thin, frail-looking boy with an ashen face. There was a large bruise on his forehead. Sam made sure the camera picked that up. The boy stared dumbly into the lens, like a startled baby bird.

“And what’s your name, little buddy?” Sam asked.

The boy mouthed something inaudible, then murmured a bit louder, “I’m seven.”

“Tell the folks in the US who you are,” Sam coaxed.

The boy took a breath and the bruise crinkled as he frowned with concentration.

“I think I was called Thomas Williams,” he began in a bewildered, faltering voice. “But now… now…”

“Now? What do your mom and dad call you?”

“Punchbag.”

Sam choked. He laid the camera down and put his arms round him. Other children craned their heads round the seats to see. From their envious stares, Kate realised they were completely starved of affection and had forgotten what a hug felt like.

She clenched her teeth, but banked the anger for later. She’d seen and heard enough. The crass PR stunt that Ismus creep had planned to pull today had blown up in his arrogant face. What good press was he hoping to wring from these abused and neglected kids? One thing was certain, they weren’t going to spend another day in this malignant, twisted country. She’d get each one of them out somehow.

“It really is Julie Andrews time,” she said, taking out her mobile. “I’m calling Harry. He’ll know who to yell at or put the squeeze on to cut through the red tape and BS. We’re out of here, Sam, and the kids are coming with us – if it means sending in the goddamn marines.”

She found her producer’s number in New York and pressed the phone to her ear, waiting for it to connect. Suddenly a shrill squeal filled the coach and she dropped the phone as if it had bitten her. The screen went blank, no signal – no nothing.

“Sam,” she urged. “Get your cell. Call Harry.”

The cameraman obeyed hurriedly. The same piercing shriek blasted from his mobile.

The younger children stared at them. Jody grunted and muttered under her breath. At the back of the coach the hiss was replaced by a mocking snort.

“Has anyone got a cellphone?” Kate begged. “I need to speak to people who can get you out of here, away from this.”

Several hands rose slowly. Then, at the back, the trainers withdrew and the angry face of a black youth reared up from behind the seats.

“What is wrong with you?” he shouted at the reporter. “You terminal stupid or something? They won’t let you call nobody. They’ll burst every phone you try.”

“He’s right,” Sam said. “They’re jamming us. We can’t call out – we can’t contact anyone.”

Kate clenched her hands. She should have expected something like this, but even in the most remote places of the world she’d always managed to get her reports back to the network. Still, she wasn’t overly worried yet. She should have been.

“Thanks,” she addressed the boy at the back. “What’s your name?”

“You don’t need my name, lady and I ain’t interested in yours, cos you and Spielberg there are the biggest fools I seen in a long while. What you even doing here? You’re a couple of turkeys who don’t know it’s Christmas. You don’t know nothin’!”

Thumping the headrest, he dived back on to his seat, pushed in his earphones and turned up the volume of his MP3 player.

“My laptop’s in the hire car,” Kate told Sam. “I’ll go email Harry and get things moving.”

“You think they won’t be jamming the Internet as well?”

“That’s what I admire about you, Sam, always so positive. If they’re doing that, I’ll just have to drive till I’m out of range.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“No, stay here and finish what you’re doing. Then get over to that other bus and do the same. It’s important.”

She clapped her hands. “Listen up, kids,” she said. “I need to leave for a little while, but I’ll be back. Sam is staying and I want you to start talking to one another and make friends. OK? You’re in this situation together now. You have to pal up and begin looking out for one another. You hear me?”

The muted responses were not encouraging.

“Oh my days!” Jody observed sharply. “What Top Shop travesty is assaulting my eyes out there?”

She was staring out of the window at the second coach, where a teenage girl dressed in a pink and white leather outfit was looking expectantly about her, searching for the news crews and smiling widely for any cameras.

“Tanorexic Barbie spawn,” Jody commented. “With an IQ lower than the dead animals she’s wearing. What plastic planet is she on?”

Kate Kryzewski was too focused on composing the urgent email she was going to send to even look. She turned to hurry back to the door. Then she halted and drew a sharp breath.

There was the Ismus. His lean, velvet-clad frame ascended the two steps into the coach and he broke into a crooked grin. The younger children shrank down into their seats.

“Welcome, my pretty pigeons,” he greeted. “Time for you to fly into the sunshine and see what delights and marvels have been prepared. Such fun you shall have.”

He prowled closer to Kate and brought his face uncomfortably near. “We wouldn’t want them to miss a moment of what’s in store for them, would we?” he said, breathing dead, stagnant air upon her.

THE TEENAGER IN pink and white leather was oblivious to the sneers directed at her from Jody in the first coach. She was too busy flicking her blonde hair extensions back and casting a critical eye at her reflection in the glass of the vehicle’s door. Her mother was just as eager to meet the Ismus and the Jacks as the other parents, but she had resisted the powerful urge and remained with the girl.

“Make sure you get your face on camera as much as possible,” she instructed. “Soon as the rush dies down, we’ll move in. You latch on to his Lordship and hang in there like a limpet.”

The girl nodded. “I know,” she said. “Like he’s a Clooney or a Rooney. Aww, I made a poem, innit!”

“And remember, you’re here to learn as well as get your face in the papers and glossies. I don’t know why the book hasn’t worked for you yet, but I’m sure there’s a good reason. Just taking a bit longer with you than the rest of us.”

“It’s not cos I’m fick, Ma.”

“I didn’t say you was. But this is your big chance – don’t cock it up. What has your mother always said? ‘You have to turn every setback into a lesson to do better next time.’”

“You ain’t never said that! You always told me to act dumb and common cos no one likes a clever bird.”

“Well, I’m saying it now. There might not be a next time after this. You’ve got to grab this chance by the curlies and make the most of it. You’re gonna wake up from this miserable dream world sometime this weekend and find out you’re royalty – a Jill or higher, not a three of clubs laundress like me. Can’t be nothing else with that pretty face.”

“I’m a princess, innit,” the girl told herself. “You an’ Uncle Frank always said I was.”

Her mother gave her an appraising look then prodded her chest. “You got those chicken fillets in? Should have used ostrich’s. Put your shoulders back so they stick out more.”

“Do they have things like these in Mooncaster?” the girl asked. “I don’t wanna be no flat-chested munter when I wake up there. I wanna good boob rack.”

“Don’t you worry about that. We’ve got corsets and bodices to show off our milk puddings a treat. It’s Boots’ make-up counter I miss when I’m there and those other silly fripperies they have here in my dreams. I’m not sure about sleeping with raw bacon on my eyes to keep the crows’ feet at bay or rubbing goose fat on my poor chapped fingers. If I could afford some of the Queen of Hearts’ concoctions, I would, but laundresses don’t earn many sixpences – silver coin isn’t easy to come by. I’m not complaining – that’s just how life is there and it’s a bushel better than here, I promise you.”

“You don’t half talk funny since you been goin’ there. It’s mad. Like you’re in an old film about history, like that Shakespeare’s Got Love. It’s not fair the book hasn’t worked on me. It should of. You know how hard I been tryin’. You know me an’ readin’ don’t get on, unless it’s Cosmo or Hello or a catalogue or Garfield or a text message. That book’s the longest fing I ever read in my life. Took me over a month solid an’ I’ve done it dunno how many times since – and had that sloppy minchet stuff in all my Slim Fasts an’ mixed in with my avocado salads, but I’m still bleedin’ here! What’s that about then?”

Her mother shushed her. The Black Face Dames had emerged from the first coach, leading a straggly line of unhappy children. The musicians played with even more gusto and dancers came skipping forward to perform. The Ismus was there, accompanied by a woman and a straw-haired young man who was busily filming the last few children emerging from the vehicle. The black youth at the very end pushed the lens out of his face and gave him the finger.

“There’s His Highness, the Holy Enchanter!” her mother exclaimed. “And there’s a camera – perfect moment. Get in there!”

The girl didn’t need any persuasion. She tottered hastily over the grass in her pink diamanté heels, making a beeline for the Ismus.

Kate Kryzewski was wondering how she could get away from him and his bodyguards and make it to the car without being noticed, when the girl and her mother bore down on them.

“Your Lordship!” the woman cried, bobbing into a curtsy. “I am Widow Tallowax of the wash house. A lowly matron, though of good character, far beneath your notice I’m sure. After a long day at the steaming coppers, when I nod off on my comfy rocker by the ingle, I find myself here where I am this girl’s mother. The pity of it is the poor mite can’t find her way back to the castle so we’ve no idea who she really is, but she’s a rare beauty and obviously a personage of quality and standing whom no doubt the Limner will be sure to paint a likeness of.”

The Ismus listened with faint amusement.

“And what is your name here?” he asked, addressing the girl directly.

“Charm,” the teenager said, nodding perkily and pushing her shoulders back. “Charm Benedict, but we dropped the last bit. It were goin’ to be Charm Bracelet for my modellin’, but Uncle Frank, he’s my manager, said that were a bit naff. I really liked it, but he said brands work best with just one word and he’s right when you fink about it. So it’s just Charm now, innit?”

The girl thrust her arm through his and ran a hand over his sleeve.

“This velvet is well lush,” she said enthusiastically. “You look well elegant. Ooh, that sounds funny! Is there such a word as ‘welegant’? There should be.”

“Thank you, now if I may…”

“I bet you’re an After Eight!”

“A what?”

“You know… them skinny square chocs at posh dinner parties. See – I reckon everyone has their own flavour. You’re classy, right – like an After Eight. There it is, nice and slim in its special little bag fing, all dark chocolate but wiv a minty cream fillin’. Smoove an’ sleek on the outside, zingy like toothpaste in the middle. Hidden Depps – like the actor.”

“She’s always putting flavours to people,” her mother added, beckoning to Sam to bring his camera over. “It’s just one of the pretty quirks she has. I’m cookie dough apparently. Tell them what you are, Charm, go on.”

The girl managed to flick her hair back and swivel both herself and the Ismus round so that the camera was fully on them.

“I’m a rainbow sherbet,” she said with a perfected smile. “Mixed with that space dust stuff, so I froth and sparkle with sweetness on your tongue.”

“Effervesce,” her mother corrected in a muttered aside. “Froth makes you sound like you’ve got rabies.”

The Ismus tried to disentangle himself, but the girl wasn’t going to let him escape that easily.

“I am well looking forward to this weekend!” she declared, clinging on with determination. “I’m so excited I could wet my knickers. This is what I’ve been waiting for, ever since the book come out and I couldn’t get my head round it. There’s no one who wants to go to Mooncaster more’n I do. Me ma’s told me so much. Sounds amazin’! I am going to work so hard and make sure I get there. I’ll do anyfink I will. Look what I had done soon as I knew I was coming here.”

She unzipped her leather jacket and lifted a skimpy T-shirt to show the heart-shaped, pink diamanté stud that pierced her navel.

“You getting that?” she asked Sam, angling her midriff so the diamanté glinted in the sunlight. “Matches my Dolce Gabbanas as well, see. Course I don’t know what I’ll be when I wake up in the castle, but I hope it’s Hearts, cos I luuurve ’em; them’s the prettiest, but I don’t mind what I am – honest. I can change this for whatever. Diamonds would be well good.”

Sam kept the lens on her. The teenager’s attitude was the weirdest he had encountered so far. She babbled away like a Valley girl, not letting the banal chatter drop for a moment. She fired off questions then gabbled over the answers and her mother chipped in whenever there was a pause for breath. The longer this went on the better, thought Sam, because Kate had slipped quietly away.

Kate Kryzewski made it to the hire car without any hindrance. Market stalls displaying food fit for a medieval banquet had been set up right in front of it. This ye olde bake sale formed the perfect screen. The car was completely hidden from view.

Once inside, she quickly typed the explosive email that would jump-start America and the UN into action.

“Blue touchpaper well and truly lit,” she told herself as she clicked on send. But there was no wireless signal.

“Failure to launch. Damn you, Sam for being right.”

The reporter frowned and thought calmly. Maybe there just wasn’t any coverage in this nowhere place anyway. She slid across into the driver’s seat and turned the engine over. She’d drive to the nearest village or town, until that little graphic began to blink on her laptop.

Kate glanced in the mirror to reverse out, but braked sharply. While she had been typing, a large wooden wagon loaded with hay bales had been wheeled directly behind, blocking her in.

“Unbelievable!” she seethed impatiently.

There was nothing for it but to get out of the car and get the wagon moved. But there was nobody near it and no one she asked had seen who put it there.

“The carter’ll be having a mug of ale, most like,” a pie-seller told her. “Try asking over yonder, at the brewer’s stall. There’s a tidy crowd there.”

Kate glanced across, but it was too close to where the Ismus was being monopolised by that teenage wannabe.

She returned to the wagon and pushed against it. The thing wouldn’t budge. How did it even get here? There had to have been a horse pulling it. She ran back to the pie-seller. He was a big, beefy man with thick forearms and looked strong as an ox.

“Hi again,” she said, with her most winning smile. “I wonder – could you please do me a massive favour? I don’t want to disturb the wagon guy if he’s having a beer. I’m sure if we both push, that thing’ll move out of the way and I can get my car out.”

The man stared back at her blankly.

“I can’t leave my pies unattended,” he told her. “Not when the Jack of Diamonds is about. He’ll nab the lot soon as my back is turned. Beggin’ your pardon, Mistress, but you won’t find none here in the market who’ll neglect their wares whilst Magpie Jack’s around.”

Kate understood. No one was going to help her. The wagon had been put there deliberately to keep her inside the camp.

“Fine,” she uttered. “Just fine – dammit.”

But it wasn’t fine. The unspoken menace here was mounting. She’d been in tight spots before, but this, this was something else. She wished she’d brought a truck full of US troops with her instead of one laid-back Californian cameraman. Why did she always think she could handle any situation on her own? Why did she think she was Teflon-coated?

For the first time in too long she thought of her father. He had served in the military all his life. By the age of nine, she had lived in half the US army bases in the world. Kate hadn’t spoken to him in three years. Their political views were poles apart and the last row had been nuclear with lots of fallout. Still, if he was here now, he’d have broken the Ismus’s jaw before those blacked-up bodyguards had guessed what was coming. At that moment, Kate would have given anything to see that. She smiled faintly at the thought and promised herself that, after this, she’d make the first move and call Lieutenant Colonel Pete Kryzewski and say, “Hi, Dad.”

She took off her jacket, retrieved the laptop and wrapped it inside. Holding them under her arm, she cast a careful glance towards the coaches and moved quickly but discreetly through the bustling people. Everyone under the influence of that book appeared to be having the time of their lives. Carollers were singing and the minstrels were filling the spring sunshine with lively music. Kate kept to the edge of the crowds and wove her way towards the main gates. If she ducked around the far side of the second coach, she could reach the forest road without being spotted.

The urge to run was strong, but she forced herself to walk as nonchalantly as possible. The children and teens from this other coach were now standing in front of it, bewildered and ill at ease. Kate saw the same traumatised expressions on them as before. She didn’t dare stop or speak to them. It was vital to get this email sent.

She ducked round the side of the vehicle and sprinted along the length of it. Then she checked her pace and sneaked out of the camp gates.

The narrow forest road stretched in front of her. Kate looked searchingly at the lines of cars parked on either side. She couldn’t keep darting to and fro, checking every car. Someone would be sure to spot her. Choosing the left-hand verge, she hurried past the cars parked there, trying the doors.

“Come on,” she whispered urgently. “Show me some keys! There’s no larceny in this country any more, right? No reason to worry about auto theft. Why do you Brits have to be so uptight, even when you’re all nuts? Just one set of keys in the ignition. I’m not fussy – doesn’t have to be a Porsche.”

It was no use. Every vehicle was locked. Finally she understood why. The owners had known the Jack of Diamonds was going to be here today. His character in the book was cursed with itchy palms. He couldn’t help himself. He stole anything he took a liking to. The drivers weren’t taking any chances with that roguish Knave at large.

Kate uttered a curse of her own. She would have to reach the nearest village, or wherever she could get a signal, on foot.

Half running, she set off down the tree-lined road and tried to recall the journey that morning. Sam had been driving and she had been concentrating on her notes, so barely noticed the landscape they passed through. Sam had commented at the time that this place wasn’t his idea of a forest. Sure, there were lots of trees, but they were clumped in many separate areas of woodland, interspersed with open tracts of heath and pasture. His idea of an English forest was based solely on Robin Hood and King Arthur movies and some of them were cartoons. Still, she remembered he had pointed out several riding centres, hotels and restaurants along the route. Surely they couldn’t survive without Internet bookings?

It took her ten minutes to reach the junction where the narrow road joined a wider way. Kate knew they had turned right off there. Staying close to the trees, she began retracing their journey and unwrapped the laptop from her jacket.

Still no signal.

She swore under her breath and hastened on.

Behind her, in the camp, a horn sounded a warbling fanfare and a great cheer went up. She wondered what that meant – the call to a mass reading or a free-for-all at the pie stall? She hoped Sam would have the sense to get in the car whilst any reading took place. She’d briefed him on it enough times before they arrived. It was too dangerous to risk hearing just one sentence from that infernal book.

Suddenly she stopped walking and whipped her head around. She could hear the thudding of horses galloping along the road and the whooping of the following crowd.

“Oh, Jeez,” she breathed. “They really are totally insane.”

Now she understood why that horn had been blown. It was the start of a hunt, and they were hunting her.

Kate clutched the laptop tightly and ran. She was in good shape – female reporters had to be or they didn’t get on TV. She went to the gym three times a week and did plenty of cardio: rowing machine, bike, stepper, always finishing with half an hour on the treadmill and when she didn’t go there, she jogged.

She had to get off this road. So far, the riders hadn’t emerged on to the main road and she wanted to be out of sight when they did. The trees on the other side grew sparsely and she saw a stretch of open heath beyond them.

Kate dashed over and jumped into the thin woodland opposite. She had seen a car in the distance headed this way. She hoped the driver hadn’t spotted her, or if they had, wouldn’t be suspicious of a woman haring across the road. It was a ridiculous hope.

Not looking back, she plunged into the trees and then out over the green expanse of coarse, scrubby heathland.

The Jack of Clubs’ horse was the first to clatter out on to the main road. He reined it around, looking right and left for the fleeing reporter. Presently the other riders were alongside him.

“Where is she?” the Jill of Spades asked. “Did you mark where she went?”

Jack shook his head. “We must divide our number,” he instructed. “You come with me; we shall take the left way. The others must ride yonder!”

“Why can I not go with you?” the Jill of Hearts asked. “I like the look of that left way better.”

“Are you sure it is the way you prefer the look of?” the Jill of Spades asked pointedly.

The girls exchanged spiked glances. By now the car was almost level with them. It slowed to a stop and the driver, a woman in her fifties with a five of clubs pinned to her coat, got out and sank to her knees.

“My Lords and Ladies!” she exclaimed, elated beyond measure. “A mighty honour this is, to find you here, in my grey dream – of all places! ’Tis really you! Our dear own Jacks and Jills, right in front of me, here in this nothing place! How blessed I am!”

The Jill of Spades sneered at her and the Jack of Diamonds leaned over to whisper in the Jill of Hearts’ ear. They laughed together.

“Good mistress,” the Jack of Clubs declared, with a charming smile. “We are hunting one who has defied the Holy Enchanter. Have you seen sign of her?”

The woman nodded her head vigorously. “Just seconds ago!” she cried, delighted to be of assistance and pointing with excitement back down the road. “She ran across that way, through those trees!”

The Jack of Clubs thanked her and they spurred their horses on.

“Blessed be!” the woman shouted after them.

She rose to her feet just as a black SUV, with impenetrable tinted windows, pulled out of the forest road, flanked and followed by a crowd of stern-looking people.

“These dreams are so peculiar,” the woman said, getting back into her modest hatchback.

Kate Kryzewski was over halfway across the heath when she heard the horses’ hooves leave the tarmac and come thumping on to the grass behind.

Another area of woodland spread out ahead. If she could reach that, the riders might not be able to follow. But, as she ran nearer, she saw the trees were too evenly spaced to prove any obstacle to her pursuers. Her efforts would be wasted. Undeterred, she sped on. One thing those early years growing up in army bases had taught her: you never gave up.