‘The centre of the world is a canal. A canal in Africa.’

It took a few moments for his words to register. Had he really… had he really just said that? That couldn’t have been the truth! He had to have told me a joke just now, right?

Stupid question. This was Mr Ambrose.

He had been serious. Absolutely serious.

My hands flew up to grasp his collar, and not with the intention of kissing him. I started to shake him like a rattle.

‘What? A canal? I have been risking my life for a bloody irrigation ditch?’

His hands shot up to grasp mine, and ripped them off his collar. There was the sound of tearing cloth.

‘That uniform cost one pound and ten shillings, Mr Linton! And the tailcoat underneath was almost new!’

‘It was ten years old, you blasted miser! Ten years old is not almost new!’

I tried to kick out at him, but he captured my well-aimed knee between his legs. Next I tried to butt heads, but he ducked to the side.

‘That is a matter of opinion, Mr Linton. I shall deduct the cost for repairing the collar from your wages.’

‘You’re never going to pay me any wages, you son of a bachelor, because we'll never get out of this alive! And for what? A bleeding, stinking irrigation ditch!’

‘Mind your language, Mr Linton! You have been warned that you will have to address me respectfully.’

‘You can take your respectful address and stuff it respectfully up your…’

‘Mr Linton!’

With all my might, I shoved against him, and somehow managed to haul him to the side, slamming his back against the wall of the crate. Wood wool flew around us like snow in a blizzard. Only conditions were not cold here. Oh no. They were just about to get hot.

‘Mr Linton!’

‘My name is Lilly! Do you hear me? Lilly!’

‘Mr Linton, I forbid you…’

I tried to bite him. To my credit, I must say that I only missed by inches. My teeth sank into the cloth of his precious, nearly-new-10-year-old tailcoat and probably left a good set of teeth marks. Hopefully, they would be expensive to remove, or better yet, permanent!

‘Mr Linton! Be rational.’

‘Rational? Don’t you dare tell me to be rational! It’s you who is crazy; crazy enough to risk your life and mine on this damned adventure! And for what? For a bloody irrigation ditch!’

My hands were still firmly caught in his grasp. I tried to bite again, but this time caught only air between my teeth. We rolled around in the little, dark space we had, bits of wood flying all around us, and I flatter myself that I got a few good kicks in now and again. But I didn’t manage to free my hands, which was a pity. You need hands for strangling someone.

‘You… you… I’m going to kill! Do you hear me! I’m going to-’

Suddenly, he pushed against me with unbelievable force, and I realized that he had been holding back up to that moment. In a flash, he was on top of me again and pressing my arms down at my sides. His legs snaked around me, trapping mine, and preventing me from delivering any more kicks. He had me. I could not hope to escape from his stone-hard prison.

‘Firstly,’ he said, his voice as cold as a winter solstice night, ‘Nobody made you risk your life. In fact, I seem to remember locking you up to prevent that exact possibility.’

I hesitated. Admittedly, he had a point there. A small, but nonetheless existent, point.

‘Secondly, you asked for the contents of the file. It is most ill-bred behaviour to try and bite my fingers off for a truthful answer. And thirdly, if you ever call the masterpiece of diplomacy and engineering which has been stolen from me an irrigation ditch again, I will deduct half your wages for stupidity.’

Colour rose to my cheeks. Thank God it was too dark for him to see.

‘So what exactly is this canal, if not an iri…’ I remembered his threat just in time, and amended, ‘…if not what I said before?’

There was one more moment of silence. I waited. I could feel it in the air: he was finally going to talk.

Yet when he started, it wasn’t at all how I thought he would.

‘Four years ago, a British officer and explorer called Francis Rawdon Chesney submitted a report to Parliament. Nobody paid much attention to it at the time - the country was too busy with the death of King George and the general election. But I heard of the report and tried to get hold of it. Something which, interestingly enough, proved to be more difficult than usual with official Parliament papers. Somebody had taken very good care to suppress this particular paper, which made me only more eager to lay my hands on it.’

He made a pause. By now he had my full attention. I waited with rapt attention for him to resume.

‘Finally, I managed to obtain a partial copy of the report by bribing an MP. It was a costly investment, but one that proved worth the expense. I knew that the moment I got to see the report. It detailed calculations of Mr Chesney as to the comparative sea level of the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. You see, up until this point, the sea levels of the two oceans had been believed to differ significantly. According to Mr Chesney’s new calculations, however, this was not the case.’

I still couldn’t see where he was going with this. Of what earthly importance could sea levels be, no pun intended? Yet I sensed that there was more to come, and so, for once, kept my mouth shut.

‘I sent a man out there to check the calculations,’ he continued. ‘They were one hundred per cent correct. The Red Sea and the Mediterranean were on one level. Yet the fools in the government hadn’t seen the significance of this. And I suppose,’ he added coolly, ‘neither do you?’

I bit my lip. Indeed, I didn’t see how it could be of the slightest significance. What could it matter? The Red Sea and the Mediterranean were separated by land, so what could possibly…?

Land.

Land that could be bridged by a canal.

It all clicked into place. Clearing my throat, I said tentatively: ‘It was of significance because a canal could be built to link the two, without the different sea levels causing a natural catastrophe?’

He was quiet for a moment.

‘Mr Linton?’

‘Yes, Sir?’

‘Your intelligence is greater than that of an average British Member of Parliament.’

‘Err… Thank you, Sir.’

‘Don’t get too excited, though. Nowadays, this doesn't mean much.’

‘Oh.’ I hesitated. ‘And why is it so important to build a canal from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean?’

He sighed coolly. ‘Only slightly greater than an MP’s intelligence, I see. Well, Mr Linton, why do you think?’

‘I have no idea, Sir.’

‘What, Mr Linton, is the most potent instrument of power in our world today?’

‘Um… guns?’

I could almost feel him close his eyes in exasperation.

‘A typical answer, and a very dangerous misconception. The most potent instrument of power in our world today, Mr Linton, is trade. It was trade that built the British Empire, trade that lost it its American Colonies. It was trade that destroyed the might of the Incas, Turks and Chinese and made Europe, and above all Britain, the master of the world.’

‘Um… I think guns played some part in that, too.’

‘Yes, yes. They played a part.’ He waved my comment away as if it were of no more importance than an annoying fly. ‘But if not for trade, Europe would never have become inventive and rich enough to develop the gun and put it to its full use. If not for trade, great ships would not have been built, the world would not have been circumvented, the Americas not discovered, the farthest corners of the world not reached and then subjugated. Trade is what keeps Europe’s power alive today, and it is what has enabled me to build my very own empire. And now imagine, in such a world, dominated by trade, what you could do if you were able to open a new trade route, a trade route to the richest lands of the East which would be only half as long as the existing ones.’

As he spoke, I saw the map of the world from my father’s old atlas appear in front of my inner eye, and I could see red lines flowing across it, marking the most important trade routes of the British Empire. I had never thought about why exactly these trade routes were shown on every map, but now, listening to Mr Ambrose’s almost passionate words, I realized: they were the Empire. Without them, it would not exist.

And I also realized something else: All of the trade routes to the East ran around the Cape of Good Hope, circumventing the entire continent of Africa before they reached their destination. They did not go through the Mediterranean and from there to the Red Sea, because on this far shorter journey, there was a piece of land in the way.

Of course! Lilly, you blockhead, how could you not have seen this sooner!

‘Suez,’ I whispered. ‘You are planning to build a canal at Suez!’

Again, he didn’t say anything for a moment.

Then: ‘It seems that not just your intelligence is slightly above that of an average MP. Your knowledge of geography, too. Adequate thinking, Mr Linton.’

Would it kill him to say ‘good’ instead of ‘adequate’ for once? Yes, it probably would. He’d choke on it.

‘How much trade goes around the Cape of Good Hope every year?’ I enquired cautiously.

He made a low, derisive noise.

‘All the trade with China, India, Indochina, Australia, New Zealand… practically half the world’s trade. Certainly the most profitable half. And if everything had gone according to plan, all this was to be channelled through one thin lane of water.’ Underneath the coolness, his voice almost became passionate as he spoke. ‘All this was going to flow through one centre of the world. All this I was to hold in the palm of my hand. Can you imagine, Mr Linton? Can you?’

I shook my head. I had to work hard to resist the urge to shiver.

‘N-no. I cannot.’

‘That is because you have never seen a fleet of clippers or East Indiamen set sail for the Far East, or the Americas. If you had, if you had witnessed the majesty of the great white sails coming down, catching the wind, and carrying the ships off to every corner of the world, you would. Ships are my arrows, the sea my bow, the world my target.’

There definitely was passion in his voice now. It was a cold passion, a passion for things, not for people, but it was passion.

‘Do you see the power of trade, Mr Linton? The power of the ship? It makes our world what it is today. And I was going to possess the knot where all these strands of power came together. The knot that connected East to West, and made me master of all.’

His last words seemed to echo with significance in our little, dark space.

‘East and West…’ I murmured. ‘That’s it. That’s why Dalgliesh took the file from you!’

‘Yes.’ There was resignation in Mr Ambrose’s voice, and if I was not very mistaken, grudging admiration. ‘If I had been able to go through with my plans for that canal, I would have had him by the throat. His company may have the monopoly for trade in India, it might even rule India as if it were its own empire, it might even have its own army, but its ships still need to pass from East to West. If they cannot do this at competitive speed and cost, the company, like any other business, would collapse within a few years. If I had built that canal, all ships passing through it would have been able deliver goods twice as fast and at half the price of any competitor. I could have decided who would get past and who wouldn’t. I could have demanded any price I wanted.’

‘And you would have made Dalgliesh pay a lot?’

‘No.’ The word was a block of frozen stone. ‘I would have cut off my right hand before one of the cursed ships of that man ever passed into my canal!’

He still held my wrists firmly in his grasp as he spoke. Thus it was that I could feel his little finger twitch.

‘What did you say?’ I demanded.

‘You heard me.’

‘Yes, but… You would have denied him entry? Even though you could have asked any price you wanted?’

‘Yes.’

‘Even though denying him entry would mean driving him into ruin?’

‘Yes.’

‘Surely that is a little harsh.’

‘No.’

‘Oh.’

His little twitched again.

‘This is business, Mr Linton. Business is about ruining your competitors, burying them so deeply that they never get up again. And I would have buried him. Oh yes, I would.’

By now, his finger was tapping a staccato on my wrist. Somehow, I didn’t think Lord Dalgliesh was only simple business competition to Mr Ambrose. Yet I didn’t probe further into the matter. Instead, I gently slipped my hand out of his grip and took his fingers in mine. The twitching of his little finger ceased.

He gave a sigh.

‘What is the use?’ he muttered darkly. ‘What sense is there in “would”s and “might have”s? I have played the game, and lost. There will be no centre of the world, no canal at Suez, no new routes for world trade under my direction. There is no chance of getting the file back now. We can only hope, if we are lucky, to escape from this with our lives.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Now listen. There is a remote chance that not too many men will be present when they open the crate. I will engage them, and it will be your job to-’

‘No.’

I think my abrupt interruption caught him off guard. He said nothing for a moment, then demanded: ‘No? What do you mean, no?’

‘I mean no, there still is a chance to get the file back. Think, Sir. Nobody knows we are here. If we could somehow manage to get out of this crate unseen…’

‘Which is extremely unlikely.’

‘If we could manage it, we could get to the file…’

‘How, without being discovered?’

‘We still have our disguises. They got us into one of Dalgliesh’s buildings - why not another?’

‘There still remains the little matter of getting out of there alive.’

I smirked in the dark. ‘Since when have I become the one suggesting dangerous schemes and you the pessimist to reject them? Are you frightened of a little adventure?’

‘Mr Linton?’

‘Yes?’

‘If I had enough room to move my arm properly, I would take you by the scruff of the neck and…’

‘Yes, Sir?’

Silence.

‘Nothing, Mr Linton.’

‘Just as you say, Sir.’

Another spell of silence. When he spoke again, his voice was a curious, cold mix of tones I couldn’t decipher.

‘You are seriously suggesting that on reaching our destination, I get out of this crate unseen, manage to sneak into Lord Dalgliesh’s secret hideout, steal the file, and then manage to flee, and that all on my own?’

‘No. Not on your own, Sir. After all, I am here.’

‘That makes me feel so much better.’

*~*~**~*~*

The sudden silence was as loud as thunder in our ears. The deep thumping noise that had been our constant companion for the last few hours had suddenly ceased. The vibrations of the ship had stilled. The sudden change woke me from the half-sleep into which I had fallen after hours and hours of waiting in the dark.

‘The engine has been stopped,’ I whispered drowsily. ‘We… we must have arrived.’

‘What a brilliant deduction, Mr Linton.’

Instead of making a snappish reply to his sarcastic remark, I asked. ‘Do you think we are in the harbour of this place Dalgliesh mentioned? This “Ill Marbow”?’

‘Île Marbeau, Mr Linton,’ he corrected.

‘That’s what I said, Sir.’

‘No, Mr Linton. You pronounced it like grotesque, half-English gibberish. But I am quite certain the name is French. “Île” is French for “island”.’

‘Oh.’

‘Yes, Mr Linton. An island. Do you see now how getting away with the file might be a bit difficult?’

‘Well… we could steal a ship.’

‘And man it ourselves?’ The cold, disparaging tone of his voice told me that this was not in the realm of possibility. And I believed him. Unlike me, he had been on many ships, most of which he probably owned himself. He knew what he was talking about.

Île Marbeau… The strange-sounding name reverberated in my head and made my breathing quicken. With my mind’s eye, I saw a desolate, dark rock rising out of the sea towards a night sky black and grey with storm clouds. On the very top rose the ruins of an old castle, in which the infamous Lord Dalgliesh ruled like the king he saw himself to be.

I cleared my throat.

‘We are really and truly outside England now?’

‘Yes, Mr Linton.’

‘Really? Truly outside England?’

‘I believe I have already told you so. Yes, we are. Why?’

I didn’t know what to say. All my life I had dreamed of adventure, of leaving England to journey to faraway lands and see the marvels of the world. None of my dreams had included being stuck in a wooden crate with somebody like Mr Rikkard Ambrose. Still, I found myself glad that he was here. With a queasy feeling in my stomach, I thought back to the fight in the alley, to my fear of being shot down by sharpshooters at number 97. Adventures were neither as easy nor as glorious as I had imagined, and it was good to have somebody I trusted with me.

Wait just a minute! Trust? Are you nuts?

But I did trust him. When had that happened? When I had first met him, I didn’t trust him as far as I could throw him. In fact, I was deeply suspicious of his dark business dealings and chauvinistic ways. Some part of me still was. But another part of me wanted him to put his arms around me again.

Suddenly, I heard a dull thump from outside. It was repeated, and repeated again, and again, getting louder as it drew nearer.

‘What is that?’ I asked.

‘Marching feet on the metal floor,’ Mr Ambrose breathed. ‘They’re coming to unload the ship.’

Unload the ship? But… bloody hell! I was cargo now! So that included me! I stiffened.

‘Don’t move, Mr Linton!’ His voice was cold, but his breath was hot at my ear. ‘Don’t breathe. Don’t even think about making a sound. No matter how much they jostle us about, we must remain absolutely still. If they hear us, we are dead.’ He leant even closer to my ear and hissed: ‘Understood?’

A shiver ran down my spine.

‘Y-yes, Sir.’

The door to our room opened, and I heard several people enter. They bent to pick up something, and left the room again. None of them came near our crate. I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. Soon after, another group came, and then another, each time carrying off some of the smaller crates and sacks I had briefly seen lying about in the room. They seemed to want to make room for the big removal - in other words, us. I only hoped the big removal wouldn’t include a removal from the realm of the living.

Finally, the footsteps returned.

‘All right,’ a gruff voice called out. ‘Ye and Tom grab ‘old on that side, me, Jim and Ezra on this one.’

‘Sure. On the count of three, mates! One, two, three… ‘ere we go!’

Suddenly, the world swayed. We were lifted into the air.

‘Bloody ‘ell! That thing ain’t no sack of feathers! What did they put in there? A block of granite?’

Granite? I wasn’t that heavy, was I? My behind wasn’t that fat! It was only generous, at most. Although… there was also Mr Ambrose to consider, and he could be classified as block of granite in my book.

‘Keep your darn mouth shut!’ came the growled reply. ‘Don’t ye know what ‘appens to those as asks too many questions?’

The other man fell instantly silent. From this alone, I knew what happened to curious people in Lord Dalgliesh’s employ. Or at least I could imagine.

Groaning and moaning, but not uttering another word, the four men carried us out of the room, down the corridor and… and I knew not where. I heard the sound of waves, saw faint strips of light fall in through gaps in the wooden wall, and once fancied I heard the distant chatter of many voices. Where was I? There was no indication of where we were among the sounds, or where we were headed. Not until the scream, that is.

It was faint, so faint that I might have almost imagined it. Almost. If we had been in another place, I might have taken it for a cry of joy, or the sound of an annoyed child. But I knew better. Where we were going, there were no children, and there certainly was no joy.

But what was it then?

I had already opened my mouth to ask, when I remembered Mr Ambrose’s warning.

Silence. Absolute silence.

I clamped my mouth shut again and tried to ignore the gnawing feeling of panic in my stomach.

Silent. You must keep silent.

And I did. Somehow, though, Mr Ambrose managed to be twice as silent as I was. He seemed to radiate negative noise. It was a trick I decided I had to learn, if I survived this.

In the distance, I heard another faint cry. I couldn’t suppress the image of a dark dungeon creeping up on me. But both times, the cries had sounded like children. What kind of monster was this Lord Dalgliesh?

What few noises there were soon receded into the distance. We were venturing away from the coast, towards the centre of the island, of that much I was sure. But other than that, I knew nothing of where we were heading. There was only the rocking of the crate and the steady marching sound of the soldiers to indicate that we were moving at all.

Finally, the soldiers slowed down.

‘Halt!’

At the command, the soldiers stopped. I heard the jingling of keys and a creaking noise that was probably a door. It didn’t sound nearly creaky and sinister enough to satisfy my idea of the rusty hinges of a dungeon door, so maybe there was still hope.

‘All right, fellows. Put it down ‘ere.’

The soldiers were only too happy to comply. The crate smashed to the ground, and Mr Ambrose nearly squashed me beneath him, pressing all the air out of my lungs.

‘Mpf!’

‘Gently! Gently! The dickens knows what’s in there. ‘e will ‘ave our ‘eads on a platter if anything gets broke!’

There was no need to mention who ‘he’ was. I understood it as well as the soldiers did. They mumbled hurried apologies, and their footsteps moved away. Not long after, we heard a door lock click shut, and then there was only silence.

They hadn’t opened the crate.

‘What now?’ I demanded in a whisper. ‘Are we just supposed to wait here until they come back for us?’

‘By no means.’ Mr Ambrose’s tone was back to cool efficiency. The hint of defeat that had been there earlier was nowhere to be found. He grabbed hold of something lying beside me, and I saw a thin object sliding past my face. His cane?

‘What are you doing?’

‘If I am not mistaken, the soldiers’ rough handling of the crate has loosened one of the boards. I may just be able to slide the blade of my sword into the crack and use it as a lever. Don’t move an inch. The blade is sharp.’

I froze as above me I heard the slither of steel on steel. There was a creak and, for a moment, a small beam of light fell in through a crack in the wood. Then, the light was blocked by the figure of Mr Ambrose. He raised himself up as far as he could, sliding his sword into the crack he had discovered. Then, I felt his muscles bunch. There was a crunching sound, and suddenly light flooded into the crate - not the weak, blueish light of the moon, but bright, golden sunlight.

‘It is morning!’ I exclaimed.

‘Of course, Mr Linton. We have been at sea for…’ He pulled his watch out of his pocket and let it snap open. The coat of arms on the lid flashed in the bright morning light. ‘… exactly seven hours, thirty-eight minutes and four seconds. Dalgliesh must have taken a roundabout route to avoid being spotted.’

‘Seven hours!’ I clapped my hands to my face. ‘Blast! That means that by now, my aunt must have noticed I am gone! What am I going to tell her?’

Mr Ambrose gave me a look. Oh, how I had missed that icy, spine-chilling gaze! ‘That, I would say, is the least of our worries, Mr Linton.’

‘Then you don't know my aunt.’

Instead of replying, he sheathed his sword again, and shoved the cane through the hole that he had created in the wall of the crate. With a sharp pull, he twisted the cane, and another board flew away, clattering to the ground. He repeated the procedure again, and again. Then he nodded, satisfied.

‘The hole should now be broad enough for an average person to climb through. I will go first. Wait here.’

And before I could utter a single word of complaint, he was already out of my sight, sliding out of the crate like some sleek, dark spectre. I listened intently, praying that there was no guard posted outside. Not a single sound came from outside the crate. I waited. One minute went by. Two minutes.

What the heck is he doing out there?

Three minutes.

He can’t take this long, can he?

Four minutes.

Something has to have gone wrong! What if there is more than one guard out there? What if Mr Ambrose…

Five minutes.

What are you waiting for? Go and look for him! Maybe something has happened. Maybe-

‘All clear.’ Suddenly, his perfect granite face appeared above me, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

‘Where were you?’ I hissed.

‘Checking.’

‘Checking for what?’

‘Soldiers, Mr Linton. There are none present, either in here, or out there.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I climbed to one of the windows and looked out. All I saw was the sea, over the tops of trees, and a path leading downhill.’

‘Not even one guard?’

‘I do not like to repeat myself, Mr Linton. No. There were no soldiers.’

‘But that’s strange, don't you think so?’

‘Exceedingly. Which is why I would suggest we leave this place before things change from strange to normal. Come!’

He disappeared from my view, and I gathered that now it was my turn. Slowly, I sat up. Every muscle in my body ached from lying down this long, and with so much weight on top of me. I tried very hard not to think about who that hard, muscled weight had belonged to, and gripped the edges of the hole in the lid above me to pull myself farther up.

With a groan at my protesting muscles, I stuck my head through the opening. Looking around me, I saw a large, bare room, with lots of crates piled in every corner and sacks lying on the floor. Light filtered in through a few unglazed but barred windows high up on the wall. Dust motes danced in the light, and somewhere I heard the little footsteps of a mouse, or some other small animal, hurrying across the stone floor.

‘What is this place?’ I whispered.

‘I do not know, Mr Linton. But at a guess, I would say, a warehouse.’

‘It looks like nobody ever comes here.’

‘Let us hope so, or they will find you still half in the crate when they do come. Now get a move on!’

‘Yes, Sir. Immediately, Sir.’

Pushing my arms through the hole, I hoisted myself further up and, bit by bit, emerged into the outside world. This went fine until my waist had slid outside. Suddenly, I encountered resistance. Gripping the boards to either side of me, I pushed harder.

I didn’t move an inch.

Again, I pushed harder. Nothing.

‘What are you waiting for, Mr Linton?’ Mr Ambrose was standing a little way away from the crate, his gaze fixed on the door of the warehouse, prepared at any time for an enemy to come through it. ‘We have to go.’

One final time I pushed - to no avail. ‘I can’t,’ I growled. ‘I… don't seem to fit through the hole.’

Certain generously-endowed parts of me, anyway.

‘The hole should be big enough for an average person, Mr Linton.’

‘Well, then maybe I’m a special person,’ I hissed. ‘At least that’s what my little sister always says. Will you get rid of another board, already?’

‘Manners, Mr Linton!’

‘Will you get rid of another board, Sir, before somebody comes along and shoots us?’

In two seconds he was on the crate, his cane in hand. Placing it under the nearest board, he pushed down. There was a crack, as if from a pistol shot, and the board flew away. I popped out of the crate like a cork out of a bottle. Hurriedly, I slid down until I stood firm with both feet on the ground, and started to dust off my rumpled uniform.

‘Thanks,’ I grumbled, my face two shades darker than normal.

He, of course, didn’t even deign to notice my flushed cheeks. He was already at the door, sliding it slowly open, and peeking out through the crack.

‘There is nobody in the vicinity. Come.’ And he slipped outside. Mumbling a very unladylike word, I followed him, and stepped out into a world of wonder.

I didn’t know exactly what I had expected the island stronghold of the evil Lord Dalgliesh to look like, but this was certainly not it. We stood in a courtyard surrounded by a charming, low stone wall. Moss and other foliage grew out of the cracks in the stone, and it was just the right height to comfortably sit down and have a picnic - an idea to which the rest of the surroundings would have lent themselves beautifully. The courtyard was surrounded by charming, little knobby trees, from which drifted a delicious smell of pines and the sounds of a busy wood. The sound of frolicking squirrels and twittering nightingales mingled with the distant rush of the sea. Bees flew between beautiful flowers which peeked out from between the foremost trees' roots, and a robin fluttered across the courtyard to disappear in the forest on the other side.

‘What the heck?’ I looked from left to right. ‘Did we get sent to the wrong address? Eden, instead of Evil Fortress?’

Mr Ambrose opened his mouth. But I never found out what he was going to say, because all of a sudden, we heard footsteps from around the corner of the warehouse. I hesitated for a moment - and then it was already too late to flee. A man came around the corner, and stopped in his tracks as he spotted us.

Blast!