The Star of Kazan

Which left the problem of getting a message through to Annika. ‘She’s got to know exactly what to do,’ said Professor Emil.

There was a long silence. Grossenfluss seemed as impenetrable as a castle full of ogres.

But even ogres need someone to cook and clean and shop for them, and the maid who was Ellie’s special friend had a sister who worked in the school.

‘I’m seeing her this afternoon,’ she said, ‘it’s her day off. I’ll ask her if she can help. But it’s no good giving her a note – they’re all terrified of Fräulein von Donner. You’ll have to tell me what she’s to say to Annika, and keep it very short. I’m sure she’ll do her best, but it can’t be a promise.’

But the chambermaid managed it. The message she gave Annika in a hurried whisper as she was turning down the beds was not very clear, but when she had received it, Annika realized she would not need to pretend to be sick. She felt sick already: with excitement, dread – and something she had not felt since she came to Grossenfluss. Hope.

They had managed to unload the harp case and trundle it towards the door. Professor Gertrude was trembling with nerves, but Stefan was dogged and calm. He had no faith in Professor Emil’s plan and could wish that Ragnar Hairybreeks was at the bottom of the sea, but he was going to get Annika out somehow.

He pulled the bell rope and the porter who came said that they were expected. Stefan looked carefully round the cold, dimly lit entrance hall. The big flight of steps leading up to the concert room was straight ahead: he could just make out the murmur of the girls’ voices through the open door. The cloakrooms were on the right, and to the left was an unlit corridor leading to the back of the building.

It was from the corridor that there now came the tap tap of a walking stick and Fräulein von Donner came towards them out of the dark. The glinting keys, the steel-tipped stick and the badge of the Order of the Closed Fist on the headmistress’s collar all filled Stefan with an instant loathing. This was an evil place run by an evil woman, and he realized that he would stop at nothing to rescue Annika.

Fräuelein von Donner greeted Professor Gertrude, and ignored Stefan.

‘The girls are ready,’ she said.

But before they could unpack the harp, the principal’s assistant appeared from behind her employer and asked Professor Gertrude if she would care to follow her to the staffroom to take off her coat and freshen herself up.

Mademoiselle Vincent not only spoke French, she was French – and since she had been told that the harpist was a fellow countrywoman, it was in her own language that she addressed poor Professor Gertrude.

The professor had learned French at school, but that was a long time ago. However, there was nothing for it and she allowed Mademoiselle Vincent to lead her away, leaving Stefan to look after the harp in its case.

Upstairs in the concert room the girls waited.

Annika was sitting near the big double doors, which were folded back to allow the entrance of the harp, and she was sitting next to Fräulein Heller. Normally Annika would do anything not to sit next to a teacher, but if she was to feel sick in the interval and ask to be excused it would be easier to get permission if she was close b y.

The maid who had given Annika the hurried message had said only that someone Annika knew was coming to give a concert, but she had mentioned one name to which Annika clung now like a drowning person clutching a lifebelt.

Stefan. The maid had mentioned Stefan’s name.

Annika closed her eyes, summoning up memories of her childhood friend. Stefan carrying his brothers on his shoulder; Stefan reaching a hand out to help her up when she fell; Stefan climbing a tree to bring down a screaming, panic-stricken child . . . Stefan was strong, he was true – if there was safety anywhere it lay with him.

Down in the hall, Professor Gertrude returned with Mademoiselle Vincent, looking very shaken. Emil had had some stupid ideas in his time, but why had he told them she was French? Why not Portuguese or Finnish or South African? Mademoiselle Vincent had spoken to her incessantly and rapidly in the kind of French that is never taught at school, and Gertrude did not feel that she had given a convincing performance as Madame La Cruise.

‘Shall I take the case to the cloakroom now?’ asked Stefan, and Professor Gertrude nodded and followed him into a tiled alcove with five doors discreetly closed. Like everything else at Grossenfluss, the cloakroom and the lavatories would have housed a tribe of giants.

Stefan opened the harp case, and Gertrude lifted the instrument out, and tenderly removed the silken shawl which covered it.

‘We shall need help,’ she said to Fräulein von Donner. ‘Two strong girls, reliable ones.’

‘Go and fetch the Messerschmidt twins – Brunnhilde and Waaltraut,’ ordered the principal.