The Toymakers(30)

She set down the lantern and opened it a crack.

‘Sirius, you rotten hound, where are you?’

The door opened an inch, then an inch further. The first thing she saw was the dog. It was lying asleep, its feet twitching in whatever dreams creatures of cloth could have. Beyond where it lay, lit up by a string of firefly lanterns on a ledge beyond, Emil Godman sat hunched over a worktop. At his feet were piles of felt, rolls of wire and a bail of cotton wadding. Toolboxes were stacked against one wall, sandwiched between crates of toy soldiers ready for sale.

Cathy had heard of Emil’s workshop but until now had not caught a glimpse. Sally-Anne said the Godman brothers used to share a workshop, high up alongside their father’s own – but here was Emil’s, hidden in plain sight among the Emporium aisles.

She was whispering, trying to wake the patchwork dog, when Emil released a great cry of frustration and, whirling his arms like a toddler in the throes of some enormous tantrum, cast whatever he had been assembling from his worktop. A hail of wood and fabric arced over the workshop. What Cathy took for a pinewood hard-boiled egg landed square on Sirius’s nose, waking him with a whimper.

‘You wretched mutt, you’re no help either. Why don’t you go loping after Kaspar like you always do? Why do you have to bother me?’

Sirius beat his tail, whether in taunt or delight Cathy could not say.

Emil rushed at him, dropped to his knees and flipped him over. Cathy was about to leap out when she saw that Emil was only rough-housing with him, scratching the fabric of his underbelly and exposing the mechanism dangling there. ‘Still ticking,’ he grumbled, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘And here am I, every night, just trying …’

Emil rolled backwards, pulled one of the crates away from the wall and heaved out of it a bundle of rags and felt. At first Cathy took it for more spare parts, but when he set it down she realised it was a sheep, stitched together from old eiderdown and roughspun blankets. It was cruder than the patchwork cats and dogs that once populated the Emporium shelves, like a picture of a sheep a three-year-old child might have made. One of its black button eyes was lower than the other, its snout not nearly plump enough with stuffing.

Emil reached into its belly, wound it up and sat back, teasing Sirius’s ears. In front of him, the sheep began to totter. It walked in a circle, emitted a pillowy bleat, bent to chew at some imaginary cud, and continued in that way until its motor had wound down.

‘Useless,’ Emil muttered. ‘It’s a toy, just a toy. There’s no magic in it. It’s just mechanics. Cam shafts and gears and four legs, up and down, up and down … What’s the difference between you and that? What is it, you silly mutt? Why can’t I …’ Emil grabbed the patchwork sheep by the hind legs, tossed it back into the crate and slumped once more. ‘At least I have my soldiers. Kaspar isn’t interested in soldiers, so at least they’re mine. And I’ve got something special, Sirius. Lined up and ready for next first frost …’

Emil marched into an alcove on the furthest side of the workshop, disappearing into shadow. Moments later, Cathy heard a chorus of rattles and clicks – and Emil emerged, his arms full of soldiery to line up on the opposite side. Standing proudly among them was his Imperial Kapitan.

Cathy watched as an army of wind-up soldiers marched out of the alcove, moving inexorably against an army on the opposite side. When they had crossed half the expanse, they stopped and lifted their rifles. Tiny pellets of wood exploded forth on strings, striking the advancing regiment just as they came within range. Under the hail of bullets the enemy fell; the only man who kept on marching was the Imperial Kapitan, impervious to the bullets.

‘See!’ Emil exclaimed. ‘Kaspar won’t know what’s hit him. My riflemen will scythe his down, and nothing will topple the Kapitan. The next battle of the Long War, Sirius, it’s going to be a massacre!’

At his outburst, the patchwork dog leapt to its paws. It turned to see Emil but, as it did, its black button eyes landed on Cathy – and though nothing in them changed (they were only black buttons), somehow Cathy saw the hint of acknowledgement in the way the fabric creased across its snout.

Its tail beat madly, and, as it did, Emil looked round.

Cathy recoiled back into the darkness of the aisle. She had taken only three strides when her feet, such treacherous things, caught one another mid-flight, sending her sprawling into the Emporium floor. The shock echoed in her body but, all the same, she picked herself up. She could hear footsteps behind her now – but it was only Sirius, coming to shepherd her home. More troubling was the voice that harried her along the aisle. ‘Kaspar, you rotten spy, I know that’s you! It’s against the rules, Kaspar! Subterfuge and espionage, they’re against the rules!’

Heart pounding, she found her way back to the paper trees and hurried through the Wendy House door. Only moments later she heard Sirius scrabbling to get in, and after that Emil’s voice halloing through the trees. However intricate this toy was, nobody had fine-tuned its loyalty; it had led him straight to her.

She could hear the crunch of Emil’s footsteps coming over the picket fence. First, he was cajoling Sirius to get out of the way. Then he was calling out his brother’s name. Cathy looked around. In seconds, he was going to come through that door. And, no matter how vast this Wendy House was, it was still a finite space: four walls, no nooks and crannies, so very few places to hide.