Charlie Bone and the Red Knight. Jenny Nimmo

usually quick to defend Mr Onimous but they stood in the alley with their tails erect, sniffing the air and mewing expectantly.

      A strong breeze accompanied the stranger – a sinister breeze in Mr Onimous’s opinion. Can’t be one of the kids, he thought. Can’t be one of the endowed. It’s Wednesday night. They’re all at school and in bed most likely. He ran across to the green door and, pulling a key from his pocket, shakily inserted it into the lock.

      ‘Mr Onimous!’ The voice was a harsh, urgent whisper.

      The little man turned fearfully, and looked into a pair of familiar sky-blue eyes. ‘Tancred Torsson!’ he cried.

      ‘Sssh!’ Tancred put a finger to his lips.

      ‘Oh, my dear, dear fellow.’ Mr Onimous clasped both Tancred’s hands and squeezed them tight. ‘Oh, you can’t know how you’ve lifted my spirits. We thought you were dead.’

      ‘I am dead, Mr Onimous,’ whispered Tancred. ‘Dead to THEM at least. Can I come in? I’ll explain everything.’

      ‘Of course, of course.’ Mr Onimous unlocked the door and drew Tancred into the empty café. The three cats bounced swiftly after them and Mr Onimous locked and bolted the door.

      Tancred pulled down his scarf and gazed at the upturned chairs with their legs pointing desolately at the darkened ceiling. ‘This is so sad, Mr Onimous,’ he said. ‘We must do something about it.’

      ‘Course we must, but it’s too much for my poor old brain to sort out.’ Mr Onimous led the way round the counter at the back of the café, and into the bright kitchen beyond.

      An exceptionally tall woman with a long melancholy face was spooning jam into some rather pale-looking tarts. There were several plates of them spread across the kitchen table, and if it hadn’t been for Mrs Onimous’s desolate expression, you would have thought she was preparing for a party.

      ‘Don’t say it,’ murmured Mrs Onimous, without looking up. ‘Who’s going to eat a hundred tarts? I couldn’t help myself, Orvil. What else am I to do?’

      ‘Onoria, my darling,’ Mr Onimous failed to keep a squeak of excitement out of his voice. ‘We have a visitor.’

      She looked up, opened her mouth, screamed, staggered backwards and collapsed into an old armchair. ‘Tancred Torsson!’ she gasped. ‘You’re dead!’

      ‘Not so, Mrs Onimous.’ Tancred pulled back his hood, revealing a mop of thick corn-gold hair. ‘As you see, I am very much alive.’

      ‘The news is all round the city. They said you had drowned.’ Two fat tears rolled down Mrs Onimous’s cheeks. ‘A terrible accident, they said it was, but we guessed it was that evil boy Dagbert Endless who had drowned you.’

      ‘Well, he did, in a sense,’ Tancred agreed. ‘I was just about gone when Emma rescued me. And then, soon after my father had carried my lifeless body home, we had visitors.’ Tancred sat at the table and stroked the head of the yellow cat, Sagittarius, drawing a deep purr from his silky throat. ‘I thought you had sent them.’

      ‘The cats!’ cried Mr Onimous, clapping his hands. ‘I should have known it. But they lead a mysterious life. I never know where they are off to.’

      ‘They saved your life too, Orvil,’ said his wife, pouring tea for their visitor. ‘It’s a miracle how they always know when a child of the Red King is in trouble.’

      ‘I’m no child,’ chuckled Mr Onimous, lifting orange Leo into his arms.

      ‘You’re a descendant; that’s good enough for them.’ Onoria smiled as Aries, the copper cat, wound himself round her legs.

      ‘They sat on my bed all through the night.’ Tancred’s eyes took on a faraway gleam as he began to describe the warmth and comfort the cats had brought to his aching limbs, and how their voices had soothed the pain in his head and steadied his faltering heart.

      ‘I know, I know.’ Mr Onimous thought of his own miraculous recovery.

      Mrs Onimous sat down and pushed same tarts across to Tancred. ‘Empty the plate, there’s a good boy,’ she said. ‘And take some home to your mother. We don’t see enough of her down here.’

      ‘She doesn’t have a pet,’ said Tancred through a mouthful of tart. ‘She’s tried dogs and cats, guinea pigs and rabbits, even a pony, but they all ran away. They couldn’t take my dad’s thunder.’

      Tancred’s father was known as the Thunder Man, on account of the violent weather that constantly attended him.

      ‘Does Charlie Bone know that you survived?’ asked Mr Onimous, biting into one of his wife’s tarts.

      Tancred nodded vigorously. ‘So do the others: Lysander, Gabriel and co, but no one else must know. I can do more to help them if Dagbert and the Bloors think that I’m dead.’

      ‘We won’t tell a soul.’ Mr Onimous lowered his voice as though the Bloors might be outside the door that very moment. ‘I feel so sorry for poor Charlie. His parents have been away for more than a month now, and although I don’t like to criticise a fine person like Lyell Bone, it’s a long time to leave your only child when you’ve already been apart for more than ten years.’

      ‘I agree,’ said Tancred, ‘but Charlie’s such a great –’ A loud knocking caused him to stop mid-sentence and stare over his shoulder.

      ‘Whoever can it be?’ Mr Onimous opened the kitchen door and stared across the café at a large figure framed in the window. ‘Bless me, it’s Norton. I’ll –’

      ‘NO, Mr Onimous!’ Tancred leapt up and pulled the little man back into the kitchen. ‘Charlie asked me to warn you. That’s why I came. Norton Cross has betrayed you, Mr Onimous.’

      ‘What?’ Mr Onimous frowned at Tancred in disbelief. ‘How can you say such a thing? Norton? He’s the best doorman we’ve ever had.’

      ‘You have to believe me, sir,’ said Tancred in a low voice. ‘He’s been seen in the company of the Witch Tilpin and others. Some of the villains from Piminy Street, in fact.’

      ‘Norton?’ Clutching the edge of the table, Mr Onimous sank on to a chair. ‘What’s the world coming to?’

      ‘Well, at least we’ll be on our guard, Orvil,’ said his wife. She shook her head. ‘Who can have turned our dear Norton to wickedness?’

      No one could answer her.

      The knocking had ceased at last and, peering into the dark café, Tancred caught a glimpse of two figures walking down the alley. Norton was unmistakable, his bulky form clad in a green padded jacket printed with yellow elephants. His companion was shorter and wore a black cloak and a hat with a drooping feather. The hat was an odd shape, soft and velvety. It reminded Tancred of another hat he’d seen. Was it in a book or in a painting? He couldn’t yet place it.

      ‘Think I’d better be going now,’ Tancred told the Onimouses.

      ‘Do take care, my dear.’ Mrs Onimous came and gave him a hug. ‘You’re young to be out alone on such a dark night.’

      Tancred was fourteen and accustomed to being out alone on dark nights. His endowment was the only protection he needed, or so he thought. A bolt of lightning or a blast of gale-force wind had always been enough to deter any would-be assailant. ‘I can look after myself,’ he said, extricating himself from Mrs Onimous’s embrace.

      A violent gust of wind blew through the kitchen and the cups hanging on the dresser rattled and clinked in a wild tune.

      ‘All right, Weather-boy, you don’t have to prove it,’ chuckled Mr Onimous.

      Tancred walked briskly through the café, calling, ‘Goodnight, Onimouses. Keep safe!’

      Stepping into the alley, he closed