A. N. T. I. D. O. T. E. (14 page)

I tried to see who the driver was but what with the rain and the windscreen wipers and the speed the car was going, I couldn’t see a thing. The car whizzed by too quickly.

Smiler stood in the middle of the street, intense fury on his face – his true colours revealed. His hands were clenched so tightly into fists that I could see the veins standing out on the back of his hands. He scowled down the street after the mini-cab, the muscles in his neck standing out like old rope. He turned to face me. If looks were made of fire, I would’ve been nothing but
ash
on the ground. He started coming towards me, ignoring the cars whistling past him.

With each step he took towards me, I took a wary step backwards. Our eyes were locked together. I didn’t even dare blink. I was a rabbit, caught in a car’s headlights. But then Smiler started running.

I may be a lot of things but I’m no mug. I turned and ran for my life – and that’s just exactly what it felt like. Like I was running for my life.

I RAN ALL
the way home, not daring to look back once. My calves felt like white-hot pokers were being thrust into them, I thought my lungs were going to burst, and my blood was pounding so hard around my body that I could barely hear the traffic around me, but still I kept going. It was only when I stood in front of Nosh’s house that I stopped and looked around. Smiler was nowhere in sight. I don’t know when he’d decided to give up chasing me. It could have been five seconds after I started running, it could’ve been only five seconds ago – but I was alone. I rang the doorbell and practically fell into the house when Nosh’s mum opened the door.

‘Elliot! Are you all right?’ she asked, as I stumbled past her.

I nodded. I couldn’t speak. I was fighting to get my breath back.

‘Elliot, what’s the matter? You’re wheezing like the devil himself was chasing you,’ said Nosh’s mum.

I shook my head, still gasping for breath.

‘I’m fine,’ I gasped. ‘I just decided to run for a while.’

Nosh’s mum frowned. ‘You’re meant to start slowly and build up. Not try to run a marathon the first time out.’

‘I’ll remember that for next time,’ I coughed.

I dragged myself upstairs, knowing that Nosh’s mum was still watching me. I headed straight for the bathroom, where I was horribly, wretchedly, embarrassingly sick. I vomited up every bit of chip in my stomach. It was so bad, I’m sure I vomited up food I’d eaten as a toddler. The combination of nerves, fear and all that running had just about done me in. Once it was over, I rinsed out my mouth and washed my face. Muscles I didn’t even know I had ached. I sat down, leaning against the bath tub as I tried to get my thoughts in some sort of order.

I’d been so close.
So close
…

Mum had been a couple of metres away and yet I’d failed again. Shelby’s must have had people not just in the park, but staked out all around it.

The park …
Nosh
…

My eyes opened wide in horror. Nosh. I’d forgotten all about him. Was he all right? Had Smiler or one of his colleagues caught him? I had to find him, I just had to. I ran downstairs and to the front door. I had the door open when Nosh’s mum stepped out of the front room.

‘Elliot,’ she frowned. ‘Where’re you going?’

‘I thought I’d go and find Nosh,’ I said, desperate to keep any trace of panic out of my voice.

‘Where is he?’ Nosh’s mum asked.

‘He went to the park.’

‘I think he can find his way home from the park OK, don’t you?’ she smiled.

‘I could go and meet him if you like,’ I tried.

‘No, I don’t think so,’ Nosh’s mum said. ‘You can wait here for him.’

‘Oh, but …’

Nosh’s mum looked at me pointedly. ‘Is something wrong?’

I shook my head quickly. ‘No, I … No.’

‘Then you can help me make the dinner,’ she smiled.

And what could I do? The only way out of it was to tell Nosh’s mum the truth and I couldn’t do that – not until I knew for sure that Nosh
was
in trouble. It was cowardly, I know, but part of it was because I didn’t want to worry her unnecessarily – and that’s true. I wasn’t just thinking about myself.

Nosh’s mum set me to work peeling potatoes but after I’d nicked my fingers for the third time with the knife, she decided to give me something ‘a little less dangerous’ – as she put it. So I was put in charge of the salad, rinsing lettuce and grating carrots. If anything, the grater was more dangerous than the knife had been! It was just that I couldn’t concentrate on anything I was doing. All I could think about was Nosh. I’d been wrong
before
when I thought that Nosh was the one who had all the imagination. My imagination was working overtime, and each thought as to what might have happened to Nosh was more dreadful than the last. Nosh’s dad arrived home from work and Nosh still hadn’t turned up.

‘You’re sure he went to the park?’ Nosh’s mum asked me.

I nodded. ‘I’m sure he’ll be home soon.’

‘He’d better be,’ Nosh’s mum muttered under her breath.

After I’d helped prepare the dinner, I sat down in the armchair in the front room where I could see directly out of the front window. Nosh’s mum and dad were watching the early evening news. Once or twice I caught Nosh’s mum giving me a funny look, and more than once her eyes drifted to the clock above the mantelpiece. Glancing down at my watch, I decided to give Nosh fifteen more minutes. After that I’d tell his mum and dad everything and let them call the police. There was no way Nosh should be this late back.

But just then, I heard a key turn in the front door. I was on my feet in a second. Nosh’s mum was only just behind me as I ran out into the hall.

It was Nosh.

‘Where’ve you been? I was worried sick!’ I ranted at him.

‘Nosh, what time do you call this?’ his mum frowned.

‘Have you been in the park all this time?’ I asked.

‘You could’ve phoned to let me know what was happening,’ his mum continued.

As Nosh listened to us, his head moved from left to right and back again as if he was watching a tennis match.

‘So what happened?’ I asked.

‘What’s going on?’ his mum said.

‘Whoa! Please!’ Nosh put his hands up defensively. ‘I just went for a walk in the park and I forgot all about the time.’

‘Why are you wearing Elliot’s jacket?’ Nosh’s mum asked suspiciously.

‘He said I could borrow it,’ Nosh said.

‘Yes, I did,’ I backed him up.

I looked at Nosh. He was glaring at me.

‘Hhmm! Go and wash your hands. You’re just in time for dinner,’ Nosh’s mum said.

Nosh marched upstairs in an obvious huff. I followed him.

‘So how did it go?’ I asked, once we were alone.

‘What was all that at the door?’ Nosh rounded on me. ‘Mum’s bad enough without you joining in as well.’

‘Sorry. I was worried about you, that’s all.’

‘Well, don’t go on at me like that again,’ Nosh ordered. ‘I don’t like it.’

‘I promise,’ I said. ‘Now, how did it go?’

‘I walked round and round the park until my feet
were
covered in blisters, that’s how it went,’ Nosh complained. ‘What about you?’

‘I came this close.’ I held my thumb and index finger together. ‘This close to talking to Mum but that guy with the pony-tail was there, too. He chased Mum and then tried to chase me.’

Nosh stared at me. ‘What happened to your mum?’

‘She hopped in the back of a mini-cab and it sped off.’

‘And what about you?’

‘I raced all the way home,’ I admitted, sheepishly. ‘No way was he going to catch me.’

‘How did he know you were going to be in the fish and chip shop?’ Nosh asked.

I shook my head. ‘He might have seen me through the shop window. Or maybe he popped in there for a quick bag of chips. I don’t know. All I do know is once again, I still haven’t managed to speak to Mum.’

‘What about your uncle?’ Nosh asked.

‘He wasn’t released. He’s been remanded in custody,’ I replied, glumly. ‘Your mum phoned up for me earlier today.’

‘Remanded in custody? Why didn’t they let him out?’ Nosh asked.

‘He’s been up before magistrates before. It’s always because of ANTIDOTE protest marches or demonstrations, but I guess they decided to keep him in until his court date,’ I sighed.

‘Maybe we’ll have better luck once Halle comes home,’ said Nosh.

I just hoped he was right.

THE MOMENT HALLE
set foot through the door, I was at her side.

‘Did ANTIDOTE take you on? Did my programs work? Did you get the information we need?’ I asked impatiently.

‘Hello to you, too, Elliot,’ Halle said dryly. Julian followed her into the house, closing the front door behind him.

‘Did you get it?’ I asked again. I wasn’t in the mood to be teased – not after the afternoon I’d just had.

‘I got some of it. I couldn’t get to Rohan Adjava’s PC because he was in the office all day and never away from his desk for long enough,’ Halle said, handing over the memory stick.

‘But you ran the programs on Sarah’s and Ian’s machines?’

‘Yes. And it wasn’t easy either. I had to pretend I wanted to work late and volunteer to type up flyers on
Sarah
’s machine. Then I had to pretend that Sarah’s machine wasn’t working and use Ian’s PC. Ian and Sarah popped in and out of the office all day. The whole thing has added an extra ten years to my life.’

‘At least your years have caught up with your face, then,’ Nosh told her.

I was barely listening. To be honest, I didn’t much care how she’d got the data, just as long as she had.

‘Halle, you had it easy,’ Julian told her. ‘At least they didn’t use you as a general dogsbody. If I never see another box of ANTIDOTE flyers, it’ll be too soon.’

‘You had the easy bit. If I’d been caught …’

‘Easy bit?’ Julian said indignantly. ‘What about amending the memo and …’

‘Come on, Nosh,’ I whispered. ‘Let’s leave them to it.’

‘Mum, Elliot and I are just popping next door,’ Nosh called out.

‘What about your din …?’

Nosh and I were out the door before his mum could say anything else. In my house, we dashed up the stairs and I switched on Mum’s PC.

‘Let’s hope the information we’re after isn’t on Rohan’s machine.’ Nosh crossed his fingers.

Once the PC had booted up, I inserted the memory stick Halle had brought back. Before I could do anything else, the doorbell rang. It made both Nosh and me jump. Without saying a word to each other, we crept
down
the stairs. There were two silhouettes outside the front door.

‘Elliot? Is that you? Open up!’ It was Halle.

‘What d’you want?’ I called out to her.

‘You don’t think I did all that for nothing, do you?’ she called back. ‘I did all the hard work. The least you could do is let me see if it worked.’

‘Don’t let her in,’ Nosh commanded.

It was tempting, but in the end I opened the door, saying to Nosh, ‘After all, she did help us and she didn’t have to.’

Halle and Julian came into the house.

‘Come on then, Elliot. What’re you waiting for?’ Julian grinned at me.

We all went back upstairs. I ran another program I’d written on Mum’s PC to decompress all the captured data and load it onto the hard disk, where there was more space. Basically, what I’d done was search for any documents containing either SHELBY or PARDELA or MARCUS or JOSHUA or PHARMACEUTI-CALS. And I wasn’t disappointed. The memory key was now full.

‘Don’t you want to hear how I’ve set the ball rolling?’ Julian asked me. ‘I used several copies of that Marcus Pardela memo to good effect.’

I froze as my heart skipped a beat. I turned to him, dreading to hear the answer but needing to ask the question. ‘What did you do?’

‘I hope you didn’t ruin everything,’ Nosh frowned.

‘Of course not,’ Julian replied. ‘If anything, I’ve speeded things up. This lunchtime, I left a copy of Marcus Pardela’s memo on Sarah’s, Ian’s and Rohan’s desks.’

It was worse than I thought.

‘Why on earth did you do that?’ Even Halle was astounded.

‘You maggot-brain! Now the mole will know we’re on to him or her!’ Nosh raged.

Me? I couldn’t speak. My throat was being choked from the inside. How could he? How could Julian ruin everything like this?

‘No, you don’t understand,’ Julian said quickly. ‘I amended each memo first so that it looked like the memo was copied to each individual person.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Halle.

Julian took a pristine, folded copy of the memo out of his jacket pocket and held it up to all of us. ‘You see that “cc:” line? On one copy, I filled that in with Sarah Irving’s name and left the memo on her desk. On the second copy I added Rohan’s name, and on the third copy I added Ian’s name. Each of them will think that the memo has been copied exclusively to them.’

The sick feeling in the pit of my stomach began to fade. I began to see what Julian had been trying to do.

‘But if it was copied exclusively to them, why didn’t
they
get the message via their e-mail? Won’t they be suspicious about the fact that it’s a printed copy of the memo?’ I asked.

‘That’s the whole point,’ Julian grinned. ‘Two of them will wonder what’s going on. But one of them – our mole – will think that somehow their message got intercepted. He or she will worry that someone else in the office is definitely on to them. All three of them were in the office this afternoon so I know they’ve all seen the memo. Halle didn’t load up your program on Sarah and Ian’s PCs until just before we came home, so if either of them panicked and sent a message to Marcus Pardela, you should already have it with the other e-mails.’

I copied Sarah’s and Ian’s messages into two different directories, my heart racing.

‘Here goes!’ I said hopefully.

I checked Ian’s messages first and began to search through all the messages he’d sent out today. There was nothing out of the ordinary and certainly nothing to or about Marcus Pardela. Disappointed, I then went into Sarah’s e-mail account. I couldn’t believe she’d be the mole. She was always slagging off Shelby’s.