Burning Secrets (8 page)

Chapter 13

“W
E WERE WATCHING
the bonfire and she suddenly went really strange,” Fay explained breathlessly, as they hurried through the gardens towards the town square, where Louie had last been seen heading at a run.

“Strange like what?” Daniel asked, his heart thudding in protest. It was his fault: he should have been keeping an eye on her.
A bonfire of all things
.

“Her eyes were watering. I thought it was the smoke, but then I realised she was
crying.
” There was more than a hint of embarrassment in Fay's voice, as though she had caught Louie dribbling or wetting her knickers. “I asked her what was wrong and she said, ‘I can't breathe, I've got to get away,' and started shoving past people. Then she just ran right out of the park. I couldn't keep up with her.”

“You didn't say anything that upset her?” Ramsay asked.

“Of course not,” Fay insisted. “We were getting on OK, I thought.” She added, “I gave her some Leaf and she said it was disgusting and spat it into a tissue – but that was ages before.”

They finally reached the gates of the Centennial Gardens; beyond, the town square was lit up by colourful lanterns on every stall and the moving shapes of fluorescent glow-sticks. Manically cheerful Wurlitzer music was piping out of the speakers.

“So she just started crying and then ran off ?” said Daniel. This wasn't too bad or unusual. The only problem was how to find her. She'd never get home without him – she didn't have a clue about the buses and would never ask a stranger.

“Yes, crying,” said Fay in the same tone of mild disbelief. “Actual tears.”

There was no sign of Louie at the chestnut stall or on the benches around the stage or at any of the other places they had stopped. “We could get them to page her over the Tannoy,” Ramsay suggested.

Daniel shook his head. “She'd hate that. She'll be hiding away somewhere quiet, away from the noise. She sometimes gets these . . . er . . . panic attacks,” he said. “Especially in crowds.”

After twenty more minutes of searching, they found Louie sitting on a bench inside the beer tent, being comforted by Mrs Ivory. Someone had brought her a drink of hot non-alcoholic punch strongly flavoured with cinnamon and pepper. Daniel would have put money on Louie refusing to touch the stuff, but there she was, clutching the polystyrene cup in her skinny hands and sipping obediently at the dark steaming liquid.

“Sorry,” she said, turning a streaky face to Daniel. “I ruined your evening.”

“No you never,” he said, though he had just been thinking exactly that. He'd have to take her home now, instead of staying here longer with Ramsay. When he'd heard that James was no longer on the scene, the evening suddenly seemed full of promise. But now it was over. And the worst of it was, he should have seen it coming.

“It was that horse in the fire,” Louie quavered. “I could see its eyes looking at me while it was burning. It was horrible.”

Mrs Ivory gave Louie's shoulder a gentle squeeze with her black-gloved hand. “You felt a bit squished by the crowd, didn't you?” she said kindly. “But the good news is, this is the only night of the year when there's even a chance of finding a crowd on Wragge. So things will only get better.”

Louie smiled weakly at this attempt to jolly her up.

“I've said I'll give her a lift home whenever she's ready,” Mrs Ivory went on, addressing Daniel. “You too – if you like.” Her glance flicked towards Ramsay.

“I'm ready now,” said Louie.

“Er . . . well . . . thanks,” Daniel replied, churning with frustration and buried rage. It was only half past nine. The night had hardly started, but he couldn't let a virtual stranger take Louie home alone – right over to the other side of the island – when she was in a state. It wasn't the first sacrifice he'd made for his sister, and he didn't suppose it would be the last, but for some reason he was pierced by the unfairness of it.

“OK, I'll come,” he said, bitterly. Beside him he could sense Ramsay becoming very still.

“You wait here, my lovely,” Mrs Ivory instructed Louie, “while I bring the car up to the barrier.” She strolled out of the tent in the direction of the car park. Fay, smiling because the crisis was over, sat down alongside Louie. Daniel and Ramsay had been standing by the entrance to the tent during this discussion but now they stepped outside.

Manic fairground music was belting out from the speakers. A woman was walking amongst the crowd with a bunch of lit sparklers, handing them out left and right. It was the usherette from the cinema. Before he could refuse, she had pressed one into Daniel's hand and done the same to Ramsay.

“Well,” said Ramsay, to break the silence.

“Sorry I can't stay,” said Daniel. They stood there helplessly, hampered in their goodbyes. In spite of themselves, they couldn't quite help wafting the fizzing sparklers around.

“That's OK,” said Ramsay lightly. “The best of it's over, really.”

No it isn't
, thought Daniel. The best was still to come. He had imagined walking her all the way home in the darkness, stopping to kiss her at every gate and stile. His fantasies had taken no account of the distance or Fay or any other obstacle. “I could come back,” he said impulsively. “Once I've got Louie home. I'll walk back.”

“It's eight miles,” Ramsay laughed. “It'll all be finished.” She looked at her watch. “Mum and Dad are giving us a lift home at eleven.”

Daniel sagged, defeated. If she'd agreed to wait for him he would have run the eight miles, definitely. Across the square he could see Mrs Ivory reversing her car up to the line of traffic cones.

“We'd better go,” he said, pulling back the tent flap and beckoning to Louie.

“Call round some time,” Ramsay said in a rush, as he turned to leave. “I mean, if you're passing.”

“Definitely,” said Daniel.

“I mean, any time except two o'clock in the morning,” she called after him, in a voice both joking and not.

As Ramsay and Fay headed back up towards the heart of the party, and Louie and Daniel walked down to the car, his sparkler sputtered and died, giving off a gunpowder smell that he would ever after associate with disappointment.

Don't look round
, he told himself sternly, and then immediately did exactly that. He was rewarded with a view of Ramsay vanishing into the crowd without a backward glance.

A
LAN SHOWED ME
the rec room. We could use it during supervised free time. There was an ancient TV and PlayStation 2 bolted to metal brackets high on the wall; a pool table with a foot-long gash in the baize; an exercise bike and table football. All loose bits of equipment – cues, balls, remote handsets and the lame selection of PS2 games – were kept locked away in the office and had to be signed in and out. I wasn't looking forward to being in here with the others when they were armed with pool cues.

Outside there was a yard where you could kick a ball around. It was surrounded by a high wall – not so much to stop you getting out, Alan explained, as to stop people staring in. There was a basketball hoop fixed to the wall, so I asked if there was a ball. Alan didn't think so – Roach had kicked the last one out of the compound. But after tea – the last meal of the day, dished up at five o'clock, so you were starving again by nine – Alan said he'd found one in the office.

The others were crowding around the PlayStation arguing, so I went outside to shoot a few baskets. The ball had been over-pumped and had a sky-high bounce, and the net had been torn off the hoop, but practising shots took my mind off the caged-in feeling that had built up all day. When I looked at my watch ten minutes had passed – ten minutes of my stretch. Done.

Then Roach came out. He had a whole bunch of twitches and tics, like all his muscles were jumping. Even if Tyler-or-Taylor hadn't warned me I could see he was someone to avoid. He was the sort of person you'd imagine torturing animals for fun.

But avoiding people isn't an option in a unit of eight. He came and stood against the wall right under the basket, directly in my line of vision.

“Do you want a go?” I said and threw him the ball.

He spun it on his finger, then carefully and deliberately tossed the ball into the air and kicked it as hard and high as he could, so it sailed out of the compound. He smiled and went back indoors.

I shut my eyes and waited for my fists to unclench while red lights flashed behind my eyelids. I began to count down in thirteens from 1000: 987, 974, 961 . . .

I'd sworn to myself: while I was here I wouldn't let anything get to me. No matter what, I wouldn't retaliate or show any emotion. I'd just get through each day 119 times and then it would be over. If I felt myself losing it or welling up, I'd just do hard maths – it's impossible to concentrate on two things at once if one of them is maths.

Back inside everything was quiet: everyone banished to their rooms. Alan was in the rec room sweeping up glass. The argument had escalated – Warren had thrown a snooker ball through the TV screen. The wrecked TV was covered in a blanket, like a parrot's cage.

The night warden had a very deep posh voice. He called out goodnight before locking me in. As the key turned I felt a sudden wave of panic – it was the first time I really understood what I'd done. I had to take deep breaths to stop myself from battering at the door, yelling to be let out. The only way I could stand it was to tell myself the lock was there to keep the other nutters out. But I never got used to it. Not really.

I lay on the bed, listening to the swish of traffic on the bypass. I'd always assumed places like Lissmore would be miles from anywhere, like Dartmoor or Salisbury Plain. But it was slap in the middle of town just off a main road, surrounded by houses, shops, offices. Normal life was carrying on all around us.

I switched on my torch and combed the walls, picking out the photo of Chet as a puppy. My throat burned. 118 days to go.

Chapter 14

W
REN
C
OTTAGE WAS
in a Victorian terrace of school housing just beyond the playing fields on the road to Filey. Daniel had passed them on one of his first explorations of Stape, and been struck by the fact that all of the cottages were named after birds.

There was no car outside and no light on; the dark windows had a blank dead-eyed look. Daniel hardly needed to knock to confirm there was no one home, but did anyway, just to be sure. At this pressure the door swung open on the latch. Islanders never locked their doors, but this was taking things to extremes – besides, Helen Swift was a Londoner, and a paranoid one at that.

“Hello,” he called uncertainly into the hallway. “Helen?”

Silence.

Stepping into the front garden Daniel peered through the bay window into the room beyond. It was furnished simply, and immaculately tidy. No, not just tidy, Daniel thought, empty. Even his room at Lissmore hadn't been that bare. No pictures on the walls, no ornaments or books on shelves, no possessions, no clutter. Either Helen Swift lived like a monk, or she didn't live here.

Daniel hesitated on the doorstep with a sense of uneasiness, before sheer curiosity forced him inside.

He moved from room to room, tense and fearful, bracing himself for a shock. At the back of his mind lurked the morbid fear prompted by half-remembered films that he was going to stumble across Helen's body, bludgeoned to death or hanging from a rafter. But the house revealed no horrors, only signs of abandonment. In the upstairs bedroom the wardrobe stood open and empty, the bed stripped of sheets. There were balled-up tissues in the bin and cotton-wool pads smeared with make-up. On the back of the door hung a silver tasselled scarf which Daniel remembered Helen had been wearing in the music room at their first meeting. There were no personal belongings in the bathroom, but there was water in the shower tray and dried blobs of toothpaste in the washbasin.

Downstairs in the kitchen were more signs of recent habitation – a sink full of unwashed dishes, half a bottle of milk and a withered lettuce in the fridge. His anxiety had passed, but now he was left with questions unanswered, and no real idea what to do next.

He had to pass by the school on his way home, so he decided to try the music room, just in case he'd misunderstood Helen's instructions. He slipped in through the unmanned reception area, and made his way down the quiet corridors. The room was much tidier than last time, the tables cleared and books and instruments stacked in the cupboards. Through the windows he could see a hockey game taking place on the floodlit all-weather pitch. Dark clouds were rolling in from the west and a few raindrops streaked the glass. He'd not been there more than a minute when he heard brisk female footsteps approaching.
At last
, he thought, standing up – he wasn't leaving without a full explanation.

Mrs Ivory put her head around the door and gave a start of surprise to see Daniel. “Oh,” she said. “You made me jump.”

“Sorry,” said Daniel. “I was . . . just waiting for Miss Swift. For a piano lesson,” he added.

“Oh?” Mrs Ivory raised a neat eyebrow. “When was that arranged?”

“Last week?” said Daniel.

“Ah. Well, you're not the only one looking for her. But unfortunately she seems to have gone in rather a hurry.”

“Gone?”

“Left the island. She was on the lunchtime ferry.”

“Oh,” said Daniel, frowning. “Is she coming back?”

“Apparently not. We've been left in the lurch, as they say.” Mrs Ivory gave him a palms-up shrug. “She didn't mention anything to you about leaving?” she asked as an afterthought.

“No,” Daniel replied. For a moment he considered telling Mrs Ivory what Helen had told him about not really being a teacher. Mrs Ivory had been kind to Louie, and seemed altogether more rational and reliable than Helen. Yet for some reason he kept quiet. If Helen had done something criminal, he'd have to come clean eventually, but for now he preferred to keep his secrets to himself.

“Well, I'll have to start looking for another music teacher. What a pity. I thought she was a real find.” At the door she turned. “How's your lovely sister, by the way? She seemed such a troubled soul.”

“Oh, she's OK,” Daniel mumbled. He wasn't going to start blabbing about Louie's problems to Mrs Ivory.

“There must be something we can do for her. It's a pity she doesn't come over to the school sometimes.”

Daniel shrugged, refusing to be drawn into a discussion about their lack of schooling.

“Is there something she particularly misses from home?”

Daniel shook his head and then remembered. “Diet Coke,” he said with a grin. “She misses her Diet Coke.”

Mrs Ivory wrinkled her nose. “Well, it wouldn't be my choice, but I'll see what I can do.”

She left him puzzling over the mysterious departure of Helen Swift. Surely she could have left some kind of message? He had been in all morning: she could have called at The Brow on her way to the ferry – it was a bit of a detour, but she owed him that at least.

Outside the rain had stopped and there was a break in the clouds before the next storm came across. If he ran all the way home he might just avoid a soaking. At the door he gave a last backward glance at the empty music room, and stopped as something caught his eye. On the piano a piece of new sheet music had been left out on the stand. It was the Rachmaninov prelude Helen had heard him trying to play from memory the first time they had met. Perhaps she'd left it out for him. It wouldn't be much use to her if she'd really gone for good, he reasoned, so he might as well take it. As he picked it up something slipped from between the pages and on to the floor. A piece of cardboard about the size of a biscuit, roughly torn from a box – the same piece, Daniel was sure, that Helen had taken from the wheelie bin. On one side was a handwritten mobile phone number, on the other, a printed logo. It had been too dark that night to see the logo properly but now he recognised it: a crooked smile. Just like the one on the blue drawstring bag.