Kisses for Lula (30 page)

‘You’ve figured out it was Ben Latter,’ stated Jack, sounding a little more awake.

My face flushed. ‘You know?’

He sighed. ‘I’m sorry. I know you liked him.’

‘No, I’m sorry,’ I said, my face going even hotter. ‘I don’t know what I saw in him. Or why I thought it was you lurking around the place.’

‘Not many people dislike me as intensely as you do,’ said Jack. ‘I reckon it’s because I was chivalrous walking you home, and you’re one of those bra-burners who wants to be independent, so I stepped on your toes.’

‘No!’ I said. ‘Though I burn bridges and boats, I’ve been reliably informed that I am not a bra-burner.’

Jack snorted, unimpressed.

‘Look,’ I said, digging my nails into my palm, ‘I am really sorry, and I hope you can take that into account when I ask you for a very big favour.’

‘You’re not serious.’

A thought occurred to me. ‘Actually,
I’m
going to be doing
you
a favour. Consider it my balm for your wounded soul.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘We’ve figured out who’s involved in the disappearance of the Coven’s Quarter documents.’

‘Oh?’

‘But the police aren’t interested. They’ve got video footage implicating Michael Burdon from the library and another man, probably from Harrow Construction, but they can only analyse it on Tuesday.’

‘So?’

‘So, Monday afternoon, after the final hearing at the civic offices, the bulldozers move in. Really Coven’s Quarter is all about the stones, isn’t it? It’ll take an hour at most to rip up thousands of years of history.’

‘Okay. What do you want me to do?’

‘Well, there’s a meeting tomorrow morning in the uni library’s rare-documents room. Mike Burdon will be handing the papers over to someone – I’d bet anything it’s Harry Harrow himself. We need you to tape the whole thing, with sound, for evidence. Nine o’clock. Please?’

‘I think the police should be involved.’

‘They
won’t
be involved.’

‘Do you think that’s the mayor’s influence?’

‘Dunno, could be. A bit weird that they can’t get a wiggle on to analyse the tapes until Tuesday.’

‘My sister’s mother-in-law-to-be wouldn’t be implicated in that, surely?’

‘Sergeant Trenchard! Brilliant!’ I cried. ‘I’ll call Arns right now! Why didn’t I think of that before?’

‘D’you still need me?’ asked Jack. ‘The police will probably –’

‘Please!’ I said, then gritted my teeth. ‘Can you be there at, say, seven a.m.?’

‘I’d better get some sleep.’

‘Great. Thank you, Jack.’

Back in the kitchen we laid plans, Mr Kadinski offering ideas too, and by the time three a.m. rolled round, Arns and his mum had been called and another camera sourced.

We’d be ready if we could just wake up in time.

Chapter Twenty-five

Waking up was not a problem.

My eyes batted open through a blur of sleepiness to see a walking stick gently tapping my shoulder.

‘It’s six thirty,’ said Mr Kadinski, fully dressed. ‘You ready to rumble?’ I groaned and rolled out of bed. ‘See you in the car,’ said Mr K, and he let himself out quietly.

I checked the end of my bed, then looked around the room. Uh-
huh
! So. No presents. Right. Well. Okay, I couldn’t help observing that it was my sixteenth birthday, I was still jinxed and unkissed and there was not a gift in sight to ease the pain.

With true secret-agent superspy grit and determination I put this from my mind, threw a toothbrush round my mouth, and scrambled into stretchy clothes and rubber-soled shoes. I found Mum at the wheel of the Renault outside, engine running, with Mr K in the back seat. A small dark rectangular object lay in a clump of weeds on the edge of the drive. What was it? I scooped it up before diving into the car.

We took off with a roar, and ate miles. (Of which there are few in Hambledon.)

‘We’ll have to park at the sports complex,’ yelled Mr Kadinski to Mum.

‘Good idea!’ she called back.

The sports complex was a pain to get to because you had to drive all the way round the edge of campus to find the entrance, but on foot it was a two-minute walk through to the library.

Sinking back into the seat, I looked closely at the object I’d picked up.

‘Ah,’ said Mr Kadinski, looking over his shoulder. ‘A Dictaphone.’

‘Right,’ I said, wondering if it were Dad’s or Pen’s. I pressed
PLAY
and there was a click and whirr that was instantly recognisable. I switched it off quickly as the memory slotted into place – it was the sound from Ben’s chest when we’d hugged. The sound, too, of that silhouette speaking into his machine in the workshop. He must have dropped it last night. This could be his, with all his invasive comments on my life carefully recorded for scientific analysis.

I knew if I swallowed, if I blinked, if I breathed, I would cry. Last night had been such a rollercoaster that I’d not had a chance to think properly about Ben Latter. The evening with him had been so wonderful and – without the moments of Mum and Dadness at the restaurant, oh, and that Skinny Sue waitress – I knew that in one short-lived evening I had
moved from a nostalgic
I’ve always loved you
to a
Wow, I’m really crazy about you
. It had been an amazing feeling. Even though it had lasted a few hours only, now that it was gone it felt like it had left a big hole in my chest.

A hole in my sixteen-year-old chest.

Listening to whatever was on that tape wouldn’t be news, but it could hurt, and it would make a badly bad birthday an irretrievably bad
bad
day. Taking a shaky breath, I dropped the Dictaphone out of the car window as we roared into Albert Avenue, letting the cold, noisy air blast my flushed face.

Mum drove fast, and I’d barely got it together as we pulled into the sports-complex car park.

We hurried down the path to the library – well, Mum and I did, but Mr Kadinski just seemed to lengthen his stride. When we got to the front door, Jack was talking in a low voice with Arns, Mona and Sergeant Trenchard. There were bags at his feet that he was pointing to, while the others nodded, looking impressed.

Arns and Mona grinned a dozy hello, while Jack gave me a curt nod, and Mum a polite smile.

‘Thanks for coming, everyone,’ whispered Mum.

‘It
is
two hours till they get here, right?’ asked Sergeant Trenchard, looking suddenly alarmed at Mum’s skulking behaviour.

‘Yes, nine a.m.,’ whispered Mum. ‘Don’t know why I’m whispering.’

She unlocked the door to let us into the main foyer. I introduced everyone, and Mum led the way up the stairs to her department, explaining that it was quickest to take the fire-escape route from here to the rare-documents room. Her office door had been repaired, all the desks neatly straightened, the police tape taken down and fingerprint powder gone.

‘Wow,’ I said. ‘Back to normal, Mum.’

‘Nearly,’ she said, and pointed at her door.

I squinted.

‘Is that a fen raft spider?’ gasped Jack, lowering a bag on to one of the desks and unzipping frantically.

‘Oooh, he’s back,’ I said, catching sight of a dark circle of arachnid on the bottom panel of Mum’s office door. ‘How’re we going to catch him again, Mum?’

‘You caught him before?’ Jack’s voice sounded strangled.

‘Let’s not get distracted,’ cautioned Sergeant Trenchard.

‘Let’s not,’ agreed Mr Kadinski. ‘But we do have a little time. A fen raft spider is very rare. You know about them, Jack?’

‘Oh, yes. Year ten biology project. It
is
very rare. The zoo department would pay a lot for this guy, and I’d love to get a few shots of him before we catch him. Won’t take a minute – if no one minds?’

Jack pulled out a small camera from the bag and unclipped a lens cap from a big zoom. He put his eye to the eyepiece and pressed a few buttons. ‘Our shadows are on the glass of the door. Could everyone hunker down a little? And if you could keep absolutely quiet, so I’ve got less sound to edit out later.’

We did what we were told and I watched Jack move at a crouching prowl towards the office door. Everything he did had a liquid ease about it and all of us were mesmerised. You could have heard a pin drop. Which is why the sound of the library front door opening was perfectly audible, even though it was quietly done. The
click click
of a woman’s heels followed, hurrying across the foyer, up the stairs. I looked at Sergeant Trenchard in a panic and saw that everyone else was too. She put a finger to her lips and bounced both palms close to the floor, mouthing,
stay down
.

Someone walked over to a desk and opened a few drawers. Papers were flipped and riffled. Then came the sound of a phone receiver being lifted and the keypad tapped.

‘Hello?’ It was Tweedy Mabel.

I looked at Mum incredulously. She looked bemused. Jack turned in the direction of Mabel’s position and rested his camera on the desk he was hiding behind. I watched in amazement as he angled the little view screen down and sank to his knees, eyes on the image of Mabel.

‘Well, I’ve just come in, but it’s obvious there’s no one
here.’ Mabel sounded a little snippy. ‘That’s not necessary, Michael. There are no cars in the campus car park or the library car park, and the front door was locked.’ Mabel stopped speaking and I could hear that she was fidgeting with papers on her desk. ‘I don’t want to wait down there! I can see everything from the balcony up here. If I wait down there, Campus Security might see me sitting at the front desk through the glass! That makes no sense.’

Another pause.

‘Sit still. You want me to sit still for two hours.’

Quiet again. I was terrified Jack’s machine would beep or something, and this whole exercise would prove fruitless.

‘Fine, fine,’ said Mabel. ‘I’ll wait down there. Will you call on the mobile or main line? . . . Okay, I’ll take it off night service . . . Are you sure the Coven’s Quarter documents are still there? I wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of Harry Harrow, Michael. You know the Setting Sun fire last night was all about poor old Mr Kadinski, don’t you?’

Goosebumps crawled out all over my body. I glanced at Mr K and saw his face was still completely expressionless.

Then Mabel tittered. ‘Yes, I’m looking forward to a
special
thank you, Michael. From you personally, big boy.’ She giggled again and I closed my eyes. The image of Stinky Mike thanking Tweedy Mabel in his own sweaty way was truly nauseating.

When Tweedy Mabel had scurried downstairs, Mr K
turned to Mum with a question in his eyes. She nodded and, bent over, made her way to the fire-exit doors at the back of the office. Arns and Mona followed, hand in hand. I brought up the rear, leaving Jack to retrieve his camera and bags. When we were halfway down the stairs I realised Jack still wasn’t behind me, so I stopped and listened. Just the barest whisper of footfalls from the five people ahead of me. I turned, made my way back up the stairs and looked through the fire-exit doors to see Jack easing the huge spider into a clear document filing box. It scurried up the side at incredible speed, but he dropped the lid on top and clipped it closed, totally in control. He saw me looking through the door and nodded coolly.

Minutes later we’d caught up with everyone else, me carrying the biggest spider on the planet in the plastic box. Mum was letting us into the hermetically controlled basement safe that was the library’s rare-documents room.

The door closed behind us with a hiss and the silence was disturbed only by a quiet
tick tick tick
of a barometer-type instrument mounted in a glass case on the wall. Mum looked at it nervously. ‘We’re probably going to upset the temperature,’ she said softly. ‘Seven bodies under stress.’

‘Why are you and Mona here?’ I asked Arns suddenly.

‘Same reason you are,’ said Arns. ‘Mum can’t trust her police officers – someone has kept Mr K’s video clip very
quiet and she thinks the files have probably been deleted. It’s up to us trustworthy civilians. She’ll only call for backup when we have the evidence we need.’

‘Jack phoned me last night,’ said Mona. ‘This morning, I mean. Asked me if I could hold a camera for him.’

Hn. So much for me not disturbing everyone.

Arns leaned over to ask me something. I knew he’d want to know whether there’d been romance with Ben Latter, so I moved quickly to where Mr Kadinski was examining the central area. He was pointing to the book stacks looming up on either side and discussing where best to position microphones and cameras with Jack. It was chilly in there and I was glad to have my fleecy top.

‘I wonder where Mike hid the documents,’ I said. ‘If he starts hunting around the book stacks, we’ll all be seen straight away.’

‘Good point, Tallulah,’ said Mr Kadinski.

Jack groaned. ‘Is this all pointless?’

Everyone stopped what they were doing, and Sergeant Trenchard said, ‘I need to make a few calls.’ She headed towards the stairs where she’d have more hope of reception.

‘Course it’s not pointless,’ said Mum. ‘It’s a bit of a gamble but . . .’ She scurried down the central area, and fetched a long ladder on wheels from the far end. ‘Mike’s been tracing the Duchess of Cornwall’s family tree,’ she called back to us, ‘and we were lucky enough to have letters
from Camilla’s great-aunt to the Cathedral office to work from.’ The ladder glided soundlessly across the floor in front of her. She stopped and checked a list of numbers and keywords stuck to a vertical strut of the book stack. ‘Now where is it . . .’ She started climbing. I checked my watch. 7.42. No rush. Mum stopped, and I could see by the way her arm jerked up to the shelf that she was suddenly stressed. ‘It’s not here!’