November (6 page)

Boges bolted to my side.

‘Dude, don’t do it! You need to stay alive more than you need to get away from the cops!’

He was probably right, but I’d already made my decision. Winter gasped as I leaned over the parapet to get a better look. Carefully, I stood up on the plant box in front of it. Between the
buildings
was a massive drop. If I missed, I’d end up down there, splattered all over the pavement.

‘Dude, don’t do it. Please,’ begged Boges.

‘Cal,’ Winter pleaded, ‘We’ll think of
something
else. There must be somewhere you can hide. Don’t try this. It’s too dangerous. You’ll be killed.’

Now I could hear the voices of the cops
coming
up the fire-escape.

‘If they catch me now, I’ll never get to the bottom of the Ormond Singularity. Anyway, it’s just as important that you two get out of here!
You can’t let the cops find you either! Don’t worry about me, get away while you can!’

Summoning every ounce of strength and
willpower
, I backed away from the edge until I was almost at the opposite side of the flat roof. Then I took off, running straight for the wall, as fast as I could!

I stepped up on the plant box with my left leg, then stepped up on the roof edge with my right, then launched myself into the air, clawing myself further and further along.

I wasn’t going fast enough! The roof of the other building was too far—I wasn’t going to make it!

Gravity took hold and my body started
free-falling
. All I could see was the gutter—my only hope. I reached out desperately for it. Behind me I heard Winter scream.

Incredibly, my fingers caught the gutter and my body swung down and slammed against the wall of the building. I looked up, legs dangling, and saw the metal already bending and buckling under my weight. I looked down and nearly puked on seeing how high I was.

‘Cal! The pipe!’ shouted Winter. ‘Use it to help you get up!’

I spotted the pipe on my right.

‘Just get away before
you’re
caught!’ I yelled back through gritted teeth.

I kicked my legs against the bricks and swung towards the pipe. I missed it.

I kicked out again.

This time I swung out further, and clamped down on the pipe with both of my feet. As soon as I had a good foothold, I slid my hands along the gutter until they were directly above me, then I pushed and hauled myself up and onto the roof.

I looked up at Winter’s building. I could see nothing, but I could hear the commotion as the SWAT team finally poured out onto the roof. I hoped like crazy that my friends had somehow escaped in time. If the cops discovered Boges and Winter’s connection to me, they’d both be in very serious trouble. I didn’t want to think about Sligo finding out.

Keeping low, I hurried over to the furthest side of the roof, relieved to see that the next building joined the one I was on. I dropped down onto its roof and kept running, past the air-conditioner housing and other pipes and fittings.

This building had a small access ladder
curving
over the edge of its roof. I climbed over and started my way down.

The ladder stopped just short of the first
floor. I’d jumped from one building to another, so dropping down one floor wasn’t about to stop me!

I landed hard, and looked around. Not too far away, sirens wailed. I could hear a helicopter overhead and realised that the police search would be fanning out all over this area.

My heart was still racing from the terrifying leap I’d pulled off. Fuelled with the adrenaline of both terror and elation, my running speed hit a high-octane gear. All I could think of was getting far away, as fast as I could.

I hurried on automatic, head down, avoiding eye contact, yet with every cell of my body alert to the slightest hint of danger. I hurried across roads, turned corners, ran up long streets and alleys. I didn’t care where I was going, just as long as I was getting away.

When I found myself hurrying past a familiar building, I slowed down to glance up—I was
running
past Ryan Spencer’s apartment block! I stopped in my tracks and turned back to the entrance, noticing a pair of elderly women
strolling
through the doors with shopping bags. Should I follow them in? I wondered.

A cop car suddenly cruising down the road
made the decision for me. I hurried through the entrance, behind the ladies, just as the doors were closing.

I ducked down, unnoticed, as the pair slowly trundled up the stairs. I took a few deep breaths and wondered whether this diversion was such a good idea.

As soon as the stairs were clear, I hurried up them, stopping outside Ryan’s door. It was slightly ajar, and a delicious smell was wafting out of the kitchen and into the stairwell. I gave it a gentle push and stepped inside.

‘That was quick,’ said a woman, leaning over the kitchen bench. She stood with her back to me near the sink, beating something in a large blue and white bowl. Without turning around, she spoke again. ‘Ryan, can you please hand me the milk? You can put everything else in the fridge.’

I froze. I didn’t know what to do!

‘Ryan?’ she repeated, back still turned.

I swung around as someone else barged in through the door behind me, carrying a bag of groceries.

Ryan Spencer!

At that moment, the woman in the kitchen casually turned around. She was about to say something, but then she saw the two of us
standing
together near the door. For a few seconds
she just stared at us, gaping wordlessly, looking from Ryan to me, then back again.

Then, her eyes rolled back into her head and her knees folded under her. In a slow and
graceful
movement, she collapsed onto the tiled floor, completely passed out.

‘Mum!’ cried Ryan, dumping the groceries and rushing to her side. ‘Quick, get some water,’ he said to me.

I grabbed a glass off the counter and filled it at the sink. I squatted down to join him on the ground, on the other side of Mrs Spencer’s body. Ryan dabbed a tea towel into the water and wiped his mum’s brow.

I quickly looked her over, checking her pulse and breathing.

‘She just fainted from shock,’ I reassured Ryan. ‘She’ll be OK in a moment. I didn’t mean to scare her—I just thought I’d come up and see if you were here.’

Ryan and I lifted his mum into a sitting
position
, leaning her up against the cupboards.

‘Thanks for your help the other night,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t have escaped without you.’

‘You don’t have to thank me,’ Ryan said, as his mum stirred slightly. ‘I gave them a run for their money—led them on for about fifteen
kilometres
, I reckon. Then I chucked your blazer,
ducked up a sneaky alley, lost them, then just walked home.’

‘But how come you helped me?’ I asked. ‘Every other time I’ve seen you, you’ve run from me.’

He was looking hard into my eyes. Was he seeing what I was seeing? It was like looking into a mirror, at my own bewildered eyes.

‘I read through your blog a little while ago. I’m not convinced you’re a bad guy. But why do
you
keep running?’ he asked. ‘Why don’t you just hand yourself in and prove that you’re
innocent
?’

‘There’s too much at stake right now. I can’t take the risk of being locked up—I have too much to do that depends on my freedom. And it’s not just the police who are after me …’

‘It’s been hard for me too, looking like you,’ said Ryan as he wet the tea towel and wiped his mum’s brow once more. ‘Everywhere I go the cops hassle me. Even my neighbours nearly handed me in last week, until my mum intervened and told them they were crazy. That’s why I spray the “No Psycho” tag all over the walls of the city. I’m sick of people thinking I’m you—it’s been going on for almost a year now.’

I took a look at the bus pass hanging from his belt. It looked brand new—a replacement for the one I’d stolen through his open window.

Ryan saw me looking at it and pointed to the photo on the pass. ‘See?’ he said. ‘That’s why they keep pulling me over. I don’t know why, but we’re unbelievably alike.’

It wasn’t his photo I was staring at.

‘Is that your birthday?’ I asked, amazed at the date on his pass.

‘Sure it is. The eleventh of November. Why? Don’t tell me it’s the same as yours?’

For a moment I was speechless. It was the repeated date from my blog!
11 November
!

‘No, I was born in July,’ I said, before bluntly asking, ‘Did you hack my blog?’

‘What?’
His face showed complete surprise. ‘What are you talking about?’ he asked. ‘I’ve never hacked anybody’s blog. Wouldn’t know how!’

Ryan’s mum moved her head from side to side and started murmuring.

‘Cal, I think you’d better go before she comes around. I don’t think she’s ready for this just yet,’ he said, gesturing from his face to mine.

I stood up. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, wondering how Ryan was going to explain me to his mum. ‘I hope she’s OK.’

‘Don’t worry, she’ll be fine. She’s never really admitted to seeing the similarities between us
before, but I think her opinion will change now that she’s seen us side-by-side.’

‘We’ll talk some other time,’ I called as I snuck out the door.

3 NOVEMBER

59 days to go …

‘Dude, we were freaking out when you took that jump!’ said Boges.

‘
I
was freaking out,’ I said. ‘I almost didn’t make it!’ I’d just called him from the beach—where I’d slept overnight—and I’d spent the last fifteen minutes telling him about how I got away and found myself facing Ryan Spencer’s mum in her kitchen. ‘So guess when Ryan’s birthday is?’

‘The same as yours?’ Boges asked, intrigued.

‘Nope. One more guess.’

There was only a second’s hesitation. ‘Eleventh of November?’

‘Eleventh of November.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Deadly. Straight away I drilled him on
hacking
my blog—but he seriously had no idea what I was talking about. Surely the dates are
connected
, but why would someone go to that length to cover my blog with it?’

‘I don’t know, dude. Someone wanted you to know about it.’

‘It doesn’t make sense. So tell me,’ I said, changing the subject, ‘how did you guys get away?’

‘Man, it’s quite a story. How about I meet you on the beach later—behind the old Seagull Café—and tell you all about it then?’

The rows of breakers, dim white moving lines rolling towards the sand, were lit by the tall lamp posts along the beachfront.

Boges and I were hidden in the shadows behind the closed and deserted café. Only a few people were strolling along the beach as Boges proceeded to describe to me how he and Winter had evaded the massive police search.

‘We were totally snookered. There was no way either of us was going to follow your lead and leap across buildings, but the cops were
swarming
up the stairs. We rushed back into the flat and started gathering up the drawings, notes—anything potentially incriminating—then Winter grabbed onto my hand and wrenched me back outside. I was like, “What are you doing? You’re leading us to them!” and she was like, “Stop
talking
and follow me!”. Then she dragged me out
the back to this metal box thing, kicked the lid off with her boots, then began lowering herself into it.’

‘Huh?’

‘It was an old laundry chute! She stopped for a second to tell me that I’d better jump in after her if I wanted to get away, then she let go of the sides and disappeared. She was gone in a flash! I heard a kind of whooshing noise and then a bit of an echoing thud a few seconds later!’

I tried imagining the scene.

‘Did you do it? Did you follow her? How far was the drop?’

‘It must have been over six floors! I didn’t want to do it, but by this time,’ Boges continued, ‘those big mean guys with helmets and riot sticks were pounding onto the roof. I didn’t have any choice. I heaved myself up, sucked in my
stomach
, and jumped in just like Winter had.’

Boges paused, shaking his head in disbelief. He put his hand gingerly on the left side of his forehead where I could see a bruise.

‘Dude, what a ride! I was free-falling for ages. I banged my head, I scraped my sides and tumbled out onto this pile of dusty, filthy old rags that might have been clothes when Captain Cook was a kid. Then when I looked up, I could see Winter a couple of metres away. She was sprawled on the
floor, picking leaves and spider webs out of her hair, grinning at me like a hyena.’

‘One of history’s great escapes,’ I said.

‘That was only the beginning. We weren’t out of trouble yet,’ he said, eyes as wide as saucers, making me glad I already knew the story had a happy ending. ‘So there we were in this black hole in the basement of the building, where no foot has stepped for about half a century, only to find that the door’s locked. It wouldn’t budge.’

‘Weren’t you worried the cops were going to storm in and find you?’

‘
I
was.’

‘What about Winter? If the cops found her, while searching for me, and decided to question her, Sligo would find out she’d been helping me. He’d want to kill her.’

‘I know, but Winter reckoned the entrance to the basement was completely overgrown with weeds. The door was outside the building, on the ground near the bins. It’s one of those trapdoor types. You know that spot?’

‘Yeah,’ I said, picturing the grassy area he was talking about. ‘I think so.’

‘She was sure they wouldn’t know the
basement
existed. We waited about an hour or so for the heat to die down outside before we started kicking up at the basement door, trying to
dislodge
it from its hinges. It wouldn’t move. I almost started shouting for help, before Winter pounced on me and covered my mouth to stop me. So she wanders off into the darkness and I’m standing there thinking it’s gonna be death by starvation, when I realise Winter’s climbing up on an upturned rubbish bin, and pulling herself back into the laundry chute!’

‘What?’

‘She calls out to me, “Don’t just stand there staring, come and give me a boost!”.’

‘That girl thinks she can do anything,’ I said, shaking my head, thinking of Winter and her determination to do even the most impossible things. ‘How long did she last up there?’

‘Dude,’ said Boges, before pausing. ‘It took her a while, but
she made it
.’

‘She made it? But you said the drop was about six floors! How could she have climbed back up? It was a laundry chute—she wouldn’t have had anything to grab onto!’

‘I don’t know, but that chick is amazing. Seriously. I helped her up and she just kinda dug her boots and her back into the walls of the chute, and pushed herself up, centimetre by centimetre. A few times she slipped a bit and lost some ground, but before I knew it the tunnel was clear and she was standing at the top and
shouting down to me, telling me to wait for her by the door.’

‘Unreal,’ I said, in awe again of Winter. She’d helped us out too many times to count. Risked her safety and her life. I owed her. Big time.

‘So did she get the door open?’

‘Yep, that took a while too, but she cleared the grass and cut the lock off with bolt cutters she found in the gardener’s shed. It felt good to be back on ground level.’

The air was still warm and smelled of salt and the sea, reminding me of the night I’d spent struggling on the upturned tinny, fighting off the sharks way back in January. In spite of
everything
that had happened, all our efforts, the way we’d solved most of the drawings, we were still pretty clueless.

‘It’s November,’ I said to Boges. ‘The Ormond Singularity runs out next month. We don’t even have the Riddle or the Jewel.’ I sat down on the stone steps leading onto the beach. ‘We have to get to Ireland somehow, and talk to the Keeper of Rare Books. Copies and photos will have to do.’

‘He told you he had to see the original Ormond Riddle manuscript.’

‘Boges, we don’t even know who has it. Even
Rathbone doesn’t know.’ I leaned against the railing. ‘The days are running out. We just have to plan our trip to Ireland and hope we luck onto the Jewel and the Riddle before it’s time to leave. I still have a gold stash, remember. Somehow I’ll use it to get a passport.’

We sat together in gloomy silence until Boges whacked me on the knee, getting to his feet. ‘I have things to do at home. Come on, let’s get going. The home of your ancestors awaits you.’

‘My ancestors?’

Boges jumped around like a gorilla, grunting and beating his chest.

‘You’re talking about the treehouse, right?’

‘Correct. I made a few adjustments to it this morning, in preparation for your visit. Follow me.’

‘So, what do you think?’ Boges asked, making himself comfortable on the treehouse bench. We’d climbed up the new rope he’d attached to the rear of the tree, and snuck in through the window in the back. Here, hidden among the dense foliage, far away from Luke Lovett’s house, the treehouse snuggled secretly, like a forgotten toy that had been left on the lawn so long that
the grass had grown right over it. I cautiously flashed my torch around.

Five years ago, I’d been able to stand up. Now, I had to bend down slightly to fit inside.

‘Look,’ said Boges, ‘even the carpet squares are still here. And the curtains. Not too shabby, either.’ He straightened some of the carpet on the uneven timber floor with his foot as he spoke. ‘And I added these,’ he said, pulling a couple of red cushions out from behind him on the bench. ‘There’s some food in that box, too.’