The Castle

A MESSAGE FROM CHICKEN HOUSE

I
often have dreams about stowing away – or hiding in secret places in boats, castles or dark tunnels. But I would never have the real-life courage to follow Sophia Bennett's awesome heroine into this nail-biting thriller, as she squeezes herself into and out of the tightest spots to find out the truth about her family.

I think the best adventures are funny and clever too – and maybe a bit romantic. This is one of the very best adventures!

B A R R Y   C U N N I N G H A M

Publisher
Chicken House

Contents

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Three

Thirty-Four

Thirty-Five

Thirty-Six

Thirty-Seven

Thirty-Eight

Thirty-Nine

Forty

Forty-One

Forty-Two

Forty-Three

Forty-Four

Forty-Five

Forty-Six

Forty-Seven

Forty-Eight

Forty-Nine

Fifty

Fifty-One

Fifty-Two

Fifty-Three

Fifty-Four

Fifty-Five

Fifty-Six

Copyright

To my father, Ray, who always knows the right way to go.

Prologue

Today, while nobody was watching, the prisoner gave me a special message for the girl. I must repeat it exactly, so I will say it many times in my head so I do not forget.

He did not tell me what they will do if they find her. He did not need to – I already know.

ONE

W
hat is wrong with this picture?

It's Saturday afternoon. We're in the small, ancient church of St Thomas the Martyr in Winchelsea, where my granny does the flowers, and where I was christened fourteen years ago.

I'm in a satin dress. An old-fashioned bridesmaid's dress with a sash. It's apricot satin, apparently. Or peach. Some soft fruit or other. And it comes down to my ankles. Did I mention the sash? There are no words.

Sitting to my right are three tall blonde girls, also dressed à la fruit. Somehow, they look gorgeous. They're trying to pretend I'm not here. At the top of the aisle, my mother is
standing next to the blonde girls' father, who is Rupert, Mum's boyfriend. Fiancé. About-to-be-husband. She's looking lovingly into his eyes.

The vicar is saying, ‘If anyone present knows a reason why these persons may not lawfully marry, they must declare it now.'

And about half the congregation are casting sideways glances in my direction. Because they know that I, for one, can think of one teeny little reason why these persons may not lawfully marry: my mother still happens to be married to my father. Which means she could end up in jail one day, when Dad comes home.

And THAT is what is wrong with this picture. Although the peach satin comes a close second.

But I promised I'd be good today. So I look up at the beautiful stained-glass window of a knight rising to heaven, which I know so well from endless Christmases and Sunday mornings spent in this place, and I keep my peace. If you can call it peace. Personally, that's not how I'd describe it.

Once the ‘declare it now' moment has passed, a sigh of relief goes round the congregation:
The loopy daughter didn't mess it up for her mother.
The vicar smiles and carries on with the ceremony. Mum and Rupert are holding hands now. Eugh.

The tall boy on my right slips his hand reassuringly around mine. He knows how hard this is for me, and how brave I'm being. I think it's brave anyway. Maybe I'm just being stupid to go along with it all. This wedding is probably illegal (look up ‘bigamy' in the dictionary: bad thing), but it's what Mum wants.

The boy is Luke McCrae, my best friend from Dad's old
army days. He looks pretty good in his dark suit, with his hair gently curling over his collar. He squeezes my hand gently, three times, while I hold my breath and say nothing. I'm counting up to a hundred in sevens in my head, to take my mind off things.

‘Good girl,' he whispers, lifting his left arm out of its crutch to ruffle my hair.

Yes. Today I'm being a good girl. Mum thinks of herself as a recently bereaved widow, and that's tough. Rupert has indeed been very supportive – rushing over to be by her side the moment we got the news about the so-called bomb that supposedly killed my father in Baghdad.

Rupert's broody and good-looking, like a Brontë hero, and it isn't exactly Mum's fault that she let her hormones run away with her. We studied it in biology, but she just got antsy when I tried to explain it to her. She thinks this is true love. She wants a nice, romantic wedding and a honeymoon in the Caribbean. I want a quiet life.

‘And do you, Isabelle Maria Henrietta, take this man, Rupert Simon . . .'

The hush of the congregation is suddenly shattered by very loud music. I recognise it straight away: Roxanne Wills singing ‘Walk Away' – her club hit from a couple of years ago. It's coming from one of the front rows. The vicar looks up. We all glance round.

Walk away, uh-huh, don't look back

Walk away down a different track

We look up and down. The eight-year-old on the opposite aisle wiggles her hips to the music. From the front row, my grandmother's furious stare could cut the wedding cake all by itself.

Walk away, uh-huh, he's no good

Walk away like you know you should

It wails on and on and nobody stops it. The horrible truth sinks in. A certain bridesmaid realises that her phone is going off in her bag. When she looks down, she can actually see the bag vibrating at her feet. She simply can't be seen to lean forward and pick it up at this crucial moment, and so admit she was the one who chose this ringtone. The best she can do is to manoeuvre her peach satin scarf on top of it with her shoe, while trying to maintain a look of innocent bemusement like everyone else.

Eventually the vibrating stops and Roxanne Wills goes silent. Unlike Luke McCrae, who is sobbing by my side. No, wait – his shoulders are heaving, but that noise is actually suppressed giggles. Go, Luke. Way to be a friend.

‘I can't believe you did that!' he mouths at me, while the vicar quickly recovers and gets on with the vows.

‘I didn't! I didn't do anything!'

That's the whole problem, not that anyone will ever believe me. I was so busy stressing about Mum and the wedding and the dress (mine, not hers – Mum adores hers), and not saying anything and being good, that I didn't even think about turning my phone off. Besides, who would be calling me right now? Half my family are here; Dad's parents died years ago; and all my school friends know I'm busy at my mother's wedding, and so now is not a good time, actually.

As soon as the vows are over, Mum whips round and gives me a look that makes Granny's cake-knife stare seem positively friendly. I put on my
sorry, big-time accident, sorry
face. Honestly! I'm trying
so hard
today. Surely I deserve just a bit of credit?

Finally, the organ strikes up something old and loud while
Mum and Rupert head off towards the ancient tombs at the side of the church for the signing of the register. The congregation starts up a steady hum of its own, chatting about how lovely Mum looks in her vintage lace, and how well she's bearing up after . . . well . . . 
you know . . .
And wasn't it dreadful when that phone went off? Talking of which, Luke leans across and surreptitiously pulls it out of my bag.

‘D'you want me to check it for you?'

‘No.
So
no. It's probably just someone trying to sell me insurance. Just turn it off. Please.'

He presses the button and holds it down. Just for a moment, I wonder if the call was from Dad. It's a hope I'm learning to crush, but every time something unusual happens I can't help wondering if it was Dad-related. I know he wasn't killed by that bomb, but I keep asking myself where he really is. Will he suddenly show up on our doorstep one day? Or randomly call me on a Saturday afternoon during Mum's wedding . . .?

No. He wouldn't do that – of course he wouldn't. But somebody did, and the timing was
weird
. It has to be a wind-up. I check around the church. Has somebody here called me deliberately to make Roxanne go off at precisely that moment?

The gorgeous blondes are chatting among themselves and paying me no attention (as usual). I don't think it was them. And I honestly can't imagine people like my Great-Uncle Alastair and my second cousin Emily hate me that much. Or know my ringtone. Or even my number. I can only assume it was a random joke.

Ha ha.
So
funny. Really loving my life right now.

TWO

‘
I
t wasn't my fault!' I repeated for the tenth time.

‘Then whose fault was it?' Granny huffed. By now, we were back at her hotel for the reception. She and my grandad run a place called the Smugglers' Inn in Rye. In Georgian times real smugglers used the bar as their head-quarters, sitting with loaded pistols on the table as they made their plans to rob ships in the English Channel. Right now, if Granny had been standing there with a loaded pistol she couldn't have looked any more hostile.

‘It was an accident,' I tried to explain. ‘A coincidence . . . I don't know . . .' I still hadn't heard the message. I couldn't bear to listen.

Granny pursed her lips. ‘Someone just happened to call during your mother's vows?'

‘Yes!'

‘And you just
happened
to have picked that ringtone?'

‘Yes! Yes!' I could feel tears pricking and blinked them quickly away. That ringtone was special to me. It reminded me of Dad's last visit, when we danced round the kitchen to the song, shaking our booties and doing our diva faces. It had nothing to do with Mum, or this stupid wedding.

‘Have you apologised to her, Peta?'

‘Several times,' I muttered.

‘Well, you might as well make yourself useful,' Granny decided. ‘Go and find a tray of canapés in the kitchen. And when you're done, you can take round refills of champagne. We could do with some extra hands.'

I often helped out and usually I liked it, but today I didn't want to be The Girl Whose Father Died In A So-Called Bomb Last Year. It was the pity stares that killed me, but I found they were slightly easier to take from behind a tray of mini fruit tarts and sticky choux buns. That way, I could focus on the food and pretend I couldn't hear the repeated snatches of conversation as I went by:

‘Poor Isabelle. She's been
so brave
. They say Peta never got over the shock of the news. She refuses to accept it, even now . . .'

‘It happened a lot after 9/11, you know. Unless they see the body, some people just won't believe their loved one has gone. It's very sad. She's in therapy, of course.'

‘Thank goodness. That ringtone! You can tell it was deliberate. She's quite a handful, I'm told . . .'

So not true! You'd think it would be good to have a daughter who's not grief-stricken the whole time. I wasn't ‘a
handful' – just optimistic. I believed in my dad, and a long time ago, Mum used to, too.

I wasn't in denial about Dad being dead. He was a soldier for most of my life and I'd spent all that time hearing about friends' parents dying or being injured in a war zone. If Dad had been serving in Afghanistan when the bomb news came, I'd have believed it completely, but he was out of the army by then. He was working an IT adviser. How boring was that?

Also, Dad had a sixth sense for danger. He was much too clever to be caught out by a home-made device hidden under a vehicle, which is what they said had killed him. Goodness knows what was in that urn of ashes they sent us. My bet was stray dog and bits of old seat belt. When a big bomb goes off, there's not that much to scrape up so they gather what they can. People say I'm avoiding reality when it comes to what happened in Iraq, but believe me, I'm not. I've looked into it. A lot.

Out in the courtyard, seagulls wheeled overhead and an old school friend of Mum's lunged forward and grabbed a bun from my tray. I made a mental note not to come back to her with champagne refills: she seemed to have had quite a few already. She gave me the full-on pity stare.

‘Poor, poor Peta,' she slurred, scrunching up her eyes in sympathy. ‘You must be feeling so
awful
.'

‘Well, I'm . . .'

‘But that's the army for you. Terrible things happen in war.'

‘Dad wasn't
in
the army when it happened. That's sort of why . . .'

‘Aren't you lucky that your mum found happiness?'

‘Erm . . .'

‘You can see they're made for each other. Isabelle and
Rupert. Rupert and Isabelle. Isn't it wonderful? D'you think they'll have
children
, Peta darling?
Together?'

I took advantage of the temporary silence as she stuffed her mouth with pastry.

‘Sorry. Somebody over there needs more cake. Got to go.'

The summer sun beat down. Soon it would be the school holidays. Just Mum, me, Rupert and the perfect blondes. I looked desperately around for a friendly face, and caught sight of Luke across the courtyard. He'd been captured by two of Rupert's elderly relatives, who were clearly commiserating with him about his crutches. He caught my eye and smiled.

I'd known Luke since our first year in primary, when we'd met at Buckingham Palace. Our dads were both getting medals that day – his for being a top bomb-disposal expert and mine, well, mine for doing lots of secret army stuff that nobody talked about. If Dad could defend his comrades through five ambushes behind enemy lines, the least I could manage was getting rid of the remaining six or seven pastries. I took a deep breath and upped the wattage of my smile.

‘Can I tempt you?' I asked the elderlies, joining Luke and offering my tray around. For a moment, they were distracted by food, and admiring my dress, because they thought ankle-length peach satin was absolutely appropriate for a fourteen-year-old girl. As the pity stares began to emerge, it was Luke who rescued me.

‘Dad!' he called out, grabbing my elbow and pulling me away.

His dad, not mine. I still got a strange, crazy pang of jealousy whenever I heard the word out loud. Sergeant McCrae and a few of Dad's other old army friends were sneaking inside. They were here today because they were friends of Rupert's too. It's beyond awkward when one of
your dad's old officers starts dating your mother. It was good to see them, though.

‘Luke!' Sergeant McCrae called back with a grin. ‘Don't tell on us. Please?'

‘Aw,' says one of the others, ‘let him join us, Jock. Boy needs a break from the laydeez.'

No doubt they were heading for the Pool Room (snooker, not swimming, though guests at the inn were often confused). They'd be secretly off to drink whisky and smoke out of the window like naughty schoolboys. They'd want to avoid any talk of children, schools and wedding outfits, and reminisce instead about incredibly stupid things they had done in incredibly dangerous situations, usually in war zones. I'd been sitting at their feet listening to these conversations since I was tiny.

‘Can I come too?' I asked eagerly.

Sergeant McCrae looked me up and down, taking in the tray, the full peach-satin scenario, the freshly straightened hair, the lip gloss Mum made me wear.

‘That'll be grand, Peta,' he said. There was an awkwardness to his voice that was full of what happened to Dad. Not as bad as the pity stare, but close. And there was something else. It was to do with my dress and my hair and my all-round general girl-ness. ‘Tell you what, we could do with some decent sandwiches. Why don't you see what you can rustle up for us?'

Rustle up?

For a moment, I stared back at him with my mouth wide open.
Rustle. Up?
This was the twenty-first century. Or had I just time-travelled back to when the smugglers used this place? Just because I was wearing lip gloss, it didn't mean I couldn't handle stories about near-death parachuting accidents, or the day Dad had to disguise himself as a bush and a
pack of stray dogs peed on him, or Jock McCrae's famous party trick of using his prosthetic legs as pool cues. But he was already wheeling himself down the corridor without me.

Luke gave me a rueful smile and went off to join them. He knew it wasn't fair, but the chance of listening to some war stories was too good to miss.

That was it. Day over. Sorry, Dad, but there's only so much I can take. I bet
you'd
have struggled with those stray dogs if you'd been doing it in peach satin.

It was the stupid dress's fault. I hated dresses. I hated peach. I hated silk sashes and net petticoats and being a bridesmaid, when Mum shouldn't have been marrying at all. I dumped the tray in the kitchen and fled up the narrow back stairs of the inn, making for the top-floor flat where my grandparents lived.

Mum and I been staying here since the ‘bomb' and I had Mum's old room, under the eaves. Its low, sloping walls were covered with pictures from her childhood. As I ripped the dress off and started digging around for my jeans, I checked out happy pictures of growing-up Mum with her pony, her little sister Eliza, her early, nerdy, spotty boyfriends, and then the confident, good-looking one, who was fifty times better than all the others put together, and whose straight eyebrows and slate-grey eyes matched the ones I saw in the mirror when I dragged on a T-shirt, rubbed off the lip gloss and mussed up my hair.

Mum and Dad fell for each other when they were teenagers and ran off to Brighton to get married, because they couldn't wait. Mum wore jeans and the wedding ring came from a stall at the Flea Market. I came along soon after and the three of us . . . we were It, the Unit, everything.

Dad was a hero. He'd fought in three wars, including one when he was not so much older than me, and won the Military Cross for what he did in those ambushes. It was hard not talking about him at school. ‘What does your dad do?' ‘He manages an office. What does yours do?' ‘He's a soldier.' But what I really meant was, ‘He saves the world. Like James Bond. Every day.'

How could Mum fall in love with Rupert? How could anyone do that twice? And having more
children
with him? His perfect daughters were bad enough: Damaris, Davina and Desdemona, collectively known as the Darling Ds. The thought of more of them made me shiver.

If Dad could see me now, those eyebrows would be frowning. I knew I should be sucking up more pity stares, not slumping to the floor with my head on my knees and tears streaming down my face. Worse still, I could hear Granny calling for the bridesmaids to come forward for more photos. People would be looking round to see where I was. They'd assume I was being ‘a handful'. Maybe I was.

I reached across for my hideous peach satin bag, and got out my phone to listen to that message from the church at last. As I pressed the button to turn it back on, the door creaked and I leapt to my feet.

‘Coming, Granny.'

But it wasn't Granny. It was Mum. Looking absolutely beautiful in her short lace dress and heels. And not incandescently angry any more. Just sad.

‘Here you are!' she said. ‘I've been looking for you. I'm about to get changed before we go, and I wanted a quick chat.'

I eyed her nervously. I'd apologised at least six times for the phone call. What else could I do?

‘Don't worry,' she said, plonking herself down on the bed,
edging my sleeping cat along and patting the place next to her. ‘I don't want to go away for two weeks and leave you like this.'

‘Like what?' I perched uncomfortably between her and Lacy, the cat.

‘All wound up and miserable. I just want you to know how much I love you, darling. And Rupe does too.'

Rupe. She called him ‘Rupe'. I tried hard not to roll my eyes. Not hard enough, though.

‘He does. Really,' Mum sighed. ‘And most importantly, Dad loved you. More than you'll ever know. And, darling . . .' She bit her lip, working out what to say. ‘I know this conversation is hard for us, but one day you'll learn to accept that he's gone. I know it doesn't feel real, but one day it will.'

I gritted my teeth. We hadn't talked about Dad properly for a while, what with the wedding and everything, and I really wished we weren't doing it now, just before she went away.

‘He loved you so much. If there was any way for him to come back to you, he'd have done it by now. You must know that, precious girl.'

Her voice was soft and gentle, but the words still felt like sandpaper.

‘I . . . I don't know,' I whispered. I had lots of reasons for believing that Dad was still out there, but . . . why didn't he come home?

‘Listen,' she went on, ‘he had his odd ways, and goodness knows we had our problems, but . . .'

‘What problems?'

‘Nothing for you to worry about. I just want you to know that it's going to be OK. I'll be away for a short time and then we can build our new life. You, me and Rupe. And you'll have
that beautiful bedroom in his house. And that wonderful new school to go to with the girls. Promise me you'll try.'

What she really meant was that we were moving in a few weeks, when the summer holidays started, and next term Rupert was going to send me to a posh boarding school in the country where his beautiful daughters went, and where
they were just average-looking
. (I'd checked their Interface pages and seen their friends.) I'd be the flat-chested certified nutcase, so that would be fun, and I wouldn't see my school friends from Rye again.

I stroked Lacy's soft fur and tried to keep my cool. After so many years of army life I was used to moving schools. All these things were going to happen regardless of what I did or thought. And if Mum was right about Dad not coming back, then what did it matter anyway?

‘Sure,' I said. I bit back the
Whatever
that wanted to come next.

‘Thank you.' She pulled me into her for a big, warm hug. ‘That means so much to me, darling. I couldn't enjoy the trip if you weren't OK.'

She kindly avoided saying ‘honeymoon' at least. She knew the word made me flinch. She was trying too.

Two minutes later, there was another knock on the door. It was Rupert, who looked relieved to see us hugging.

‘Oh, good. I thought I might find you here, darling. Have you told Peta about the surprise?'

‘What surprise?' I asked warily.

‘Not yet,' Mum said, with a mildly annoyed head-shake at her new ‘husband'. ‘I was just getting there.'