The Great Ice-Cream Heist (15 page)

Eva bent down to take off her dusty trainers. She noticed that Shan had her sandals off already – maybe they had the same rule in her house.

‘Who's at the door, Jamie dear?' a voice said from the back of the house.

‘A friend of mine,' he shouted. He gave a cross look at Shan. ‘And someone else.'

The woman who had spoken appeared from a far room. She had blonde hair done in a scraggly bun and wore loose, cream-coloured clothes. She had a string of amber-coloured beads round her neck.

Eva smiled.

The woman didn't smile back. She looked confused, her eyebrows pinched together.

Shan stepped forward; she had her hand outstretched. ‘How do you do? We're friends of Jamie's from his work project. I'm Shanika and this is Eva. We won't be here for long. We just needed to see how he's doing. I hope it isn't an imposition?'

The woman's face relaxed. ‘Well, hello, dear. I'm Mrs Grayling. This is a little unusual. In temporary-care situations. But as you're here I suppose it can't hurt. Do you want to take your friends into the drawing room, Jamie?'

‘No. The garden,' he said sullenly.

‘OK. I'll bring some juice out.'

Eva and Shan followed Jamie through the house. The kitchen was huge, an industrial-sized cooker sparkled spotless at one end and a massive table, shiny and smooth as an ice rink stretched across the other end. There was plenty of space in the centre of the room and the glass doors opened out on to the garden.

It was lovely – like a magazine.

Eva felt her heart clench tight. What if Jamie wanted to stay here? What if he never wanted to come home? What if she'd lost him for good?

Jamie led them away from the trimmed lawn, the blooming flowers, the neat, clean paths. He led them to the side of the house to where an enormous double garage straddled the drive. A garage with a flat roof.

Eva smiled. Maybe it would be OK after all.

Jamie climbed up on to a water butt, stretched up to grab the roof and hoisted himself so that he was looking down on them.

Eva followed.

With a roll of her eyes, Shan climbed up last.

This roof wasn't so different from the one at home. The same speckled rough stuff in patches on the flat surface. It was bigger, that's all. Much bigger. It was about the size of a basketball court.

‘Nice place you've got here,' Shan said.

Jamie ignored her. He went and sat on the edge of the roof, overlooking the drive. His legs hung down in the way a different kind of boy might sit on a pier, watching the sea. Eva sat next to him. The gutter pressed into the back of her calves, but it wasn't too uncomfortable. Shan sat too.

‘Is Melanie really captive back there?' Jamie waved vaguely in the direction they'd come from.

‘Not any more,' Eva answered. ‘She was just . . . helping us with our enquiries.'

Jamie smiled despite himself.

‘I needed her to tell me where you were.'

‘Why?' Jamie asked suspiciously.

Eva looked at him; his gold-flecked eyes looked lost. ‘I needed to see you again. I wanted to say sorry. For not meeting you. For not letting you explain.'

‘Explain what?'

Eva paused, then said gently, ‘You knew, didn't you? You knew that Michael and Drew broke into the lodge.'

‘That hasn't been proved! Innocent until proven guilty, that's the law,' Jamie said.

‘But they did, didn't they?' Shan asked.

Jamie seemed to crumple. ‘I guess so,' he said.

‘Why?' That's what Eva found so hard to work out. ‘Why did they do it?'

‘I told them about the mural, about having to redo it, with Mel watching the whole time and Sally behaving like I was a leper. I think they thought they were sticking up for me. They shouldn't have done it, but they're my brothers.'

Jamie lifted his head and looked straight at Eva. The flecks of gold in his eyes seemed to glisten like embers. ‘I'm sorry for what they did,' he said.

‘I'm sorry too,' Eva said straight away. ‘If I'd met you that day, on the roof, you might have been with me at the lodge when Melanie came for you. You might not have been taken away.'

Jamie shrugged. ‘I don't know. It probably would have happened sooner or later anyway. And it isn't for long, Mrs Grayling says. Mum will be home soon.'

‘That's good,' Eva said. ‘We want you back.'

Shan made a small harrumphing sound.

‘Eva!' The shout was faint, but insistent. ‘Eva!' Someone was calling her name. Someone hidden by the green lollipop trees that lined the street.

But she recognised the voice.

‘Dad?' she said quietly.

‘Eva!' Dad's shout was a wail of anguish, as though she were lost at sea and he were walking the cliffs.

She could see him now, a flash of movement along the avenue, blue and white between the green and brown. He was looking for her.

‘Dad!' she shouted.

He stopped running, turned in the direction of her voice. Even from this distance, she could see the tightness of his face, the tenseness of his shoulders.

‘Dad, over here!' She waved.

In the corner of her eye, she noticed Jamie drawing up his legs and wrapping his arms round his shins.

Dad was on the drive now. Crunching gravel with each quick pace. And Eva could see that he was furious.

Chapter 26

Dad looked up at the three of them on the roof above him. His eyes stopped on Jamie. ‘You,' he said. ‘I should have known.'

‘He hasn't done anything,' Eva said.

She could feel the tension in Jamie's body. He was crouched next to her, still and silent, like a dog waiting for a kick.

Dad's eyebrows were furrowed in curtain-folds above his nose. ‘Then why have I just heard about you on the radio? Why aren't you at home where you're supposed to be? I wake up, I assume you're upstairs in bed. Then I find a note that I can't make head nor tail of. Then I turn on the radio and all they're talking about is you! Do you have any idea how I felt when I realised you were missing? Do you?' Dad dragged his hands through his hair.

Eva felt her stomach churn. Dad must have been desperate. She hadn't thought of him, not once, since she'd left the house that morning. But she was all he ever thought about – she knew that.

‘I should have known that the McIntyre boy was at the bottom of this. He's a bad influence. I told you he was. I told you to stay away from him,' Dad said.

‘I know, I'm sorry but –'

‘No,' Dad said. ‘Get down from there now. You're coming home. I'll call your Gran and she can take you for the rest of the holidays. I should never have listened to her in the first place. You're staying with your family and that's that.'

‘But, Dad –'

‘No arguments. This is the last time he leads you astray.'

Shan coughed pointedly.

‘What?' Dad snapped.

‘Well,' Shan said, ‘I just think it's important to remember that Jamie has been here all day, with no clue about what's been going on. It was someone else entirely who thought it was a good idea to take files and ice-cream vans and social workers.'

Eva took a deep breath. Shan was right. This was all her doing and if she didn't say so now then she was as bad as Michael and Drew.

‘Dad, it's true. This was all my idea. Jamie had nothing to do with it. Look, wait there, please.'

She stood up, walked back to the water butt and lowered herself down to the ground. In seconds, she was at the front of the garage.

Now that she wasn't looking down at him any more, she could see how frightened he looked. His skin was pale and sweaty, and his pupils were wide, despite the sunlight.

He had looked like this before. The night he came home from holiday for the last time. The night he had lost everything. Everything but her.

‘Dad,' she said gently.

‘No,' he said. ‘No. I won't have this.'

‘Yes,' Eva said, ‘I know. But
I
did this, not Jamie. You have said what you thought about Jamie and the lodge and all this, but I never have.'

He looked confused for a second. Then the confusion was wiped away, replaced with the same solid look of certainty that Dad had been wearing like a mask for the last two years.

And Eva knew now that it
was
a mask. The panic and fear were there, just below the surface; they had been since Mum had died. Jamie had seen it too, though she hadn't wanted to believe him.

‘Dad,' Eva said gently. ‘Mum's gone. But I'm not going anywhere.'

‘This has nothing to do with Mirabelle.'

‘I think it does. You want to keep me safe. I understand that. But life isn't safe, not always. I think sometimes you have to take risks to feel alive. Otherwise we might as well be dead too. When I woke up this morning, I felt like I was standing at the top of a snowy mountain, with the run below me and the air all clean and crisp. I felt that way because I knew I was going to take a risk. And, Dad, it felt good.'

Eva could see tears in his eyes, his blue irises shining with them. Eva felt her own eyes sting. ‘Jamie matters. He's my friend. And I wasn't going to let him go. So I took the risk. And look! Here I am!' She tapped her chest with her palms. ‘I'm fine! Nothing bad happened. Dad, Mum's gone. But we're both still here.'

Dad wiped his eyes with the back of his hands. ‘Is that how you feel?'

‘Yes. Yes it is. We can't be angry with her any more. What happened was an accident.' Eva reached out and took Dad's wet hands in hers. They felt big and rough, they way they always did. But, somehow, it felt like she was the grown-up, trying to make him feel better.

Then his arms were round her and he lifted her into the air. She held him close and could feel him crying as he hugged her back. She closed her eyes. With her head resting on his shoulder, she thought she could smell snow, clean and crisp and far away.

‘It isn't fair,' Dad whispered.

‘I know.' She wasn't sure if he meant Mum, or Jamie, but she held him tight anyway.

When he put her down, she saw Shan, wiping her own eyes. Next to her Jamie still looked frightened – waiting for a blow to fall.

She smiled through her tears. ‘Dad, nothing bad is going to happen to me. You have to give Jamie a chance. Get to know him, then make up your own mind. Please? For me?'

He nodded slowly. ‘I think I can do that.'

‘Come on then,' she said.

‘What,
now
?'

‘Of course now.' She led the way to the water butt. Mrs Grayling came out of the French doors with a tray of orange squash.

‘Oh,' she said, surprised, ‘another visitor.'

Dad's face flushed. He had streaks of tears on his cheeks. Eva could see that he didn't know what to say.

‘This is my dad,' she said. ‘He's come to give Jamie a chance. Is that OK?'

‘Well, if you want to give him a chance, I'd better get another glass.' She handed the tray over and disappeared back towards the huge kitchen.

‘Up there?' Dad asked, tilting his head towards the roof.

‘Up there,' Eva agreed.

It wasn't easy to get the tray up without spilling any of the squash, but they managed it together.

Jamie and Shan stood up as they walked towards them.

For a second, they all stood in a circle, on the roof, looking at each other.

Then Jamie smiled. ‘Did you know that the stars are there, above our heads, even in daylight. They're there right now this second, shining down on us, even though we can't see them? That makes me feel better when I feel sad.'

Dad nodded slowly. ‘I guess they are. Yes, I guess they must be.'

Chapter 27

‘Shall I put this here?' Eva placed the cardboard box she was holding on the pavement.

‘Thanks, Ladybug.' Dad shifted the other boxes around in the boot of the car to make room. ‘Is that the last of them?'

‘There's one more. Heidi's bringing it.'

Eva could feel the heat of the tarmac through her sandals; it was another blue-sky day, but there was a cloud-shadow on Dad's face.

‘It's for the best, Dad. It's time.'

‘When did you get to be so wise?' He laughed.

It was hurting him to pack up Mum's clothes, to give them away. Eva knew that. It was hurting her too. But she couldn't hide in a wardrobe any more. It was time to say goodbye to that.

‘Here you go.' Heidi appeared beside her. She passed the last box to Dad who put it in the car and closed the boot.