On the first page I see the large writing and symbols, as if they are a title. I know the symbols instantly and I am shocked. ∆23W.It means ADAM. I translate the line beneath just as quickly. All our childhood games flooding back like a second language.
Do not let this fall into the wrong hands.
‘Can you translate it?’ Charles asks with urgency, eyes staring intently into mine.
The wrong hands.
I shake my head and twist my lips as if it is a hard challenge. ‘I’m not sure. Maybe. I’d need some time. What did you say Matt was looking for?’ I ask, looking only to the journal.
‘We cannot tell you that,’ Charles says sternly. ‘But you think you might be able to translate the journal?’
‘And you work with Matt?’ I ask, purposely ignoring the question.
‘Yes,’ he snaps. ‘We have already been over this. Can you translate it?’
I pause, re-reading the warning over and over again.
Adam
Do not let this fall into the wrong hands.
‘Can you translate it?’ Charles asks again, more forcefully, beginning to shout as his face reddens. Abbey turns away, hands visibly trembling, eyes shutting, fearful.
I shrug. ‘There’s a possibility, but I’m really not sure.’
Charles startles me then by gripping my arms with surprisingly strong hands, leaving his cane to sway precariously until Abbey tries to snatch it in mid-air. All she succeeds in doing is knocking it away farther, and she scrambles after it.
‘Your brother could be in serious danger!’ Charles shouts in my face. There is something in him that has shifted. The mask has fallen. ‘So I suggest you make up your mind pretty damned quickly if you can read it or not, because if you are lying to me, it could cost his life – and many others!’
Do not let this fall into the wrong hands.
‘Adam, get in the house!’ my mother shouts from the doorway. ‘I told you two to clear off! Leave now before I call the police! You’ve caused enough harm here!’
‘You are not helping anyone, especially Matthew!’ Charles yells back at her as he snatches the journal out of my hands as I’m distracted by the two of them. ‘We are trying to save your son, your brother, but you’re not helping, dammit!’
‘Find my son, Charles,’ my mother warns him. ‘Find him or I swear to God, I will make you pay.’ There is something in the way she says his name that makes me falter. She knows him.
‘You’d better go,’ I warn.
‘Thank her for the coffee,’ Abbey says sheepishly before hurrying towards the car.
‘Fine,’ says Charles, rage subsiding, though no apology offered. He tucks Matt’s journal away inside his jacket, pulling a business card out and offering it to me.
‘Here, take this. If you think of anything that could help in the search for Matthew call me.’
Do not let this fall into the wrong hands.
Without thinking, I act. I’ve been fighting my anger for too long now. Taking the business card, I grip the arm of his business suit, pulling Charles close, and not caring if I’m hurting him or not. I suspect not; the old guy is surprisingly strong.
‘You ever speak to me or my mother like that again and you will be sorry,’ I whisper with low menace. ‘If anything happens to Matt, I will be coming to you for answers. I promise you that.’
He looks undaunted, glaring straight back at me, daring me to say more.
Distract and act – he doesn’t suspect a thing.
‘Goodbye, Mr Hunter,’ he says stiffly, pulling away from me and walking towards his car. There seems absolutely no need for his walking cane; the guy is remarkably light on his feet. I watch as they leave, waiting until they are gone before taking a deep long breath to calm myself before going inside.
In the hallway, I pass piles of papers and school books for marking; my mother’s job as a history lecturer at the University of London ensures she’s always busy. I am glad of it. When she focuses on her work, she’s less focused on me.
Farther down the hallway, a large framed picture hangs upon the wall. It is of a middle-aged man, blonde hair and the same blue eyes as me. He is smiling in front of a snow-topped mountain. He is bathed in sunlight. He was always a keen climber.
‘Hey, Dad,’ I always say, placing a hand on the wooden frame briefly.
On the wall are more framed photos; my mother and father happy on their wedding day, of me when I was a baby, of the whole family on a camping holiday, and many more memories. My eyes settle upon the last one, of me and my brother. The photo is from a few years ago. Matt is only a little older than I am now. He has the same blonde hair as our father but he has our mother’s green eyes and a mischievous look about him that I know is my own, too. Over his scruffy blonde hair is the baseball cap he always wears – dark blue with a crimson stripe down the centre. He doesn’t go anywhere without that hat on – drives our mother crazy.
Around the photos are trophies and awards, all Matt’s; not a single one is mine. He is the perfect student, perfect athlete, perfect son. He is the golden boy. I was never quite good enough to get an award.
There are three years between us. Matt is nineteen now. The age difference has never been an issue between us, nor was his success and my lack of it. We were really close when he lived at home, but now he lives with his girlfriend, Kat, and he has a boring job and boring life – or so I’d thought. How wrong I was.
‘Why did you lie to us?’ I ask.
Looking at that photo makes me miss our old life; back then I felt we were truly brothers.
‘What did he want?’ my mother asks, storming towards me like a freight train.
‘To give me this,’ I say, still holding the business card.
‘You don’t need that,’ she declares, snatching the card from my hand and tearing it to pieces. ‘Don’t trust him or any of them.’
I’ve already made up my mind on that.
It’s then I see tears in her eyes but she looks away, trying to fight them back.
‘It’s okay,’ I say, placing an arm around her. ‘Matt’s going to be okay.’
‘How can you know that?’ she snaps, knocking me away. The anger I know too well is beginning to rise. ‘You cannot promise me he will be okay.’
Here we go again.
‘He lied to us,’ she says. ‘He lied to me. I’d never have let him join…’
‘The museum?’ I ask. ‘Why not?’
‘Just listen to me for once,’ she orders. ‘Stay away from Charles Lovell – and the rest of them.’
‘He knows something about Matt…’
‘I don’t care what he knows!’ she yells. ‘Just do as you’re told. Why do you always have to be so difficult? Why do you always have to disappoint me?’
‘I know why you are angry,’ I say, unable to stop myself from snapping back. ‘Your prized son, your pride and joy, he lied to you. He lied to both of us. He didn’t tell us about the museum, his work, any of this. Now he’s missing and I bet that you’re just worried that you’re going to be stuck with me. Oh, the disappointment!’
‘What I am angry about is that you are still riding that bike!’ She is yelling now, her rage unleashed. There’s no going back now. ‘It’s illegal for you to ride that death trap!’
‘Don’t worry, maybe it’ll prove to be a death trap as you keep calling it. Then you’ll just be left with your perfect son! Oh, wait, he’s missing too!’
‘You’re nearly seventeen years old! When are you going to stop being so childish and stu…’
‘Stupid? Go on, say it. Call me stupid again. Well, I’m sorry I’m not as great and clever as Matt, but I’m not the one who has been lying to you and who has gotten himself lost.’
‘Don’t speak about your brother like that!’
‘You’re right. How dare I speak against Saint Matt. I’ve never been good enough, have I? Not worthy compared to Matt.’
‘No, you haven’t.’ There is nothing but spite in her eye
s.
I’m winded by her brutal honesty. I can barely speak. ‘N...no mother should ever say that! You really are a bitch!’ I blurt out, already disgusted by myself, but more angry that she should reduce me to this.
Her reaction is a raised hand, ready to strike.
‘Go on,’ I whisper. ‘Do it again. It’s been a while.’
Her hand trembles but holds still, the fire in her eyes still raging.
‘If I was the one missing, would you even care?’ I ask.
She doesn’t answer.
‘Thanks,’ I simply say, unable to do anything else. Angry, hurt, torn up inside, I feel all of it.
I hurry up the stairs to my bedroom. Now I am the one who is fuming. I kick over the chair at my desk. I turn on the radio and crank up the volume, skipping through the stations quickly.
‘…the city in Morocco has been evacuated with fire crews still tackling the inferno. Eye witnesses report of seeing strange blue flames… the weather will be mostly sunny… the seventh museum robbery this month across Europe, Roman artefacts the thieves targets including armour, coins and pottery including vases…’
Finally, I find a station with music; loud music. Rock, metal, drum and bass, the louder the better as long as it has a decent beat. I hear my mother shouting to turn it down, but in reply, I turn the volume as loud as it’ll go. Standing there in the middle of my room, I clamp my eyes shut, hands clenched into fists. She is always like this, caring little for me and only ever praising Matt. She would never lift a hand towards him, not like she has with me. I will never be worthy.
As the anger passes, I open my eyes. Around me is my room, a cluttered mess of clothes, football gear, an upturned dismantled BMX bike, and scattered CDs. In the corner of the room is a bow, a recurve, scratched and marked that I have meant to repair for weeks. Trophies and awards from its use in competitions cover a small shelf nearby. Even those achievements were never good enough – not proper enough to grace the trophy wall downstairs. Apparently, ‘Those awards don’t count.’
On the wall behind the desk is a world map, a dozen pins denoting visited countries, and stuck to the sides of the map are hundreds of notes, plans for future travels. Every day I look at that map, every morning when I wake and night before I sleep. I long to see the world, all of it. It’s those destinations my mind wanders to while I am supposed to be studying at college.
There are tears across the map, stuck back together by tape. That was another of her rants, telling me that I’d never make anything of myself and to give up my fantasies of seeing the world. That was when she turned on the map.
Map… location… Matt.
‘The journal.’
Picking up the fallen chair, I quickly sit at my desk, taking the journal out from inside my jacket, taken when I threatened Charles Lovell. Distract and act, or another cheap trick as Sara would say. Stealing as others would call it. With Matt’s encrypted warning, I had no choice but to act.
As I look through the pages, I focus initially on the words underlined, knowing these would be names of people or places. Very few of the scrambled combinations of letters, numbers, and symbols are people. The name ‘Dave’ features a few times. I have no idea who he is. Cuba, Morocco, Venice, Cairo, Mexico, Jamaica, Moscow are just some of the places listed in the journal. Each word would’ve taken an expert de-coder to unravel but not me, the youngest of the Hunter brothers. Matt has always been good with codes but we both know that I am better. For some reason, no matter how scrambled and encrypted the words and letters, my mind is able to unravel the mystery they hold. Strangely, I am awful at foreign languages.
On the last page, I see the name Scotland, followed by the words Loch Lomond. Pulling open my laptop, I search for a map of the area, seeing Loch Lomond lays thirty miles north-west of Glasgow, over four hundred miles from London. The loch itself is a large expanse of water on the Scottish mainland, an impossibly large area to search for one solitary cave. Reading through the final page again, I see one word jump out, not underlined but marked with the faintest of stars at its corner, an attempt to avoid drawing interest but highlight it. The word doesn’t make sense for a long time until looking to the map on my laptop’s screen again I see an unfamiliar place name, Inchlonaig, one of the dozen islands at the heart of the loch.
‘That’s where Matt is,’ I say to the empty room.
My bedroom door flies open, crashing hard into the wall behind.
‘TURN THAT BLOODY MUSIC DOWN!’ my mother screams. She repeats it again and again until I finally lower the volume, quickly covering up Matt’s journal in case she sees it and recognises it.
‘I’m going to work,’ she tells me. ‘I need some peace and quiet.’
‘What about Matt?’ I dare to ask.
‘He’ll be okay,’ she says with no certainty in her voice. ‘I need to think this all over. He’ll be okay. He’s always okay. And don’t even think about taking that bike out again,’ she warns me. ‘I’ve locked it up. I mean it this time!’
‘So you didn’t mean it all the other times?’
‘You know what I mean, smart-ass,’ she replies. ‘You take the bike out again and I will sell it.’
‘No you won’t,’ I say with certainty.
The bike belonged to her husband, and there is no chance that she will ever let go of that part of him. She has a faint smile on her lips sometimes, memories of him, I am certain, never truly gone, never forgotten by any of us. Sadly, I don’t see that side of her very often.
‘Just keep the music down!’ my mother warns. ‘And clean this room, it’s a disgrace!’ She slams the door shut behind her. Her heavy footsteps thunder through the house followed by the slamming of the front door.
‘Bye,’ I whisper in her wake.
Leaning back in my chair, eyes closed as a hundred thoughts run through my head, one comes to me clearer than the others. He’s missing.
My brother’s last known location was in a cave, presumably on that island in Scotland. Charles, and whoever it is he works with, are searching for my brother, but are they friend or foe? Would they help Matt? Or are they after him for another reason? They’ll return soon once they realise the journal is missing. I have to decide what to do.
Rarely do my head and heart agree; for once, they are in unison.
I know I have to find him.
I print maps of the island, the loch, and surrounding areas, noting down the roads I will travel on my journey north. Alongside the journal, I pack a change of clothes, a pair of climbing gloves and a set of worn hiking boots. I place the maps and my laptop into the rucksack, which is as frayed and faded as my father’s biker jacket. Into my pockets go my wallet –including all the money I have on me – a family credit card meant for emergencies, my pen-knife, a box of matches, and my mobile phone, along with a spare solar charging unit. Downstairs, in the kitchen, I take some packet soups, bread, cheese, a few apples, and a couple of bottles of water. I need to minimise my need to use the credit card as it could be easily tracked. From the understairs cupboard, I grab the old camping gas unit, the army cooking tin, and a flashlight – it’s not much, but I have limited space, even with the bike paniers I’ve already recovered from the shed. From a drawer, I gather a smaller torch and plenty of spare batteries. Suddenly, it pops into my head to remember a black lightbulb, knowing Matt’s methods of hiding things and communication. It’s a long shot but I find one right at the back of the odds and sods kitchen drawer. Mum had kept us well stocked when we went through our spy stage when we were younger.
Lastly, I write a note for my mother. We argue all the time and she is always angry and disappointed in me, but I can’t just leave without telling her. Especially not with Matt missing.
As I pack the last of the food, the home telephone begins to ring. I ignore it and the call goes through to the answering machine.
‘Jane… Jane, it’s Kathryn. It’s about Matt. These people came to my house, said they worked with Matt, something about a museum. I d
on’t understand it… none of it…’ She breaks down in tears and I hurry to pick up the phone.
‘Kat. Kat, it’s Adam. It’s going to be okay.’
‘Adam, I don’t know what’s happening. They told me Matt works for their museum. He told me nothing about any of that. And now he’s missing. I don’t know what to do. I haven’t heard from him in days. He always calls, always…’
‘I promise you he’ll be okay,’ I tell her.
‘Don’t make promises you can’t keep,’ she warns me.
‘I swear it. He’s probably just gotten himself lost or stuck somewhere. Matt will be fine, you’ll see.’
Her voice breaks down into tears again and I have no idea what to say.
‘Adam… I’m pregnant.’
Okay, so that blows my mind for a moment. ‘You’re pregnant? Does Matt know?’
‘No. I was going to tell him at the weekend. We were planning on going away.’
If my mind was not already made up before then it is now.
‘I’ll find him, Kat,’ I tell her. ‘I’ll find Matt and I’ll bring him home.’
‘Adam, don’t…’
‘I’ll find him,’ I say one last time before hanging up.
Hoisting the rucksack over my shoulder and wrestling the biker jacket, helmet, and paniers, I head out of the house full of purpose. I’m stopped in my tracks when I see my father’s old motorcycle. The wheels are wrapped in chains with the biggest padlocks I have seen yet.
‘Well played,’ I whisper with a grin.
Setting down my stuff, I pull out two thin metal rods from a pocket, one the width of a needle, and the other only slightly wider. Kneeling down in front of the bike, I begin my work, easing the rods into the locks, probing, applying pressure and turning until the gears inside click into place. The first three are easy and straightforward, but the last is trickier, a smaller lock needing to be released before the main mechanism can be reached. In my eagerness, the needle-sized rod snaps.
Eagle of the Empire Page 3
