by S G Read
David looked at the two boys, last year he would have exploded, now he said. 'Do I call the police?'
'Will they come?' Stuart asked.
'I’ll make sure they do Sherlock, if you want me to,' David replied, ‘but it had better not be another waste of time or you’ll be on your own! I do this and you stay away from the car breakers, deal?'
'Deal dad.' Stuart replied.
David phoned the police and a car called. They related their story to the same constables.
'This had better not be another waste of time!' One constable said as they drove round to the car breakers with the two boys and David in the car.
'Oh no!' Stuart groaned when he saw the burnt out shell. 'Now were for it!'
For it they were! Willie stood talking to the police and pointing to the boys in the car then they were driven home.
'Mr Bowyer saw you walking away just before the car burst into flames but as it was of little value he isn’t going to press charges against you, as long as you stay away from his car breakers!' The constable declared. 'And don’t waste any more of our time!'
They drove off and Stuart expected the worst.
'Go to your room.' David said quietly. 'I’ll be up in a minute.'
They watched the two boys go up stairs and David leant back in his chair.
'Well they are not liars, so that means they are telling the truth but they have been outflanked.' He said quietly. 'Time I looked into things a little bit but we must keep them away from the car breakers or they’ll be missing like Leonard.'
'They found Leonard in a cave, he was naked.' Wendy replied. 'They are doing a post-mortem.'
'I’ll talk to them and try to explain to them but I will ban them from going to the car breakers again, for their own safety and our peace of mind!'
David walked upstairs and Stuart heard him coming, he was fearing the worst. The door opened and David stood there.
'Well that Willie sure took you for a ride.' He said, walked in and closed the door. 'It might well have been the right car and it might well have been Leonard’s blood but now there is no way to prove it and you sure haven’t done yourselves any favours with the police!'
'So you believe me?' Stuart asked.
'I believe both of you, you were not brought up to lie.' David replied and sat down beside Stuart. 'But you sure have a lot to learn about people. Bowyer must have seen you find the car, now if he hadn’t decided to let you talk to the police and take them back there, the other option does not bear thinking about, does it?'
'No dad. I just don’t know how he saw us! It doesn’t make any sense.'
'What are you trying to prove anyway?' David asked.
'That Lenny was over there and they killed him!' Stuart replied.
'Well leave it to the police now. I have to ask for your word that you won’t go near the car breakers again.'
Stuart looked at Stevey then back at his father. 'Okay, if that is what you want. I won’t go into the car breakers again.'
David looked at Stevey.
'Me neither Mr. Sellars, I won’t go into the car breakers again.' Stevey said quietly, even though he was happy at the idea of not going in there any more, it still seemed wrong.
'Good, now who wants a game of snooker?' David asked.
Saturday came. They were destined to go and pick up Jenny later in the morning but Stuart woke Stevey at seven AM and made him dress.
'What are we going to do?' Stevey asked.
'I had an idea after you went to sleep last night!'
'So what was it?!'
'I’ll tell you on the way.'
'On the way to where?' Stevey asked, fearing the worst.
'The car breakers of course!' Stuart replied. 'Don’t worry we aren’t going to go in there, I did give my word as well, you know!'
Stevey breathed a huge sigh of relief and after a quick breakfast they were off on the bicycles again. They rode to Gordon Hall, both had a rucksack with supplies in it. They hid their bicycles and walked to the end on the drive. With no sign of the old gardener they slipped into the garden and worked their way down the path to where the gap in the fence used to be, it had been repaired with chain link fencing. They settled down to watch but from where they were, they could not see a lot. Stuart looked about and noticed a window in Gordon Hall which pointed in the right direction.
'I wonder if we could get in there and watch?' He mused.
'Aren’t we in enough trouble now?' Stevey asked.
'The best way to get out of trouble, is to catch the bad guys red handed!' Stuart retorted.
'You just made that up!' Stevey argued.
'Yes but it makes more sense than doing nothing and we won’t be breaking our word either!'
'There is that. I would certainly like to drop that Willie in the poo, for making us look silly!' Stevey replied. 'But we can’t go breaking in there! We only go in if a door is open!'
'Okay, we can’t see enough from here anyway.'
They walked back to Gordon Hall and circled the building deliberately keeping the old gardener on the opposite side of it. When they reached a slope at the front of the house which led down to a door they walked down and tried it but it was locked.
'Damn.' Stevey whispered, fearing that Stuart would force the door open.
'What about that door.' Stuart said pointing to a door joined to the house but back up the slope.
They walked back up and tried the door, it opened easily but it was just an empty shed. Stuart closed the door in disgust but as he did so, the jingle of keys made him open it again. He looked at the inside of the lock. There were two keys hanging free and one in the lock. He pulled the key out of the lock and compared them, they were different. With hope, they walked back down the slope.
'Here goes nothing!' He tried the second key but it did nothing. 'I bet they are all the same key!'
'No I checked that!'
Stevey took them, held them up and examined them. 'No, you’re right, they are different.' He exclaimed. 'Which one did you just try?'
Stuart shrugged his shoulders. Stevey tried them one by one and the last one unlocked the door.
'Yes!' Stuart cried and they both slipped inside. Stuart locked the door back up to stop anyone coming in after them.
'What if we need to leg it?' Stevey asked.
'I could leave it in the lock on the inside but if someone took it, we would be in deep poo, so we’ll take it and trust we can get away in a hurry if we need to!'
'Makes sense.' Stevey agreed.
They were in a cellar. They found the stair case easily and walked up it. The door at the top opened easily and they found themselves in a long hallway.
'Wow, look at this place!' Stevey exclaimed. 'If ever I have a lot of money I am going to buy this place and do it up!'
'We could sleep over for a month and never sleep in the same bedroom twice!' Stuart said as they explored.
They walked upstairs and carefully looked through a window but from there they could not see the car breakers. The wing they needed to go into, was firmly locked.
'Now what Sherlock?' Stevey asked.
Stuart scratched his head and one of the keys touched his ear. Its coldness made him take it away quickly and he looked at it.
'What do you reckon of our chances that the third key fits this lock?' He asked.
'A thousand to one.'
The first key unlocked the door and it creaked open.
'Well we know why it was locked, it doesn’t latch!' He said and walked into the hallway on the other side of the door. 'By my reckoning we want that window at the end.'
They walked down to the window and found they had a good view of the car breakers.
'Perfect.' Stuart cried, making sure the old gardener was not in sight.
They settled down to wait.
'It’s a long way away.' Stevey moaned.
Stuart pulled out the telescope that Simon had found in the crashed plane in Colombia. 'This might help.'
> He had almost the same view as from the gap in the fence but slightly further round to the back of the house. They could not see the front of the house but they could see the gate and the side of the house where Marmalade was chained, when he was chained. At the moment the chain lay empty.
'I wish we could see the front of the house.' Stuart grumbled as he watched. 'Hey what’s that on this side of the house?'
'Where?' Stevey replied and took the proffered telescope.
'Low down on this side, nearer the front of the house than the back.'
'That is a window, what’s more it is a cellar window. He must be doing whatever he’s doing in the cellar and he could see us when we walked up to Marmalade!'
They looked at each other and gulped, they both knew they had been very lucky. Suddenly a movement caught Stevey’s eye and he looked again with the telescope.
'That Willie just came out, I think he’s calling Marmalade. Yes he’s chained him up, now he’s walking toward the gate. He’s opened the gate and the other man has driven up to the house. Wow! Look at Marmalade go, he doesn’t like him one bit!'
'Let’s see!' Stuart cried.
Stevey gave him the telescope and Stuart took over the commentary. 'They are talking, now they are going into the house, must be that cellar where everything goes on! What I wouldn’t give for a look in there!'
With the two men out of sight the commentary ended but they kept taking turns to watch what was going on. They saw the old gardener go by with his squeaking wheelbarrow and ducked down, until he was gone. Then the two men came out of the house and they saw the older man hold up something to the light. Stuart altered the focus until he could see what it was.
'It’s a twenty pound note!' He declared. He saw the older man point to something on it and crumple the note into a ball. 'And he just screwed it up!' He gasped.
Stevey took his turn to look. 'He’s just done the same to another one!' He declared. 'Who would screw up a twenty pound note?' He kept watching. 'And set fire to both of them!' He exclaimed.
'Someone who didn’t want them anymore.' Stuart answered.
'But who wouldn’t want forty quid?' Stevey asked.
Stuart did not answer straight away, he was thinking.
'They’ve gone back into the house now.' Stevey added.
That was when they heard it, a child crying and in the house they were watching from!
'Do you hear that?' Stevey asked.
'Of course I can hear it, I’m not deaf am I?' Stuart said scornfully. 'Some one has got them selves locked in here and can’t get out! Isn’t this their lucky day!'
They walked off in search of the crying child. They found a door and it sounded like the sound was coming from behind it. Stevey opened the door. There was no one there, but on the bed was the shape of a child and the pillow was wet! Then a cold feeling passed right through them! Cold enough to make them both shudder. They looked at each other and fled. At the end of the corridor they stopped to lock the door, as fast as they could, then raced outside straight into the old gardener.
'Hello young gentlemen, you look as though you just met Master Timothy, he’s usually about at this time.' The gardener said quietly. 'A word of advice, when you come up here, don’t hide your bikes in the garden, use the shed over there it is always open.' He pointed to the shed the keys were in.
'We were watching the car breakers!' Stuart heard himself say.
'Old Ronnie up to his old tricks again or is it Willie, I never can tell the two apart!' He replied. 'Nice to meet you.' He walked on with his squeaking wheelbarrow.
They watched him go but after a few metres he stopped. 'One of them repaired the fence, said the dog might get out but he never has up until now! I thought it might be to keep someone out. If that someone, or someones, were to walk to the end of the fence, they can squeeze through the gap at the bottom but they should be careful, and not of the dog!' He said, then walked on.
'So he knew we were here all the time!' Stevey moaned. 'Some jungle warriors we are!' He walked back to the shed and replaced the keys where they had found them, then walked to where Stuart waited.
'Did you hear what he said? There are two of them! Willie and Ronnie and Ronnie has been caught doing something wrong before!' Stuart exclaimed. 'Let’s find out what it was.'
Stevey looked at his watch. 'No let’s leg it back in a hurry or we will be in big trouble!'
'We’re in that already!'
'Then even bigger trouble, if we keep Jenny waiting!'
'Let’s burn rubber.' Stuart cried.
'On your mum’s bike?' Stevey retorted. 'Don’t be silly!'
They rode off, riding side by side and going as fast as Wendy’s bicycle would let them.
'Were we dreaming or did we just meet a ghost?' Stevey asked as they rode.
'I think we just met a ghost and it passed right through us!' Stuart replied.
'Wicked!' Stevey said enthusiastically. 'We got to go back there.'
'Wait until the others hear about it.'
'They’ll want to see it themselves!' Stevey warned.
'That old man didn’t seem to care that we were in there though, maybe next time we should ask him?'
A car swept past them with the driver honking the horn, as they were taking up a lot of room. It was not until he had passed them that they realised it was Willie’s boss.
'I bet he knew who we were!' Stevey grumped.
'He did, I’m sure!' Stuart replied. 'But do you see what that means?'
'No what?'
'If he thought we were going to be anymore trouble he would have run us down to get rid of us!'
'Is that supposed to make me feel better?' Stevey asked as they turned off the main road.
'Yes of course! He doesn’t see us as a threat anymore, boy is he in for a surprise!'
'What, are we going to turn the ghost loose on him?' Stevey joked.
'No worse than that! We are going to turn Minton Cruisers loose on him!' Stuart replied. 'In fact we are going to turn Minton cruisers loose on to both of them!'
Chapter 7
They went straight up to the room they shared to change.
'I think I have worked out why he burnt the money!' Stuart declared'
'Why would anyone burn money then?' Stevey asked.
'Because they had printed it and it wasn’t good enough!'
Stevey looked at Stuart. 'Do you think that is why they killed Lenny Mole?'
'Seems likely doesn’t it?'
'But we know now!' Stevey complained.
'Yes but we’ve been- you know- dis- something’d, so no one will believe what we say.' Stuart explained. 'There’s never a Toby about when you want one! Besides, they don’t know that we know, what they are doing!'
'That’s true.'
They changed quickly and were soon on their way to the hospital, hopefully for the last time. Jenny was in the dayroom watching television when they arrived.
'Are you ready to go?' Stuart asked.
'I’ve been ready since breakfast, I hope I make it farther than the carpark this time.' Jenny replied.
They all turned and walked back the way they had come. She was only to willing to go now that she had somewhere nice to go and some pleasant company as well. Life had certainly changed for the better since she met Stuart and his friends. When they passed Jenny’s bed Stuart picked up the case which lay on it and walked on. David opened the boot and Jenny put the carrier bag she was carrying into it then saw the case Stuart was going to put in there as well.
'Where did you get that?' She asked.
'Off your bed.' Stuart replied. 'I thought it was yours!'
'I think you have just taken someone else’s case!' She exclaimed. 'This is all I had. I left those games in the dayroom for the other children to play with, like you said.'
Stuart and David walked back into the hospital, to explain what had happened while the other three waited in the car. The boy the case belonged to was in tears when they arrived b
ecause his case was gone and they were searching for it under beds and in the private room. It was lucky that Big Brenda was on duty, Stuart explained what had happened and she soon smoothed things over without any fuss. The boy started to smile as soon as he saw his case and David laid it back on his bed, then steered Stuart back out of the ward.
On the way home they stopped in to see Pat and she held out a letter. 'They have made me an offer.' She said
David read it and laughed. 'They must be comedians.' He said and gave the letter back to her. 'I should frame that but certainly not accept it. If you find yourself in need of money, contact the committee, we have put together a fund for such cases and the payouts are merely loans until the airline pays up.'
'We’ll get by.' Pat replied. 'I thought you’d like to read the letter though.'
'If they get one person to take such a derisory offer, it will weaken all the others bargaining position.' David added. 'I would rather it reach court than take an amount like that!'
They stayed for a while as this was the first time Pat had met Jenny. When they finally arrived home, it was late and the three children went to bed. Stuart lay there thinking about his next move in this game of cat and mouse, with the murderers. He was fed up with being the mouse, now he wanted to be the cat but he also had to make sure that Jenny did not do anything to over exert herself. If she went with them, it was likely that that was just what she would do but the longer they waited, the more likely it was that the three men would get away with the murder and all the money they had printed. If that is what they were actually doing. He needed to get into that cellar and see just what was going on in there! His thoughts kept him awake and he turned on the computer, Stevey was soon beside him. They tried to find out what crime one of the men had been guilty of. Stuart had come across a new web page which let them browse old newspapers but it was a long and boring job, as most of the news was of no interest to them. It took them well into the night before they found it.
'Here it is!' Stevey whispered excitedly.
Stuart was beside him as quick as he could be without making any noise. They both read the story, Ronnie Bowyer had been arrested for sexually assaulting a boy, tried and subsequently jailed for eight years. As it was before the sex offenders register was thought of, his name was not on it. A little flag on the screen took them to another report just a year ago. Ronnie’s sentence was quashed with the help of DNA testing on the sample from the victim. As the boy had picked him out of a line up, the police had issued a warrant for his twin brother!
