by Rhys Jones
“Come through, Oz. We shouldn’t keep them waiting. I’ll let them explain.”
There were two uniformed police officers sitting in the dining room. They both stood as Oz entered. One was a burly man with a round, lived-in face and not much hair. His name was Sergeant Thomas, and it was he who did the introductions. The other, a petite woman with an unsmiling expression, was a woman police constable called Keller. She held an open notebook in one hand and a pen in the other.
“So,” said Sgt Thomas after he’d told Oz who they were, “how did the football go?”
“Good. We won, one-nil,” Oz said, turning to watch WPC Keller write something down.
“Good, good,” Sgt Thomas continued in a singsong Welsh accent. “Now, I don’t want you to be alarmed, or to worry about anything. These are just routine enquiries.”
“About what?”
“You know a shop called Garret and Eldred in the old town?”
Oz nodded. “We, that is, my friends and me…we were there yesterday.”
Sgt Thomas nodded. “There was a break-in last night. Nasty business. In the course of the robbery, Mr. Eldred was assaulted.”
Oz felt all the fun and happiness the morning had brought evaporate in an instant. He sat heavily on the sofa next to his mother. “I was here…all night. Me and my friends—”
Sgt Thomas held up his hand and gave a mirthless smile. Oz couldn’t help noticing that Keller’s expression didn’t change at all as she stared unwaveringly at him.
“You and your friends are not suspects, Oscar. That’s not why we’re here. As a general rule, we find that robbers don’t introduce themselves to their intended victims like you did. No, this robber was after something specific. Wasn’t subtle about it, either. Made enough noise to wake Mr. Eldred up. Foolishly, he challenged the man, who then turned on him, poor chap. Luckily someone heard the noise and called us. That time on a Sunday morning we have patrols all over that area, so we got there pretty quick. Could have been much worse. We’re here talking to you because we want to try and establish the events of yesterday afternoon. Mr. Eldred was able to give us your address. Now, you went to the shop at about what time?”
Oz could feel his heart beating in his throat like a stuck sweet. A robbery? Who would want to rob a jumbled old curiosity shop like Garret and Eldred’s?
“Uh…about three,” Oz said, marshalling his thoughts, but finding it difficult to stop thinking about Mr. Eldred. “The shopkeeper, Mr. Eldred, he’s all right, isn’t he?”
“Badly shaken and bruised. He’s in hospital for observation, but he’ll be fine,” Sgt Thomas reassured him.
“He seemed such a nice bloke,” Oz said.
“Why were you at the shop?” asked WPC Keller abruptly. “Not your sort of place, I would have said.”
“It isn’t. We were looking for something special.” Oz sensed his mother’s eyes boring into the side of his head, and he dared not look at her for fear they would burn right through his eyes and sear his brain.
“Mr. Eldred said you bought something,” Keller barked.
“Yeah, it was a brooch. A dress clip brooch.”
Keller frowned. “Funny thing to buy.”
Oz gulped. He was very tempted to lie, make something up about Macy, Ellie’s sister, always wanting one, but it sounded lame and hollow. He felt his insides knotting. The last thing he’d intended was for his mother to learn about any of this, let alone listen to him explain it all to a stranger.
“My friends and me, we found some old papers in the library here and some stuff belonging to my dad and…” It still sounded weak and pathetic, but at least it was the truth. “Well, we think my dad was looking for something a bit like this brooch.”
“Is your dad,” said Sgt Thomas, and then corrected himself, “was your dad a collector?”
“Sort of,” Oz said, still keeping his eyes away from his mother’s face. “He was a lecturer in historical materials. We found a picture of the brooch in an online advert from Garret and Eldred and…”
“I see,” smiled Sgt Thomas. “Just a bit of an adventure, was it?”
“Yeah,” Oz said, knowing that what he had just said must have sounded pathetic and childish to this big policeman, but oddly glad, because it meant he didn’t have to go into all the other stuff. The weird stuff. Maybe this way Mum wouldn’t twig, either. He risked a glance at her and had his worst fears confirmed. She looked grey and drawn and very unhappy. She knew, all right.
“Did you happen to notice anyone strange hanging around the area?” Keller went on.
“It’s not a very nice area, I know that. But Ruff, my friend, he found a secondhand video game shop, so we went there afterwards.”
“But nothing strange or unusual?”
Oz thought about Lucy Bishop and the thing they’d seen in the park, but decided not to say anything. Doubt crowded out all thoughts he had of mentioning them. Polecat sounded like something they’d made up. And though he didn’t like Lucy Bishop, he had no right to embroil her in all of this before asking Caleb what he thought was best to do.
“No,” Oz said, “we were in and out of there within ten minutes.”
Sgt Thomas looked at WPC Keller and nodded. “Right, I think that will be enough for now. Obviously, if you think of anything at all, just let me know. I’ve given your mum my number at the station.” He stood and straightened out his trousers. “You probably won’t see us again, but you won’t mind answering some more questions if we have any, will you?”
Oz shook his head in agreement, but then asked, “What was he looking for? The robber, I mean?”
“We’re not sure. Quite an odd case, in actual fact. Mr. Eldred said that his assailant had sunglasses on and didn’t seem to be able to speak at all clearly, but it was dark and Mr. Eldred’s sight isn’t that good. Thought he heard the attacker asking for a door, so that’s not any help.”
“Probably just an addict looking for something easy to sell. Half of them are not of this planet at the best of times,” Keller said darkly.
Sgt Thomas turned to Mrs. Chambers. “Thanks for the tea.”
She nodded tersely in reply.
Oz sat on the sofa alone while his mother saw the police out. He couldn’t stop thinking about Mr. Eldred. When he did, it made him feel queasy and sent a trickle of cold sweat down the back of his neck. Oz knew what “door” really meant. It was an easy mistake for Mr. Eldred to have made, because even under normal circumstances door could sound exactly like dor. His mother came back in carrying the kit bag he’d dropped in the hall.
“Sorry, Mum, I’ll empty it now.” Oz stood.
“No, you will not,” she said with quiet fury, her face white. She threw the kit bag down, her hands trembling so much that she had to fold her arms across her midriff. “I want you to sit there and tell me exactly what is going on.”
“Mum, honestly, we had nothing to do with any robbery.”
“I know that. I mean the other stuff. I want you to tell me why you were looking for a brooch.”
Oz could feel his pulse pounding in his head. She knew, and there was no way of wriggling out of it. “Because,” said Oz quietly, “because we think it’s one of Morsman’s artefacts.”
For a moment he thought his mother was going to faint. She reached a hand out to steady herself on a chair. She looked as though she’d just seen some dreadful apparition.
“Who,” she breathed out the words tremulously, “who put you up to this?”
“No one did,” Oz said. “It was Dad’s stuff. I found an article he’d written.”
“There must be something else,” Mrs. Chambers said, shaking her head. “Someone else…”
“Penwurt is in Secret Haunted Houses of Great Britain, Mum. It’s famous. Dad knew something was going on here. He knew that Morsman…”
“Don’t speak that name,” Mrs. Chambers snapped. “I swore I’d never say that blasted name again after your father…” Her voice faltered. “You’re just like him. A
lways chasing after shadows.”
“Caleb doesn’t think it’s all shadows…” It slipped out before Oz could stop himself.
Mrs. Chambers’ eyes opened wide. “Caleb.” She nodded. “I might have known.”
She got up and stormed out.
“Mum,” Oz called after her, “Mum, wait…”
He clutched the armrest of the sofa until his knuckles turned white. Why was everything so complicated? He felt hot tears sting his eyes and used the back of his hand to wipe them. It was only then he realised that he was still coated in drying mud. He got up and, with a heart like lead, emptied his kit bag, put his filthy shorts, socks and T-shirt into the dirty laundry basket, and trudged up to the bathroom. He turned on the shower and let the water wash the mud away. Feeling clean helped a bit, but as he towelled himself dry he heard raised voices from the library upstairs. He threw on a pair of jeans and a clean T-shirt and ran up bare-footed to see what the commotion was. But he hesitated on the threshold, unable to resist listening.
“I thought I made it clear, Caleb,” Mrs. Chambers shouted. “I thought you and I understood one another.”
“Gwen,” said Caleb calmly, but Oz could hear the strain in his voice, too. “No one has done this deliberately. Michael’s work is in the public domain. He wrote several articles on Morsman, as you know.”
“He was chasing after those blasted artefacts in Egypt when he should have been at home with us,” she said plaintively. “Now the police have been here because some poor man has been attacked, and Oz is tied up in it, and all because of Morsman and his bloody artefacts.”
Caleb looked aghast. “I am sorry to hear that, Gwen. But I’m sure Oz—”
“Is just a child,” yelled Mrs. Chambers. “He doesn’t know any better. But I thought you did. I though I’d made myself perfectly clear.”
“Wait,” Oz said, trotting up the last few steps and announcing his presence. “There is something I didn’t tell the police. I think I saw Lucy Bishop following us.”
Mrs. Chambers stared at Oz as if he had grown an extra head. “Lucy? What has she got to do with anything?”
“I don’t really know, but she always acts really weird around me. We, that is, me, Ellie and Ruff, think that maybe she’s been spying. We thought that maybe she’d been after the trinket box.”
Mrs. Chambers shook her head in bewilderment. “Why would she want a trinket box?”
“Because we think that maybe it has something to do with the artefacts, too.”
He knew it was a mistake as soon as he’d said it.
Mrs. Chambers flushed scarlet and went very calm. She shot Caleb a venomous glare. “Really?” she said to Oz in a strangely controlled voice. “This is the trinket box your father sent you, is it?”
“From Egypt, the last time he was there. I think—”
Oz got no further as his mother cut across him sternly.
“Let me see it, please.”
“Sure,” Oz said a little uncertainly. He hadn’t ever seen his mother like this. It looked like something was boiling potently just beneath the surface, and her calm looked paper-thin. “It’s downstairs. I’ll fetch it…”
“No, go on. I’ll follow you.”
Oz hurried downstairs to his bedroom. He reasoned that, if he could show his mother the trinket box, she might understand. “Sometimes when I press the mark on the bottom, I think it glows,” he said quickly. He retrieved the box from under the bookcase where he’d hidden it and handed it to her. With shaking hands, she took it from Oz and opened it. Carefully, she removed everything that was in it and placed the items on Oz’s desk. Then, before Oz really knew what she was doing, she walked across to his bedroom window, opened it and threw the box out with all her strength.
“MUM!” yelled Oz in horror, his hand reaching out in a vain attempt at stopping her. But he was too late. There was a crunch and a couple of woody bounces from down below. “What did you do that for?” he shouted, trying to get past her to look down at the damage.
“Because it’s ALL NONSENSE,” she shouted through a jaw clenched tightly shut. Oz saw that she was shaking with anger. “Morsman and artefacts and ghosts, all nonsense. DO YOU HEAR?”
Oz clenched his fists and squeezed his eyes shut to fight back the tears that threatened to pour out.
“Things are going to change around here, Oscar. You mark my words. I have tried being lenient with you, tried giving you your own space.” Mrs. Chambers shook her head and then said in a low voice, loaded with suppressed emotion, “Ellie and Ruff are not to come around here anymore, do you understand?”
“But they’re my fr—”
“DO YOU UNDERSTAND?” she roared.
“Yes,” said Oz flatly.
“No Sunday football. No searching for artefacts. No meddling in things that are of no concern to you.”
Oz suddenly felt as if his insides were running out of his shoes. No Sunday football? He wanted desperately to tell her how brilliant today had been, but the look on her face told him plainly she wouldn’t hear it even if he tried.
“I don’t ever want to see a policeman around here asking to speak to you ever again, do you hear?” Mrs. Chambers shook with fury as she spoke.
“Yes.” His eyes focussed on the corner of his bed sheet and he kept them there, not wanting to look into his mother’s blazing eyes any more.
He waited until she moved and then swivelled his eyes to watch her storm out. When she’d gone he slumped onto the bed, not daring to look out of the window. But it was no good. He made himself sit up and went to the window and peered down. The box lay in shattered pieces on the tarmac below. He wanted to run down and fetch it, but he daren’t.
There were more raised voices in the library. It was his mother again, shouting, hysterical almost. He didn’t have to creep onto the stairs to hear her. The whole street probably could. And she was ordering Caleb to leave.
Oz spent a miserable afternoon and evening, during which he stayed in his room and only decided on attempting a peanut butter and jam sandwich when he heard his mother go out to her book club meeting. But when he got to the kitchen, he saw something that turned the marrow to lead in his bones. His mother had moved the calendar and the head of the black dog was on show. Suddenly, he wasn’t hungry anymore. He sat at the table, his eyes never leaving the fridge door, his mind churning. He knew she was angry, knew she was really upset, but this was worse than bad.
His mind flew effortlessly back to the first anniversary of Michael Chambers’ death. His mother had seemed okay up until that morning. Oz had got up and thought she was in bed, made himself a packed lunch for school and gone into her room to say goodbye, only to find her bed empty and no sign of her in the house. He could still remember the dreadful, awful, gut-wrenching panic that had seized him in its trembling grip. He’d gone to the phone and picked it up, had been on the point of dialling 999, reasoning that she’d been taken or had an accident, but then realised that she’d been in her pyjamas the night before, watching TV—or at least staring at the screen while some awful film played itself out in front of her glassy stare, as she sometimes did. He’d put the phone down and tried to think.
Alone in Penwurt, he had waited for his mother to ring or come home. At nine years of age, he had waited and waited. For three long days, he’d waited. He skipped school and caught the bus into town each day and walked, looking for her, wondering if she’d had a sudden loss of memory like he’d seen happen to someone once on TV. But there had been no sign of her and when darkness came, he’d caught the bus home again. On the fourth day he’d become too desperate to put it off any longer, so he’d rung Ellie’s mum, who’d made a choking noise on the phone and told him to sit tight.
Gwen Chambers had booked herself into a hotel on the outskirts of Seabourne, which was where Mrs. Messenger had found her, locked in her room, confused and even sadder than before. More than anything, Oz remembered Mrs. Messenger breathlessly making him promise to ring her if anything like that eve
r happened again and telling him how brave and strong he was and that he’d been right not to phone the police because they’d have come and taken him into care. She told him that Gwen couldn’t help herself and that he knew that she loved him, didn’t he? He knew that she’d said all that about the police to make absolutely sure he rung her if it ever happened again. But listening to her explaining what could have happened had terrified him more than anything his mother could have said or done. The thought of losing her and Penwurt had given him dark, dreadful nightmares. Still did.
The idea of a sandwich suddenly made him feel sick, and he went back upstairs and tried to rid his brain of that awful memory. He heard his mother come home, heard her go to bed. He tried to heed his own mind’s warning to forget about the trinket box and the dor. He knew that it was probably for the best, but he simply couldn’t. It was just too important. Losing his father, the trigger for all this sadness, had to mean something, and he was certain that the artefacts held the key.
So, when the hall clock struck two, Oz threw off his bedclothes, put on his dressing gown and slippers, and crept downstairs. He unlatched the back door and fetched the torch from the utility room. It was frosty, the blades of grass on the verge next to the drive glimmering in the thin light of a gibbous moon as he hurried past. Deep shadows covered the spot where Oz had seen the box land. He flicked on a torch.
It was clear that the horn and wood had splintered into half a dozen shards, but he soon had most of them collected. There was a chance that he might be able to glue them all back together into a semblance of the original. The only piece that remained almost intact was the base, but even that had splintered along its length and lay splayed open like a book. Quickly he fitted the damaged pieces together and saw that they weren’t, in fact, broken but were easily taken apart and clicked back into position. He unclipped the pieces again and saw that there was a space between the two. An oval, quite regular curved space in which something might well have lain.
Intrigued, Oz shone the torch around, but the dead leaves and bits of twig that the November wind had blown down onto the tarmac drive made hunting for things in this light very difficult, especially since he had no idea of what he was looking for. He was on the point of giving up, because his toes were beginning to go numb in his slippers, when he saw it.
