Under Loch and Key

by Kathryn Cockrill

  Righting myself so that I was no longer in danger of mounting the curb, I pulled up in the nearest space before turning the ignition off. We both sat there for a few seconds, neither one of us quite sure what to do now that we were here. Eventually I turned to face Caden, the seatbelt cutting into my neck as I did.

  “I think we should just go in there and tell the truth.”

  “What that you’re the sister of a missing kid from three years ago and just today you tracked down his university roommate who you then coerced into going to the local police station to get back notebooks that were taken from his room in an investigation that never fully closed?” I didn’t appreciate the sarcasm.

  “Well, not that exactly. But I’ll go in and say that I’m Eli’s sister and that I was hoping to claim his possessions that were taken into evidence.” I grabbed my phone from the console, making a mental note to reply to Becca and Jake later. Providing I didn’t end up in police custody or something. Caden pulled his backpack from the back seat and got out of the car. Once I’d locked up, we started walking down the street. I was trying my best to stay relaxed but the same nerves I’d been feeling all day were back. As we walked through the sliding doors the receptionist looked up with a smile,

  “Hi guys, how can I help you?” I leant on the counter and smiled back. Caden hung back behind me and I hoped he didn’t look too much like a hardened criminal.

  “Hi. I was hoping you could help me recover some family items that were taken into evidence.” She seemed taken aback but recovered quickly, keeping the smile on her face.

  “I’ll definitely see what I can do. First off I need some more information…?” She trailed off, giving me the opportunity to fill in the blanks. I nodded,

  “Okay. Um, my brother, Eli Farrow disappeared three years ago and as part of the investigation the contents of his university room were seized. These items were never returned to us after the investigation threw up nothing and I was hoping to be able to get them back now as they included a lot of personal items.” I finished. She nodded at me and started typing; I shot a glance over my shoulder at Caden who shrugged. After a couple of minutes, in which the only sound was the tapping of her keyboard, she looked up at me and gave me a half smile.

  “I’ve found your brothers case here. We do still have the evidence however our database says the case is still open so I cannot surrender the evidence to you.”

  “What?! That’s ridiculous. You haven’t done anything to further my brother’s case in over two years! How can you-” I could feel Caden’s hand in the small of my back applying a small amount of pressure, I presume to get me to calm down. I was livid. I stopped and took a breath, waiting for the anger to subside a little, “Is there nothing you can do? Even putting us through to a supervisor so we could have this discussion with them?” Her eyes darted back to the screen and she shook her head,

  “I’m sorry, I don’t think there’s anything we can do to help you. Your best bet would be to appeal to have the case closed at court. Then all possessions could be returned to your family.” The phone on her desk started ringing and she shot me an apologetic look, “I’m sorry, I have to take this.” Caden pulled me away by my elbow, standing me next to a large potted plant. My hands shook, the need to yell at someone simmering just below the surface. After all this time and my only lead had been cut short by a database. I blew out a frustrated breath, moving some strands of hair off of my face and then noticed that Caden still had his hand on my arm. He seemed to notice at the same time and quickly dropped it.

  “What do we do?” I hissed, “I’m hardly just going to leave the notebooks here when it’s the only chance I have.” Caden glanced around then leant in,

  “Look, I have a plan. I can probably get into the evidence locker if you can distract the front desk. I brought a couple of tools with me and I have a bit of experience disabling magnetic locks, which is what most police stations use.” He wouldn’t meet my eyes and despite my anger, I couldn’t resist,

  “So, you are a no-good bad boy! I knew you weren’t innocent.” I stuck my tongue out at him, not really caring about the whole breaking the law part of this plan. The adrenaline had taken over now, I was so close. “Okay I’ll go back over and have a breakdown. Hopefully, she’ll be so flustered trying to calm me down that she won’t notice if you slip back there.” I nodded to the door marked staff only which was the only likely route. “Please don’t get caught.” I added.

  “Oh why? Are you concerned for me?” the cocky smirk was back.

  “Not for you. For myself. Everyone saw me come in here with you and if you get arrested, so will I. Or, at least detained and that’s not going to get either of us very far. Now go wander off to the toilet or something.” I pushed him back and then closed my eyes, trying to make myself cry. It wasn’t that difficult; letting in all the fears I had over Eli was something I tried to avoid but if the situation called for it… well, I was about to cause a monumental distraction. As the tears started pricking my eyes, I turned and walked back over to the desk. The receptionist had put down the phone and was now back on the computer. She looked up as I walked over and quickly realised that I was crying.

  “Oh, are you okay?”

  Generally someone breaking down in tears in public is an indication that they’re very much not okay.

  I shook my head and let the tears fall faster, adding in a couple of sobs that got caught in my throat.

  “I…I’m s-sorry…I jus-st…I just mi-ss my b-b-brother!” Time to wail. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Caden slip past, as the receptionist stood up and started fussing over me. Hands on my shoulders, she gently steered me over to the seating area, grabbing a box of tissues as she did so. I kept the tears coming, letting my sobs get a bit more hysterical each time. I could see from her face that she didn’t know what to do and I did feel bad for a few seconds. Then I saw Caden slip back out of the ‘Staff Only’ door with his backpack slung over his shoulder.

  Shit. That was fast.

  He gave me a thumbs up and meandered out of the front door. Sniffling, I wiped away the tears and sat up, giving the receptionist a watery smile.

  “I think… I think I’ll be okay now…thank you.” She smiled back and patted me on the arm, before standing up and walking back to her desk. Using a tissue, I blew my nose and stood up as well making my way to the front door. I made sure to sniff again just before I left. As soon as I was outside, I walked back to the car where Caden was waiting, arms crossed.

  “What took you so long? I was about to break in to your matchbox of a car.” I shook my head at him and unlocked the doors. After we’d climbed in and I’d started the car I couldn’t keep the question in any longer,

  “Did you get them? Please tell me you got them. I can’t do that again. I’m not the experienced criminal that you are.” He shot me a glare but unzipped his backpack to reveal a cluster of notebooks. I let out a high-pitched squeak, ignoring the incredulous look he shot me. “So, no one saw you? What if they notice?” He sighed,

  “No, no one saw me. I think they would have stopped me. They won’t notice because I took a load of notebooks I found lying in a storage box on my way there and replaced them. I doubt they’ve actually read through them and, if like you said, they haven’t worked on the case in over two years, they aren’t going to start again now.” I grabbed the backpack off of him and took out the notebooks. They were all the same brown leather with blank covers, but I knew inside they would be full of Eli’s drawings and notes.

  “Thank you Caden. I really appreciate this. I’m sorry I dragged you into a potentially illegal situation.” He shrugged,

  “It’s okay, it’s not like I was doing anything else today. I mean I have a lecture this afternoon but…” he trailed off and looked at the clock “Shit. Could I please ask that you put this tin can into the highest gear it has and get me back in time for my lecture. I really can’t miss another one.” I threw the notebooks into the back and grabbed my seatbelt, be
fore peeling away from the kerb. Again, probably shouldn’t be doing that in front of a police station but I did kind of owe Caden.

  I dropped him off at the main entrance with minutes to spare and laughed as he sprinted off into the distance. Then I glanced back at the notebooks in the back seat.

  I really hope you were worth it.

  Chapter 4

  I couldn’t bring myself to open them. I’d been sat staring at the notebooks for nearly an hour. They were all laid out on the bed in front of me, along with the original notebook I already had. I’d skipped dinner when I got back, going straight to my room with every intention of pouring over the notebooks but for some reason as soon as I’d sat down, I’d been absolutely terrified to open them.

  So here I was, an hour later, still staring at them. I didn’t even know if what was in them was still legible. This was my best chance at finding Eli, or at the very least finding out what happened to him. Setting my shoulders, I reached for the closest notebook, the leather cover soft to touch in my palms.

  You need to do this.

  Carefully, I unwrapped the cord that held the notebook closed, my stomach tightening with each loosening coil. The front cover fell open as soon as I removed the last coil, the soft leather refusing to hold. The first page was covered completely in Eli’s handwriting, the spiked letters jumping off the page. Seeing his writing again was like being transported back three years. Bolder now, I started flicking through the rest of the pages, the musty smell of the paper wafting around my room. Most of the pages were covered in writing but a few diagrams dotted the paper here and there. No giraffes or lions though. A lot of the same words jumped out at me as with the first notebook; ‘gene’ and ‘hybrid’ the most noticeable, but nothing in here seemed to have any connection to GAI. Or, if it did, Eli hadn’t made the leap.

  I discarded that notebook and picked up the next one, unwrapping the cord and leafing through. The same theme arose; the same words and a few diagrams but nothing else.

  This is just another dead end.

  The anticipation of opening the notebooks was replaced by a slowly forming rock in my stomach. My fingers flew through the next few, their pages not giving up any secrets and by the time I reached the last one, I’d pretty much given up. As expected, it just talked about the same things as all the others. Towards the back, a thicker set of pages halted my progress. Eli had stapled some printouts of articles looking at stem cell research onto them. I paused.

  Could this actually be something useful?

  The first mentioned something called the HFEA. I grabbed my phone to look it up, but all it came up with was the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. The second article referred to an ASAP database, which was talking about an Alternative Splicing Annotation Project. Neither of these seemed to have any connections to GAI even though they were in the right field. Eli had scrawled some notes around each article, but it was mostly incomprehensible to me and after another couple of minutes of reading, I flopped back onto my pillows with a sigh.

  This is useless.

  Beside me, my phone buzzed.

  Wanna get some coffee at CC? x

  Jake. Becca had gone back to uni now, probably mad at me because I hadn’t responded to her texts from earlier, but Jake would have just finished work and there was no way I could avoid him. I’d just have to make sure I didn’t let slip what I’d been up to today.

  Sure, I’ll meet you there in half an hour? X

  I didn’t bother to wait for the reply. Jake was always late. Instead I grabbed the notebook with the articles stapled in, shoved it in my backpack and picked up my car keys before heading out of the house.

  Even with traffic, it took me less than 10 minutes to get to Coffee Cup, so I ordered my usual drink and sat down at a table near the back to wait for Jake. It was busier than usual, and I resisted the urge to glare at the mother next to me whose kids were screaming. After a couple of minutes of people watching, I went back to the notebook and the articles at the back. It was probably a good idea to read them again. Halfway through the second article, a pair of boots appeared in front of me and waited. Irritated, I glanced up, only to have my mouth drop open instead,

  “Caden? What are you doing here?” he grinned at me and pulled out a chair, looking annoyingly at ease. I guess after risking jail for me (or for Eli), I couldn’t really complain about him sitting down.

  “Hey. Nice to see you too. Whatcha drinking?” he grabbed my cup before I could protest and took a slurp, wrinkling his nose. “God, that’s awful. What is it?” I snatched it off of him and set it back down in front of me, carefully avoiding dripping condensation over the notebooks.

  “It’s iced tea and it’s mine so stop drinking it.” Out of defiance, I took an even longer slurp, smacking my lips and staring Caden down. His chuckle was almost too low to hear above the surrounding din. “Why are you here Caden?” I asked, glancing towards the door in case Jake had decided to be early for the first time in his life. Luckily, or unluckily depending on Caden’s response, there was no sign of him yet.

  “Besides to have a lovely conversation with you? It’s because I found this in my backpack and figured it probably came from the notebooks and that you might want to have a look at it. Of course, you didn’t exactly stick around after our earlier adventure, so I had to get creative to find you. I remembered Eli saying you used to come to the Coffee Cup a lot, so I figured I’d give it a try. I don’t know why you can’t live without that crap though.” He wrinkled his nose at my iced tea before handing over a folded slip of paper. It was the same kind of texture as the paper in the notebooks. Caden watched as I opened the folded square; there was barely anything on it, just one line scrawled in Eli’s writing.

  Columbia Industrial Estate, Bedfordshire, MK** 2**

  Confused, I pulled out my phone. It looked like an address. I quickly typed it into Google Maps.

  “No way.” I breathed, zooming in on the results. Caden leant over, crowding my shoulder as he tried to glance at my screen.

  “What?” His mouth was close to my ear, raising the hair on the back of my neck as he spoke. I looked up at him, trying to contain the excitement I could feel bubbling underneath the surface.

  “This is an address. For an industrial estate.” He stared at me blankly, “I bet it has something to do with Eli’s disappearance! Why else would he have this address? It looks like it’s for an empty warehouse as well, so it would make sense.” Realisation slowly dawned on his face,

  “Riiight. Well, what are we going to do?” I stilled, searching his face,

  “We? What makes you think you’re invited?” He tried to cover the flash of hurt that crossed his features by pouting but I still saw it… and I still felt like an arsehole.

  “After everything I risked for you today and I don’t even get to come along to the fun part?”

  Tell him yes, that’s right. Tell him to go home. He’s already risked jail.

  “I guess I could use the help,” The words were out of my mouth before my brain had even processed them.

  Well done. You really told him.

  Caden grinned and grabbed my phone from me,

  “Hey! -” I protested but he just flapped a hand at my face.

  “I’m just giving you my phone number. That way you can let me know when you’re gonna go to investigate and I can come with you, rather than me awkwardly stalking you so I don’t miss all the fun,” He handed me my phone back with a grin just as I spotted a familiar face walk through the door.

  “Oh, crap, um my friend is here, and I haven’t told him anything about today so you kind of need to…go.” I finished, flapping my hands much the way he had done seconds earlier. Caden chuckled and pushed himself up from the table,

  “No worries buttercup. Just shoot me a text when you’re ready to go. Don’t stand me up!” The slight twang of his accent seemed especially prominent and I could feel the flush starting at my ears as I registered what he’d called me. As I floundered, he
turned and sauntered out of the café, passing Jake on the way. They nodded at each other before Jake hurried over to me, still in his suit, jacket slung over the crook of his arm. I forced a smile onto my face as my heart tried to do the tango in my chest.

  “Hey! How are you?” I greeted, leaning over to give him a hug. He returned the hug but when I pulled back, he was looking at me strangely. “What?”

  “Who was that?” He glanced back over his shoulder to where Caden had been. I started to shrug but knew he wouldn’t let it go just like that.

  “That was Caden. I met him earlier today…he’s nice.” Lame, I know, but I couldn’t think of what else to say.

  “Nice? He looks like trouble, A.” Jake looked concerned, so I laughed it off.

  “You’

  “You’re just jealous!” I teased, moving the conversation on, even as I couldn’t stop thinking about how his chuckle had sent thrills across my body.

  He does look like trouble.

  ***

  I glanced at my phone again, the neon numbers blinking at me. Caden should have been meeting me, well…now. From my position, huddled in the front seat of my car, I could see most of the street. I don’t know why I felt so shifty; we were simply going to look at the warehouse and see if there were any clues. Caden thought we were looking for clues about Eli, but I was looking for intel on GAI. If Eli had written that address down it was important. I was willing to bet that it had something to do with that email. I checked my phone again.

  21:31.

  Even though I knew I was being harsh, I couldn’t help but be annoyed. Caden had tracked me down to the Coffee Cup to give me a piece of paper and his number and then couldn’t even be bothered to be on time.

  As I was grumbling to myself, a figure walked past my wing mirror, causing the grumbling to dry up in my throat. A couple of seconds later the figure appeared by my door and leant down. With a sigh of relief, I realised it was Caden in a black hoodie. He looked like he was about to rob a bank. Darting a glance at my own all-black outfit, I realised I didn’t look much different. The door opening sounded so much harsher in the darkness. As he folded himself into the passenger seat, he shot me a grin that I didn’t return.