I nod, astonished that she knows my name.
All the tension in Aunt Sandy’s face ebbs away. ‘Well, why didn’t you say? Come in, come in… I’ll make you both a cuppa and I’ve got some chocolate biscuits too.’ She ushers us towards the living room. ‘I’ll just pop the kettle on.’
Tyler and I obediently trot along behind her. I notice the window we climbed through is still open and pull it shut, then turn to Tyler. ‘That was a sneaky move with the front door,’ I hiss.
He grins at me, the sparkle in his eyes making my stomach flip over. ‘Worked, though, didn’t it?’
Aunt Sandy bustles in with a plate of chocolate biscuits and sets it down on the sideboard. ‘Sit down,’ she says.
Tyler and I perch side by side on the tiny couch, waiting in silence while Sandy settles herself into the armchair. The kettle sings in the distance.
‘I was so sorry to hear about Alan’s passing,’ Aunt Sandy says. ‘He was a lovely man. So charming, always smiling. A great role model for my Rik.’
I nod, my mouth dry. ‘Er… when did you last see Rik?’ I ask.
Aunt Sandy’s mouth dips at the corners. ‘He moved away about a year and a half ago. Abroad. For work.’
‘The same time my dad died,’ I say.
Aunt Sandy nods. ‘I was pleased for Rik, getting such a big IT job, though of course I miss him dreadfully. He’s my only family, you see. My younger brother had a girlfriend and she…’ Sandy sighs. ‘She wasn’t really cut out for motherhood, so when Rik came along I helped look after him. Then my brother passed and, well, it was just Rik and me.’
I nod. This ties in with what Rik said. ‘How often do you hear from him?’ I ask, wondering how much Sandy knows about Rik’s situation.
‘Not very often.’ Aunt Sandy sighs. ‘He’s so busy with his job. They move him all over. He’s been… oh, I don’t know… everywhere, it seems like. Never in one place for long and always with a different phone number. I can’t keep track.’
Tyler and I exchange a meaningful look. It’s clear that Sandy has no idea about Rik’s real reasons for leaving the country.
‘Do have a biscuit.’ Sandy points to the plate. Tyler obediently takes a cookie. A crunching sound fills the room.
‘Have you spoken to Rik recently?’ I ask.
‘Not for a few months.’ Sandy looks away, lost in her disappointment.
A riptide of anger surges through me. Poor Sandy. And poor Rik and Dad, forced to turn their lives upside down and devastate the people who love them.
‘That’s sad,’ Tyler says with feeling.
Sandy pats the side of her armchair. ‘Ah, well,’ she says. ‘Do have a biscuit, Cat, dear.’
‘Thanks, but I’m okay.’ My mouth feels too dry, like if I tried to eat I’d choke. I swallow hard. I need to ask Sandy about the Post-it note I found with Dad’s work things.
‘Did… er, did you speak to my dad, just before he died? I found a message from his work. It said that you’d called him.’
Sandy frowns. ‘Not that I remember… no, wait… I think I did call. Just to pass on a message from Rik.’
I lean forward. Could this be the clue I’ve been waiting for? ‘What was the message?’
‘Oh, I don’t remember after all this time, dear,’ Sandy says, waving her wrinkly hand. ‘Something about Rik being “ready” or… or “on track”, yes, that was it. Rik had gone abroad by then, of course, and said he couldn’t call Alan himself for some reason. I really don’t recall the details.’
I sit back, disappointed. More confirmation of what I already know. But no help finding Dad.
‘May I have another biscuit, please?’ Tyler asks.
‘Of course, dear.’ Aunt Sandy gives him a smile, then turns to me, her bright button eyes suddenly sparking. ‘You know, it’s funny you should have come around today asking about Rik. I had a man here yesterday asking very similar questions: Where was he? When did I last hear from him?’
‘Really?’ My heart thuds. Could Aunt Sandy’s mystery visitor be one of the gangsters after Dad? ‘What was his name?’
‘He didn’t say,’ Aunt Sandy explains.
‘What did he look like?’ Tyler asks.
Aunt Sandy shrugs. ‘Average really. Quite smartly dressed. He had a funny tattoo on his wrist. I asked him about it, but he changed the subject.’
‘What was the tattoo of?’ Tyler asks.
‘Like a “T” with another bar halfway down. Like one of those star-sign symbols.’
I sit up. If there’s a set of symbols I’m familiar with, it’s astrological ones. ‘Could you draw it?’
Aunt Sandy fusses about fetching a pen, then turns a box of paper tissues upside down and sketches the symbol on the back:
‘Are you sure?’ I ask.
Sandy nods and my heart sinks. I don’t know what the symbol means, but it definitely isn’t anything to do with star signs and horoscopes.
‘I don’t recognize it,’ I say, looking down at my lap. Another false trail.
‘Shall I make some more tea?’ Sandy offers.
I glance at Tyler.
‘Thanks, but we should probably go. Our bus will be here soon,’ he says. ‘Right, Cat?’
I nod, then hesitate. Should I tell Sandy about Dad? Or that Rik – far from enjoying a well-paid, jet-setting IT job – is really on the run from gangsters?
I bite my lip, deciding against it. It would only upset and worry her.
I stand up. ‘Thanks for having us,’ I say. ‘It was very nice to meet you.’
‘Bless you, dear.’ Sandy takes my hand and gives it a squeeze.
Tyler picks up the biscuit plate and our mugs and carries them out to the kitchen. As he disappears from view, Aunt Sandy catches my eye. ‘Handsome boy, that one,’ she says with a small smile.
I turn away, my face burning and hurry after Tyler.
As she shows us out, Aunt Sandy takes my hand again. ‘It was so nice to meet you, Cat. Your dad told me how proud he was of you. What a tragedy we’ve lost him.’
There’s a lump in my throat as I follow Tyler out of the apartment block and on to the pavement. It’s still warm outside, but clouded over completely and a few spits of rain fall around us. The young mums on the grass have vanished. The only person visible is a man leaning against a motorbike parked on the other side of the road. His face is covered with a black helmet painted with red skulls. We stroll along the street in the opposite direction. I’m lost in dark thoughts. All the effort of coming here and I’m still no closer to Dad.
‘That told us nothing,’ I say, heaving a great sigh.
Tyler’s head whips round. ‘Yes, it did,’ he says. ‘It told us lots.’
‘Like what?’ I stare at him, astonished.
‘For one thing, everything Sandy just said stacks up with what Rik told you,’ Tyler points out as we turn the corner and head towards the high street. ‘We know for sure now that Rik and your dad were friends. That makes everything else Rik said more likely to be true too: that they were wrongly accused of stealing a diamond and went into hiding.’
‘Okay,’ I concede.
‘More importantly,’ Tyler goes on, ‘we know that an FFG gangster came to see Sandy yesterday asking questions about Rik.’
‘Not necessarily,’ I point out. ‘I mean, that visitor she had could have been anybody.’
‘What about the tattoo she described on the man’s wrist?’ Tyler draws the symbol in the air as we hurry along. ‘Look at the shape it makes.’
I stare at him, blankly.
‘It’s two “F”s back to back,’ Tyler says.
My jaw drops. ‘For Fran Farmer,’ I say with a gasp. ‘The Fran Farmer Gang.’
Tyler smiles, clearly enjoying my astonishment. ‘And don’t think the guy wasn’t a gangster, just because he was nice and polite. He probably didn’t get heavy with Sandy because he worked out straight away that she didn’t know anything. There was no point causing a big scene or hurting her and draw
ing attention to himself. But I bet if he’d thought Sandy was hiding something, he’d have forced it out of her.’
His words send a shiver down my spine. We turn another corner, then cross the road. It’s clouding over again, the skies darkening, threatening rain.
‘That means Fran Farmer and her people are definitely on Dad’s trail,’ I say. ‘In fact, they’re already one day ahead of us.’
Tyler stops walking. I meet his gaze. His eyes are full of concern, his expression deadly serious. ‘Then we need to hurry up and work out where your dad is,’ he says slowly, ‘so you can find him and warn him. Right?’
I nod and we set off again. A gentle rain starts to fall, pattering softly on to our hair and shoulders. I pull the hood of my jacket up. Tyler shoves his hands in his pockets and brushes the wet off his hair. As we cross the next road, I catch sight of the motorbike man with the red skulls helmet from outside Sandy’s flat. He’s at the end of the next street. I stop as we step on to the pavement. The rumble of his bike sounds low along the road in the distance. Slowly, he’s coming closer.
‘Do you think that guy is following us?’ I hiss.
Tyler follows my gaze. He frowns. ‘Maybe.’
We watch together as the bike inches along the road towards us. Then stops.
‘Tyler?’ My heart thumps, loud, against my ribs.
‘If he is following us,’ Tyler says slowly, ‘he’s seen that we’ve seen him.’
The bike lets out a roar and starts moving towards us again.
My heart pounds. Tyler reaches for my hand, his strong fingers press against mine. ‘Run!’ he cries, tugging me forward. ‘Run!’
11
We pelt along the pavement. Tyler’s hand is hot in mine. His legs are longer and he’s running faster, almost pulling me off my feet as we turn a corner into a short street full of houses. I’m certain we’re just two roads away from the high street now. A large building with a car park in front rises up on the left. Tyler tugs me into the parking area, flying across the gravel to a row of cars in the shade of some trees. Instinctively, we both make for the largest car and dive behind it.
I duck down, trembling.
‘You okay?’ Tyler whispers.
I nod, then peer anxiously round the rear wheel of the car. There’s no sign of the bike rider in his red skulls helmet. ‘We lost him,’ I say.
Tyler blows out his breath. ‘Or more likely we imagined he was following us.’ He sounds relieved.
‘Right,’ I say, though inside I’m not quite so convinced.
We head for the high street. Still feeling spooked, I glance over my shoulder a couple of times but, thankfully, there’s no sign of the biker. Tyler must have been right.
‘The bus back to Brockledore doesn’t go for nearly an hour,’ I say, frowning.
Maybe we did imagine we were being followed, but I still don’t fancy hanging around here any longer than we have to.
‘Why don’t we get on the first bus that comes?’ Tyler suggests, clearly picking up on my unspoken thoughts. ‘We can always switch to another in a few stops.’
‘Good idea.’ I glance at him. There are beads of sweat on his forehead. Guilt stabs at me. ‘I’m sorry,’ I stammer. ‘I… I didn’t mean to drag you into all this.’
Tyler meets my gaze, breaking into a huge smile.
‘Are you kidding?’ He moves closer, his arm almost brushing against mine. My skin erupts in goosebumps. ‘I thought living in the country would be boring, but this is way more exciting than London.’
The journey home takes twice as long as the journey out, thanks to our detour. We spend most of the four stuffy bus trips we end up taking talking in low murmurs about Aunt Sandy and her mysterious visitor with the double ‘F’ tattoo.
‘If the FFG suspect Dad’s alive,’ I say, ‘do you think they might come to my house? See if Dad’s been in touch with us?’
‘I guess,’ Tyler says, giving me a worried look. ‘Though I reckon if Fran Farmer thought you knew where he was, she’d have already sent someone to get the information out of you.’
I nod, Rik’s words running through my head.
She wants revenge. Extreme revenge.
Up until this point, my search for Dad has felt a little unreal, but now it’s suddenly clear that everything Rik warned me about is actually happening. ‘Do… do you think that if the FFG find my dad and realize he doesn’t have the diamond, they’ll really kill him, like Rik said?’
I’m hoping Tyler will make a face and say that such thoughts belong in an overdramatic TV show. But instead he just presses his lips together, as if to say: yeah, I do.
I sit back, my heart pounding, as the bus swerves around a sharp corner.
Things just got serious.
12
It’s almost 6 p.m. by the time we get home. Tyler slips around the side of the house to the Barn. Realizing the boxes of my fabric are still on the front porch from yesterday, I gather them up and go inside. I’m intending to go up to my room and just sit and think for a bit. I’m determined to speed up my efforts to find Dad, but other than scaring the wits out of me, my visit to Rik’s Aunt Sandy hasn’t brought me any closer to working out where he might be.
As I reach the landing, Mum’s voice echoes up the stairs. ‘Cat? Is that you?’
I dump my boxes with a sigh, then make my way back down to the hall.
Mum is standing close to the bottom step, hands on her hips. She’s obviously been seeing clients – her eye make-up is heavier than usual, all thick black flicks of eyeliner and sparkling orange eyeshadow, and she’s wearing one of her more outlandish outfits: a frothy, yellow dress with purple ruffles and a headdress cascading with purple and yellow fronds. The kind of look you might get if you crossed a banana with a peacock.
I catch sight of Bess outside in the garden. She is attempting a cartwheel, a very determined look on her face. Her legs go halfway up then flop down again. Tyler saunters into view and says something that I’m too far away to hear. Bess gives him a huge grin, nodding eagerly and has another go. I smile to myself.
‘What on earth, Cat?’ Mum strides towards me. Her eyes are the palest blue. Right now they look like chips of ice water. ‘I’ve been trying your phone every ten minutes for the past hour and a half. The locator shows you’ve been to Covington and back.’
I frown, whipping out my mobile. I put it on silent when Tyler and I ‘broke in’ to Sandy’s flat and, in the excitement of our conversation afterwards, I haven’t looked at it since.
‘Sorry, Mum,’ I say, ‘I… I just went to visit someone…’ I hesitate. Should I tell Mum everything? Rik insisted she wouldn’t believe anything he said, but it’s not just Rik any more. Aunt Sandy’s backed up Rik’s story. And the man who visited her proves the FFG are on Rik and Dad’s trail.
‘You went to see a friend?’ Mum asks, misunderstanding. Her voice softens slightly. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? I was worried. I understand you want a bit of independence, but it’s selfish to just go off wherever and whenever you please without letting anyone know. Anything could have happened to you…’ She sighs, her voice trembling. ‘I can’t go through not knowing - like before…’
She’s remembering those terrible two days before Dad’s battered boat washed up on the shore. The time that seemed an eternity before we knew – or thought we knew – that he was definitely dead. I look down at the sweeping grey scuff marks across the pale wood floor of the hall. I remember Dad pointing them out when I was younger. These were made by your mum’s family over generations, Cat. When you walk across these marks, you’re walking across your own history.
A sob rises inside me, a wave of fresh pain that rolls up and spills out of me: ‘I miss Dad.’
Mum blinks, clearly taken aback. Tears prick at my eyes. Now I’ve started, I can’t stop myself. The words tumble out of me:
‘Dad’s alive, Mum. His friend told me. He faked his death to protect us. He’s alive.’
Mum’s jaw hardens. �
�That isn’t funny, Cat.’
‘It’s not a joke. Dad was framed by gangsters so he had to go into hiding, but now those gangsters have found out he didn’t die and they’re after him.’
‘What?’ Mum frowns. ‘Slow down. Some gangsters told you Dad faked his death?’
‘No. Dad’s friend told me.’
‘Dad’s friend?’ Mum echoes. ‘What on earth are you talking about? What friend?’
I take a deep breath. ‘Dad’s friend Rik Adamski, from his old work, got in touch with me yesterday. He told me that he and Dad were framed for stealing from a gang of smugglers. That’s why Dad had to go into hiding.’
Mum stares at me. ‘Rik Adamski told you this?’
I nod.
‘Why didn’t you tell me he’d contacted you?’ she asks, her eyes wide with shock.
‘I am telling you,’ I point out. ‘And I already know you don’t like him. Rik told me that Dad had to make up some story about him. But it’s not true.’
‘Isn’t it?’ Mum raises her eyebrows. ‘Well, that’s convenient for Rik.’
‘You’re missing the point, Mum. I met Rik’s aunt – she’s the person I went to see today.’
‘You went to see some stranger’s aunt?’ Mum’s face is stern.
‘She – Rik’s aunt… she confirmed things that he’d said.’
‘What things?’
We sit down at the kitchen table. It’s a relief to tell Mum everything that’s happened. I leave nothing out, except the fact that Tyler and I basically broke in to Sandy’s flat before she arrived home. There’s no point getting myself into even more trouble.
Mum listens without interrupting. As I finish, she sighs heavily.
‘Okay, let me tell you about Rik Adamski.’ She leans forward. ‘He and your dad weren’t friends, whatever Rik said. According to Dad, he was shady… a con man… mixed up with some very unsavoury people.’ She pauses. ‘He was actually fired on Dad’s say-so.’
‘No, that’s not true,’ I say. ‘If Dad said any of that he was lying to protect you. Rik told me Dad had done that – deliberately made out they weren’t friends when they were – in case anyone asked you questions after he disappeared.’
Hide and Secrets Page 6
