The Lornea Island Detective Club

by Gregg Dunnett

  "You... You did what?" She asks.

  Mrs. Jacobs turns on Amber, and gives her a pitying look. It's like she doesn't have time for Amber's stupidity.

  "I killed him dear. I warned him I would. If he kept on with that dirty fiddling he did. I told him what would happen. But he wouldn't listen. So I killed him."

  She turns to me, and smiles again. I think I can feel my mouth hanging open.

  "He'd have liked you, Mr. Billy. I tell you that. You'd have been one of his special ones, if you'd been around back then. Oh no. I couldn't let him carry on like that. We'd have been ruined when it came out. And it would have come out. Sooner or later."

  "So what happened?" Amber asks. Her voice still sounds distant.

  "I just told you! He promised me it wouldn't happen again. But I knew it would. I could tell. And sure enough, there he was, coming home from school again. Working late! I knew exactly what that meant. So I went to confront him, at the school. I got there just in time to see a boy leaving, his clothing messed around. So I went inside. I surprised him."

  She looks each of us in the eye, and there's a strange expression on her face. Pride. Arrogance.

  "Did you shoot him?" Amber asks, breathless.

  "Of course not. Where would I get a gun from?" She rolls her eyes and turns to me.

  "I pretended there was nothing wrong. I was just passing. I asked him to show me the building works – the new gymnasium, some of the money was coming from my family. And he agreed, mainly because he was feeling guilty about what he'd been doing. And then, when his back was turned, I hit him over the head with a brick. He went down like a sack of potatoes."

  "It was easy. I rolled his body in the bottom of the hole and covered it with rubble. The next day they poured the concrete."

  Mrs. Jacobs turns and smiles at me.

  "And that was the end of Henry."

  Thirty-Eight

  "Tell me you got that? Tell me you didn't sit on the phone and stop it recording? Tell me that didn't happen."

  We're back in Amber's car, driving back towards school. I don't really know how to describe the atmosphere. We're just… stunned. After Mrs. Jacobs told us about how she killed her husband she went right back to being the sweet scared old lady she’d been before. With the same confused, milky look in her eyes. And when Amber asked her for more details she didn't seem to know who Mr. Jacobs was, let alone what happened to him. I'm not even sure she knew who we were.

  I fiddle with the phone, making sure I don't do anything stupid like delete the file. And then I hit play. It's a bit hard to hear with the engine, but you can hear us alright, the two of us getting out of the car and going to the doorstep.

  "Come on, let’s go back to school," I hear my voice from earlier saying. "She's not going to tell us anything."

  I guess Amber can't hear properly, because she turns abruptly into a parking area, off the road, skidding to a halt on the gravel.

  "Turn it up," she says.

  I do what she says. And then I adjust the slider at the bottom of the screen to fast forward to the part where Mrs. Jacobs confesses.

  I killed him. I'd warned him I would. If he kept on with that dirty fiddling he did.

  "Wow." Amber says. "Just fucking wow."

  I don’t answer. I just stare out the windshield. The parking area is one of those with a view out over the water. In the distance the mainland is a grey shadow on the horizon. Some way out a container ship is passing by, its massive hull streaked red with rust. Closer still there's a company of gannets feeding in the cold currents, that swirl round the southern tip of Lornea Island, folding up their long thin wings and diving into the water like arrows. I see them, I see it all but I hardly register any of it.

  "We have to go to the police." Amber says. I don't answer.

  "We have to. We know a crime's been committed. A murder. We can't not go to the police."

  Still I don't say anything. I'm thinking.

  "And to think, she put his body under the fucking gym! It'll still be there today. I was only in there yesterday for P Ed. That's sick. That's disgusting."

  I’m watching the gannets now. They’re kind of hypnotic. When they hit the water they can swim down as much as twenty meters. It's like they can fly under that water. I'd quite like to raise a gannet chick one day, but they don't nest on the island, they have these big stacks of rock out to sea where they form massive colonies...

  "Billy!"

  My head snaps around to look at her.

  "We have to go to the police."

  I open my mouth to reply to her. But I don't say anything. The thing is, I can't get out of my head what happened the last time I went to the police. When Olivia Curran went missing, and I thought that maybe this guy in Silverlea might have kidnapped and murdered her. I actually got a photo of what I thought was him dragging her body out of his house, rolled up in a carpet. Only it wasn't her at all. He was just renovating his house. It was just a carpet.

  Without speaking I press play on the phone again. Mrs. Jacobs' voice rings out again. Just from the tone you can tell it’s her nasty version.

  I killed him. I put his body in the bottom of the hole and covered it with rubble. The next day they poured the concrete...

  There's a laugh. I didn’t notice it at the time, but it's there on the recording, clear as anything. Only it's more of a cackle than a laugh. Like Mrs. Jacobs is actually a witch.

  "Billy? We have to go to the police."

  I nod. "Yeah. I know."

  Thirty-Nine

  Once we've made the decision, we have to work out how. I mean, you can't just walk into Newlea Police Station and say you've got evidence of a murder. Can you?

  Well actually it turns out you can. Or at least, neither of us can think of a better idea. So that’s what we do. Instead of going back to school, Amber drives us straight to the police station, the same one where I was interviewed a couple of years ago.

  It's weird being back. It doesn’t feel like two years since I was last here, and I wonder if I'm going to recognize anyone. But the officer on the front desk isn’t familiar.

  "Help you?" He narrows his eyes like he doesn't like kids. I'd forgotten how the police are like that.

  "We need to speak to a detective," I say, trying to sound firmer than I feel. "We have evidence about a murder."

  The cop looks like he's trying to show this happens all the time, but I see his eyebrows going up in surprise.

  "What evidence?"

  In response I hold up Amber's phone and press play. Mrs. Jacobs' voice rings out inside the quiet of the police station. I stop the recording just after her cackling laugh.

  "Who is that?" the officer asks, but I shake my head.

  "We need to speak to a detective," I say again.

  The officer stares at us for a long time before he does anything. He’s obviously pissed, but we need someone more senior.

  "I'll find someone you can speak to."

  “Thank you.”

  Ten minutes later the same officer leads us to an interview room. He tells us to sit down and says someone will be with us shortly. It's even more weird being back in here – it's the same actual room I was in last time. It's still got the old fashioned tape-recorders they had before, the ones that actually use tapes. I point them out to Amber, but she frowns at me, like she's not interested.

  "They're analogue!" I tell her.

  She keeps frowning, and then she mutters, more to herself than me.

  "This is so fucked up."

  Then the door bursts open, and a man comes striding in. He's about to shut the door behind him, when he stops, noticing me. He holds his head still for a few moments.

  "Wheatley! I knew I remembered that name." Then he closes the door, but he does so slowly, like he's taking the time to remember everything that happened before. I realize I know him too. He was one of the policemen I didn't really get on with when I was here before. Although there were quite a lot I didn’t get on with. He sits down
opposite us. Before he speaks again he looks carefully at Amber, but then he comes back to me.

  "Billy Wheatley."

  I don't reply. I don't remember his name. After a while he must realize this.

  "I'm Lieutenant James Langley. We met before." He turns to Amber. "And you are?"

  While she tells him her name I remember a bit more about him. He was the one who was in charge of the investigation to find the missing girl, but he wasn't very good. He got really angry just because I was trying to help.

  "Frank tells me you've got something I should hear." He doesn't start the recorder on the desk, so it doesn't seem like he's got any better at being a detective. I think about pointing this out, but in the end I don't. Instead I re-play the audio of Mrs. Jacobs confessing.

  Lieutenant Langley listens in silence with a stern look on his face. When it's finished he scratches at his ear.

  "This some sort of joke?"

  "No." I'm a bit confused by this. Why would I do this as a joke?

  Langley thinks for a moment more.

  "So who is that?"

  "It's someone called Barbara Jacobs," Amber says. She sounds quite nervous. I’d forgotten she hasn’t been to a police station before.

  "And who's she talking about?"

  "Her husband. Henry Jacobs. He was the principal of Lornea High School until 1979. That's when she killed him."

  Amber falls silent, and Langley looks at both of us for a while, one after the other.

  "1979, you say? That's..."

  "Forty years ago," I have to interrupt. I can see him counting in his head.

  "Right." He nods, then turns back to Amber.

  "How'd you get the recording?"

  Amber hesitates before answering. "We've been... We've sort of been investigating what happened to him."

  Langley doesn't move.

  "Why?"

  "Because... We sort of thought... well..." Amber obviously doesn't know what to say, so I interrupt again.

  "We started a detective agency," I say. I might as well just tell him. He’s going to find out sooner or later.

  "Then she hired us. She wanted to find out what happened to her husband before she died, because she's really old. Only it turned out that she killed him, and she's forgotten, because she's got dementia."

  I feel Langley's eyes resting on my face, like he's sucking in all this information. Processing it piece by piece.

  "Who did you say started a detective agency?"

  I point to myself and Amber. "We did."

  Lieutenant Langley's face change now. It stiffens, like he's trying not to show what he's thinking, but he's definitely thinking really hard.

  "You started a detective agency?"

  "That's right."

  "You? Billy Wheatley? Started a detective agency?"

  "Yes. And then Amber joined in too."

  There's a pause.

  "Why?"

  "I think because she was bored. There's not much happening on Lornea Island and her mom is more interested..."

  "No. Why did you start a detective agency?"

  "Oh," I pause. "Well I didn't really mean to. I was just practicing making a website but then..." I fade out. He doesn't need to know everything.

  But now Langley looks perplexed. He starts blinking lots. Then shakes his head just a little bit.

  "And this lady... This Barbara Jacobs. She actually hired you? As a detective?"

  I glance at Amber, I told her before we got here how we'd end up answering the same questions over and over.

  "Yeah."

  "Why? What did she want?"

  "She wanted us to find her husband."

  "The one she admitted to killing?"

  I try to explain it again. "She forgot why her husband disappeared, because she's got dementia problems, so she hired us to find out. But then we found out... And, well." I point to the phone on the tabletop.

  "And then how did you..." He stops. "How did you get this recording?"

  "We worked out that she must have killed him, and then decided to get her to confess."

  "I worked it out," Amber interrupts.

  "Yeah, Amber worked it out." I admit, because that's only fair.

  Lieutenant Langley sits silently for a moment, tapping the table with his knuckles. He doesn't look at us. Finally he gets up.

  "Wait here."

  He gets as far as the door, then turns around and comes back. He snatches the phone from the table.

  “You mind?”

  Both me and Amber shake our heads.

  "I'll be right back."

  As soon as he’s gone I feel a bit anxious. He’s just taken the evidence without giving us any sort of receipt. I think Amber knows this too, so we sit in silence, not even looking at each other.

  We end up waiting for ages. Lieutenant Langley comes back several times to ask us new questions, or the same questions again. Sometimes he's on his own, and sometimes he's with other people. At one point the Chief of Police looks in. I met him when I got my medal, so I give a little wave to say hello, but he doesn't wave back, or even say anything, he just stares at us then walks out again.

  Then they tell us they need to get our parents here, because they have to do formal interviews. I knew this part was coming, and I wasn't looking forward to it, but it can't be helped. At least Dad is back from the boat, so he's not going to get into trouble for leaving me on my own. And I start to wonder if him having to come to the police station again will remind him how the robbery he's plotting with Tucker is a bad idea. It actually might, and that would be an unexpected bonus.

  Amber's step-dad gets here first. I haven't actually met him before. He’s wearing a suit and he’s really polite to the officers, but he looks super mad with Amber, like she’s a pain anyway but this is something else. She has to go with him anyway, and the detective who waits with me explains how they want to interview us separately. They want to check if our stories match up, but I'm not worried because we're telling the truth.

  Then Dad comes in. I haven't seen him for over a week. He hasn't shaved on the boat, so he's grown half a beard. It scratches at my face as he hugs me. He looks more worried than mad. He whispers to ask me what I've got mixed up in, but I don't get the chance to answer him, because right away Lieutenant Langley and another detective come in and sit down and begin the formal interview.

  Forty

  I have to go over everything I've already told them, all over again. And then when we're finished they want to go back and talk about specific parts of it in more detail, like what I thought the guy at the garage had meant when he told us Henry messed around with kids. It's really tiring, and they keep stopping and pausing the tape, then going outside and we're left there waiting for ages before they start again.

  Dad keeps asking when we can go home, but they've always got one more question, until it's really late, and I'm so tired I can't keep my eyes open. Then Dad insists, and in the end they agree, but they say we have to come back first thing tomorrow. Then we get driven home in a police car. I go right to bed, since there's a weird atmosphere at home, with Dad and Tucker and everything. But we have to come straight back to the police station the next morning, and it just carries on like the day before. I sort of zone out of it all after a while, until, about lunchtime, when I get really hungry. Really hungry. I didn't eat last night, and I only grabbed some toast for breakfast. Then finally I say it to one of the detectives. I don't mean to, it just comes out.

  "Can I have something to eat?"

  It stops them in their tracks. Then one of the detectives, who's kind of looking after us, slaps the table.

  "Sure. You like burgers?"

  "Yeah."

  Alright then." Then he gets up and leaves.

  That was about an hour ago. We've been left alone since then, just me and Dad, and we're not really talking. He's asked me a few questions about the detective agency, and I can tell he's annoyed about it, but he won't tell me off here. He can't.

  Then
, finally, the door opens and the detective comes back holding a Wendy’s take-away bag. It smells amazing. Normally I'm actually not that fond of Wendy’s. But right now I'd eat anything.

  But then, before I can eat anything, Lieutenant Langley walks back in. He's about the only policeman we haven't seen this morning. In one hand he's holding a plastic folder full of papers. He says something quietly to the other detective, then takes the Wendy’s bag from him, and closes the door behind him, so it's just him, Dad and me in the room. He sits down, and pushes the burgers to one side. Then he opens his plastic wallet and pulls out the papers.

  "Billy, we need to have a little chat." Lieutenant Langley says.

  It's so hard not to stare at the burgers, but I drag my eyes away and look at him.

  "I've just got back from speaking to Barbara Jacobs." He looks me right in the eyes, his face not giving anything away. I glance at the burgers, hoping he'll get the idea. But he doesn't.

  "She denies killing her husband. She told us he went missing in 1979 and she has no knowledge of what happened to him after that."

  Again I look at the burgers. I can talk and eat pretty well. I wonder about saying that to Lieutenant Langley.

  "Well that doesn't mean anything," I hear Dad replying. "Not when she's already confessed on the tape Billy made?"

  "That recording was made without her knowledge or consent. We can't use it."

  "But you're not just gonna drop it?" Dad says. "You heard what she said..."

  "I didn't say we're gonna drop it. We're searching records to see if there's any evidence of Henry Jacobs after 1979. On Maui or anywhere else."

  "And is there?"

  I know I should be following all this more closely, but it's really hard because I'm so hungry. Suddenly my stomach gives a really loud grumble and Lieutenant Langley stops what he's saying and stares at me. Finally he understands, and pulls the burgers back in front of him. He peeks in the bag.

  "You hungry Billy?" He says, and I kind of hold my breath. My stomach rumbles again.