The moment he was back home, Chris got stuck into his work: good old-fashioned research. He loved this more than anything. He couldn’t really understand why Brian and Sam preferred all that running around.
The first house that Brian, Amelia and Sam went to was the one in Castle Park, the housing estate where Brian and Sam had escaped from the car the day before. There was no sign of the men’s car, and the curtains were still drawn. The gate that led to the back of the house was padlocked.
Amelia spoke to a neighbour who was just returning home laden down with shopping bags. She told her she was looking for a friend from school and was wondering if she’d called at the right house. The neighbour was friendly and said that the woman who lived there had only moved in six months ago, and she’d never seen her with anyone else. She presumed she didn’t have children, so Amelia’s friend must be living elsewhere.
‘She didn’t mention anything about two men,’ Amelia said when the neighbour had gone back into her house. ‘So maybe Manuel and Bart don’t live there.’
‘We should go round the back. See if there’s anything suspicious there.’
‘Not now,’ Amelia said. ‘The woman is still watching us.’
She was peeping out from behind her curtains; only one eye and part of her forehead was visible.
‘We’ll call back later,’ Brian decided.
It took them nearly an hour to get to the farmhouse. As soon as they arrived, they realized they’d wasted their time. They circled the house, looking for ways to get in. The front door, which was made of thick, solid wood, with a small diamond-shaped piece of glass in its centre, was securely locked. The windows were double-glazed and the back door was as securely fastened as the front door. All the curtains in the house were drawn tightly, without even a whisper of a gap. They couldn’t see anything through the glass in the front door other than some scraps of paper and broken-down furniture.
‘Should we smash the windows?’ Sam asked eagerly.
‘They won’t be easy to smash through.’
‘I’m willing to give it a go.’
Amelia ran her finger along one of the window frames, easily wiping a clean line through some of the dirt. She examined her finger, then examined the frame.
‘It’s clean underneath.’
‘So?’
‘How would you describe the house?’
‘Farmy?’
‘Everything is overgrown and dirty and dusty. Like it hasn’t been cleaned for years. That makes sense because the house looks like it hasn’t been lived in for a while, but the windows look new and the dirt, well, it looks like someone put it there.’
‘Who’d be stupid enough to do that?’ Sam asked. ‘Who deliberately puts dirt on a window?’
‘People who have something to hide,’ Amelia said.
By the time they’d got halfway back to town, they were tired, hungry and worn out. They stopped for a break, lying their bicycles against a tree and sprawling out themselves on a patch of grass. They only had one option left.
‘He won’t do it,’ Sam said. ‘He’ll be too scared or he’ll think it’s wrong or that we should call the cops or something.’
‘But he’s the only one of us who knows anything about picking locks,’ Brian said.
They had tried to pick one of the locks themselves, using a safety pin that Amelia was carrying in her backpack, but after fifteen minutes of scratching around they had to admit defeat and give up.
‘I’m telling you – he won’t do it.’
‘I’ll persuade him,’ Brian said. ‘Look, there’s obviously something in that house that they’re hiding. And you heard those guys yesterday when we were in the boot of the car – they know we’re after them, so they’re not going to take any chances. They’ll move the stuff and then they’ll never be seen again and all this will be over.’
‘Fine, try to persuade him, then. See how well that works.’
Brian borrowed Amelia’s phone and gave his friend a call.
Chris said no.
‘What’s wrong with him? Why is he so uptight?’ Brian asked when he’d hung up. They were on the verge of solving the case – he could feel it in his bones – and Chris was going to mess things up for them because he thought that breaking into a house that didn’t belong to him was a very bad thing.
‘Look, we’ll go back home, get something to eat and then I’ll talk to him,’ Amelia said. ‘Face to face.’
‘And if you don’t persuade him?’ Brian asked.
‘Then we’ll figure out another way to get into those houses,’ Amelia said.
‘Wow. You’ve changed,’ Sam said. ‘Like, in a good way.’
Brian arrived home, still simmering with fury at Chris. As he shut the front door, he noticed an envelope bearing his name lying on the hall mat.
He noticed that it didn’t have a stamp, so it hadn’t been posted, even though it had his full name and address written on the outside. The name Brian had been misspelled as Bryan. He didn’t want to bump into his dad or Sharon. She was in the house so often these days she may as well have been living there – nobody had asked him if he minded – so he took it straight up to his room.
He flopped down on to his bed and tore the envelope open. Inside was a single white sheet, folded in two. He opened it and read the words. It was short and sweet:
STOP INVESTIGATING OR ELSE.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
There was nothing else on the note. No further explanation. Brian’s stomach churned with a mixture of fear and excitement. If someone was warning him off, then they must be closing in on something after all.
Who was it? And how did they know where he lived? He tried to think through the possibilities, but his head was spinning. He was certain Manuel and Bart, or whatever their names were, hadn’t followed him. He’d surely have noticed them if they had. They weren’t exactly the most subtle of guys.
Could it have been someone from the nursing home? Rodney hadn’t known who Brian was, he was certain of that, but one of the old folks might have. And they could have told Rodney. They might not even have told him willingly. Rodney seemed like the sort of bully who could menace anyone into telling the truth.
What if the others had got a letter too? He had to find out. He grabbed his phone, dialled Sam’s number and got the no credit message.
Brian leaped up and ran down the stairs, then remembered the letter, racing back to stuff it into his jeans pocket, before hurtling downstairs again. Within thirty seconds, he was on his bike, on his way to the twins’ house as fast as he could. He skidded into corners, hanging so low he was almost scraping his knee on the ground at the turn. He wobbled a couple of times and once he had to swerve wildly to avoid a dog. The dog didn’t seem to mind – he actually seemed to enjoy it, as he spent the next few hundred metres trying to keep up with Brian.
Brian jumped off his bike when he arrived at the twins’ house. The bike continued moving along the footpath by itself before hitting a wall and crashing to the ground. Brian had already hopped over the gate and was round the back of the house where Adeyinka was playing a game of Skits with a couple of neighbours.
‘Hi, Brian,’ she said sweetly, but there was no time for him to answer.
He leaped over the bags of recycling left behind from the previous night’s party, wrenched open the back door and dodged past Mrs Adamu, then weaved around a couple of the twins’ brothers, before running upstairs and bursting into Chris’s room, too out of breath to talk. Chris was sitting on his bed, deep in thought, pages and pages of investigative notes spread all around him. He looked up, startled, as Brian handed him the envelope before collapsing in a heap on the carpet. Chris read the note.
‘This is serious. We have to—’
‘Not telling anyone,’ Brian wheezed. ‘Did you get one?’
‘A letter? No,’ he said. ‘Don’t think Sam did, either. I was talking to Hannah a few minutes ago and she didn’t mention one. Let me check with Amelia.’
> ‘No, not yet. I want to . . . work this out. Tell me what . . . you think it means if I’m . . . the only one who got a letter.’
‘Possibly, that it’s someone who knows you, but doesn’t know us. Or else they only want to warn you specifically for some reason.’
‘Do you think that I’m the only one they’re trying to warn?’ Brian said, finally getting some of his breath back.
‘I honestly don’t know.’
Brian hauled himself up on to the bed. His back was drenched with sweat and he needed a drink. He grabbed a carton of juice from the bedside table and tore it open, not even waiting to insert the straw. He necked the lot in one go before wiping his mouth clean with the back of his hand.
‘We’re in this investigation together, but I’m the only one who’s got a warning,’ Brian said. ‘Even if I stopped, the rest of you would still continue trying to solve this, right?’
‘Yes, almost certainly.’
‘So then why would they warn me? What’s the point?’
‘You’re saying that taking you out of the equation wouldn’t make much of a difference to the overall investigation? We’d still have a good chance of solving the crime whether you were there or not?’
‘Exactly. You and Hannah are the brains. Sam is just as willing to step into certain danger as I am and Amelia . . . well, I don’t know . . . Look, it makes no sense to only try to stop me, but not the rest of you.’
Brian had a thought. Last night, outside the bathroom. It couldn’t be . . . could it? She had been acting strangely.
‘Have you got copies of the drawings?’ he asked. ‘The drawings of the stuff that was in the attic in the cottage. Remember there were sketches of the stolen goods.’
‘Sure, yes. Hang on.’ Chris shuffled through the papers on the bed until he found what he was looking for. ‘Is this what you want?’
It was. The sketches of the painting, the lamp . . . and the necklace. The necklace he’d seen in Amelia’s bag when she stumbled outside the bathroom at the party. He didn’t want to believe it.
‘What is it?’ Chris asked.
‘Give me a second. I need to think. She turns up, we go to the cottage, find the stuff. She’s supposed to be looking after her grandmother, but there’s nothing wrong with her. Nothing at all . . .’
Chris’s face changed before Brian had time to continue. He knew the way his friend’s brain worked – not always very well. ‘No, no, no. Tell me you don’t . . . you don’t suspect Amelia.’
Brian held up the sketch of the necklace. ‘I don’t want to suspect her, but last night at the party I saw this in her bag.’
‘And what did she say when you asked her about it?’
‘What? I didn’t ask her about it.’
‘Why not?’
‘Why not? That doesn’t matter. Look at the envelope. Look at how my name is spelled.’
Even though he didn’t want to, Chris did. Bryan. Brian spelled with a Y.
‘She doesn’t know how I spell my name. Everyone else does.’
‘But she’s smart. Brian is the traditional spelling and if you’re in doubt you’d go with the traditional spelling, wouldn’t you?’
‘Unless it was some kind of double-bluff. She might know I spell it Brian, so she spells it Bryan to stop us suspecting her.’
‘Why would she do that?’ Chris asked.
‘She wants me out of the picture.’
Chris’s mouth dropped open with shock.
‘Not dead! Maybe just not part of the Misfits Club.’
‘Brian, I love this club as much as you do, but the idea that someone is trying to break us up or something when we only have a short time left together anyway is ridiculous.’
‘All right, all right, that’s probably a bit stupid,’ Brian admitted. ‘But, wait, I’ve got it.’
He jumped off the bed, slapped his fist into the palm of his hand, a gesture that signified both anger and delight.
‘What is it you’ve got?’ Chris asked. He didn’t think he wanted to hear it.
‘It’s a distraction. Amelia, the evil genius, set this whole thing up – the stolen goods, the haunted house, the whole thing. Think about it.’
‘I am thinking about it and it makes no sense.’
‘No, give it a minute. Nothing happens around here, right? Nothing exciting, I mean, before you say something happens everywhere.’
‘Go on,’ Chris said warily. He wondered if his friend had gone mad. It was possible. A lot had happened in Brian’s life in the last couple of years and he never talked about it. Maybe bottling all that stuff up had been bad for him. Maybe today was the day he finally exploded.
‘One day Amelia turns up. She tells Hannah she’s staying with her grandmother because she’s there to look after her. I’ve met Mrs Parkinson – she does not need to be looked after. Definitely not.’
Brian began pacing up and down the small bedroom.
‘Amelia is suddenly friends with Hannah, even though she’s been visiting Florence for ages and never made an effort to meet Hannah before,’ he continued, ‘and somehow she gets us to agree to allow her join the club. She picks the Ultimate Test card in Gravest Danger and it just happens to be the haunted-house card. Coincidence? I think not. We go to the cottage in the woods and that very day happens to be the day the stolen goods are there and Amelia accidentally photographs the man we haven’t been able to find. We start looking for the goods, we find that the house is owned by Rodney. What if Rodney is just there to distract people from the truth of what’s happening?’
‘You think that some adults think the Misfits Club is so dangerous and so good at investigating that they want us distracted from whatever secret scheme they’re actually operating?’
‘Er, yeah. Something like that. I haven’t worked out all the details yet.’
Chris threw his hands up in the air. He’d never heard such nonsense in his life. ‘Who? Who is the mastermind behind all of this?’
Brian hadn’t thought that far ahead. ‘Amelia’s dad? Maybe Manuel or Bart is Amelia’s father.’
‘We’ve seen her father. Driving past when they visit, remember? He looks nothing like Manuel or Bart.’
‘Maybe they’re her uncles or something. Listen to me. She has the necklace in her bag. Why would she have it if she didn’t steal it? And who else could have delivered the note to my house? Who even knows we’re investigating? My dad? Your dad? It wasn’t Manuel or Bart because they don’t seem like gentle note-writing kind of guys, do they?’
‘Right, that’s it. I’ve had enough. Come with me.’
Chris put his tablet into his backpack and slipped it over his shoulders. He left the room and was halfway down the stairs when Brian caught up with him.
‘Where are we going?’ Brian asked.
Chris stopped to face his friend. ‘We’re going to talk to Amelia.’
‘But—’
‘No buts. Nothing. The Misfits Club is not a place for secrets and you’re right – Mrs Parkinson doesn’t need looking after. So we’re going to ask her what she’s really doing here and she’s going to tell us and maybe then you’ll stop making up crazy theories.’
‘You’ll give the game away. If she’s trying to trick us—’
‘Then she’ll know we’re on to her. If she’s as much of a genius as you say, and has set all of this up, then she’s going to be ten steps ahead of us anyway, so we may as well put our cards on the table.’
They met Sam coming in the door as they were on their way out of the house.
‘We’re off to meet Amelia,’ Chris said.
‘I’ll come with you. What’s going on?’
‘Brian thinks that Amelia might be the brains behind the whole stolen-treasure thing and is using the Misfits Club to complete some dastardly scheme that’s been set in motion, probably by the criminal we mistook for a poltergeist. Oh, and he thinks the criminal might be Amelia’s father. We’re going to confront her about it.’
Sam grabb
ed his bike and hopped on. He wheelied his way to the footpath outside his house.
‘Aren’t you surprised? Don’t you have any questions?’ Brian asked.
‘No and no,’ Sam said.
‘Oh, OK. You suspect her too?’
‘Absolutely not. Not even for a second. I just want to see you make a fool of yourself.’
A summer breeze had picked up, cooling the muggy afternoon air. The street was filled with the noise of strimmers and lawnmowers as people took advantage of the good weather to do some gardening. As the three of them cycled down the road, Brian wondered if he’d just made a huge mistake.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
‘The Five Find-Outers and Dog never made things this complicated for themselves,’ Hannah said.
‘Maybe the dog calmed them all down and made them less stupid,’ Chris said, looking pointedly at Brian.
They were all gathered in Hannah’s other garden shed, which was hot and cramped and uncomfortable. She didn’t dare risk going to their much cosier club headquarters, just in case her mother returned early. Hannah had given Amelia the best seat, which was on the ride-on lawnmower. Hannah was sitting on an upturned bucket while Chris was perched on the top of an aluminium stepladder. Brian and Sam had decided to stand.
Hannah’s mother had gone into town while her father had just returned from a five-mile run. He’d gone for a shave and a shower so Hannah had nipped out of the house. Unfortunately for Hannah, he’d hidden his laptop so she still hadn’t had the opportunity to access it, which was driving her mad. She’d managed to solve her mobile-phone problem, though. She’d taken out the SIM card before it had been confiscated and had switched it into an old phone with a cracked screen that she’d found in a kitchen drawer. She reckoned they had about fifteen minutes before her dad would notice she was missing.
‘What’s this all about?’ Amelia asked.
‘To be blunt, it’s about you,’ Chris said.
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