‘That’s when I saw you,’ said Griff.
‘Sligo made a final phone call to your mobile,’ I said. ‘He didn’t realise I’d picked it up from the road. He said enough for me to guess you’d been taken to the car yard. When we got here and I saw the container, I was pretty sure you’d be in it. Then Bruno and Zombie Two sprung us–’
‘And locked us in here with you,’ Griff finished for me, feeling around the container again. ‘We’re all up to speed now, so how about we focus on getting out of here?’
Griff’s suggestion was met with stifling silence. Clearly, none of us had any good ideas.
Outside the container and beyond the deserted car yard, the sounds of distant traffic hummed almost inaudibly.
Griff spoke again. ‘We’re better off trying to escape now, while we at least know where we are. If this truck moves us, we could end up stacked like bricks in concrete on a container ship in the middle of the ocean. We’d die there, for sure.’
‘I’m scared,’ whispered Winter.
I stood up and started pacing the length of the dark space of the container. If only there was something I could do. If only I could find some way to connect with the outside world. With Boges or–
‘The distress beacon!’ I shouted.
‘The what?’ said Griff.
‘The micro distress beacon Boges gave you!’ Winter shouted, excitedly. She jumped to her feet and awkwardly hugged me.
‘I have a distress beacon stowed in my shoe,’ I explained to Griff. ‘My mate Boges gave it to me, for use in an emergency!’
‘And you’ve only just thought of it now?’ he said in frustrated disbelief.
‘I’d almost forgotten all about it, but who cares?! It means we’re getting out of here!’
I sat back down and wrenched my shoe off. ‘Once he realises we’re missing, he’ll check the tracking program to see if we’ve activated the beacon. Then he can follow the signal to this container.’
‘But what about the police?’ asked Winter. ‘They’re watching him. What if they follow him here?’
‘Boges will be vigilant. He knows how important our freedom is. But let’s not worry about that right now, I have to get this beacon activated.’
With shaking fingers, I pulled up the inner sole from my sneaker and started to rip away the tape. I located the beacon and pressed the tiny switch.
It didn’t make a sound, but I had to believe it was working.
If Boges didn’t activate his tracking system before this container was picked up and shipped out, I didn’t like to think what might happen to us. Griff was right–we needed to get out before they moved us.
Now we had to play the waiting game.
‘Who’s that?’ hissed Winter, grabbing my arm suddenly.
I froze and listened carefully. I could hear footsteps and the murmur of a voice approaching.
‘Do you think it’s Boges?’ Griff whispered.
‘Shh,’ I said, straining to hear whether the voice outside was familiar or not.
As it became louder, I recognised who it was.
It wasn’t Boges.
It was Zombie Two.
‘In the container,’ he said, loud enough for the three of us to hear. ‘We both come back tomorrow morning to remove.’
We all shuddered as his voice moved away. Finally we heard a car driving off and hoped that meant Zombie Two had left again.
‘Your friend had better get here before they do,’ warned Griff.
The day blended into the night as the three of us huddled for hours and hours, anxiously waiting in the darkness of the container. All of us would jump at the slightest sound, hoping it was Boges, coming to our rescue, while fearing it was Bruno, Zombie Two or Sligo, back again to remove us.
But no-one had come.
Eventually, Winter and Griff fell quiet and I could hear Winter’s steady breathing beside me. The air inside the container was getting thicker and thicker.
I couldn’t fall asleep–I was tormented with horrible thoughts. What if Boges didn’t think to check up on his tracking program? What if the three of us were left here to die–from thirst and starvation–without anyone but the people who put us here ever knowing? What did Sligo plan on doing with us tomorrow morning? I didn’t want to stick around and find out.
The way I’d felt when I’d held Winter in my arms earlier, thinking she was dead, wouldn’t leave my mind either. I needed the chance to make a lot up to her. She’d been through so much and she’d been so brave. And now, just when she had the evidence she needed to get Sligo right out of her life forever, and claim what was rightfully hers, she was trapped.
Guilty. I felt so guilty.
Because of me, Boges had been picked up and questioned by the police. For all I knew, they could have arrested him by now. Because of me, his future was uncertain. On top of that, I’d only just realised that I’d forgotten his birthday.
30 days to go…
‘Hey,’ said Griff, shaking me. I must have finally dozed off to sleep. ‘There’s someone outside! They’re here! That big guy’s come back like he said he would!’
I sat up, alert. He was right–I could hear footsteps.
‘Can’t you hear it? Winter, wake up!’ Griff shouted. ‘They’re here!’
‘Shh!’ I hissed. ‘If it is Sligo we don’t want him knowing we’re all still alive!’
That quietened him. He crouched down silently.
‘Someone’s here?’ Winter asked in a low voice, only just waking up.
‘Sounds like it,’ I whispered. ‘Zombie Two said they’d be back in the morning, so if it’s them, then the minute the doors are opened we all need to charge out as fast and as hard as we can. It’s our only hope. If we all charge together, one of us might make it past them and be able to get help. OK?’
‘OK,’ agreed Winter and Griff.
‘Ready?’
‘Ready!’
We braced ourselves, ready to spring, as we heard the clanging and creaking of the heavy container doors opening.
As fresh air gushed towards us and daylight shone in, I squinted and flew at the two silhouettes before us.
I took down the first guy, knocking him hard to the ground. Bodies thudded and struggled beside me, too.
‘Hey! Easy, dude, it’s me!’ Boges shoved me off him.
‘Boges!’ I said. ‘Man, I am so sorry!’
‘Get off me!’ I heard a familiar voice grunt beside me. It was Nelson Sharkey. Griff and Winter had both tackled him and pinned him to the ground.
‘We didn’t know whether the distress beacon would work!’ exclaimed Winter, helping Sharkey to his feet, before running over to hug Boges. ‘We’re so glad to see you!’
‘You should never have doubted my craftsmanship,’ scoffed Boges, dusting off his notebook and straightening his shirt.
My eyes were slowly adjusting to the light as I scoped the car yard. Sharkey’s car was parked just outside the entry gates. I couldn’t see any sign of Sligo or his goons, but I knew they could turn up at any moment.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ I said, hauling up my backpack.
We crawled, one after another, through the opening in the fence that Sharkey had made with bolt cutters, then piled into his car and took off, skidding and screeching.
‘As soon as I realised you were both MIA,’ said Boges, ‘I immediately opened the program for the distress beacon. The second I saw your signal I called Nelson. He picked me up and helped me trace you. It didn’t take us too long to track you down to Sligo’s car yard.’
Sharkey pulled the car over to drop Griff off, not too far from his aunty’s hotel near the docks. We’d driven past a huge Christmas tree decorated with tinsel and golden boxes tied up with gleaming ribbons that had been set up in the park nearby. I could hardly believe it was almost Christmas. That meant the end of the year was way too close for comfort.
‘I’ll call you,’ said Griff, as he climbed out of the car. ‘But not too soon, OK?’
<
br /> I understood–Griff and I were both guilty of bringing trouble to each other, but without him I never would have found Winter.
‘Thanks!’ I shouted out as he ran away into a crowd of shoppers.
‘OK,’ said Sharkey, from the driver’s seat. ‘Where to next?’
Winter looked at me apprehensively from the front passenger seat. She opened her mouth to say something and then stopped.
‘Your place?’ Sharkey asked her. ‘I think I remember where that is.’
Winter shook her head and it hit me. Now she was like me. She couldn’t go back to her flat. She didn’t have a home any more. Neither of us did.
‘Let’s go to Lovett’s?’ Boges suggested, like he was reading my mind.
I nodded.
He gave Sharkey directions while I wondered if I could ever pay my friends back.
‘Boges,’ I said quietly. ‘Sorry I forgot your birthday. Next year will be different, I swear.’
Sharkey dropped the three of us off on the road that led to Luke Lovett’s place. Before he drove away, I asked him, ‘Nelson, when you were working on a tough case in the police force and you ran up against a brick wall, what did you do?’
Nelson leaned his elbow on the window ledge. ‘I began again, Cal. Went back to the start. The PLS.’
‘The PLS?’ I asked, aware of Boges and Winter listening attentively beside me.
‘The Point Last Seen. If it’s a missing person, you go back over the investigation. You go back to the place where they disappeared. You re-interview people, you ask for other witnesses to come forward. You hope to find fresh clues that maybe you’d overlooked before. Walk-throughs are really helpful because memory is state dependent.’
‘Meaning?’ Winter asked.
‘You know when you’re in the house and you’re walking to a room to get something and by the time you get there you forget what you were looking for?’ Sharkey continued.
‘Yep,’ we all answered.
‘Then you retrace your steps to where you were standing or sitting when you first got the idea, and then suddenly it pops back into your head again–it’s like doing that,’ said Sharkey. ‘Now are you guys right? I have to keep moving. I’ll look into flights for us all and get back to you, OK?’
‘Cool. Thanks again,’ I said as he drove off, leaving just the three of us, dishevelled and relieved.
‘Winter, you’d better hang with me until you’ve organised another place Sligo doesn’t know about,’ I said as we all crept towards the back of Luke’s place.
I saw the strain and exhaustion in her face. The happiness that had shone in her eyes as we were freed from the container was long gone. I’d been living rough for almost a year now, but she’d been living on a razor’s edge, keeping her secrets and suspicions from Sligo, for the last six years. All while practically living in the dragon’s den.
‘It’s OK, Winter,’ I began, reaching for her shoulder.
‘It’s not OK,’ she said, shaking my hand off. ‘All my stuff is back at the flat and I can’t go back and get it. I’m used to being alone, but now I have nothing. Nothing. My bag was smashed on the road when I was hijacked, I don’t have a phone and we have to get to Ireland and it’ll be freezing there. I have no clothes and I’m filthy!’
‘I have your phone,’ I said, digging it out of my backpack. ‘It just needs charging.’
She took it and we continued walking.
‘Cal and I will break into your flat,’ said Boges, bravely. ‘We can try and pick up your stuff for you.’
We pushed through the bushes that formed the back boundary of the Lovetts’ property and hurried over to the massive tree at the back, huddling together under its wide canopy. I reached up and yanked the rope down from where it had been thrown up out of the way over a low-lying bough.
Winter sighed as she climbed the rope. ‘Here I go again. Gorilla girl and the monkey boys. So where’s the bathroom?’ she asked, once at the top.
I pointed to a tap near the back fence.
‘You’re joking.’
I shrugged.
Boges hauled himself up into the treehouse. ‘Peaceful hideaway, leafy aspect. Open plan for easy living. Carpeted throughout. Bright and airy. Loads of character.’
‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘Not so bad.’
‘Character is a word real estate agents use when a place needs to meet a wrecking ball more than a new tenant.’ She sat down cross-legged on the bench and tied her hair back with an elastic from her wrist. ‘I have to go back to my flat. I have to get my passport, at least, otherwise going with you guys to Ireland and cracking the Ormond Singularity will be nothing but a dream for me.’
‘Like Boges said, we’ll watch your flat and if it’s safe,’ I said, ‘we’ll retrieve your things for you.’
The colour suddenly drained from Winter’s face. ‘The money! I don’t have the money!’
‘Where is it?’ Boges asked, alarmed.
‘Back at the flat! What if Sligo’s already found where I’ve hidden it?’
‘Where’d you hide it?’ I asked, hoping it wasn’t just in a drawer or something.
‘Inside the sofa. It’s not the best hiding spot, but maybe he won’t look in there unless he’s realised the cash from his scram bag is missing …’
‘We’ll find out soon enough,’ said Boges. ‘We’re gonna have to go there tonight.’
Boges and I squatted in the darkness across the road from Winter’s building. We checked out every parked car to make sure they were empty. Once we’d confirmed there was no-one watching the building from the outside, and that there was no sign of Sligo, Bruno or Zombie Two, we snuck over to the fire-escape stairs and silently made our way up.
The key to Winter’s door wasn’t working.
‘Let me have a go,’ said Boges. But he couldn’t turn it either.
‘Sligo’s changed the locks already,’ I hissed, glancing around us nervously. ‘We’ll have to break in.’
Above us, the stars, dull because of the pollution from the city, twinkled faint and distant. An aeroplane coming in to land over the sea soared overhead.
‘Watch out,’ I said to Boges as I picked up one of the pot plants Winter had growing at the front of her tiny apartment. Taking advantage of the roaring of the aeroplane, I smashed the pot plant through the window.
The shattering glass still sounded deafening and we froze, nervous someone had heard it and would come to investigate the noise on the roof.
Nothing happened. No-one came.
I carefully knocked out the remaining glass fragments and climbed inside, then unlocked the door for Boges.
Using torches, we found our way to the sofa, digging our arms in under the cushions, searching for the hole Winter had told us was there. I pushed my hands around, grazing my fingers on rough, iron springs.
‘Anything?’ Boges asked anxiously.
I shook my head.
My grasping fingertips finally felt something–wads of folded notes, held by rubber bands.
‘Got it!’ I said, pulling them out, one by one.
‘Hurry, dude,’ said Boges, who was now up and standing guard at the smashed window, looking out into the night. ‘I don’t want us to be here one second longer than we need to be.’
I didn’t need any urging. I shoved the wads of money into my backpack, on top of my fake passport, and then started looking for the things Winter had asked us to collect. I grabbed her mobile charger and scooped up some clothes from her drawer, while Boges grabbed her sleeping-bag and things from her bathroom.
Boges pointed his torch to a spot on the ground. Lit up were the two photos of Winter’s parents, both lying crookedly in their frames under shattered glass.
‘Sligo must have trampled them in a rage,’ said Boges.
I saw a copy of The Little Prince lying nearby and impulsively picked it up and shoved it in my backpack.
‘I can’t find her notes,’ whispered Boges, shining the light over the desk where Winter had
said she had left them. ‘Where could they be?’
Our eyes met over the empty table.
‘Sligo,’ we said, our voices overlapping.
‘So Sligo has all our information on the Ormond Singularity?’ Winter cried.
I nodded. It was just the two of us in the treehouse. Boges had gone home after the Lesley Street raid, leaving me to make the trek to the treehouse alone.
‘But Cal,’ she argued, ‘Sligo could join Rathbone in Ireland and the two of them could go straight for it! Forget about the Jewel and the Riddle! They can do everything we planned on doing–using the photos and other clues to find the location!’
‘We can’t give up now. Nobody has the last two lines of the Riddle.’
‘Yet,’ said Winter. ‘And we don’t have them either.’ She unrolled her sleeping-bag and laid it out. It took up almost a third of the floor space.
A wave of anxiety unsettled my guts. ‘At least we have the money, right?’
‘We do have that. Thanks for getting my other stuff too,’ she said, reaching into the box in the corner for a couple of muesli bars Boges had left behind. ‘Did you see the photos of my mum and dad?’
I pictured them, trampled on the floor. ‘I’m sorry, I forgot to grab them,’ I lied. ‘I’m going back to the PLS,’ I said, changing the subject and tearing the wrapper off the bar she’d tossed me.
‘The point last seen of your original backpack? The bag containing the Jewel and the Riddle?’
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