Burning Secrets

by Clare Chambers

  He went to look up Milman, then remembered the listing would still be in the name of Ericsson, his great-grandfather. There it was between Easterhouse, Dr A.J. and Evergreen the Florist. He dialled and listened impatiently as the phone rang on and on unanswered. “Come on, Louie, pick it up,” he muttered into the mouthpiece, frustrated by this new delay. He could picture her upstairs in bed, sleeping peacefully, oblivious and deaf to any interruptions. But as he hung up and walked away from the phone box, he felt slightly uneasy. I tried, he told himself, quickening his pace as he reached the end of Ramsay’s road. I did try.

  Chapter 31

  THE TWO GIRLS and Chet reached Ramsay’s house at half past nine, having walked for more than an hour meeting no one on the way. “Well,” said Ramsay, who had expected nothing less, “what now?” She could see her mum moving about the lighted kitchen, opening and closing cupboards, assembling the ingredients for an evening snack.

  “You go in,” said Louie. “I’ll walk as far as the school, and then go home, I guess. If he’s not there by the time I get back I’ll phone Mum. She’ll know what to do.”

  Reassured by this solution, Ramsay opened the front gate and wheeled her bicycle inside, and then returned to give Louie a goodbye hug. They had become friends on the course of the walk, and she felt that her previous view of Louie as unbalanced and moody was unfair.

  “Tell you what this place needs,” Louie said as they had exchanged hugs, “mobile phones. I don’t know how you manage without them. This whole problem would have been sorted in five minutes flat.”

  “Some mobile company wanted to set up a mast here a few years ago. There was a big meeting about it in Port Julian. Loads of people were against it, saying mobiles were like little microwave ovens and we’d all get our brains fried. So when it came to a vote nearly everyone voted no. I’ve never really felt like I needed one. Until now.”

  The two girls parted and Louie set off towards the village, keeping Chet on a short lead. She was beginning to regret her generous offer to walk with Ramsay now that she was alone and so far from home. If it wasn’t for Chet beside her she’d have felt nervous walking in the countryside at night. Although she felt a bit anxious about Daniel she knew he’d be all right, because he was the strong one in the family, the one they all leant on. Even in Lissmore when they’d gone to visit him, she and Mum had been the ones in tears – he’d had to reassure them. I’m fine. Everyone’s really friendly. The time’s going so quickly.

  The village was deserted, and there were only a few lights on in the houses opposite the green. Even if she had been the sort of person to approach a complete stranger to ask if they had seen Daniel, there was no one to ask. Apart from a curtained glow from the caretaker’s cottage, the school buildings were in darkness. The burned-out pavilion was only visible as a blackened shape. She wished she could remember why Daniel had been going to the school, but she wasn’t sure he’d told her. She made a slow circuit of the playing field to put off the inevitable moment of going home to make the promised phone call to Mum. Just as she reached her starting point, she heard the sound of a car engine approaching on the Filey road. A moment later headlights swept past her, drenching her in their brightness. The car pulled up some way ahead and began to reverse slowly until it drew alongside, and Louie recognised Mrs Ivory at the wheel. Relief washed over her. Not a stranger, but someone who had been kind to her on two occasions and would know what to do.

  The window slid down. “Hello, Louie,” said Mrs Ivory, leaning across the passenger seat. “I thought it was you. You’re a long way from home. Is everything OK?”

  “Daniel’s missing,” Louie said. “I don’t know where he is.” Just saying it seemed to lift a huge pressure from her shoulders, as though the problem of his absence was a heavy weight, which Ramsay had passed to her, and she was now handing on to someone else.

  “Oh,” said Mrs Ivory, with a sympathetic frown of concern. “Well, you can’t go looking for him on foot. Jump in and we’ll drive around and see if we can find him.” She swung the passenger door open.

  Louie looked doubtfully from Chet to the clean leather interior. “My dog’s a bit dirty. He normally sits on a hairy old blanket.”

  “Oh, you don’t need to worry about the car. People are more important than things. People and dogs, I mean.”

  As Louie climbed in the back with Chet, she noticed a key ring swinging from the ignition, and the familiarity of it made her smile. It was an orange rubber fish – just like Daniel’s.

  Chapter 32

  RAMSAY LAY IN the darkness, wondering what had woken her. Tired after her journey across the island, she had fallen asleep quickly, but now she was awake again. It was after midnight. Everything was quiet apart from the comforting creaks of the house settling itself for the night. Being awake while others slept gave her a feeling of loneliness she never felt at any other time. She turned over in bed, trying not to disturb the tunnel of warmth she had created, and then she heard it: a pattering, scrabbling sound, like a small animal scurrying over the wall. It wasn’t loud, but it was near – just outside the window. She sat up in bed and tweaked the curtain open. As she peered over her pots of Leaf into the darkness, a handful of loose earth hit the glass directly in front of her face and slithered down on to the sill. She opened the window as another handful caught the edge of the frame, showering her with soil.

  “Ramsay,” hissed a familiar voice from the shadows of the garden. “It’s me.” Her heart leapt.

  “Daniel,” she whispered back. “Stop throwing dirt at me. Where were you?”

  “Can I come in for a minute?”

  “Well . . . ” Ramsay was doubtful.

  “I just want to talk to you.”

  “The front door creaks really loudly. We’ll get caught.”

  “I’ll climb up.”

  Before she could reply he’d already started to clamber up the elderly Russian vine which smothered the side wall of the house. Its trunk was as thick as his arm, solid and twisted like rope, and there was a network of newer thinner branches clinging to the stonework. Romeo, she thought, with a combination of admiration and fear at his recklessness. But it didn’t seem to be nearly as easy for Daniel as it had been for Romeo, and for a moment Ramsay worried that he was going to pull the whole thing off the wall and end up on his back in the flowerbed. Hastily shifting several pots of Leaf out of the way, she grasped his arm and helped to drag him inside. With the curtains closed the room was so dark that she couldn’t see him. They sat opposite each other on the bed, knees just touching.

  “Ramsay,” said Daniel, reaching blindly for her hands and grasping them in his.

  “Daniel, this is insane.”

  There were two closed doors and a length of landing between them and Ramsay’s parents, but they spoke in whispers nevertheless.

  “I know, but I really wanted to see you.”

  “You’re freezing,” said Ramsay, shivering at his icy touch. The night air seemed to stream from his clothes. “We could get under the covers,” she said shyly, twitching back the duvet and shuffling over to make room for him. He scuffed his trainers off, and then slid in next to her. They lay side by side, their heads very close on the pillow, hardly breathing.

  “You smell nice,” he said at last. “Like shampoo and clean clothes.”

  He rolled over to face her, and she could feel the roughness of denim, zips and buckles pressing through the soft jersey of her pyjamas. “I’m sorry I wasn’t at the chapel. Did you wait long?”

  “Twenty minutes or so.”

  “I would have been there, but I got locked in a cupboard at school.”

  “What?”

  “Someone locked me in a storeroom. By accident – I don’t think they knew I was there.”

  “There aren’t any locked rooms at school.”

  “There is one. I’ve just spent about three hours breaking out of it. I kept thinking of you sitting in that creepy old chapel by yourself . . . I was so frustrated not
being able to get to you.”

  “I knew there had to be a good reason. I’m just glad you’re OK. How did you get out, anyway?”

  Daniel described his painstaking escape from the room. “So all I’ve done tonight is climb in and out of windows,” he finished.

  “Anyone would think you were a criminal,” she murmured, and then it came back to her – what she’d needed to tell him so urgently at the chapel. “You know about the fire at school?”

  “No. What fire?”

  “Someone set fire to the pavilion. It’s completely burned out. The police came up to the school and everything.”

  “Oh my God,” said Daniel.

  “I know. You were in the chapel with me when the fire broke out. But nobody else knows that.”

  Daniel exhaled heavily.

  “I wondered whether the police had come to ask you about it. Because if they had it means Dad must have told them about you.”

  “No one’s said anything to me about it. Don’t worry – I won’t give you away.”

  “But you must,” Ramsay insisted. “If you’re accused of something you didn’t do, I’ll say you were with me.”

  “You’re so nice,” said Daniel, then paused. “Ramsay,” he said, in a new and serious tone, which made a blush sweep over her. “If I asked you to do something for me, would you do it, without asking why?”

  “Well . . . OK.”

  “Will you give up eating Leaf ? For me.”

  The request was a little disappointing. Ramsay had expected something more personal. “All right, if it means so much to you,” she said, feeling slightly trapped by her pledge.

  Daniel found her hand and squeezed it. “Thank you,” he said. “If there’s anything you want me to do in return, just say.”

  Ramsay thought for a moment. “No. There’s nothing about you I’d want to change.” The darkness made her brave enough to pay him this huge compliment.

  For a moment they lay in silence, thinking separate yet remarkably similar thoughts. “I wish I could stay here all night,” he said at last.

  “I wish we could meet all the time like normal people,” said Ramsay.

  “That would be nice too.”

  “The chapel’s off limits now,” Ramsay added. “Someone else is using it.” She explained about the mysterious visitor, the rearranged prayer cushions and the spilt candle wax, playing down her hasty exit. Safe in bed, with Daniel beside her, she wondered how she could ever have been afraid.

  “It can’t have been Kenny, because Louie said—” She stopped abruptly. Louie! She hadn’t given her another thought. “Have you seen Louie? Does she know you’re OK?”

  “I tried to call her from the phone box but there was no reply. She must be asleep. She could sleep through a rocket attack.”

  “She was worried about you. She went looking for you around the village. After waiting in the chapel I called at your house and we walked back here together. If she couldn’t find you she was going to phone your mum.”

  Daniel groaned quietly. “Oh no.” He sat up, and began hunting for his trainers beside the bed. “I’ve got to go.” She heard him dragging them on, and felt the bed quake as he clambered across her to open the window. Chilly night air flooded into the room.

  “Be careful. Goodbye,” she whispered. As she knelt up he leant back and pulled her towards him and kissed her hard on the mouth, stifling her gasp of surprise. His arms were round her, clasping her against him, and she was kissing him back. Nothing will ever be better than this moment, she thought. James had never kissed her like this. Just as it began to seem that Daniel had abandoned any plan to leave, he broke away.

  “I’ll think about you all night,” he promised, and then he was out of the window and scrambling down the vine. She heard the thud as he dropped the last couple of metres into the flower bed. She lay back on her pillow, her face burning, wondering how long it would be until they were together again.

  Chapter 33

  “DOES DANIEL OFTEN go wandering off like this?” Mrs Ivory asked, as the car cruised the dark and deserted streets of Stape before heading out on the road to Filey.

  “Sometimes,” Louie admitted. “But if he goes out at night he usually takes Chet.”

  “Perhaps he’s called in on a friend?”

  “I don’t think he’s got any friends. Except Ramsay and Fay, but he’s not with them. I suppose there might be someone else he hasn’t told me about,” she added. Daniel had no trouble keeping secrets.

  It took twenty minutes to perform a circuit that took in the settlements of Filey and Darrow and brought them back to Stape, without passing Daniel or anyone else on the way. “The thing is,” Louie said, as the school came into view again, “he might have arrived home while we’ve been driving around, and we wouldn’t know. Perhaps I’d better go back.”

  Mrs Ivory had taken a left turning past the terraced row where Helen Swift had lived, and instead of following up Louie’s suggestion, swung the car down a narrow tree-lined road. After a while it gave way to an unmade track terminating in an open gate. “How about we go back to my house and you can phone from there?” Mrs Ivory said. Since they were now pulling up outside the front door Louie could hardly object.

  Although it was dark, Louie could see that the house was similar in size and shape to The Brow, but in a much better state of repair. Mrs Ivory let her in to a bright and welcoming hallway, with freshly painted walls and a polished wooden floor, free of the dust, dog-hairs, discarded shoes and general clutter that Louie associated with home.

  “The phone’s in here,” said Mrs Ivory, showing Louie into the sitting room. A coal fire had nearly burned out in the grate; Mrs Ivory stirred the embers with an iron poker and threw a shovelful of coals on top, then withdrew to the kitchen to make coffee, followed by Chet.

  Louie dialled home, allowing herself a flutter of hope that Daniel might pick up. She hung on long after it was clear that he wouldn’t, until she was finally cut off. She replaced the receiver and looked about her, noting to her dismay Chet’s dirty paw prints on a cream rug – the only blemish in an otherwise spotless room. Apart from an alcove of bookshelves, there was little to suggest anything about the owner. The only furniture was a pair of red sofas facing each other across a low coffee table. On the white walls were various colourful and splodgy paintings, which might or might not have been Art – Louie wasn’t sure.

  Above the fireplace was a huge black and white framed photo of a girl of about fifteen, staring out of a window looking thoughtful. She had long dark hair and an intelligent face and bore a strong resemblance to Mrs Ivory, who came in at that moment carrying a tray.

  “Any luck?” she asked, unloading steaming coffee and a plate of thick white toast, running with butter.

  “No,” said Louie, who had stationed herself on top of Chet’s paw prints. “I’ll try again in a minute.”

  “You stay here in the warm and eat that lot up, and I’ll go out again in the direction of Port Julian. I’ll be back in about twenty minutes.”

  From the kitchen came the sound of Chet drinking noisily. “I gave him a bowl of water,” Mrs Ivory explained.

  “You can shut him in there if you don’t want him rampaging around the house,” Louie suggested, helping herself to coffee. She was cold and thirsty, and gulped it down too quickly, gasping as it tore at her throat.

  “He’s all right.” Mrs Ivory gave the fire another prod with the poker. “I’d like a dog myself, for company, but it doesn’t seem fair if I’m out at work all day.” She straightened up and, noticing that the portrait over the mantelpiece was tilted fractionally, readjusted it.

  Louie said, “That’s a nice picture. Is it you?”

  “Oh no,” said Mrs Ivory, though she seemed pleased with the comparison. “It’s my daughter, Hilly.”

  “I didn’t know you had a daughter. Have you got any other children?”

  “No. Just Hilly. Unless you count the five hundred students at Stape High, of course.”
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  “She’s so pretty,” said Louie, who was always ready to acknowledge good looks in others.

  “Yes, she was,” said Mrs Ivory. “She never thought she was, even though I kept telling her.” She paused, then continued, “I’d better be heading off. Make yourself comfortable and keep phoning home. I won’t be long.”

  Louie heard the front door close with a soft click. She felt herself enveloped in the silence of an unfamiliar house. She ate the toast and finished the last gritty dregs of coffee, and then rang The Brow twice, hanging on each time until she was cut off. The coal fire was giving out some heat now, and she allowed herself to doze drowsily on one of the red sofas until a scampering noise made her sit up. Venturing out into the hall, she found the rest of the house was in darkness. Louie couldn’t understand this mania of grown-ups for switching off lights. They may as well still live in caves, she thought, patting the wall in a vain search for a switch. In the gloom Chet appeared at the top of the stairs. He had something in his mouth; long pale ribbons trailed from his jaws.

  “What have you got there?” said Louie, bounding up the stairs and catching hold of him on the landing. She gently prised the item from his teeth. It turned out to be a satin ballet shoe, now horribly chewed and soaked with slobber.

  “Chet, you bad dog. Where did you get this from?” Louie demanded. With supreme indifference Chet sat down and began to lick himself.

  All the upstairs doors were closed apart from one which was ajar, allowing a weak and flickering light to leak on to the landing. Still holding the mangled shoe, Louie let herself in and looked around, unable to stifle a squeak of surprise and alarm. A single chubby candle stood burning on the windowsill. Its sputtering flame reflected in the blackness of the glass behind it, throwing distorted shadows on to the walls, and in the darkest corner of the room stood the ghostly figure of a girl, all in white. “Oh!” Louie gasped. The figure didn’t move.

  Quaking with fear, Louie scrabbled for the switch and snapped on the light. Only then did she realise that the girl was just a dressmaker’s dummy modelling a long gauzy ballet dress. Even so, it was a few minutes before Louie’s heart-rate returned to normal. She was in a bedroom, evidently belonging to Hilly, since there were cuddly toys on the bed and dozens more photographs of her on the walls, along with framed certificates for dance, music and gymnastics. A glass-fronted cabinet contained various amateurish pieces of pottery and needlework – the sort of stuff Louie would bring proudly home from school for Mum, who would demote it rapidly from mantelpiece to back of wardrobe to bin. In front of this was a music stand holding a piece of sheet music, covered in pencilled instructions – Dynamics! Count! C#! A violin lay in an open case on the desk as though practice had been interrupted and might resume again at any moment.