by Ruth Eastham
‘It’s worth a try,’ said Emmi.
‘There was that red car, right?’ Jon said. ‘The one we saw before the ambulance arrived. If we can zoom in on it using some special software I’ve got … who knows? We’re really running out of time and options.’
‘The laptop’s at my house with the drone, remember,’ said Aidan, as they left the clearing.
‘We can connect the computer to my mum and dad’s big telly,’ said Emmi.
‘And I’ve the software to analyse the film back home,’ said Jon.
Plans ran through Aidan’s head as they made for the edge of the woods. He felt a small surge of hope.
‘OK,’ he said, as they reached a fork in the path where the trees petered out. ‘I’ll run back for the laptop. You go get the software, Jon. Meet at Emmi’s as soon as we can.’
‘Yes, Chief!’ Jon gave him a small salute, then turned and headed off, Emmi close behind him.
‘Be careful everyone!’ Aidan heard her call, as he sprinted off in the other direction across a field.
After five minutes of hard running, Aidan arrived in the yard by his house, panting.
As he got to the door, he stopped, his heart further speeding up.
He thought he’d seen a movement in an upstairs landing window. Was Dad back after all? It couldn’t be him – there was no sign of their car.
But when Aidan looked again, he realised that the little top window was open a notch on its catch. Just the curtain, he told himself, fluttering in a draught.
He didn’t know why he was so jumpy. Probably the thought that Berryman could turn up at any moment to check on Centurion, his prize chariot horse. He’d seen the Lord’s red Porsche up by the mansion as he passed the driveway. Quite a few other cars were parked there as well, some with Enershale painted along the sides.
Aidan let himself in with his key and went into the hallway.
The house felt strangely empty. Knowing Dad was away just made things worse. Packing boxes were piled up against one wall, some already sealed with brown tape, the top ones with their flaps gaping open to put the last few things in.
The sleeve of Mum’s coat brushed against Aidan as he turned to shut the front door; the coat he and Dad kept on the hook, and that neither of them could bring themselves to put away.
For a moment or two he thought that he detected a faint smell – perfume, flowery, like Mum used to wear.
Now he really was just freaking himself out. Get a grip!
He tiptoed upstairs. Why are you creeping about, he asked himself? Still, the house seemed eerily desolate, as if it sensed they were leaving, and had already decided not to be their home any more.
Aidan reached the landing and stopped, hand clutching the top banister.
The door to his mum’s study was closed.
He frowned. He and Dad always kept that open. Shutting it … well, it just didn’t seem right. Mum’s door was never closed.
Aidan went and pushed the door wide, standing a few moments to look inside.
He and Dad liked to see Mum’s things whenever they went upstairs. Her computer on the desk with its yellow Post-it notes stuck round the screen; her bookshelves crammed with a rainbow of book spines. On a sunny day, the light spilled in over her favourite wicker chair where she’d sit to write; over the patchwork blanket Aidan used to tuck round her knees in those last weeks to stop her getting cold. Until that day … he stared at the floor as he remembered … until she had been too sick to write any more.
That last book she’d never finished.
Aidan swallowed and turned towards his bedroom.
Dad had shut Mum’s door by accident in his hurry to leave for the city, Aidan told himself – that must be it.
But somehow it still didn’t feel right.
The curtains in Aidan’s room were drawn, but he didn’t bother to open them; there was enough light to find what he needed. He knelt to rummage in the space at the back of his wardrobe, shifting the drone to one side and then lifting out Jon’s laptop that was tucked behind it.
It all happened in a second.
There was a noise behind him, and as his head whipped round a figure loomed up. Someone wearing a balaclava mask.
There was no time to react. No time to try and make out who it was in the gloom. No time to even get to his feet.
Gloved hands clawed forward to take the laptop and instinctively Aidan hugged the computer to his chest, struggling to keep a grip as the intruder tried to wrench it off him.
‘Get off!’ Aidan staggered up, desperate to reach the door, but was pushed with such force that his back slammed against the wall. A sharp pain seared across his shoulders. His arms sagged but still he clung to the computer, his thoughts on overdrive.
The drone file. The only copy. They’re after the file. Can’t let them get it!
The intruder lurched, landing a kick in Aidan’s chest and he stumbled back with a strangled breath, his grip loosening. A gloved fist came at him and the impact of it ricocheted off his jaw and he was thrown off balance, crashing against the chest of drawers, then falling, the laptop slipping …
Aidan pulled up his arms to protect himself, but it was too late.
His head smacked the wood of the floorboards.
Then …
Nothing.
– CHAPTER 18 –
EAGLE
‘Aidan! Aidan!’
‘Man down!’
Slowly, the room swam into focus. Sunlight through a gap in the curtains.
It hurt to blink. He couldn’t see so well out of one eye, and there was the tinny taste of blood in his mouth.
‘He’s coming round, Jon! He’s waking up. Oh, thank god!’ Emmi’s voice. ‘But we should still ring an ambulance and –’
Aidan shot out a hand. ‘Don’t!’ he said groggily. It hurt to speak, like his insides were all bruised. ‘Don’t – call – any – ambulance!’
He heaved himself up to sitting.
‘The police – will get – involved.’ He took a painful breath. ‘Don’t want that.’
‘But we have to!’ said Emmi shakily. ‘Aidan – you’ve been attacked! You have to tell us what happened. When you didn’t show up at mine, we came round here straight away. We were so worried. And now the laptop’s gone, isn’t it? We should never have left you to go off alone. I feel so bad! If only we’d stayed together!’
Aidan tried to clear his thoughts. He was in enough trouble with the police; did he really want to get them involved? ‘We need to think this through first,’ he wheezed.
‘Did you see who it was?’ asked Emmi, her voice still trembling.
Aidan shook his head. ‘They were wearing a balaclava.’
‘Was there anything about them you remember?’ Emmi persisted. ‘There has to be something. Their height? Their eye colour?’
‘The room was too dark. They were fast and strong, that’s pretty much all I know.’
‘But what about forensics?’ said Jon. He was pale as a ghost. ‘If the police can find fingerprints …’
‘Whoever it was wore gloves,’ Aidan told him. ‘There won’t be any.’
Jon suddenly clicked his fingers. ‘The camera on the drone! It’ll have the original file still stored on it!’ He began to search the room, then stopped dead with a short gasp of dismay. He stooped down, lifting up the drone, which Aidan saw was even more mangled than before. Its camera bracket empty.
‘Dronie!’ Jon wailed, trying in vain to fix a broken propeller back in place.
‘Whoever it was really wanted to make sure they got rid of all possible evidence,’ Emmi said grimly.
Jon paced nervously to the window. ‘Somehow they know who we are now, guys!’ he said in a scared whisper. ‘There must be at least two of them, I reckon. One must have seen us with the drone that day, while the other was in the hit-and-run car. They realised the video footage could incriminate them, so one of them came to steal the laptop.’
‘But why wait till now?’ said A
idan. ‘Doesn’t make sense.’
‘Dunno.’ Jon edged back the curtain. ‘But they could be watching us right this very minute.’
Aidan let Emmi help him to his feet. Whatever the reason, their one chance to find out who had hurt Robbie; their one chance to find out how all this was connected to the stolen bracelet – that chance was gone.
The three of them sat glumly on Aidan’s bed in silence, each lost in their own thoughts.
‘You’ve got a lovely black eye there, man,’ said Jon at last, with a tight grin.
‘Maybe we should call the police after all,’ said Aidan.
‘What’s that?’ Emmi leant forward suddenly, scooping something from the floor and holding it up.
Aidan saw a bent pin, a badge of some kind.
An eagle with outstretched wings. A word underneath …
‘The intruder must have dropped it during the attack!’ said Emmi.
… ENERSHALE!
‘This proves who’s behind this!’ she told them angrily. ‘And it all makes perfect sense!’
Jon looked at Aidan.
‘Enershale wants the fracking to happen, no matter what!’ continued Emmi. ‘The drilling’s worth millions to them.’
‘It does seem to fit,’ Jon said slowly.
‘So when they found out Robbie’s uncovered the bracelet – proof that Boudicca was right slap bang in their fracking zone – they had to do something about it.’ Her voice trembled with emotion. ‘Steal the bracelet, cover the theft up, and shut Robbie up.’
‘Probably the only reason you’re still alive now, Aidan,’ said Jon, ‘is because your dead body would have attracted too much suspicion.’
‘Thanks a lot,’ said Aidan.
Emmi waggled the badge in the air. ‘We can take this straight to the police as proof!’
‘Hang on! We won’t get a conviction based on some mangled badge,’ Jon told her. ‘Sorry, but we’ll need way better evidence than that, Em.’
Emmi stopped pacing and stood, twisting her hands together.
‘Right,’ she said determinedly, forehead creased in thought. ‘If it’s evidence we need,’ she said under her breath, her eyes narrowing, ‘then evidence is what we’ll get.’
A thought hit Aidan. In all the confusion, it had gone straight out of his head. The chariot race! Berryman!
‘Centurion!’ he cried. ‘What time is it?’
Emmi checked her watch. ‘Nearly three o’clock.’
‘I’ve got to get to the stables!’ Aidan was already making for his bedroom door. If Berryman got there before him and saw Centurion’s injury …
What was he going to say when he was asked why Centurion wasn’t racing? He still had no plan. He’d been so carried away with the tomb and finding Robbie’s attacker …
‘Aidan!’ said Emmi. ‘There are still two hours before the race starts. But maybe you shouldn’t go to the festival at all after what you’ve been through. You could be concussed.’
‘Yeah, your skull could be fractured,’ Jon said helpfully. ‘Anyway, nobody will expect you to race with that black eye, and with your dad away …’
Aidan spun to a stop as Jon’s words sunk in. Then he laughed out loud. It hurt to grin, but he did it anyway.
Yes! It was the perfect get-out for Centurion! Take the attention away from the horse’s injury and place it on himself!
‘Jon-Boy, you’re a genius!’ he said. ‘Thank you, attacker!’ he hollered out loud, punching the air with his fist.
Emmi looked confused. He saw her exchange a worried glance with Jon.
‘The blow to the head,’ he saw Jon mouth back at her.
‘I’m not crazy, guys!’ Aidan told them. ‘But think about it! Only Dad or I can handle Centurion, Berryman knows that. Even he’s not stupid enough to risk having someone else do it and something going wrong in front of the whole village and all his important friends. He’ll have to use Firefly instead!’
‘She’s a much more docile horse,’ agreed Emmi, smiling. ‘Either way, Berryman won’t even bother going to look for Centurion. He’ll be too busy finding someone else to drive the chariot, so his friends still have a chance to win their bets.’
‘We need to go over to Berryman’s house right now to tell him!’ Aidan said. ‘You two can back me up about how I got the black eye. We can get our story sorted on the way over there.’
‘Good!’ said Emmi. She gave Aidan a cunning look. ‘Going over to His Lordship’s house was just what I was thinking anyway.’
‘Yeah?’ said Aidan as the three of them headed downstairs.
‘All those Enershale people are there,’ Emmi told them. ‘Any one of them could have left the party, slipped here to steal the laptop, then still been back in time for cigars and brandy! While we’re in there, we’re going to look for clues as to which one of them attacked you.’
Jon looked uncertain. ‘How are we going to do that then?’
‘Well I haven’t worked that out yet,’ said Emmi. ‘But come on!’
They reached the front door and Aidan paused a moment, turning to his friends.
‘From now on, we stay together, right? Whoever it is behind this, we know they’re on to us. And we know what they’re capable of.’
Jon nodded hard. Emmi linked arms with him and Aidan, her face determined.
Aidan pulled open the door and they stepped outside.
– CHAPTER 19 –
THE SECRET FILE
Aidan went up the gravel drive towards the manor house, past the parked Enershale cars. Berryman’s Porsche was still there as well. So far so good.
He chewed the inside of his cheek, running through the story they’d agreed on.
After several suggestions, including ones from Jon about Aidan being stampeded by a herd of cows, or being hit by a low-flying duck, Emmi had convinced them to go for something as close to the truth as possible. He and Jon had been messing about wrestling in his bedroom. He’d stumbled backwards and hit his face on a chest of drawers. Been knocked out.
They climbed the steps to the columned front door.
The plan would work, he told himself.
It had to.
Aidan reached for the doorbell.
Then a horrible idea occurred to him.
Berryman. What he stood to gain from the Enershale deal. The money he must be getting paid for the fracking to be on his land; the expansion plans that were set to take over the horse paddocks.
But attempted murder? He wouldn’t go that far, would he?
Nah! Aidan pushed the thought away and pressed the bell.
They seemed to be waiting there ages before the grand front door swung open.
The old housekeeper told them Lord Berryman was finishing lunch with his guests. When Emmi insisted dramatically that it was a matter of life and death, the woman sighed, glanced suspiciously at Aidan’s black eye, and showed them into Berryman’s office to wait.
‘I could get used to this,’ said Jon, settling himself in the plush leather swivel chair behind the vast oak desk then spinning himself around as fast as he could.
Emmi gazed at the huge Persian rug in the centre of the room. ‘As if Berryman needs even more money from fracking,’ she said, wrinkling her nose as she fingered the gold-plated pen in its marble holder. ‘Look.’ She pointed to a line of bags and briefcases under jackets on hooks. ‘Must belong to Berryman’s guests.’
Jon swept up the receiver of the expensive-looking antique telephone. ‘No more excuses!’ he barked, pretending to be some kind of American army general. ‘I want results, d’ya hear?’ He banged a fist on the polished wooden surface. ‘And I want them now!’
He sat back in the chair, grinning, plonking his feet on the desk. ‘I could definitely get used to this!’
‘Stop messing about!’ Emmi snapped. ‘He could come in here any minute!’ She darted behind the desk and opened a drawer.
‘Em, what are you doing?’ Aidan hissed, eyeing the door.
‘I told you
,’ Emmi said, rifling through the papers filed inside. ‘We need to look for clues as to who’s behind all this. We know Berryman is doing deals with Enershale. Maybe there’ll be a list of the employees working on his land, or something like that.’
She pulled out a folder and slapped it on the desk. Aidan saw the Enershale eagle emblem stamped on the front.
He watched Emmi open the cover and look through the papers inside.
‘The manager of the project is called Mr Frank Kimley,’ she said, running her finger down a page. ‘There’s a mention of a site foreman,’ she said, waggling a sheet. ‘Someone called Charles Pearson … and a list of the management team: Gavin Lewisham, Jean-Paul LeMan, John Bellshore, Sundeep Shah, Edwina Timms, Verity McDougal …’
She took a quick photo of the page with her phone as Jon came to peer over her shoulder. ‘We’ll be checking all these people out on Google, soon as we get a chance.’
She flicked through a few more papers. ‘Nothing much else interesting here as far as I can tell.’
‘Hang on – what’s that?’ said Jon, selecting a sheet. ‘Says: geological map of fracking area … Er, Emmi.’ He looked over as she snapped open the clasp of one of the briefcases. ‘Are you sure you should be doing that?’
‘Course! This bag belongs to F. Kimley himself – see the name on the side?’ Emmi pulled out a wodge of stapled papers and scanned a page.
Aidan saw PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL printed across the top in red.
‘Listen to this!’ she hissed.
‘On successful completion of the first fracking operation,’ Emmi read quickly, ‘in order to extend the scheme and maximise the quantities of extracted shale gas over the longer term, four million pounds is to be paid to the landowner of adjacent land …’
Aidan gaped at her. Four million?
‘… J. Berryman agrees to cooperate fully with any expansion of operations …’
‘Emmi!’ She stopped reading abruptly at the panic in Jon’s voice.
He was staring at the door. Aidan saw the fancy silver handle rotate.
Quick as a flash, Emmi had gathered the papers and stuffed them back into the briefcase. She swung round, whipped the folder back in the drawer and slid it shut.