‘That’s right, son.’
I looked at him and his eyes were cold. I nearly said, ‘I’m not your son’, but I shut my mouth. I knew it would just upset Mum. I hurried to my room and picked up Dad’s last letter from Ireland, before going back out to the kitchen. Mum and Rafe were whispering about me, I was sure. They both looked up when I announced, ‘I’m going out.’
‘Where, out?’ Mum asked.
‘Boges’s.’
‘But haven’t you just come back from there? What about dinner?’
‘I’ll have it later,’ I said as I slipped out the door.
‘He’s a bloody liar!’ I said as soon as Boges opened his front door. ‘He completely lied to Mum about what was in the envelope he pinched!’
‘That proves it, then.’
‘Proves what?’
‘How important the envelope is. How important the drawings are. Your dad said that his discovery would change history—that’s a big claim, my man, and those drawings are your only hope right now. They’re your dad’s last will and testament. To you.’
‘What could he possibly have found out? The crazy guy kept warning me about the Ormond Singularity,’ I said. ‘What is that?!’
‘I don’t know. But it sure sounds like something that could put your family in danger. The stakes are always high when there’s big money involved.’
Big money. I never thought my family would have anything to do with something that involved big money.
‘Maybe Rafe thinks that he should have been sent the drawings, not me,’ I said. ‘And so he kept them. Mum always used to say that he was jealous of Dad.’
‘Jealous? What of?’
I shrugged. ‘Dad was always the stronger twin, older by a few minutes, and Mum reckons Uncle Rafe always resented him when they were growing up. Sibling rivalry, she called it.’
‘He might have taken a look inside the envelope on his way into the house,’ said Boges, ‘seen the drawings and decided to keep them. He might have told you about them later. Now we’ll never know.’
I didn’t want Rafe working out the messages in the drawings before us. But at least I had the transparent sheet, with the names G’managh and Kilfane, that I found in Dad’s suitcase. Rafe didn’t know about that. Not that I had any idea where that fitted in, or whether it fitted in at all.
I didn’t know what was going on with Rafe. All I knew was that I didn’t trust him.
After I reheated my dinner, Rafe got up from the paperwork he was looking over with Mum, and followed me to my room.
‘Feeling more yourself?’ he asked. ‘Like your mother says, you’ve been through a lot lately.’ His eyes scanned my room; my desk, my walls, the mess on my floor.
I mumbled something instead of saying, ‘If you’d listened to me at Treachery Bay, I wouldn’t have been through quite so much.’
‘It’s very important, Cal,’ he said, ‘that you remember where you heard about the Ormond Riddle.’
‘Why? What is it with this riddle anyway?’
‘It’s—er, it’s of historical interest. To me. You know how interested I am in the family … and family matters.’
That was news to me. Rafe never had much to do with us, until Dad died. And even on the rare occasions that we did see him, he was always going on about how Dad should get a proper job—with a newspaper, keeping regular office hours, instead of whizzing all over the world chasing weird stories. Dad would laugh it off, even though Mum, Gabbi and I would be sitting there wanting to tell Rafe to shut up. Dad was the one that was always trying to keep the family together. He was the one interested in our family. No matter what.
‘Try the net,’ I suggested, thinking I’d do the same.
Rafe stood there for a moment, staring at me. I turned away and started eating my dinner, hoping he’d get the point. Finally he walked away, leaving me even more suspicious.
357 days to go …
Everything was telling me this wasn’t a good idea. I’d convinced Mum that I was going to see a late movie with Boges. If only he wasn’t working tonight.
‘I wish you’d stay home and have an early night,’ Mum had said. ‘But I guess it’s school holidays—you can sleep in tomorrow.’
I glanced at my watch …
She should be here, I thought. I didn’t like the look of the dimly lit Memorial Park ahead of me. Being there seemed crazy. I was starting to feel edgy. A jet roared overhead and I concentrated hard on the dark mass of the cenotaph.
I didn’t hear the car behind me.
I turned, but it was too late …
‘Hey! What’s—’
My words were muffled by a hand over my mouth. Someone else tackled me down. I lashed out, kicking and cursing but no sound could get past the vicious grip across my face.
Two men hauled me up against the car—it looked like a dark blue Mercedes—and threw a heavy sack over my head. My arms were wrenched behind me and tied up tight, then I was lifted off the ground and tossed like garbage into the boot.
‘Who are you? Where are you taking me?’ I shouted, trying to tear my arms out of the rope.
‘Keep still, and you won’t get hurt,’ one of them hissed at me. He pushed me down and then slammed the boot shut.
I tried working out where we were going, and in what direction, from all of the bumps and turns, but soon I was hopelessly disoriented. I was shaking. I should have listened to Boges. He knew it was a set-up.
I remembered seeing something on TV about a girl who was kidnapped and thrown into a boot—she somehow kicked the back lights out, squeezed her arm through, waved it about frantically, and eventually grabbed someone’s attention. I tried desperately to do the same, but I could hardly move in there. I was squashed up against something else—something big and lying behind me. I couldn’t kick my leg out far enough to even bump the lights.
I thrashed about, frustrated, trying to free myself from the sack, when a loud thumping came from inside the car.
‘Keep still in there!’
It felt like we’d been driving around for ages, and when the car finally slowed and pulled up I had no idea where we were. The sack slipped a little as I was dragged out of the car.
‘Come on, Buster,’ said the guy who’d thrown me in the boot, a huge barrel of a man, with a bald head and an earring. I caught a glimpse of a sandstone curb, a large front gate, some tiled steps, and some bushes and trees. But before I could note any more details, the guy pulled the sack back down and I was pushed up the steps ahead of him.
I stumbled into a room, tangled in the sack. All I could see were some red-and-black tiles and people’s shoes.
‘What’s going on?’ I shouted, scrambling to my feet. ‘What do you want with me?’
‘What do we want with you?’ said a woman’s voice. I wasn’t sure if it was the same voice I’d heard on the phone—it could have been.
‘Let’s see,’ she said. ‘We want to know about the Ormond Riddle.’
There it was again, those words I’d seen scribbled in Rafe’s office.
‘We want to know everything,’ she said, ‘so you’d better start talking.’
‘Answer me!’ she screamed, kicking the back of my knees. My legs buckled and I fell again to the floor.
‘I don’t know anything about the Ormond Riddle! I don’t know what you’re talking about! Why don’t you ask someone else called Ormond? There are heaps of us. I don’t know anything!’
And it was true. I didn’t have a clue. But these guys weren’t buying it.
‘I’ll ask you a different question,’ continued the woman’s voice. ‘What do you know about the Ormond Singularity?’
‘Look, I don’t know anything about that either!’
‘You must!’ she yelled. ‘Tell us what you know!’
‘I don’t! Just let me go, you’re wasting your time!’ I tried to stop my voice shaking—I didn’t want these people to know that I was scared. What if they killed me and buried me in the backyard? Nobody even kn
ew where I was. I didn’t know where I was! Boges only knew about Memorial Park.
My interrogators changed tack.
‘What do you know about the Ormond Angel?’ The voice was now slow and serious.
‘Nothing.’
Boges was right. The angel was important.
‘We’ll start again,’ my interrogator said. ‘We’ve got all the time in the world.’
‘No, we haven’t,’ I heard someone whisper behind me.
‘Shut up, Kelvin,’ said the woman.
Someone seized me by the shoulders and lifted me up. ‘Tell us what you know or things are gonna get real nasty round here.’
I thought things were pretty nasty already.
‘For the last time …’ someone started to say.
‘I thought you just told the little punk that we had all the time in the world.’
‘Shut up, Kelvin!’
‘Tell us everything you know about the Ormond Riddle and the Ormond Angel.’
‘What are you talking about?! Nothing! I know nothing about either of them! You have to let me go!’
But they were relentless. On and on they demanded answers. I rolled around, on the floor, being pushed and kicked and shoved. My hands were still tied and I was still trapped behind the hessian sack. I was sweating, panting, and everything was muffled.
I told them I had to go to the toilet. One of them led me to the bathroom, pulled the sack off my head and slammed the door shut. ‘Tell me when you’re done,’ he yelled from outside before bursting into a fit of laughter—probably on realising how much I’d struggle having my hands tied behind me.
I looked around but there was no way out. There weren’t any windows or vents. I tried to mentally take down notes about the space I was in and then I flushed the toilet with my elbow. Before I could yell out, the door swung open, the sack was thrown over me again, and I was dragged back for more questioning.
‘Your father gave you a map, didn’t he.’ It was spoken like a statement, not a question.
‘No,’ I said. ‘My father did not give me a map. I don’t know anything about a map. A map for what?’
‘Your father—’
‘My father has been dead for over six months!’ I yelled. ‘He couldn’t even speak by the time he came back from Ireland! How the hell could he have given me a map! Figure it out already—you’re wasting your time on me! I don’t have anything you want!’
In the silence that followed my outburst, I could hear a whispered conversation going on among my captors. I caught some of the words. It sounded like these people had been at the conference in Ireland. They must have heard about the Ormond Riddle then. And the Ormond Singularity—whatever it was.
Without any warning, I was dragged down a hallway and shoved into a small room, not much bigger than a cupboard. I was leaning over to shake off the sack, when a heavy blow to the back of my head floored me.
356 days to go …
I was lost in some strange, black and painful dream world. Faint voices floated around me.
‘We’ve already wasted enough time on him. He doesn’t know anything.’
‘He’s useless. We should just let him go.’
‘But we’ve got to get rid of him!’
‘Throw him off the Gap?’
They were going to kill me! Throw me off a cliff!
‘Can’t you see he’s more helpful to us alive than dead?’
‘But he could ID us. We don’t have a choice. He has to go.’
‘No. We need him alive.’
The voices slowly faded in and out. I lay on the floor trying hard to stay alert, fighting the heaviness in my head. I tried to focus on what the voices were saying. It was all so hazy. I was feeling around for the walls to try and prop myself up, when the door suddenly opened. A dark, blurry figure leaned in towards me …
Slowly I woke up. I had no idea how long I’d been out for, but figured it must have been a good few hours—it was starting to get light. I didn’t know if the voices I’d heard had been real or just part of some delirious unconsciousness. They felt like a distant memory. Had someone been in here, too? I wondered. What had happened?
My shoulder was throbbing and I guessed I must have bashed it hard on something when I was knocked out before. It took me a while to clear my head and get my balance. I shook the sack off and had a look around.
Whether the voices were real or not, I had to find a way to break out of there.
I’d been imprisoned in a sort of closet, a tiny room where cleaning things were stored. I could barely move with all the mops, buckets and junk covering the shelves and floor.
As my eyes adjusted, I noticed a skylight in the roof. I desperately looked around for a way to get up there, but first I had to free my hands. I needed something sharp.
I had a plan. I pressed my ear against the door and listened carefully for signs of movement on the other side.
Silence.
In the doorway, a broken tile jutted out. Its edge was rough and sharp. I turned around and positioned my tied hands over it, then began rubbing them back and forth, trying to cut through the rope.
It was painful leaning back in that position, especially with my aching shoulder, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t cut the rope without cutting my hands too.
It hurt, but the plan was working.
My hands were free. I looked up again at the skylight. It seemed impossibly high, but I had to try and get up there. I quickly upturned a stack of mop buckets, steadied them, and then using the corners of the walls to help me, I climbed up on top.
Crouching uncomfortably, and supported by the walls, I slowly straightened up. I couldn’t afford to fall—the sound of all those crashing buckets would bring my captors running, for sure. This had to work.
For a second I thought I heard something outside but it might have simply been the ringing in my throbbing head.
They were back! I had to move fast.
‘There’s nothing to connect him with us,’ I heard a man say. ‘We have to keep him here, for now, but later we’ll let him run then grab him when we need him again.’
Were they going to hunt me down like hounds chasing a fox? Hearing that gave me all the motivation I needed. My fingertips barely touched the edge of the skylight, but it was now or never. I bent my knees a little, and then launched at the rim of the skylight. For a moment I thought I would fall and come crashing down, but my grasp held firm. The tower of buckets was going to topple over and give me away any second.
Braced against the wall, supported with one arm, I felt around for the handle of the skylight. I pushed with all my strength. Nothing. I tried again, pushing harder, and this time it creaked.
I froze. Had they heard it?
I couldn’t hold on much longer. Every muscle in my body was braced to keep me up there, wedged into the corner near the ceiling, like some human spider.
Despite my unstable footing, I took a risk and with everything I had, I twisted the handle hard. And this time, with a sharp creak, the skylight opened. I made another lurching thrust and grabbed both sides of the skylight. I kicked hard against the wall and the buckets and pushed myself through the opening. The buckets tipped and collapsed, crashing hard on the floor below.
I was out. I scrambled across the roof, not daring to look behind me—the shouting below had already started. I found a balcony, jumped over and skidded down the drainage pipe. Just as I leapt off and landed, a man ran out on the balcony. He looked down and glared at me. ‘You’d better keep your damn mouth shut!’ he yelled, as he swung his leg around the pipe.
I turned and ran. I concentrated on running and running only, forcing myself beyond anything I’d ever done before …
I was in a strange part of town, trying to find my way home. I didn’t think I could take another step, but I pushed on.
I don’t know how long I walked. I wished I’d taken more notice of the house I’d escaped from. But I just wanted to get away as fast as I could and the
minute I hit the ground, I’d run like a lunatic. I was sure we’d been in the car last night for an hour, at least, but maybe they’d circled a few times to throw me off.
Eventually, I came to a familiar main road, which led me home.
Everyone was still in bed by the time I got back. I crept to my room and made a few notes, jotting down the names of streets and buildings I could remember passing. There’d been a little church at an intersection not far from the house, a primary school and a carwash.
Then I pulled out Dad’s drawing of the giant angel. I studied it hard, trying to find something in it that would give me an idea of why I’d been kidnapped and interrogated. What is it about you, I asked the stern figure, that everybody wants to know? What secret do you guard?
It was then that I noticed that the commando angel had some sort of fitting beneath the gas mask that hung around his neck—it looked like a decoration. Some sort of … medal? How could I have overlooked this before?
Maybe one day I’d find out the secret, then I could go back to that place on my terms.
I woke up and last night’s terror started to smother the nightmare I’d had again. The darkness of my dream—the freezing cold, the fear, the white toy dog, and somewhere, a baby crying—was overshadowed by the memory of the closet I’d been locked in.
What was I going to tell Mum? I was sure she’d be mad at me for not coming home last night, but there was no way I could tell her about being abducted. Not after all the things she’d been through. I knew that somehow I’d just have to keep it to myself. For now, anyway.
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