“Let’s go in,” I said to Hal.
“Let’s not,” said Hal, hanging back.
“Hal, whatever has happened, it’s our fault.”
“No, it isn’t,” said Hal fiercely. “He’s a grown-up. He gets called out to jobs all the time. He should be able to look after himself. If he can’t, it’s not our fault.”
Anyone could pick holes in that argument, but what was the point? I didn’t even try. I really wanted my breakfast, and the best way to get it was to sort out this mystery.
“Look, Hal, let’s just try to find out what’s going on, and then we can go and get some food.”
“All right,” he muttered.
We went in the pedestrian gate, and we followed the sign around to the physiotherapy department. Then we came to a little wooden sign shaped like a finger.
Mortuary, it said, in spooky writing.
“This way,” I said, and we went in the direction the sign pointed.
Sure enough, there was the long, low building with a green door.
“You’ve been here before, Hal,” I said, suddenly realizing that he must have been. Otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to give such detailed instructions in the phone message.
Hal nodded, but he said nothing.
There was a concrete ramp up to the green mortuary door, with a metal rail beside it.
I went up the ramp and tried the handle. It moved downward very easily, but it had no effect. I pushed, and the door stayed unmoved. I pushed again, and still it stuck.
“Locked,” I said, relieved. I hadn’t really fancied actually going in there.
“Now what?” asked Hal, looking around. There was nothing much to see, only buildings and drainpipes and a clutter of bins in one corner.
“We’ll have to try looking in the windows,” I said.
“No!” said Hal. “I’m not peeping in windows at a lot of dead bodies.”
He had a point, I suppose. And anyway, the windows were very high up. You’d need a ladder to look in. That reminded me.
“Well, then,” I said, “in that case, we need to find the van.”
We looked all around. There were lots of places where you might easily park a little van, but no sign of the van we were after. We went around every corner, and when we looked around every corner, there was no little white van. It really was very mysterious. We walked up and down alleyways and behind buildings. We checked the visitors’ car park and the staff car park and the consultants’ car park. No white van. We looked along a yew-lined gravelly roadway leading away from one of the car parks. A few cars had been parked there, even though the car park was fairly empty. But no little white van.
“There’s no point in hanging around here,” Hal said.
“No,” I said, “I suppose there isn’t. Let’s go and get some food.”
I was reluctant to leave all the same. As long as we were in the hospital grounds, we had some chance of spotting the van, or Alec, but once we set off for town, the world was just too big, there was too much room for uncertainty. And yet, if I didn’t eat something soon, I knew I was going to collapse. My knees were wobbling already with hunger.
We went back out through the pedestrian gateway and unlocked the bikes. The security man looked up as we rattled the chains. He gave us a friendly little wave.
We waved back.
Chapter 9
We met this guard as we cycled back toward town. He was coming toward us on a bicycle. He was one of those cool guards, in shorts and a cycling helmet and a shiny yellow top.
He raised his hand when he saw us. I suppose it was because we were on bikes; he probably thought we were all part of some big Cycling Movement or something like that, all soul mates or kindred spirits.
I don’t know what possessed me, it must have been the friendly little salute, but I gave him a desperate wave and shouted, “Guard!” at him.
He put a foot under him and skidded to a halt a few feet beyond us. I got off my bike and walked it back to him. Hal put his foot down and looked over his shoulder.
“What can I do for you, young lady?” asked the guard.
“Well,” I said, “we sort of … er … lost someone.”
Hal gave a strangled little cry, but I ignored him.
“We saw him driving into the hospital,” I said. “But he never came out.”
“Well,” said the guard, “this does happen. It might not be a case of loss. I mean, was he sick, for example? Or going to visit someone? Or is he a doctor, or what?”
“He’s a painter,” I said.
“Ah,” said the guard with a grin. “A painter. Was he going to paint the hospital?”
“That’s right,” I said. “At least, that’s what he thought he was doing, only they weren’t actually expecting him, see.”
“Right,” said the guard. “Hmm. Is there any more you can tell me?”
“No,” I said. “That’s it. I was just wondering, how long do you have to be missing before you are a Missing Person?”
“Well, it depends,” said the guard. “How long has this person been missing?”
“About three-quarters of an hour,” I said.
“That long, eh?” said the guard. I could see he thought this was funny.
“It may not sound very long,” I said, “but it is very mysterious.”
“Indeed,” said the guard. “I see.” He didn’t see at all.
“And who is the Missing Person?” asked the guard.
“His stepfather,” I said, pointing at Hal.
The guard suddenly looked a bit more serious. Seems if you’ve just mislaid a miscellaneous someone, it’s kind of funny, but if it’s a parent, that’s a different matter.
“And did ye try ringing him? I take it he has a mobile phone?”
“Er, no,” I said. “I mean, yes, he has, but we didn’t.” We couldn’t very well ring him, I thought. We weren’t supposed to know anything about this visit to the hospital. As far as he was concerned, we were still at home having our breakfast, and anyway, Hal didn’t even talk to him, much less ring him up. But I couldn’t tell the guard that. It was all too complicated.
“Well,” said the guard. “That’d be the first move, I’d say. The mobile phone.”
Then he peered at Hal. “Are you …?” he called.
Hal stared at him. He looked a bit scared.
“Ah no, you’re much bigger,” the guard said.
Hal went on staring. He had started to shiver, though it wasn’t very cold. A bit breezy, maybe.
“And, sure, it was years ago. But then, of course, you would be much bigger, wouldn’t you?”
He made about as much sense as Hal does on a bad day.
“It is you, isn’t it?” the guard went on.
“He’s himself all right,” I said, since Hal wasn’t making any attempt to answer these very peculiar questions.
“You’re the little lad whose d— … Hal, that was his name. Are you Hal?”
Hal nodded.
The guard grinned, pleased with himself to have worked it out. Whatever “it” was. “Stepfather, eh?” he said. “Well, that’s great, so it is.”
Hal still said nothing.
“Well, well,” said the guard. “It’s a small world.”
Which is rubbish. It’s a very big world. It’s Balnamara that is small, not the world.
“So tell me,” said the guard, “will yiz be all right now, for getting home? I mean, do you need …”
“Oh, we’re grand,” I said. “We were just a bit puzzled. He’s probably gone ahead home. It’s not a problem. We’ll find him. You’re right, he’s probably not missing at all.”
“Ye’re not lost yerselves, are ye? Ye know the way home?”
“Oh yes. It’s only about a mile, and we have our bikes,” I said cheerfully.
“Only, I … I could get a ban-gharda for yiz, if ye need any kind of …”
Oh lordy, I thought. He thinks we’re helpless. And now he’s responsible for us, becau
se we’ve told him we’ve lost our adult.
“No,” I said firmly. “We’ll be fine, guard, thank you. We know our way home.”
“If you’re sure,” he said doubtfully.
What age did he think we were? About seven, I’d say.
“Positive certain,” I said, with as big a grin as I could manage. I can do sweet little girl if I have to.
“Right,” he said, and hopped back onto his saddle. “If you really are sure. Now, listen to me, if this gentleman doesn’t turn up by, say, this evening, you can come back to us. Give the station a ring. Or get your mam to do it, OK? It’s probably fine, but you never know, do you? You can’t be too careful.”
I nodded. “Yes, we’ll do that. We’ll definitely let you know if he doesn’t show up.”
“Right,” said the guard.
“Right,” said I.
“Safe home, so!” he called as he pedaled off.
“What do you think you are doing?” shrieked Hal as soon as the guard had disappeared. “Telling the guards about it! Are you out of your tiny mind?”
I thought he was overreacting. I’d only asked for a smallish piece of information.
“It wasn’t ‘the guards.’ It was one guard.”
“It’s all the same,” said Hal.
“Hal, he has disappeared, you know. He was there, and then he wasn’t there and …”
“But he’s not missing! He’s just … we just don’t know where he went. Maybe he met a person he knew. Maybe he came across the canteen and thought he’d have some breakfast. Anything might have happened.”
“Exactly,” I said. “Anything. And I don’t know about you, but in my family, if you are in trouble, you talk to a policeman.”
“We’re not in trouble, Olivia. Not what you would call trouble.”
I wasn’t so sure about that.
Just then, a squad car came zipping by, going whee-hoo, whee-hoo, with its blue light flashing and spinning.
Hal went paler than pale. I thought, if he goes any paler, I am going to be able to see through his skin and see all his bones and veins and everything, with the blood all pumping around. He really doesn’t like the police. Anyone’d think he was a criminal or something.
The squad car came skidding to a halt at the hospital gate, and our friend in the glass kiosk didn’t wait to hear what the story was. He lifted the red-and-orange pole and the squad car revved up again and disappeared into the hospital grounds spitting up a shower of gravel as it went.
“Well!” I said. “What’s all that about, would you think?”
“They … ohmyGod, Olivia,” Hal said. “They must be … arresting Him. That’d be … that’d be cool, Olivia, if he had to go to jail. That’d solve everything. I mean, my mother wouldn’t want to marry a criminal, would she? And he might be in jail for years. I wouldn’t have to go to boarding school; it’d just be me and her, like it used to be.”
Of course, it would solve nothing. Hal was getting a bit carried away.
“Why would they do that?” I asked. “He hasn’t committed a crime.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Impersonation or something.”
“But he isn’t impersonating anyone,” I said. “It was Larry that did the impersonating, and anyway, you can’t really impersonate Clem Clanger, because he doesn’t exist.”
“Callaghan, Olivia. Clem Callaghan.”
“It doesn’t matter what he’s called, he still doesn’t exist. You can’t impersonate a made-up person, can you?”
“Well, for something else then,” Hal said. “Maybe they’re arresting Him for trying to get into the mortuary under false pretences.”
“But that’s not a crime, is it?” I asked.
It didn’t look great all the same, did it? First this funny little fellow with coloredy letters all over his van and a shiny face arrives at the local hospital and starts looking for the mortuary, with no sensible explanation for why. And then a guard arrives on a bicycle and accuses Hal of being himself only bigger, and then a squad car comes whoo-ing by and zooms into the hospital. It was all a bit unsettling, I have to say.
“How do you know what is a crime or what isn’t?” Hal said. “It might be.”
“The guard was right, though, Hal. We should try ringing him. Maybe there is a perfectly innocent explanation.”
“But I never ring Him,” Hal said.
“Still, we could just hang up if he answers.”
“What’d be the point of that?”
“Well, at least we’d know he is alive. And not in custody. I mean, if you have been arrested, you probably wouldn’t be allowed to answer your mobile, would you? I’d say it’s worth a try.”
The phone rang five times. Then it clicked into the voice mail system.
Uh-oh. My words hung in the air. If you have been arrested, you probably wouldn’t be allowed to answer your mobile, would you?
“Maybe he just didn’t get to it in time,” I said. “Let’s try again.”
This time the voice mail came on immediately. We didn’t bother leaving a message.
Chapter 10
We cycled on into town and stopped at The Muff’nery, which is Balnamara’s idea of a cute name for a baker’s.
“I hope you have money, Hal,” I said as we dismounted and locked our bikes. “Because I have hardly any, but if I don’t get something to eat, I am going to just drop dead here on the spot, and you will have to sling my body over your handlebars and carry me home and explain to my parents how you let me starve to death.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Hal. He was counting out his coins. “I have enough for two bagels and two chocolate muffins. I don’t think they do doughnuts here. Will that be OK? I’ll get an orange juice as well.”
“That sounds like heaven,” I said. Truth to tell, even a piece of sliced pan with no butter would have been perfectly all right.
We took our goodies to the Market Square and sat on a bench for our little picnic. It’s not a market square anymore, it’s like a little park. There’s a monument to some dead poet in the middle, with these benches all around it, and flower beds with busy Lizzies in all sorts of zany colors.
Bagels never tasted so good. I didn’t even mind about not having any butter or jam.
“Give me your mobile, will you?” I said to Hal. “I have to ring home. They’re bound to be back from the airport by now, and they’ll be wondering where I’ve got to. I’ll tell them we’re on a project for school. It’s a bit lame, but we have to say something. I’ll be murdered anyway, but I’d be murdered even worse if I didn’t phone in.”
“You should have your own mobile,” Hal said grudgingly, but he handed his over all the same.
“My parents don’t approve of children with mobiles,” I told him for the umpteenth time. “They explained it to me once, but I’ve forgotten the reason.”
“But it’s OK if you use mine?” Hal said grumpily. “That doesn’t make sense.”
He’d got very edgy ever since Alec got arrested. Maybe arrested. I suppose he thought his mother was going to be very upset. Well, you would be, wouldn’t you? Upset, I mean, if your son had organized to have your sort-of-husband arrested on a Saturday morning. Even if it wasn’t exactly planned that way.
“It’s the principle,” I said, “not the radiation. It’s like not being allowed to watch much TV Don’t worry, I’ll buy you some credit later.”
I never did buy him that credit, because I forgot, but now that I have remembered it, I think I won’t buy it anyway. He got us into this situation, the least he could do was cover the cost of a phone call to let my parents know we hadn’t been kidnapped.
“Do you want to ringyour mother?” I asked him, after I’d had a very strained conversation with mine.
“No,” he said in a surly voice.
“Hal, you have to tell her you’re OK.”
“I don’t,” Hal said. “Anyway, she’s not even there.”
“She has a mobile,” I argued.
“Well,” I said, “I see why. She could be ringing your house all morning and wondering why there is no one home. I’m going to ring her if you won’t. I’ll tell her you’re with me.”
“If she wants to talk to me,” said Hal, “which she doesn’t, she will ring me on my mobile.”
“All the same, you have to cover yourself,” I said, dialing Hal’s home number. “You can’t just walk out of the house and not leave any word about where you are.
“Oh, hi, Mrs. Den— … I mean, Mrs. Ki— … ., well, whatever, er, Trudy,” I trilled. (I really did trill. I was doing my best to sound cheerful.) “It’s me, Olivia. Just wanted to let you know that Hal’s with me. We’re on this sort of project thing, you know, Explore Your Area or something, it’s called, for … for SESE, that’s what was called history’n’geography, I think, when you were at school. And science. We have these, like, worksheets, and we have to find all these monuments and stuff, raths and statues and everything, so … anyway, I think he forgot to tell you he’d be … oh, he’s at the toilet at the moment, which is why I’m ringing, OK? We’re just by the poet statue now, actually, in the square. We’ve ticked that one off our list. Oh, there’s the pip, well, byeee!”
“What’d she say?” Hal asked when I rang off.
“Oh, she didn’t answer. I was just leaving a message.”
“It’s a nice day,” Hal said after a moment. “We could go to the strand and fly the kite. After we’ve finished the muffins.”
“Hal, we could NOT! We have to rescue your stepfather.”
“He is not my stepfather,” said Hal. “And we can’t rescue him. We’re just a couple of kids. And anyway, he most probably doesn’t need rescuing.”
“He does if he’s been arrested,” I said. “Oh, Hal, just think, if Alec has been arrested because of us …”
“It’s not because of us,” said Hal. “We didn’t get him arrested.” His voice had got higher than usual, and squeaky. He was definitely ruffled, I thought. “He got himself arrested, the silly galoot. If he has been. Which he probably hasn’t been.”
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