The Sequin Star

by Belinda Murrell

  Claire scowled at Jem, her arms crossed. ‘Don’t be silly.’

  ‘I just mean they’re very wealthy, they’re involved in the notorious New Guard, and they probably employ a lot of people,’ Jem said defensively. ‘In fact, they might’ve put a lot of people out of work. Frank said he heard that Mr Hunter has had to close down a number of his stores in the last year.’

  ‘No squabbling, children,’ Rosina admonished. ‘This isn’t helping.’

  Claire picked up a fallen twig and began to strip the leaves off. She watched as the two elephants used their trunks to groom themselves.

  Lula galloped over towards them on four paws. She threw a clod of earth at Empress, which fell harmlessly at her feet. Empress picked up the clod and shot it back at Lula like a cricket ball. Lula dodged it and dashed to the safety of Rosina’s lap.

  ‘Let’s think about what we do know,’ Claire suggested. ‘We know that someone was driving a blue van, and that they arrived at the house after Kit came back from Happy Valley with Larry.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Rosina. ‘That was after eleven, and Mrs Bruce came home at midday to find the house ransacked.’

  ‘Well, don’t you think it’s odd that the robbers knew exactly when to strike?’ asked Claire. ‘The house is usually full of people, but today there were no watchmen, all the staff were conveniently absent and Mr Hunter was away.’

  ‘They might’ve been casing the house for weeks,’ Jem suggested. ‘They could’ve had spies watching the household to see when it was safe to strike – that would’ve been quite easy to do.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ agreed Rosina. ‘They must have been planning it for a long time then.’

  ‘They also seemed to know what to look for inside the house,’ Claire added. ‘They managed to get in and out fairly quickly.’

  ‘Or they may just have figured that any house that size would be full of stuff worth taking,’ replied Jem.

  Claire sat and thought for a while longer. Who had a motive to attack Kit?

  Claire lay tossing and turning on her narrow bunk. The mattress was hard and uncomfortable, and her thoughts were keeping her awake. She had slept for a few hours, but then she heard a vehicle outside. The engine sound was soft but unmistakeable. She thought she heard it turning onto the lot. She peered outside into the darkness. There was no sign of headlights. The engine cut out. A door closed.

  She lay there, listening. Her imagination started to run wild. Why would someone drive onto the lot with no headlights? Perhaps it was someone coming to steal the horses or let the elephants loose. Perhaps it’s burglars, coming to rob the circus. Should I get up? Should I go out in the darkness and see who’s there?

  Reluctantly Claire clambered out of her bunk and paused, listening. She crept to the caravan door and eased it open. Outside, all was quiet and darkness. Claire padded down the steps in bare feet. She stubbed her toe on one of the rocks by the campfire and had to catch herself from crying out. Her eyes and ears strained through the blackness. There was no movement, no more noise.

  After a few minutes of waiting and listening, Claire climbed back into the caravan and into bed, lying there for what seemed like hours. At last she wriggled out of her bunk again and went to the latrine. She fumbled for the torch they kept by the door for this purpose. Claire unlatched the door and slipped out, pulling one of Rosina’s old coats over her nightclothes. She peered around cautiously.

  Outside, the sun hadn’t risen yet but there was a soft, predawn light. No one else was up yet. Claire scanned the lot, trying to see if anything was out of place.

  She noticed that one of the circus vans was parked over in the far corner of the field, near the back of the abandoned department store. It was the blue van that Frank and Roy had taken yesterday to deliver the rabbit skins. Claire thought hard. It definitely hadn’t been parked there yesterday afternoon when they had taken the elephants for their dust bath.

  Claire wandered over to take a look. On the rear tyre, Claire noticed flecks of white against the black. On closer inspection, she realised they were several pieces of gravel wedged in the rear tread. White gravel from a driveway? Kit’s driveway was white gravel. Was it a coincidence . . . or a clue?

  The door to the van was unlocked. Claire climbed into the front seat to have a look, closing the door behind her. Keys to the circus vehicles were often kept under the floor mat on the driver’s side so that they were easy to find. Sure enough, the keys were there. Claire left them and climbed over the seats, into the dark rear of the van. There was a strong, gamey smell, which nearly made Claire gag.

  Switching on her torch, Claire scanned the back of the van. It was completely empty. She heard a sound outside the van and froze, switching off the torch. She crawled forward and crouched in the shadows just behind the driver’s seat. Someone opened the door and fumbled around on the floor. Claire hardly dared to breathe. The engine turned over and the van was put in reverse.

  The driver rested his elbow on top of the seat, twisting to look back through the rear window as he reversed. Claire crouched lower onto the floor.

  The van was driven to the southern side of the lot, back to where it was usually parked. The driver killed the engine, withdrew the keys and slid out. Claire felt a huge wave of relief, which quickly turned to panic as she realised that the door was being locked from the outside.

  She scrambled to the rear window and peered out. The person walking away from the van, with his hands jammed in his pockets, looked suspiciously like Jem.

  Claire waited until the figure was out of sight before carefully checking all the doors. The front doors were locked, but the rear door opened from the inside.

  Relieved, Claire took a deep breath, carefully opened the door and jumped down. In the growing dawn light, Claire examined the floor of the van. There was a dark, dried smudge on the floor. Claire sobbed, the shock of the last few minutes hit, making her legs feel wobbly.

  Was this the van that was involved in Kit’s kidnapping? Was that Kit’s blood on the floor? If it was the getaway vehicle, what was Jem doing parking it this morning? And where could Kit be now?

  Claire went to the latrine – her least favourite part of circus life. She washed her hands in the kerosene tin of water outside and wandered back to the caravan. People were beginning to stir around the camp, fetching water and lighting fires. Rosina had already gone to feed the horses.

  Claire dressed in her work clothes, thinking back over the events of the last few days. Jem obviously felt jealous about Kit’s wealth. Jem knew details about Mr Hunter’s business interests. Claire had seen Jem taking money from Frank. Could Jem possibly have played a part in Kit’s disappearance?

  By breakfast time, Claire had sifted through the various scenarios over and over.

  She went to the cookhouse for breakfast – steaming porridge with stewed apple and hot cocoa. She sat down at one of the tables in the cookhouse tent by herself and ate slowly. A few minutes later, Jem came to fetch his own meal.

  ‘Morning, Claire,’ Jem called cheerily. ‘Did you sleep well?’

  ‘Not particularly,’ replied Claire. ‘I had nightmares about Kit. I worried about him lying somewhere, cold, scared and alone.’

  Jem looked uncomfortable. ‘Well, hopefully the police have found him already.’

  Claire had a long, hard look at Jem. With his thatch of blond hair, freckles and flat worker’s cap, he looked cheerful and friendly. But did she really know Jem?

  ‘Do you honestly hope that, Jem?’ Claire asked. Her voice sounded brittle. ‘You don’t like Kit much, do you?’

  Jem shrugged. ‘He’s all right. He’s just a toff. We don’t have that much in common, but I certainly don’t wish him any harm.’

  Claire paused. ‘Jem, why did you move the blue van this morning?’

  Jem stared blankly at Claire. ‘What do you mean? Why the interrogation?’
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  ‘I know you moved the van,’ Claire replied. ‘But I don’t know why?’

  Jem glanced around and shrugged. ‘Frank asked me to move it first thing this morning. It wasn’t where it was supposed to be and Frank didn’t want Alf to get mad. It’s not important.’

  ‘But what was it doing there? It came onto the lot in the middle of the night, didn’t it? I heard it sometime before dawn when everyone was supposed to be asleep.’

  Jem shook his head. ‘Jeez, I don’t know, Claire. Why are you so concerned about it?’

  ‘Because Mrs Bruce told us that the neighbour saw a blue van being loaded up in the front driveway of Kit’s house yesterday,’ Claire reminded him. ‘And you were moving a blue van this morning that mysteriously appeared back on the lot in the middle of the night. A van that I think has bloodstains on the floor.’

  Jem scowled. ‘Yes, I did park the van, but I don’t know anything about Kit’s disappearance.’

  ‘And I saw Frank give you money yesterday, didn’t I?’ Claire demanded. Her voice was rising in anger and frustration.

  Jem stood up. ‘Claire, this is ridiculous. Frank gave me money yesterday because he sold over one hundred rabbit skins that I hunted and cured over the last few weeks. Frank and Roy delivered all the skins to the skin merchant. I earned about ten pounds for the skins, so I can now give that money to my mother.’

  Jem picked up his bowl of porridge and his mug of cocoa. ‘I don’t know where Kit is, and I can’t believe that you think I’d do such a terrible thing.’

  Jem stalked off. Claire trembled, her head in her hands. She left her breakfast and walked around the lot. Am I wrong about Jem? Was it just a coincidence about the van? Where is Kit?

  Claire retraced her footsteps from earlier that morning, back to where the van had been parked. She looked carefully where the grass was trampled. The van had been parked close to the wall of the closed department store. Nearby was the dust bowl where the elephants had bathed and played. In the soft dust there were some footprints – one set heading forwards and one set facing backwards – as though the two people had been carrying a large object.

  She followed the footprints away from the flattened area where the van had been parked. They headed towards the back of the old department store but then disappeared on the grass past the dust bowl. Claire followed their rough direction to a gate in the timber paling fence, which was padlocked with a shiny new brass lock.

  Looking around, Claire spied a wheelbarrow near the dung heap. She wheeled it over and leant it against the fence. Claire scrambled up on the barrow and peered over the fence, into the overgrown courtyard. An old sign was leaning up against the back wall: ‘Hunter Emporium’.

  Hunter Emporium? thought Claire. Hunter . . . as in Kit Hunter? Does this business actually belong to Kit’s family? Is this one of the stores that Frank said had been closed down in recent months?

  With some difficulty, Claire clambered over the fence, dropping heavily into the courtyard, hurting her feet.

  There was nothing much in the courtyard except old barrels and crates with weeds growing over them, and some long-forgotten rubbish. One window was covered in timber planks securely nailed into place. The back door leading into the building was boarded up and barred, another brand-new padlock ensuring there were no intruders. Claire tried the door and the boarding over the window, but both were sealed tight.

  The only clue was some freshly scuffed moss growing in the cracks of the concrete back yard. Someone had been here recently, but what had they brought and where had they gone?

  The northern side of the store shared a boundary wall with another building. The southern side was a three-storey high blank brick wall with no windows, presumably because the builders expected another building to be erected on the vacant lot to the south. Claire climbed back over the fence and prowled around, past the elephant enclosure and the horse yards, to the road.

  The street frontage of the department store was also three storeys high. The lower level consisted of floor-to-ceiling glass display windows, securely boarded up with timber hoardings. The next level had several elegant, arched windows, while the third had rectangular windows. There was a main front door, which was locked with a key and deadbolt. After checking the whole perimeter, Claire could see no easy way into the building so she headed back to Rosina’s caravan.

  Rosina was sitting outside drinking her cocoa. ‘There you are, Claire,’ she exclaimed. ‘Jem said you are terribly upset and spouting some nonsense about vans and pay-offs. Are you all right?’

  Claire burst into tears. The night of broken sleep, the altercation with Jem and the futile search for an entrance to the department store proved all too much for her.

  ‘I thought Jem might be involved with Kit’s kidnapping,’ Claire admitted. ‘But now he hates me. Someone was here in the middle of the night, though, and I think something – perhaps even Kit – has been hidden next door.’

  Rosina sighed and patted the chair beside her. ‘Sit down, Claire. You’re not making much sense. Can you tell me again, from the beginning?’

  When Claire had explained her fears and thoughts more coherently, Rosina nodded. ‘So it sounds like Frank and Roy may be involved? They had the van yesterday to take the rabbit pelts to the skin merchant. Frank seemed to know a lot about Kit’s father. And it was Frank who asked Jem to move the van.’

  Claire blew her nose. She felt better after talking to Rosina.

  ‘So we should call the police,’ Claire decided. ‘We can ring that Detective Drummond straightaway, and he can interrogate Frank and find out where they’ve hidden Kit.’

  Rosina thought, then shook her head. ‘We can’t do that, Claire. We can’t call the police.’

  Claire sat up straight. ‘But we have to, Rosina. Straightaway.’

  Rosina looked around the lot. ‘The circus is a family, Claire. It’s my family – or as close as I have to one. There are people from many different backgrounds, but we all work together and look after each other.’

  ‘But Kit is family, too,’ Claire objected. ‘Well, he’s as close to family as I have here.’

  Rosina looked at Claire closely. Claire flushed; she certainly couldn’t explain to Rosina her actual relationship with Kit and the Hunters.

  ‘I really like Kit too, Claire,’ Rosina said, ‘but he’s an outsider. We can’t involve the police – we have to deal with this inside the circus.’

  ‘So what do we do then?’ asked Claire.

  Rosina stood up. ‘Let’s get Jem to help us. We’ll go and talk to Frank ourselves and find out what’s going on.’

  Claire felt uneasy. She didn’t trust Frank, with his quick temper and outspoken views. She didn’t want to deal with this anymore. She really just wanted to hand the whole problem over to someone in authority so they could solve it.

  ‘But if we talk to Frank, and he turns out to be the kidnapper, then we’d tip him off,’ Claire replied. ‘He would just deny it all.’

  ‘Then perhaps we need to see if we can find Kit ourselves,’ Rosina suggested. ‘Let’s go and talk to Jem.’

  17

  Night Excursion

  Jem had the mammoth job of cleaning out the elephant enclosure. Each day, the two elephants ate ten bales of hay and about fourteen kilos of fruit and vegetables between them. They also drank about three hundred litres of water. This resulted in a lot of elephant dung that had to be shovelled up and wheelbarrowed away to the towering compost pile several times per day.

  Jem was wheeling another load of straw and muck when Elsie swiped his cap with her trunk and set it on her own head, her intelligent eyes sparkling with mischief.

  ‘Give over, Elsie,’ snapped the usually patient Jem. He scowled when he saw Claire and pushed the barrow faster. He used the shovel like a weapon, stabbing at the manure and hurling it onto the dung heap.

  Clai
re felt guilty and confused. Jem was obviously still furious with her. Looking at him now, it seemed ludicrous that she had suspected him.

  ‘Jem,’ Claire began. ‘I’m so, so sorry I thought you were involved in Kit’s kidnapping. Can I do something to make it up to you?’ She looked around the elephant enclosure. ‘Can I help you muck out the stall?’

  Jem glared at her, then laughed. ‘Cripes, I guess you must be sorry. No one has ever offered to help me clean out the elephant enclosure before.’

  Jem tossed Claire a rake that was leaning up against the water trough, and she set to work raking the soiled straw and manure into a pile for Jem to shovel. Empress ruffled her hair with her trunk as she worked.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Jem with a grin. ‘I may even forgive you for thinking I was a master criminal.’

  Rosina leant against Elsie’s side and rubbed her on the trunk. ‘Give Jem his cap back, please, Elsie,’ Rosina ordered. Elsie fluttered her long eyelashes as if to say ‘Who me?’, but she whisked Jem’s cap off her head with her trunk and presented it back to him.

  ‘We need your help, Jem,’ Rosina began. ‘Claire thinks that Frank and Roy might be involved in Kit’s disappearance. I told her we can’t involve the police, so we’ll need to ask them some questions.’

  Jem leant on his shovel. ‘I hate to break the news, but Miss Sherlock Holmes had me as the major villain just at breakfast time. What makes you so sure that Frank and Roy had anything to do with the kidnapping?’

  Claire ran through her evidence again as she raked the ground. ‘Please, Jem,’ Claire begged. ‘We have to help find him.’

  Jem loaded up the last wheelbarrow of elephant dung, trundled it across to the pile and emptied it. Jem piled the rake and the shovel into the wheelbarrow.

  ‘I can believe that Frank and Roy might bend the law sometimes,’ Jem admitted, ‘but I really don’t believe they would kidnap anyone. Besides, I doss in the same caravan as Frank and Roy, and I didn’t hear them go walkabout in the middle of the night.’