Undercover Angel

by Dyan Sheldon

  My mother may have been defeated, but she was far from being beaten.

  “And who said I had finished with him this time?” asked my mother.

  SHERLOCK HOLMES

  IN CAMPTON

  I avoided Kuba for the rest of the day, and for a change she didn’t just stroll into my room demanding to talk. My mother’s defeat upset me more than I thought it would and, weird as it may sound, I blamed Kuba. She was the angel. Why didn’t she get us there on time?

  But on Friday afternoon, as I was unlocking my bike, Kuba suddenly appeared at my side in the school playground. I flatly refused to give her a ride home.

  “Suit yourself,” said Kuba. “We’ll walk.”

  I smiled very sweetly. “You mean you’ll walk. I’m cycling.”

  Only I couldn’t get on my bike. Every time I put my foot on the pedal it slipped off.

  Kuba’s smile was even sweeter than mine. “Going my way?” she asked.

  Neither of us spoke until we were outside school.

  “Mr Bamber was beside himself last night,” said Kuba. “He actually danced Mrs Bamber around the living-room, he was so happy.” She rolled her eyes. “I’ve never seen him touch her before.”

  I didn’t say anything. I thought of what Mrs Ludgate had said at the meeting: it was really unfair.

  “How did your mother take it?” asked Kuba.

  “How do you think she took it?” I snapped. “She threw a party, she was so pleased.”

  Kuba swung her schoolbag dangerously close to me.

  “I don’t know why you’re angry with me,” she said. “I did everything I could.”

  I stopped walking. “Did you?” I asked sarcastically. “Then why didn’t you stop those horses? Why didn’t you make sure my mother got to the meeting on time?”

  Kuba’s schoolbag scraped my knee.

  “I’m an angel,” said Kuba. “Not a magician.”

  I pointed out that she could turn an old hat into a television. “Seems like magic to me.”

  “And Mr Bamber seems like a nice guy,” replied Kuba. She glared at me sourly. “There are limits to what I can do, Elmo. I can see things when they happen and after they happen, but not before. And I can’t personally stop them from happening. That’s considered interfering.” Her glare became a little less sour. “But I can point others in the right direction.”

  I wasn’t sure why, but I got the feeling that this last statement was a criticism of me. As if Kuba had pointed me in the right direction and I had refused to go. As if everything were my fault and not hers.

  “Yeah, well…” I mumbled. “It doesn’t seem to have done much good this time, does it?”

  “This time isn’t over yet,” said Kuba.

  My mother didn’t think this time was over yet, either.

  My mother had a new plan. She had tried to go through the proper channels in a proper way, but now, she said, the Greeners had to take things into their own hands.

  “That’s what terrorists say,” said my grandfather.

  My mother scowled. “I was thinking of the tactics of Gandhi, not the IRA,” she said.

  My mother wasn’t into violence. To her, the Greeners taking things into their own hands meant bringing national attention to what was happening in Campton. Which meant that Grace Blue was prepared to sit in front of an oncoming bulldozer and chain herself to it if she had to. With her petitions firmly clasped in her arms, of course. When the police and the photographers and members of the Council turned up, my mother was going to present the petitions on the evening news. Let the country decide, said my mother.

  In the meantime, Mr Bamber, confident that my mother was finally beaten, announced the day his project would start. If he didn’t waste any more time, he could have the woods levelled, the lake drained and the cemetery moved before winter came and the ground was too hard. The bulldozers would be moving in on Monday.

  On Friday night my mother called a special meeting of the Greeners. There were maps and signs all over the dining-room table. The living-room had been turned into a training camp. My father shut himself in his studio with Gertie, my grandparents shut themselves in their studio with their tango class, and my aunt and uncle shut themselves in their studio with a bottle of wine. I didn’t have a studio, so I got myself some supper and went to my room.

  Kuba was stretched out on my bed with my library book.

  I knew from biology that a species’ survival depends on its ability to adapt to changing conditions, but I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen that principle in action before now. I, however, was like a species that is determined to survive. Just a few short days ago I’d been shocked to find Kuba in my room, but now I barely glanced at her. I locked the door behind me. It wasn’t as if Kuba needed to use it, and I didn’t want my mother suddenly barging in.

  I pulled the chair out from under my desk. “What are you doing here?” I asked as I sat down.

  “I’m reading Sherlock Holmes,” said Kuba. She rested the open book on her stomach and sighed. “It’s a shame he wasn’t a real person,” she went on almost wistfully. “We could use Mr Holmes’s analytical skills.”

  I laughed. “Even if he had been real he’d be dead by now,” I pointed out.

  “You mean like me?” asked Kuba.

  This was one avenue of conversation that I didn’t really want to go down. If Kuba could call up other spirits I, for one, didn’t want to know about it. I was still trying to adapt to all the other things she could do.

  I bit into my sandwich.

  Something crashed in the living-room. The Greeners were practising being dragged away by the police.

  “You have to admire your mother’s spirit, don’t you?” she asked.

  I moved my salad out of her reach.

  “You mean because she doesn’t know when to give up?”

  “She shouldn’t have to give up,” said Kuba. “She should have won.” She frowned. “I wonder how Mr Bamber knew…”

  “Knew what?”

  Kuba sighed. As far as angels go, patience wasn’t her biggest virtue.

  “Knew that she found the petitions. You don’t think those runaway horses were an accident, do you?”

  I stared at her. Aghast was becoming one of my favourite emotions.

  “Weren’t they?”

  She gave me a look of exasperation. “Of course they weren’t. Somebody must have told Mr Bamber that you found the petitions, and what route your mother was taking to the meeting. The question is: who?”

  I put my salad back within her reach. I didn’t feel like eating any more. To tell the truth, I was finding the whole thing pretty depressing. I’d really looked up to Mr Bamber. But I was beginning to feel that I’d have to lie flat on my back to look up to Mr Bamber now. I thought about this for a few minutes.

  “But if somebody told Mr Bamber,” I said slowly, “it had to be one of the Greeners. Nobody else knew.”

  Kuba’s smile wasn’t particularly angelic.

  “Exactly.” Having finished my salad, she moved on to my unfinished sandwich.

  “You mean there’s an informer?”

  “Is the manatee nearly extinct?” asked Kuba.

  I felt sort of like the way I’d felt when my father accidentally whacked me on the head with a piece of pipe from one of his fountains. I was stunned. This wasn’t just spying, this was betrayal. The hard core of Greeners had all been in the group since it began. They were my mother’s friends. For her birthday they’d made her a carrot cake and adopted a tree in her name. But one of them was telling Mr Bamber the Greeners’ inside secrets.

  “Maybe it wasn’t a coincidence that Mrs Ludgate was in charge of those petitions…” I mumbled, thinking out loud. “Maybe they were Mr Meadows’ horses that ran my mother off the road…”

  “I wouldn’t go jumping to any conclusions,” said Kuba through a mouthful of bread and hummus. “It could be anybody. It could even be someone who’s close to a Greener but isn’t actually in the group. A neighbo
ur … a friend … even a relative…”

  “Well, that narrows it down.” I handed her my packet of crisps. She’d had everything else, she might as well have those, too. “We’ve got to do something,” I said. “We’ve got to tell my mother.”

  “Tell her what?” asked Kuba. She opened the crisps. “If we tell her, she has two choices: to tell the Greeners, which means Mr Bamber will know that we know; or not tell them and act like nothing’s wrong, which means that Mr Bamber will still know all their plans.” She stuffed a couple of crisps in her mouth. “Either way, he wins.”

  “Then we should tell her,” I decided. “She might as well know she’s really lost.”

  “She hasn’t really lost,” said Kuba.

  I watched the last of my crisps disappear into her mouth. “But you said—”

  “No, I didn’t,” said Kuba, crunching. “I was merely explaining why we should keep your mum and the Greeners out of our plans.”

  “I didn’t know that we had plans,” I said acidly.

  “Of course we have,” said Kuba. “We’re going to catch Mr Bamber in his own trap.”

  “Oh, really? And how are we going to do that?”

  “The first thing we’re going to do is find out who the informer is.”

  “And how are we going to do that?”

  “Sherlock Holmes,” said Kuba.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Mr Bamber’s up to something.” She brushed crisp crumbs from her hands. “He was supposed to go out to dinner with me and Mrs Bamber and now he says he can’t.” The blue glow on her head was darker than usual. It made her look very serious. “He says he’s got to stay at home to wait for an important phone call.”

  “Well, that makes sense. Mr Bamber’s an important man.”

  Kuba tilted her head expectantly. “And?”

  I got an image of Mr Bamber in my mind. Cal and Lucille called Mr Bamber the human phonebox.

  “And what about his mobile?”

  “Exactly, my dear Elmo,” said Kuba. “What about his mobile? That man takes important calls in the loo. Why wouldn’t he take one in the restaurant?”

  It was beginning to look like I was Watson and Kuba was Sherlock Holmes.

  “Because it’s secret?”

  One eyebrow rose.

  “From whom? Mrs Bamber?” The blue that hovered around her head grew even darker. “What do you think Mr Bamber’s doing that he can’t tell Mrs Bamber?”

  I watched enough telly to be able to find a logical answer to that.

  “Maybe he has a girlfriend.”

  Kuba spluttered with laughter. “Yeah, right. But her name happens to be Stocks and Bonds.”

  So maybe it wasn’t that logical.

  “Well, there’s nothing we can do about it,” I said with some relief.

  “There’s certainly nothing I can do about it,” said Kuba. “I’ve got to go and eat some poor dead animal in that new rainforest restaurant.” She got to her feet with a sigh. “Apparently it has parrots flying around pooping on your food. Mrs Bamber seems to think I’ll get a kick out of it.” She sighed again. “This really is a strange world. You destroy the rainforests and then you open restaurants that recreate the rainforests. Why don’t you just leave them where they are and go there for picnics?”

  About ten minutes after Mrs Bamber and Kuba had driven off in the Porsche to eat some poor dead animal while parrots pooped on their plates, Mr Bamber left the house. He had Gregory with him.

  I watched them stand on the front porch for a few seconds while Mr Bamber locked the door, and then they strolled down the path as though this were something they did every evening, a man and his dog out for a walk.

  I wouldn’t have thought anything of it if it weren’t for the fact that I’d never seen Mr Bamber walk Gregory before. Not once. He was always too busy.

  I blame Sherlock Holmes. Instead of getting out my homework, I grabbed my jacket from the back of the door and raced downstairs. Another example of instinct over reason.

  My father was in his studio, as usual. My grandparents were in the living-room, watching a dance programme on the telly. Uncle Cal and Aunt Lucille were playing a heated game of backgammon in the kitchen. My mother was glued to the telephone in her office. No one noticed me leave the house.

  Mr Bamber and Gregory were turning the corner as I reached the road.

  Because we’re miles out of town, there aren’t many other houses near us, just woods and fields. Careful not to make any noise, I followed Mr Bamber and Gregory, keeping close to the shrubs at the side of the road. It was still pretty light out, so my problem was to make sure Mr Bamber didn’t spot me.

  I’d never really seen Mr Bamber walk very much before. He was always getting out of a car, or getting into a car. But that night he and Gregory walked for miles.

  First, they went up by the woods that were going to be turned into a housing development. Gregory ran after a couple of rabbits and Mr Bamber smoked a cigar.

  Then they cut across to the old church. It wasn’t used any more, but in the summer there were always a few tourists stumbling around it, taking pictures. Gregory chased a couple of rabbits through the cemetery and Mr Bamber looked at headstones.

  After that, they crossed to the lake. Mr Bamber smoked another cigar and Gregory chased a couple of ducks.

  Holmes was always excited when he followed someone, but I was dead bored. I should’ve stayed at home and done my homework. Mr Bamber wasn’t up to something. He wasn’t being secretive and devious. All he was doing was taking a last look at his land before it became a golf course.

  After the lake, the three of us headed back by a different road.

  It was starting to get dark by then and I stopped really paying attention to where we were going.

  Mr Bamber was already opening a door before I realized that we’d come to a pub. I came to a halt and watched Mr Bamber and Gregory disappear inside.

  Maybe this is it, I thought. Maybe Mr Bamber’s meeting someone in the pub.

  Crouching low, I scuttled across the car park and up to the shrubs by the front window. It was an old building, so the windows were low. I could peek in without standing up.

  Mr Bamber was standing at the bar with Gregory. There were several other men at the bar, and a few couples and a group of men at the tables around it. I recognized a few of the local farmers, and Dr Paley, the vet. Dr Paley leaned down and rubbed Gregory behind the ear, but he didn’t say anything to Mr Bamber. Nobody said anything to Mr Bamber. The farmers were talking to each other, and Dr Paley was talking to the barman.

  It didn’t look like Mr Bamber had gone in to meet someone. It looked like he’d gone in to have a drink.

  It was only the thought of all the hours Sherlock Holmes spent watching suspects that kept me at the window. Watching people drink isn’t the most exciting thing in the world, though. They talked, they laughed, they shouted a bit. One of the farmers tripped over Gregory and spilled some of his drink.

  I was trying to work out if there was anything suspicious about the spilled drink or not when one of the men from the group at the table got up for another round.

  He worked himself into the space between Mr Bamber and the farmers, put the empty glasses on the bar and signalled to the barman to fill them up.

  He and Mr Bamber both had their backs to me, so I only realized they were talking together because Gregory was listening. His head was raised and one ear was cocked. His eyes were on Mr Bamber. Maybe he was looking for the mobile phone.

  I told myself not to jump to conclusions.

  “Don’t jump to conclusions,” I said. “There’s nothing suspicious about two men speaking to each other while they’re standing next to each other at a bar.”

  And then the barman put the drinks down and the man picked them up and turned round.

  There could be something suspicious about two men speaking to each other while they’re standing at a bar if one of the men is Mr Bamber, property developer, and the oth
er is Barry Ludgate, plumber and son of Caroline.

  I threw myself to the ground before Barry could see me.

  I was relieved and shocked at the same time. Relieved because the informer wasn’t one of the Greeners, and shocked because it was Caroline Ludgate’s own son. Maybe he’d never forgiven her for leaving him at the shopping centre.

  It was up to me to do something. Sherlock Holmes would have put on some brilliant disguise, strolled into the pub and joined their conversation. But even if I’d had a brilliant disguise ready, it would have needed to make me a lot taller to even get me into the pub without being shouted at to leave the second I stepped inside.

  I was still trying to work out some plan of action when the pub door opened and Mr Bamber and Gregory stepped out. They walked down the path a bit, but then Mr Bamber stopped and started punching numbers into his mobile.

  I held my breath.

  “It’s Bamber,” said Mr Bamber. “There’s been a change of plan. Have everything ready to go on Sunday.”

  Gregory, who had reached the road without realizing that he was on his own, started walking back the way he and Mr Bamber had come.

  “Gregory!” shouted Mr Bamber. “Gregory! Heel!”

  Gregory kept walking.

  Mr Bamber started to follow. “Look,” he shouted into the mobile, “I’ve got to catch the dog. Make sure you’ve got it straight. We start work on Sunday, not Monday. Got it? Sunday. Crack of dawn.”

  I was stunned. After Mr Bamber and Gregory had disappeared from view, I started walking in a daze in the direction we’d been going before Mr Bamber went into the pub. There was a full moon, but it was a cloudy night and the moon kept vanishing. I walked and walked, trying to make out landmarks in the shadows of the night. It was when what I thought was the stone wall that ran alongside Mr Meadows’ farm turned out, on closer inspection, to be a hedgerow, that I knew I was lost.

  I know our area a lot better than I know the palm of my hand. If you showed me a print of my palm I wouldn’t know it was mine, but if you showed me a photograph of any road within a five mile radius of my house I’d recognize it immediately. Assuming the photograph was taken in daylight. But at night it was too dark to see anything clearly.