‘The Inca key?’
‘Sorry?’
‘He told me about the Inca key when I was covering detention once – this was long before Jack started doing guitar lessons with me. He was there for playing a joke on Mr Bemowski – it was the week before Christmas. He’d set a series of tiny alarm clocks to go off at three-minute intervals throughout the lesson. They were hidden under every third desk in the room and they each played a few notes of “All I Want for Christmas Is You”. Mr Bemowski found out that Jack was the culprit, because he was the only one looking at his watch and trying not to laugh. He later said that he wanted to find out how quickly somebody in his class would figure out the pattern, and also whether they’d realise what song it was.’
Keira was giggling behind her hand and Finny himself had a glimmer of amusement in his eyes as he told the story.
‘Mr Bemowski didn’t see the funny side?’
‘No. He set Jack a piece of research into what he would recommend as the next Wonder of the World and why. Jack clearly didn’t see this as a punishment. He was so absorbed that he was the last one in the form room when everyone else had left. I started talking to him about it and he told me all about this Inca gold and the key that was linked to it.’
‘The Inca gold? What’s that?’
‘Well, I think he took the word “wonder” a bit too seriously, as in something that makes you wonder.’
‘Like a riddle?’
‘I suppose. He’d read somewhere about these amazing treasure chests that were stolen from a Peruvian cathedral. Apparently the jewellery in them had been mined by the ancient civilisation of the Incas and had been passed down through the generations until it was eventually hidden by a group of priests in the vault of a church. Then, one day, it mysteriously vanished. Jack said that the strangest thing about it was that the vault seemed completely untouched.
‘This meant that the priests began to accuse one another, because somebody must have used the key to get the treasure. But the mystery deepened when it became apparent that the key itself was missing.’
‘Seriously? Did they find it?’
‘I don’t know, because we’d reached the school gates by then and both had to go home. I noticed that Jack had been fiddling with something at his throat as we were walking. When I asked him what it was, he showed me the key. I should have confiscated it because you’re not allowed jewellery, but I didn’t. I asked him jokingly if it was the key to the Inca gold. He just laughed.’
‘And you never spoke about it again?’
‘We never had any reason to. In fact it was only about a year later that Jack came to me wanting to do guitar lessons. By then I’d forgotten all about it.’
‘Until now,’ I said quietly.
‘Until now,’ he agreed.
As we walked out of school with Finny, my brain was brimming with information about Jack. The tiny drummer was beating out scrambled beats – each one a tiny snippet of a melody, but none of them coming together in a recognisable song. Sometimes the beats overlapped and the noise got so loud that it caused a pain in my temple, but my feet kept walking beside Keira, moving towards her mum’s waiting car.
Eleven
‘He wasn’t on the trip!’
Mum’s yell tore me from the murky depths of a dream. I’d been standing in a dimly lit underground cavern, a glass door before me. From behind it came the gentle strumming of a guitar. As I crept closer, I made out a familiar silhouette sitting in a chair, swaying gently to the music. I banged on the door, but nothing happened. In my left hand I was holding a bunch of keys – maybe a hundred. I was struck with the awful realisation that only one of them would open the door. Then I heard Mum’s shout.
I switched on the light. It was the middle of the night. I could hear Dad’s frantic voice from the kitchen. I crept to the top of the stairs to listen.
‘What do you mean? He was going. He said he was going! He told us he would get on the bus to Lima so that he was there when Simon arrived at the weekend, and they’d go on to the national park.’
‘He didn’t get on the bus. They checked all the records.’
I tiptoed downstairs and sat on the bottom step, listening.
‘What does this mean?’ asked Mum. Her voice sounded as if it was coming from underwater.
‘I suppose it’s good news for us. Quite a number of the people on that trip have now been confirmed dead, haven’t they?’
Mum mumbled something in response.
‘Sorry. Sorry. Obviously, I didn’t mean it like that. Their poor families… But it means he’s still out there. I’m certain he’s still out there,’ said Dad decisively.
‘But where? The last time that we spoke, he distinctly said he’d signed himself up for it. If he didn’t end up going, then where is he? Hold on, didn’t Jack say something about this in his voicemail?’
I heard Dad scrambling around for his phone and then Jack’s voice resounded so clearly that he could have been standing right there in the kitchen. It sent a jolt up my spine.
‘Hey, Dad, if you get this within the next hour, call me back. If not, I’ll try you again tomorrow. This week I’ll be heading to Arequipa and then hoping to catch the Lima bus so that I can meet Si when his plane comes in on Saturday night. We’ll go to Paracas and then later maybe to Cusco. It’s a bit touristy and not the cheapest, but hey, I’m sure I can wangle myself a discount using my charm. Si’s excited to join me. We’ve been arranging logistics already. Love to Mum and Flick. Adios.’
‘It’s a case of finding out where he went instead. I’ve already spoken to Simon and he says Jack didn’t specifically talk about any change of plan although he did mention “a surprise” which we don’t know anything about. We’re going to have to keep thinking.’
Simon. I should have gone to see him yesterday when I had the chance. Without his address, my best bet was to ask Sutty. I didn’t want to bother Mum or for her to find out about my playing detective before I had something more concrete to tell her. As I crept back to bed, I made a mental note to locate Simon as soon as possible.
‘Right, what have you got for me?’ Keira asked as she collected me for school the following morning. She had by now fully assumed the role of junior police inspector investigating a disappearance. Maybe she thought that by using phrases borrowed from TV, I’d forget that the investigation we were conducting was actually to do with Jack.
‘He didn’t go on the trip to Lima,’ I told her. ‘It’s such good news, Keira! It means that he probably stayed further from the centre of the earthquake and that it’s more likely he’s safe.’
‘Hey, that’s amazing,’ she said, giving me a big hug.
‘I also did a bit more research into the Inca gold… I kept wondering what Jack would have said to Finny if they hadn’t gone home that day. I looked into the different theories of what may have happened to the gold. Some say that it’s been taken by pirates to a remote island off the coast of a town called Pisco, others reckon that it’s buried somewhere deep in the Amazon jungle. There are even sources that claim it was shared between a group of wealthy merchants living in the capital, Lima.’
‘But how did they manage to get in without a key?’
‘Easy. The thief made a replica. You need a piece of clay to use as a mould and then you can make another key. The priests all knew the guard and I was reading somewhere that it’s most likely that one of them managed to sneak the original gold key out when he was taking a break. It was a case of knowing him well enough to predict his behaviour.’
‘Sort of like what we’re doing with Jack?’
I hadn’t thought about it that way. ‘I suppose… Anyway, this legend is so famous in popular culture that there’s now an Inca Gold Bank and an Inca Gold Monument. And there are other things dedicated to the key itself.’ I wondered whether Jack would have tried to go into the jungle to find the treasure. Was that the ‘surprise’ that he’d mentioned?
‘Lots of useful facts. Have you put al
l this up on the tree?’
‘Yeah.’ Earlier that morning I’d completed a whole branch of Jack’s tree that was dedicated to Finny, and to the Inca gold.
‘So the mission for today is to speak to Simon, right?’
‘Exactly. Let’s see if he’s at Sutty’s after school.’
That morning through double maths, I couldn’t concentrate. Mr Rox was off sick so we had a supply teacher who’d set us a whole page of mind-numbing equations from our brick of a textbook. I was exhausted from lack of sleep and I hid behind its open pages, my head on the desk. The numbers swam before my eyes and morphed without warning into the figures that Mum had taken to studying on the screen – the growing list of the dead and injured in Peru. And that horrible gnawing question at the base of my skull, which caused the drummer to spring into action.
Where was he? Where was he? Where was he?
‘Where are you?’
It was only when I felt Keira nudging me that I realised I had asked the question aloud.
There was a titter of laughter from the boys in the back row.
‘Are you all right?’ asked Miss Killian, the supply teacher. She was young, probably not much older than Jack, and she looked petrified. She’d probably never yet come across a student who had lost the plot.
‘Yes, fine,’ I muttered. The blood rushed to my cheeks.
‘Do you want to get some air? Or maybe see the nurse?’ she asked.
I could only manage a nod. I stood up and walked out of the classroom.
The empty corridor stretched before me and I felt a surge of relief. I sat on the steps leading to the second floor and stared vacantly into space. I had no intention of going to see Nurse Minton, who gave out paracetamol for absolutely everything, from sore throats to, in Keira’s case, a broken wrist.
I thought about going to Sutty’s to find Simon. I could probably sneak out for half an hour without anyone asking questions. They would think I was with the nurse, and before they realised I wasn’t, I would sneak back.
I was about to go when a wall display caught my eye. It was of the sixth form trip to India the previous year. It had been organised in partnership with a charity called Rolling Earth, which built schools in parts of the developing world. I peered at the photos – there he was. Jack was standing in front of a colourful and bustling marketplace with his arms slung around a couple of friends.
In a burst of memory so powerful that he could have been standing right next to me, I saw him as he returned from the trip. I’d just recovered from a stomach bug and was lying on the sofa watching films and feeling sorry for myself. He’d been dropped off by one of his friend’s parents and strolled in looking browner than ever. Mum and I gave him a big hug and bombarded him with questions, because we hadn’t been able to speak to him. We knew that we wouldn’t be able to contact Jack for most of his trip, because the village where he was staying was so remote that it didn’t pick up phone signal. We’d only received a quick message as he arrived at the airport, to say that they had landed safely. Remembering this made me feel slightly better about losing contact now. Maybe he couldn’t get to a place which had a decent connection?
That day we sat him down on the sofa and asked everything that we’d stored up over the past ten days. Where did you stay? What were the people like? Was the food incredible? Jack answered all our questions, but I could tell there was something on his mind.
It was only later, when we were sitting under his skylight waiting for the 10.15 p.m. to New York, that he told me.
‘We spent most of the trip in a “bamboo hotel” near Kochi, but we each got to spend a day with one of the local families who lived in this tiny village in Kerala. It was the most incredible experience. My family were the Lagharis. They had eleven kids and ran a small farm. They had so little but their house was always immaculate. The older kids looked after the young ones and everyone was happy. And they had this amazing school.’
‘Amazing, how?’
‘Get this – they saw how important it was for their kids to get a good education but at the same time, they needed as many adults as possible to work the land. So their solution was to get the old people in their community to teach. They figured these people couldn’t do hard, physical work any more, but they had many years of knowledge. There were some who had even been to school outside the state. And you could tell that they loved teaching. They only taught a few lessons a week each, so they never got too exhausted. The kids really bonded with them and they would visit them either at home or at the local social club for the elderly – they became like adopted grandparents. It’s a great idea, isn’t it?’
‘I suppose,’ I said. ‘It’s great that they could make it work.’
‘We don’t do anything like that here,’ said Jack, ‘and it’s a real shame. I feel like we forget about older people. Take Grandma, for example – there’s so much about her that we don’t know, because we’ve never bothered to ask. I feel like I’m only beginning to get to know her.’
Something told me that this memory was significant to our current search, but I wasn’t sure why. I jotted it down in the small notepad which Jack had given to me, and which I always carried in my rucksack. It was something that might come in useful later.
Twelve
‘What are you still doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be in the operating theatre?’ asked Duncan, striding out of class first as he always did. The operating theatre was our class’s name for Nurse Minton’s room in which nothing medical ever happened.
‘Erm, yeah, I’ve just come back,’ I lied. I couldn’t believe I’d been staring at the display for almost fifteen minutes.
‘Are you feeling better?’
‘A little. Still not a hundred per cent.’
‘Sorry to hear that,’ he said, and then followed my gaze to the photo cabinet. ‘Are you hoping to go on one of these trips?’
‘Maybe one day. Jack went on this one,’ I muttered, tapping my finger on the glass, ‘that’s him.’
‘Oh,’ he said, peering closely at the photo. ‘I really hope you hear from him soon.’
‘Thanks.’
‘At least Mrs Emmett is trying to take your mind off things by getting you to read your Victorian story to the class.’
It took a few moments for his words to sink in.
‘Are you saying that she’s doing it out of pity?’
Any good opinions that I’d formed about Duncan disappeared in an instant.
‘No, no that’s not what I meant—’
‘—You think my writing isn’t any good?’ I interrupted. ‘That otherwise nobody would be interested in the story?’
‘I’m not saying it isn’t good. With some polishing up it could be great.’
‘“Polishing up”? Is that a phrase that you learned on a writing course or something?’
‘Well, actually, my dad runs one and he’s been teaching me…’
But I didn’t stick around to hear any more. Keira appeared by my side and I grabbed her by the elbow and together we walked off in the direction of the canteen for lunch.
In geography, our final lesson of the day, we continued working on our projects and I tried hard to push Duncan’s comments out of my mind. I concentrated instead on researching Rolling Earth, the charity that Jack had volunteered with in India, and which had since extended its work to Nepal, Myanmar and Vietnam.
Frustratingly, there was no mention of any schools being built in South America. We would have to cast the net wider. But how? It would be impossible to contact every school in Peru.
I was struck again by the scale of the task I had taken on. How many clues I’d been presented with, each one as useless as the next, because none of them seemed to bring me any closer to finding Jack. I needed space to think and to make sense of everything I’d found so far. Everything I’d uncovered, all the people I’d spoken to, raced through my mind and Duncan’s words echoed cruelly, ‘It could be great, it could be great…’
Whi
le Keira was talking to Mr Bemowski about her project, I dashed out of the classroom before the bell went for the end of the day.
Even though it was barely half-past three, the streets were already cast in the half-darkness of late January. The sky was a murky yellow, like clouded mustard – the suggestion of rain, or maybe a heavy storm. The wind had gathered pace and my ears were hurting from the cold. I pulled my hood up tight.
As I turned into the high street I spotted a smudge of red glowing against the gloomy street. My heart leapt – there she was! The girl in the red beret was walking ahead of me, swinging a spotted umbrella in her left hand. I could tell from her powerful stride and the curl of her hair that she was the same person that I’d seen from the window.
She crossed the road and I followed her as she merged with the afternoon shoppers and crowds of people milling around the bus stop. Then she stopped on a street corner where an older man in an oversized coat was collecting money for a sick children’s charity. ‘Margot’ – because this is what I called her in my head – dropped some money into the collection bucket and spoke to him for a few moments. I was now close enough to see her smile as she shook his hand. Her smile was so powerful that he started grinning too and I felt for the first time since Jack left that everything would be OK.
I wanted so badly to run up to her and touch her hand to make sure that she was real. But I stopped myself – she would probably think I was mad.
I couldn’t resist hurrying after her as she continued down the road, past the old library and the town hall. She walked so quickly that I could barely keep up, and then I saw the red beret dart to the left – she must have turned into one of the side streets.
I picked up my pace, frantically scanning the street that I was sure she’d walked down and then the next one, in case I’d got it wrong. But Margot was nowhere to be seen.
I felt the prick of tears in my eyes.
‘Where did you go?’ I whispered. I was slowly turning around to walk back in the direction of home, when I found myself standing by the entrance to the Fairwick Estate. It was as though Margot had led me here.
The Key to Finding Jack Page 8