Hannah and I exchanged a glance. “Have we missed something?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Looks like it.”
We made our way over to our usual spot by the window, where Charlotte and Toby were feeding each other Nutella on toast while gazing deep into each other’s eyes. Ah, young love!
“Morning,” I said loudly, while Hannah sat down next to Toby and reached unabashedly for his bowl of muesli.
“Cool, they’ve got a new cereal!” she exclaimed. “Can I try some of yours?”
“Sure,” mumbled Toby, with his mouth full of toast.
I poured myself a coffee. “So,” I began. “What’s going on?”
Charlotte raised her eyebrows. “Well: It turns out there’s been a bit of a misunderstanding, but it’s all sorted out now and … Toby and I are together!” she explained. “But you knew that, didn’t you? You were there when we—”
“I didn’t mean what’s going on with you two,” I said with a sweeping gesture that took in the rest of the dining hall. “I meant this!”
Charlotte looked around the room. The whole of the school seemed to be clustered around Helena’s table by now, whispering excitedly. Meanwhile, Mrs. Bröder-Strauchhaus and Dr. Meier were walking grimly toward the table where my dad was sitting. “Have you noticed anything unusual?” Charlotte asked Toby.
He shook his head and wiped a bit of Nutella from the corner of Charlotte’s mouth with his thumb. “No, why?” he asked, gazing at his girlfriend as if she were the eighth wonder of the world. “Your hair looks like liquid gold in this light, you know.”
“Really? Thanks. And your freckles…”
I sighed. “Hannah, we won’t get any sense out of these two today. Let’s go and get you some muesli and see if we can figure out what all this fuss is about.”
“Just a second.” Hannah quickly polished off the last few mouthfuls of Toby’s muesli and drank the rest of the milk straight from the bowl. Thus fortified, she followed me to the serving hatch, where the Berkenbecks, as usual, had laid out a generous breakfast buffet.
Sinan was there, shoveling scrambled eggs onto his plate, and he helpfully filled us in on the morning’s gossip: Apparently, Helena had had a man in her room last night. (I wondered how Charlotte could have failed to notice that?) Mrs. Bröder-Strauchhaus had caught Frederick climbing out of Helena’s window in the early hours of the morning; it turned out they’d secretly been dating for months.
When she heard this, Hannah reached instinctively for my hand and squeezed it. “That—that arsehole!” she exclaimed.
But the fact that Frederick had been giving me and everybody else the runaround didn’t bother me as much as my friends might have expected it to. For a while now I’d suspected Frederick of being capable of something far, far worse than this.
So it was Helena he’d been visiting, then, the night Miss Whitfield had seen him climbing out the window. Now that I came to think of it, I’d seen him with Helena several times recently … at the ball, for example. And hadn’t he taken her side against Darcy and Toby in that argument about the desk, when we’d been setting up the dining hall for the open day? The two of them had clearly enjoyed their little deception; Frederick had even gone so far as to flirt with me, when secretly he’d been seeing Helena all along. But none of that really bothered me. I’d known for quite a while now that I no longer had feelings for Frederick. And I now suspected him of such a terrible crime that nothing he did could surprise me anymore.
No: What really puzzled me was the fact that Charlotte hadn’t known anything about it, despite the fact that she and Helena shared a room.
When we got back to our table a few minutes later I asked her about it. “Last night … oh, I must have … I must have slept very deeply,” muttered Charlotte, blushing to the roots of her hair (which she usually did only when somebody mentioned the incident).
Toby took a sudden interest in some toast crumbs lying on his plate.
“Okay,” I said. “I get it. But this thing with Helena and Frederick must have been going on for quite a while. Did you really not know anything about it?”
Charlotte shook her head. “We’re not exactly bosom buddies. We only really speak to each other when we have to. I did suspect she had a boyfriend—she’d started spending ages on her hair and makeup, and she used to sneak out sometimes—but I never realized it was Frederick she was seeing.” She lowered her eyes. “And you know I’ve been reading a lot recently, spending half the night in the library…” She broke off.
A shadow fell across our table. Only now did I realize that the noisy chatter in the room had ceased abruptly and a great many faces were turned in our direction. I turned around to find Darcy standing right behind me.
“Hi.” I looked up at him, and he glanced at each of us in turn. It was the first time in over two weeks that he’d shown his face in the dining hall. And once again he looked as though he’d barely slept a wink. Yesterday we’d wandered around the secret tunnels for what felt like hours in search of fresh footprints, but apart from mine and Frederick’s, we hadn’t found a single one. Had Darcy carried on searching—was that why he hadn’t slept?
“Come and sit with us,” Toby offered.
But Darcy made no move to accept the invitation. Instead, he bent down so that his mouth was close to my ear. “I’ve had an idea,” he said quietly. “Would you have time again this evening?”
“Yes—er—of course,” I stammered. “What’s the plan?”
“I’ll tell you later. I’ll come and knock for you. Shall we say six o’clock?”
“Okay.”
“Thanks.” Darcy nodded, then crossed the dining hall with long strides and was gone almost as suddenly as he had arrived.
Hannah, Charlotte, and Toby stared at me.
“Do you have … a date?” said Hannah incredulously. “I thought you two hated each other.”
“Hmm,” said Toby under his breath.
“We do,” I assured her. “I’m just helping him with some research, that’s all.”
“About his sister?” asked Charlotte.
“Yes. Among other things.”
“Well, good luck with that,” said Toby wearily. “I’m at my wits’ end, personally.”
I was about to ask him what he meant when I caught sight of my dad staring down at his toast and marmalade, on the verge of tears. Had something happened? This had to be about something more than Helena and Frederick’s secret rendezvous. Was my mom okay? My throat felt tight.
“Excuse me.” I got up and hurried over to the teachers’ table. Usually my dad and I stayed out of each other’s way during the school day; he liked to talk to his colleagues at mealtimes, and I always sat with the other students. But now Miss Whitfield was patting his shoulder sympathetically. Something must be very wrong.
To my relief, however, it turned out that my mom was fine. What had happened was that the school office had received a call with some very disappointing news: My dad’s prize had fallen through.
The lady from Brussels couldn’t apologize enough: There had clearly been some kind of mix-up and my dad’s name had accidentally ended up on the wrong list. She had no idea how it had happened, but the whole thing had been a mistake and although she was sure Dad was doing fantastic work at Stolzenburg, the prize obviously had to be awarded to its rightful recipient.
Oh, no! Had the book’s effect worn off too soon?
I gave my dad a hug. “Don’t be upset. You’re still the best head of school I know.”
“We’d already told everyone! The press, the parents, the alumni! It’s so embarrassing!” wailed my dad, blowing his nose into a tissue.
“No, Dad!” I said. “It’s the jury who should be embarrassed. They’re the ones who made the mistake.” Or rather: I was. I was the one who’d messed this whole thing up. It certainly wasn’t my dad’s fault. Oh lord, what had I done? “Shall I come over this afternoon and help you sort out your medicine cabinet?” I asked in an attempt to che
er him up. (My dad loved going through his medicine cabinet looking for out-of-date drugs that needed throwing away, or low stocks that needed replenishing.)
“That’s bound to take your mind off things,” Miss Whitfield chipped in, still patting my dad on the shoulder. “And after that you can both come over and have dinner with me. I’m making roast beef with roast potatoes and Yorkshire pudding.”
My dad nodded and blew his nose again.
“Oh—er—I’m busy this evening, actually,” I stammered. “I promised Darcy de Winter…”
“Young Darcy can come, too. That’s a wonderful idea,” said Miss Whitfield. “I promised his mother last week that I’d keep an eye on him. She was ever so surprised when I mentioned to her on the telephone that he was here.”
“I don’t know if we’ll be able to make it—we’ve got…,” I began, but Miss Whitfield was having none of it.
“You must come. It’s an old family recipe I don’t often cook anymore,” she insisted so emphatically that to refuse the invitation would have gone against all the rules of etiquette we’d learned in her classes. My dad seemed to have reached the same conclusion. “Thank you, we’d love to come,” he said, although the look on his face said he would much rather have spent the evening tucked up in bed with a hot water bottle and a copy of The Modern Child.
Miss Whitfield hurried off, perhaps to tell Darcy the good news.
Weird.
* * *
My dad’s medicine cabinet was (as expected) in tip-top condition. But we still managed to spend over two hours sifting through bottles of pills and arranging them in order of color and size. As we did so, Dad’s mood lifted considerably: He always felt happier after reminding himself of all the ailments, injuries, and illnesses he was equipped to cure. I was feeling so guilty that I even agreed to count all his tablets for him one by one, so it was pretty late—nearly six o’clock—by the time I headed back to the castle.
I didn’t have time to change when I got back to my room, but that didn’t matter—after all, Darcy and I were not going on a date, as I had to explain to Hannah (who was sprawled on her bed reading a magazine) for the second time that day. I had just enough time to hang up my wet swimming things and tie back my hair, which I’d allowed to dry naturally, in a bun that closely resembled a small bird’s nest. I still had my school blouse on, and a well-worn pair of favorite jeans, and the whole ensemble looked a little bit rough and ready. But who knew: Perhaps I would set a new trend among the lower school?
Then there was a knock on the door.
Darcy leaned against the doorframe while I put my jacket on. He glanced at my hair for a moment, then back at my face. “We’ll need to be quick,” he said. “I have an invitation to dinner at Miss Whitfield’s. Thanks to my overprotective mother.”
“So do I—thanks to my father.” I zipped up my jacket. “So, what’s the plan?”
“We’re going to do a little breaking and entering,” Darcy whispered, quietly enough so that Hannah couldn’t hear.
I gasped. “Where?”
“Come on.”
Darcy had to duck his head as he lowered himself into the driver’s seat of the dark green Mini, now parked in a proper parking space. I clambered into the passenger seat and scanned the dashboard in front of me—it was littered with used ferry tickets (Dover to Calais), three empty bottles of Gatorade, a bag of peppermint drops, and a map of Cologne that Toby must have used during his trip there.
The in-car computer flashed into life as Darcy started the engine, but he didn’t turn on the radio or enter a destination into the GPS. Instead he drove straight out of the parking lot and down the hill. Wherever we were going, it seemed Darcy already knew the way.
Being a sensible person, I would never have gotten into a car with a stranger. And Darcy wasn’t a stranger—I’d known him for almost a month, after all. But I still felt slightly uneasy as we sped through the woods. I had no idea where Darcy de Winter was taking me: Darcy, who spent his nights rooting through his sister’s old toys and barely slept a wink, who was arrogant and rude, who’d told me he liked me and been rebuffed.… I couldn’t help but recall that the last time I’d left the castle with a guy, it had not ended well.
“Er—where are we going?” I asked, and at the same moment Darcy steered the car into a space between two trees and stopped.
“Here,” he said. “We could have walked, but given that we’re a bit pushed for time I thought it would be better to drive. Logistically speaking.”
We got out of the car. A few yards ahead of us was a sign saying STOLZENDORF, and Darcy strode past it in the direction of the village. As I followed him, I vowed to myself that I would not set foot in the Golden Lion again under any circumstances. But Darcy wasn’t taking us to the pub. He turned down a side street and stopped in front of a crooked little half-timbered house. There was a carpentry workshop on the ground floor, and on the window ledges of the floor above were window boxes full of faded geraniums. LARBACH BROS—CARPENTERS AND JOINERS was painted in peeling letters above the door.
“So you really are planning a break-in,” I observed.
Darcy shrugged. “We’ll just have a quick look around his room and see if we can find any clues.”
“And what if he catches us? Or his parents do?”
“They go bowling in Rindsdorf on Tuesdays, and Frederick’s working at the castle till eight o’clock. So there shouldn’t be anyone at home. But we probably shouldn’t hang around here in the street for too long—it looks suspicious.”
I looked discreetly up and down the street, but there was no sign of any neighbors or other witnesses. “Okay—let’s go.”
I half expected Darcy to have a master key for this house, too, but he didn’t, and nor did he need one. The Larbachs had left their back door unlocked (as everybody did in Stolzendorf) and we were able to walk straight through their back garden into a storage room at the rear of the house and up the stairs to their flat.
Frederick’s bedroom was at one end of a narrow hallway, and it was tiny. The wall was plastered with various posters of cars and one of Jessica Alba on a beach; the bed was unmade and the desk was cluttered with piles of books about plants and folders of lecture notes. On the windowsill was an empty yogurt container, which was starting to go moldy, and the air had a stale, musty smell. I would have liked to open a window, but I didn’t dare touch anything.
Darcy did not share my scruples. He marched across the room and threw open the window. Then he opened the drawers in Frederick’s desk. “You could have a look under the bed,” he told me, “if you want to make yourself useful.”
I crouched down and peered into the shadows under the bed. But all I could see were a few socks and a spider with hairy legs. Ew!
“What exactly are we looking for, anyway?” I asked, without taking my eyes off the spider.
“Evidence,” Darcy replied. “Anything that might lead us to Gina. Something that once belonged to her. A photo. Some clue as to what happened between them. I don’t know.”
“Hmm.” I stood up again and had a poke around in the drawer of Frederick’s bedside table, but all I found were a few magazines, a flashlight, and a packet of condoms. There was nothing interesting in the wardrobe, either—just a load of clothes, an old hockey stick, a couple of tennis balls, and a scuffed skateboard with no wheels.
“Somehow I don’t think Frederick’s the type to keep a diary,” I said.
Darcy, who had just finished searching the desk and the bookshelf beside it, nodded in agreement. “It’s not looking good.” He sat down on the floor by the bed and leaned back against the mattress.
I did the same, but because I was so fixated on the spider (I was determined to keep as much distance as possible between it and me) I ended up sitting too close to Darcy, and for a moment our thighs touched. I felt his muscles tense, and then he shuffled away from me. Of course. Of course he didn’t want that kind of closeness anymore. Not after I’d rejected him and hurt his pride.
What was it he’d said? It’s water under the bridge. Well, good.
Although … I was starting to think my first impression of Darcy hadn’t been entirely accurate. He’d had his reasons for keeping Toby away from Charlotte, after all. And the way he’d rescued me after my embarrassing dip in the fountain, the way he was doing everything he possibly could to find his sister … He clearly wasn’t as bad as I’d first thought. I almost felt sorry for the things I’d said to him by the ruins that day. I could at least have been a bit more polite.
“Sorry,” I muttered.
Darcy acted as if nothing had happened. “This is a dead end,” he said. “If there was any evidence here he must have destroyed it long ago.”
“Or hidden it in a safe place.”
“But where?”
“I don’t know.” I cleared my throat. “I … I was rereading some of Gina’s entries last night,” I began.
Darcy looked at me. “I’m listening.”
I took a deep breath. What I’d read the night before had been weighing on my mind ever since. “I looked at her poems again. In the later entries, there are quite a few of them where she wishes she was…” I hesitated a moment, not wanting to say the word out loud; but then I did say it, quickly and sharply, like ripping off a Band-Aid. “Dead,” I said. “She wishes she was dead, or that the world would end.”
“I know. They’re pretty melodramatic. But don’t lots of teenagers write stuff like that: about death and everlasting love and God knows what else?”
“I don’t mean—it’s just that…” I didn’t know how to explain without sounding completely ridiculous. But perhaps that was precisely the point. Perhaps it was time I stopped caring what Darcy de Winter thought of me, stopped caring whether he saw me as a mature young woman or a naïve little kid. Perhaps it was time for me to genuinely help him: To tell him the truth. I gulped. “I think she might have gotten her wish. To be dead, I mean,” I told him. “Because she wrote it down.”
The Forgotten Book Page 19