The Messenger Bird

by Ruth Eastham

  I just wanted him back. I just wanted my dad back.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder, and then Mr Edwards pulled a fist of paper tissues from the box and dabbed spilled tea off his table. He smiled at us, that lopsided smile of his, but I saw the worry on his face and I saw it wasn’t fake.

  Dad had said not to trust anyone, but why not Mr Edwards – he’d help me surely? I felt the weight of my secret again, like a chunk of stone inside me.

  Mum stayed sitting there, her mouth sagging open.

  “Well, they’ve obviously got the wrong person,” Hannah said. “So how are you going to get him off?”

  “The odds are not looking good at the moment, I’m afraid,” Mr Edwards said. “Planning for if he is charged, we do need to discuss his best defence case, but it’s not simple.” He paused to throw the tissues in the bin under his desk and I saw a bald spot on the top of his head. “The case against him – frankly, it’s stronger by the hour. The prosecution have got footage of Leon going into the Ministry of Defence offices after hours. There’s also footage of him at secret meetings, allegedly receiving money in exchange for military secrets.”

  “What?” Mum gaped.

  Mr Edwards leaned forward a little. “The best defence case we have is this.” He paused to clear his throat. “Leon mentioned to me that he was collecting evidence on corrupt members of staff.”

  I stared at the solicitor. What was he saying?

  “He says it was true he was at some of these meetings,” Mr Edwards went on, “but he was acting under cover.”

  “What, like he was James Bond or someone?” spluttered Mum. “Would the judge take that claim seriously, do you think?”

  “More than likely the prosecution would see this as a weak attempt to blame others for his crimes. He refuses to say anything about it to the authorities, which doesn’t put him in a good light. I understand Special Services removed everything from the house?”

  Mum nodded like a dashboard toy. “All Leon’s stuff, yes. His papers and his computer data, everything from his study.”

  Mr Edwards nodded back, slowly. “I’m just waiting for copies to see if anything can help Leon’s case. But the prosecution’s arguments are becoming very persuasive.”

  For a moment he seemed distracted, staring at the family photos on his desk. “They find your weak spots,” he muttered. “Apply pressure.” I saw his hands were tight balls and his fingers had gone white at the tips, and I don’t know why but he had this kind of scrunched, haunted look. It didn’t look right.

  Mr Edwards cleared his throat. “What we really need to do is find the evidence Leon collected.”

  I blinked hard.

  “If we find the evidence – if this evidence actually exists – it could prove his innocence.”

  I sat there staring at my hands, willing my face not to go death white or bright red and give me away. I remembered Dad by the bonfire, the way he’d held my arm. You’ve got to follow Lily’s trail, Nat. Without evidence we’ve got nothing… I found something out…

  It hit me then. Where all these clues were leading. I hardly dared to think about it. The evidence, whatever it was, could that be at the end of Lily’s trail? The evidence needed to get Dad off!

  “This evidence…” Hannah twisted the dyed ends of her hair. “Aren’t there any other copies? Dad was bound to have done backups! Why doesn’t he just tell the Special Services where it is so they’ll release him?” She narrowed her eyes at Mr Edwards. “Why doesn’t he tell you?”

  “Yes, can’t you just ask Leon?” said Mum, all in a fluster.

  Mr Edwards pulled the lid off his gold pen, and then clicked it back on, then pulled it off again. “Leon still hasn’t told me its whereabouts.”

  “Why not?” snapped Mum.

  “No doubt he has his reasons,” said Mr Edwards, and I couldn’t be sure, but he seemed to have that scrunched-up look again, and I saw him glance at the photos on his desk, but he carried on quickly. “If he is charged and I’m going to make any kind of convincing argument, I really need to see this evidence before the prosecution does so I can act on it. I can help, but unless the evidence is found, we’re looking at a very flimsy case.” Mr Edwards shook his head. “Have you no ideas where Leon might have hidden it?”

  Mum shook her head back, like she was still playing a copying game, and Hannah gave a shaky shrug.

  “Nathan?” His eyes seemed to burrow into me.

  I kept looking at my hands, which Dad told me is a sure sign of a liar. I forced myself to put my head up and look him straight in the face. “No,” I said, feeling my face go all hot. “No idea.”

  Mum sat up. “What exactly is this evidence supposed to show?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t really know yet, Mrs Vane.”

  I could see Mum fuming at that, getting in a real flap. “Well if you don’t, who does?”

  “Hannah, is there anything you want to tell me?” Mr Edwards avoided Mum’s glare. “Any extra information that might help your dad?”

  Hannah shook her head. “Whatever it is, he didn’t do it,” she said.

  My stomach turned over. Was this the point I was supposed to tell him about Lily’s trail? All I could see in my head was Dad lit by the bonfire saying Don’t trust anyone, Nat, but this Mr Edwards, he was different, surely. He was Dad’s solicitor. They’d been friends at school together and everything. I took a swig of tea, my secret pressing on my ribcage. I had to tell them, surely. I wanted to. Tell them! a voice inside me hissed. Before it’s too late!

  Don’t, another voice came. It’s too dangerous. Don’t trust anyone. I straightened up. Dad hadn’t told Mr Edwards where the evidence was, had he? There had to be a reason. If the evidence was hidden at the end of Lily’s trail, Dad wanted me to find it.

  “Nathan.” Mum turned to me. “You were the last one to talk to your dad. Did he say anything about evidence?”

  I saw Mr Edwards looking at me intently over his cup, and then – it was really fast so no one else saw – I’m sure he pressed a finger to his lips. Keep quiet. Don’t say a word.

  I tried to keep my voice from shaking. “No, Mum,” I said. “Nothing.”

  “Mrs Vane.” Mr Edwards pressed a button on his phone and stood up. “If you’d go with Susan into the next room for a few minutes, there’re some papers we need you to sign urgently – personal information permissions, that kind of thing.” Mum opened her mouth to speak, but he just ploughed on. “Perhaps, Hannah, you’d like to give your mum some moral support.” He gave a sympathetic laugh. “There’re quite a few pages to get through.”

  Mum gave a short nod. “We’ll be back soon, Nathan. You stay put.”

  The Susan woman came in and herded Mum and Hannah out.

  As soon as the door clicked shut, Mr Edwards leaned across the desk, talking really fast, proving he could speed up his speech when he wanted to. “It’s rather irregular of me, without your mum present, Nathan, and we haven’t got long, but extreme cases need extreme measures. We have to find that evidence. It’s absolutely vital. Is there anything else your dad told you before he was arrested?”

  I looked at Mr Edwards, at the way his face creased in a frown like he really cared, the pictures of his kids on the desk in front of him. I thought about the secret sign he’d made to me, helping me to keep quiet in front of Mum and Hannah. Maybe I could trust him after all. He and Dad had been friends at school together, like me and Sasha and Josh were. It would be such a relief to tell someone about the trail. He might help us with Lily’s next clue. He might know what lion eagle meant and when we found the evidence he could… I opened my mouth to speak.

  “No?” Mr Edwards butted in loudly before I could reply. “Well, if you do think of anything, or find anything, I’ll give you my business card so you can contact me.”

  We heard voices in the corridor. Mum and Hannah coming back. Mr Edwards wrote something across it at the speed of light with his posh gold pen and pressed the card into my hand. I read it and
I stared at him, but he shot me a fierce look and there was no doubt what he was telling me this time – he pressed a finger firmly to his lips.

  THIS OFFICE IS BUGGED YOUR HOUSE WILL BE TOO

  “My direct line is there,” he said loudly. I saw he’d crossed out his usual mobile number and written another over it. “So if you do think of anything.”

  The door swung open and he lifted the lid of his laptop. I sat there staring at him like an idiot, but he didn’t look up from the screen again. “Just another brief word, Mrs Vane, Hannah,” he called as they came back in. “Nathan, wait outside, could you?”

  The grey door closed shut behind me. I went over to the window in the corridor, pushing my nose against the glass, trying to take in what had just happened. Our house bugged? The Special Services people could easily have done that during their search. I tried to think back over all my conversations, fretting. Had I given anything away?

  The rain had turned to snow. Little flakes stuck on the pane. Too cold for November.

  Whose side was Mr Edwards on? Why hadn’t Dad told him where the evidence was? For that matter, why didn’t he just tell the Special Services people straight if it would get him off? None of it made any sense. Dad didn’t trust any of them, was that it? On the other hand, Mr Edwards had warned me; given me a private number to ring him on. It was too confusing.

  This evidence – what could it be? What would it say about Dad? Would it really get him off, or might it get him into even more trouble?

  The town spread out below me, like the view from a plane. Lines of streets; lights flickering on. Traffic lights changed from green to red. Cars and shops, my school and its playing fields, our old house. My life laid out on a map, waiting to be bombed.

  It came to me suddenly. A truth so real and obvious that my legs nearly buckled under me. If I didn’t solve the trail, then my dad was going to prison. End of story. If I didn’t find all the clues and follow them to the end, he was going to be branded a traitor and he was going to prison for life.

  The words from Lily’s notebook tumbled in my head.

  I have to save my dad. If only I can break the code.

  All those years ago, she’d been trying to save her dad from something, and here was me trying to save mine. Had she saved him? Well, it was my dad who needed saving now, and I was going to do whatever it took. For whatever reason, Dad had decided to use Lily’s trail and I was going to get to the end of it and get him home to us. I felt my teeth clench. If it killed me, I was going to get my dad home.

  The window was a dark mirror, reflecting back another me: the fingertips of his raised hand pressed tight against mine.

  There was a movement in the street that caught my eye. A figure standing there, staring up. A woman in a long, dark coat and hat. But when I looked again, she’d gone.

  7

  Intruders

  It was still snowing as we drove home. Hannah was in the front with the radio turned right up. Mum peered ahead at the road and the red traffic lights, her hands tight on the steering wheel. Her yellow leather bag was on the back seat next to me with the fat envelope sticking from it that Mr Edwards had given her as we left.

  The seat belt pressed uncomfortably on my ribs. I was knackered but I felt wide awake. That figure I’d seen looking up had really creeped me out. How had she disappeared so quickly? My brain was all jumpy, full of Dad, of what I had to do; of the way he’d used Lily’s seventy-year-old trail, rather than one of his own. Was that to keep things more secret?

  Big flakes of snow fell and the wipers struggled to keep the windscreen clear, scraping the glass as the music from the radio thudded, all out of time. I stared out in a daze at the stretch of tarmac and the white grass verges lit by the car headlights as we made our way along the windy road away from town.

  LION EAGLE. I had to focus on Lily’s next clue, peel all the other stuff out of my head and work it out, but it was hard not to think about what Mr Edwards told me, hard not to think about the house being bugged.

  The noise of my phone beeping pulled me out of my brooding. I had a text from Sasha: Cmng 2 yrs aftr schl. Ru ok?

  Then one from Josh, so they must have been talking: I will be at your house after I have cooked Dad his pizza and emptied the bin. Have you seen the snow? From Josh.

  As we were coming to the turn for our lane, a big car sped past us in the other direction, sending grit rattling on to us. It had been too fast to see properly, and Mum and Hannah didn’t seem to have noticed, but I sat up, suddenly alert. A car with tinted windows? The same kind that had taken Dad away?

  Our car came to a stop on the drive, skidding a bit on the gravel. I unclicked my seat belt and Mum turned off the engine. A cold wind made the letter box lift and clank like there was an invisible ghost hand knocking at the house. Mum put her key in the lock and we went in. Everything looked the same as it always did. I went into the front room, flicking as many switches as I could so the room blazed with light. Still a big fat nothing. I must be getting paranoid.

  Hannah tramped upstairs. “Cup of tea,” Mum said robotically, like it was the answer to everything. I followed her into the kitchen and watched her put the kettle on and pull three mugs from the cupboard.

  I thought about the bugs Mr Edwards had warned me about. I searched around a while, but there was no sign of them anywhere. I imagined Special Services people sitting wearing headphones, listening in on every word. It wasn’t a nice feeling. They must have thought bugging the house would help them find out the truth about Dad. But then I was back to that question: if Dad had evidence to prove other people were guilty, why didn’t he trust the Special Services people and tell them where it was? It was all massively confusing.

  Mum’s voice pulled me out of my worrying. “Feed Bones, will you, Nathan?”

  Where was Bones? He’d usually be going crazy by this time, drooling for food and barking at the fridge. I went back into the front room, but his basket was empty. He must be having a big nap somewhere. It was a bit strange, but I guessed he’d come out when he was hungry.

  I stooped down to tie my shoelace, feeling Lily’s message crinkle in my pocket. A loose feather drifted over the carpet. That’s when I caught sight of Bones, and that’s when I knew.

  He was hidden under the piano stool, crammed in between its thick lion-paw feet, his stomach pressed on the floor and his ears flat back against his head, tufts of fur on his back shuddering. And I knew for sure that someone had been in our house while we were away.

  A war poster on the wall moved in a draught, the words LOOK OUT wobbling. My spine twitched. My first instinct was to rush in and tell Mum, but I forced myself not to. What was the point of making her and Hannah any more worried than they were already? Anyway, Bones cowering under the piano stool was hardly proof of much, was it?

  Had they been to our house again, the Special Services people? That wouldn’t make any sense, though. Surely they could barge into Foxglove Cottage whenever they wanted, not have to wait until we were out.

  A thought stabbed me. What if it hadn’t been Special Services people at all?

  I remembered what Mr Edwards had said in his office: Leon mentioned to me that he was collecting evidence on corrupt members of staff.

  I swallowed. Corrupt members of staff.

  What if They knew Dad had evidence against them? What if they’d come back here to look for it? I felt sweat on my forehead.

  I reached under and stroked Bones’s trembly ears. Whoever they were, they had no right! Breaking in, scaring us. I straightened up and felt my eyes narrow. They must have left some trace to show what they were up to! I yanked the curtains closed and scanned the room better. The piano and the oak table and the Welsh dresser and the warden’s helmet nailed over the fireplace. Everything the same as it should be, except…

  I went over to the big glass dome by the fireplace. I peered through the glass at the stuffed grey carrier pigeon on its perch, making a nose shape in the dust. One of its eye sockets was em
pty. I saw the glass-bead eye had fallen in the mess of dried moss at the bottom of the case. How had that happened? I looked over the engraved brass plaque nailed to the stand.

  And when I looked carefully at the glass dome, I saw that dust was smeared away near the bottom, like someone had recently lifted the glass.

  I stared. I wished I could believe a ghost had done it. There was a chapter in my Mysteries book about them. Ghosts who hung out in old houses and moved stuff around. One theory was ghosts were energy left over after someone had died, and they couldn’t rest in peace for some reason. I preferred ghosts to the idea of corrupt members of staff sneaking about when we weren’t in.

  But the glass-eye blunder proved they weren’t perfect. Thought they might find Dad’s evidence stuffed in the pigeon, did they?

  I had a sudden worry. I shouldn’t keep Lily’s message on me any more, not the first clue of the trail; it could be a disaster if they found that. What if they followed me and searched me or something? I needed a hiding place for it. I briefly thought about putting it back in the secret drawer in my bedroom, but if they’d already searched around the pigeon, if they came back, they shouldn’t bother again, right? I carefully lifted the heavy glass dome and placed it on the floor. Then I got Lily’s message out of my pocket and put it the bottom of the case, covering it with the moss. I left the pigeon eye lying there, exactly how they’d left it, and then I replaced the dome.

  I rubbed my dusty hands on my trousers. Had the people who had broken in left more traces around the house? I carried on checking the room. I found a thick silver envelope half-hidden in the Welsh dresser with Happy Birthday, Nat in Dad’s handwriting. I felt a lump in my throat. Dad had written it before he was taken. He usually wasn’t anywhere near as organized as that, so did that show he’d known he might be arrested? Wiping the glass clean on the attic room window, clearing the milestone of grass and soil … preparing something for my birthday on Sunday in case he wasn’t here for it. “Dad,” I whispered to myself. I wondered if there was money in the envelope, and then felt stupid and guilty for even thinking that.