‘Jack?’ I said, startled.
Then Mona piped up, ‘I called Arns,’ as if that were her right, and her right only.
And suddenly there was an unpleasant atmosphere in the air where there should only have been selfless urgency in getting our medical emergency to the hospital.
‘Hey,’ I said, swallowing down a lump in my throat. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes.’ I looked at Mona. ‘I only said Arns because he’s a direct line, pretty much, to the best of Hambledon’s police, really, and because he’s a good friend.’
Mona blinked, a little taken aback. ‘S-sure, Lula, I –’
‘But a good friend is all he is, okay?’ She blinked and nodded, but I was looking at Jack.
‘I know,’ he sighed. ‘Sorry, Lu. I’ve spent the last hour driving like a maniac, thinking you’re probably at the end of a knife or a gun or . . .’ He swallowed and stepped over to me, pulling me into the biggest hug imaginable. ‘Oh, God,’ he whispered.
I wrapped my arms around Jack and hugged him back, tears coming to my eyes.
‘Hey,’ hissed Alex, rolling down Jack’s car window. ‘There’s a car coming!’
‘It’s Jazz,’ replied Jack, releasing me. ‘But we’d better hurry, anyway.’
Jack was right. There was no telling what the Healeys would do next. I ran for the boathouse, replaced the satellite phone, locked the doors and by the time I returned a black Golf GTI was pulling up.
Forest shot out of the driver’s seat and squeezed me up into an enormous hug, before running over to Jack. ‘You okay, man?’ he blurted. ‘Jazz said you sounded crazy on the phone.’
‘Jack was driving like a madman,’ murmured Mona. ‘I think I’ve aged, like, a hundred years.’
‘Well, I’m gonna have to drive like a madman again,’ replied Jack, ‘to get Emily to the hospital.’
A lazy laugh came from the side of the GTI. I might have known. Jazz wouldn’t let anyone drive her car unless she was in it herself. She stepped out of the vehicle, her long hair swinging beautifully free, and said, ‘Emily? Tell me you’ve found Emily Saunders, Jack.’ She lifted a camera to her shoulder and a red light winked on.
‘Unbelievable,’ breathed Alex, just at my shoulder.
‘Unfrikkingbelievable,’ I replied.
Jack, oblivious, shrugged and shot the camera a wry grin. Or was he grinning at Jazz? Which was worse?
‘We’d better get going,’ he said. ‘She’s in a really bad way. Can we use your car, J? We’d get to the hospital in half the time.’
J? J?
‘I’ll drive your car, Jack,’ offered Forest, ‘if you want to take the girl to hospital. Is she the missing person?’ He leaned into Jack’s beaten-up banger and I heard, ‘Whoa,’ before he emerged, holding Emily easily in his arms. Quickly, he made for the GTI and placed her in the back seat.
Alex turned to me. ‘I’ll go with them,’ she said, ‘to make sure Emily’s okay and to explain how we found her. You go to the police station – Arns is probably already there, knowing him, freshly discharged from hospital to be at your s–’
‘No!’ Jack was poised at Jazz’s car door. ‘Tallulah comes with us, in the back seat with Emily, and you go to the police station with Forest and Mona.’
Alex’s jaw dropped.
‘No time to argue!’ Jack finished, and slammed himself into the GTI, with Jazz sliding into the passenger seat beside him.
Mona seemed happy enough and got herself into Jack’s car with Forest at the helm. Alex turned to me. ‘Shouldn’t have mentioned Arns,’ she said. ‘Seems Jack’s got a stab of jealousy digging deep.’ She punched me in the shoulder. ‘Good luck with that.’
In the plush leather back seat of Jazz’s GTI, however, all the petty jealousies bled away, much like Emily’s life, shaking to pieces in my arms.
‘Hurry,’ I begged. ‘Hurry, Jack. I think she’s gone into shock. With dehydration . . .’
‘Her heart just won’t make it.’ Jazz’s voice was all documentary and fact, and her fabulous zoom lens was still filming.
‘Shut. Up,’ I replied, tucking Emily’s ratty brown hair behind her ear so I could see her eyes. They were flickering quickly under closed lids and her pulse was too. ‘Just shut up, Jazz. I need a phone,’ I snapped. ‘To call the hospital.’
‘Ah yes.’ Jazz was still hidden behind her camera. ‘They know you well there. It’s best you make contact.’
Jack handed me his phone wordlessly, concentrating on the winding dirt road. Why wasn’t he saying anything to Jazz? Surely even he could see she was being a total cow?
I punched in the number for the hospital while Jazz laughed in my face. ‘There’s no reception in this park,’ she drawled, as if I were some kind of cretinous idiot.
‘There is once we get up to the top,’ I retorted, and then the line went live and I found myself talking fast to A&E.
Again.
Dr McCabe was waiting outside when we arrived at the hospital. No clever comments, just a nod in the direction of swirling blue lights to the right of the emergency entrance.
‘Sergeant T wants a word, Tallulah,’ he said, his face tired and worried, wheeling a stretcher towards us. ‘We’ll take Emily from here.’
‘Sergeant Trenchard?’ asked Jack, exiting the car, his eyes on Dr McCabe and then on me.
Someone stepped across towards us, the blue lights silhouetting a strong, purposeful stride, but I was still watching Jack. I was sure we were both thinking the same thing. In order to explain everything, I was going to have to get two people in a whole world of trouble.
There was a question in Jack’s eyes, but I couldn’t answer it. My head was full of the last time we’d talked about that night on the mountain. Jack had said, ‘Promise me you won’t say anything to anyone about going up to Frey’s that night with me. Or about the body drop at Cluny’s.’
My gaze dropped to my feet as Sergeant T came straight over to stand in front of me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jack walk away, following Jazz and the camera and the medical emergency, till all that was left to see were my boots.
‘Tallulah Bird,’ said Sergeant T heavily, ‘will you come with me, please?’
Chapter Thirty-six
Police station: still Saturday, now 8.30 p.m.
Oh, WHAT a mess. Even if you’ve been missing a few hours, it doesn’t mean your mother will welcome you back with open arms. Oh no. In my family it means your mother will go down to the police station and insist on riding around in a big van with the WHOLE of the rest of the family, dog and duck included, just in case any of THEM go missing, looking for her abducted daughter.
‘I’m impressed, Anne,’ said Sergeant T mildly, stirring her tea and looking at her crowded office. ‘Most mothers wouldn’t turn a hair if their daughters weren’t home by eight.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘It’s only eight thirty now.’
‘And was I right?’ demanded my mother. ‘Was I?’
Sergeant T smiled and stirred, smiled and stirred.
Oh, frik, I thought. Here it comes. We now sentence Tallulah Bird to a gaschmillion years in a lesbian penitentiary for interfering with the course of justice.
‘Is there anyone left at your house?’ asked Forest. (Oh yes. Everyone was in the office with us. Maximum humiliation.) ‘To let Lula in, in case you were wrong?’
Mum said, ‘I. Am. Never. Wrong,’ at the same time that Blue piped up with, ‘Auntie Phoebe.’
Sergeant T’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Great-aunt Phoebe,’ explained Pen. ‘So will Lula need legal advice? I can provide legal advice. Also counsel. I’m great legal counsel. Will it all go to court or would you prefer to settle? Out? Out . . . of . . . you know . . . court . . .’ she tailed off.
Sergeant T had put down her cup of tea and was looking at me with an odd expression on her face. ‘This court,’ she said, twinkling across at Pen, ‘needs to hear Jack de Souza.’
‘Oh boy,’ breathed Forest, and Boodle shuffled over and pu
t her big hairy head on my lap with a low ‘Fwooarrphh’ sound. Biggins climbed along Boodle’s back and hopped into my lap from her nose.
Mum was not comforting or supportive. Mum was furious. A stoppered bottle of incandescent rage. She had made little popping noises when I told Sergeant T about that Friday night, when Jack and I had gone up to Frey’s and what we’d overheard. I told her about Jack finding Parcel Brewster and taking him to Cluny’s so he could be properly autopsied.
In front of everyone, she’d had a full-on rant: ‘Tallulah,’ she said, ‘I trust you. I trust you not to do anything stupid. That is why your father and I do not tell you when to get up in the morning, why we don’t tell you when to go to bed at night. We trust you on your own with boys. We have no bedroom ban –’
I was startled. ‘You don’t?’
‘Tallulah! We don’t tell you who to be friends with, who you can go out with or set limits on who you cannot see. I think, though, you’ve betrayed that trust! Bedroom ban starting now! And, so help me, I know one thing and that is you will not be seeing Jack de Souza again.’
‘Mum!’
‘Not only has he allowed you to make some very bad, very irresponsible, very CRIMINAL decisions, but he has acted in a reprehensible way himself.’
‘Mum!’
‘Do you realise that he could go to jail for what he did? That he made you party to his crime by telling you about it? That you were obligated to go to the police with this information?’
‘He didn’t tell me anything! I worked it out!’
‘Well, I hope you’ve worked out that this boy is no good for you, Tallulah. I –’
‘Well,’ ventured Sergeant T. ‘If I could add just a word or two.’ Oooh! Brave! Not many would interrupt my mother. ‘Not much goes on in this town without me knowing. I have my informants and, though I disapprove of Jack de Souza bringing Parcel Brewster’s body back down, there is no denying he has done us all a favour. Which he knew at the time. There’ll be no need for any investigations into that side of things and I understand completely that Tallulah believed she was acting in everybody’s best interests, though you must never pull a stunt like that again, young lady!’ she said, leaning into her desk towards me. ‘And this goes no further!’ she added, waving her hand across the room to everyone else, and everyone else assented most nervously indeed.
‘Yes, Hilda,’ I said too, red-faced and truly ashamed.
‘I will talk to Jack,’ continued Sergeant T. ‘But I don’t want to burn any bridges with that young man. Communication between us could be mutually beneficial, I feel. I’m lucky to have a good team in Hambledon.’ She winked at me. ‘I’d have you on my side any day, Tatty.’
I felt a wave of relief wash over me, though it was tempered slightly. ‘Even if I do keep hurting your son?’
Sergeant T’s jaw dropped. ‘Are you serious? First you save him from a life of misery looking like his mother, then you get him the girl of his dreams, then you get him to safety at the hospital, reducing substantial blood loss to boot! Have people been talking again?’
I nodded. Mona shifted uncomfortably. Mum’s rant about Jack couldn’t have been easy on her sisterly ear, either.
Sergeant T heaved a sigh and shook her head. ‘That’s something you’re always going to have to overcome, Tatty, I’m afraid. The whole witchy connection won’t be forgotten. Small towns mean small talk that soon becomes talk of the town. Hmm?’
I nodded yes.
‘I guess it is hard being you,’ murmured Mum, reaching over and squeezing my arm.
‘Oh, puhLEEZE!’ yelled Pen.
‘So hard,’ I said, trying hard to keep a smile off my face, stroking Biggins, who nuzzled happily against my palm. ‘Does this mean I’m forgiven?’
‘No!’ said Mum. ‘I have not forgiven you.’
‘No, Mum,’ I said in my best servile voice. ‘I shall do penance till the end of my days.’
‘Terrible penance. Cleaning all toilets daily till you leave home.’
‘Oh goody,’ said Pen.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘With my tongue.’
Mum swatted me. ‘Let’s get you home, Tallulah. Can we use your big van again, Sergeant T?’
‘Nope,’ said Sergeant T. ‘Sorry. I’ve got bad men to catch. My troops still haven’t run them to ground, and I intend to do so asap.’ (Only someone like Sergeant T can say asap without sounding like a moron.)
‘We’ll go in Jack’s car,’ rumbled Forest.
A dark look crossed Mum’s face. ‘I’d rather walk,’ she muttered.
Saturday night: early to bed – 9.30 p.m. – to get sleep for race-day tomorrow, but sleep will not come
You’d think I couldn’t sleep because the day had been packed with mayhem and drama and near-death experiences. Oh nooo. I couldn’t sleep because in my girl-sized bed there was a man-sized dog and a pocketsized duck. And it was the pocket-sized duck that was the biggest problem.
‘Biggins!’ I moaned. ‘Keep still.’
‘Waaack, werk, haaack, k, k, k,’ muttered Biggins.
‘Well,’ I said. ‘That’s what you get if you hang with Boodle. Smell and slobber and big poos.’
Boodle threw a huge hairy leg over my chest. ‘And good hugs,’ I added.
Now, I’d moan about the sleeplessness, but in the end, I think, it might have saved me. Because chatting with the creatures kept me up. And being up meant I could not be taken by surprise. At about 10 p.m. I heard our front gate open, and sat bolt upright in bed. Biggins hopped from my pillows to my shoulder to the top of my head in two stylish super-silent secret-agent moves, but I wasn’t really paying attention. Boodle’s ears perked up as high as their hairiness would allow them to go and she hopped off the bed to the annexe door – to that I paid attention. Boodle was an amazing bodyguard.
I followed her so soundlessly and stealthily that Biggins didn’t need to claw to hold on. In one hand I had the requisite spiky hairbrush, in the other the requisite hairspray. (Pepper spray finito, as per chapter one.)
At my front door, I paused and pressed my ear to the keyhole. I could hear the usual night noises of frogs and insects, but I could also hear the tac tac tac sound of someone trying hard to walk quietly down the front steps of the garden.
Slowly, silently, I unlocked my front door. (Do not try this at home. At home dial 999 and wait for help. I don’t know what I was thinking. A strange madness had taken me over.) Slowly, silently, I pulled the handle down and opened the door a crack. I expected to see, any minute now, the figure of a perpetrator rounding the corner. Instead I saw a figure slumped in a chair RIGHT OUTSIDE MY DOOR.
‘AAAAARGH!’ I yelled, squirting hairspray and beating the figure over the head with my hairbrush.
‘AAAAARGH!’ cried the figure, leaping to his full six feet and fending me off with huge hands and garlic-bread breath. ‘Lula! Lula! Stop it!’
‘Bludgeon?’ I gasped, dropping hairbrush and hairspray with alacrity. ‘I thought I heard someone at the front gate. What the frik are you doing here?’
We stared at each other in super-silent silence. Silent enough for us to hear the front gate closing. Someone had been coming down the garden steps!
‘After him!’ I yelled, and Boodle leapt past with a huge bark, me hot on her hairy heels and Bludgeon just behind.
But by the time we’d got up the front steps the intruder was long gone. Boodle was going nutso at the shut gate, Biggins had slipped from my head to my shoulder and the front door of the main house had burst open.
‘WHAT?’ yelled my mother in her nightdress. ‘WHAT’S GOING ON?’
Bludgeon caught my eye and I shook my head, once, a very subtle move. (This requires training.)
‘Nothing, Mum,’ I called. ‘I got a fright seeing Bludgeon outside my front door, is all. You could have warned me I was getting a bodyguard.’
‘Oh,’ said Mum. ‘Oh, okay. Well, yes, Sergeant T thought it best, but she said she didn’t want to freak you out . . .’
&n
bsp; ‘Nothing freaks Tallulah out,’ grumbled Bludgeon, busy with his phone to call the police station.
‘You freak me out, Bludgeon,’ I muttered in reply, going down the steps. ‘Your big villainous self outside my front door at the dead of night.’
I’m sure he would have had something to say about that, but his phone rang, and he slammed it to his ear, giving me a look. ‘Bludgeon,’ he barked. ‘Yeah, sorry ’bout that.’ He flushed, and scuffed his boot against the paving. ‘Uhuh . . . yeah . . . You’ll call the station? Orright. Laters.’
‘What’s up?’ I asked.
‘Mr K says Healey Senior just cruised down Hill Street from this direction. Must ’ave been ’im ’ere earlier.’
I shivered, my eyes wide. ‘Seriously?’
‘Don’t worry, babes. Mr K’s called it in, and ’e’ll go after that no-good perp ’imself.’
‘But Mr K is on his own! Who will . . .’
‘Babes,’ said Bludgeon settling himself back into the chair.
‘Yeah, okay,’ I said. It was no secret Mr K was good at secret stuff. The best. Even so, I should have been sleepless, but, unexpectedly, it was a strange comfort having big Bludgeon outside my door. Especially now that I’d given him my enormous Morris Minor Convention mug full of coffee.
I slept like a log with duck and dog.
Chapter Thirty-seven
Sunday morning – DAY OF THE REGATTA, PEOPLE! BIG DAY! – but it’s still early so I’ll save my energy
‘I feel nauseous,’ said Pen emphatically. ‘I can’t believe Jack and Jazz are covering the regatta. No way is that cretin taking footage of me. I’ll puke all over her sickening self.’
‘You’re such an angry person,’ I observed. ‘I think you need to see someone about that.’
‘I’m angry because I got dragged around town in a POLICE VAN, a DRAUGHTY ONE, all night and then I had to spend hours down at the stinky old police station shivering my butt off with a noisy duck and a depressed dog. And later I’m going to have to watch your boyfriend getting flirty with his flatmate and you just standing there!’
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