Frozen in Time (23 page)

‘No! You mustn’t encourage him, Polly. This isn’t 1956 any more and boys do housework now—at least they
should.
I don’t mind drying up, but
you’re
going to wash, Freddy.’

Freddy sighed and then grinned. ‘All right. I’ll do my bit. And the next time there’s a big hairy spider in the bath and Polly’s screaming blue murder,
you
can get it out.’

‘Done,’ said Rachel, choosing not to think too hard about that particular deal. ‘Go on, Polly—go and sit down with Ben in the other room. Go through the magazines and stuff again.’

Freddy washed up clumsily and haphazardly but eventually the drainer was stacked with dripping plates and cups and Rachel would have felt very smug about the whole thing if she hadn’t then witnessed something quite awful.

As Freddy dried his hands on the dishcloth he winced slightly. He looked down at his hands, frowning, and then gulped two or three times. When he lifted his head his face was pale and set. He saw that Rachel had seen it too.

‘Better get some sticking plasters,’ he muttered and Rachel nodded, feeling sick. She didn’t know if she could keep
this
secret. It was getting worse.

Two of Freddy’s fingernails had completely fallen off.

When she had found some plasters she went upstairs to find Freddy in the bathroom. He was leaning against the window, his forehead on the cool pane. ‘Come on—show me,’ said Rachel and he turned round, keeping his face down. Maybe he was crying. She wouldn’t blame him.

He wouldn’t let her put the plasters on for him, but just took them in his good hand, which was shaking.

‘We have to tell someone … call a doctor,’ she said.

‘No! Don’t be an idiot,’ he said. He glanced up at her and his eyes were red-rimmed.

‘But this is serious … more serious than a nosebleed,’ she insisted. ‘You could be … I mean …’

‘Look, you don’t have to pussyfoot around it,’ he said. ‘I’m getting ill, like Father’s rats—that’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?’

Rachel bit her lip. She didn’t want to say it. She felt sick and scared. Freddy scrubbed hard at his eyes and then turned his attention to getting the plaster on one of his fingers. He struggled one-handed and eventually Rachel stepped across and did it for him and this time he allowed her. The fingers without nails looked red and puffy and he winced as she wound the plasters around them.

‘Look, Rachel, you’re all right,’ he said, when she’d done the second one. ‘I’m sorry I called you an idiot. It’s just that … I’ve
got
to find out what happened to Father. And if you call anyone to look at my fingers, the whole game will be up and I don’t know
what’s
going to happen to Polly and me then. Please … let’s just wait until JJ gets back tomorrow. I’m
sure
he will be back tomorrow and then he can call a doctor and we’ll see what can be done.’

Rachel nodded. ‘OK. We wait one more day.’

‘Good girl,’ he grinned, wonkily, and she felt a pang. He was brave. Too brave.

There was no question that they were in for it after school. Roly O’Neal and the Pincer twins made menacing noises and gestures at Freddy and Ben all morning. In the dining hall at lunchtime, Rachel and Polly came close to having their heads ducked into the warm grey-tinged water where the dirty cutlery was dropped. Lorraine simply grabbed them both from behind and dragged them along to it by their hair, intending to acquaint them with the bits of old baked bean and fish finger which drifted around beneath the soaking knives and forks. She would have managed it too, for both Polly and Rachel were too shocked to even squeak—and the dirty cutlery bowl was behind a screen and out of view of any teachers or dinner ladies. Happily for them, a Year Ten boy stepped around the screen and brought his hand down in a karate-style crack on Lorraine’s wrists. She let them both go and spun around hissing, but then stopped and simpered, ‘Oh—hi, Wangu …’ before just shrugging and walking away.

Rachel and Polly stared in amazement. Wangu grinned widely and winked one of his dark brown eyes. ‘Thanks, Wangu,’ whispered Rachel while Polly just stared and stared and stared. She had never seen anyone from Malawi before. Rachel nudged her. ‘Say thanks!’ But Polly continued to stare, her mouth open.

‘Watch out, Super Girl,’ chuckled Wangu. ‘Something’ll fly in, in a minute.’ He reached over a hand and helped Polly’s jaw to shut with a little clunk, and then shrugged and went on his way.

‘He—he—he,’ gasped Polly, in a kind of slow motion titter. ‘He’s
really
,
really—’

‘Cute?’ said Rachel, pulling her across to the lunch queue and keeping a careful eye out for the return of Lorraine. ‘Cool? Black?’

Polly’s eyes widened. ‘You can’t say that! You say
coloured.
Black isn’t polite.’

‘No—black is fine. And Wangu’s the coolest guy in the school—that’s why Lorraine went all soppy. Lucky for us! Polly,
don’t
say “coloured” again. Please.’

‘I’ve never seen anyone like him!’ Polly looked quite pink. ‘He’s … he’s
wonderful.
’ She instinctively went to tidy her hair as she watched the Year Ten boy walk away.

‘Oi! Where did
that
come from?’ Rachel narrowed her eyes at her great-aunt.

Polly had just slid a neat pink clip, with a tiny rose on it, into the side of her hair. She pouted. ‘It’s nice. I like to look … tidy. Like a girl!’

‘Hand it over,’ sighed Rachel and Polly pulled the clip out and handed it over. She looked a little sulky.

‘Now just remember—you’re twelve! Not three!’ Rachel shoved the clip into her trouser pocket. ‘If anyone sees you with that in, they’ll
all
be queuing up to dunk your head in the washing-up bowl!’

Ben and Freddy managed to keep a corridor or two between themselves and Roly and the Pincer twins and skidded into the dining hall in time to see Rachel and Polly eating spaghetti Bolognese at the teachers’ table, talking a little too brightly to Miss Janaway, with the occasional nervous glance across the tables to the far corner where Lorraine Kingsley now sat staring at them, gnawing on a chicken leg in a threatening way.

‘Keeping your head down then, are you?’ Ben muttered in Rachel’s ear, as he and Freddy sauntered by to get their own lunch.

‘What else could we
do
?’ winced Rachel, stepping away from her food to talk to Ben and Freddy in a low voice, as Polly chatted on to Miss Janaway. She would never have dreamed of sitting at one of the teachers’ tables before today, but anywhere else was just too dangerous. She told them about the cutlery bowl and their lucky rescue by Wangu. ‘But it can’t last! She’s going to get us sooner or later. We’ve offered to help out after school—clear out the stationery cupboard. It should take at least an hour, so with any luck Lorraine and Roly and everyone will have pushed off and we’ll get out alive. You need to do the same.’

‘Nah—we’ve sorted it out already—
we’re
getting off early!’

‘How’d you manage that?!’

‘Sports session. We get to go out in Year Nine, so we’re going to do bowls. At the Crown Green.’

‘
Bowls?
What—like those old people in white clothes?’

‘Yep. It was the only one we could be sure Roly and the Pincers wouldn’t sign up for. We’re leaving our bikes here and going in the minibus, so they won’t have a chance to get us. And they let you go straight home from the bowls club afterwards if you want to, so we can just nip into town and find out where old Percy lives. You two had better get back for Bessie.’

Rachel nodded. She didn’t like being left out of looking for Percy, but she felt bad about poor Bessie being left alone all day. She sat back down with Polly just in time to hear her telling a bemused Miss Janaway that actually, Max Bygraves was really quite a dish … in his youth.

‘Max Bygraves?’ echoed the astonished teacher. ‘Polly … I think it’s a good thing you’ve been let out of the commune … Now, have you seen any posters of Johnny Depp yet?’

The plan seemed to have worked when Rachel and Polly left school an hour late that day. There was nobody left at the gate. Rachel wasn’t that surprised. Lorraine Kingsley knew there would be another chance tomorrow. And another chance the day after that. Just how much injury she was planning for them was difficult to guess at. After all, actually killing or seriously maiming one of them would get her excluded … but a compass point through the hand or a swift nose-break could both seem like accidents … There would be hockey on Friday. Rachel sighed. She rather liked her nose the shape it was.

They stopped at a convenience shop and got more food with some of the old record money, keeping an eye out all the time for Lorraine, but she’d obviously gone home for tea.

Poor Bessie was whining when they got back home and the hallway smelt awful. Rachel insisted she would clear up this time, and sent Polly out into the garden with Bessie, but not before surreptitiously checking the puppy’s paws. She’d had a nasty, uneasy feeling inside her all night and throughout the day every time she thought of Freddy’s fingernails. As promised, she hadn’t said a word to Polly about it, but had decided she
would
speak to Ben as soon as she got him alone. She just couldn’t deal with Freddy’s illness on her own any more. Bessie’s paws looked fine but, alone in the hallway, Rachel felt sure she could see little splatters of blood on the newspaper around the dog basket. She leant her forehead against the cold radiator in the hallway and closed her eyes. ‘Oh, Uncle Jerome … please come back soon. Please.’

‘Sir—we’ve just intercepted a message for Jerome Emerson.’ Travis ran in once again without knocking, but Chambers let it go. ‘Anonymous. We’re tracing it now— but get this, it was warning him about
us
! That we’re covering up something. Left on his work voicemail, would you believe?’

Chambers snorted. ‘I don’t suppose it gave any detail of
what
we were covering up? Jerome Emerson still isn’t saying a word apart from that family tree research nonsense—or Shakespeare. It’s really most unsettling when a secret service doesn’t know what secret it’s got!’

‘No—no detail, sir. Chapman says everything’s normal in the town too. Nothing out of the ordinary. But … but, sir.’

‘What, Travis?’

‘Something’s a bit odd. I checked at the school where Jerome’s nephew and niece go—just to see if there was any chatter––and they say they’ve got cousins who’ve just started there this week. Kids called Robertson.’

‘Cousins? Where from?’

‘Well, that’s what
I
thought. I checked their family— the only cousins Ben and Rachel Corder have are full grown adults. The other thing is, the Corder kids’ parents are out of the country—and Jerome is supposed to be their guardian. So what’s he doing up in London, leaving them and these “cousins” on their own—just to research his family tree?’

‘Well, I suppose it’s time to ask him,’ said Chambers.

‘Sir—one more thing,’ said Travis.

‘Yes?’

‘Isn’t it a bit strange … that Chapman hasn’t reported any of that to you? I mean … isn’t that her job?’

‘Yes … what
is
Chapman’s job?’ Chambers picked up his pen and began clicking it ferociously. ‘Travis,’ he said, ‘you’re a clever young man. And I’m an idiot.’