The Beast of Seabourne (27 page)

On impulse, Oz fetched a small wooden ladder and reached up to the very top shelf to pull down a worn and dusty photograph album. Inside was a jumble of ill-assorted, faded prints, but Oz knew exactly which one he wanted. He found it tucked in behind a wedding list—a group photo of fifty or more children ranging in age from four to sixteen.

The heading read
Colonel Thompson's Orphanage 1892
. He studied the front row and zoomed in on two figures. The first was a happy, gap-toothed boy called Daniel Morsman, the man whose research had rekindled Michael Chambers' interest in the artefacts, and whose name the artefacts now bore. Morsman sat cross-legged on the floor with his arm around the neck of the slightly younger orphan next to him. The faded name beneath read
John Tanner
. Tanner was a thin and gawky boy who, exactly like Gerber, sported a large birthmark on the side of his neck.

Oz reached into his pocket for the pebble and called up Soph.

“Can you find out about this John Tanner who was at Colonel Thomson's orphanage at the same time as Daniel Morsman?”

“Records have been collated for all institutions in Seabourne since the 1871 census.” Soph's eyes glowed with silver light, and Oz knew she was accessing computer systems somewhere. “John Tanner entered the orphanage in 1886 when he was six years old. His father had been killed at the battle of Abu Klea in the Sudan with the Essex regiment in 1885. His mother had three children, and placed her eldest, John, in the orphanage, and took the younger two—a girl and a boy—with her to East Anglia.”

Oz looked at her, trying to imagine what it would have been like for John Tanner at six years old, as his mother walked away and the door of the orphanage closed behind her.

“Blimey,” he said. “Did she visit him?”

“There are no records of visits,” Soph said.

Oz nodded. The troubled-looking John Tanner had become, by the most circuitous of routes, the very nasty Jack Gerber; of that, Oz had no doubt. Yet it was hard to understand just how desperate things must have been for John Tanner's mother to have to abandon one of her children like that. Soph, as usual, was able to read his thoughts. “It was a time of war and great poverty, Oz.”

Oz nodded. “Still, must have been pretty awful to be left.”

The dread memory of a black emptiness where his insides should have been blew icily through him. It was an echo of how he'd felt when he'd woken up one morning a few years ago to find his own mother missing. Confusion, brought on by the depth of her grief and made worse by the brain-fogging medication she'd been taking, had led to a kind of breakdown on the anniversary of his father's death. Ellie's mum had eventually found her in one of the town's hotels and brought her home.

That sick, gnawing, empty feeling he'd had in the pit of his stomach was something he was never going to forget. It wasn't an excuse for Gerber being the horrible piece of work he was, but perhaps it went some way towards explaining why he seemed hell-bent on making Oz's life miserable. Maybe he hated everyone with a family, even a fractured one like Oz's.

In addition, as if that wasn't bad enough, Oz had Heeps' phone conversation about Bendle to contend with. What on earth had Heeps meant by saying someone had spilled the beans? Once again, Oz's insides lurched. He knew what it meant, all right. It meant that someone was telling Heeps and Gerber what the three of them were up to. But who? The only people who knew about going to visit Bendle were the three of them. They had told no one else.

“Can you run that conversation between Heeps and Meecher again?” Oz asked Soph.

He listened as she replayed the whole thing once more.

“What do you think Heeps means?” he asked when the message had finished.

“The implication clearly is that either you, Ellie, or Ruff have told Mr Heeps about your visit to Chivyon House.”

“That's the way I read it, too. One of us is a mole.”

The idea was so preposterous and disgusting that Oz suddenly felt sick. It was crazy and insane, and yet what other way was there of explaining it?

“But Ellie and Ruff…they would never do anything like that.”

“Logically, that leaves only you,” Soph said calmly.

“Me? But I haven't said anything to anyone except Ruff and Ellie.”

Soph watched him impassively.

“Right, tomorrow at school, I want you to check all our phones, mine included. That way the others will see I'm not picking on them. See if anyone's been sending or getting any messages from Heeps. I need you to do whatever you must to get to the bottom of this, understand?”

“I understand, Oz,” Soph said.

“At least I can trust you, Soph,” Oz muttered.

Soph said nothing in reply; that evening, knowing she was on the case gave him little if any comfort. Because whatever the outcome, it was not going to be an easy one to deal with.

He fell asleep quickly but dreamed he was in the corridor in Bendle's house being pursued by a dirigible bomber drone that kept dropping bombs with Gerber's face on them. As they landed, they released a loud voice that cursed the air. All around him, Oz kept hearing the same sentence in Gerber's rasping voice.

“His fate is already written. His fate is already written. His fate is already written.”

When he woke up, it was half past four in the morning. Sleep was a stranger for the rest of the night, as worries over exactly how he could get Ellie and Ruff to let Soph check their phones pressed down on him like a great anvil on his chest. No matter how he phrased it, it always sounded like he simply didn't trust them.

It was with a sense of exhausted relief that he heard the alarm beeping at half past seven. Oz dragged himself out of bed with the dreadful realisation that he'd never felt less like going to school in the whole of his life.

Chapter 13

Lava Toothpaste

There were two police cars parked in the bay outside the headmaster's office when Oz got to school that morning. Oz gazed at them with a sinking feeling. Somehow, he knew he'd be meeting one or more of their occupants again that day.

However, it was the way his fellow students reacted to him that made Oz realise it wasn't just the Volcano who was putting two and two together and coming up with Oscar Chambers as the answer.

Conversation fell away as he approached the little knots of people congregating in the yard while they waited for the bell. A whispered commentary followed him wherever he went, yet when he turned to look for the source, the murmurs died and eyes cut away.

He got to Room 33 early. There was no sign of Ellie or Ruff, so he sat at his desk and went over what he was going to say to them when they arrived. His mind had settled on the firm conclusion that confronting them with Heeps' conversation with Meecher was the only way to sort things out. Yet the prospect hung over him like a storm cloud.

He'd been unable to face any breakfast at all that morning, and now his stomach was rumbling and groaning in protest. He took a deep breath to try and calm his nerves, but still it felt like there was a huge boulder pressing down on the top of his head.

“Come on. Where are you?” he whispered to himself. If they came now, he could get it over with and…and what? What if one of them
had
informed? It would mean no more Ballista's on Saturday mornings, no more sleepovers at Penwurt, no more searching for artefacts. He was dwelling on that unhappy thought when his attention was drawn by a weird noise at the door. Jenks' weaselly face appeared. He was quacking loudly as he delivered the punch line of some joke. Although Skinner, Jenks' main partner in crime, was still absent, there were other hangers-on prepared to dote on Jenks' every burp. Oz had to hand it to him; despite appearances to the contrary, Jenks was no fool. He had long ago realised that for him to get away with the things he said and did, there was a need for safety in numbers. This morning was no exception, as three large devotees followed him in, sniggering.

And today, as usual, Jenks was revelling in making as much noise as he possibly could. But as soon as he saw Oz was alone, he stopped quacking, and his ferrety features quickly became sly and calculating.

“Well, well. If it isn't pizard of Oz all alone. Whossammatter, Grizzly Adams and Minger Messenger ditched you, have they? Realised that you're a loony freak at last.”

“Get stuffed, Jenks,” Oz said automatically.

Jenks, a malicious glint in his eye, was clearly delighted with this unusual opportunity of finding Oz alone and the chance it provided for taunting. Ignoring Oz's reply, he and his followers swaggered across to where he sat. “Kieron's out of hospital and really looking forward to meeting you again,” Jenks said belligerently.

“I heard,” Oz said.

“Bet you hadn't heard that he has a seventeen-yearold brother at the Tech who's going to be waiting for you outside the school gate one afternoon.”

Oz just shook his head. This was standard Jenks stuff. “And what am I supposed to have done now?”

“What have you done?” Jenks guffawed. “Think we're all stupid? We know it's you. We know you've been picking off your enemies one at a time when they're alone.” Jenks shook his head. “Even for you, that's freaky stuff, Chambers.”

Oz pushed himself up from his seat. He wasn't scared of Jenks, but there were four of them, and suddenly, Oz felt he'd rather be on his feet with his back against the wall than sitting. He should have ignored them, he knew, but he could just glimpse the rest of the class over Jenks' shoulder and saw that they were all listening avidly. He knew he couldn't simply let Jenks get away with this stuff without reply.

“I didn't touch Skinner or Pheeps,” Oz said calmly. “If you bothered to ask around, you'd know that I was somewhere else at the time. So get that into your thick skull.”

Jenks sneered. “Oh, yeah? Well that's not what everyone's saying. And the Volcano thinks it's you, doesn't she? And don't tell me that the cops are here to check the plumbing.”

The cronies sniggered.

“The Volcano can say what she likes. I didn't do it.”

Jenks made a two-tone buzzer noise in his throat and said, “Wrong answer, Chambers. You lose.”

Oz shook his head, but he could feel a flush spread up from his throat. Jenks was irritating at the best of times, but this morning, he was like a terrier after a rat. Yet it was the triumphant gleam in his eye that really unnerved Oz. Jenks looked exactly like the kid at the Christmas party who knew who the bloke dressed up as Santa Claus really was and was bursting to tell all his mates the secret. His smile melted into a slithering grin.

“Martha Trump's mother works in a chemist on the high street. She says your mum used to come in to get tablets. The kind they give people who are really bonkers. Were they for you, Chambers?”

“I'm warning you, Jenks. Just buzz off,” Oz said, feeling his fists start to bunch at his sides.

“Or does loony stuff run in the family?” Jenks' eyes glittered with pleasure as he saw the effect his goading was having on Oz. “Oh, wait. I get it. The tablets weren't for you, were they? They were for her.” He looked around at his followers before delivering the punch line with a derisive chuckle. “Wow, Chambers got the double. His dad's mad enough to top himself and his mother's mental.”

Anger took off like a lit skyrocket in Oz. He exploded across the desk and lunged at Jenks, catching him unawares. There was a loud scraping noise as desks were shoved halfway across the room, and a couple of chairs went flying. Oz grabbed Jenks' lapel and dragged him forwards.

“Don't you ever talk about my mother or my father.” Oz ground out the words through clenched teeth.

The really weird thing was Jenks looked shocked by what was happening, as if he couldn't comprehend the way Oz was reacting to his insults. But then Jenks' cronies piled in, and there was a lot of yelling and pushing and shoving as they tried to get Oz to let go. He heard a ripping noise and felt a couple of fists in his face and the next thing he knew, he was on the floor, still with Jenks' lapels in his hands and someone's arms around his own neck in a headlock.

Through the mass of writhing limbs, he caught a welcome glimpse of Ellie and Ruff above him. They were pulling and yelling, too, and even throwing the odd punch. He saw Ellie land a well-aimed foot in the groin of the biggest of Jenks' cronies, there was another loud rip, and the pressure of the bodies above him suddenly eased. Oz couldn't see properly—there was too much sweat in his eyes—but then he heard a familiar angry voice and guessed what was going on.

“Get up! Get up, the lot of you, this instant.”

Oz pushed himself up off the floor onto one elbow and stared up into Miss Arkwright's stern face. He noted dully that he was holding one of Jenks' feebly flapping lapels in his fist as he scrambled the rest of the way to his feet. He felt something warm on his lip, and when he touched it with his tongue, he could taste blood.

“Is this a zoo?” Miss Arkwright asked, seething. “Are you animals?” She looked around at the group of red-faced, panting pupils. No one answered.

“Pick up these desks and chairs immediately and sit down. Now!”

There was more scraping of chairs, but still no one spoke. Oz's eyes met Jenks', and he was amazed to see there was a smile on Jenks' ferret face. The idiot had enjoyed every minute of it.

When everyone was sitting, Miss Arkwright stood in front of the class, looking very stern. “I realise there is a great deal of…unpleasantness in this school at the moment, and it's a difficult time for everyone. But you can all rest assured that I will get to the bottom of what just happened here, and woe betide the culprits.”

She glanced at Oz and then at Jenks. “This is a school. It is a place where you should be learning, developing friendships, finding your way. I, for one, believe that there are forces at work both inside and outside Seabourne County that are trying, and at this moment succeeding, in disrupting that environment. All of us”—she swung a finger at the class—“have a duty to fight these forces. I will not stand for bullying, name-calling, or fighting. Do you understand?”