The Set Up (13 page)

The office door was unlocked, but Ms Sanders had gone for lunch. I could see the Edinburgh phone number and address written on a notepad on her desk. As I copied them down, I glanced through to the inner office. Fergus’s own desk was in plain view, his PC a slim, silver oblong beyond the big leather chair he sat in.

I wandered in. I was still supposed to be keeping my eyes open for information on Viper, the fourth teenager with the Medusa gene. This was the perfect time to have a look on Fergus’s office computer. Fergus himself was away and Ms Sanders wouldn’t be back for at least thirty minutes.

Fergus’s office was a total reflection of his personality – all neat and ordered. Every book was positioned in alphabetical order, by author, and the files on the bottom shelves were clearly dated and labelled. I switched on his PC.

As it buzzed into action, I wondered if Fergus still used my mum’s name as a password. When the log in command appeared, I tapped it in:
LuciaRafael.

A spread of folders appeared on the screen. Heart racing, I scanned them fast. Everything was labelled with predictable neatness. Files on everything school-related from pupils’ academic records to their fee payments. Nothing remotely connected to the Medusa gene. I searched Fergus’s documents folder. Nothing there, either. So where did he keep the information?

I logged into Fergus’s main email account using Mum’s name as a password again and did searches under ‘Medusa’ and ‘Viper’ and ‘William Fox’. Still nothing. Apart from a few, vague legal exchanges about William’s estate, most of which Fergus had apparently inherited, there was no information at all.

Frustrated, I sat back in the big leather chair. Ms Sanders would be back soon and I was no wiser about who Viper might be than I had been before. I stared at the open email account on the screen . . . Wait a minute. These emails only went back a couple of years. Fergus must have used an account before that – so where was it?

I checked his hard drive to see if he’d saved the emails there.
Yes.
My eyes lit on a folder called
Windows Live Hotmail.
I looked at the inbox and the sent items, searching under the terms I’d used before.
Nothing.
On the verge of giving up, I opened the deleted files and searched again.

Yes.

A short list of emails met my eyes. They had been deleted just two days ago.

I opened the top email. It was from William and dated a few months before I was born – presumably just before he died.

My throat felt dry as I read the message, and the email that had proceeded it. They’d been sent over a single evening:

I stared at the emails, my heart thudding. This was it. This
had
to be it. The ‘Medusa info’ Fergus was talking about
had
to mean the identities of the babies with the Medusa gene. Which included the identity of Viper, the missing girl. And the ‘promise’ that William referred to must have been Fergus’s promise to keep the data secret.

I read the messages again. William said in his email that the information was locked up in ‘our library at home’. But I was certain that Fergus and William hadn’t lived together since they were children.

And then it hit me:
that
was the ‘home’ William meant – his and Fergus’s parents’ house in Edinburgh . . . the very one that Fergus had gone to today. That was why William had written ‘
our library
’ and ‘
you know the number
’. Of course Fergus, as his brother, would know the library and the phone number . . . they belonged to his childhood home too.

And
that
was why this email account had only recently been deleted. Knowing that Jack and Geri had come after me and Ed, Fergus must have decided to remove all reference to Medusa in his records, in case they came looking for more information.

It all fitted. Now I understood why Fergus had gone away . . . he wanted a chance to get hold of the locked up ‘Medusa info’. Maybe even destroy it. Mentoring Ketty through her marathon was the perfect cover.

I turned eagerly to the next email in the inbox. But at that point Ms Sanders bustled into the outer office.

Damn.

I ducked down behind the desk, but it was too late, she’d seen me.

‘Nico, is that you?’ Her flat Yorkshire accent sounded in the doorway.

‘Hiya.’As I sat up in Fergus’s leather chair, I switched off the hard drive under his desk.

‘What are you doing in here?’ Ms Sanders asked suspiciously.

I thought fast, turning off the monitor as I stood up. ‘Fergus said he’d left some money for me in here.’

Ms Sanders raised an eyebrow. ‘Nice try.’

I shrugged. ‘Maybe it’s in the flat.’

‘More than likely, love.’ Ms Sanders went back to her own desk and picked up the piece of paper containing the Edinburgh phone number and address. ‘You can call him and ask him, if you like.’

I shoved my hands in my pockets, feeling for the crisp edge of the notepaper on which I’d written those details earlier. ‘No worries, thanks.’

‘All right, love. Well, look after yourself.’

I threw her another smile as I sauntered out of the room. As soon as I was out of sight, I hared down the corridor. The bell was about to go for the end of lunch break and I needed to get somewhere quiet to call Jack.

My long shot at getting money off Ms Sanders had failed, but once Jack knew that the information on Viper was locked up in Edinburgh, I was sure he’d pay for both of us to get up there.

We’d have to move fast, though. Ketty’s marathon was tomorrow, Saturday. I had no idea how soon after that she’d be flying off to see her parents. I needed to get to Edinburgh as soon as possible.

I couldn’t believe my luck. If I played my cards right, I’d get to see Ketty, face to face, after all. And if I could see her I’d surely be able to explain everything I needed to . . . and ask her out.

I dashed outside and round the back of school, into the Tranquillity Gardens. In the distance I could hear the bell for afternoon lessons ringing. I dug my phone out of my pocket and called Jack.

His mobile was switched off.
Damn.
Without hesitating, I scrolled to his home number and tried that. It rang twice. I fidgeted as I waited for Jack’s easy ‘Hi’.

But it wasn’t Jack who answered.

I recognised Dylan’s drawled ‘hey’ straight away.

‘Is Jack there?’ I asked.

‘Nah.’ I could hear she was chewing gum. ‘He’s not around. D’you want his cellphone number?’

‘No, I’ve got it.’ I hesitated. ‘So, how come he’s not there but you’re in his house?’

‘I just came by after going to the store,’ Dylan said, breezily. ‘Jack gave me keys – he said he’d be out most of the day . . . maybe overnight.’

‘Oh.’ I’d been so fixated on speaking to Jack, I didn’t know what to say. ‘I thought you were only here for a fortnight.’

‘Yeah, well, I’m staying longer now,’ Dylan said dismissively. ‘So, why were you calling?’

‘Er . . .’ I didn’t want to tell her, but it wasn’t like I had time to mess around. I explained I was sure Fergus had the information about Viper, the fourth person with the Medusa gene in his house in Edinburgh.

‘Wow. Okay, I’ll tell Jack when he’s back,’ Dylan said.

‘No, that’s no good. I need to get up there straight away.’

‘Why?’

I hesitated. The last thing I wanted was to explain about Ketty. ‘I’m, er . . . I’m worried Fergus might have gone there to destroy the information.’

‘Really?’ Dylan sounded excited. ‘Okay, then you and I should go there now. How soon can you get to the station?’

‘What? You want to come? Right now?’

‘D’you have a problem with that?’

‘No,’ I said, floundering. ‘But it’s the middle of school and I’m grounded and I don’t have any money.’

‘Well, if you can get away, I can supply the money.’ Dylan’s American accent got stronger as she spoke more intently. ‘I’ll sort the tickets and meet you at whichever station it is. I’ll text you the time and place.’

‘Er . . .’ There wasn’t time to think about it. Anyway, I could always ditch Dylan once we’d found the information on Viper. ‘You realise we’re going to have to sneak into Fergus’s house . . . I mean, I’m supposed to be grounded, so he’s not exactly going to welcome us in and—’

‘Yeah.’ I could hear the grin in Dylan’s voice. ‘I figured that. No sweat, it’ll be fun. I’ve always wanted to go there.’

‘Why?’

There was a pause.

‘Didn’t Jack explain?’ Dylan said. ‘It’s the reason he found me so easily. I’m William Fox’s daughter. That house is where he grew up . . . I’ve never been there.’

‘William Fox was your
dad
?’

‘Well that’s usually what being someone’s daughter means,’ Dylan said, drily.

I stood, mouth open, on the other end of the line, taking in this information. A succession of realisations hit me. If Dylan was William’s daughter, that meant her own father was responsible for her mother’s death. It also meant she and I were virtually cousins.

I realised neither of us had spoken for several seconds. Dylan appeared to be waiting for me to say something. I didn’t feel I could say either of the two things that had occurred to me. They both seemed way too personal.

‘But that means you’re Fergus’s niece,’ I said in the end.

‘Yeah.’ Dylan gave a light sigh. ‘Though I haven’t seen him since my mum died and I got sent to America.’

I shook my head. Yet another little detail Fergus had kept hidden from me.

‘Didn’t you ever stop and wonder why Jack was my godfather?’ Dylan said, a slightly haughty tone in her voice, as if I was a bit thick not to have made the connection.

‘Well, no, actually.’ Truth was, I’d forgotten Dylan had ever told me Jack was her godfather.

‘Jack worked with my dad, remember? He told you. He liaised between my dad and Geri Paterson, sorting out the finances for my dad’s research.’

I nodded. ‘Yeah, I remember.’

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Dylan snarled. ‘And you can stop right now.’

‘What?’ I said, startled.

‘You’re thinking that I must be really screwed up because my dad killed my mom when he injected me with the Medusa gene.’

‘No.’ I frowned. Why would she think that? ‘I mean, obviously that’s got to be weird for you but then the whole thing’s so bizarre that—’

‘My dad didn’t know what injecting me with the Medusa gene would do to my mom, okay?’

‘Sure, but all our mums died.You’re not the only one who—’

‘So this is all about
you
, is it?’ she snarled.

God she was annoying.

‘No,’ I snapped. ‘By the way, did you sue them?’

‘Who?’

‘The teachers at whatever charm school you went to. Because if you didn’t, I reckon you could make a fortune. You could certainly get your money back.’

There was a short silence. Then Dylan laughed – a quick, apologetic chuckle.

‘Sorry,’ she said, softly. ‘I guess I have some issues about my mom and dad.’

Another short pause. I had no idea what to say.

‘So . . .’ Dylan cleared her throat. ‘How soon can you meet me?’

*

I got away from school without much trouble. I was present for afternoon registration – then snuck out at the end of the first period. Hopefully it would take a few hours before anyone noticed I was missing.

I met Dylan at King’s Cross about an hour later and we took a crowded, early evening train to Edinburgh. I thought Dylan might tell me more about her past, but once we’d found some seats on our train, she settled back and jammed in her earphones. She fell asleep after a couple of hours. I took a sneaky picture of her in her jeans and cropped top and texted it to Tom:

At least that would throw everyone at school off the scent. I was expecting angry calls from Mr Rogerson – and Fergus – any minute. I waited for Tom’s text back – which was a predictable mix of crudeness and envy – then switched my phone off.

Several more hours – and a long taxi ride later – and we were there.

It was almost midnight and freezing.

‘It’s not exactly a
house
, is it?’ Dylan whispered, as we stood in the dark, peering in through the gates.

She was right. Mansion would have been a better description. Fergus’s family home was enormous: a huge stone building covered in ivy and built over four floors – and counting – with at least six windows across the front of each one.

I sighed, my breath misting into the cold, dank air. At least there was no sign of any lights on. Still, having seen the size of the house it was quite possible the whole of the back could be lit up with fairy lights and we wouldn’t be able to tell, here at the front gate.

‘Maybe they’re out,’ I said.

‘Let’s hope they’re in and sleeping.’ Dylan pointed to the burglar alarm box over the front door. ‘If they’re out, that alarm will be switched on. And the alarm on a house this size is bound to be connected to the local police station. Our one at home is.’