The Messenger Bird Read online

  “We should be able to go and see him!” Hannah scowled. She shoved on a black cardigan and pulled at one sleeve where a thread of wool was unravelling. “Talk about screwed up human rights!”

  “How long can they keep him for?” I said.

  Hannah frowned. “Without actually charging him? Ninety-six hours.”

  The kettle screamed, steam pouring from its spout. “Yes, that’s what Mr Edwards told me,” said Mum, turning off the gas ring. “We’re not allowed any contact before then.” She got the milk out. MMXII spelled the fridge magnets. MCMXL. It was a game Dad and I played all the time, making up Roman numerals for each other to work out. We pretty much always wrote in Roman numerals, rather than normal numbers. It drove Mum and Hannah mad.

  Looking at the magnets made the clue pop into my head again: FIND STRUM. V O, and the V straightaway made me think of the number five, but there wasn’t a Roman numeral for zero, so it couldn’t be that.

  “Welcome to democracy!” Hannah splashed milk in her mug and plonked the carton on the table. She slapped at the lukewarm radiator. “When are we getting the heating sorted out? Nothing in this hovel works properly!”

  Shut up, Hannah, I thought. Getting annoyed about the house was the last thing we needed right then.

  But I was so happy in Auntie Hilda’s house as a kid, Dad had said in reply to Hannah’s temper about moving, and while he had flowery ideas about his childhood, Mum was thinking mortgage-free, and I was thinking I could get the bus with Josh and Sasha every morning because they both live in the next village. But Hannah was thinking what was wrong with our little terrace in town near her boyfriend Gavin’s?

  Hannah must have realized how she was behaving because she did shut up and gave Mum a long hug, then knelt and rubbed Bones’s head. She might get into moods a lot, but she wasn’t that dense.

  “I’ll come to the solicitor’s office with you, Mum,” I said.

  Mum put spoon after spoon of sugar into her coffee and stirred hard. I eyed the crack in King George’s head as I pulled the pan of toast from under the grill, the slices smoking.

  “Eat and then go to bed, Mother!” Hannah ordered. “You’re no use to anyone knackered.” She gave Mum a stern look, then stared out of the window holding her cup, the bright red ends of her long blonde hair nearly dipping in her tea, her unhappy reflection on the rain-speckled pane. Everyone went on about how pretty she was, but all I mostly saw was her in a strop. But right then I guessed exactly what she was thinking, staring out of the window, willing Dad back.

  I scraped the burnt parts off a slice of toast with a knife, covering the chipped sink with black bits. I gave a piece to Mum and she nibbled a corner like a distracted mouse.

  I traced the cracks across the surface of my plate with a finger, staring at their spider-web-thin lines. “Mum…” My throat felt dry as the toast. My voice came out all quiet and sort of broken. “It’ll be OK, won’t it? When they realize they’ve made a mistake, I mean, he’ll be released. Won’t he?”

  “Course,” said Mum. “A stupid mistake.” She stirred her coffee even harder.

  “I don’t have to go to school today, do I?” I said. There was no way I could face it. “Can I stay here? In case there’s news?”

  “Up to you, love. Yes, if that’s what you want.” Mum’s face crinkled up in a huge yawn. “I might just have a lie-down after all.” She gave us a kiss each and went upstairs.

  Hannah and I looked at each other, but I didn’t know what to say and then the doorbell rang. Josh. I could tell from the way he pressed the bell, the Match of the Day style rhythm, so I told Hannah I’d get it, and then Josh started talking through the letter box like he does when he’s nervous, “Friday the eleventh of November, seven fifty-four a.m.,” because you always know where you are with dates, he’d told me once. Dates and times. Mum said he probably had a bit of obsessive-compulsive disorder, which she said might be his way of coping with his mum leaving and his dad being a drinker. Whatever the reason, he knew about my dad being taken away. He’d seen how the bonfire party had ended; Mum asking everyone to leave like that; he’d seen the cars of strangers waiting in the lane.

  I opened the door and Josh stood there, bag of crisps in hand, the thick, stripy scarf Mum gave him wound round his thin face and ears. His hair stuck up all over like he’d been out for hours, not the fifteen minutes it took him to walk from his house to mine.

  He stood in the doorway and then offered me a salt and vinegar crisp. We stood there crunching.

  Then the next minute Sasha was standing there too with her perfect black hair in a rainbow bobble hat and her black puffer jacket and her woolly pink mittens, all full of questions. “Is your dad back, Nathan? What’s going on?”

  I told them the story, as much as Mum had told me. All except the breaking the Official Secrets Act part. I couldn’t bring myself to tell them about that.

  “They won’t say why they’re arresting him? Oh God, Nathan.” Sasha wrapped her arms around me so I could smell this vanilla kind of smell in her hair, which made my eyes start to sting, so I said I had to help my mum with something and I wasn’t going to school.

  “Not going to school?” repeated Josh, like the very idea went against all Einstein’s theories. “But it’s Friday. We’re watching that film in the hall. Then there’s the footie match, us versus the teachers,” he added, like it was the Battle of Britain or something.

  “Do you think Nathan cares about all that?” Sasha tutted at him. “Look, we’ve got to go, Nathan, or we’ll miss the bus.” She gave me another hug. “…But we’ll be round straight after school – straight after!”

  I said OK and closed the door.

  “Text you soon,” called Sasha through the letter box. Then they were gone.

  I stood there with my back against the door awhile, not able to move. I did care. I wished I could go into school with them and watch the film, and play football against the teachers as if nothing had happened. But everything was different now. I felt it pressing down on me – Dad’s arrest; the weight of my secret promises to him. Follow Lily’s trail. Don’t tell anyone.

  CARELESS TALK COSTS LIVES Auntie Hilda’s Second World War poster shouted at me from the wall opposite.

  I went into the front room. Hannah was dressed in tight black jeans and a leather jacket and boots up to her knees, and her eyes were all done up in black, and she dumped a tray down on the coffee table. A mug of hot chocolate, toast smeared in butter and without any burnt bits, an egg in an egg cup and a cellar of salt. “Eat that,” she ordered. “I’m going out for a bit. On the bus. To see Gavin. I’ll be back soon. You’ll be all right? If Mum wakes up and she needs anything or she wants me to look after you or there’s any news, you tell her to ring me straightaway, OK?”

  I tried to smile. “Thanks. But I don’t need a babysitter.”

  “I know, baby brother.” She gave me a punch on the arm and tried to smile back. She opened her mouth to say something more, then closed it again. She nodded and left.

  I cracked the egg on the table and heaped the pieces of shell at the edge of my plate. The yolk burnt my mouth, but I suddenly realized how hungry I was and finished the lot. I sat and sipped my hot chocolate. Hannah had put loads of sugar in, just the way Dad made it.

  I had to help Dad! Not mope about feeling sorry for myself. My mind went to the message on the bottom of the bucket again. Some woman called Lily Kenley had made a trail. “But why?” I said out loud. Why go to all that trouble? What had her trail got to do with my dad, anyway? What was at the end? An X marks the spot and a chest of treasure? An explanation? That would be enough. The truth about what was going on.

  FIND STRUM. V O

  My mind whirred. Think literally and laterally. Concentrate, I told myself. You worked out the last ones, you can do the same with this. That STRUM thing – the word seemed familiar somehow. I was sure I’d heard it before.

  “Strum,” I said to Bones. “Strum. Strum. Strum.” He woofed and
licked my buttery fingers.

  Dad’s voice flashed into my head. Choose a book, Nat. Choose a Strum book, one to ten. I was on my feet. That’s what Dad had called them, wasn’t it?

  I went quietly back upstairs, my brain racing the whole way. Mum’s bedroom door was slightly open and I saw her sleeping inside. I tiptoed past and climbed the spiral staircase towards the attic library again.

  “Dad read them to us when we were younger, Bones!” I whispered to him as he shuffled up the steps after me. “He called them the Strum books and I’m sure they were kept up here.”

  I got into the attic and managed to switch the lamp on and stood gazing at the shelves and shelves of old books. There were hundreds of the things, thousands maybe. More books here, probably, than in the entire village library before the council closed it down. The whole of one wall was covered in them, right to the ceiling, with a dodgy-looking stepladder at one end and the RAF mannequin looking serious at the other like he was on guard duty.

  “How am I supposed to find them in that lot?”

  Bones looked at me mournfully and sneezed. I couldn’t even remember the colour of the Strum books, it was that many years since I’d seen one. It had been back during the time of our monthly visits to check on Auntie Hilda’s house. Some rainy Saturday or other when Hannah and I couldn’t play in the garden, and Dad read to us instead.

  “Where first, Bones? Left or right?”

  Bones yawned and lay down on his side on the tatty rug.

  “Left it is, then.” I clicked on the lamp and started to search, bending double to see the very bottom shelf, one book at a time, my eyes picking out the titles on the spines in the dimly lit row. “Worth lots of doggy treats, they are,” I called quietly to Bones and he licked his mouth with a big pink tongue.

  Dad had always said the Strum books were valuable and that we should treat them really carefully… Maybe he’d already known about Lily’s trail back then; maybe that’s why he was so fussy about the Strum books. Then why had he never told me anything about it until now? I couldn’t help feeling hurt at the idea of Dad keeping secrets from me.

  A spider dropped towards us on its thread like it was trying to listen in. Cloud shadows scuttled over the floor from the skylight. Sleet splattered the glass. I eyed the stepladder and hoped I’d find the books on the lower shelves. Heights weren’t my strong point.

  A triangle of weak sunlight jutted like an arrow from the net curtain as I continued searching. No luck on the bottom row. Next shelf up then.

  By row five I was on tiptoes. It was taking ages and I had a crick in my neck from stretching. In the distance I heard the church bells and my fingers seemed to flick along the books in time with their clangs. Eleven o’clock already? There was a faint boom, like a cannon firing. For Remembrance Day, I realized. Today was the eleventh of November and they’d be having a service in town, and then a bigger one on Sunday. At school, Sasha and Josh would be doing a two-minute silence for people who had died in the war.

  I carried on my search, and I was near the end of the fifth shelf when Bones started pawing at me and weaving through my legs and I lost my balance and grabbed at books to try and stop myself going down, but they came out of the shelves and started falling and I ended up on my back as books clattered down all around me.

  Bones sat on my chest and licked my face. His tail banged the floor, sending up swirls of dust. “It’s not lunchtime yet!” I said, pushing him off and getting to my feet. I started picking up the spilled books and shoving them back, but as I did I saw there was another book tucked behind, pressed flat against the wall.

  I tugged it out. A fat notebook with an old smell and a mottled grey front. I flicked to the first page. There was something written on the inside cover, and as I read it I stumbled backwards into a pile of newspapers.

  Lily Kenley, born 21.03.1902

  “Lily!” I hissed to Bones, and he gave a confused yelp.

  Lily again. There was something else written below her name. The handwriting was hard to read because the letters were all scratchy and blotchy like they’d been done too fast.

  I have to save my dad. If only…

  I brought the book closer to make out the letters.

  If only I can break the code.

  Weird. What was that about? What did this Lily person have to save her dad from? I wondered. Then there were pages and pages of letters in pencil on the faintly lined paper. Close-spaced lines of writing. Only not words. There were all these groups of three capital letters: BBC BBD BBE… Lists and lists of them, each crossed out with a neat single line, going on for pages and pages.

  I wondered if Dad knew about this notebook. I’d found it pretty much by fluke and I’d no idea what any of it meant, or whether it was part of the trail, but it was Lily’s, so it could be important, right? I pushed the notepad to where I’d find it again and carried on scanning along the shelf for the Strum books.

  I fumbled with the stepladder and went up a couple of rungs, my head on a level with the sixth shelf up. I stared along the crammed-in book spines, then got down and shifted the ladder along and climbed up again.

  I stopped. There was a group of little books with the same kind of dark blue spine with gold bands, and when I counted quickly, there were … ten! I pulled the first one out and read the flaky gold lettering on the cover.

  Stories To Read Under Moonlight

  My mouth broke into a giant-sized grin. Stories To Read Under Moonlight. STRUM. I’d known they were here somewhere!

  Volume I: Treasure Island. The first book of the set. I pulled out the others and made a pile of them on the floor. Volume II: Robinson Crusoe; Volume III: Sherlock Holmes; Volume IV: The Secret Garden… But which of the ten books was I supposed to be looking in? STRUM. V O…

  Volume V: Fantastical Fairy Tales.

  V. Volume five. Was that it?

  I went over to the lamp and thumbed slowly through the pages and their detailed colour drawings. There were hideous trolls under bridges and witches on broomsticks and goblins with sharp fingernails and giants swiping spiked clubs. There was the “Ghost in the Well” story Dad had read to Hannah and me. I got to the last page. THE END. So what now?

  STRUM. V O

  I tried to think of all the things an O shape could be. It might be a letter or a zero. I thought about the circle of the well and the round, battered bucket. Maybe it was a symbol for something in a picture.

  “Is it this?” I used a thumb and finger to make a circle round my eye like I was watching Bones through a keyhole, and he woofed a bit at me. “This?” I curled myself into a round shape on the dusty rug, hugging my knees and he gave a little whine. “This, maybe?” My mouth made a round, scared shape at him and he barked in a disturbed sort of way and went to sit under the gramophone table.

  I leafed through the book again, and when I looked closer, I noticed that each picture had an extra tiny part to the caption. Plate A, said the first. Plate B, the second – something to do with the way it was printed in the olden days, maybe. I flicked forward fast, my fingers tingling. If the V meant volume five, might the O be the letter of a picture? Plate D, Plate F, Plate J, K, L… I quickly turned the pages and at last there it was. Plate O.

  They followed the breadcrumbs trail, but found themselves at the end.

  There was a drawing of a scared-looking Hansel and Gretel in the woods, bent to the ground while birds circled overhead.

  I was excited, but confused too. Worry nagged at me. Had I found the next clue? Was it just a picture and a caption? How was I supposed to work that out?

  Bones whined and stared at me, licking his muzzle. “In a minute, greedy,” I told him. “I’m thinking.”

  “Nathan?” I heard Mum’s tired voice calling. I quickly hid the Strum book in my pocket and went back downstairs, Bones clambering behind me.

  TELL NOBODY, NOT EVEN HER, the poster blared at me from the wall as I went into the front room to find her. Mum stood there bleary-eyed and still in her d
ressing gown, her face all pinched up. She peered at the clock on the mantelpiece. “God, how did it get to nearly lunchtime already? Are you OK, love?”

  “Fine,” I said, as casually as I could. Lying to Mum, all these secrets – I felt myself squirm.

  “Have there been any phone calls?” she asked.

  “No.”

  Mum looked grim and snatched up the phone handset. “Then I’m ringing Mr Edwards right now to find out what’s going on!” She went into the kitchen and I heard her talking to Dad’s solicitor – loud and getting louder. “But when will they tell us exactly what he’s supposed to have done?” Pause. “I know the law’s been toughened, but this waiting is hell!” Pause. “Well, as soon as you know anything, Sam, please…”

  “No fresh news,” said Mum, coming back into the front room. She thumped a couple of cushions straight and tossed them back on the settee.

  There were noises at the front door and Hannah walked in. “Dad?” she asked straightaway.

  “No fresh news,” said Mum again like she was a recording. “They’re still questioning him.” She moved over to Hannah and stroked her hair.

  Hannah looked at me, then looked away. “I’ve got a journalism assignment to do for college,” she mumbled, and went upstairs.

  Mum wandered into the kitchen and I heard her yank open the door of the freezer. “Mr Edwards said he wants to have a meeting with us this afternoon,” she called. “At his office on Fitzroy Street.”

  A meeting with the solicitor? It sounded a bit heavy. I tried to push away my panic and focus on the clue. I got the Strum book out of my pocket and stared hard at Plate O. They followed the breadcrumbs trail, but found themselves at the end.

  There was the sound of rummaging and tinkling ice from the kitchen, and then Mum asking me what I fancied for lunch, but I hardly heard her. An idea started forming in my head. I went over to the framed map on the wall by the Welsh dresser. It was a faded black ink thing, dated eighteen hundred and something, a map of the area…