Missing, Believed Crazy Page 6

  ‘’Ere, you.’ I pointed at her, like some tough guy on TV. ‘Shut it!’

  That was when the three of us lost it. We couldn’t stop laughing for about five minutes.

  Wiki was falling about so much that his dark glasses misted up. When he took them off, his cheeks were wet with tears.

  At that moment he looked so different from the speccy nerd I thought I knew at Cathcart that I started wondering how he had got into this. Holly and the Beanpole were Trix’s best friends, I was up for a little adventure with Godfather Gideon. The mystery was Wiki.

  I asked him where he had told his parents he was going. That wiped the smile off his face.

  ‘I told them I’m staying with you.’

  ‘Me?’ I laughed. ‘But we’re not even friends . . . I mean, we hardly know each other.’

  ‘I know we’re not friends,’ he said. ‘But you’re the sort of person my mother always hoped I’d meet at Cathcart. Someone who’s all the things I’m not.’

  ‘Yeah?’ I nodded. That made sense.

  ‘If they want to contact me, they’ll call my mobile. It might be an idea for you to talk to them.’

  I shrugged. ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘I’m good at snowing parents.’

  WIKI

  We had been travelling two hours and maybe it was the excitement, but I was beginning to feel in need of the lavatory.

  I pulled back the little window behind Godfather Gideon’s head.

  ‘Mr Burrowes,’ I said, ‘I was wondering if I could have a comfort break.’

  For some reason, Trix and Mark started to laugh.

  ‘A comfort break?’ he said. ‘Is that what they call it these days?’

  ‘He means he wants to take a pee, Gideon,’ said Mark.

  ‘Thank you, Mark. I worked that out for myself. I’ll stop at the next service station.’

  Suddenly Trix was whispering in Mark’s ear.

  GODFATHER GIDEON

  I suppose it should have occurred to me that something was going on when Mark suggested that, if we had to stop, it should be at a small village garage.

  On the other hand, the reason that he gave made perfect sense. Those motorway service stations are riddled with cameras, he said. Every one of them was sending back images to the government.

  When my godson was small, I had told him how the government is watching us every minute of the day. Until then, I had rather thought he had taken the information as some kind of joke. I was delighted that he was beginning to understand the kind of thing I had been talking about.

  WIKI

  Here’s a tip for anyone planning to do a kidnapping: take sandwiches.

  By the time we were off the motorway and heading into the mountains of Wales, we were starving. Godfather Gideon had bought himself some chocolate at the filling station but, to our surprise and disappointment, he ate every bit himself.

  ‘Godfather Gideon believes in self-sufficiency,’ Mark explained. These words were destined to haunt us in the future.

  JADE

  The holiday in Italy: it was not a blast.

  The elements were there from the moment we arrived.

  Sun, scenery, swimming pool? Check.

  Ice-cold juice from freshly squeezed oranges? Yep.

  Not too many adults around asking how school was and have we any ideas about careers? No problemo.

  But as we lay there in the sun, sipping squash and soaking up the sun, all we could think of was what was going down back in England. It was V Day and we were catching some rays beside a swimming pool.

  HOLLY

  Secretly, both of us were hoping that something would go wrong. Maybe Wiki would mess up or Mark would blab to an adult.

  But deep in our hearts we knew. We’re talking about Trix Johansson-Bell here, the one and only TJB. When she puts her mind to something, it’s going to happen.

  WIKI

  ‘It’s relaxed and it’s not relaxed,’ Mark said about Hill Farm, where his godfather lived.

  ‘The house is like this kind of brambled-up hideaway in the hillside,’ he said, trying again. ‘Being there is like becoming a wild animal.’

  ‘A wild animal? What are you talking about, Mark?’ said Trix.

  ‘I can’t explain,’ said Mark. ‘I’m not very good at explanations.’

  Trix sighed and looked out of the window. ‘Tell me something I don’t know,’ she muttered.

  We climbed higher. At first, when the taxi came to a halt on a steep incline, I thought that it had broken down. Then we turned sharp left up a bumpy little track with trees crowding in on both sides.

  After 200 metres the taxi trundled into a sort of grove.

  ‘That’s it,’ said Mark, pointing to a larger-than-usual bramble patch. Looking more closely, I saw that beneath the undergrowth was a house. As we drew closer, I noticed that the front door was open. From the darkness inside, a cat appeared as if it owned the place, then wandered off into the grass.

  Gideon switched off the engine, stepped out of the cab and, without even glancing in our direction, walked into the house.

  We got out and looked around. There was no other place in sight but, to one side of Hill Farm, there was a barn and some sheds. We walked through the open door into a large, dusty kitchen.

  Gideon had taken a mug from a large stack of unwashed dishes in the sink, and busied himself with the kettle, making a cup of tea.

  We stood uneasily in the centre of the room, looking around us. The pots and pans in the kitchen, the ancient old cooker, were like something out of a history project.

  ‘I’ll show you around,’ Mark said. ‘Is that all right, Gideon?’

  ‘Hm?’ He poured some boiling water into his cup. ‘Oh, right. Make yourselves at home. I’ve got to catch up on some work.’

  And he was out of the door and gone.

  ‘Your godfather seems in a bit of a bad mood,’ said Trix.

  ‘He lives in a world of his own,’ said Mark. ‘Which is a good thing, right?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Trix. She looked at her watch. ‘I wonder if the news has broken.’

  ‘We could check on TV,’ I said.

  Mark winced. ‘What TV is that?’ he said.

  MARK

  I began to worry about the TV thing. Gideon’s weird ideas about the government watching us had helped us so far, but his belief that televisions were cameras in disguise looked as if it was going to be a problem.

  Eventually, rooting about in the attic of the house, I found a small black and white set with its own little aerial. When I asked Gideon about it, he told me he had bought it when he was a student. At first he refused to let us try it out but, when I promised that we would leave it in the attic, where nothing could be revealed to government spies, he agreed.

  It worked – just. When, the day after we arrived, the three of us gathered in the darkness to look at the small, fuzzy black and white images on the tiny screen, it was as if we had gone back in time and were like a gang of children in some ancient storybook.

  We watched the news again and again. There was nothing about Trix.

  WIKI

  Five weird things about the countryside:

  1. The noise. No one warns you about this. Birds start singing their beaks off while it’s still dark in the morning. I’m a light sleeper, and after a couple of days I was missing life at home in the city. At least you can get a decent night’s sleep there.

  2. It’s impossible to relax. Gideon was up as soon as it was light and spent most of the day in his work-shed. When he came out, there was always something he had to do – collect eggs from the hens, dig up vegetables, fetch logs, fix up a piece of machinery. Soon he got us at it too. Mark had to cut some long grass with his scythe. I was weeding the vegetable patch. Trix was filling in potholes in the drive. This was not how I imagined our great adventure panning out.

  3. It’s smelly. In the house it was the cats. Outside it was the cattle. In the country different types of lavatory smells are wafting aro
und all the time.

  4. You talk quite a lot. Because there were no computers, and at first no TV, the three of us ended up talking to one another. It took a bit of getting used to.

  5. It’s very, very violent. Hardly an hour goes by in the country without some creature dying a horrible death. It might be a mouse, caught by one of the cats, or a rat in one of Gideon’s traps. On the second day we were there, he discovered that we didn’t have any dinner. He wandered out of the kitchen, there was a squawk from nearby and he came back with this chicken hanging from his hand, still twitching.

  ‘I’m going to be sick,’ said Trix.

  Gideon allowed a rare smile to cross his face. ‘Who wants to learn how to pluck and gut a hen?’ he asked.

  Trix pursed her lips and gave Gideon the evil eye. ‘Pluck? Gut? That’s disgusting.’

  ‘No supper for you then?’ Gideon asked.

  Trix frowned. That was another thing about the country. It made you hungry all the time.

  ‘It’s just so uncivilized,’ Trix muttered.

  Mark caught my eye and we began laughing. I had to admit that away from Cathcart College, Mark Bliss was almost all right.

  GODFATHER GIDEON

  I have never been able to grasp the concept of holidays. Sit around, stare into space, yawn, scratch your bum – but why? Surely everybody knows that doing nothing is far more tiring than working. There was no possible way that I could look after the children – I was already late with an order from Canada for a bowed rocker made from black walnut.

  So I encouraged Mark and his two friends to explore the place.

  And here was a bit of a surprise: it was the black kid with specs, the one they called ‘Wiki’, who was quickest to understand the point of living in the countryside. He spent most of the day outside. Then, that evening, I noticed he was looking through my books about birds and trees.

  HOLLY

  I’ll be honest. I was not totally thrilled that Trix had destroyed my holiday. I love Tuscany. The villa is unbelievable. I see the weeks there as my reward for putting up with Cathcart all year. Even my parents manage to chill after a few days, although my father spends an hour worshipping the great god of BlackBerry every morning.

  At first we would sneak off to the media room now and then to check on the news channels whether there had been anything about a kidnapping in London. By the second day, we were beginning to assume that, perhaps thanks to a late burst of sanity, the plan had been abandoned.

  Late that afternoon I said to Jade as she lay in the sun, ‘Maybe we should check the news on TV.’

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘There could be something about Trix.’

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘On the other hand, we could just turn over, toast our other side and forget about it for a while.’

  ‘Mm.’

  What could I say?

  JADE

  Here’s the thing. Africa’s a long way from Italy.

  At that moment Holly and I were having pretty much the same thought.

  Maybe nothing had happened back in England. Maybe we’d forget the deal we cut with Trix to come home two days after the news broke about the kidnap. Maybe we wouldn’t go home after all. Maybe we’d pretend not to have seen the news. Maybe something really important would turn up which meant we had to stay on holiday.

  Tell you what. We’d sleep on it and see how we felt in the morning.

  EVA JOHANSSON

  I’ll never forget that day. It was late morning when the big news came through.

  I was in line for a part in a major production starring Jennifer Lopez! With a megastar on board, Hollywood studios were taking the project seriously. I had been through a bad run recently – even my agent wasn’t returning my calls – but that morning I sensed that my luck was about to change. I had once met Jenny (as she likes to be called). Maybe she could have a word about me to the casting director.

  But then, an hour or so later, another call came through and suddenly the idea of appearing in a major international production began to seem almost insignificant.

  My daughter was missing. No one had seen her for two days. It was a mother’s worst nightmare.

  As the police said later, luck was against us. When Trix had first disappeared, I was in the air, flying to Los Angeles. Then the summer camp she was meant to be attending only left a message on my landline number – as if busy people can wait by the phone all day! No one thought to call the Drunk, Trix’s father (or maybe I forgot to leave his number with the camp – I can’t think of everything).

  Then I had been tied up with the possibility of appearing with Jenny on screen and had not been taking calls. It was bad, bad timing.

  PETE BELL

  It was late afternoon when the bell rang. It had been a rough week and, after a long night, the phone had been off the hook. When I opened the door, a dark-haired man and a woman were standing there. One glance, and I could tell they were coppers. In my business, you develop a sixth sense for these things.

  They said that Eva had given them my address; that they needed to talk to me about my daughter. I invited them into my flat. I could tell they weren’t exactly impressed by the state of it.

  DETECTIVE INSPECTOR BARRY CARTWRIGHT

  Mr Peter Bell, the girl’s father, lived in what I would call a ‘disordered’ state. Dishes in the sink, full ashtrays, empty bottles. His breath stank of whisky although it was teatime when I paid him a visit.

  After five minutes it was clear that he would be unable to help us. He hadn’t seen his daughter for over a month and didn’t even realize she was meant to be at a summer camp.

  Normally, a father in this kind of condition, with a chaotic lifestyle, might have been a suspect, but it was difficult to take that idea seriously. How could a man who forgot to shave, couldn’t remember the date of his only child’s birthday and had his fly buttons undone throughout the entire police interview be organized enough to arrange a kidnapping?

  The only mystery in my mind is how on earth this sad character could have been married to a beautiful and successful woman like Eva Johansson.

  PETE BELL

  I need a drink. That was my first thought after the cops had left. I always need a drink, it’s true, but now I really needed a drink.

  How could this happen? How could someone as strong and independent as Trix be snatched from the street and disappear? It didn’t make sense. Of all the people I know, she is the least likely to be a victim.

  I rang Trix’s mother. She was too upset to speak to me. (I noticed later that she wasn’t too upset to talk to the press.)

  The phone began ringing the next day. Journalists. I answered their questions as best I could. By then, thanks to the whisky, I wasn’t thinking too straight.

  WIKI

  Two days, three days. Nothing.

  Later we discovered that it had taken time for word of Trix’s kidnapping to reach her mother and that the police had kept it quiet for another twenty-four hours.

  We, of course, were panicking.

  ‘I may not mean much, but you’d think someone would notice that I had gone missing,’ Trix said as we walked around Godfather Gideon’s three small fields for about the hundredth time. She was only half joking.

  Then, on the evening of the third day, while Gideon was working in his shed, we climbed the ladder to the attic and gathered around the TV for the early evening news.

  First item. We were looking at a photograph of Trix.

  ‘There is growing concern following the disappearance of a schoolgirl three days ago,’ the newsreader said in the worried voice that means really bad news is on its way. ‘Fourteen-year-old Trixie Bell was last seen outside Paddington Station, from where she was due to catch a train to a summer camp. Witnesses say that she was snatched by men using a London taxi. Trixie is the daughter of the actress Eva Johansson, who is married to the prominent sports agent Jason Everleigh.’

  ‘Trixie!’ Trix muttered. ‘I haven’t been called that since
I was seven.’

  There was some film of the street where the kidnap had taken place. Then a policeman was interviewed in front of a crowd of reporters.

  ‘It does appear that this young girl was taken against her will,’ he said. ‘Trixie’s parents are currently in Los Angeles and are returning to England at this moment in time. We would ask anyone with information as to the whereabouts of Trixie Bell to contact our incident room as a matter of urgency.’

  A number appeared on the screen.

  ‘Why has news of this only emerged today?’ one of the journalists called out.

  The policeman hesitated. ‘We are giving no further details of this case until we have interviewed the parents of the missing girl.’ Several of the reporters tried to ask other questions.

  ‘However,’ the policeman continued, ‘it does seem that there was a problem of communication, which has delayed our investigations.’ He looked into the camera. ‘I would repeat that anyone who can help us with our enquiries should contact us – in confidence, if necessary.’

  The news report switched to America, where Trix’s mum and stepfather were filmed at an airport. Escorted by three serious-looking men in suits, they were making their way towards the check-in desk. Both looked pale and wore dark glasses.