Eye Spy (9 page)

On Sunday afternoon I got the chance I'd been waiting for to search for some more information about our mother. Nan was out on a cleaning job, and Donna had gone off to the cinema to meet Jason. “If Nan asks where I am, tell her I'm with Em,” she'd said before she left. Nan would throw a fit if she found out Donna was with Jason. She'd made it plain she thought thirteen was too young to go on dates. Donna was taking a huge risk and I had an uneasy feeling today was going to end badly for her, but I didn't say anything because if anyone gives her advice, she always does the opposite.

Dad was out, too. He'd disappeared soon after breakfast without saying where he was going. If he came back unexpectedly and caught me snooping, I'd be in big trouble, but for once I didn't care. I couldn't rest until I'd solved the whole mystery about our mother. I would have preferred to have Donna with me, but even if she hadn't been going out with Jason, she'd made it plain on Friday that she wasn't yet ready to confront the truth about our parents.

I started by taking out the packet of letters and re-reading them to see if they suggested any further lines of enquiry. We'd only glanced through them on Thursday, so we could have missed something useful.

Dad spent a lot of time reminding Annie of all the things they had done together. Perhaps he thought that remembering the good times would make her change her mind. And they had had some good times by the sound of it. They'd gone to Crete one year, and they'd spent their honeymoon in Paris. Now, you need a passport to go abroad, and to get a passport you need a birth certificate. I knew that, because we'd both had to apply for passports last year when we went on a school trip to France. And passports contained photos…

I mentally surveyed the house, trying to think of further places to look for old documents. We'd exhausted all the likely places downstairs the day we found the letters. If you ruled out my room, Donna's room and the bathroom (where there was nowhere to hide anything), that left Nan's room, Dad's room and the attic. I thought Dad was more likely to have documents relating to his marriage than Nan, so I decided to start with his room.

It was ages since I'd been in Dad's bedroom, and as I looked round, it suddenly hit me how bare it was. It was almost like a prison cell. The only furniture was a bed, a chest of drawers, and a small wardrobe. There wasn't even a carpet, just a rug covering the uneven floorboards. It made me feel depressed, and I wondered if it had the same effect on him.

It didn't take long to search Dad's room, but even though I looked under the mattress and on top of the wardrobe, I couldn't find any documents. So I went upstairs to the second floor, where Donna's room and the attic room next door were squeezed underneath the eaves.

When I switched on the light in the attic, I almost gave up there and then, because there was just so much stuff. Dad never let Nan throw anything away in case one day it might come in useful, and the room was crammed with junk. I decided my only option was to start at the front and work my way to the back.

An hour and a half later, I'd almost given up hope of finding anything when I came across a couple of bags of old clothes. The clothes in the bags were from when we were babies. I lifted up the bags, and underneath was a battered shoebox. Even before I opened it, I knew I'd found what I was looking for. I shivered with excitement, but now that the moment had come, I was also terrified of what I might find. I lifted the lid and there they were: a marriage certificate, two birth certificates and two passports. As I knelt on the dusty floor, reading the certificates and looking at the passports, I realised I had the answers to all my questions, and a few more besides.

But now I knew the truth, I wished that I could turn back time and leave all the secrets undiscovered, because the very last person I would have chosen for my mother was Diane Fairchild.

********

Donna didn't get home until half past nine. Dad was still out, and Nan and I were watching television, but neither of us was paying much attention to what was happening on the screen. Nan always insisted we were home by nine o'clock, so as the minutes ticked by and there was still no sign of Donna, she got more and more fidgety. She was just about to ring Emerald's home number when we heard Donna's key in the lock.

Donna poked her head round the sitting room door, and before Nan could even open her mouth she said, “Sorry I'm late. I left my watch at home.”

Nan snorted. “Don't they have any clocks at Emerald's? Next time I want you back at nine. Understood?”

“Yes, Nan. Sorry. I've got a bad headache, so I'm going straight to bed.”

Nan sighed, but all she said was, “OK, pet. I'll see you in the morning.”

I wondered if Donna really had a headache, or if she was just miserable because the date with Jason had gone wrong. I hoped not, because the last person I wanted to talk about was Jason. I was desperate to tell her the amazing truth about our mother.

I told Nan I was tired and wanted an early night. She looked at me suspiciously but didn't comment. Once upstairs, I tried the handle of Donna's door. It was locked. “Donna!” I hissed. “Let me in. I need to talk to you!”

After a moment a muffled voice said, “Go away.”

“What's up?”

Silence.

“Donna?”

I heard a hiccup. “It's none of your business. Leave me alone.”

I cursed Jason silently. He'd chosen exactly the wrong time to upset her. It would be hopeless trying to discuss anything serious with her when she was in a state, so I reluctantly gave up and went to bed.

That night I couldn't sleep again. I tossed and turned for what seemed like hours, trying to come to terms with what I'd discovered. It wasn't just the fact that she had abandoned us when we were babies. The worst thing was that now she was having another child, who would have the sort of life we'd never had: two parents, a house that was much bigger than our little cottage, and all the toys it could ever want. It just wasn't fair.

As for Donna, I didn't like to think what she would do when she found out –
if
she found out. I didn't have to tell her, but she always knows when I'm keeping something from her. She'd worm it out of me eventually. What I needed most of all now was someone to confide in, and there wasn't anyone else.

When I did eventually fall asleep, I was awakened almost immediately by the sound of the front door being quietly opened and shut. I squinted blearily at the luminous numbers on my alarm clock. It was after one in the morning. Where had Dad been all that time, I wondered, before I finally drifted off to sleep, too tired to worry about anything anymore.

In the morning everyone overslept, even Nan, and in the rush to get ready for school there wasn't time to chat. It wasn't until we were both hurrying along the road towards Lea Green that I had an opportunity to talk to Donna. It wasn't the best time to break momentous news, but I felt I had to try.

“Slow down a minute, Donna,” I panted. “I need to talk to you.”

She didn't slow her pace for a second. “Can't it wait? Right now I don't feel like talking.”

I tried being sympathetic, but I wasn't really in the mood. “Did Jason do something to upset you? Is that what this is all about?”

She stopped then, and glared at me. “OK. Since you insist. I thought it was only going to be him and me, but when I got to the cinema I found he'd invited Cat Williams along too. It was awful. When she wasn't whispering in his ear, she was making sly digs about my clothes and my hair. I wanted to scratch her eyes out!”

“And what was Jason doing while Cat was making fun of you?” I asked.

“That's the worst thing of all! He thought the whole situation was hilarious. I hate him! I never want to see him again!”

She set off again towards Lea Green, but not before I'd seen a tear roll down her cheek. As I followed her down the road I imagined Jason playing the two girls off against each other. He'd done the same thing at the poker game. I'd tried to warn her, but as usual she hadn't listened. Now, when I needed to talk to her abut something important, she was in no mood to listen, and it was all Jason's fault.

My first lesson that day was French, but it might as well have been Martian for all it meant to me. As the teacher's voice receded into the background, I started to run through in my mind the various ways I could break the news about Diane Fairchild to Donna. English followed French, and concentrating on what Mr Cohen was saying was impossible.

By that time Donna and Emerald, who had been to their Spanish lesson, had rejoined the class. I noticed they stayed well away from Jason, who in turn was doing his best to ignore Donna. By the time the bell rang for break, I felt as if I was going to explode into a thousand pieces with the effort of keeping everything to myself. I couldn't put it off any longer. I had to tell her now.

As Donna and Emerald made a beeline for the door, I grabbed her arm and drew her aside. “Come outside. I need to talk to you.”

She gave an exaggerated sigh. “Oh, all
right!
Anything to shut you up!” She turned to Em. “See you in a sec.”

As we sat down on one of the benches overlooking the playing fields, it began to drizzle.

“So what's up?” she asked. “And hurry up about it. I'm getting wet.”

Now the moment of truth had come, I suddenly found I couldn't get my words out.

She looked at me closely. “You're holding out on me, little brother! Come on, what is it?”

Donna always calls me ‘little brother' when she wants to provoke me, because she knows I'm sensitive about being shorter than her. It works every time.

“OK,” I said, goaded. “But you're not going to like what you hear.” I took a deep breath, then said, “I've found out who our mother is.”

“And who is she, then? And don't tell me it's Miss Loveless Lovelace, because I won't believe you.”

“It's not a joke, Donna.”

“Seriously, then, who is she?”

I took a deep breath and stared at Donna miserably as I told her, “Our mother is Diane Fairchild. Managing Director of Holtech.”

Donna gasped. She went silent for a few minutes as it sank in. Then she said, “Are you sure?”

I nodded. “I found the marriage certificate, and our birth certificates. It's there in black and white. I also found her old passport. She looked just like you do now when she was younger.”

“But she's blonde…”

“She must have dyed her hair. Maybe it was all part of making a fresh start.”

Donna was staring at her hands, clasped tightly together in her lap. “It all makes sense now,” she said slowly. “Of course Dad wouldn't go to Holtech with his robot; he wouldn't want to risk her rejecting him a second time. Oh, Alex, she must have known who we were when we talked to her in the car park! She must have guessed we were talking about one of Dad's inventions.”

Her eyes widened suddenly. I could read her changing expression and I knew exactly what she was going to say.

“Hey, wait a minute! She's pregnant! She dumped us because she wasn't the maternal sort, and now she's having a baby? How
could
she?”

I'd always known that was the thing that would upset Donna more than anything else. I was upset too, but I couldn't show it. Instead, I got flippant. “Hey, come on! It's not all bad. You always wanted a baby brother or sister. Maybe she'll let you babysit…”

The minute the words were out of my mouth, I knew I'd said the wrong thing, but by then it was too late. Donna leapt to her feet, glaring at me. “It's not funny!” she shouted. “It's not! I hate her! How could she do this to us?”

“Donna…” I began, but before I had a chance to say any more, she was up and running back towards the school buildings. I sat on the bench for a few minutes more, getting slowly colder and wetter and cursing myself for saying the wrong thing. Then the bell rang for the end of break and I reluctantly got up and went back indoors.

Our next lesson was Biology. You can always tell what sort of weekend the teachers have had by their mood on Monday. It was a safe bet Mr Owen hadn't enjoyed himself, because he was in a foul temper. The first person in his line of fire was Donna, who didn't know the answers to either of the questions he asked her. He scowled at her. “Clearly you haven't done your homework, Donna. Perhaps you would care to tell us just what you did do over the weekend to prevent you doing your schoolwork.”

I looked anxiously at Donna. It wasn't wise to goad her when she was in one of her moods. She smiled sweetly at Mr Owen and said, “I did some research into our family tree.”

“Oh, you did, did you? And was it enlightening?”

Donna's smile widened. “Very. I'm hoping to do some more later.”

“Not before you've spent an hour in detention studying the chapters you should have read over the weekend!” thundered Mr Owen. “Now, Emerald, let's see if you know the answers your friend so obviously doesn't.”

I heaved a sigh of relief; at least she hadn't lost her temper with Mr Owen. On the other hand, what had she meant by ‘doing some more research later'? That sounded ominous. I couldn't ask her until the lesson was over, and in the meantime there was no way I could concentrate on the workings of the digestive system. My own system felt distinctly dodgy, as I went over and over the events of the last few days in my mind, and wondered what Donna was planning.

At midday, as we filed out of the Science room and headed for the IT suite, I looked around for Donna, but I couldn't see her anywhere. Miss Wren, who was head-counting us as we came through the door, had noticed it too.

“We're one short,” she said. “Who's missing?” She looked round the class quickly and her eye fell on me. “Ah, yes. It's Donna. Alex, where is she?”

“I don't know, miss.”

“Go and see if you can find her.”

“Yes, miss,” I said as I went out into the corridor. No need to panic yet, I told myself. She's probably hiding in the toilets. If Mr Owen had really got to her, maybe she was venting her anger by adding a particularly juicy piece of anti-Owen graffiti to the toilet walls. I knocked loudly on the door. “Come on, Donna,. Miss Wren's getting impatient!”

Silence. I looked round to check that nobody could see me, then I stuck my head round the door. All the cubicle doors were open, and the place was empty.

I paused, wondering where to look next. Then, through a window to my left, I caught a glimpse of a figure in a blazer hurrying across the tarmac. Even at that distance, I could tell it was Donna. What was she playing at? I hesitated, wondering whether to go after her. I watched her go through the gates and head off down the road. She wasn't going home; that was in the opposite direction. The school was in a cul-de-sac that ended at the entrance to the industrial estate. And then it hit me where she was going, what the ‘further family research' was. She was going to Holtech to confront Diane Fairchild.

I ran down the corridor towards the stairs. Behind me, I heard a door open and Miss Wren's voice calling, “Alex! Where are you going?”

“To find Donna, miss!” I yelled over my shoulder. Then I put all my energy into getting out of the school and catching up with Donna.

I finally drew level with her at the entrance to the industrial estate.

“Hey, Donna!” I gasped, clutching the stitch in my side. “What are you doing?”

She didn't stop, but she slowed down a bit. “Go back,” she said. “I can do this on my own.”

I was furious. “Oh no, you can't! She's my mother too, remember? If you're going to confront her, I want to be there too.”

“Suit yourself,” she shrugged.

By now, we'd passed all the smaller industrial units and were approaching a huge complex of buildings surrounded by a sea of cars. A massive board announced ‘HOLTECH SYSTEMS' in luminous letters. Underneath it was another smaller board saying ‘ADMINISTRATION BLOCK' and an arrow pointing to a building with shiny blue ribbed-steel cladding that looked like a metallic woodlouse. It was straight out of a sci-fi movie.

We walked into the administration block through automatic doors that closed silently behind us. I wondered if they'd open as easily when we wanted to leave. We were in a large reception area, but the receptionist's desk was deserted. From behind a pair of large doors opposite we could hear voices and then some applause. Donna walked purposefully towards the doors and peered through the crack. After looking over my shoulder to check we were still alone, I followed her. There appeared to be some sort of meeting going on.

It was fitted out like a lecture theatre, with rows of chairs all facing in one direction. Seated at a table at one end, flanked by a couple of young men in sharp suits, was Diane Fairchild, and on the chairs were a lot of men and women with notebooks and cameras. The cameras were clicking away at regular intervals, and right at the back of the room a man with a camcorder was filming the proceedings. I guessed it was some sort of press conference.

“…at the moment our profits are up and we are expanding our product range,” Diane was saying. “The future looks rosy for Holtech.”

A hand went up. “Miss Fairchild, your company has just won an award for innovation. How do you plan to keep Holtech ahead of its rivals?”

“I shall carry on doing what I've been doing ever since I became Managing Director two years ago: produce quality products at competitive prices and continue to encourage innovation.” She paused, then smiled suddenly. “Why, only last week I came across a design idea that could take Holtech into completely new territory! I forecast a bright future for our company.”

Did she mean Dad's robot? If she was really interested, it was crucial that Donna didn't sabotage things by making a scene.

Just then one of the smart young men whispered in Diane's ear, and she started to wind up the meeting. “One last question before I go.” A sea of hands shot up, and she pointed to a man in the front row. “You, sir!”

“Miss Fairchild, how do you plan to combine your business career with becoming a mother?”

“Oh, that's all settled. Lionel has no old-fashioned ideas about a woman's place being in the home. He's looking forward to playing a large part in bringing up our child.”

More laughter. Then she stood, indicating the meeting was over. People began to get up and move towards the exit. At the same moment I heard a door open behind us, and when I turned round there was an angry-looking woman with silver-blue hair hurrying towards us. “Excuse me!” she began.

I propelled Donna forwards, and as the doors opened fully to let out the exiting reporters, we thrust ourselves into their midst. Donna was heading for the far end of the hall where Diane Fairchild still stood, talking to her two employees, but we were swimming against the tide of people and by the time we'd pushed our way through the crowd, she'd gone.

“Where now?” I gasped.

Donna pointed to a door in front of us. “There! That's the only other way out.”

We went through the door and found ourselves in a corridor with a thick carpet and lots of doors opening off it. We'd just reached the door marked ‘MANAGING DIRECTOR' when the woman with the silver-blue hair appeared at the opposite end of the corridor.

“There they are!” she cried in ringing tones. I turned round to look for an escape route, and came face to face with a burly security man. We were cornered.