February (15 page)
Authors: Gabrielle Lord
‘So where are you thinking?’ I asked.
‘I’m working at the zoo at the moment and I think it will probably be safe for both of us if we meet there. I can answer all your questions then.’
‘OK. When?’
‘Sunday, the 28th?’
It would have to do. I’d have to wait.
‘What time?’ I asked, impatient to meet her.
‘4:30? I’ll be finished up by then.’
‘Whereabouts?’
‘Do you know the sundial?’
I did. It was a famous meeting point at the zoo. ‘I’ll be there,’ I said.
She hung up and I put my mobile away. This woman had
known
Dad—had
seen
the drawings. I could feel hope returning. Maybe she’d helped
Dr Edmundson clear out Dad’s stuff. What did she have for me? My pulse was racing with excitement.
With every new piece of information, my dad’s secret was coming just that little bit closer … Despite the weak feeling my stomach cramps had left me, and the fury I’d felt earlier from the stone-throwing brats, in that moment I felt like I could deal with anything.
My mobile rang again and I snatched it up.
‘I’ve just seen your pic of that angel! The Ormond Angel! Now we have a real link to your family name,’ said Boges. ‘You have to get into the country as soon as you can and talk to that old great-uncle of yours before he takes off for the great landing strip in the sky!’
‘Yeah, you’re right. Although he might have flown there already.’
‘Not so, my man. He is still very much with us. Your mum mentioned him last time I saw her. She’d tried to contact him, hoping you’d turned up there.’
‘Then it’s just as well I didn’t.’
‘This Ormond Angel breakthrough is really something. However …’
I knew he was thinking of saying something about not trusting Winter. I didn’t want to hear it. Yeah, she’d done another disappearing act after the big reveal, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t going to tell him that.
‘So did you already know about this Piers dude?’ Boges asked.
‘Dad mentioned some relative of his, ages ago—a great, great-uncle or a distant cousin or something—who’d died in World War I. This must be him. You mightn’t be able to see the inscription along the bottom of the window in the photo I sent you, but it says he was killed in 1918.’
Boges whistled down the line. ‘Your dad must have found out about the stained glass window when he was in Ireland. But by the time he came back, he was too sick to follow it up. Or explain what it means for the DMO.’
‘So he drew the Angel,’ I said, almost thinking aloud, ‘and enclosed the drawing with that letter he wrote me. He
did
say he’d explain what it was about when he got home. He probably couldn’t wait to get back and check the memorial out, but he never got that chance. He drew it a second time—’ I said.
‘Because it’s really important,’ Boges interrupted. ‘I told you that already.’
I could hear the excitement in his voice ‘I’ll
go and research this Piers Ormond guy. If he was important enough to have the stained glass window dedicated to him, he must be important enough to have earned a mention somewhere else.’
‘Boges,’ I said, changing the subject, ‘I’m meeting the mystery woman on the 28th. The nurse who knew Dad.’
‘Jennifer Smith; I know who you’re talking about. How can you trust her after last time? You were pretty sure she’d set you up. She promised to deliver and then you were grabbed.’
‘I know she’s not Oriana de la Force, if that’s what you’re thinking. She talked about Dad in a way only an honest person could. And besides, I did all right last night—Winter Frey delivered the goods, and now we both know about Piers Ormond.’
‘I’m sorry, buddy, but I still don’t like the sound of her. You be careful. How do we know she hasn’t gone running straight back to Sligo?’
‘She’s known about that angel since she was a little kid. And as far as we know, she hasn’t told him about it. Otherwise he’d have recognised the Angel when he saw the drawing. Besides,’ I said, ‘she doesn’t even like Sligo. I don’t think she’s interested in helping him.’
‘That’s what she says.’
I pictured Winter and her intense, dark eyes and the way she looked at me so confidently, as if she had nothing to fear from me.
But Boges was right. I couldn’t know for sure.
‘So when can I see that Angel?’ Boges asked. ‘I can’t wait to get a decent look at it.’
‘Tomorrow? Around 12:30?’
‘Cool.’
The little girl who’d been on the swing at the other end of the park leapt off the seat and ran to her mum in a way that reminded me of Gabbi.
‘Boges, how’s Gabbi?’
‘Sorry, my man, there’s no news, but she’s still hanging on like a real fighter.’
My jaw tightened—I had to be strong for Gabbi’s sake. I couldn’t help but think of all the times I’d made her cry when she’d annoyed me. I used to run away from her and hide and she wouldn’t know where I was, and she’d fall in a heap on the floor and wail, thinking she’d been left all alone. I wished like anything that I’d been a better brother to her.
I was determined to somehow sneak into the intensive care ward and see her.
‘And Mum?’ I asked.
‘She called into our place again last night. I told her that I still didn’t know where you were. That was the truth–I didn’t know. You could have
been anywhere.’
‘Did she look all right?’
‘She’s really thin, and still kinda unfocused.
She’s not great, dude, but she’s just about moved out of your place now. Rafe’s around there most of the time, helping her pack up the house.’
My reaction to hearing about Rafe was so different from just a couple of weeks ago. At least now I knew he had good intentions, and would take care of Mum. I’d hoped that having the house in her name might have cheered her up.
‘There’s been a tough-looking guy hanging round my place,’ continued Boges. ‘Wears a red singlet. He’s tried to follow me a couple of times, too.’
‘Red singlet? With a Chinese symbol on it?’
‘You know him too?’
‘Boges, you’re gonna have to be even more careful than ever—he’s one of Sligo’s gorillas. Please make sure you’re never followed by him. If he gets hold of me, I’m a goner. Last time he had me he was shoving me into the oil tank.’
‘See? I told you that Winter Frey couldn’t be trusted,’ said Boges.
‘Huh? What’s she got to do with it?’
‘She’s part of the Sligo attempted murder club, dude. None of them have a conscience.’
‘If she’d betrayed me,’ I said, ‘Red Singlet
would already know where I was and not be hanging round your place trying to get a lead.’
Boges grunted. He knew I had a point.
Boges was already at the cenotaph when I arrived. He was standing there, staring up at the Angel, completely blown away.
‘That is an awesome angel!’ he said without taking his eyes off it. ‘It’s just like your dad drew.’
We stood together in the cool interior of the cenotaph. The bright sun shone brilliantly through the stained glass angel lighting the cement floor below with patches of colour—yellow and blue, red and green. We squinted our eyes and read the dedication to the fallen soldier.
Boges put his sunglasses on. ‘There’s something small beneath the gas mask. Something green and gold. Remember we thought that there was some sort of medal in your dad’s drawing?’
‘Yeah,’ I said, pulling the angel drawing out of the folder. ‘You can just make out an oval shape beneath the gas mask in the drawings as well.’
‘This guy was really unlucky,’ said Boges, ‘to be killed in the last year of the Great War.’
‘
Unlucky
seems to be something my family does well.’
‘If we follow the clues your dad left for us,’ Boges tapped the drawings, ‘the luck of the Ormonds will change for the better.’
‘I hope so, Boges.’
An astounding discovery
, my dad had said. Surely that would mean change for the better.
‘Thanks for keeping an eye on my family,’ I said as Boges was leaving.
‘Aw, it’s nothing. Your mum says she likes me visiting. She says that seeing me makes things feel more normal. You know, sometimes she is almost like her old self. You kind of see that knowing sparkle in her eye, but just as quickly as it appears it disappears.’
Boges started scratching his head. ‘I got here today by sneaking over Mrs Sadler’s back fence instead of walking out the front door. Don’t know how long it will take for them to wake up to me.’
Boges gave me his lunch and his money for the school excursion that day—a repeat visit to the observatory. Boges didn’t need an excursion as an excuse to go there.
‘Today I’d rather go to the library for free,’ he said, ‘and start digging around for information about Piers Ormond.’
‘Why did they call it
the great war
?’
‘There’d never been anything like it.’
Boges jumped back suddenly from the rusty gates.
‘What is it?’
He grabbed me and dragged me back inside. ‘Don’t look now but see that guy near the entrance to the park? I’m sure he’s the guy from the car that’s been scoping my place.’
‘Who? Red Singlet?’
‘No, another guy. I wasn’t sure if I was just being paranoid about this guy when I spotted him outside my house, but I think it’d be a little too much of a coincidence to run into him here in the park. He must have followed me,’ Boges started scratching his head again. ‘I thought I was careful. I’m so sorry, dude.’
‘Forget it. We’ll figure a way around this.’
I took a quick look and sure enough, there was a big guy lurking outside wearing a dark
suit jacket over a T-shirt, black jeans, sneakers and sunglasses.
‘If he comes over this way, he’ll see you,’ I said, looking round the edge of the cenotaph entrance. ‘And he’s got the place stitched up—there’s no other way out of here.’
A tall iron fence with seriously sharp-looking, spear-like tops surrounded the park. There was no way anyone’d be able to get over that, let alone Boges.
I thought fast. ‘It’s
you
he’s been told to follow,’ I said. ‘Chances are that even though he
thinks
he knows what I look like, I’m very different from how I look in the photos on TV and the papers.’
I pictured the clean-cut schoolboy photo on the police poster I’d seen while waiting for Winter the other night. I sure didn’t look like that anymore.
‘I’ll go straight up to him. That would be the last thing he’d expect a fugitive to do. I’ll distract him while you go round behind him. By the time he works out he’s lost you, it’ll be too late.’
‘Got a light, Mister?’ I asked, sidling up to the big man. ‘
Disappear, kid,’ he snarled from behind his wraparound sunglasses.
‘How about a dollar then, Mister?’
I was dimly aware of Boges making a wide arc around the park and heading for the entrance behind the big stooge who was scowling and trying to pretend I wasn’t there.
‘Come on,’ I said, ‘just one dollar. That’s not much to ask from a guy like you, is it?’
‘Get away from me!’ He lunged at me but I was ready for him, and ducked out of his reach.
He tried to grab me again and this time I started running. I could see Boges slipping past behind him and out of the park, quickly vanishing up the lane and around the corner onto the main road.
The big stooge stopped coming after me and swore from a distance before turning around and heading towards the cenotaph building.
He had disappointment coming his way.
But then I saw him stop, turn back and look at me. He pointed at me, pulled out his mobile and then began walking away.
I tried to control my puffed-out breath before I stepped into an internet café. I wondered what the big man in the suit jacket was doing now.
He’d recognised me, I was pretty sure, and now he was probably letting Sligo know that I was in the area. I took a quick look around. The place was crowded but I found a free desk and chair and I logged on, all the time keeping a watch out the window to the street. I’d have to move on quickly.
I knew there was a back door where the toilets were, so if anyone came in here after me, I could be out the door and over the fence at the back in triple-quick time.
I pulled out one of Boges’s sandwiches. Mrs Michalko had used some kind of sausage stuff I’d never eaten before, and I wolfed it down without thinking too much about it. As I had a look around the desk for a piece of scrap paper to make notes on, I found something that set my heart racing yet again … a sticker on the hard drive next to me with my face on it! It was like a smaller version of the poster I’d seen a few days ago, only it had some internet café alert, and something about my blog address, and a more recent picture of me from a security camera! I instantly shut my computer down and prepared for a hasty exit.
As I stood up from my chair and glanced around me I saw that the stickers were everywhere!
On every computer! On the desks! On the walls! In front of every single person in there!
I was out the back door and over the fence like a blur.
