Lula Does the Hula (15 page)

‘Mr Brewster?’ I called, but there was no answer from inside the crashed and smashed shack. Bits and pieces of broken wood were strewn about the tiny area, the roof had fallen in and it didn’t look like anyone could ever have lived there.

‘Wait here,’ said Jack, and he stepped forward carefully. As he went he snapped pictures with a tiny digital camera. He took a few of what was once the inside, standing just under the roof, then put his camera away and pulled out a palm-sized camcorder. He filmed all around the area, then
called, ‘Mr Brewster?’ to the surrounding area.

Nothing stirred.

He walked back over to me. ‘We need to let the police know about this.’ He gestured to the chaos behind us. ‘It must have happened today, yesterday maybe, otherwise they would have seen it when they were searching for Emily Saunders.’

‘That means getting into trouble. We’re not allowed up here, Jack.’

‘Yeah, but we are wearing overshoes.’ Jack pointed to the showercap-like plastic bags on our feet.

I gave him a look.

‘Yep. We’re going to have to get into trouble,’ he sighed.

‘Unless we do the anonymous tip-off thing,’ I suggested.

Jack nodded thoughtfully. ‘The anonymous tip-off thing is good. That’ll give us time to get this stuff analysed. You said Forest will help?’

‘He said it’s good I asked him for help – he’s the best in his class. I just can
not
imagine him being a biotechnician. Someone so big doing something so microscopic.’

‘Hey, he’s second-year now and they’ve been doing soil analysis for two terms already. If I have to hear one more time about how Richard Murphy put his poo under the ’scope, I –’

Suddenly I heard something. ‘Jack! What was that?’

He listened. ‘What?’

‘Do you hear a truck? A big car or something?’

Jack listened again. ‘Sounds far away.’

I listened. The noise had stopped. ‘So, once Forest’s results come back, and if it
is
bird flu?’

‘Everything gets incinerated.’

I thought with a pang of something small and fluffy in my pocket. It was time to tell Jack, even though I knew he’d try to make me leave it behind. I wondered if bird flu were treatable, if –

‘IT’S JUST UP HERE.’

Jack and I were shocked into instant action. We scrambled up the boulders to the west of the shack and squeezed behind a bush overlooking Parcel Brewster’s destroyed home.

‘Keep your voice down!’ The words were fiercely whispered. It sent goosebumps shivering across my skin and made my hands turn to ice.

‘Who is that?’ I mouthed to Jack.

He shrugged and put his finger to his lips, then pulled out the camcorder.

Oh boy. Boodle was still at the dam. Please, please let her just stay still and quiet.

‘There’s no need to whisper now,’ came the first voice, someone young.

‘Just keep it down!’

‘The old man is dead. Dead as dead. And no one’s going
to come here for weeks because of the bird-flu story. Our problems are over.’

I shot a look at Jack, and his eyes, though glued to the camcorder, were as wide as mine.

‘My problems will be over when you’ve cleared away this mess,’ said the second voice, a much older man. He cleared his throat and spat. ‘It’s bad enough we’ve had to wait an entire day to sort this out. I knew I should have done the whole job on my own. Were you even sober last night? We said take him out
quietly
, yeah, but you end up tearing down his house to get to him?’

‘Sometimes plans don’t go according to plan.’

‘And then I end up having to finish it off, don’t I?’

‘But –’

‘Shut up, you idiot.’

Two silhouettes came into view against the night sky. They grunted their way up to the level ground where the shack was and dropped some empty bags at their feet. Soon both of them were piling things into the bags. As soon as one was full, they’d hurl it over the edge where it landed far below on the sandy beach of Frey’s Dam.

When the first one hit the ground, there was a sharp bark that cut the air.

‘What the hell was that?’ asked the older man.

‘Just a fox, probably,’ said his companion, but he kept just as still as the old guy. There was a rustling in the
undergrowth and another bark.

Boodle
, I thought desperately, tingling with dread all over,
please stay still! Please, please don’t move!

‘You hear anything else?’ whispered the old man at last.

‘It was a fox,’ said his companion. ‘For sure. I know the wild.’

The older guy snorted and they both began filling bags again. ‘Don’t take too much stuff,’ he said to his partner. ‘It needs to look like he lived here peacefully, but left peacefully.’

The other man laughed. A high-pitched giggle that made my hair stand up on end.

‘And how long are you going to keep the bird-flu scare going?’

‘As long as it takes for us to clear the evidence.’

The men were only another few minutes – Parcel Brewster hadn’t had much, it seemed – and then the older man shunted the shack’s structures this way and that until it looked vaguely habitable again.

‘Let’s go,’ he said. ‘We’ll take the bags to the truck, get rid of them, and then you need to get back to keep watch again. I don’t want anyone round here poking their noses in where they shouldn’t.’

The two men scuffed and rattled and tramped their way back down the ridge. My heart stopped when I heard another familiar bark, but the men were going round the
other way and it was coming from the bank on the far side. My legs screamed at me to stand up, and the base of my spine sent a persistent dull ache into the rest of my body. Jack looked similarly cramped, but he’d gripped that camcorder like a vice the entire time and hadn’t moved a muscle.

It took a long time for the night-time stillness to settle in. A long time before we couldn’t hear the voices, the rustling of bags being taken away, the thudding of our own hearts.

‘Frikking frikly frik,’ I said.

‘We’ve got to move,’ said Jack quietly. ‘Fast.’

Boodle had trotted back round and was waiting exactly where I’d left her.

‘You clever, clever girl!’ I whispered, and pulled her lead out of my jeans pocket. She bounded down from the rock and licked my hand. ‘Just wait a minute,’ I said. ‘This clip is tricky,’ but she danced away, staring over at Jack. He was dithering near the water’s edge.

‘Come on, Jack!’ I said, knowing he’d hear me clearly. He held up his hand, still looking around at the shore. ‘You heard that old man!’ I called quietly. ‘The young guy is coming back here to keep watch! Let’s go!’

‘It’s definitely not bird flu,’ said Jack stubbornly. ‘They must have poisoned something.’

‘We’ve got water samples,’ I said.

Jack frowned. ‘What if the poison has worked its way out of the water? It’s a hot spring that feeds Frey’s.’

‘They could have poisoned the whole dam,’ I suggested.

Jack shook his head. ‘The evidence would stay for too long. It’s got to be in the food the birds ate.’

I remembered something. ‘There might have been bread in the water on the other side,’ I said. ‘I saw something floating near the rocky bit where we found the ducks’ nest. Could just be feathers.’ Jack was already moving in that direction. ‘But be careful round that edge! It’s a sheer drop and it’s really deep there.’

‘I can swim,’ said Jack.

‘I’d rather you didn’t,’ I sniped, then bit my lip. I was scared and it was making me ratty. Jack jogged carefully round the shore by moonlight, too nervous to use a torch. He got to the spot where I’d seen stuff floating and I saw him get an empty container out and scoop at the surface. He’d just put the lid on and shoved the container back in the bag when I saw him suddenly jump with fright and stumble.

‘Jack!’ I called, in horror.

His feet slipped, and he fell, the incline of the slippery rock sending him down to the water.

‘Omigodomigod!’ I sobbed, sprinting across the shore towards him, Boodle hot on my heels.

Somehow Jack stopped the slide, and pulled himself up, handhold by handhold, then loped across to the safer sandy
area. He came fast then, sprinting almost, and I wondered suddenly about tracks and whether anyone would notice fresh footprints. I was already moving by the time he got to my side.

And then we heard the truck.

The engine chuntering fast, then stopping. The sound of a vehicle door slamming. The beep of an alarm setting.

Frik!

The guard was back!

‘This way!’ I hissed to Jack. ‘Come, Boodle!’ and we bounded out of the clearing round the dam and into the trees. Luckily the ground was soft and quiet with winter mulch, new ferns and bracken silent underfoot. We ran like deer, dodging fallen branches and closely packed trunks, rocks and boulders. Now and again we’d pause to listen, crouched down low behind banks of last year’s bracken, but we didn’t stop more than a few seconds, the adrenalin pushing us on.

It wasn’t long before I began to recognise the familiar treescape of the area around Coven’s Quarter. It was much darker now under thick firs, and we had to go slower. At last I saw the paler shapes of beech trees coming into view and found a path I knew.

‘Not far to go,’ I whispered to Jack.

‘Stop!’ he said in a low voice, and grabbed my arm. ‘Where’s Boodle?’

‘She was just behind you,’ I replied, my chest heaving from the run. ‘She’ll be a little slower because of her sore back maybe.’

Jack did not let go of my arm, and together we retraced
our steps on tiptoe, ears pricked for any sound at all.

Nothing but our breathing. Nothing whatsoever.

‘I should have put her lead on!’ I agonised. ‘You stay here in case she’s done a loop or got lost – I’ll creep up to the high ground over there, okay?’

‘No! Not okay! We need to go, Lula! If that man heard us, or saw our tracks or anything, he’s going to be right behind us. We can’t risk being found! He’ll have a gun for sure. Parcel Brewster! Lula, they got rid of Parcel Brewster.’

‘And they would get rid of us,’ I said, finishing his thought process.

‘Exactly.’

‘Well, I’m not leaving here without Boodle,’ I said, my throat starting to tense up.

‘Lula –’

But I didn’t wait to hear what Jack had to say. I felt suddenly angry with him and even a bad man with a gun wasn’t going to stop me looking after my – Pen’s – dog. I scrambled up the steep slope as fast as I could, trying to remember the way we’d hurtled down. Was I just going to get hopelessly lost? No, I remembered that tree, all leaning to the side like that, and there was that big bank of bracken. I picked up the pace, darting from one recognisable thing to the next, until at last I was back on high ground. I stopped, breathing hard, and crouched behind a tree.

A hand on my shoulder made me jump and cry out.

‘Sorry!’ whispered Jack in my ear.

‘Quiet!’ I hissed back, furious with him.

He ignored me, staring over at thick vegetation before us. ‘I don’t see or hear her anywhere,’ he muttered. ‘Where on earth could she have got to?’

And then we heard her bark. Another sound, a jangling noise, and in the distance, moving closer, an angry voice. ‘Get back here! Get back here now!’

‘Frikking frik!’ I hissed. ‘Boodle’s got something of his!’

‘No way,’ whispered Jack. ‘No bloody way.’

‘Yes way! And she’s coming towards us!’

‘So’s that man.’

‘Run!’

We ran. We ran faster than we’d run before, but still Boodle overtook us. As we leapt through a clearing on the path to Coven’s Quarter, Pen’s dog flew through the air beside me and I saw that in her mouth she had a set of keys. Vehicle keys.

She sailed into the Coven’s Quarter clearing in triumph and stood waiting for us, her tail waving gently. I dropped to my haunches to face her and snapped her lead on without a word. Jack was beside me then, and said, ‘You know the way back to yours?’ though we both knew that was a silly question. Only last month Jack had filmed this clearing, with its huge stone seats made of immense slabs
of rock, and we’d walked in and walked out together. I ignored him.

‘Boodle,’ I said. ‘Drop the keys!’

‘Oh no!’ said Jack, whirling down and checking Boodle’s mouth. ‘She’s got that man’s keys.’

And that’s when torchlight strobed from the higher ground and began spooling out across the stone chairs, examining each seat one by one.

Frikking frik frik!

We darted behind the widest of the seats, and I kept my arms firmly round Boodle’s neck, while Jack held her waving tail down. I dropped down with my back to the stone of the seat, staring in horror at Boodle, and Jack staring at me in horror, and watching the torchlight flashing closer and closer across the tree trunks around the clearing.

We could hear the soft sounds of someone walking carefully.

Closer and closer.

We could hear him breathing.

Then – too, too close – a young man’s voice lilted through the night air:

‘Heeere doggy doggy doggy dog! Heeeere! I’ve got a treeeaat for you!’ Then that creepy giggle.

I swallowed, and closed my eyes. Boodle sensed how completely terrified I was and licked my face. My eyes flew open and I glared at her.
This is all your fault!
I shouted in
my head, and there’s no doubt she heard me. She blinked an apology and I bit my lip.