Lula Does the Hula (28 page)

‘It doesn’t matter, Tatty,’ said Elsa. She reached for my hand. ‘Here comes Mum now. She wouldn’t be leaving him if he weren’t totally fine.’ I gave her a grateful look and she
grinned back. ‘You look terrible,’ she said. ‘And you smell really bad.’

Before I could reply, and insist that Jack take Mona home, Sergeant T huffed tiredly up to us. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘What a night. And it’s’ – she consulted her watch – ‘not even seven thirty. I’m sorry you didn’t get a chance to see him, Mona, but he really is all right. Secretly pleased about the scar, probably.’

‘There’ll be a scar?’ Mona’s voice wobbled, and Sergeant T laughed.

‘His hair will grow. No one will ever see it, probably, unless he goes all skinhead to show it off. Let me take you back to school, dear. Your matron will be worrying. And I’ve got to get back to work.’ A cloud crossed her face.

‘Has something happened?’ asked Elsa.

‘Well . . . you’ll all know soon enough anyway,’ said Sergeant T with a glance in Jack’s direction. ‘I’ve had my team searching the Frey’s Dam area for evidence relating to Parcel Brewster’s drowning, and Emily Saunders’s bag has been found. With her mobile phone, her purse, her change of clothes.’

‘She didn’t run away,’ gasped Mona, her anger at me forgotten. ‘She . . .’

‘She was taken,’ finished Jack grimly.

Tam called me at 7 a.m.

‘Tatty!’ she chirped.

‘Tam? Smfrikkingearly.’

‘Usually you’d be up by now, T.’

‘That’s when I lived with the yodeller. Now I get to sleep in.
Unless my friends call really really early
.’

Pause while Tam laughs heartlessly.

‘How’s Gianni Caruso?’

Tam: ‘What? What have you heard?’

My turn to laugh heartlessly. ‘Nothing, nothing. Don’t worry. But I have news for you that you get to hear before Alex and Carrie. Emily Saunders really has gone missing.’

‘No!’

‘Yep.’

‘But what about the voice message?’ asked Tam. ‘The one about her being at her grandparents’ place, their Tide’s Up beach shack or whatever.’

‘Sergeant T had Mrs Saunders bring in her phone, and they downloaded the voice message again. Turns out Emily was saying something like “I’m not okay, they say my
time’s
up
” and then it ended. Maybe they found the phone or the battery died or . . .’

‘Omigod. Is there anything we can do?’

I shrugged, even though Tam couldn’t see me. ‘We’ll find out soon enough, I guess. I don’t want to interfere. Maybe . . . maybe Emily just
lost
that bag . . .’

We were both silent for a bit, considering this, but it sounded implausible even to me, the eternal optimist.

‘Gavin . . .’ said Tam eventually.

‘I know,’ I said. ‘But he did have alibis. I don’t think they’re considering him at all.’

‘Oh yeah,’ agreed Tam.

I chewed my lip. ‘I wonder if Mr K has any thoughts.’

‘Probably. But Sergeant T will get to the bottom of it all, with or without his help. Alex will probably be scouting around too, so remember you’ve got quite enough going on without worrying about all this. The regatta tomorrow, for starters. You ready to row, Lula? Ready to hula? Ready to have your artworks on display for all to see?’

Maybe I was just tired and a little freaked out about Emily, but having Tam listing the potential humiliations, one after the other, just like that, made me want to vomit.

‘Oh, frik . . .’ I breathed.

‘Tatty Lula? You okay?’

I didn’t feel okay. I felt like I’d been hit by a rhino. My mind danced over the events of last night. Had I been
hit by a rhino? No. That hadn’t been it.

‘Frik,’ I said again.

‘Pardon?’ Pause. ‘T?’ Pause. ‘Hey, talk to me.’

I pulled myself together. ‘I am, I am. What do you want to know?’ Yawning, I sat up in bed, holding the phone receiver to my ear. My reflection in the dressing-table mirror swam into view, but I looked away quickly. My face was puffy from crying for hours and my hair was standing up in all directions from going to bed with it wet. Sheesh! Jack had come back here with me from the hospital, and I looked like
this
? I was impressed. What a honey! What a total –

‘Tatty?’ Tam sounded impatient now. ‘Are you listening? Answer me. What will you be wearing? To row? Crop top and leggings?’

I flopped back on the bed. ‘A frikking trisuit.’

‘What’s a trisuit?’

‘A frikking leotard thingy with, like, legs.’

‘
Legs?
’

‘You know, like, cycling short legs.’

‘What, with the
padding
and stuff?’

‘No! No! They’re bad, but not that bad.’

‘Okay, well I can see that the trisuit’s not gonna be so bad on you. You’ve got a cute bum, no stomach. The other girls . . . I mean, Matilda for starters.’

‘Matilda might not be rowing. Actually, maybe our race
will be called off.’ I explained to Tam what had happened last night.

She was quiet on the other end of the line for a long time.

‘Tam? Hello?’

‘I’m still here. Look, that was mean of Mona, and Dr McCabe. But it sounded like the people who were actually there, who saw everything, those people don’t blame you one little bit, right?’

‘They didn’t last night,’ I said grimly.

‘Come on, Tatty! Don’t get all paranoid. Everything’s going to be fine.’

‘I bet you a bag of Maltesers, cinema size, that if you ring up Gianni Caruso this morning, he’ll have a different story mainlined from Billy Diggle next door at the DVD store.’

‘You’re on. Call you back in five.’

We hung up and I rolled out of bed.

There was panting and scratching at my annexe door. I staggered over and opened up. Boodle and Biggins were sitting outside in puddles. ‘Hi, guys. How’s it going?’

‘Mrwourfweh,’ said Boodle.

‘Yeah, well, you shouldn’t have sat your hairy butt down in that puddle. Just because your little duck friend likes the damp, doesn’t mean it’s so good for you, okay?’

The kitchen window across the way slammed open. ‘
I’ll
do the parenting for Boodle, Tallulah! Stop trying to mother her! I know your game, and you’re not getting my dog!’

‘No offence, Boodle,’ I said quietly, ‘but I DON’T WANT YOUR DOG!’ I yelled back to Pen.

‘And you need to take that duck back to Frey’s Dam,’ added Pen. ‘I do big poo, not green poo!’

‘Just leave the green poo!’ I called back. ‘It’s good for the garden!’

‘We don’t want
any
poo around here!’ yelled Pen. ‘Get rid of the duck before I take it down to Hoisin’s!’

I gasped. Hoisin’s did good Chinese, and crispy duck was a speciality.

Another window opened, high above the annexe roof. Uh-oh.

‘The poo,’ came a gravelly voice from the heavens. ‘The poo, the green, the big, the duck, the dog, PLEASE, please . . . enough.’ I ventured out of the annexe into the courtyard and looked up. Next-Door Dan was leaning out of his window, chest bare, bed-head on, all blond and rumpled and unshaved. I swallowed. Some things could make a depressed girl feel alive again.

‘Hi, D-Dan,’ I stuttered.

‘Hey,’ he said. ‘It’s early. Again.’

‘Sorry.’

‘No problem.’ He was about to get back inside, but paused. ‘Tatty, how’s your car doing?’

I frowned. ‘Not so good. I’ve still got to lift the engine block back in, and Dad’s been busy with songwriting.’

‘When’s Darcy back?’

I sighed. Next-Door Dan and Darcy had serious chemistry, but with her away at music school Dan had to do a lot of pining. Even though he knew her term dates better than we did he still asked every five minutes if she’d be home soon. Still, I shouldn’t be irritated. If it wasn’t for Dan, I’d never have got the gasket to fix Oscar, the Morris Minor 1976 that I’m secretly rebuilding in our cellar. He was lovely, really.

‘Dunno. About four weeks?’

The kitchen window slammed shut. Even with a half-naked boy in sight, Pen had lost interest.

Dan examined me. I shifted uncomfortably and pulled my PJ trousers a little higher.

‘Have you been crying?’ he asked bluntly.

‘No!’ I replied, and rubbed my nose.

‘Are you frustrated about the car?’

‘No!’

‘I can help you with the car. I’m available today. Shout if you need me.’ He withdrew from the window, shutting it firmly against the Bird household noise as Blue began her morning yodelling.

Dad’s hoarse voice came floating out of the kitchen too, even though the window was closed: ballad mode – very loud. I was about to go back into the annexe when the back door opened and there he was, resplendent in leopard-print
boxer shorts and a T-shirt saying
I’M THE DADDY
.

‘Flirting with the boy next door, T-Bird?’ he bellowed.

‘Dad!’ My face was bright red. I shot a look at Dan’s window. The curtains twitched. I dropped my voice to a hiss. ‘
He likes Darcy!
’

‘Oh, that’s right,’ said Dad, retreating into the kitchen while scratching his behind.

‘
Flirting with the boy next door
,’ he sang quietly, ‘
leavin’ mah heart bleeeedin’ on the floooor
.’

‘I have no hope,’ I muttered, ‘no frikking hope,’ and went to get dressed.

At breakfast Blue was shoving milk-sodden Cheerios on each finger, and I could hear Dad still working
the boy next door
concept upstairs somewhere.

‘
Blee-heeeee-heeediiiing –
’

‘What you doing, Bluebird?’ I asked, ruffling her hair as I reached for the Weetabix.

‘Making big twoll fingers,’ she said, flexing them into claws to demonstrate. ‘It’s my turn to dwink blood today. Aunt Phoebe pomised.’

‘Cool.’ I sat down and poured milk over my cereal. ‘Mum going to play too?’

‘Mum’s working,’ said Mum, hurrying into the kitchen with the portable telly.

‘On a Saturday? Sheesh.’

She plugged the telly in and turned it on. ‘Stocktake at the main library all next week, remember?’ said Mum, zapping away with the remote and grabbing a hot-cross bun from the breadbin at the same time. ‘And I wanted to finish cataloguing Elias Brownfield’s stuff before I forget where I am. There’s some jolly interesting material about Queen Victoria visiting Hambledon.’

The telly burst into life as Pen shuffled into the kitchen. ‘Why would the Queen come to this hellhole?’ she muttered, putting the kettle on and slumping at the table. ‘What’s with the telly?’ she asked Mum. ‘You hate telly.’

‘I’m trying to keep up with the Emily Saunders case,’ said Mum. ‘It’s all over the news. That Jazz girl sent in a clip, obviously, but I didn’t see anything from your Jack, Lula.’

I blushed. My Jack had left Jazz to her own devices last night and given into temptation. I.E. ME! We’d snuck into the annexe, I’d got into something less bloody and we’d cosied up on the enormous armchair, eating Maltesers and talking till 2 a.m. Eating, talking, kissing.

‘Oh, puke,’ said Pen. ‘Look, Mum, Lula’s gone all red.’ She dropped a cereal box back down, attention caught by the telly. ‘Hey! There’s Jazz.’

‘Jazz? This time of day?’ said Dad coming in, looking smart for once. ‘Rock or pop for me in the a.m.,’ he said.

‘Jazz that
girl
,’ explained Blue through squidgy Weetabix. ‘She not like Lula.’

Dad raised his eyebrows and was about to demand more info, but Mum waved an arm for us all to quiet down as Jazz’s dulcet tones flowed into our kitchen.

I reached up and grabbed the chicken claw, focusing on Jazz’s face with narrowed eyes.

‘Let. It. Go,’ said Pen. ‘You’re scaring Blue.’

I sank back down to my chair, releasing Grandma Bird’s witchy good-luck charm and dropping a wink in Blue’s direction, but she too was riveted by the telly.

‘Emily Saunders has been missing for three weeks,’ crooned Jazz, her eyelids batting dramatically. ‘Her parents, used to her unexpected absences, were unconcerned about her latest expedition, until this’ – she held up a backpack – ‘Emily’s weekend bag turned up.’

Pen gave a startled shout. ‘
She’s missing?
Like,
really
missing?’

‘Shush, shush,’ said Mum, gesturing frantically.

‘It seems Hambledon is a nest of intrigue right now,’ continued Jazz. ‘A homeless man is dead, we still await the coroner’s findings, and with the bird-flu scare now truly refuted the question still hangs over what really killed the birdlife, and indeed most of the creatures that depend on the Frey’s Dam water’ – she paused dramatically – ‘Frey’s Dam . . . Emily Saunders’s last known whereabouts. Are the three incidents connected?’

‘Whoa,’ said Dad. ‘And there you were worrying about
whether I’d be okay in London tonight, Anne. Looks like a safe haven compared to our village.’

‘Shush, shush!’ said Mum again, gesturing more frantically than ever. ‘There’s Hilda!’

Arnold’s mother appeared on the screen, her Sergeant Trenchard badge glinting authoritatively in the lights of the cameras last night. You couldn’t tell, even if you knew her, that she’d just kissed her injured son goodnight in the hospital and started a nationwide search for a girl who’d been missing for twenty-two days.