Lula Does the Hula (32 page)

At Frey’s Dam. The night Jack pulled Parcel Brewster’s lifeless body from the water.

The night we ran for our lives.

I was about to back up when the giggling got suddenly louder and a figure walked out of the shadows and up the loading-bay ramp.

Alex drew up to my side and called, ‘Hello,’ nervously down to him.

The man stopped, surprised. ‘Oi! You’re not supposed to be back here!’

‘Oh, sorry,’ replied Alex. ‘We’re just looking for Gavin?’

‘Oh,’ said the man, and he walked a little closer, squinting in the afternoon sunlight. ‘Are you Alex?’

I recognised his voice now, too, and every hair on my body was raised in prickly goosebumps.
We’re gonna die, we’re gonna die, we’re gonna die
.

‘Come on down,’ he invited, gesturing with his arm. ‘Come into my lurve shack.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Oh. No. No thanks. Come on, Alex. Time to get going.’

Alex laughed, swinging easily down the ramp. ‘I’m not walking five miles in these wedges, Tatty Lula. Come on.’

She stopped when she reached the man on the ramp and said, ‘Ah. You must be Gavin’s cousin Michael?’

‘Yeah,’ he said, and I saw a glint of gold on a front tooth.
‘Call me Mickey.’

‘Good to meet you, Mickey. We need to be getting back. Is Gavin ready to go?’

Mickey was already turning and going back down the ramp. ‘Let’s go get him, shall we?’ He giggled again, and my mouth went dry.

‘Alex,’ I said, ‘hold on just a minute.’

‘Come on, Lula,’ she said, waving me down impatiently. ‘I want to get back and edit all this. Let’s go grab Gavin.’

‘Let’s not!’ I hissed.

‘What?’ Alex turned and looked back up at me. I realised she couldn’t see my face, silhouetted against the sunlight outside, so I made mad
come here
gestures.

She started uncertainly back up the ramp. Slowly, carefully, in her silly wedges. ‘Hurry!’ I hissed, my gestures getting wilder.

‘What is it?’ she whispered.

‘We have to get out of here!’

Mickey suddenly appeared at the bottom of the ramp. ‘Oi!’ he called. ‘You girls comin’ or not?’

‘Just a minute,’ I called back, my voice wobbly. ‘Gotta borrow Alex’s phone.’

‘Oh, sure,’ she said, and stepped towards me, rummaging in her bag. She pulled it out and handed it over. As soon as she was close enough I said, ‘Alex, these are bad people. Dangerous people. We’ve got to go. Now.’

She opened her mouth to protest, her brow creased in confusion, but I kept talking. ‘Alex, you don’t know this, but Jack and I went up to Frey’s Dam after Emily Saunders went missing, and we overheard two guys talking about killing Parcel Brewster. One of them was Mickey.’

Alex didn’t say a word. Her eyes bugged nearly all the way out of her head, and she grabbed my hand. ‘Just got to make a call, Mickey,’ she shouted down. ‘We’ll wait out here, okay?’

But just as we turned to leave someone stepped into the loading-bay entrance, like a cowboy western villain, long thin legs astride and voice all old and raspy.

‘You girls won’t be calling anyone.’

The old man I’d heard at Frey’s Dam held out his hand for Alex’s mobile. I’d already shoved it into a pocket of my cargo pants, but I reached into the pocket of my other leg and handed over my own dead phone.

He walked over to Alex, his hand outstretched for her phone too.

‘M-Mr Healey?’ she stammered. I swallowed.
This was Gavin’s granddad?
‘What are you doing?’

‘Covering my tracks,’ he said grimly. ‘Wasn’t aware I’d left any. Phone, please, Alex darlin’.’

‘I-I don’t have mine on me. Battery died at home, so I left it charging.’

‘Hn,’ grunted Mr Healey. ‘Arms up and turn round. Hand me your bag.’ He searched through Alex’s bag, the goody bags and the camera bag I was holding. He took the battery out of the camera and handed it back. I felt sick thinking that he’d pat Alex down, but her close-fitting clothing left no room for a phone to hide, no matter how small. Then he examined the phone I’d given him, and laughed, a short harsh bark. ‘And this one’s dead as a doornail too. You girls . . .’ He shook his head at our stupidity. ‘Come with me.’

We would have made a run for it – I could see the question
in Alex’s eyes when she glanced at me – but when Healey pulled a brushed-steel handgun from his jacket pocket, we walked ahead of him, slowly, back down the ramp. The last of the natural light seeped away, turning my brown boots to black. I remembered with a stab of guilt that this was the footwear I’d worn up to Frey’s the night we’d found out about Parcel Brewster, the night I’d rescued Biggins. The night Jack and I had gathered evidence, tampered with an official crime scene . . .

At the bottom of the ramp, Healey urged us through a curtain of plastic strips and into a huge basement area. Massive vats were ranged in rows along the floor, labelled with various things, but each had the danger! flammable symbol, and I got the feeling they certainly were.

Slouching in a fold-up chair was Gavin, his back to us, laughing at something Mickey was saying.

‘There you are!’ he said, turning as he heard us approach. ‘Sorry, girls, I got to playing poker, and –’ Then, ‘Hey! Hello, Granddad.’

‘Hello yourself,’ said his grandfather. ‘We’re going to have to take care of these two.’

I shot Alex a warning glance. Her angry spots had flared up and her eyes had gone all flashy. She returned my glance and I knew she could hear what I was thinking.

We have a phone. We’ll be okay. Let’s keep quiet and get out of here alive.

‘What?’ said Gavin, still smiling. ‘What do you mean, Gramps?’

‘They know about us and Frey’s Dam. Get ’em in the van.’

Gavin’s smile vanished. ‘No, Gramps. Seriously. They don’t.’ He put a grin on his face again and jutted his chin. ‘My Gramps,’ he laughed, winking at Alex. ‘Always taking the mick.’

‘In the van. Now.’

Gavin stood hurriedly.

Oh boy. No arguing with Gramps.

Alex and I were bundled into the back of Gavin’s van, though there wasn’t much room in there amid ten huge barrels of hazardous materials. I flinched as the doors slammed shut and our world went dark.

‘Don’t worry,’ I whispered, at exactly the same time as Alex hissed, ‘The phone!’

I pulled it out of my pocket and hit the contacts menu. A pale glow lit up my friend’s face, pinched and scared, but I concentrated on one name only:

Jack de Souza.

I found it, hit call, then held it to my ear. ‘You wanna speak to him?’ I asked suddenly, holding the phone out to my friend.

She shook her head vehemently. ‘I have no idea
what’s going on!’ she hissed. ‘Get Jack to get us out of here, then we’re going to have a talk, Tatty Lula!’

Uh-oh
, I thought, just as the van rumbled to life and Jack answered the phone.

‘Hey, cuz,’ he said. I could barely hear his voice over the roar of the engine.

‘Jack!’ I bleated. ‘It’s me, Lula. Alex and I have been locked in a van heading towards the North Road by those men we saw that night at Frey’s.’

There was cursing and a loud squealing sound. Could have been Mona, could have been tyres on tarmac – difficult to say with all the engine noise on my side.

‘Lula? Lula?’

‘Calm down, Jack! What are you doing? Who’s screaming?’

‘Forget that. Where are you?’

‘I only know we’re moving out from Cleo Cosmetics. We’ll hit North Road for sure, but then I don’t know which way we’ll go.’ My voice wobbled a little and Alex grabbed my knees in both her hands and squeezed reassuringly. I couldn’t meet her eyes. What had I got us into?

‘How? Where? Who? Who, Lula? Who are they?’

‘Michael Healey and Granddad Healey,’ I said clearly.

‘Granddad Healey?
Granddad Healey?
Come on, Lula!’ urged Jack.

Alex, pressed close to me, murmured, ‘James. James Healey.’

I relayed the information, explaining these guys were related to Gavin, Alex’s hot new boyfriend, and part of Healey’s Expert Disposal, Gavin’s granddad’s company.

‘Sheesh!’ It fell into place for Jack as quickly as it had for me. ‘The parabens and ethanols Forest found in the water samples! They’re from
cosmetics
! They’ve been dumping Cleo’s toxic waste at Frey’s and I bet Parcel saw them!’

Alex gasped and snatched the phone from me. ‘Emily Saunders!’ she cried into the phone. ‘She was up there that night too! Do you think they –’

My mouth went dry. ‘No . . .’

Before Alex could comment the van rumbled to a halt, then turned left.

‘We’re heading back towards Hambledon.’ Alex’s voice was calm, but her grip on my knee had reached painful proportions.

Jack’s voice was small and tinny. ‘Tell me everything you know about the Healeys, Al.’

‘We don’t have time for this!’ Alex hiccupped and a tear slipped down her cheek. ‘You’ve got to get on to Sergeant T, Jack! Please!’

‘I’m not letting you go till you’ve got some idea of where you are!’

‘But you’re wasting time! Sergeant T could be sending people back up North Road towards us as we speak!’

‘Just tell me where their premises are. Where they live.
I’m on my way back to you right now. I’ll get there faster than any police.’

Alex sobbed, and I took the phone from her.

‘Gavin Healey lives up near Stone’s Hill, but the only other place I know of is a boathouse his grandfather owns at Saddler’s Pond. We’re heading in that direction, but I’m sure they can’t be –’

‘Thanks, Lula. You don’t know where James Healey lives? The other guy? What about business premises?’

Alex took a deep breath and explained that the warehouse for Healey’s Expert Disposal was about ten miles west on the coast road, but other than that, she knew nothing.

‘We can’t be going to their warehouse,’ I said to Jack.

‘Because you’re going south on the North Road,’ agreed Jack.

‘So that leaves Gavin’s house or –’

‘Saddler’s Pond.’

‘Get Sergeant T,’ I begged. ‘Quickly.’ Thoughts of leopards and drownings and toxic-waste spillage were crowding my already crowded head, and I felt myself close to tears.

We hung up. I turned the phone to silent and clicked through to Google Maps.

‘Alex,’ I said urgently. ‘How does this thing work exactly?’

Having something to do calmed my friend. She pushed the tears from her face with the backs of her hands and blew her nose on a patchouli-scented tissue from a handipack she’d found in her goody bag. But by the time she’d loaded up our exact location, I already knew where we were.

‘How can you be sure?’ whispered Alex, staring intently at the screen of her phone. ‘Hurry up, hurry up . . .’ she murmured.

How could I
not
know? We were travelling a route I’d been enduring twice a day for the last ten days.

From North Road we took another turn, about fifteen minutes out, this time to the right, on to dirt. A pause. A familiar voice asking for a sign-in, and we were off again.

‘That was the checkpoint at Saddler’s Pond,’ I hissed to Alex.

‘Oh, God,’ she whispered back. ‘They are! They’re taking us to the boathouse! They’re going to drown us!’ She made a little sound at the back of her mouth, like, ‘eemph’ and it made those digesting Maltesers want to head straight for the nearest exit, because, even though she’d been crying, Alex was a much braver girl than me.