Burning Secrets (3 page)

Chapter 4

M
UM SEEMED IN
no great hurry to begin her home education project, which suited Daniel and Louie just fine. “We need a few days to settle in, get our bearings,” she said over ‘breakfast' the following afternoon. (None of them were early risers and breakfast was often overtaken by lunch.)

Daniel had spent a restless night, kept awake by the unfamiliar smells and noises of the house and by the unbroken darkness of the countryside. Just before going to bed he had stepped outside to fetch his book from the car and found the garden path swallowed up in blackness. There were no shadows, no shapes; just deep, thick, solid darkness. He'd felt a prickle of fear, much worse than what he sometimes felt on the street in London at night. There you could see trouble coming. Then, just after midnight, he'd been wrenched awake by a noise from the garden. He lay there, heart hammering, confused by his strange surroundings and unable to work out where he was. For a few terrible moments he thought he was still inside Lissmore, that his release and everything since was just a dream. The idea almost made him cry out in panic. Then the noise came again – an owl screeching in the trees – and he remembered he was at The Brow. Even so, he had to get up and try the door, reassuring himself that he wasn't locked in.

“You might as well go and have a wander,” his mum advised, once breakfast/lunch was over. “I've got things to do.”

“Are you going to get the computer set up?” Louie asked.

“Well, I'll try and sort something out. I've got to make phone calls,” Mum said vaguely.

“I bet there's no internet connection out here in the back of beyond,” said Louie, who hated being offline even for a day. Already Louie had turned on the ancient TV in the living room, and found the screen a blizzard of grey dots. “What the hell's wrong with this thing?” she demanded, thumping the top of the set.

“There's probably no reception,” said Mum with the infuriating casualness of someone who doesn't watch TV. Adjusting the aerial had made it slightly worse. The only thing that brought any improvement in picture quality was standing on a particular floorboard by the window, behind the TV.

“Stay there while I watch
Hollyoaks
,” Louie instructed Daniel. “Don't move.”

“But I can't even see the screen,” Daniel protested.

“That's OK. You don't like
Hollyoaks
, anyway.”

Another let-down was the piano in the back room. Daniel no longer had lessons because he hated doing grades, but he'd reached a decent standard before quitting. He still liked playing and sometimes, especially if he was feeling stressed or down, he would sit at the piano for an hour or more, picking out a tune that he'd heard on the radio, chord by chord until he had it just right. They couldn't bring the Yamaha from London, but Daniel's mum assured him that there was definitely a piano at The Brow as her grandfather used to play.

He'd tried it out that first evening after their dinner of tinned soup. It looked like a relic from a saloon bar in the Wild West. The wood was warped and stained, as if by generations of spilled beer, and the keys were chipped and yellowish, like witches' teeth. He wouldn't have been surprised to see a few bullet holes in the side. He pressed middle C and it let out a woolly
plunk
and stayed down. Oh well.

Since there was nothing to do indoors, Daniel and Louie agreed to go for a walk. As they left the house a guy of about twenty with shaggy hair and a furtive expression was walking across the grass towards the front door, carrying a cardboard box. “Eggs,” he said, thrusting the box into Daniel's arms and lurching off without waiting for a reply.

“Kenny-next-door,” Louie said, as he crashed through a gap in the bramble hedge as though being chased by a pack of dogs.

“Thanks,” Daniel called after his departing back.

“Do you think he's a bit weird?” Louie asked, without troubling to lower her voice.

“I dunno,” muttered Daniel. “Probably.” He shook his head. “This place.”

“We're going to be all right though, aren't we?” said Louie, looking to him for reassurance.

“Yeah. Course we are. Anyway, it's better than…” He didn't need to finish the sentence. Lissmore was never mentioned. The word was as unspeakable as cancer.

They set off, following the path inland, keeping Chet on the lead in case he started chasing sheep. It was a hot, still day and the sun was pressing down from an empty sky. Louie must be boiling in that sweater, thought Daniel. But she would never wear short sleeves, however hot it was. Another unmentionable. Perhaps if they could find an empty beach like the one yesterday, with no one around, she might be persuaded to put on a swimsuit and go in the sea. She used to like swimming before the business with her arms.

The footpath led them through fields of sugar beet, rapeseed and neatly furrowed soil parcelled up into tidy squares by dense hedgerows, on to the moor. On a distant hill what appeared at first to be a crucified man revealed itself to be a sagging scarecrow guarding a bare unploughed field. Above their heads birds with long forked tails wheeled and soared gracefully.

“What are those birds called?” Louie asked.

“Dunno,” said Daniel. “Birds all look the same to me.”

After twenty minutes of steady walking the path divided, offering Stape to the left or Darrow to the right. Daniel remembered the name Stape from the previous day and turned automatically left, along a dirt track marked by the imprint of horses' hooves. They wound their way upwards, beating off clouds of midges hovering at face level. From the top of a stile they had a panoramic view of brown moorland criss-crossed by footpaths and one snaking road. Beyond and below the moor lay the village of Stape, dominated by a large brick-and-glass structure that was unmistakably the school. It was surrounded by lush playing fields, on which groups of children appeared to be crawling around as if hunting for something.

“I didn't think term had started,” said Daniel.

“Why would anyone go back before they had to?” Louie replied with a shudder. The thought of school, any school, made her queasy. Even the architecture depressed her.

“What are they doing?” Daniel wondered aloud, watching the children foraging. It looked like a fingertip search of a crime scene.

“Perhaps it's some sort of punishment,” suggested Louie. “Like litter duty. Perhaps they have to weed the whole field.”

They carried on, hot and thirsty by now and hoping that there would be somewhere to buy a drink. They hadn't thought to bring anything, forgetting that unlike London, snacks might not be available on every corner, round the clock. After half an hour they reached the boundary of the school playing field and stopped for a moment to rest. At closer range they could see that the children weren't as young as they'd first supposed, but were mostly teenagers, and were picking leaves from amongst the blades of grass and collecting them in pockets, paper bags or plastic lunchboxes. Those nearest the boundary stopped and glanced up at the newcomers, shielding their eyes against the glare of the sun. This movement triggered a Mexican wave effect around the field, with everyone gradually abandoning what they were doing and kneeling up to get a proper look. Daniel and Louie walked on hurriedly.

Another few minutes brought them to the village itself – a dozen or so houses around a triangular green formed by the convergence of three roads. In the middle of the green was a pond, patrolled by pristine white ducks, and there was outdoor seating – overspill from the café opposite – which was occupied by a group of teenagers drinking coffee and enjoying the last gasps of summer.

Daniel had the sensation of stepping out on stage as he and Louie made their self-conscious way across the green towards the café. Conversation at the tables fell silent as they passed, all eyes following their progress with frank but not unfriendly curiosity. The back of Daniel's neck felt warm and prickly, as though stares of that intensity could actually generate their own heat.

“Do we look like aliens or something?” Louie hissed as they reached the safety of the pavement.

“I don't know whether I feel like a celebrity or a freak,” Daniel muttered back, hooking Chet's lead to a bollard and settling him down with a Bonio.

Inside the café was no better. All heads turned as Daniel and Louie hovered in the doorway, uncertain whether to sit and wait to be served or order from the counter. Fortunately the woman behind the till came to their rescue and beckoned them forward. “What can I get you?” she asked, smiling helpfully. There didn't seem to be anything much on display, apart from a modest selection of filled rolls.

“A Diet Coke and a Tango, please,” said Daniel, bringing out a handful of change.

The woman sucked in her breath and shook her head as though Daniel had requested some rare and exotic cocktail. “I don't think I've got any of that. Goodness me,
Coca-Cola
. That's a blast from the past. No one's asked me for one of those for a long time.”

Daniel and Louie glanced at each other. “Oh, er, well, Sprite, 7-Up, whatever?” Louie suggested.

Again, this drew a blank. Daniel began to wonder if this was a wind-up, a special way of letting strangers know they weren't welcome, but the woman didn't seem hostile. On the contrary she was full of apologies for not stocking what they were after. He glanced around to see what the others in the café were drinking: bottled water, black coffee and glasses of murky-looking lemon squash.

“Water?” Daniel suggested, uncomfortably aware that they were the focus of fascinated attention, and wanting only to get away as quickly as possible.

“Hold on,” said the woman, as if struck by inspiration. “There might be some of that stuff out the back.” Before they could protest, she clattered through a curtain of plastic beads and a moment later they could hear the distant sound of furniture removal, crates being dragged across the floor and bottles clanking. Minutes passed, Daniel and Louie's discomfort increasing as whispered conversations struck up at the tables behind them, the words ‘new' and ‘yesterday' and ‘Brow', clearly audible above the murmur.

Beside him he could sense Louie beginning to simmer. She couldn't stand being stared at, whispered about, sniggered over. That sensation of walking into a room and it falling silent because everyone has just been bitching about you. He gave her neck a reassuring squeeze as she bristled.

“Here we are,” said a triumphant voice and the woman reappeared brandishing two dusty bottles of budget brand cola, their labels faded to pink. “Found them!” They were warm to the touch and didn't look very appetising, but Daniel didn't want to hurt her feelings by refusing. He held out a palm full of coins, but the woman waved it away. “I won't charge you,” she said, “seeing as they're a bit old.”

They mumbled their thanks and turned to leave, a dozen or more pairs of eyes boring into them with undisguised curiosity, as they threaded their way between the tables.

At the exit Louie stopped, suddenly made confident by the prospect of their departure. “Do you mind?” she addressed the room. “It is actually quite rude to stare.”

Daniel bundled her out of the door on to the pavement, sweating with embarrassment. “What did you want to go and do that for?” he demanded. “Now we'll never be able to go back in there!”

“Like we want to go back to a café that only sells water!” Louie retorted. “Or flat, warm hundred-year-old Coke.” She blew the fluff off her bottle and opened the lid – it surrendered its last remaining bubble of gas with a faint sigh. “Oh, gross. I'm not drinking that,” she said, pouring it into the gutter. Immediately half a dozen wasps materialised from nowhere.

“She was only trying to be nice.”

“I don't like being gawped at,” snapped Louie.

“Well, stop being so loud and lairy then,” Daniel hissed, bending down to untie Chet. He'd been brought a plastic dish of water and he was drinking noisily.

Daniel looked around for someone to thank, at which point one of the girls drinking coffee at the picnic tables detached herself from the group as if taking up a dare and sauntered over, chewing. She had blonde hair done up in plaits and was wearing a dazzling white shirt and shorts. She had blue eyes and peachy skin, and if she was wearing any make-up it was too subtle for Daniel to notice. She looked – the word leapt to his mind –
clean
.

“Hello,” she said, turning from him to Louie as if to share herself out evenly. “You're new, aren't you?”

“We're new to here,” Daniel replied.

“I'm Ramsay Arkin,” said the girl, holding out a hand to shake.

Daniel tugged her hand with its neat oval fingernails, so different from Louie's sore nibbled stumps which she was now doing her best to conceal.

“I live over there.” She pointed vaguely in the direction they'd come from. “We're having a sort of end-of-the-holidays barbecue tomorrow night. Come if you want.”

“Who's we?” asked Daniel.

“A bunch of us from school. That lot.” She indicated her friends on the green. “Plus a few others. We'll just cook sausages and play volleyball on the beach. No big deal.”

“What beach?” Daniel asked, although he'd already decided he wouldn't go.

“Joff Bay.”

Daniel shook his head. “I don't know it.”

“Well, you were walking on it yesterday afternoon.” She bit her bottom lip to stop herself smiling at this admission.

“Oh.” Daniel was taken aback. He tried to remember whether he'd done anything embarrassing, apart from rooting around in a bin. “I never saw you.”

“I was up on the cliff with my sister.”

“I didn't realise it was called Joff Bay. We only got here—”

“I know. You only got here yesterday. You're from London, and you're staying at The Brow.”