April Page 7

  264 days to go …

  I’d spent the whole week taking it easy, trying to rest up and straighten my head out. I really needed to see Boges—it had been ages since we’d caught up—but he’d been finding it impossible to leave his house safely since my appearance at the hospital. I left him a message telling him that I was in the old blue boathouse where we used to go fishing with Dad.

  I hoped he’d come soon and bring me some more supplies, because I was almost out of everything: money, food, batteries. The batteries were running really low in my small radio, but I’d managed to hear my name back in the breaking news again, this time with a new and horrible allegation—that I’d attempted to harm my sister as she lay helpless in hospital. Funny they should make that claim, when the doctors were about to switch her off anyway!

  And Boges still hadn’t even seen the Riddle! I desperately needed his thoughts on it, to help me make some sort of progress with it … Repro and I had gone to so much trouble to nick it from Oriana, and it had pretty much just sat in the back of my bag, like nothing but gibberish, ever since. I was really wasting a lot of time, but didn’t know what to do about it.

  Thoughts of Gabbi being alive and starting to show signs of improvement buoyed me along. I hoped so bad that she’d heard everything I’d whispered to her in the short time that I had alone with her.

  The days were getting shorter and I was starting to wonder what a cold winter would be like in the boathouse. I wasn’t looking forward to it, but was prepared to stick it out a bit longer. When the wind came up it blew hard, whistling through the cracks, and when it rained, the ceiling leaked quite heavily. No matter how much I tried to deny it, this place was going to be miserable once the weather turned cold. It made me think about where Griff Kirby was, and whether he’d had any luck with that aunty he was counting on.

  I’d fixed the side door, jamming it shut with a wedge of wood. If anyone tried to come in, I could either dive into the water and swim away through the rotting wooden gates, or I could escape through the window on the other side and be off along the banks before they could reach me. I’d also moved most of the junk from the bench and made my own kind of workstation under the light of the window.

  Some of the time I spent studying the words of the Riddle, reading it over and over, trying to make sense of it, wondering what had happened to the last two lines, and where it fitted in with the drawings. I couldn’t find any connections. I pored over Oriana’s legal documents, too, freaking out at the thought of the crazy guy’s December 31st warning ringing true. A couple of times I considered calling Winter, thinking she might be able to help. I knew she was smart. But if the answer to the Riddle was given in the last two lines, we would have to track them down. Without them, we’d never work it out.

  261 days to go …

  dude, u ok? so sorry i haven’t been by. way, way 2 hard. gab’s the same. blinking, but not much else. stay positive.

  boges! i’m cool. feel like i’m wasting time, but what else can i do? thx 4 update on gab. would b good 2 see u soon. when u can.

  working on it. be there soon as.

  i have the riddle, by the way.

  what?! ok, soon as, i promise.

  257 days to go …

  As the days went by, I began to get really worried about Boges. It had been ages since I’d seen him; it was the longest time he’d left me on my own since this whole crazy thing began. Why did he have to lie so low? Was he in trouble—accessory after the fact or something? I was sure there were laws against helping people on the run. everything ok, boges?

  Finally, my mobile rang and I grabbed it up.

  ‘Boges! Where you been?’

  ‘I know, dude—long time no talk. I’m sorry. I’m fine, how about you, more importantly? You’re living in the old boathouse?’

  ‘Yep, it’s pretty small, but it’s quiet enough round here for me to go unseen. So what’s been happening?’ I asked. ‘I’ve kinda been imagining all sorts of reasons why you haven’t been able to get out to meet me.’

  ‘Nah, look, I’ve just been staying home and being a good boy—going to school, doing my homework, helping out my mum. Your mum, by the way, is looking heaps better. She said Gabbi’s eyes focused on her a few nights ago—she swears it. I think that whatever you did at the hospital worked. Gab’s responding to voices and touch. Nothing much, so don’t get too excited, but it’s just enough to stop all that talk of no hope.’

  I felt a huge surge of relief. It felt so good that I wanted to yell.

  ‘Although,’ added Boges, ‘some of the doctors are saying it’s just an automatic response.’

  ‘Like they said about my dad,’ I said, ‘but we both know they weren’t “automatic responses”. Dad was trying to talk.’ I thought briefly of Jennifer Smith—she knew that Dad communicated through his eyes.

  ‘You know, I didn’t for a second believe,’ Boges began, ‘that you left that farmer guy to drown, trapped under his truck.’

  ‘What? Of course I didn’t!’

  ‘It was all over the news a couple of weeks ago. They said you left some guy trapped and unconscious under his pick-up truck—underwater or something.’

  ‘I held his head out, to stop him from drowning! Then I left him in the hands of the police!’

  ‘Nobody mentioned that part, but I figured as much. Anyway, this Lachlan guy hasn’t said anything about you, so don’t worry, only that you seemed like a good, quiet kid. They always say that, don’t they?’ Boges laughed for a second. ‘So things have eased off here a bit now, but until I’m sure it’s safe I think it’s best I stay prudent.’

  Boges is the only guy I know who uses words like ‘prudent’.

  ‘The cops took my mobile again,’ said Boges. ‘But it’s OK, they still don’t know about this one. And that guy’s been back, too. You know the one in the silver car?’

  ‘The one who’d been sitting outside your house? The big guy who wears the polo-neck and suit jacket?’ I recalled him telling me to get lost that day in Memorial Park.

  ‘That’s him. He’s been outside my place constantly lately—I see him on my way to school and on the way home again. I even spotted him outside the art studio in the middle of a class last week! That’s really why you haven’t seen me lately. If Winter Frey could follow me to your old squat, anyone could follow me to your new place. I don’t want to give them any extra help in finding you. I just can’t take the risk with him hanging around.’

  I hated that he was right, but tried not to think about it. ‘Have you been keeping an eye on my blog?’ I asked, changing the subject. ‘I have to say, I’ve hardly thought about it, but the crap the media keeps saying about me, painting me like a freaking monster, makes me want to get online and set the record straight.’

  ‘Look, don’t worry too much about it, OK. We’ll jump on my laptop as soon as I can come round. Anyway, on to more important things: you have the Riddle!’

  ‘Sure do!’ I grinned when I heard Boges’s excited intake of breath down the line. Last time I was about to tell him about it, he’d taken over the conversation to tell me about Gabbi.

  ‘You’re serious, the actual Riddle, from Oriana’s?’

  ‘That’s right. Here with me now,’ I said, thinking about the missing two final lines, but I figured I’d fill him in on that later. ‘Plus I have some legal letters about the Ormond Singularity that I think you could help me with.’

  ‘Dude, I’ll be down on the river before you know it! Don’t keep me in suspense. Tell me the Riddle, read it out to me. What does it say?’

  ‘Hey,’ I laughed, ‘hang on.’ I reached for my bag and lifted the Riddle out from the folder. Boges listened in silence as I read it to him, stumbling a little over the unfamiliar words.

  ‘Dude, that is going to take some working out,’ Boges said after letting it sink in. ‘As soon as it’s safe, I’ll be there with the laptop. We have to stay on the program. Remember what we’re after in this mess. Your dad’s secret. The DMO.
We have to crack this.’

  He was right again. I couldn’t do any more for Gabbi now that she’d shown some improvement, so I’d just have to put it behind me for the time being, and get on with the work on the drawings, the Singularity and the Ormond Riddle. I still wasn’t sure I wanted to run off to Mount Helicon just yet, even though it was probably more important than ever to try for information from Great-uncle Bartholomew.

  ‘Cal, I’ve gotta get back to my study, before Mum starts hounding me. Just wait till you see what I’m working on for you,’ he said as he tapped something metallic. ‘I’m calling it “Disappearing Dust”.’

  ‘Disappearing Dust? What the hell is that?’

  ‘Wait and see, dude, wait and see.’

  253 days to go …

  Wearing my hat low, and trying to look as ordinary as possible, I’d wandered to the Greenaway Park Shops to grab some food and stuff to take back to the boathouse. I hadn’t been anywhere in days and had no choice but to venture out to restock. I couldn’t wait any longer for Boges.

  There was a new-looking high school across the road from the short row of shops. It had large sporting grounds and lots of shady trees with benches under them. A pang of sadness went through me as I thought of those carefree days with me and Boges mucking around at school, kicking a ball around on the grass, getting up to mischief with one of his new inventions crawling around the floor at the back of the classroom.

  A group of kids was coming out of the school gates, laughing and talking, and I envied them. Even though they were the ones who spent their time shut up behind the school gates every day, I was the one in a prison. They were free—free of fear and the worry of where they’d sleep each night, or whether they’d be able to find anything to eat or drink … Free from the constant threat of the cops or Vulkan Sligo and Oriana de la Force and their thugs coming after them … Free to just get on with their lives.

  I was about to pass them by, and turn my head away, when I saw one of them staring hard at me.

  I stared back, baulking with shock! It was him! My double! The kid that looked exactly like me!

  For a second our eyes engaged and it seemed like an electric shock jolted between us. He quickly grabbed the guy beside him and I watched the stunned expression on his face as he pointed his friend in my direction. I couldn’t stick around, waiting for a whole bunch of school kids to start gawking at me. And clearly I was still recognisable.

  I was off, head down, sprinting away from the shops and Greenaway Park. I would have to stay away from the boathouse until it was dark.

  Who was this kid? I asked myself again. Was he real? Why did he look like me? Was I hallucinating? I knew the mind could do funny things—I’d seen my own dad go through it. But this was real, surely. I had seen him. And he had seen me.

  252 days to go …

  My double had not left my mind since seeing him in the afternoon. Now it was dark, late, and I was curled up, restless and unable to get to sleep.

  A sudden thought hit me: what if he was the one that attacked Gabbi and Uncle Rafe? That could explain why Rafe thought it was me! It explained everything! Of course my uncle would have thought it was me. He’d just made a mistake!

  That was if the kid was real and not some product of my crazy mind … and what would he get out of murdering the family of another kid that looked like him?

  I laughed at myself and my ridiculous thoughts.

  It was true that Rafe wasn’t my most favourite person in the world—he’d created a lot of problems for me—nearly getting us both drowned in Treachery Bay, taking the package that was addressed to me, saying he thought I was the one who shot him that dreadful day at home in Richmond.

  I wasn’t real happy about him getting too close to my mother, either. After all, I couldn’t forget the fact that he’d hired a private detective to look for me. Right now, this very minute, someone in the city could well be trying to track me down, by asking questions, hanging round places they thought I might show up in, talking to old school friends … just like Bruno—Red Singlet—had been doing at the bus depot.

  An image of Rafe trying to stop Mum from pressing the emergency alarm back at the hospital flashed into my mind. He’d tried to stop her so I could get away.

  I felt very alone. Apart from Boges, there was no-one I could really rely on. And even Boges hadn’t exactly been there for me lately, although I understood why. I thought briefly of Winter Frey and how sometimes she appeared to be an ally but other times I was convinced she was a rat. I’d met some good people: Lachlan Drysdale and Melba Snipe, for instance. Even Griff turned out to be OK.

  I wondered how Repro, another of my new friends, was going. I’d spent just about all of the money I’d been trying to keep for him. I hoped that he was all right.

  Some days I felt enthusiastic and keen to get on with the quest to find the truth. But other days, like this one, were bad—I felt lonely and miserable as hell, missing Mum and Gabbi and Dad. The old days when we were a family together seemed to belong to another lifetime.

  251 days to go …

  It wasn’t just loneliness and restlessness that drove me into the city. I’d been having another sleepless night, tossing and turning, and was drawn back to the image of the Angel in the stained glass window.

  I felt strangely safe and anonymous in the grey, early morning, standing in the light drizzle in Memorial Park, a short distance away from the cenotaph. A gentle, misty rain made halos around the park lights. Maybe there was something I’d missed, I thought. Maybe there was something there that I hadn’t yet noticed that would be a clue—maybe something that would lead into solving the Ormond Riddle.

  I wondered if Dad had ever seen this Angel. If he’d known about it, he might have started asking questions back home, rather than in Ireland. Maybe if he’d done that, he’d still be alive today.

  The interior was still fairly dark as the sun had not yet begun to rise. Even so, a couple of people stood talking quietly on the steps near the rusty gates. As I passed them on my way towards the entrance door, I saw there was another guy in there, in jogging gear with his back to me, staring up at the Angel.

  I was about to move up and stand behind him, when I realised who it was.

  He sensed my presence and swung around to look at me.

  It was Rafe!

  ‘Cal! What are you doing here?’ he said, completely taken aback.

  He stepped closer to me and I couldn’t read his expression in the dim light, but it was light enough for me to see him pull out his phone.

  ‘How do you know it’s me?’ I asked, urgently. ‘There’s another guy around the place who looks exactly like me. I could be him.’

  Rafe looked at me as if I was crazy. ‘Cal, what are you saying? Are you OK? Son, you’re not making any sense. Why are you here? In the cenotaph?’

  ‘I could ask you the same thing. What do you want with the Ormond Angel?’

  ‘You mean this?’ he said, pointing to the stained glass window. ‘I only just heard about it, and thought I’d jog by to check it out. Why, Cal?’

  ‘How did you hear about it?’ I asked.

  ‘Why did you suggest that there might be someone else that looks like you, Cal? What made you think of such a crazy idea?’

  My uncle’s face was very still and watchful. He looked scared of me. He flipped open his mobile.

  ‘Who are you calling?’ I asked as he punched a number and raised it to his ear.

  ‘Your mother, of course,’ he said. ‘Now that I’ve found you, you must come home with me. There are a lot of questions you need to answer.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I said, picturing myself being questioned in a jail cell. ‘I’ve gotta go,’ I said, backing away.

  Rafe reached out his other hand to restrain me. ‘Please, Cal. Listen to reason.’

  ‘Tell Mum I love her,’ I shouted out as I ducked away, spun round, and broke into a run.

  I heard him shout after me as I ran, pulling my hoodie
down over my head.

  He was coming after me, calling my name as he ran. Within a few moments, a couple of other people had joined him, and I could hear them shouting, ‘It’s him! The Psycho Kid! Call the police!’

  What was I going to do? I knew I could lose my pursuers on foot, but cop cars would be flooding the area any second. I was too far from the boathouse. And my backpack!

  The shouts died down as I left Rafe and the others behind. But I had to go to ground. Find somewhere quiet to hide until the noise died down. My wild running had brought me fairly close to the railway yards. I kept running until I came to the fence around the disused railway buildings.

  Not far from here there were three old steel filing cabinets, standing against a stone wall …

  I banged on the central cabinet. ‘Repro! Repro! Let me in! It’s me! It’s Cal!’

  Behind me I could hear the sound of sirens, screaming as they searched for me.

  I banged again, harder. ‘Please, Repro! Let me in. I’m in trouble—’ I started to say, then thought better of it. ‘I have your money!’

  The back of the filing cabinet suddenly snapped open and I tumbled through. Equally suddenly, it snapped back into place and Repro grabbed my arm to stop me from falling flat on my face. I gasped, tripping onto one of the rickety chairs near his collection. I threw myself forwards, panting and catching my breath.

  ‘Well, give it up!’ he said, dancing about in his nimble, skinny way, tugging down the jacket of his green suit and rubbing his hands together. ‘Come on, you didn’t wake me up for nothing, did ya?’