Read Online Chasing the Dark by Sam Hepburn - Free Book Online Page B

called out a sharp, ‘Come here!’
    I doubled back, slowly.
    â€˜You’ve got post,’ she said.
    She put down her coffee cup and slid two letters across the table, using the tip of her red-painted nail, like the envelopes might be infected or something. But I could tell she was dying to know what was in them.
    â€˜Cheers,’ I said, picking up a white one with the St Saviour’s crest on the front. ‘This’ll be a train ticket from Professor Lincoln.’ She looked impressed. ‘He’s invited me to lunch.’
    It was the thick brown envelope, addressed in funny spidery writing – Jo Slatery , Lorel Cotage , Saxted , Kent – that was bothering me.
    She was watching me, tapping the table with her nail.
    â€˜. . . and this one’ll be . . . from my mate Bailey.’
    She wasn’t to know that Bailey was about as likely to send me snail mail as he was to take up belly dancing. I sauntered slowly across the lawn to the shed, feeling Doreen’s eyes burning into my scalp, and waited till I’d slammed the door and taken a couple of deep breaths before ripping open the envelope. A twist of grubby paper fell out and something sparkly clattered to the floor. Oz gave it a sniff. It was a narrow gold bar with a fastening on the back like a badge. I picked it up. My old headmaster used to wear something a bit like it clipped to his tie, only his wasn’t gold and it didn’t have a stonking great diamond in the middle of it held up by a couple of prancing bears. My hands went clammy. That was the crest on the keys to Elysium, and on the archway over the gate. There was no message with it but I knew exactly who’d sent me this tie-clip. It was Yuri. And how did I know that? Because I’d seen it before. In that old Oxo tin he’d had in the cellar of Elysium. And just like the other jewels in there, this looked pretty real to me. This was his way of saying thanks and letting me know he was all right, I couldn’t chance Doreen finding it and asking difficult questions so I carefully clipped it to the top of my boxers. The diamond dug into my stomach every time I moved, but at least I’d always know where it was.
    Oz was jumping up, ready to get going, but I went on squinting at the postmark on the envelope, trying to make out where Yuri had posted it. It looked like London somewhere but the rest was too smudged to read. I folded it up, stuffed it in my pocket and fed Oz. Then I took him for a long walk, right through the village and round to theriver. When I got back I nicked a bit of paper out of next door’s recycling, scribbled a spidery note asking me how things were going, signed it ‘from Bailey’ and left it by my bed, all ready for Doreen to find next time she fancied a snoop through my stuff.

CHAPTER 8
    I spent the journey to Cambridge flicking through Ivo Lincoln’s notebook, trying to stop Oz climbing on the seats and worrying about Yuri. There was a chance that he’d flogged the rest of that jewellery and gone off to sun himself in the Caribbean, but deep down I was scared he was sick again, lying all alone in some abandoned building muttering to himself like a crazy man. Wherever he was I had to track him down. He was my only chance of finding out why Mum had been in Lincoln’s car.
    The train whooshed into darkness, filling my ears with a juddery roar. Should I tell Professor Lincoln about Yuri? The answer jolted from yes to no with every sway of the carriage. As soon as I got off and saw him standing at the ticket barrier in his woolly scarf and posh tweed suit I knew I couldn’t risk it. He was definitely the kind of blokewho thought coming clean to the police was the answer to everything. His swept-back hair was thinner and greyer than I’d remembered, his lanky body seemed more stooped and even though he was making a big effort to look cheerful his face was rigid, like a sad face