The Lornea Island Detective Club Page 5

  I trust you are more used to getting this type of letter than I am in writing it, and that you will know how to proceed from here. Certainly you seem to be a very trustworthy and professional looking company which gives me great confidence that you will succeed, even in this most difficult of cases. I shall look forward to you letting me know what happens next.

  Sincerely

  (Mrs.) Barbara Jacobs

  At first I'm baffled as I read it. Then I remember about the detective agency website and how it must be to do with that. And then the text messages start pinging in.

  WTF? Billy is that you jerking me around?

  Then:

  This is for real! No fucking way!

  And finally:

  Meet me in the library you retard.

  These all come from Amber. I remember now that Amber added her email address to the ‘contact us’ page of the detective agency website. I didn't think much of it at the time, but then I never thought anyone would contact us anyway. I don't know what to think now. But I do what she says.

  "Billy! Over here," she whistles at me from over by the computers. Which I don't like because you're not supposed to even talk loudly in the library, let alone whistle.

  "I've tried googling 'Henry Jacobs' but there's like, six million people with that name, so that's not going to work."

  I look on the screen, open on google's search results.

  "Have you got any ideas?"

  There's a notebook open on the desk and she's written 'Henry Jacobs' in capital letters at the top. Then she's underlined it twice. The rest of the page is empty.

  "I can't believe we've actually got an actual client!" Amber says before I can answer. "This is so fucking cool!"

  I sit down next to her.

  "What else do detectives do?" Amber asks. "Apart from googling people I mean?"

  "I don't know."

  "You don't know?"

  “No, why would I know?”

  “You’re the detective.”

  “No I’m not.”

  “You made the website.”

  "Well… OK but. Look have you actually replied to her?"

  "Not yet. I thought we should work out what to say first."

  "Oh. Good." I hesitate. "You mean about whether we should take the case or not.?"

  "No," Amber looks at me. “I mean about how we're actually going to find him. We’re definitely going to take the case."

  I hesitate again.

  "I'm not sure," I say in the end.

  "I hoped we could get something from google that we could follow up on. Like a lead..."

  She stops, then turns to look at me. "What did you say?"

  "I said I'm not sure we should actually get involved. I mean, we're not really private detectives and if this is important to this lady, and it kind of sounds like it is, then shouldn't she go to a real detective agency?"

  She frowns.

  "Why?"

  I'm a bit confused by Amber's attitude. I mean, isn't it obvious? I guess I'm maybe just a bit distracted with this strange business about Tucker/Peter at home. Why would Dad be calling him Tucker, or pretending his name is Tucker, if his real name is Peter? I have a few theories already – that's he's some sort of secret agent, or living a double life, or in the Witness Protection Scheme...

  "Fuck Billy. If this is your attitude, why did you waste my time getting me to make you a private detective agency website?"

  "You didn't make it, I did!"

  "I made it better!"

  I'm taken aback by this.

  "It was alright before..."

  "It was crap. And anyway, I'm the one who advertised it."

  "You advertised it?"

  "Of course I did. Otherwise no one would ever find it. We'd never get any clients."

  "I didn't want to get any clients!"

  "What? Why would anyone start a detective agency if they didn't want clients? You'd have to be a moron."

  I open my mouth to tell her I only made it because I liked making websites. But suddenly that doesn't seem a very good reason. I close my mouth again.

  Amber stares at me for a long while, then turns away.

  "Fuck Billy. You really are weird you know that?"

  But then she turns back.

  "And anyway. It's too late now, because we've got a client now."

  We don't talk to each other for a few moments. I watch her click on some of the google links in front of her. One Henry Jacobs is the director of a golf club in Arizona, another a doctor in Vancouver. She glances at both and then clicks away, dismissing them.

  "The thing is,” I say. “She's not actually going to want to hire us, is she? Not once she knows we're just kids. She's going to want adults."

  "I already thought about that," Amber replies at once. "We'll do everything by email. We'll tell her we have to do it that way so that no one can find out our true identity. For security."

  I stare at her.

  "Would you hire a private detective who wouldn't even meet you?"

  "Of course I would." Amber says. "It's how they all do it. It's standard practice."

  I feel my face tighten into a frown. "Is it?"

  "I don't know. But that's the point! You didn't know if it is or isn't. So neither will she. Besides she's already said she wants to hire us. She's already decided."

  I puff out my cheeks. I suppose that might work. I feel like all my objections are being dismantled rather unfairly.

  "Well how would we actually go about finding him though? It doesn't look like Google is much help."

  Amber turns to me. Suddenly she looks excited again. Eager.

  "That's why you're here. You're the one that found that tourist girl. You solved that case. How did you do that?"

  I think for a moment. It is true. They even gave me a medal.

  "I just kind of worked it out."

  "Then just do that again." Amber's face breaks into a broad smile.

  "Come on Billy. This is so cool. This is awesome. We've got an actual case to investigate. Just like on TV. Like in the movies. It's going to be so much fun."

  I hesitate at this. One thing I know from everything that happened before is that doing detective work is nothing like they show it on TV. I suppose this doubt shows on my face.

  "Look even if we can't find him, we still get paid. Two hundred dollars a day. Even if we don't find him."

  "Really?"

  "Yeah. That's what the terms and conditions say. Think what you could do with that money!"

  I don't say anything. But I do think about it.

  "Come on Billy. Don't be a dork about this!"

  In the end I don't exactly say yes, but I don't exactly say no either. So then we have a go at writing an email we can send to Mrs. Jacobs. But it's really hard to know what to say. There's a ton of questions we need to ask about her husband if there's any chance of us finding him, but it's almost impossible to ask by email because the questions we need to ask all depend upon what her answers to the questions before were. And even worse than that, it's really hard to work with Amber because she keeps suggesting really stupid questions in the first place. So by the time the bell for afternoon class starts, we've hardly got anywhere. In the end I tell Amber that I'll work on our reply to Mrs. Jacobs tonight.

  But even as I walk out of the library, I'm not sure if that's true. I think it might be better to reply to Mrs. Jacobs and tell her to go to a proper detective agency, because it sounds like this is something really important to her, and not just a game that we should be playing.

  And that's what I've just done, this evening. I told her I was sorry about her husband, and I lied a little bit and said I had worked with the other agency and they were really good, and I was sure if anyone could find her husband they would. I know you're not supposed to lie, but I think in the circumstances that's OK.

  I copied Amber into the email, so she knows too. I expect she'll be mad tomorrow, when I see her at school. But that's just too bad. I can't just do every
thing that people want me to do.

  Oh. I almost forgot to mention. Tucker/Peter (whatever his name is) is still here. He was in the lounge with Dad when I got home from school. They were drinking beer and watching a ball game. Dad told me to come in and watch it with them, but I said I had homework to do. Then later on Dad called me down for dinner, but I said I wasn't hungry. That was a lie too, because actually I'm starving. But I didn’t want to sit with him. He’s made the lounge smell funny and I just don’t trust him.

  Ten

  I assumed that Tucker/Peter would be gone by the time I got home from school on Friday, but he was still here. Then, when I woke on Saturday morning, he was still here. There was a huge pile of beer cans and the kitchen was a mess which I had to clear up. When he finally got up him and Dad went surfing. Dad hasn't been surfing for ages. He used to go all the time but then he got shot and like I said, it messed up his flexibility. But somehow Tucker/Peter persuaded him, and they dug a couple of Dad’s old boards from the shed in the yard. Tucker/Peter even asked if I wanted to go, but I told him I was busy. It's true as well. I had to teach Steven how to fly.

  Then Tucker/Peter and Dad went out drinking on Saturday night, and he stayed all Sunday as well. And then this morning, when I got up for school, he was still here.

  And what with everything I've found out about him – how he lied about not having a phone, and how he's lying about his name, I'm obviously not delighted about leaving him in the house. I don't have a lock on my bedroom door, so I've come to school with my laptop computer, which makes my school bag really heavy. That's the most important thing, but I've still had to leave my binoculars, my camera traps and all my other equipment unsecured at home. I tried to hide it, but what with Steven following me around and uncovering everything I tried to hide, it wasn't very easy. I did have one good idea though. I remembered something I once saw in an old James Bond movie, about how you can stick a hair over the gap between the door frame and the door. It doesn't stop people going in, but at least you find out if they have broken in. If the hair's not there when you come back it means the door has been opened.

  And anyway I'm still thinking about all this when I bump into Amber in the corridor. She's got her head down looking at the screen of her phone. And when she looks up I see a strange look on her face. Like she is pleased to see me, but then she isn't pleased to see me. That doesn't make any sense because I thought she'd be mad with me for saying no to Mrs. Jacobs.

  "Hi Amber," I say. She kind of slides the phone away so that I can't see what she was looking at.

  "Hey Billy," she says. Then she looks past me, like she doesn't want to stop and talk.

  I'm a bit confused because of her not being mad and everything.

  "Are you still mad about that email I sent?"

  Again she looks past me, but then she seems to change her mind. There's an open classroom door next to us, and she pokes her head in, checking that it's empty. We're not allowed to go into classrooms when we don't actually have classes in them.

  "Come in here," she says. "We need to talk."

  "We're not allowed to go into..." I begin to tell her, but she just grabs me by the straps of my backpack and pulls me inside.

  She shuts the door behind her, and I can tell she's excited about something, but she doesn't know how to say it.

  "I got another email," she says at last. "I was just reading it."

  I frown at her, not understanding.

  "From Mrs. Jacobs. The old woman."

  I still don't understand.

  "I emailed her back, last week. Asking for more information about what happened to her husband."

  "No," I correct her, after some thought. "I emailed her back, telling her that we couldn't help her. I told her she should go to that agency on the mainland."

  "Yeah, you copied me in," Amber looks annoyed for a moment. "But she doesn't want an agency on the mainland. She wants us to investigate."

  "How do you know that?"

  The look on Amber's face changes from annoyed to awkward.

  "Because she told me. I sent her an email right after you did, explaining how you thought we were too busy, but that we could move things around and still fit her in. And she said how important it was for her to have someone on the island to investigate her case."

  "Oh," I say.

  "And it's a proper mystery. She told me all about it. How her husband went to the store forty years ago and just disappeared. She has no idea what happened to him. He just vanished. Wouldn't it be cool to solve that?"

  I think for a second. "I guess... But how? We tried to find out more by email before, and it’s just impossible…"

  “That’s why I arranged to see her. Today, after school. Why don’t you come with me?"

  My mouth drops open. Amber is two years above me in school, you'd think she'd be smarter than this.

  “But… You can't meet her. She’s gonna see straight away how old you are?”

  "I know," Amber concedes. "It is a bit awkward. I thought that I could put on different make up. You know, make myself look older. Then if that doesn’t work, we could tell her how we’ve got a boss who’s older, but who has to keep his identity a secret. You know, so that he can work incognito."

  I just stare at her. So that eventually she looks a bit embarrassed.

  "Yeah OK, forget that. But you know, the weird thing is," Amber goes on. "I actually get the sense it doesn't actually matter."

  "What doesn’t?”

  “How old we are. I just get the idea she's a bit crazy. Like, mad enough that she won't even notice how old we are."

  That’s ridiculous, so I don’t say anything.

  “And it might mean the case isn't that hard either. You know, her whole problem could be that she just doesn’t have a grip on modern life. The internet and everything. So we might be able to solve the case just because we understand all that. You know, because we’re young."

  This all sounds highly unlikely to me.

  "And anyway, why shouldn't we investigate it? The truth is you did find out what happened to that tourist girl that got murdered. You found her. You solved it. When the police couldn't."

  That is true, but even so. I shake my head and go to turn away, but Amber stops me.

  "So what do you think?"

  "What do I think about what?"

  "Do you think it's a good idea?"

  "No. I think you're completely mental."

  Amber's face breaks into a wide smile at this.

  "I know. But will you come?"

  “Come where?"

  “To meet her. I was just thinking, if we go together it’ll look…” Amber begins.

  "I'm not going." I interrupt her. "I think you're mad. And besides. I've got other things to do. Important things."

  "What things?” She says at once.

  That question takes me by surprise, and I think of the true answer. I’ve still got work to do on the Blue Lady project, then I've got to do more flying lessons with Steven. I've got homework to catch up on… But then I think about home. How Tucker/Peter is probably still there, and how I'll have to hide in my room so that he won't try to talk to me. I don't want to mention any of this to Amber. Given how she's completely crazy.

  "Nothing."

  "Well come on then. Come with me. See what you think. You know we could actually help this lady. She’s really worried about it. If we can find her husband it would really help her. And I know you wanna do that."

  I don't reply.

  "And it'd be so cool Billy, to have a real mystery to investigate.”

  Amber fixes me with big, round, sparkling eyes. She puts her hands together, like she’s begging me. In the end I have to look away.

  “She’s just going to tell us to get lost when she sees how old we are.”

  Amber shakes her head. “No she’s not. But even if she does, we don’t lose anything.” She tips her head to one side. Like the way Steven does when he wants something.

  “And anyway s
he’s expecting us now. We don’t want to let her down.”

  I give up. And maybe I’m a little bit interested to see what happens too.

  "OK," I say. "I'll come. But only so we can tell her we can’t take the case. Like I said.

  “Sure,” Amber replies.

  “OK, good.”

  Honestly, just the idea of it is crazy.

  Eleven

  Amber doesn't have a car, but she tells me she can borrow her mom's. So after school we walk to her house to get it. She makes me wait in the kitchen while she gets changed. Luckily there's no one home, so I look around a little bit. There's plastic children's toys everywhere, and it smells nasty too, like baby food and diapers.

  When Amber comes back down she's wearing lots of makeup and she’s in this suit thing. She definitely looks a lot older. She looks quite... well, I suppose, professional too.

  "Stop staring. Weirdo."

  "I'm not staring, you just look..."

  "What?" Amber smoothes down the skirt onto her thighs and turns sideways. “Power dressing turns you on does it?”

  I don’t really know what she means, and I don’t like the funny voice she’s doing, so I’m glad when she stops.

  "I borrowed it from Mom, OK? She used to work in an advertising agency. She had to dress smart for clients. Though that was all before that thing came along." She points at a photograph on the wall. It’s a little blond baby. Actually there’s loads of photos of it, everywhere in the house as far as I can see.

  “My half-sister, Grace. Mom remarried after Dad died and then she came along. Mom gave up work and decided to turn herself into Parent of the fucking Year.” Amber kicks a large plastic xylophone out of her way.

  “Ow! Never felt the need to give up work when I was a kid. I hardly ever saw her.”

  I don’t say anything.

  "Anyway,” Amber goes on after a moment. “We have to get out of here before she comes home. If we want the car that is."