Author: Fleur Hitchcock
Category: Other
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“Was buying those twelve,” said Chloe, “to show that she had the money – or something.”
“And they were showing that they had the real thing.” Josh looked pointedly at Ava and Aiden. “Real quality diamonds.”
“Josh, what are you saying?” asked Ava.
Josh pointed to the clifftop cottage. “We’re saying – aren’t we, Chloe? – that the rest of the necklace, the rest of the diamonds, are down there – in that cottage.”
“Including the well of whatnot?”
“Yes,” laughed Chloe. “Including the well of whatchamacallit! Yes, the well of thingamabob in that cottage down there!”
“Why don’t we just get the police?” said Chloe.
“They won’t believe us,” said Josh. “Even Grandma wouldn’t believe us.”
“And because of the sheep,” said Ava. “They’re all running around after the stupid sheep.”
“We can’t really go down there with Grandpa Edward and just ask for the diamonds back, can we?” said Chloe.
“We’re going to have to do something soon, though,” said Aiden, staring at the cottage on the clifftop. “They could drive off at any time.”
“Why don’t we set up a diversion?” asked Josh. “I know – we could set fire to their car. That would get them out of the house really fast! Then we could steal back the diamonds. Done!” Josh mimed grabbing something from mid-air.
The other three just stared at him. Josh thought it was quite a good idea, but it was obvious that, as ever, Ava didn’t.
“If eleven o’clock tomorrow is the end of the deal,” continued Aiden, ignoring Josh, “then they’ll definitely leave after that.”
“So we capture them!” said Josh. “Yes!” He leaped out of the tree house and across the garden and fenced an apple tree with a bamboo cane. “Yes – we can spring a trap and drop a huge net on them from above. We could dig an enormous—”
“Oh my god, Josh. Get real. We need to get the diamonds back before eleven o’clock tomorrow,” said Ava, cutting right through Josh’s brilliant ideas and discarding them. “Where is the eleven o’clock thing, Chloe?”
Chloe scrumpled up her face with the effort of replaying the woman’s words. She couldn’t remember what she’d heard. “I just can’t get it,” she said in the end, looking disappointed.
Josh sighed, groaned and died dramatically on the wet grass, where Bella discovered him and began to lick his face with enthusiasm.
“Even if we can’t catch them handing things over, we might be able to get the necklace back,” said Aiden.
“Really?” said Chloe.
“What d’you think, Ava?” asked Aiden.
Ava raised an eyebrow and gazed down towards the clifftop cottages. “P’raps we could.”
“How are you going to do that then?” asked Josh, clambering up the apple tree and hanging from the top branch. “You’re never going to break into a house, are you? Are you?”
Ava glared at him and swept off towards the farmhouse.
Grandma and Grandpa’s friends came and went, and the sun sank lower. Ava scoured her and Chloe’s clothes until she found what she was looking for – a long-sleeved black sweatshirt and some black leggings. She finished the outfit off with black socks and black canvas shoes.
“What d’you reckon?” she asked Chloe.
“You look very – criminal,” said her cousin, walking round her. “Do you think you can do it, though?”
Chloe looked doubtful, so Ava tried to sound confident. “Of course. Easy.”
Aiden appeared at the door of their room. “Ready?”
Ava nodded.
“We’ll all be there,” he said. “But it’s your thing.”
“I know,” she said, thinking that at least fifty per cent of her head was telling her not to do it. “C’mon, let’s go.”
She led the way down the stairs, the others following, and out through the garden, where the dusky light was enough for them to find the footpath that led over the field towards the sea. They’d decided not to take Bella. Or bikes. This way they could run over the fields if they had to. But Ava felt very slow putting one foot in front of the other instead of flying along the roads almost as fast as a car.
As they approached the little group of houses they fell to a crouch. Josh and Aiden slipped along the hedge to the gate and opened it a fraction so that they could escape through it quickly if they had to. The silver car still sat outside and Ava passed her hand over the bonnet. “Cold,” she whispered to Chloe. “They haven’t been out.”
“They still have the necklace then.”
Ava nodded.
Three wheelie bins stood in the lane and the two girls crouched behind them, waiting for the sky to go black. Here there was only one weak street light over by the cliff edge and the shadows were pleasingly murky. Inside the house someone switched on a light. It shone through the glass over the front door.
Ava crept forward, Chloe at her back, and they stopped by the fence that ran round the front garden. Between the gaps Ava could see in through the window. No one was in the dining room, which was lit by a broad band of light from the hallway. A table and four chairs stood neatly in the middle, and a sideboard with four bowls and a vase stood at the back. Over the fireplace was a large photo of Drake’s Bay.
“Holiday cottage,” mouthed Chloe.
Ava nodded. That would make it easier to search the house. It would be emptier.
As the darkness deepened she sat back on her heels and waited. No one came; no one left. The phone didn’t ring. No one even seemed to come down the stairs.
Ava’s heart pounded.
They waited.
Meanwhile Aiden and Josh explored the back.
“I’ll jump the fence,” whispered Josh, and before Aiden could stop him he had vanished over the top.
“Ow!” Aiden heard from the other side. Josh, you idiot, he thought, and listened with his ear to the wood.
“Can’t reach the handle,” he heard Josh whisper.
Feeling the fence with his hands, Aiden headed towards the front of the house. Halfway along he found a gate that joined with the passage down the side of the house. Agonizingly slowly he lifted the latch.
Josh appeared in the gap and beckoned him through. “Shh,” he whispered to Aiden, as if Aiden needed to be told.
In three paces they were over the tiny lawn and hidden behind two plastic garden chairs.
The curtains were drawn across a large pair of sliding doors, but as they crept further forward it became easier to see through the gap between them. It was the lounge. Two sofas and a huge TV. A coffee table with two mugs, and a rug. And a pair of feet resting on the coffee table.
“One,” he whispered to Aiden, who nodded.
Without warning the door to their right opened. The kitchen door? A man stepped out on to the paved area and dropped a bag by the door. He didn’t stop to look at anything, just went back inside and slammed the door shut. Josh and Aiden hadn’t even had time to hide.
Josh breathed out. “Two,” he whispered.
That was close, Aiden thought.
The light went out in the kitchen and moments later a second set of feet appeared on the coffee table. Someone flicked the remote control and the guide came up on the TV. There was a rumble of conversation and the man with the remote clicked down the options before choosing a film. One of the men got up and a toilet flushed. The light in the kitchen came on and then there was the steady rumble of a kettle. Cupboard doors opened and closed and then a few moments later two more mugs appeared on the coffee table alongside a packet of biscuits. The men seemed to settle to drinking tea and eating biscuits, and the film began.
“Tell Ava,” said Aiden. “Now would be good.”
“You tell her,” said Josh, sitting back on the wet grass.
Resisting the impulse to say something really rude, Aiden crept off towards the far side of the house, back to the gate and Ava.
Ava was so sprung with n
erves that when Aiden appeared round the side of the house she leaped in surprise. “Oh my god!” she squeaked.
“C’mon,” he whispered. “They’re watching TV.”
Ava took a deep breath. “OK,” she said.
She padded along the path and pushed the front-door handle down as slowly and steadily as she could. Leaning her shoulder against the door, she gave it a gentle shove, then tried pulling. Nothing happened. It was locked. She turned to Aiden and shrugged.
Aiden beckoned and led the way back round the house. On their way through the narrow passage one of them brushed against a bin lid.
Clang.
Ava froze, trying to control her breathing, and listened. She waited to hear a door open or someone shout. But nothing happened.
She let the air out of her lungs. The passage they were in was extra dark and the garden at the far end seemed flooded by bright moonlight. She could see Josh hiding behind the chair, the lights from the window, the gap in the curtains.
“Think the back door’s open,” whispered Aiden. “Two bedrooms upstairs. A loo downstairs. Probably a bathroom upstairs.”
“Sure there are only two of them?” whispered Chloe.
“Yes,” said Aiden. “Definitely.”
“OK,” said Ava. “I’m going in.”
She crept to the door, turned the handle and felt the catch spring open. She pulled it as quietly as she could and stepped inside. The sounds immediately changed. The distant beating of the sea and the low chatter of the village turned to a rumbling TV and a distant boiler. The kitchen smelled of frying and she was horrified to see that the sink was full of dirty pots and pans. That meant that someone might come and do the washing up and it might be just as she was coming back out.
With the same care as she’d opened it she closed the door behind her and took three paces into the hallway. Her feet clicked on the wooden flooring as she passed the door to the lounge. It had a glass panel in the centre and the light shone through. She hoped no one could see her shadow pass on the other side.
Waiting for the noise of an action sequence on the television, she sped past the door and went on into the darkened dining room at the front of the house. Feeling sick with fear, she slid open the drawers of the sideboard. They were empty. She peered into the vase. It too was empty. She wanted to run, but she made herself check the cupboards. There didn’t appear to be anything but some games. Agonisingly slowly she pulled out a box of Scrabble and slid off the elastic band that held the lid. It rattled and she paused, listening. All she could hear was the TV. So slowly she was barely moving, she prised the lid free. Scrabble pieces, of course, but she had had to see.
Leaving the dining room, she headed for the stairs. One by one she took the treads, her feet brushing the carpet and sounding really loud. She reached the top and hoped that the boards wouldn’t creak.
The room at the front was easy. It was over the dining room, where there was no one underneath to hear her, so she took it first. A bed, a bedside table with nothing in it. A chest of drawers. The top drawer stuck immediately, and she had to shuffle it from side to side to get it to open. When she did she found it empty. It was the same with the other four. A suitcase stood by a long mirror and she wasted precious minutes trying to open the zips, finding each compartment still full of neatly folded clothing. Fingering her way past tidy piles of socks and pants, she checked the corners of the case. Nothing.
With shaking hands she closed the zips and placed the suitcase exactly where it had been. Stopping in the doorway, she took a deep breath, desperate to steady the rising panic that threatened to make her run for the kitchen door and safety.
She moved to the back bedroom, barely making contact with the floor. She worked as fast and as silently as possible and found nothing. Again there was a suitcase. More zips, more clothes. More compartments. She shook out the socks, patted the pockets of the jackets and prodded the sides.
No luck, she thought as she tiptoed back on to the landing.
The bathroom was small and had very few hiding places, although she tried the cistern and squeezed the toothpaste just in case.
Which left the downstairs toilet. And the lounge.
She paused at the top of the stairs.
Bang.
Someone had opened a door downstairs. She heard a tap go on – then off – followed by the rumble of the kettle.
Hesitating for a terrified moment, she retreated into the bathroom. Footsteps fell heavily in the hall and then, to Ava’s horror, she heard feet on the stairs. Looking around, she grabbed the bath mat, threw it over her head and crouched under the basin. The footsteps reached the top of the stairs, paused, and then she heard someone go into the back bedroom and unzip the case.
Her mind ran through all the things she’d seen in the case and she hoped desperately that she’d put them back as they were.
The footsteps retreated to the landing. She held her breath, her heartbeat thudding in her ears, and she pulled her head lower and lower between her knees, willing her whole body to disappear into the floor. Then, when she thought she was going to explode, the footsteps began to descend the stairs. Slow and heavy, she heard them turn at the bottom, the kitchen door thump, some mugs clank together and then the lounge door. Voices rumbled and the TV took over again.
Ava breathed out, long and slow.
In the garden, Chloe and the boys watched the lights go on and off as the man went upstairs. They waited, ready to cause a diversion, but the lights moved downstairs and there was no sign of trouble.
Chloe tried to work out where Ava was. She’d seen a shadow upstairs and then in the bathroom, but Ava had been in there for ages and really ought to be coming out. “What’s the time?” she whispered to Aiden.
“Nine thirty,” he replied. “She’s been in there for half an hour.”
“Too long,” said Josh.
Silently Chloe agreed, and when both the men stood up and switched off the TV, she realised that they’d really run out of time.
“Diversion,” muttered Aiden, but Chloe didn’t need telling.
No longer worrying about secrecy, Chloe and Josh raced round to the front of the house. They hadn’t planned anything, so they were going to have to make it up as they went along.
“Ow!” screamed Chloe. “Ow! Help!” she shouted, yelling in the direction of the house before suddenly realising that they might end up getting help from one of the other cottages, which would be no use at all. “Help!” She shoved Josh forward and mimed banging on the door.
“Help!” he shouted. “My sister’s been – she’s been … stung by a wasp!”
“What?” Chloe stopped moaning for a moment and stared at Josh. “Way too early in the year for wasps,” she hissed, hopping about on one foot. “And they don’t sting at night.”
“A sleeping wasp in her sock!” yelled Josh.
“Ow!” yelled Chloe again. “I’ve been stung.”
“Help!” Josh banged on the door again and Scottish Man pulled it open as he was still knocking. “We need some vinegar.”
“’Aven’t got any,” he said, starting to close the door. He seemed half asleep; Chloe hoped he really was.
“We need it desperately,” said Josh. “My brother, er, sister, she’s allergic to wasps. She’s been stung; she might die.” Chloe saw the lie growing more complicated and hoped Josh wouldn’t say anything too stupid.
“Try one of the other houses,” the man said, glancing towards the lounge.
“What’s going on?” The second man arrived behind him. This was Forty Grand. Seeing his face was scarier. Mean, scarred, battered. Like a real criminal.
Like a bearded rat, Chloe thought. Scottish Man looked much kinder, and he didn’t look very kind.
“Kid’s been stung by a bee,” said Scottish Man.
“Get over it,” said Forty Grand. “Hey! What’s that?” He turned, looking behind him, and Chloe shot a glance past him to see Ava belting down the stairs and swinging round to run thro
ugh the kitchen door. “Hey!”
Both men turned, leaving the front door wide open, and charged towards the kitchen.
“I’m off,” said Josh and he raced for the fields.
Chloe hesitated. She stood on the path, trying to work out if there was anything she could do to slow the men down. And then she saw the car keys lying on the table in the hallway.
“Yes!” she cried, and grabbed them, jamming them into the back pocket of her jeans and speeding up to catch Josh. They ran straight over the stile and into the field.
As they raced through the wet grass Chloe heard the thundering footsteps of Aiden and Ava, who had charged round the side of the house and were now heading full pelt for the open gate.
“Quick!” Ava yelled, and all four ran in a line, skimming over the grass and down towards the dip in the field.
“Split!” shouted Aiden, and they separated.
Chloe ran up towards the top of the field where she knew there was a small gap. She squeezed herself between a fence post and the wall. On the other side cattle shuffled and breathed. “Hello, cows,” she said, bending double and pushing through between their warm hides. Wet noses brushed her ears, but the animals stayed where they were and let her race through them. She thought of staying put, but decided it was better to get as far away from the clifftop cottages as possible. Tracking the hedge of this new field, she scrambled over a metal gate into the lane.
Just then the clouds drew back and revealed the moon. It lit the entire landscape. Chloe looked back to see the lights blazing in the clifftop cottage and the tall man stamping about in front of it. But there was no sign of the second man until a figure burst from a small group of trees and a second figure shot out in pursuit. The first person was Aiden, the second Forty Grand. Chloe watched, willing Aiden to escape. She knew he knew the fields really well – that he was the fastest runner of them all – but she wasn’t sure he’d make it out of that field before his pursuer.
And it was dark, and he wore glasses.
She heard someone running in the lane and looked to the side. “Josh!” she said. “Look – Aiden.”