Authors: Gabrielle Lord
March (9 page)
‘You can have it,’ said Boges, immediately bluetoothing it to my mobile.
‘Is this the only one?’ I asked. ‘Or have you got more?’
‘Just that one,’ he said.
After saving Gabbi’s picture on my phone I accidentally clicked on the thumbnail of the photo I’d taken of Oriana de la Force when I’d been up the tree outside her window. It opened up to fill my screen and I was about to close it down, when I noticed something in the photo I hadn’t seen before.
I frowned. ‘Look,’ I said, pointing to the small screen, and turning it so Boges could see. ‘There’s something written there.’
The mobile had focused much better on some papers on Oriana’s desk, rather than on the
red-headed
woman herself, and I could just make out what looked like a piece of creamy paper on her desk with pale-grey lettering across it. I peered closer to see what it was then passed it to Boges.
‘There’s definitely something written there,’ said Boges. ‘But it’s too blurry. Here,’ he said, opening up his laptop, ‘let’s see what I can do. Let me play with it a bit.’
Boges quickly joined my mobile to his laptop with a camera download cable. I watched as he opened the picture in one of his programs.
‘I have a pretty hot photolab program,’ he said, working fast, fingers flying, editing and enhancing the photograph. I sat leaning over him, watching him work.
He concentrated on the area of creamy paper on the desktop, zooming in and sharpening the contrast, so that the blurry grey letters on the top page of the pile of papers on Oriana’s desk slowly strengthened, defined and took shape.
‘Well, what have we got here?’ he said, and I could hear the excitement in his voice. ‘Take a good look, my man.’
I did. And what I saw gave me a thrill. The page wasn’t quite in the frame, and some of the letters had been cut off, but what Boges had brought up were five unmistakeable letters: I-D-D-L-E.
We looked at each other.
‘What if she’s got it?’ I asked, my heart pounding with excitement. ‘What if Oriana de la Force has the text—the
actual words
of the Ormond Riddle? She might have one of the rare copies. Someone in her position might have collected it!?’
‘That’s what I’m wondering too, dude,’ said Boges, his eyes shining. ‘Whoa! I’m outta here!’ he said, suddenly remembering the time. ‘Mum’ll go ballistic!’
‘We’ve gotta get into Oriana de la Force’s place,’ I said as he packed up his gear. ‘I want to get into her study—find that piece of paper.’
‘And how do you think you’re going to do
that?’ asked Boges, raising his eyebrows at me as if to say
here comes trouble.
He slung his laptop into its carry case and over his shoulder.
‘I have a plan,’ I said, ‘but … I’m going to need some money.’
I hated begging like this, especially having to scrounge off my friend. But until I could manage to get some sort of income, I was forced to do it.
‘Here,’ said Boges, pulling thirty dollars out of his pocket. ‘I managed to score this for you.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, taking it, ‘but I’m thinking I need a lot more than that for what I want to do.’
‘Maybe we can both get some contract work from my uncle. Without him knowing about you, of course. He reckons I’m good enough to go out on my own. We could borrow his cleaning gear and I could tell him I’m getting a mate from school to help out with the job.’
‘I’ll do anything, anytime,’ I said, pocketing the money.
I scanned the faces in the library, all of a sudden aware of someone looking our way. Sure enough, one of the librarians was staring intently at me and whispering to her colleague beside her.
‘Boges,’ I said quietly and calmly. ‘I think I’ve been spotted. Let’s get outta here.’
As discreetly as I could, I indicated the two librarians. Boges looked across at them. ‘You’re
right. Looks like they’re discussing you. Time we were gone,’ he said.
Luck was with me for once. One of the librarians was interrupted by a phone call, and the other by a mother and child with a mountain of picture books. Grateful for the distractions, we dashed over to the front door and out.
We hurried away from the library and Boges took off in one direction, and I in another. Before we separated, he reminded me to try calling Eric Blair—Dad’s old work colleague—again. I pulled my sunglasses on and my hat down low, and cautiously made my way through the heat and noise on the street, hoping that nobody was taking any notice of me.
‘Hello, Eric Blair, please,’ I said into the receiver. I’d stopped at a public phone near an oval, to try my luck again with a guy who’d hopefully have some information on Dad’s trip in Ireland.
‘I’m afraid Eric’s still off on sick leave,’ the receptionist advised. ‘Would you like me to put you on to Wayne Slattery instead?’
Eric was still on sick leave? What was wrong with him?
‘When will Mr Blair be returning to the office?’ I asked.
‘Hopefully soon,’ she replied, dismissively. ‘Wayne is managing Eric’s work at the moment, so I’m sure he could handle your query, if you’d like me to put you through?’
‘No, thank you,’ I said before hanging up the receiver with a clang—Wayne would definitely not be able to help me with
my
query.
I really didn’t want this guy to turn out to be a dead end. I needed to talk to him … see if he had any information for me … but what had happened to him? What was wrong with Eric?
I dreaded returning to St Johns Street, but then I thought of Oriana and the words on the piece of paper on her desk … It was possible that the words to the Ormond Riddle were in her study, just waiting for me to collect them.
I hoped my plan would work.
The new break with the Ormond Riddle—well,
I-D-D-L-E
—appearing on a piece of paper on Oriana’s desk had distracted me from my trip to Mount Helicon, yet again. It was going to be a few days before Boges would be free again, but I definitely thought this potential piece of information was worth sticking around for.
By torchlight and with the aid of the cracked mirror, I applied some cheap, temporary black dye to my short hair. I’d bought it earlier from a little city supermarket. My hair looked like one big oil splat on top of my head, reminding me of the day I first met Sligo … and Winter … the day I narrowly escaped death in an oil tank.
Winter.
If she was only going to deceive me now, why had she helped me in the first place?
I leaned my head over the sink and rinsed the bluey-black dye out of my hair. I watched the dark colour trails weave their way down the sink, slowly becoming paler, until eventually the water ran clear.
I smoothed my hair right down so I looked like a real dork. When I put on a pair of round, black-rim glasses from Repro’s collection, I looked like Harry Potter on a bad day. But that didn’t matter. Just as long as I didn’t look like me.
What would Winter think of me if she could see me now, I wondered. She’d probably laugh, I decided. Boges definitely would. Maybe I’d been a bit heavy-handed with the dye. I always thought it would be best to go for subtle changes in appearance with the use of props, rather than clumsy attempts at disguise. At least this one would wash out soon enough.
I lay back on my sleeping-bag, still going over my plan to get into Oriana’s place. I couldn’t wait to speak to Boges, and I couldn’t wait to get inside the house … once more.