Gran gave them twenty minutes. Back in time for lunch, she said, before Dad got home.
Eva hoped that was enough time to convince Shan. They raced back to the lodge and found Shan in the main hall, sitting on Brian’s old sofa. Heidi explained what had happened to Jamie.
‘I suppose you’ve called his mobile?’ Shan asked.
Eva shook her head. ‘I don’t have his number. He lives just next door. I never thought to ask him for it.’
Shan sighed. ‘You really do need help, don’t you?’
‘Does that mean you will help us?’ Heidi asked.
Eva grinned. She hadn’t thought that there was an ‘us’, not really. She’d assumed that Heidi would wander off soon, find someone more interesting to be with. But here she was saying ‘us’ and it sounded as though she meant it.
Shan pursed her mouth. ‘I don’t see why I should. It’s not as though I’m a founder member of the Jamie McIntyre fan club. In fact, I don’t like him. He’s trouble.’
Eva caught at her lip with her teeth. ‘I know what you mean,’ she said quietly. ‘But doesn’t that mean he needs our help even more? I mean, what’s the point of helping someone with no problems?’
The door opened and Dilan tumbled in. He was carrying a big net full of footballs. ‘Look!’ he said. ‘Some bloke from the sports shop dropped these off. He heard about the damage and wanted to help. He said he was moved to be generous. Wait till your campaign really gets going, Shan. We’ll get loads of cool stuff.’ He dropped the net. Twenty or so balls bounced with a weird tinny sound. ‘Why does everyone look so serious?’ he asked.
‘We were just talking about being generous,’ Heidi said. ‘About whether you should help out, if you can, when someone needs you to.’
‘Oh,’ Dilan said. He edged a ball with the outside of his shoe. It clattered against the others. ‘Well, of course you should. Who says you shouldn’t?’
Shan sighed dramatically. ‘Fine. Fine, I’ll help. And so will Dilan. But don’t be surprised if it ends badly, OK? And, if I help you, you need to help me back. Sally and I have been talking to the local radio station. They want to come down here to broadcast tomorrow. I’ll need people here bright and early to help them set up. By “people”, I mean you two. Deal?’
‘It’s a deal. Thank you!’ Eva suddenly felt that this might not be impossible after all, that it might be easy to find Jamie. With help from the others. ‘Where should we start?’ she asked.
‘There’s no point Googling him. There will be thousands of Jamie McIntyres in the world and he’s never done anything that means he’d be on the internet. Unless they list court appearances,’ Shan said. ‘There is one place, though, where we might be able to find his number.’
‘Where?’
‘Sally’s office. We all had to fill out forms, remember? With our contact details. In case of emergency. His mobile number might be on that. And, luckily, his good-for-nothing brothers made such a mess of the office that Sally won’t notice a bit more rifling.’
Eva remembered the form. She had no idea what it said on it, because Dad had filled it all in for her. Forms were like A4-sized panic attacks as far as she was concerned. But Shan was right – the form must have everyone’s phone numbers on in case someone got hurt in a random painting accident. If Jamie had filled his in properly, then this would be easy-peasy. Jamie would be found.
‘Dil, you go and distract Sally,’ Shan said. ‘Heidi, keep a lookout. Eva, you’re with me.’
‘Why do you get to be the boss?’ Dilan moaned. ‘And who are we helping anyway?’
Shan raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m the boss because these two came to me for help. And I’m always the boss of you. Off you go. Ask Sally for a game of football or something. Let her win so she doesn’t abandon the game. We need at least fifteen minutes to have a good look. The office is in a right state.’
Eva followed Shan and Dilan out of the lounge and into the hallway. Stray bags were starting to pile up there: black bin bags with cushions and curtains in, plastic bags with art supplies, cardboard boxes with board games. Even a PS3.
‘Has all this just come in now?’ Shan asked Dilan.
‘Yeah. Word’s got out. The whole town is sending us stuff. We’ll have enough for three lodges if it carries on like this.’
‘Especially after we’re on the radio,’ Shan said. ‘Now go and find Sally and keep her busy.’
Dilan knocked on the office door. There was no answer. He tried again, a bit louder. Nothing.
‘Right,’ he said, ‘the office is empty. You go in and be quick. I’ll find Sally and keep her distracted for as long as I can.’ He ran off down the hall, clutching a football with a hopeful expression.
‘Eva!’ Heidi called from the main hall behind them. Eva turned, smiling.
‘Here.’ Heidi held out a piece of paper. ‘My phone number. I was thinking, you don’t have my number and I’m your friend too. Not just Jamie. You should have my number.’ Heidi’s face flushed pink as a strawberry milkshake.
Eva took the piece of paper. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
‘OK, if you two can tear yourselves apart for one minute,’ Shan said, ‘we’ve got work to do. Heidi, keep an eye out for Sally. Eva, come with me.’
Shan turned the handle to the office door and stepped in slowly. She held up her hand to Eva – Wait! Then waved her in when she was sure the coast was clear.
The office was in a terrible mess. It was as though the people who broke in wanted to do the most damage here. It was as though Michael wanted to do the most damage here, Eva corrected. The desk was still in one piece, but the wooden chair had been smashed to kindling over it. Drawers had been pulled out and paper lay everywhere like an explosion in a library. It was awful.
‘What animals,’ Shan said in a shocked voice. ‘I hope the police lock up the McIntyre boys and throw away the key.’
‘You said you’d help,’ Eva said.
Shan’s face looked cross. ‘I know, we’ve got a deal. But just because I help you doesn’t mean I have to like it. We haven’t got long. Jamie’s record must be in here somewhere – get looking.’ Shan started poking through the drifts of paper, flicking glances at each one.
Eva felt her mouth go dry. She stood still, she was all heartbeat and sweat.
‘What? Move!’
‘I can’t,’ Eva whispered. ‘I can’t read.’
Shanika stood up slowly. She let the pile of papers in her hand drop back to the floor. She turned to face Eva.
Eva felt her cheeks burn.
‘Really?’
‘Well, I can, but not very well. It takes a long time. The words look like spaghetti unless I concentrate really hard.’
‘So concentrate.’
Shan picked up more papers and sorted through them deftly.
Eva bent down and picked up the nearest sheet. The words were held there for a moment, their shapes clear, then, like water dropped on to an ink blot, they seeped into each other and the sense was lost. Eva forced down the panic that was rising inside her.
Shan looked over and sighed. ‘You know what a “J” looks like, right?’
Eva nodded. ‘J’ was a friendly letter; it didn’t twist itself round to be different things like ‘d’ and ‘b’ and ‘p’ which were the worst of all.
‘Good. Then find anything with a ‘‘J’’ for Jamie at the top and pass it to me. And, next time we break into someone’s office to read files, you might want to mention this kind of thing in advance, yeah?’
Eva nodded.
She dropped to the floor beside Shan and picked up a random sheet.
Her eyes skipped over the top – it was a logo and it was bound to be something like the project’s name or the council.
‘Don’t bother with that one,’ Shan said. ‘We all filled out our forms by hand, remember? So you need a handwritten form with a “J” near the top.’
The pile of scanned pages next to Shan was piling up. Beep, beep, beep. A hundred items logged in seconds. Eva felt the familiar sense of frustration building.
She took a deep breath. And looked again at the next sheet.
The black type gave way to blue ink. Handwriting. The first blue word began with an ‘S’. Not this one then. She dropped it and picked up the next. There was no handwriting at all on this one, it was nothing but typed blocks, like the bricks in a wall laid solid. No good. Next.
Eva flicked through the papers. Not as quickly as Shan, but she was sure she would spot what they were looking for when it appeared. She just had to trust.
‘Here!’ Shan yelped. She waved a sheet under Eva’s nose. ‘Got it!’
Eva smiled. That was good, she told herself. It was good they had it, even if it hadn’t been her who’d found it.
‘We’ll get that waste-of-space boy back any minute!’ Shan said. Her eyes ran down the page. Her smile drooped like hot lettuce. ‘Oh.’
‘What?’
‘His mobile isn’t there. In fact, none of his details are. It’s all Melanie.’
‘The social worker?’
‘No, Melanie the juggling clown. Of course Melanie the social worker. It’s got her down as an emergency contact.’
‘Has it got her phone number? And address?’
‘The address is just the council office. Not that she’s there much. I think she mostly works out of her car. Have you seen the state of her back seat? It’s like this but worse.’ Shan waved at the papers on the floor.
‘Shan! What about a phone number then?’
‘Oh. Yes. Yes, it has her mobile number.’
Eva’s mind was whirring now. They hadn’t found Jamie, but they had found someone who knew where he was.
‘Write it down,’ she told Shan. ‘We can ask her where he is.’
‘She won’t tell you; she wouldn’t be allowed.’
‘Maybe. But it’s the best lead I’ve got. Write it down.’
‘Fine,’ Shan said, reaching for a pencil. ‘But it won’t do any good. Jamie’s gone and we won’t be able to find him.’
‘Yes, we will,’ Eva said. ‘I know we will.’