It was still early next morning when Kate and I headed off on our bikes. As we cycled through the village, I could see Cathy sitting on a wall outside the shop. She was with a girl I’d never seen before and they both looked like they were all dressed up for a party or something.
‘Who’s that with Cathy?’ I whispered.
‘That’s her friend, Andrea,’ whispered Kate. ‘She sometimes stays with Cathy when she’s in Seacove. She’s kind of a mini-Cathy. She’s not very nice.’
Just then Cathy looked up and saw us approaching. She pointed at Kate and said something to her friend. They both laughed – a mean, spiteful kind of laugh. Then Cathy held her nose, like something smelled bad.
I really couldn’t understand what was going on. I know that bullying is always wrong, but back when Kate seemed weird, I could kind of understand why a mean girl like Cathy would pick on her. Now though, Kate was totally nice and normal, and still Cathy gave her a hard time. Clearly the whole bullying thing had always been more to do with Cathy than with Kate!
‘Pay no attention, Kate,’ I said. ‘Cathy’s not worth it.’
Kate didn’t answer, but when I looked at her I could see a real hurt look on her face. Kate is my friend, and I hate when people upset her – so I knew it was time to do something.
I sped up my bike and zoomed towards Cathy and Andrea. When I got close to them, I suddenly veered to one side and cycled straight into a huge puddle of mucky water. It was totally brilliant – Cathy and Andrea were soaked from their perfect highlighted hair down to their perfect glittery red toenails. They jumped up from the wall and screeched and flapped at their clothes like demented chickens.
‘Ooops, sorry, girls,’ I said, without slowing down. ‘I didn’t see you there. I think your hairspray must have got in my eyes.’
When I was safely around the next bend, I stopped my bike. A second later, Kate stopped beside me.
‘OMG,’ said Kate. ‘That was so cool, Eva. Did you see their faces? That’s the funniest thing I’ve seen in hundreds of years.’
Then she looked at my clothes. ‘But you’re soaked too,’ she said.
I grinned. ‘I know,’ I said. ‘And I don’t care. It was totally worth it. Now let’s forget about Cathy and Andrea. You and I have got a job to do.’
Half an hour later we parked our bikes on a lane outside a huge old ivy-covered house.
‘Here we are,’ said Kate. ‘This is the house Martha told us about. I bet all the answers we need are somewhere in here.’
I looked through the big metal gates. Suddenly I didn’t feel so confident.
‘Yeah,’ I said, sarcastically. ‘Maybe we can go inside and search the place. Maybe we’ll look under a four-poster bed and find the stolen chalice with a note tied to the handle telling us who really took it.’
Kate rolled her eyes. ‘Now you’re just being pathetic,’ she said. ‘All we need to do is find someone who knew George Eades back in the day.’
‘And then what?’
‘And then we ask them a few questions.’
‘But we can’t just march in there, can we?’
‘And what will we say?’
‘You’ll think of something,’ said Kate.
I liked her confidence in me, but wasn’t sure that I deserved it. But we’d cycled a long way and it didn’t seem right to give up without trying.
‘Right,’ I said, trying to sound brave. ‘Let’s go.’
I pulled one of the gates half open, and the two of us walked towards the house. Our feet made crunchy noises on the gravel, and that distracted me from the thump-thump noises my heart was making. I wasn’t sure what exactly I was afraid of, and in a way, that made things even worse. I was tempted to turn around and run.
‘If there’s a guard dog, I’m totally out of here,’ I said.
‘This is important,’ said Kate. ‘We can’t let Daisy down.’
‘If there’s a dog chewing my leg, we might just have to let her down,’ I muttered.
Kate laughed. She totally loves all animals, even scary ones with big sharp teeth.
After what felt like a hundred years, we made it safely to the front door.
‘Maybe no one lives here any more,’ I said.
‘If that’s the case, then someone should tell the milkman,’ said Kate, pointing to a bottle of milk on the doorstep.
I knocked and gave a small jump as I heard the sound of the knock echoing through the house. A long minute passed.
‘I don’t think anyone’s home,’ I said, trying not to sound too relieved.
I was getting ready to walk away when we heard the click of high-heeled shoes on a wooden floor. I heard the sound of keys being turned, and seconds later, the door was open and a woman was standing looking at us.
‘Yes?’ she asked. ‘What can I do for you two girls?’
The woman was smiling at us in a friendly kind of way, and I started to feel a small bit braver.
‘Er, hi,’ I said. ‘My name is Eva, and this is my friend, Kate.’
The woman probably guessed that we hadn’t walked up her driveway and knocked on her door just to tell her our names. She looked at my mucky clothes, and she seemed to be waiting for me to say something else. Only trouble was, I didn’t know how to continue.
I looked desperately at Kate, but she just shrugged helplessly.
‘Er …… er …… Kate and I cycled here from Seacove,’ I said. ‘Er … we’re really interested in local history … it’s kind of like our specialist subject … and we …… were wondering … if … if well if you happen to know anything about a man called George Eades.’
‘Of course I know something about George Eades,’ the woman said. ‘He was my grandfather. But he was a quiet, private man and I’m afraid I can’t see why you girls would be interested in him.’
By now I was getting desperate. The vague plan I’d come up with in the safety of my own garden wasn’t much help now that I was standing on this doorstep trying to make conversation with George Eades’ grand-daughter.
I looked at Kate again, but she was no help whatsoever. She was playing with a piece of her hair, and acting like none of this had anything to do with her at all.
‘Er… we just wanted to know what George Eades was like and stuff,’ I said.
This was turning out to be a nightmare. The woman was tapping her foot on the shiny wooden floor and starting to look impatient. I guessed we had about thirty seconds before she told us to leave.
‘Just tell her the truth,’ said Kate, finally finding her voice.
I knew she was right. When you can’t think of any good lies, the truth is probably the best way to go.
I took the photograph out of my pocket and held it towards the woman. She took it from me and looked at it for a minute.
‘That’s a sweet photograph,’ she said. ‘But I don’t know these people. What have they got to do with me? What have they got to do with my grandfather?’
‘That’s a photo of the Lavelle family,’ I said. ‘Daisy, Florrie and Jean-Marc. They used to live over in Seacove – in the little house where I’m spending my summer holidays. They were a really happy family – at first. But then Mr Lavelle got sent to prison for something he didn’t do. There was a court case and we think that George Eades, your grandfather––’
Now the woman’s smile vanished. It was like a shutter had come down over her eyes, and she looked blank and cold.
‘I think you two girls have wasted quite enough of my time,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what you think you are doing, but it’s time to stop right now. Go home and play computer games or whatever it is young people do nowadays. Go away and stop bothering innocent people.’
She was starting to close the door and I knew this was going to be my last chance.
‘It’s never too late to right a wrong,’ I said. ‘Jean-Marc died and Florrie died, but Daisy might still be alive. Don’t you think she deserves to know the truth about her father? If you know something that could help her, don’t you think––?’
But now the door was fully closed. ‘Good-bye,’ came the woman’s voice from behind the thick wood. ‘And if you ever come back here again, I will be calling the police.’
Then I heard the click-click of her heels as she walked away.
‘At least we know where we stand,’ I said, as we walked back to our bikes. ‘I like people who make themselves clear.’
‘Yeah,’ said Kate. ‘But it definitely wasn’t a wasted journey.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Did you see the way that woman changed? She was all sweet and smiley until we mentioned the court case. That means she knows something. She definitely knows something.’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘You’re right. But you heard what she said. Short of torturing her, I can’t think of a way to get her to share what she knows with us, can you?’
Kate shook her head. ‘So that’s it,’ she said. ‘This is the end. We did our best, but it’s looking like poor Daisy, wherever she is, is never going to know what really happened.’
The cycle home seemed very long and full of steep hills.