To Jubilee Crystal Simpson
Somewhere on earth
Dear Jubilee, things have just got really weird. And I don’t know what to think.
Delphine must have escaped from Mrs Briggs and Mrs Fullerton at last, because she was waiting for me after school today.
When she saw me, she wound down her car window. ‘Were you in my hotel room yesterday?’ she asked.
I propped my bike against the fence. ‘No.’
‘So you didn’t leave this on my bed?’ She held up a bit of paper.
I guess it was a map, though it was really rough, as if a little kid had drawn it.
‘I’ve never seen it before,’ I told her.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I didn’t think it was you, but I had to ask.’
She slumped back against the car seat and rubbed her eyes. Then she looked at me really hard, as if she was trying to see right inside me. ‘Can you keep a secret, Marguerite?’
I didn’t tell her I wasn’t Marguerite anymore. ‘I won’t say anything about Uncle Dylan.’
She shook her head. ‘It’s a far bigger secret than Uncle Dylan. A really big, important secret.’
So of course I said, ‘Yes!’
‘Are you sure?’ she said. ‘Because if you tell anyone about this, some very bad people are going to go free. And the good people will get punished.’
I had to cross my heart and hope to die three times before she believed me. Then she looked around to make sure there was no one nearby, lowered her voice and said, ‘I’ve been lying to you.’
What???
‘I’m not really a journalist,’ she said. ‘I’m a federal police officer, and I’m here undercover.’
By this time my mouth was hanging open.
‘I can’t tell you any more,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t even supposed to tell you that much, but I think you’d already guessed it. You’re a smart kid, Marguerite.’
I hadn’t already guessed it. I hadn’t guessed anything like it! But I didn’t tell her that, because I kind of wanted her to go on thinking I was a smart kid.
In the end, she told me one other thing.
It knocked all the breath out of me. ‘You’re investigating Constable Hennessey?’
‘Oops,’ said Delphine, ‘that just slipped out.’
‘Why are you investigating him?’
‘Forget I said it, okay? But now you know the truth. And here’s the thing, it looks as if someone is trying to interfere with my investigation. So I’m going to have to bring it forward, and I need your help. Are you willing to play your part?’
A couple of weeks ago I would’ve said yes straight off. But today, something stopped me.
‘I – I’ll have to ask Mum,’ I said.
Delphine shook her head. ‘This is too important to bring anyone else into it. I’m trusting you, Marguerite. The success or failure of my investigation is in your hands.’
What do you do when a federal police officer says something like that to you? You kind of have to say yes, don’t you? It’s probably illegal not to.
So that’s what I did.
From Tracy
PS. I keep thinking of Olive’s happy face when she was with her dad. I want to tell her about Delphine’s investigation. I want to tell Mum, too, and ask her advice.
But I can’t, because I promised.