Lily, Jay and Sam sat cross-legged on the floor of Ms Hanan’s classroom, organising enormous piles of books and stationery while Lily filled them in on her conversation with Snyde.
“Ugh, what a creep,” said Sam.
“It was awful,” said Lily.
“So he thinks Ms Bright has been looking for the diamond?” said Jay.
Lily slotted a book into the shelf by her head. “Honestly, I’m not even sure if he knows what he’s talking about. He thinks everyone is out to get him and that everyone is trying to steal something from him.”
Sam scoffed. “I for one think we should definitely steal something from him.”
Jay hefted a little pile of books on to his lap. “He really did it. He really killed Ms Bright’s mum.”
“And that’s why Emily had to disappear.”
“We need to solve the treasure hunt,” said Lily. “The story about the diamond started all of this. Maybe whatever we find at the end of the clues will help us to finish it.”
“What if we get to the end and it’s actually an enormous diamond?”
“What if we get to the end and it’s a trap? We don’t even know who sent the museum ticket to Ms Bright.”
“We need to get a look at those benches,” said Sam.
“But how?” asked Jay. “My mum is still following me around like a shadow.”
Sam grinned. “I think it’s time to start breaking some rules.”
It took forever for Lily’s mum to fall asleep. Lily had been afraid that she would doze off herself but there was no chance of that. Her whole body fizzed with anticipation. She tried to read, tried singing songs in her head, tried to do anything but stare at the hand on her clock as crawled its way round. Seconds stretched into minutes, minutes into hours, and Lily genuinely worried that she might lose her mind if she didn’t stop watching the time pass.
Finally, at two in the morning, the house was quiet. Lily had gone to bed dressed, pulling her quilt around her chin so that when her mum came to check on her and switch off the lamp, she wouldn’t be able to tell. Her boots and her warmest jumpers were laid out on the chair, a dressing gown draped over them to hide them.
She pushed back her covers and slipped out of bed.
She wriggled into two jumpers and then pulled on three extra pairs of socks. The jumpers made her arms stiff and she struggled to reach her toes. She should have done this the other way round. Nocturnal sneaking was not something she was particularly experienced in. She laced her boots, squeezed her jacket over the layers of jumpers and jammed her hat on to her head. Her jacket rustled as she moved, and she froze again, listening out for any sound of movement from her mum’s room. Nothing. She checked her pockets. Torch, keys, paper, pencil, three chocolate biscuits she had stashed away earlier. She was ready.
She eased open her window. Cold air whistled in through the gap, making Lily shiver, even through all her layers. It was absolutely dark outside, the kind of dark that didn’t exist in the city. She could hear the faint crashing of the sea, and as she slid herself over the edge of the windowsill she was seized with irrational panic that the water was right beneath her, waiting for her to fall. She knew, of course, that what lay beneath her dangling feet was her garden, but it still took her a few minutes to make herself move from the safety of the windowsill.
She reached out an arm tentatively, wishing she’d had a chance to practise this in the light. Right at the edge of her reach, her fingertips grazed the drainpipe. She leaned a little further, shifting her balance into the dark, trying not to panic. Her fingers closed round its rough surface. With her other hand she wedged a book under the window, making sure it wouldn’t close behind her and lock her out.
She tightened her grip on the drainpipe and reached out with her foot, looking for a hold. Her balance shifted a little too far and she swung from the windowsill, tearing the skin on her palm and colliding with the pipe, sending a magnificent clang vibrating through the night. She froze, waiting for the lights to come on, for the yelling to start. At least sneaking out to solve a treasure hunt and keep an ancient diamond from a murderer was unlikely to be the first of her mum’s suspicions.
The house stayed silent. She peered into the dark, wondering if Sam was stuck up a different drainpipe just a few metres away. She couldn’t see anything. She climbed down the pipe, wincing at every metallic scraping sound. Her foot hit a patch of ice and slipped. She fell, fortunately only a metre or so; her fall broken by her mum’s hibernating rose bush. Lily shook leaves from her hair. Her mum was not going to be happy about that.
She looked up at her open window. It looked almost close enough to touch. She couldn’t believe it had taken so long to come such a short distance. She scowled at the drainpipe, contemplated giving it a kick, but decided it probably wasn’t worth the risk. She straightened her hat, zipped her jacket up under her chin and headed out into the dark, feeling her way along the row of garden walls.
She didn’t dare switch on her torch until she rounded the corner away from her house, and then she kept it pointed downwards, lighting her path, looking out for errant cobblestones or slippery patches. The main road appeared ahead of her and she followed the pinprick glimmer of the street lights, like a sailor navigating dark waters by the stars. The road was completely deserted.
It was eerie, the familiar window fronts shuttered and blank, her footsteps the only sound on the normally bustling street. She bent as she passed over the compass at the crossroad, touching the carved heart for luck. The light died away again as she left the main road. After the glow of the street lights, the dark seemed even deeper and more impenetrable than before. She could hear the sea close by now and went slowly, terrified that at any moment she would step over a cliff edge.
“Lily!’
The whisper came from nearby. She stopped and swung the beam of her torch around. Sam clicked her torch on and waved, guiding Lily to the bench. She was sitting with her shoulders hunched against the cold, Costello huddled between her knees.
“You brought Costello?” said Lily, stroking the dog’s ears.
Sam shrugged. “It seemed like the easiest way to stop him whining and waking up the whole house after I was gone.”
“You just walked out the front door?”
“Of course. What did you do?”
“Oh. Er, same.”
Lily was glad it was dark so Sam couldn’t see her blush. She sat down beside her friend, squeezing in close for warmth.
“So have you read the dedications yet?”
“Not yet. It felt like something we should do together.”
Lily nodded, and then remembered that Sam couldn’t see her.
“What time is it?”
Sam was wearing a ridiculous glow-in-the-dark watch, which Lily had often made fun of. Now she was very glad of it.
“Quarter to three.”
“Where’s Jay? It’s not like him to be late.”
“Maybe he couldn’t get out.”
“How long do we wait?”
“Let’s give him until three, see how cold we feel by then.”
Lily already felt completely frozen. Sam linked her arm through Lily’s and they huddled close. The minute hand of Sam’s watch had just touched the twelve when the light of Jay’s torch came bobbing towards them. Lily flashed hers on and off a few times to let him know where they were.
“I’m so sorry, my brother woke up as I was getting ready to leave. I had to pay him not to tell on me.”
“Brothers,” sympathised Sam.
“Are we ready?”
“Let’s do it.”
Three shaking torch beams pointed to the brass plaque screwed into the bench.
“Those lost live on inside our hearts,” read Lily.
“By time and tide, we’re torn apart”, continued Sam, turning to give Lily a warm smile.
Nervously, they moved to the third bench in the row. “When oceans calm and danger’s gone,” read Jay.
“You’ll be the light to guide me home!” Lily turned to her friends, a triumphant grin lighting her face.
“You were right! A pair of couplets!”
“Read it again. I want to write it down in case I forget,” said Lily, pulling her paper and pencil from her pocket. Jay held his torch above her, while Sam reread the poem. Costello sat down on top of Lily’s feet, shivering hard and giving them all doleful looks. Lily scribbled the poem down and stuck the paper back in her pocket.
“It still sounds religious to me,” said Jay. “Light and guidance and all that. That’s really churchy.”
Lily frowned. She felt as though the answer was lurking at the edge of her mind, just out of reach.