The Chrysalid Conspiracy (18 page)

“Do you mean that daddy may be involved in your Headmaster’s death?” Claire’s voice was almost a whisper.

“No, no,” broke in Amelia. She could sense the conversation slipping away from her. “It’s just that he’s, er…”

“Friendly with the police,” finished Rayn. “You never know.”

There was a tap on the shop window. “Talk of the Devil,” said Rayn. The remark wasn’t lost on his children.

“Do it, Caz. Do it for me, for us. Please.” Claire implored her sister. She had an inner feeling that this was right and she didn’t want to lose it.

Carrieanne nodded to her. She took her tape recorder out of her bag and gave it to Rayn. “This is for Claire. A token of trust. I didn’t turn it off. It’s the whole conversation. Never trust a journalist.”

“What about my interview?” complained Rayn.

“Oh, I think I can think up something better than that. And more believable, as well.” She smiled and the two girls left to walk home with their father.

Back in the living room, Amelia and Rayn both relaxed.

“You bailed me out again, thanks,” said Amelia.

“You need to learn to think faster.”

“You need to learn to move faster,” replied Amelia, indicating Rayn’s face.

“Yeah,” she said. “That’s twice I’ve been put down today. I must be slipping.”

“It’s lucky that Claire came down on our side,” said Amelia.

“I think I saw a glimmer of hope in her voice,” agreed Rayn.

“What?” exclaimed Amelia. “How can you see a glimmer of hope in someone’s voice?”

Rayn thought for a moment. “Well, I didn’t really see it, or hear it. I sort of sensed it, in my mind. Damn you, Amelia – whatever you’ve got it must be catching. With my luck I’ll be hearing trombones next.” The laughter broke the spell of uncertainty the girls were feeling at almost being outsmarted.

“Those poor girls,” said Amelia after a while, and she told Rayn about the conversation up in her room. “I wish we could help them in some way.”

“Don’t we have our own problems?” said Rayn.

“Yes, but ours is only a far-fetched fictional conspiracy theory, right?” replied Amelia.

Rayn responded quickly, “A theory that has the habit of stringing a lot of strange things together. We now know that the Vicar was in the building when the professor jumped. I wonder what that proves, if anything,” Rayn argued. She was determined to keep Amelia’s interest.

“Well,” replied Amelia. “You remember when we were being questioned by the police?”

“Yeah,” said Rayn. “It’ll be a long time before I forget that one.”

“I never got the chance to tell you, but when the vicar held my hands, I could feel his need for control. I thought at the time it was the same feeling I had from whoever was in the Professor’s office. I dismissed it because it didn’t seem possible. After all, he is a vicar. But now, well, I don’t know.” And she told Rayn of her mother’s account of the Vicar leaving to a cello fanfare.

Before Rayn could comment, their mothers came in, having eaten in the kitchen.

“Have they gone?” said Bridie as she piled the table with trays of food “Seem like a nice couple of kids, don’t they?”

The girls dived in the deep end as Lucy spoke up. “I get the feeling that all is not well in that family,” and she looked at Amelia for confirmation. Amelia shrugged.

“Could be. I don’t know,” she lied.

Lucy watched them destroy Bridie’s culinary mountain and she felt the first flush of panic.
Not yet,
her mind screamed,
it’s way too early for this reaction.

“Let me see that face, young lady,” Bridie said, unaware of Lucy’s concern. She made Rayn stop eating and cupped her head in her hands, gently moving her neck. “Does that hurt?”

“A bit, but the painkillers have kicked in now,” Rayn replied.

“Hmm,” Bridie responded. “Head up. Look up, left, right.” She looked into her daughter’s eyes. “I’m not happy about this,” she announced. “You are spending the day in bed tomorrow. And no arguments.”

“Oh Mum,” Rayn wailed. “I’m fine, really.”

“No you’re not. Anyway, you need the rest. And that’s final!” Bridie was in no mood to argue.

“I think it’s for the best,” said Amelia, assessing Bridie’s mood. “I’ll come over and see you in the afternoon, okay?”

“All right then,” Rayn conceded. “Let’s go home.” She said to her mother.

“I’ll call for a taxi,” said Lucy. “I’m not having Rayn walk down that dark lane. It’s awful weather tonight.”

“That sounds good.” Rayn responded. “I do feel a bit whacked out. No pun intended,” she added with a laugh.

“Lucy, you know that’s an expense we can’t afford, and I won’t let you pay. You know that.” Bridie was getting cross.

“Oh no, I’m not paying. Amelia is,” said Lucy.

“What?” cried Amelia, but the look on her mother’s face told her that this battle was already over. “How do you figure that out?” Her mother’s light smile told Amelia all she needed to know.

“Because this is your mess and you can take the consequences. You can’t kick someone in the face and just walk away, you know. ‘The piper must be paid’,” she quoted.

Later, tucked up in bed and tired though she was after a long day, Amelia couldn’t sleep and decided to read for a while. With the book she found the forgotten letter that Miss Collins had given her. She had the fleeting impression it was a last minute postscript but after reading it her heart and her mind thumped and, no longer aware that tiredness even existed, she opened the book.

Turning over to do battle with her alarm clock Amelia felt a stab of pain between her shoulder blades. Her clock had a smug look on its face. “Somebody told you about Horace, did they?” she questioned it. “Well, enjoy the moment; it could be your last.” Then it dawned on her that the pain was external, she was lying on something with sharp corners and the book, with what little information she’d gleaned from it, dug its way into her mind. Speed-reading hadn’t worked well, and she’d had to resort to the old fashioned slog.

Perched on the edge of her bed, flexing the muscles in her back, she reviewed her discoveries.
Explanations? There were none. Information she could use? The same. Information she could make sense of? Not a lot. Anything at all she could understand? Not a squidgeon.
She decided that though the professor may have been brilliant in his field, he might have had a cupboard full of Nobel Prize gold medals, and perhaps he even tossed cabers in his spare time, but the one thing he couldn’t do was write coherently. This was going to be a challenge.

Dragging herself into her tracksuit she sat on the bed, frustrated at only finding one trainer. She flirted with the idea that it was only Tuesday, and the omens were in favour of a bad week. She toyed with the idea of not going for a run today but then she remembered the tension from the gym last night and knew she had to, if only to check that Nigel was okay with everything.

She slipped out the front door, locked it behind her and put the key in a zip-up pocket in her suit top. Nigel arrived while she was doing her warm up. “Hi Nigel, how are you this morning?” she enquired.

“I’m fine, how are you?” he said.

“My brain won’t wake up,” she told him. Nigel’s smile told Amelia her day just got a lot worse.

“We’ll just run. There’s a footpath all the way to the Moonraker. Let’s go there today.”

“What?” Amelia’s bad morning just got worse.

“Come on. You’ve no school today, so no excuses,” he laughed and they set off at a gentle pace over the old stone bridge towards Warem Down.

“How’s Rayn?” he asked her after a few minutes.

“She’s fine, at least physically. I don’t think anyone has ever spoken to her like that before. Or at least lived to tell the tale,” Amelia answered. “You were a bit brutal, Nigel. That’s not like you at all.”

“I’m sorry Amelia, but it needed doing. That was the right time and the right place,” he said, confident with his decision.

“How do you mean?” She was curious, and she wanted to get this out of the way, for Rayn’s sake.

“Well,” said Nigel. “It’s like when I’m training people to reach a new level of fitness; I know exactly what to do. I seem to see right through them. I know what makes them tick, whether they’re going to make it or not, and what’s stopping them. Rayn needed that, right at that moment. She’s so talented Amelia, you’ve no idea. I just had to. Do you follow me?”

“Yes Nigel, I do. Very much.”

“Yeah, get me out of that world and I’m lost. Since I took a hit in Cambodia I…”

“Cambodia?” Amelia cut in, surprised. “We’re not at war with them, are we?”

“No, not really,” Nigel laughed. “But you have no idea what’s going on out in the world, Amelia. Everything is falling apart and the more we do to hold it together, the worse it gets. Anyway, since I got wounded I can only ever think straight in the gym. Take me out of there and I feel as if I’m treading water. You know what I mean?”

“Only too well, my friend,” agreed Amelia.

“That Rayn. She’s really something,” he continued.

Amelia cut in quickly. This didn’t sound healthy. “Careful Nigel,” she warned. “She’s only fourteen years old. You know that.”

“No, not like that Amelia. Crikey!” he responded quickly. “I mean athletically talented. I knew from the moment I first saw her. That’s why I couldn’t take my eyes off her at the school. I hope I didn’t give her the wrong impression.”

“You did, Nigel. But it’s not surprising, really. You’re not exactly Quasimodo,” Amelia laughed.

“Who?” he said.

“Never mind. She’ll get over it.” Thoughts of Rayn behaving like Esmeralda amused her and she smiled as she saw the similarities.

“Anyway,” Nigel’s enthusiasm was apparent. “She’s a bit rough around the edges, but I can see a lot of time and effort has been put in to her, by some very good people. They must have known what they were doing.”

Amelia stopped running. She stood there, utterly bewildered. “Are you sure about that, Nigel?” she said.

“Oh yeah,” he said. “Don’t forget that what I see in people is common sense to me. I can tell she’s been trained by the way she…by the way she just…is. That’s all…”

“Can we head back now, please? We must be nearly there anyway,” Amelia requested, trying to dismiss what she’d just heard.

“Sure, you got me talking too much today,” he replied.

On the way back, in an effort to maintain a casual mood, she asked Nigel about getting his own gym.

“I don’t think I could borrow enough. I’d like a job in that field though, but as soon as people find out I receive an Army disability pension they don’t want to know.

“But you seem to do okay, what’s the problem?” she asked.”

“They don’t like head injuries in this business. So I’m really grateful that G-Dad gave me this chance to get back into it. He said that he wanted me to do it. And now he’s brought Rayn in, well, she’s a new challenge. With you we had to get you interested first, which wasn’t difficult I must admit. But we had to start from scratch. Somebody’s already done the groundwork with Rayn. She’ll be up to your standard in no time. Once we take out some of that arrogance, she’ll be great.”

Amelia stopped dead. Her mind was caving in under a pressure she was unfamiliar with, and it wasn’t the running that was making it difficult to breathe.

“What did you just say?” she demanded.

“What? Rayn being a new challenge?” he asked.

“No! Before that.”

“Oh, you mean about G-Dad putting me up to it? He said he wanted me to. I was glad to help out.”

Amelia didn’t speak again for the rest of the run. Her mind was doing somersaults.
Damn that conspiracy thing, I thought it was my idea to take up athletics, Are we’re being trained? It’s not possible, surely.
She needed to talk to Rayn.

By the time they reached the shop, Amelia had assured Nigel that everything was fine and that Rayn didn’t hold a grudge. She told him Rayn would be there on Wednesday, subdued and ready to learn. As Nigel ran off he called back to her. “Good! Just make sure she cleans her blood off the floor.”

***

Later, as Amelia stood in the shower, the new information, mixed with what little she’d gleaned from Professor Melkins book went round and round inside her head.
Are we being manipulated? Who would do such a thing? What on earth for? Why us? So many questions and not one single answer, except that blasted conspiracy theory.

Trying to push all this to the back of her mind, she dressed in her familiar jeans and jumper and called her mother. She only wanted tea, so Amelia joined her even though she was starving.

“You look much better this morning, Mum.”

Lucy smiled at her daughter. “Oh yes, better than what?” she sighed and continued. “I’m sorry, my love. To be honest, I really don’t know how much more of Mrs Orugo I can take.”

“Does she really hurt you, Mum?” asked a concerned Amelia

“It’s not really the pain,” explained Lucy. “I can’t feel anything below the waist. It’s just that everything seems so out of place when she’s finished. It’s very uncomfortable for a while. I do look forward to Sundays when she doesn’t come in. Your touch is so much lighter.”

“Thanks Mum. You tell me when you’ve had enough of her and I’ll make sure she leaves here wearing her backside as a necklace.”

“I see Rayn’s influence is having an effect on you,” Lucy replied and she burst out laughing.

“No Mum. Just the courage to express what I’m thinking. If you’d let me use swear words, that remark would have been a lot funnier.”

After Lucy was up and dressed for the day, Amelia tidied the kitchen and hung around till Molly came in. “Wow! Molly, you look good. New jeans, and you’ve lost some weight as well. You really do look good.”

“Thank you. Is it starting to show then?” she answered, thrilled to bits and fishing for more compliments.

“I’ll say. What have you been up to?”

“Oh, for the last few weeks I’ve been exercising and dieting, a bit of jogging when I get the time. I must admit, I feel so much better.”

Although Amelia knew Molly was in the mood to chat some more, she seemed even bubblier than usual and Amelia felt that she just couldn’t stand it that morning.