“You’ve got to tell your parents,” Stew cries. “This bloody Code thing is insane!”
“I can’t,” I say, still finding it hard to look at them. “Dad will lose his job and—”
“Get real, Rich!” Dave tells me. “This has gone way beyond bullying!”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“So what are you going to do, then?” Stew asks me. “Stay there and let that lot kick the shit out of you until Christmas?”
“Course not!” I snap.
“So call your folks!” he tells me, handing me his mobile.
“I can’t — Spencer will kill me!”
“No problem,” Stew says. “I’ll call them!”
My heart lurches, and I make a grab for his mobile, but he easily dodges me.
“For Christ’s sake, Rich, what are you so scared of?” Stew demands. “You didn’t steal that mobile, did you?”
“NO!”
“So, what’s the problem, then?” he cries.
“Chrissie,” I stammer. “What’s going to happen to—”
“I knew she’d be all over this!” Beth interrupts.
“What do you mean?” I demand. “What’s Chrissie got to do with any of this?”
Stew and Dave look at the floor, but Beth sticks her chin out, as if she’s prepared to take a punch to tell me whatever it is. “She’s your thief!”
“What?” I cry, too shell shocked to get angry.
“She’s behind it all right,” she says, her eyes all wild. “I’d bet my life on it!”
“We’re twins. She’d have to hate my guts to do this to me!”
“No,” Beth disagrees, refusing to back down. “She loves you so much she doesn’t want to share you with anyone else!”
“Not this rubbish again.” I look to Stew and Dave to back me up. “Tell her!”
But both of them are still looking at the ground, and I know they’re thinking the same as Beth.
“I don’t believe you lot!” I cry, feeling more hurt than angry.
“She’s been doing this forever!” Beth continues. “Pretending she was sick so we’d have to cancel your surprise birthday, ruining our skiing holiday, hurting her ankle so you’d get into a fight with Spencer and wouldn’t be able to come back with me for the weekend—”
“And that’s supposed to convince me she’s a psycho loony?” I snap.
“No — it’s to show you what she’s like!” she continues. “And by turning everyone in that school against you, she’s finally got what she wants — you, all to herself!”
“You’re crazy!”
“Do you know what makes me crazy?” she tells me through her clenched teeth. “You do, because if this was a film, you’d see it a mile off!”
She stomps out, followed by Dave, who keeps telling her, “I just need time to take it all in,” leaving me alone with Stew in the most awkward of silences.
“We didn’t mean it to come out like that,” he confesses, sitting on the end of my bed.
“So you’re on their side?”
“Course I am. I’m trying to help you!”
Stew really annoys me sometimes; just because he’s two years older, he thinks he knows everything.
“Rich, I know she’s your sister and all that—”
“She’s more than my sister!” I interrupt. “We’re twins — there’s no way she’d do that to me!”
“Perhaps she didn’t mean to,” Stew offers, still not really looking at me. “Perhaps she thought they’d just send you to Coventry.”
I don’t know why, but what he says really gets to me; like a mosquito buzzing in my ear, it keeps irritating. “Get out!”
“Who else but you or Chrissie knows where Dave and I live?”
“Get out!”
“We never wrote to you,” Stew snaps before he gets his temper in check. “I sent you plenty of emails, but I never wrote to you once, and we both got letters from you saying you didn’t want to be friends anymore and you’d finished with Beth.”
Once again, he starts to make me doubt myself. “It wasn’t Chrissie!”
“And why would Spencer and his lot post hate mail on Beth’s Facebook page?”
“What?”
“She’s been getting bombarded by some really evil Internet trolls,” he explains. “They’ve been posting a bunch of crap; she’s been called everything from a slut to a racist.”
“She never said.”
“No,” Stew says. “That’s because she loves you, and I bet she didn’t tell you she’s cancelled her final audition for Day Break, that new TV soap, to come and see you today either.”
I don’t know what to say; now I feel guilty as well as like an all-round loser.
“Open your eyes, Rich,” he tells me, getting to his feet. “You’re starring in a psychological horror, and until you realise it, none of us can help you.”
Chapter 47
I don’t know why, but when Mark, Beth’s brother, arrived to pick them all up, I couldn’t stop thinking about the old horror film Christine, and not because the car has the same name as my sister; it’s because the victim, Arnie — well, he was stupid. Okay, he was possessed most of the time, but even when he wasn’t, he ignored all the clues. He pushed his best friend away, and he died an idiot.
Now my life’s stopped making any sense, I find myself beginning to analyse it as if it were a film. Someone’s out to get me, and that someone’s gone to a lot of work to make every one of my friends hate me. But who? Who hates me that much?
Unable to sleep, I get up and look outside the window. Trouble is, I was never any good at coming up with ideas for our films. That was Stew and Dave’s department, and Beth, well, she made sure we looked the parts and always came up with the perfect ending. I was the glue that pulled it all together, made it real, because Stew and Dave just got too stupid at times.
I let out a long breath, which steams up the window. I may not know who’s after me, unlike stupid nerdy Arnie, but I’m not going to make the same mistake and push my friends away. I’m going to ask them for help, because once I’m back at St. Bart’s, there’s nothing I can do until Christmas — if I last that long.
I get dressed and head outside to find a payphone. It’s not late, but everyone’s already asleep, and still feeling like St. Bart’s is watching me as I make my way down the deserted corridor, I find an Out of Order sign hanging over the receiver.
Great! Just like in every film, nothing’s ever easy for the hero. I take the lift down to the ground floor; there has to be a working phone in Outpatients. Unfortunately, there’s some drunk bloke with tattoos on his face using it, and he doesn’t look like he’s getting off anytime soon.
Not liking the look of any of the people in Outpatients enough to ask if I can borrow their mobiles, I head outside into the rain, and as I use the building for shelter, my eyes finally find a phone booth on the opposite side of the main road, by a bus stop.
By the time I manage to find a break in the traffic, I’m drenched, and teeth chattering with cold, I call the operator to reverse the charges and wait and wait and wait.
“Hello?”
Relief floods through me. “Beth, it’s me.”
“Has something happened?”
“No,” I tell her, blinking rainwater out of my eyes. “I just need your help.”
“What do you want me to do?” She sounds worried, despite me telling her everything’s okay. “Call your parents?”
“No, I told you. Dad will lose his job.”
“Okay, so what do you want me to do?”
“I don’t know,” I confess, the weight of it all pressing heavily on me again. “But I need to do something.”
“Mark said you could stay with him.”
“What did you have to tell him for?”
“Well, I had to tell him something to explain the mess you were in.”
I know she needed to tell her brother something, but it doesn’t stop me feeling even more of a wimp.
“Rich, do you want to run away with me?”
I’m still miserable, but I hear myself laugh. “Yes, but just come round and help me try to figure out who’s setting me up.”
“How?”
“I don’t know how; that’s why I need all of you.”
I jump as someone bangs on the door with such force it shakes the booth, and turning round, I find two security guards from the hospital waiting outside for me with scowls on their faces.
“Rich, Rich, what’s going on?”
“Hang on,” I tell her, my insides shaking as I push open the door to face them. “Yes?”
The tall one with a flat nose looks really fed up as the rain continues to drip off his cap. “Come on, back inside, you.”
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll be a minute.”
“You’ll come now,” he barks. “This is a hospital, not a hotel; you can’t leave when you want to.”
“But I need to talk to my girlfriend.”
“Now,” he says, folding his arms.
“I’ve got to go!” I tell Beth. “Come and see me tomorrow, and bring Stew and Dave.”
He puts the receiver down for me and points towards the hospital. “Come on, kid. I’m freezing my nuts off here.”
Flagged by the two guards like some common criminal, we wait for a break in the traffic again as the cold rain continues to soak me.
“I’m watching you,” he says, nudging me in the side as the traffic lights turn red and we can finally cross. “So don’t even think about running off.”
“I wasn’t trying to run away,” I try to tell him again over all the rain. “I just needed to speak with my girlfriend, and the payphone in there wasn’t working!”
“I know what I saw, kid,” he says as the front doors slide open and he steers me back into the main reception.
“What do you mean?” I’m really fed up with everyone thinking I’m a liar.
“I can see everything that goes on in this place,” he tells me, pointing up at the security cameras. “Now get dry, go back to your room, and stay there!”
I stare at the square grey security camera as if seeing one for the first time. Of course! Why didn’t I think of it before?
“What now?” he asks, tugging on my arm. “Haven’t you ever seen a security camera before?”
“Yes, they’ve got them all over our school.”
Chapter 48
I’m filming real-life, fly-on-the-wall documentary stuff, and even though I’ve a hundred or more cameras and an editing deck at my disposal, the one thing I don’t have is time, and that’s why this needs careful planning. I’m going to have to draw my enemy out of the shadows, and for that, I’m going to have to lay a trap.
In World War I, the other side used to deliberately injure soldiers in No Man’s Land, and then their snipers would pick off any of his comrades who came to his aid, one by one. That’s how Captain Howard won the VC. He wouldn’t leave a single one of his men to die out there alone in agony. I’d like to be the hero like Captain Howard. Trouble is, I’m also the bait.
I check the door again, just to make sure we’re still alone.
“Relax,” Beth tells me for the hundredth time. “I’ve got a clear view of the corridor from here.”
I shift some more in my discomfort.
“We’re allowed to visit you,” she says again, trying to convince me. “God, Rich, get a grip!”
“Sorry,” I apologise, deciding not to bite my thumbnail. “So what have you come up with?”
“Just hear me out,” says Dave, holding up his hands in surrender as if he’s anticipating rejection. “You film them beating you up and threaten to show the Head if Spencer doesn’t tell you who told him you tried to frame Chrissie.”
“Great plan!” I cry. “You do realise they don’t pull their punches.”
Dave squirms. “Yeah, that’s why it sucks. Have you thought about putting the frighteners on Jones — he seems the weakest link.”
“No, Jones has got into enough trouble because of me. Think of something else.”
“The post room,” says Stew after another long silence. “That’s the key.”
“How?” I ask.
“Because none of that lot would steal your post.”
“One of them pissed on my bed!”
“Yes, I know all that,” says Stew dismissively. “But they all believe in this Code thing. Don’t you see, Rich? Kicking your head in is playing by the rules, but stealing something — they’d be as guilty as they think you are.”
It’s simple, almost too simple, and although the best plots always are, this one’s too simple to work. I shake my head. “They’d just say they were collecting it for me.”
“Maybe,” Dave agrees, starting to do his Sherlock Holmes impression that he always does when we’re brainstorming. “But if we catch them destroying it?”
“And how do I prove it was the same letter?” This is always the problem with Stew and Dave’s plots; they have more holes in them than the honeycomb chocolate bar I’m eating. “We’re not filming this in high definition, and I can’t zoom in on the letter. This is grainy security footage!”
Dave starts to suck on his pencil, and while Stew paces around in circles, I snuggle into Beth.
“I wish you’d come back with me,” she says, touching the bruise on the side of my face. “Mum said you can stay with us.”
“You told your parents?”
“I only told them you’d got hurt playing rugby,” she assures me. “But they know something’s wrong, I think Mark may have said something.”
Great, now both her brother and her parents think I’m a right wimp. “I’m not running away,” I tell her again. “I can’t. I’ve got to find out who’s behind it so Dad won’t lose his job.”
She kisses my cheek.
“What was that for?”
“Being you and always thinking of other people.”
Unable to stay angry, I laugh and pull her lips down to mine.
“Knock it off, you two!” Dave complains. “I’ve sorted it.”
“Sorted what?” I ask, getting in another quick kiss.
“How to catch the post thief.”
“How?” Beth and I ask in unison.
“Big envelopes!” Dave announces.
“I like your thinking,” says Stew. “They’ll show up nice on camera.”
“Yes, and they’ve got some massive Christmas cards in the gift shop downstairs,” Dave continues. “I saw Beth looking at them when we were getting supplies.”
“Thanks for spoiling the surprise,” Beth complains, pretending to hit him.
“You’re going to surprise Rich with five big cards,” he tells her. “Come on, get ready. You need to go shopping.”
Beth looks confused. “Shopping?”
“Yes,” Dave tells her. “Buy up to five of those really big Christmas cards downstairs. We need to send one a day until Rich finds out who’s behind this.”
“And how’s he going to let us know?” Stew demands. “He isn’t allowed to call us, remember?”
“He can send us a letter,” Dave replies. “Get him some stamps too.”
“They’re stealing my letters too!” I remind them.
“No problem,” says Dave. “We’ll call you.”
“They’re not going to allow me to speak to you,” I say, pointing out another hole the size of a volcano crater. “We’re not allowed any calls unless it’s an emergency.”
“I’m sure they’ll let you talk to your dad,” Dave says, looking smug. “And Stew does a great impression of him.”
“What’s that?” says Stew, sounding just like Dad as he mimics him playing with his Blackberry. “I haven’t got time for any of this now; I need to speak to an important client.”
I snort a laugh, and then I feel miserable again; if Dad cared about me as he did his deals, I wouldn’t be in this mess.
“I’ll call on Friday,” says Stew, talking like himself again. “Tw
o o’clock okay?”
“We need to work out how he’s going to tell us,” Dave says, indicating I should get writing again. “In case someone’s with him when we call.”
“Agreed,” says Stew. “Okay, Rich; if you tell me you’re really looking forward to your first Christmas in Mumbai, then you’ve caught them.”
“And,” Dave adds, “you can let Stew know who it is by asking him if you can invite him or her back for the holidays.”
“And if you don’t know who it is,” Stew continues, “you tell me you’re still working on your final history assignment, and we’ll continue sending the big letters.”
“There’s just one problem with this plan,” I tell them. “I need VHS video tapes to record all this.”
“Get videotapes too,” Dave tells Beth as she puts on her coat. “There was a shop near the bus stop that had lots of phones and old electric stuff outside; they ought to have some.”
“Can you get one of those converter leads too,” I add. “Or I won’t be able to take off the footage.”
“What type?”
“My camera’s in the bedside table.”
“Can I take it with me?” Beth asks.
“Sure, but be careful; I’ve not backed up my last lot of rushes.”
“Don’t worry,” she tells me, slipping it over her shoulder. “I’ll take good care of it, and I’ll make a backup.”
Beth goes off while Dave and Stew try to come up with some better code words as we sip on the hot chocolates the tea lady brought round.
“So what are you going to do when you find out who it is?” Dave asks, stretching out his back.
“I know what I’d like to do to them,” I snarl, the anger making me strong. “And before you say anything, it’s not Chrissie.”
“I wasn’t going to say it was,” he protests. “But I think you should go to your housemaster instead of dealing with it yourself.”
“Why?”
“Because in that insane school of yours, you’ll have condemned him, or her,” Dave adds, “to a death sentence!”
“So what?” I say, getting hot with anger. “Look what they did to me.”
“I know,” says Stew. “But whoever it is, they’re dangerous, and when they’ve found out you’ve been filming them, you’ll be for it.”
“Listen to him!” I look up to see Beth standing in the doorway, a big bag of shopping in one hand, my camera in the other. “Because that person’s a psycho.”