Chasing the Dark Read Free Page B

done properly. I went upstairs, wondering how I was going to kill the time till she and George went to bed. I didn’t have a computer – or even a phone now the tramp had taken mine. Not that I was in the mood for playing games, what with Oz staring death in the eye and Mum . . . well, you know.
    I was sitting on the bed picking at a hole in my sock when George tapped on the door and came in with a box of books.
    â€˜I found a few of my old favourites in the attic,’ he said, dumping the box on the duvet. ‘I think there’s some of your aunt’s in here, too.’ He sat down awkwardly. ‘She doesn’t mean it, you know. She’s just highly strung. Underneath she’s got a heart of gold.’
    Whatever hard metallic substance Doreen’s heart was made of, it definitely wasn’t gold.
    â€˜She’s just taking a while to adjust to having a youngster around the place.’
    I nodded and started checking out the books: Biggles Learns to Fly , the Guinness Book of Records for 1972, a torn copy of something called Kidnapped and a load of Jackie annuals with dorky-looking girls on the front. I gave up when Igot to a layer of recipe books and knitting patterns and flipped open Kidnapped . Under the Park Hill School crest someone had written ‘Awarded to Sadie Slattery for punctual attendance at choir practice’. My eyes blurred up. George looked embarrassed, gave me this awkward pat with his big, sausagey fingers, and made for the door. ‘You’ll be OK, Joe. Just give it time.’
    Yeah, right.
    I gave it twenty minutes after George had gone before slipping out to the shed pretending I was going to see Oz. Edging round his empty bed, I stuffed my pockets with dog biscuits and hunted round for a torch. George caught me coming back indoors and looked dead guilty when I headed straight for my room, though he cheered up when I told him I was getting stuck into Kidnapped .
    Actually, it was pretty good – all about this orphan, David Balfour, who gets abducted by his evil Uncle Ebenezer. But I was too terrified to concentrate on David Balfour’s problems; terrified of what that old tramp might do to Oz and terrified that Doreen was going to catch me nicking her stuff. I was quaking so much I waited another hour after she and George had gone to bed before I even dared open my door.
    Every step creaked, every hinge screeched. I couldn’t believe she didn’t come running. I grabbed what I needed from the first-aid kit plus a couple of apples, a packet of biscuits and half a loaf from the kitchen before I went for Doreen’s catering supplies, reckoning she’d take longer to notice they’d been raided. I stuffed a whole salami and a jar of olives into a plastic carrier, sliced a lump off a bigpink ham covered in herbs and another from a crumbly wedge of cheese, and added them to my stash. I hesitated, not sure how much stuff I’d need to buy Oz’s freedom. Just to be on the safe side I snatched a bottle of brandy, a bar of dark chocolate and a box of macaroons, and shoved the lot in my backpack. George’s jacket was hanging in the hall. Feeling sick, I felt around for his wallet. There was seventy quid in there. I took forty. Sorry, George. Really, really I am .
    The track through the woods had been tough going in daylight, but it was a million times worse at night and a feeble torch beam wasn’t much help against a mass of foot-grabbing, eye-gouging trees. As for the noises, I don’t know which were scarier – the twigs that kept snapping like someone was following me, or the sudden bursts of rustling that turned into muttering as I blundered past. I kept close to the brick wall, following it round. Even then I nearly missed the door. I was juggling the torch and the keys, looking for the right one, when I noticed the key ring had a crest on it. It was two bears standing on their back legs holding up a shield.