Sabotage Read Free Page B

goodness it didn’t rain heavily last night or it might have brought my ceiling down. I’ll have to get the roof fixed before it rains again, though. You youngsters hang on a minute while I phone Jack Mason. He’ll take a look at it for me. Then you can tell me what brings you here.’ He went into the lounge, picked up the phone and dialled a number. From what I could hear of the conversation, Jack was coming to look at the roof later that day.
    ‘Well, that’s sorted. Let’s hope it doesn’t cost me too much,’ Joe said, coming back into the kitchen. ‘Now what can I do for you two?’
    I told him about Mr Smythe taking the bracelet. ‘It must be valuable for him to take it, so I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have thrown it away. It might have belonged to one of your ancestors or something.’
    ‘It’s okay, lass,’ Joe told me, ‘but it’s interesting that it disappeared from the bin. You’ll need to keep a close eye on that Mr Smythe.’
    That’s exactly what I thought.
    Mr Smythe had still been at the B&B when I left, which was unusual. I’d expected him to show up in the field next to Old Joe’s to look for more treasure. However, there was no sign of him yet.
    ‘Maybe he’s metal detecting somewhere else today,’ Max said.
    ‘No, I’m sure that bracelet had something to do with what he was searching for,’ I sighed. ‘I wish I’d taken a photo of it so I could do some research.’
    ‘There might be books in the library, or information on the internet about antique jewellery,’ Max suggested. ‘Do you think you would recognise the bracelet if you saw a picture of it?’
    ‘I reckon so,’ I told him. ‘Let’s go to the library and see what we can find out.’
    We were padlocking our bikes to the cycle rail at the side of the library when Mr Smythe walked out and hurried off down the steps. He was looking straight ahead, so hadn’t noticed us. As he reached the bottom step, his cellphone rang. I put a finger over my lips to warn Max to be quiet. Then I crept over to the wall and bent down to listen in on the phone conversation.
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    Mr Smythe snapped his phone shut and walked off. I remained where I was for a moment, digesting what I’d overheard. Then I went back to Max, who was waiting impatiently by the bikes.
    ‘Well?’ he asked.
    I relayed the phone call to him. ‘I was right, my bracelet has got something to do with what Mr Smythe was looking for in that field. Whoever he was talking to seems to think that if Old Joe was persuaded to sell up, they’d make big money out of his land. Maybe that’s why Joe was offered so much money for his cottage.’
    Max frowned. ‘But Joe got that letter yesterday morning, so it must have been written before we found the bracelet,’ he pointed out.
    ‘Yes, but judging by that phone call, there’s at least one other person involved in this search — one of them could be Mr Dawson, the man who sent the letter offering to buy the cottage. Maybe he and Mr Smythe are in this together.
    ‘I think we should warn Old Joe that those people want to buy his cottage so that they can dig for treasure,’ I told Max, as we headed home.
    ‘So do I, but I can’t go over again today,’ he said. ‘I have to go out with Mum this afternoon. How about we both go and see him in the morning?’
    ‘That’s fine by me. I’ve got plenty of stuff to do as well,’ I told him.
    I spent the evening surfing the net, but didn’t find anything remotely like the broken bracelet. Maybe it wasn’t an antique after all; maybe it was just junk.
    However, if it was junk, then why did Mr Smythe take it out of the bin? And why did he tell the person on the phone that they were on to something big?
    It looked like I had another mystery to solve.

Chapter 4
Lies
    ‘I always feel like we’re being watched in here,’ I told Max as we cycled through the woods to Old Joe’s the next morning.
    ‘Me too,’ he replied,