It was a kidnap, it had to be. Why was it called a kidnap? There were no kids involved, and napping was, like, one of her favourite things. This was neither snoozy, nor fun.
She dug through the mess, trying to pile things up, make sense of what had happened. Whoever had been here had been looking for something, or somethings. Had they found it? The entire place was trashed, so maybe not.
Scarlet had only been coming here for a month or so, but that was several times a week, and enough for her to spot Martin fiddling with the mirror that still hung over his desk, a jagged crack now running through it.
She pulled gently at it, surprised it was still in place. It was fixed firmly to the wall, and didn’t budge when she tried harder. All the mirrors at home were held on with, like, these tiny little clips that meant if someone closed the door too hard they fell off the wall. Wasn’t it just a touch suspicious that this one, in a squat no less, was superglued on?
That could mean the people who came here were pretty stupid, or it could mean they were trashing the place for fun, and weren’t looking for anything at all. Either way, she thought what lay behind it was probably worth taking a look at.
She hauled the desk back onto its legs, and shoved it over against the wall. Kneeling carefully, she peered around the side of the mirror, running her finger around it. She was two thirds of the way round when she heard the click.
Scrambling back, grinning and nodding to herself, and wondering where all the tossers in school who laughed at her were, when she did something cool, she watched the mirror swing open. Behind was a small cubby, containing three books, which Scarlet grabbed, before dropping down onto the floor.
One of the cushions was still intact, buried beneath a stack of paper, and she placed it against the wall, turning the books up the right way and examining them as she sat.
‘The Council.
Minutes and meeting records, 2011/12’
She opened it at a random page, flicking quickly through pages in which someone said this, and someone else said this, and a resolution was passed, and lots of outstandingly boring stuff happened. The next book was the same, only 2010/11, and the last 2009/10. She had the set. Woo.
Had they been looking for these? And if so, why? Minutes of meetings, or what she now knew of them, were boring, and entirely useless. Unless they said something incriminating… she sighed, looking at the books again, and speaking to the empty room.
‘Really? First Wuthering Heights, and now this…’
She shook her head, went back to 2009, and began to read. Within the first few minutes, she’d realised two things. The first, was that the Council wasn’t the people who mended the roads, but something else entirely. The second was that whoever they were, they were making decisions she thought the government usually made, or possibly people more important than the government, like The Queen, or the people who did the TV programming.
She kept reading, losing herself in debates over what should be done with a certain part of London, or whether a new policy for handling politicians was necessary. She was drawn from her reverie by a noise, like metal scraping across concrete. In her mind’s eye, she saw the bin door, opened too far and dragging across the pavement.
She was up, shoving the books back behind the mirror and pushing it closed, her heart hammering. There was nowhere to hide in here, just the room, and the bed… of course. She ran into the bedroom, a box just large enough to hold the single bed that lay there. The mattress was in a similar state to the sofa, but you couldn’t see through it, and she dropped to the ground, grunting as her knee caught the side of the frame.
She wiggled, getting beneath it, and lay still, panting quietly, heart thumping so loud whoever was coming was sure to hear. The door slammed, and voices reached her, followed rapidly by footsteps.
‘We’re late, we’re too bloody late.’
‘Not necessarily. Let’s just have a look, shall we?’
The first speaker hissed, foot steps coming to a stop just outside the bedroom. He was a Londoner, through and through. ‘Alex, please, just ‘ave a look around, will ya? They did a good job of it, they’ve got ‘im, and the books, so let’s not waste our time.’
The other man, still speaking slowly, as if to a child, was American, and sounded rich. ‘Please, just, calm yourself. Yes, they’ve certainly got him, but the books, I’m not so sure. Perhaps we just need to search a little more thoroughly.’
His voice grew louder, and she could imagine his face, tanned and smug as he peeked into the bedroom. She crossed her legs, swallowing hard as the sounds of papers and books being tossed about came from the other room.
