The Mum Mystery Read online

  Holly looked shocked and she replied straight away that she wasn’t allowed to bring friends home without asking her mum first.

  So Nevada got out her mobile and phoned up her aunt. ‘Aunt Ruth, can you phone Holly’s mum and ask if it’s OK for me to go round there after school today?’ she asked as Holly and I watched in amazement. She listened for a moment and said, ‘Well, Holly’s right here – I’ll get her to tell you the number.’ And then she was handing Holly the phone saying, ‘Aunt Ruth wants to know your phone number.’

  And after that it was a done deal, because there was no way Holly’s mum was going to say no. (In fact she’s always nagging Holly and me to get to know other people at school instead of just staying glued to each other the whole time.)

  I didn’t mind too much that Nevada had arranged for the three of us to hang out together after school for the second day in a row – but Holly was clearly furious about it.

  ‘It’s my own fault for being too friendly towards her,’ Holly whispered when she got me to herself in French. ‘Now she thinks we’re going to include her in everything we do – well she’s wrong.’

  Holly pretty much ignored Nevada for the whole of the walk back to her place, and she was still chatting almost exclusively to me as we sat in her bedroom at half past four, tucking in to the orange juice and biscuits her mum had brought upstairs for us. (Dad could learn a lot from Holly’s mother, I reckon.)

  Nevada listened to us in silence for a while, then she suddenly announced, ‘By the way, I’ve got something to tell you.’

  ‘What?’ I asked through a mouthful of chocolate-chip cookie.

  ‘It’s about our case.’ She paused dramatically. ‘I think I know who did it.’

  ‘Who?’ Holly and I both asked at once.

  ‘I can’t say yet, not until I know for sure – but I’m almost positive I’m right.’

  ‘Have you been getting psychic vibes about it?’ I asked, starting to feel both excited and spooked at the same time.

  But before Nevada could answer, Holly said dismissively, ‘Of course she hasn’t – she’s just bluffing.’

  ‘I am not!’ Nevada retorted hotly. ‘I just had a vision about it.’

  ‘What sort of vision?’ I asked.

  But Holly was scornful. ‘Don’t be stupid, Esmie. She’s making it up.’

  ‘No I’m not,’ Nevada protested.

  ‘Oh yeah? Well, prove it then!’

  ‘OK – I will. My psychic powers tell me that it’s going to happen again very soon. So you’d better watch out!’ She stood up and started to put on her coat. ‘See you tomorrow, Esmie.’

  ‘Nevada, don’t leave –’ I began, but she had clearly already made up her mind.

  ‘She’s definitely bluffing,’ Holly said after she’d gone. ‘Either that or she’ll go and paint something herself to make it look like she was right.’

  I was shocked. ‘Do you really think she’d do that?’

  ‘I think she’d do anything to get your attention.’

  And I started to think about my mother’s jewellery box and how Nevada had certainly grabbed my attention with that.

  For the rest of the time I was at Holly’s house she became more and more fixed on the idea that we couldn’t trust Nevada. She even started to say that maybe Nevada was the one who had painted the fruit-and-veg van in the first place. ‘Think about it, Esmie. She had the opportunity because she lives in your road and she knew all about Matthew painting her uncle’s car, so that probably gave her the idea. And the van got painted the same evening she was in a huff with you because you came back to mine after school instead of going to hers.’

  ‘But there’s no way she’d do that, Holly!’ I exclaimed. ‘She’s my friend.’

  ‘That’s just it – she wants to be your friend really badly, doesn’t she? And as soon as you saw her after that van got painted, you were asking her if she could use her psychic powers to help solve the crime. Don’t you see? Painting the van gave her a way of getting to hang out with you.’

  I frowned. ‘Yes, but what about that note? Why would she have written that?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe Ian really did write that and the two things aren’t connected.’

  ‘I don’t think so, Holly,’ I said, because this was all starting to sound way too complicated now.

  ‘Well, I have a very strong hunch that I’m right,’ Holly said firmly. ‘And you’re the one who’s always saying that detectives ought to act more on their hunches.’

  Dad collected me on his way home from work and I didn’t have much time to think about what Holly had said, because as soon as we got through our front door, Matthew yelled downstairs to me that Grandma had just called from Chicago. ‘She said she had something to tell you!’

  ‘Can I phone her back straight away, Dad?’ I asked.

  ‘All right. But I’m about to start dinner, so don’t be too long.’

  I was going up the stairs so that I could use the phone in Dad’s room, when our doorbell rang. I really hoped it was Lizzie – even though I knew we weren’t expecting her that night. I paused on the stairs just to make sure it wasn’t her – and it turned out to be Steve, one of Dad’s policemen mates, who was still in his uniform and who had come to talk to Dad about something to do with work.

  ‘Hi, Steve,’ I called down to him. Steve has known Dad for a long time, and he and his wife have got two boys the same ages as Matty and me.

  ‘Hi, Esmie. Still want to be a detective when you grow up?’ Steve asked me. (All Dad’s friends from work seem to know about that.)

  ‘Of course,’ I replied. ‘I’m doing some detective work at the moment actually – I’m just going to call one of my informants.’

  Dad invited him into the kitchen and asked him if he wanted a cup of coffee, so I guessed we were going to have to wait a while for our dinner.

  I didn’t mind because it gave me more time to phone Grandma. I couldn’t think what it was she had to tell me, but I guessed it must be connected with my mother’s message.

  I was right. As soon as Grandma picked up the phone, she started to tell me that ever since I had last called, she had been thinking a lot about my mum and those summer holidays in Brighton.

  ‘I started to think about Amanda and Kirsten and I suddenly remembered that I might still have an address for their mother. She’d moved away from Brighton and we’d lost touch completely by the time Claire . . . well, by the time you were born. But I never throw out old address books, so I got them out and started to look through them. And I found her address – crossed out but still legible, so I’ve written to her and asked for Amanda and Kirsten’s contact details. If she gets back to me I’ll let you know.’

  ‘Oh, I hope she does!’ I gushed. ‘Then we can ask Kirsten and Amanda all about the Mysterious Four Club – and what November the twenty-first means.’

  ‘Yes, well don’t get your hopes up too much. My letter might not ever reach them. That address must be at least fifteen years old by now!’

  ‘I’m sure it’ll get there,’ I said. ‘I’ve got a really good feeling about it.’ And I really did have a good feeling – though since I’m not psychic I guess I probably shouldn’t have counted on it as much as I did.

  I was so excited when I came off the phone that I really wanted to tell someone – and since Nevada was the only other person who knew about my mother’s message, I decided to pay her a visit. Plus I figured it would be good to have a talk with her sooner rather than later about what had happened at Holly’s.

  I went downstairs and called out to Dad that I was going over to Nevada’s house for ten minutes. Dad was still talking with Steve in the kitchen, so I reckoned he wouldn’t mind.

  As I stepped outside I saw the police car Steve had parked in front of our house and I instantly froze.

  Someone had painted in big red letters on the white bonnet M H WAS HERE.

  My legs felt wobbly as I walked down our drive to the car and touched the paint.
It was still wet, which meant it must have only just been done. It looked identical to the red paint that had been used on the fruit-and-veg van, and yet I knew Dad had locked that paint in a cupboard in our garage.

  M H could only stand for one thing – Matthew Harvey. But there was no way my brother could have done this. OK, so he’d had the opportunity to slip out unnoticed while I was on the phone to Grandma, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that there was no way in a million years that my brother would ever deface a police car.

  I stood on the pavement, looking up and down the street to see if the person who had done this was still around. And that’s when I saw a figure in the Stevens’s driveway – Nevada was standing there watching me. As soon as she realized I’d spotted her, she turned and disappeared through the side gate that led round to the back of the house. And I instantly remembered what Holly had said earlier – that Nevada would probably paint something herself to make it look like she was psychic.

  I ran over to her house and rattled the gate, but it must have been bolted from the garden side. ‘Nevada!’ I called out loudly.

  There was no reply, but I was too wound up to leave it there, and without stopping to think what might happen next, I marched up the steps on to the porch and rang the front doorbell.

  The mistake I made, I realized afterwards, was blaming Nevada the second she came to the door, instead of questioning her some more first. But as I stood on the porch waiting to be let in I could hear raised voices inside the house, and when Nevada opened the door to me, I saw straight away that she had a smear of red paint on one hand.

  ‘Holly was right – it is you!’ I burst out, staring at the paint. And instead of skilfully interviewing her to get the confession I wanted, I just yelled at her until she slammed the door in my face.

  ‘I bet you made up all that other stuff just to get my attention as well,’ I shouted through the letter box. ‘I don’t know how you did it – but I bet you’re a total fake and I bet your mum is too!’

  She opened the door again so suddenly that I nearly fell into the house. ‘My mum is not a fake and neither am I,’ she hissed. ‘And you still need me to tell you what that message means, so you’d better shut up!’

  ‘I don’t need you to tell me anything,’ I retorted. ‘My grandma’s written to Kirsten and Amanda and they’re going to tell me all about it.’

  ‘By the time they get back to you it’ll be too late!’ she snapped, slamming the door shut all over again.

  I was trembling when I got back to our house, and as I entered the hall, Dad and Steve were emerging from the kitchen.

  Dad took one look at me and asked, ‘Esmie, what’s wrong?’

  ‘Steve’s car . . .’ I mumbled, pointing outside. ‘But it wasn’t Matty. It was Nevada.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  I led them out on to the drive so they could see for themselves, and Steve swore under his breath when he saw the state of his car.

  Dad looked shocked. For a moment I thought he was too angry to speak, but then he seemed to pull himself together. ‘It’s OK, Steve. The paint’s probably just emulsion – it should come off with water.’

  Steve had already gone to take a closer look. ‘You know who did this then?’ he asked in surprise.

  ‘Let’s just say it’s happened before,’ Dad replied. He sounded scarily calm as he said, ‘Esmie, go and get your brother.’

  ‘But Matty didn’t do it, Dad. I told you. It was Nevada. She even had paint on her hand.’ And for some reason my tea-leaf reading came flashing into my mind – A friend in whom you trusted will prove false.

  ‘Just get him please,’ Dad said firmly.

  But Matthew was already on his way downstairs. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked me as we met in the hall.

  ‘It’s happened again, Matty,’ I said. ‘Nevada did it, but she won’t confess.’

  Matthew followed me outside and gazed at the police car in disbelief. Dad and Steve were both watching him closely.

  ‘Dad, you can’t think I did this!’ he burst out.

  ‘You’re M H aren’t you?’ Dad said sternly.

  ‘Yes, but I didn’t write that!’

  Dad didn’t say anything. He was looking at my brother’s face very carefully, as if he was trying to decide whether Matty was lying or not.

  ‘Dad, it wasn’t me!’ Matthew exclaimed again. ‘Look, if it was, do you really think I’d be stupid enough to put my own initials?’

  ‘You might if you were trying to send me a message,’ Dad said.

  ‘What message?’ Matthew looked perplexed. ‘What are you talking about? Look, I’m telling you, Dad, I would never do this. I mean it’s a police car.’

  ‘And it’s my police car,’ Steve grunted. ‘So you’d better not have done it or you’ll be getting a right good kick in the backside from me as well as your dad.’

  ‘Steve, I didn’t do it, honestly.’

  Dad was looking at my brother with an expression I couldn’t quite fathom. Then he said slowly, ‘I think I believe you.’

  ‘Dad I’m telling you—’ Matty began, breaking off abruptly as he took in what Dad had just said. ‘You do?’

  ‘Yes. I actually don’t think you would do this.’ He paused. ‘Please tell me I’m not wrong.’

  Matthew shook his head emphatically. ‘No, Dad, you’re not. Of course you’re not.’ And I could tell that he couldn’t quite believe that Dad was on his side at last.

  ‘Well, thank God for that,’ Steve said gruffly.

  ‘Matty didn’t paint that van either, Dad,’ I added. ‘That must have been Nevada too, just like Holly said.’

  ‘Well, regardless of what Holly says, I think we’d better not jump to any conclusions.’ Dad turned to speak to Steve. ‘Look, I’m really sorry about this, but I’ll get to the bottom of it and let you know what I find out.’

  Steve nodded. ‘Here’s you thinking you’d finished work for the day, eh?’

  Dad grimaced. ‘Come on. We’d better get this paint cleaned off before you go back to the station.’

  ‘At least Lizzie doesn’t have to worry that Matty’s been vandalizing stuff because he doesn’t want her moving in with us,’ I said after we’d waved Steve on his way.

  We were all in the kitchen, and Dad was checking to see what food we had in the fridge. ‘How do you know about that?’ he asked.

  ‘Well . . .’

  ‘I didn’t know Lizzie thought that,’ Matthew said. He had been munching his way through a jumbo bag of crisps, having clearly regained his appetite.

  Dad seemed to forget that he had just asked me a question and instead he turned to look at my brother. ‘Actually I was beginning to think that too, Matthew. I mean . . . how do you feel about Lizzie moving in?’

  Matthew shrugged. ‘I think it’s cool.’

  ‘You said before that you thought she was unreliable,’ I reminded him.

  ‘No I didn’t.’

  ‘Yes you did. You said all women are unreliable.’

  Dad frowned. ‘Matthew, I really don’t think that at sixteen you can call yourself an expert on all women!’

  ‘I never said I was.’

  ‘Well, you shouldn’t have said they were all unreliable then,’ I told him.

  ‘Look, I was just talking about Jennifer. And . . . and . . .’ He swallowed and looked nervously at Dad. ‘I just meant Jennifer, OK.’

  ‘Yes, well I hope you didn’t mean our mum as well,’ I said, giving him a stern look. ‘Because I don’t think you can call dying in childbirth unreliable, can you, Dad?’

  Dad looked taken aback, then to my surprise he started to smile. ‘I agree, Esmie. You can call it many things, but unreliable probably isn’t one of them.’

  ‘Of course I didn’t mean her,’ Matthew told me huffily.

  ‘Then why did you put away her photo?’ I demanded.

  ‘I don’t know. I just felt . . .’ He swallowed and didn’t seem to be able to go on.

&n
bsp; ‘Angry?’ Dad suggested gently.

  Matthew looked at him in surprise. ‘I guess I just felt mad because of Jennifer dumping me. I’m not angry about Lizzie moving in if that’s what you’re thinking. I want the two of you to be together. I told you before. It’s cool.’

  ‘Well, thank you. That’s good to know,’ Dad said softly. ‘And, Matthew – wherever you decide to keep your mother’s picture is fine with me. I know you don’t need a photograph in order to remember her.’

  I felt a bit uncomfortable when Dad said that, because unlike Matthew I do need a photograph or I wouldn’t have any picture of my mother inside my head at all.

  ‘Can I phone Lizzie and tell her what’s happened, Dad?’ I asked. ‘Then maybe she’ll come home . . . I mean back,’ I added quickly. After all this wasn’t, strictly speaking, Lizzie’s home yet – not while she still had her own flat.

  ‘I think I’ll do that myself, thanks, Esmie,’ Dad replied. ‘In fact how about I phone her now, while you two make a start on tea?’

  However, he didn’t have time to phone, because at that moment our doorbell rang. Matty and I stayed in the kitchen while Dad went to answer it, and straight away we heard Mr Stevens’s voice. ‘Sorry to disturb you, but my niece has something she wants to tell you.’

  We both rushed into the hall, expecting to see Nevada, but as Dad invited Mr Stevens inside, we saw that the only person with him, looking incredibly sulky, was Carys.

  As soon as we were all seated in the living room, we turned towards her expectantly, but the only one she was looking at was my brother.

  ‘It wasn’t Nevada who painted that police car and the van,’ she told him frostily. ‘It was me. And it was me who sent that letter to your dad, in case you haven’t worked that out by now.’

  I gasped. Not only had I been wrong about Nevada, I’d been wrong about Ian putting that note through the door. ‘But how did you know all the stuff you put in that letter?’ I asked her, feeling confused.