August (9 page)

‘Cal! What is it?’ Winter sat up in her bed, swamped in her T-shirt. ‘You were trying to say something. You must have been having a
nightmare
.’

I flinched at the memory. ‘It’s just the
recurring
nightmare I have,’ I said.

Winter pulled a woollen blanket from her bed and wrapped it around her as she took a seat, cross-legged, on the couch beside me.

‘It’s always the same nightmare. There’s a baby crying somewhere in the dark, and there’s a worn, old white toy dog … Whenever I see it I get this horrible feeling–like I’m lost, and I’m all alone. Like I’ve been abandoned by someone who I thought cared about me. I wake up feeling like a huge part of me is missing.’

Recognition flickered across Winter’s face. She pulled the blanket closer around her shoulders.

‘I’ve never understood it,’ I continued, ‘and even though I still don’t get it, it feels like it should make sense to me. Like there’s some huge and obvious clue that I’m overlooking. You know, when I was at the convent, talking to my great-aunt, Millicent, she sang this weird little song about two children, how
one was lost and
the other one found
.’

‘Why would she sing that particular song?’ said Winter. ‘Unless …’

‘Unless,’ I finished for her, ‘even her
confused
mind knew something about
twin
babies. Twin babies being separated. Remember how I caught a glimpse of that old newspaper clipping at Great-uncle Bartholomew’s place, about twin babies being abducted?’

For a few moments we just sat there, looking into each other’s eyes, as if some massive
question
was on the verge of being answered.

‘One was lost,’ Winter repeated my words, ‘and the other one found.’ She started chewing on her bottom lip. ‘Cal,’ she said, taking one of my hands, and staring at me very seriously, ‘I think your double is the lost twin.’

Winter’s mobile started ringing from her
bedside
table. She jumped up and grabbed it, speaking into it only briefly before passing it to me.

‘Bodhan for you,’ she said.

‘Good morning Bodhan,’ I said into the phone.

‘It’s
Boges
, thank you. Anyway, dude, I’ll need a little while to get you some decent clothes and a clean mobile, but I just wanted to let you know that I’m onto it. I’ll come round as soon as I can. We’ll work out a plan to get Gabbi back.’

Winter took the phone off me and walked away as she chatted with my friend. I was surprised at how well they were getting along. ‘Sure,’ I heard her say before hanging up. ‘Great idea. I’ll go halves.’

Before I could ask her anything, she spoke again.

‘Nightmares are a strange thing, that’s for sure. I used to have this one after my parents died,’ she said, hopping back down beside me. ‘They’re sitting on this park bench–we always loved walking to the park together–and
watching
me playing in a sandpit nearby. Then all of a
sudden I can feel myself sinking, like the
sandpit
’s turned into quicksand. I look over at them for help, but their faces have disappeared.’

Winter looked full of sorrow. She retold her dream like it was a memory of something that had really happened to her. I knew what that felt like.

‘Their bodies are still sitting there,’ she
continued
, ‘exactly as they were before, but their faces are blank. Blank! I start to cry–it’s the worst feeling–but I can’t tell if they can even see what’s happening, or whether they can hear me crying for them. And then just when I’m down to my neck in the sand and think I’m doomed, all these little birds fly towards me from nowhere. Swallows,’ she said, her eyes starting to enliven. ‘Exactly like the ones I’ve drawn on my wall over there.’

‘Like your tattoo?’

‘Yep, just like my tattoo. So they swarm around me in a blackish-grey blur–they almost look like I’ve drawn them with a pen–then they each grab onto my clothes with their tiny claws, and together they flap their wings and lift me out of the sandpit.’

‘Then what happens?’

‘Nothing. I’m not sure.’

‘Your parents?’

‘I don’t know. That’s pretty much where it always ends.’

I tried to think of something to say about what her dream could mean, but I was drawing a blank. Just like her mum and dad’s faces.

‘I’m starving,’ said Winter. She stood up and wandered over to one of her cupboards. ‘Feel free to use the shower while I make us a tasty breakfast. There’s a white towel in there that you can use. Pancakes?’

Winter filled a blue and white Chinese bowl with berries, and put a bottle of maple syrup out on the table. Her place smelled so good, I couldn’t wait to tuck into the pancakes.

I ruffled up my wet hair with the towel. I should have felt great after having a shower, and knowing something other than grey slop was waiting for me at the table, but my head was all mixed up, trying to work out a plan of attack to track down my sister. The problem was that I didn’t know where to begin. Nelson Sharkey, my rescuer and an ex-detective, was the perfect person to have on-side. I needed to call him.

‘Oh,’ Winter said as she slid a couple of
pancakes
onto my plate, straight off the hot pan. ‘I should give you my notes, so that you at least
have something on the DMO to refer to. Now, where did I put them?’ Winter wiped her floury hands on a tea towel and searched through some papers on her desk. I spotted her diary there and remembered the line I had read:
How much
of myself have I given away, to get the things
I want?

I was ready to give everything if it would bring back Gabbi.

‘Here they are,’ she said, passing me some folded notes.

I put my fork down and swallowed a huge

‘The pancakes are awesome. Thanks Winter.’

‘Thanks for these,’ I said to Winter. They weren’t the real thing, but they were better than nothing. ‘You’re not having any pancakes?’ I asked, noticing that the pan was sitting in the sink.

‘I thought I’d go for something a little
healthier
. You finished with those?’ she asked, pointing to the bowl of berries.

‘They’re all yours.’

Winter tipped some muesli into the bowl and then added a huge dollop of yoghurt on the top. ‘Cal,’ she said, ‘you can stay here as long as you like. You’ll have to disappear when I’m being tutored, but that’s about it. Sligo has no idea that we have anything to do with each other,
remember
. And he almost never comes round here.’

‘Almost never’ wasn’t quite good enough. I’d already ‘almost’ been sprung by him once before. I knew it wouldn’t be safe enough for either of us if I stayed too long, but the thought of being on my own filled me with dread.

‘Maybe I will for a couple of days,’ I said. ‘Right now there are a few places I want to scope out. See if anything points to where Gabbi’s being held.’

‘Places? Like where?’

‘Oriana’s, Sligo’s–the car yard and his new place.’

‘OK, how about you try Oriana’s, and I’ll stop by the other two?’

‘All right, but be careful.’

‘Me? You’re the one that needs to be careful, Ormond.’

There was a phone call I needed to make before I started walking to Oriana’s.

I stopped at a phone box, not far from Winter’s, and pulled out Nelson Sharkey’s card. I took a deep breath and dialled his number.

He answered almost immediately.

‘Sharkey here.’

‘Sharkey, it’s Cal. I’m more than ready to meet up.’

Sharkey was able to see me right away, so I
cautiously
headed straight over to the meeting place he’d suggested–his gym.

Thoughts of Gabbi had filled my mind on the walk. Who had her? Were they looking after her? What did they want from me in exchange?

‘Fit for Life’ was painted in faded blue letters on a translucent glass panel in a timber door.
I was hovering outside, unsure whether to just walk on in, or wait for Sharkey, when the door opened and his head popped around it. Beads of sweat dotted his brow.

‘Come on in.’

I followed Sharkey into the near-empty gym, past a few resistance machines and an old guy slowly splashing his way along a glassed-in lap pool. In the far right corner, in a small office area, I could see another guy, with a Fit for Life T-shirt on, talking on a phone.