The Tunnels of Tarcoola Read online

  ‘On Friday, after school. I had to hide out at David’s house.’

  Kitty grabbed Andrea and started to shake her. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Hey, Kitty! Chill! What’s wrong?’

  Looking round nervously, Kitty told them about her ordeal of the night before. The others were horrified.

  ‘You’re sure those men with Buckingham are the ones you saw?’ David asked Andrea.

  ‘Positive. What did your men sound like, Kitty?’

  ‘I don’t know. Scary.’

  ‘Did they have New Zealand accents?’

  ‘I don’t know, I can’t really tell. But I’m sure now that Buckingham’s the wolf boy.’

  ‘How come?’ asked Andrea.

  ‘I went to see Miss Gordon one day and she was upset, because the wolf boy had been there. And the nurse told me she’d just had a visit from Mr Buckingham, and he pays for her room. If Mr Buckingham is supposed to have inherited the property he must be descended from Mrs Woolf. The Woolf boy, see? It all adds up. He’s got her there so he can keep asking her about the treasure. She said, “He’s at me and at me, but I won’t tell.” ’

  David glanced over her shoulder, then looked around desperately for an escape route. Bearing down through the crowd was the unkempt figure of Roger Mason.

  ‘Dear boy!’ he carolled. ‘I’ve got something that might interest you.’ He shoved a piece of paper at David, then was carried off in a wave of people.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ said Andrea. ‘We can’t risk you going to the house again, Kitty.’

  David was skimming through the tattered pamphlet. It was about the coal mine.

  ‘Look,’ he showed the others. ‘There’s a bit of a map here. The tunnels actually go out under the harbour. Look at this: “Sinking of the first shaft, named the Birthday, started in June 1897” . ’

  ‘Let me see that!’ Kitty grabbed the pamphlet. ‘Birthday! The other shaft was called Jubilee. Look, Andrea. Look, it’s marked on the map. Birthday is just north of the house. That must be where that locked door in the shaft leads. That’s where it is!’

  ‘What makes you so sure?’ asked David.

  ‘The first day I met her, the first weird thing she said . . . I asked her about her birthday, and she got all paranoid, and wouldn’t tell me. She must have thought I was asking her about the Birthday shaft!’

  ‘I still don’t get it,’ said Andrea. ‘What did she hide, and why?’

  ‘We can’t be sure until we find it,’ said David. ‘But hey, it’s got to be these missing documents. Maybe there’s something in the will that explains everything. I bet Buckingham wants to find it so he can destroy it.’

  ‘Maybe there’s treasure as well,’ said Kitty hopefully. ‘Can we go tomorrow?’

  ‘Not you,’ said David. ‘Not after what those men said.’

  ‘David’s right,’ said Andrea. ‘He and I can do it. Hey, if they’re watching you it’ll keep them off our backs, won’t it?’

  ‘There’s one more thing, though,’ said David. ‘We’ve got to find the key to that door.’

  ‘I’ll get it,’ said Andrea, her eyes sparkling. ‘Miss Gordon will tell me where it is. I’ll go and see her tomorrow.’

  ‘But I don’t think . . . ’ Kitty protested.

  ‘Kitty!’ Her father was beckoning, and she turned to go.

  ‘We’ll get the key tomorrow and do a proper search!’ hissed Andrea. ‘I’ll call you after we’ve been down, okay?’

  David ran to catch up with his own family and fell into step beside Moshe.

  ‘So, where are you going to look for this will?’ he asked, fishing.

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Do you think it might be in the house somewhere?’

  ‘Behind a secret panel in the library?’ His grandfather smiled and ruffled his hair. ‘That’d be nice.’

  ‘I heard someone say there was a second wife,’ David ventured. ‘Someone Josef Woolf married while he was living here. Has anyone asked her about the will?’

  ‘That’s not exactly it,’ said Moshe. ‘From what I’ve heard, he was living with the housekeeper at one time. In those days there would be a sort of pretence of marriage, just to look respectable, and it seems she lived in the house for a while after he died. But eventually his wife came back and kicked her out, and she was never seen again.’

  ‘She’d be over ninety if she was still alive,’ chipped in David’s mother. ‘I doubt if we’ll be hearing from her.’

  David smiled a little to himself as he trailed after them in the dark.

  MARTIN was sitting at his desk doodling when Kitty and their father came home. He could hear them all talking in the living room, and he resisted the urge to creep to the top of the stairs and listen in. A few minutes later Kitty peeped around his door.

  ‘Are you talking to me yet?’

  ‘Who said I wasn’t talking to you?’ said Martin tersely.

  ‘Well, not you, because you haven’t been talking to me.’

  He threw a rolled-up pair of socks at her, and she edged into the room and sat on the bed.

  ‘Do you want to hear about the meeting?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Marty, you’re not really being friends with Samantha Buckingham, are you?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I?’ He could feel the heat coming into his face, and he willed it away.

  ‘You do know that her father is the one who’s going to do that development, and pull down Tarcoola?’

  ‘That’s never going to happen.’

  ‘It is, Martin, if we don’t stop it. And anyway, I have to warn you . . . There’re these scary men, and I think they . . . they want to hurt us because we’re getting too close.’

  ‘Scary men? You’ve been watching too much television, Kit.’

  ‘No, it’s true, and we’re ninety-nine per cent sure they tried to kidnap Andrea the other day. They’re Mr Buckingham’s goofs, you see, and . . . ’

  ‘His what?’

  ‘You know. Men in suits with dark glasses. They know stuff about us.’

  ‘Goons. Get it right, Kitty. And you don’t expect me to believe any of this, do you?’

  ‘That’s probably why she’s chasing after you. Samantha, I mean. Her father’s probably making her do it, to spy on us.’

  ‘Shut up, Kitty!’ Martin’s face was bright red now.

  ‘Well, why else would she . . . ’

  ‘Get out!’

  Martin resisted the urge to slam the door after Kitty. Her story was ridiculous. Was she making it up to get him interested in that stupid old house again?

  He packed up his homework things and mechanically got ready for bed, his thoughts on Samantha. They had met after school that day. ‘For coffee’, her email had said, which made him nervous. He had only tasted coffee once or twice, and it was horrible, even with lots of sugar. But when he got to the cafe in Rozelle she had already bought and paid for a hot chocolate for herself, so it was easy for him to follow suit. This also allayed his other fear, that he would have to pay for her and that he wouldn’t have enough money.

  Samantha was great. For a start, she was really interested in soccer. Her mother was English, she explained, and a fanatical Tottenham Hotspurs follower, so she was genuinely enthusiastic and agreed with him that there was nothing hard to understand in the offside rule. Then they got onto games. In her house, she told him, they had a special games room, with every game, electronic and otherwise, that he had ever heard of.

  ‘My dad buys them for Oliver,’ she said, ‘and he loses interest after about five minutes. So then I get to play whatever I want, whenever I want!’

  Martin realised his mouth was hanging open.

  ‘It’s a pity, though,’ she said. ‘None of my girlfriends are into that kind of thing. They just want to swap makeup and stuff. So sometimes I wish I had someone who’d come over and play with me.’

  He couldn’t quite form the words. So he said, ‘I thought you’d be into makeu
p too, not games.’

  ‘Oh no, I’ve always wished I was a boy. I’d much rather run around and climb trees and stuff than be all girly.’

  He stared at her manicured hands and her perfect hair. It was hard to imagine.

  ‘You don’t know how lucky you are,’ she said wistfully. ‘We’ve got all these things at home, but we’re hardly allowed out, except to go to school. It’s all “Don’t do this, don’t do that. It’s too dangerous, there’s germs, blah, blah, blah.” I bet you and your sister get to run wild, all over Balmain.’

  ‘Well, we don’t exactly run wild.’

  ‘But I bet you’re allowed to go to parks and places like that without your parents?’

  ‘Well, sure.’

  ‘Well, then, you’ve got lots of places where you can have fun and do stuff we’d never be allowed to do, right?’

  ‘Yeah. It would be awful if we had to stay at home all the time.’

  ‘Like, you know, that old house and garden near the park?’ she persisted. ‘I always imagine it’s like Sleeping Beauty’s castle, because the garden’s so overgrown. Or some other place in a fairytale. And me and Oliver, we’ve always wanted to go and play games in there, and hide and – oh, I don’t know – look for secret passages and stuff.’

  ‘There are secret passages!’ whispered Martin.

  ‘See!’ She was thrilled. ‘You get to find out this stuff. Oh, I’d love to see something like that. Are they in the house?’

  ‘Yeah, I guess there’s one in the cellar, but the really cool one is in the garden, and it was me who . . . ’

  He became uncomfortable all of a sudden, aware she was staring intently at him, her hot chocolate forgotten.

  ‘But it’s not a secret if I talk about it, right?’

  ‘Right!’ She laughed. ‘But maybe you’ll show me some day? We could go exploring together.’

  The idea of Sam spying on him was ridiculous. But thinking about it now, he wondered how they had got onto the subject of the house and the secret passages so easily. Had she been pumping him? And had he given anything away? He fell asleep wondering.

  KITTY agreed to go to Rosa’s house after school. It was better than being around Martin, who was still in his bad mood at breakfast time.

  On the way, while Rosa chattered cheerfully, Kitty’s eyes were everywhere. Before long she was convinced there was a white car following them. It would drive off for a while, then come back. Was it the one that had been outside the Sunset Home the day she’d seen Mr Buckingham there? Her stomach clenched into a painful knot at the thought.

  ‘Kitty!’ Rosa’s voice broke into her thoughts.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘I said, what do you think?’

  ‘Oh . . . sorry.’

  At Rosa’s she tried to concentrate on her friend’s chatter, but she kept wandering over to the window. She could see the street, and a white car parked halfway down. Was it the same one? She hadn’t thought to look at the numberplate.

  ‘Kitty, what’s wrong with you?’ demanded Rosa.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said again. ‘Can I use your phone?’

  With some difficulty she composed an SMS to Andrea: ‘How’s it going? Will she tell you?’

  ‘You don’t have to write proper sentences and stuff!’ said Rosa, peering over her shoulder.

  ‘It’s done now.’ She pressed the Send button.

  The answer came back in seconds:

  ‘wont talk 2 me wants u’

  ‘What’s this about?’ asked Rosa.

  ‘Can I borrow some clothes?’ said Kitty. ‘I need to go out the back way, and I need you to cover for me. I promise I’ll tell you all about it later.’

  ‘You’d better,’ grumbled her friend. ‘What sort of clothes?’

  Five minutes later, wearing Rosa’s jeans and an old baseball cap, Kitty emerged from the lane that hooked around and came out into the street thirty metres behind the white car. She walked briskly away, resisting the urge to run, her palms clammy. When she got around the corner and out of sight her legs turned to jelly and she almost collapsed. Then she did run, as fast as she could.

  At the Sunset Home there was no one around. Kitty waited a few seconds for her rasping breath to quieten, then she hurried up the stairs to Miss Gordon’s room.

  Andrea sat on a chair by the door, and the old lady was dozing on the bed. She looked unbearably fragile, her hair spread out on the white pillow, her breathing hardly a sigh. At Kitty’s arrival she drifted into wakefulness and held out her arms.

  ‘It’s Kitty! I thought you weren’t coming back.’

  ‘You shouldn’t think that.’ She leaned forward and kissed the soft cheek.

  ‘I missed my cup of tea. They don’t leave it if I’m asleep.’

  ‘I’ll make you one,’ Andrea said. She slipped out of the room while Kitty helped Miss Gordon to sit up in bed, fetching an extra pillow that had fallen onto the floor. Andrea came back with tea and held the saucer for the old lady while she sipped.

  ‘Ah, good girl. Just the way I like it.’

  Kitty said, ‘Andrea’s my friend, Miss Gordon. She came here with me, remember?’

  ‘Oh. Are you Tarcoola girls?’

  ‘Sort of,’ said Kitty. ‘Miss Gordon, we’re worried about your present. We think the Woolf boy is trying really hard to find it.’

  The old lady started to tremble. Kitty put an arm around her. ‘The thing is,’ she said, ‘we can help. We can put it in a much safer place for you.’

  ‘It’s safe there,’ whispered Miss Gordon.

  ‘Maybe not for much longer,’ said Kitty. ‘Even if the Woolf boy doesn’t find it, he’s going to make it much harder to get into the mine. That’s where it is, isn’t it?’ The old lady nodded. ‘It’s in Birthday, isn’t it?’ Another nod.

  Kitty took the cup, then held the old lady’s trembling hands in her own.

  ‘Miss Gordon, can you tell us exactly where it is?’

  ‘Well, he didn’t put it right in the shaft, dear,’ said Miss Gordon, her eyes far away. ‘They were going to fill that in. He said he’d put it where he kept his lunch pail. No one ever touched another person’s lunch pail.’

  Kitty spoke very seriously. ‘Miss Gordon, would you give us permission to find your special present and put it in a safer place, to make sure the Woolf boy doesn’t get it?’

  Miss Gordon nodded.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, Kitty. I’m so tired. I can’t keep him off any longer. You look after it now, dear.’

  Over her head, Andrea mouthed a big ‘Yes!’

  Kitty raised the bony hand to her lips and kissed it.

  ‘We need the key,’ she said. ‘There’s a big door that goes into the mine, and it’s locked. Do you know where the key is?’

  The old lady smiled. ‘It’s with the naughty little boy. That was Mr Woolf’s idea. The little boy always made him laugh. He called him Oskar.’ Her expression changed. ‘After his little boy that he lost in the war.’

  ‘He had a little boy?’ Kitty was startled. Nobody had ever mentioned a child before. All of a sudden the cold-hearted and selfish Mr Woolf seemed different to her. He had lost a child! For a moment she glimpsed the darkness in his soul.

  She realised that Andrea was making time-to-go movements.

  ‘Where is this—’ Kitty started, but Andrea was nodding vigorously and making a sign with her finger and thumb, indicating that she knew exactly what Miss Gordon meant by the naughty little boy.

  They ran down the stairs. Andrea opened the big front door and peeped out, then she jumped back, colliding with Kitty.

  ‘They’re there!’ she said.

  ‘But . . . but I left them outside Rosa’s!’ whispered Kitty. She opened the door a crack and peeped out. The white car was parked in the street outside. The sight of it made her start to shake again.

  As they stood in the hall a man came down the stairs, balancing a huge white bundle on one shoulder, and set off down a short passage t
o the left.

  ‘After him!’ hissed Andrea.

  The man went out a side door, where a blue van was parked. He tossed the bundle in and was about to close the van’s sliding door when a voice called out to him. A couple of nurses from the Home were sitting on a bench in the front garden, smoking. He strolled over to join them, lighting up as he went.

  The van hid the girls from the smokers and from the street as they slipped out of the building.

  ‘Come on,’ whispered Andrea. ‘We’ll have to hide behind all this laundry until he closes the door.’

  They climbed into the van, crouched down and waited interminable minutes, rolling their eyes at each other and not daring to make a sound. After a last burst of laughter they heard the crunch of gravel as the man strolled back, then a scraping, rolling sound as he shut the door. A few seconds later the engine started and they were moving.

  ‘Andrea,’ whispered Kitty. ‘It stinks in here. I can’t breathe.’

  ‘I know. I reckon some of those old people wet their beds.’

  ‘They do more than wet their beds,’ complained Kitty. ‘I think I’m going to throw up.’

  ‘Don’t you dare.’ Andrea was busy sending a text to David: ‘got it c u in 15 at little boy with fish’.

  ‘Fifteen minutes? How do you know?’ said Kitty. ‘Maybe he’s going into the city. Maybe the laundry’s in Parramatta.’

  If they went all the way to Parramatta she couldn’t imagine how they would get back. The combination of worry and nausea made it impossible to think properly. She tried holding her nose, but that only made it worse when she had to let go and take a deep breath.

  After a few minutes the van stopped, then backed up, parking.

  ‘What are we going to do when he opens the door?’ hissed Kitty.

  ‘Run.’

  The door slid open and they erupted out of the van. Andrea was halfway down the street by the time Kitty registered which way she was going. The man was too startled to react as Kitty took off, his shout ringing in her ears. She pounded along, knowing she’d never catch Andrea, just trying to keep track of which way to go. Gradually she recognised that the van had stopped at a laundromat in the main street and that Andrea had turned the nearest corner and was heading down towards the park.