Tunnels

'I'm just going to take a quick look around the place,' he said. 'For clues,' he added with a wink, and had left the kitchen and gone upstairs before either of them could react. They sat there, peering up at the ceiling as they listened to his muffled footsteps moving from room to room on the floor above.

'What does he think he's going to find?' Will said. They heard him come downstairs again and walk around the ground floor, and then he appeared back in the kitchen doorway. He fixed Will with an inquiring look.

'There's a basement, isn't there, son?'

Will took the policeman down into the cellar and stood at the bottom of the oak steps while the man cast his eye over the room. He seemed to be particularly interested in Dr. Burrows's exhibits.

'Unusual things your dad has. I suppose you've got receipts for all these?' he said, picking up one of the dusty clay heads. Noticing Will's startled expression, he continued, 'Only joking. I understand he works in the local museum, doesn't he?'

Will nodded.

'I went there once… on a school trip, I think.' He spotted the dirt in the wheelbarrow. 'So what's all that?'

'I don't know. Could be from a dig that Dad's been doing. We usually do them together.'

'Dig?' he asked, and Will nodded in reply.

'I think I'd like to take a look outside now,' the policeman announced, his eyes narrowing as he studied Will intently and his demeanor taking on a sternness that Will hadn't seen before.

In the garden, Will watched as he systematically searched the borders. Then he turned his attention to the lawn, crouching down every so often to examine the bald patches where one of their neighbor's cats was accustomed to relieving itself, killing off the grass. He spent al little time peering at the Common over the ramshackle fence at the end of the yard before coming back into the house. Will followed him in, and as soon as they entered, the officer put his hand on his shoulder.

'Tell me, son, no one's been doing any digging out there recently, have they?' he asked in a low voice, as if there was some dark secret that Will was dying to share with him.

Will merely shook his head, and they moved into the hall, where the policeman's eyes alighted on his gleaming shovel in the umbrella stand. Noticing this, Will tried to maneuver himself in front of it and block his view.

'Are you sure you — or any members of your family — haven't been digging in the garden?' the policeman asked again, staring at Will suspiciously.

'No, not me, not for years,' Will replied. 'I dug a few pits on the Common when I was younger, but Dad put a stop to that — said someone might fall in.'

'On the Common, eh? Big holes, were they?'

'Pretty big. Didn't find anything much there, though.'

The policeman looked at Will strangely and wrote something in his notebook. 'Much like what?' he asked, frowning with incomprehension.

'Oh, just some bottles and old junk.'

At that point, the policewoman came out of the living room and joined her colleague by the front door.

'All right?' the policeman said to her, tucking his notebook back into his breast pocket. He gave a last penetrating look at Will.

'I got everything down,' the policewoman replied, and then turned to Will and his sister. 'Look, I'm sure there's nothing to worry about, but per standard procedure we'll make some inquiries about your father. If you hear anything or need to talk to us — about anything at all — you can contact us at this number.' She handed Rebecca a printed card. 'In many of these cases, the person just comes back — they just needed to get away, have some time to think things over.' She gave them a reassuring smile and then added, 'Or calm down.'

'Calm down about what?' Rebecca ventured. 'Why would our father need to calm down?'

The officers looked a little surprised, glancing at each other and then back at Rebecca.

'Well, after the disagreement with your mother,' the policewoman said. Will was waiting for her to say more, to explain exactly what the argument had been about, but she turned to the other officer. 'Right, we'd better be off.'

'Ridiculous!' Rebecca said in an exasperated tone after she had shut the door behind them. 'They obviously haven't got the faintest idea where he's gone or what to do about it. Idiots!'

12

'Will? Is that you?' Chester said, shielding his eyes from the sun as his friend emerged from the kitchen door into the cramped back yard behind the Rawlses' house. He had been whiling away the time that Sunday morning by swatting bluebottles and wasps with an old badminton racket, easy targets as they grew lazy in the noonday heat. He cut a comical figure in flip-flops and a beanie hat, his oversized frame accentuated by baggy shorts and his shoulders reddened by the sun.

Will stood with his hands in the back pockets of his jeans, looking a little preoccupied. 'I need a hand with something,' he said, checking behind him that Chester 's parents weren't in earshot.

'Sure, what with?' Chester replied, flicking the mutilated remains of a large fly off the frayed strings of his racket.

'I want to take a quick look around the museum tonight,' Will replied. 'At my dad's things.'

He had Chester 's undivided attention now.

'To see if there are any clues… in his office,' Will went on.

'What, you mean break in?' Chester said quietly. 'I'm not…'

Will cut him short. 'I've got the keys.' Taking his hand from his pocket, he held them up for Chester to see. 'I just want to have a quick look, and I need somebody to watch my back.'

Will had been completely prepared to go it alone but, when he stopped to think about it, it seemed natural to enlist the help of his friend. Chester was the only person Will could turn to now that his father had gone. He and Chester had worked very effectively together in the Forty Pits tunnel, like a real team — and, besides, Chester seemed genuinely concerned about Will's father's whereabouts.

Lowering his racket to his side, Chester thought for a moment as he gazed at the house and then back at Will again. 'All right,' he agreed, 'but we'd better not get caught.'

Will grinned. It felt good to have a real friend, someone other than his family he could trust, for the first time in his life.

* * * * *

After it had grown dark, the boys stole up the museum steps. Will unlocked the door and they slipped in quickly. The interior was just visible in the zigzag shadows thrown by interlacing bands of weak moonlight and the yellow neon from the street lamps outside.

'Follow me,' Will whispered to Chester and, crouching low, they crossed through the main hall toward the corridor, dodging between the glass cabinets and grimacing as their sneakers squeaked on the parquet flooring.

'Watch the—'

'Ouch!' Chester cried as he tripped over the marsh timber lying on the floor just inside the corridor and went sprawling. 'What's that doing there?' he said angrily as he rubbed his shin.

'Come on,' Will whispered urgently.

Near the end of the corridor, they found Dr. Burrows's office.

'We can use the flashlights in here, but keep your beam down low.'

'What are we looking for?' Chester whispered.

'Don't know yet. Let's check his desk first,' Will said in a hushed voice.

As Chester held his flashlight for him, Will sifted through the piles of papers and documents. It wasn't an easy task; Dr. Burrows was clearly as disorganized at work as he was at home, and there was a mass of paperwork spread across the desk in arbitrary piles. The computer screen was all but obscured by a proliferation of curling