Operation Code-Cracker Read online

  Contents

  Chapter 1 ICURYY4ME

  Chapter 2 MY TRUANDER ROOM

  Chapter 3 BCDFHIJKLMOPQRSUVWXYZ x 2

  Chapter 4 xmascara

  Chapter 5 Must get here

  Must get here & WONADLEIRCLEAND

  Must get here

  Chapter 6 HOROBOD BAL

  Chapter 7 ENTURY

  Chapter 8 10 ISSUES

  Epilogue TONELESS TONSIL

  Chapter 1

  ICURYY4ME

  It was there again, somewhere in the darkness of his bedroom. Just beyond the foot of his bed. Moving and breathing. Exactly like the night before.

  Heavy with sleep, Max struggled to sit up, squinting into a solid wall of blackness. As his brain swirled in and out of the weird dream, he held his breath so he could hear above the thumping in his chest and the rushing of blood in his head. It was the same dream returning: the one about the old house next door…and the child-catcher lurking somewhere inside.

  Max froze. It didn’t make sense, but he was certain he wasn’t alone. In the stillness of his room he heard the faintest murmur, like a dying sigh. Was it just his dressing gown sliding to the floor from its hook on the door – or something else? Maybe something ready to grab him?

  ‘Who’s there? Dad, is it you?’

  His croak was swallowed by the stifling darkness.

  By now he was shivering. He heard something brush along the foot of the duvet, almost within reach. Apart from the red 01.46 on the clock radio beside his bed, his world was totally black. There wasn’t even a grey smudgy outline of the curtains around the window. He stretched his arm to fumble for the switch on the bedside light but his hand struck the lamp, knocking it over in a clatter of dinosaur models. His scrabbling fingers couldn’t find the switch.

  Groping ham-fistedly through the broken limbs of a triceratops, Max was sure he heard the door whisper over the carpet. His thumb at last hit the switch and light burst across his screwed-up eyelids. From just outside his room, Max heard rustling followed by a creak of a stair. He clambered clumsily over his bed as the front door clicked softly downstairs.

  Frozen in terror, he swallowed hard to ease the strangling tightness in his throat.

  ‘Dad? Are you there?’

  Max’s legs were trembling as he strained to hear his dad breathing heavily in the next room. Why did his dad always sleep so deeply when it came? But waking him was never a good idea. The last time Max had tried to convince him about the ‘thing in the night’, Dad had made him feel really stupid.

  ‘For goodness’ sake, stop imagining things. You’re a bit old to be worried about the bogeyman from under the stairs by now. You’ll be eleven soon, for heaven’s sake.’

  Of course, in the cold light of day, it did seem stupid. Why would anyone creep into his room at night and disappear without a trace? But now he was sure he hadn’t imagined it. It was definitely more than a dream. His dream – where he’d been ringing the creepy neighbour’s doorbell and the front door flew open, flashing light across his eyes… That was when he’d woken. Suddenly he knew it was a blade of light that had sliced into his dream; torchlight on his eyelids before he’d heard the click of a switch and all went dark.

  Max was absolutely certain someone had been creeping around his room with a torch – and an open opportunity to throttle him in his sleep.

  With his eyes now accustomed to the light, he sat on his bed and gazed around his room. His dressing gown lay on the floor like a crumpled body, slumped by the slightly open door. He was sure he’d left it shut. The rucksack he brought when he came to stay with his dad was in its usual place on the chair but he knew without doubt he hadn’t tied the drawstring at the top. Now it was tied, in a bow. He never did bows.

  Even more mysteriously, Max’s autograph book was open on the desk. He knew very well he’d closed it just before he’d gone to sleep. The last thing he’d done before getting into bed was to admire a signature from the footballer who’d visited school that day. But now the open page glared at him, for it was the page signed by Gran a few years before:

  YY U R

  YY U B

  I C U R

  YY 4 ME

  LOL Gran

  Even now, Max wasn’t sure if the LOL meant ‘lots of love’ or ‘laugh out loud’. The rest of the code still made him smile: ‘Too wise you are, too wise you be, I see you are too wise for me.’ It had taken him a while to work it out at first but now it seemed very simple.

  Max was shivering uncontrollably. He scrambled back into bed, but there was no way he could sleep. What if burglars had broken in? What if Dad’s house was haunted? What if the child-catcher had crept in from the big old house next door? The one in his dream.

  As he lay with the light still on, staring blankly up at the ceiling, Max was relieved that soon he’d be back home with Mum on the other side of town, when she came back from her holiday. She always said it was the ‘not so posh part’ but he didn’t mind. He’d never been woken in the night in his room there, where he didn’t have to worry about a presence by his bed – with a torch.

  Grey light eventually began to bleed into his bedroom through the heavy curtains. Birds started calling from the trees, then clattering on the roof as the dawn chorus grew to a crescendo. Max slid out of bed and pulled the curtains back. A blackbird was drinking from a puddle on the flat conservatory roof just below his window. He watched it fly off and perch on the high wooden fence then flutter down onto the lawn next door. He stared in disbelief and sighed. ‘That’s all I need.’

  In the misty dawn light, Max could just make out a shape in the middle of the neighbour’s dewy lawn. It was his football. However had it got there?

  So now he had two things on his mind:

  1. Had he really been woken in the night by an intruder?

  2. Did he really have to go to that creepy house next door and ask for his ball back?

  Max sighed again, crawled back into bed, pulled the duvet over his head, curled up tightly and tried to get back to sleep. He failed. He dreaded having to uncurl in a couple of hours and go downstairs where his dad would go completely ballistic at discovering they’d been burgled.

  But to his immense surprise, on the dot of 7.30, Max heard a cheery call rise from the foot of the stairs: ‘Max, up you get – time for Coco Pops!’

  Chapter 2

  MY TRUANDER ROOM

  As soon as Max pressed the neighbour’s doorbell, he wished he hadn’t. An eerie chime echoed deep inside the rambling house and he desperately wanted to run. It was like his dream all over again. He swallowed hard and braced himself to face the mysterious man who lived behind that door.

  Muffled scraping came from the other side of the door, as Max stared up at a peephole set in the varnished wood. A bulging eyeball looked back at him through the glass. A chain rattled, followed by clunks from the lock. Max stepped back, and slipped awkwardly off the doorstep, scraping his shin and grazing the skin. Slowly the door moved, letting daylight spill into the gloomy hallway and brush across the man’s face as he emerged from the shadows. A middle-aged face with cold grey eyes and a nose that, seen close up, looked even longer than Max had remembered. It was Gran who’d first described the man as the Child-Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

  Music seeped out through the open door, together with a strong smell of curry. For a split second Max thought how scary it would be if the music was from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, but it sounded more like Bach. He glanced down, noticing a little wooden cross with R.I.P. on it, just to the left of the doorstep. Its marble base, engraved with the word LOVE, held a single white rose. An odd place for a pet’s grave, he thought.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you,’ Max began. He’d rehearsed wha
t to say very carefully. ‘Would you mind if I get my ball back, please? It seems to have gone over the fence.’

  The man moved further out into the light, eyes squinting slightly. ‘Seems?’ he sniffed.

  ‘Er, yes. My football. It’s on your back lawn. Sorry.’

  ‘So there’s no ‘seems’ about it. It’s definite. Sounds like you definitely kicked it over.’

  ‘Yes… I mean no. I’m sorry to bother you.’

  The man stepped out onto the doorstep. He wore a dark suit and a blue-striped shirt with a navy blue tie.

  ‘When did you do it?’ he asked seriously. Too seriously, as far as Max was concerned.

  ‘Er… I’m not really sure,’ Max answered, sort of truthfully, bending down to wipe his shin. He screwed up his face as blood smeared the stinging graze.

  ‘Not sure? Not sure? Are you telling me you did it in your sleep?’

  This wasn’t going very well. Max hadn’t rehearsed this bit. ‘Maybe this morning,’ he lied.

  ‘So you take full responsibility for such foolishness?’

  The real answer was undoubtedly NO. Max knew full well he hadn’t kicked the ball. He hadn’t played with it for days. He just wanted it back, that was all.

  ‘If it’s inconvenient, I can leave it for now if you’d rather,’ Max heard himself saying.

  The man paused as the Bach over his shoulder came to a finale with a flourish.

  ‘Are you going to be in this evening?’ he asked, looking very severe. ‘With your father?’

  Max stared at him blankly. ‘Yes. Yes, I think so. Dad should get back at about six.’

  ‘So any time before nine-thirty, then? That’s your bedtime, isn’t it, Maxwell?’

  ‘Er, usually.’ Max felt this conversation was getting weirder by the minute.

  ‘That’s quite late enough for a ten-year-old. Early to bed, early to rise, makes a lad healthy, wealthy and wise.’ He paused before adding, ‘I see you are too wise for me…’

  Max stared in disbelief. The man stepped back briskly. ‘I’ll be round at eight. I might bring the ball.’ And he shut the door, leaving Max on the step with a strange feeling in his stomach and a lingering smell of fried onions.

  He stood on the doorstep long after the door had closed in his face, trying to make sense of the bizarre conversation. What was the big deal? It was only a tatty old football. So why was there to be an official complaint to Dad at 20.00 precisely? More creepily, how did Child-Catcher know when Max went to bed and how old he was? And another thing: where did ‘Maxwell’ come from? He’d never been called that in his life, not since the name had been recorded on his birth certificate. It was his mum’s maiden name but he’d always been known as just plain ‘Max’. In fact, there was no possible reason why Child-Catcher should know his name in the first place. They had never spoken to each other before. Why should they? Max only came to stay with Dad for the odd weekend or when Mum went away with her sister.

  All Max knew about the strange neighbour was that he lived alone, was often away on business and seldom seemed to be at home for long. He drove a smart BMW and always wore a suit, even in the garden where he could occasionally be glimpsed trimming the hedge or cutting the lawn when it was getting dark. And now, it seemed, the nutter was intent on coming round to cause an ugly scene, over a football. Max just hoped his dad would handle it calmly without flying into one of his rages. That would be all they needed. Since he’d been stopped yet again by the police for having faulty tyres and then got a speeding ticket, Dad was about to lose his driving licence. He’d become extra edgy and unbearable to live with. Without a car, he said, his career as a medical rep was over.

  ***

  Max’s gran told him not to worry. She was always telling people not to worry. She told Max not to worry about the neighbour. ‘At least Child-Catcher didn’t throw you in a cage or lock you up in his cellar! I’ll bring you another ball when I next pop round, dear.’

  She kissed him on the cheek, called upstairs that she was ‘just off’ to Max’s dad, who’d arrived home more bad-tempered than usual, and went out to her pink Morris Minor convertible parked in the drive. Max waved from the front window as she reversed in fits and starts into the avenue, narrowly missing a Volvo parked opposite. A Volvo with a man inside, who was watching him closely as he waved to Gran. That was odd in itself. Yet, what was more unnerving, Max was sure it was the same car he’d sometimes seen parked outside his school. Just waiting.

  Once more Max felt a shiver run down his back. He could only be certain of one thing: something very weird was going on. Or, as he wrote in his secret coded diary:

  MY TRUANDER ROOM.

  Chapter 3

  BCDFHIJKLMOPQRSUVWXYZ x 2

  At one minute past eight the doorbell rang. ‘That’ll be him,’ Max said nervously.

  ‘Leave this to me,’ his dad sighed, getting up from the sofa, switching off the TV and going out to answer the front door.

  Max didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. Did a stray football really make him such a bad person? Didn’t Child-Catcher have anything better to do than come round and demand an apology? If his dad started swearing and shouting it could all get nasty.

  The sitting room door opened and Max’s dad returned. ‘Come through,’ he said. Turning to Max, he muttered, ‘He’d like a word with you. Don’t worry.’ He ushered the neighbour into the room. ‘Take a seat.’

  Child-Catcher wore the same dark suit and tie as before and carried an attaché case. Perhaps he’s a bank manager, Max thought. But why hadn’t he brought back the football?

  As he sat down, the creepy man looked directly at Max. ‘I’ll get straight to the point, young man. We need your help.’

  Help? Surely it wasn’t too difficult to pick up a football and throw it back. And who were ‘we’? Was he married?

  ‘Don’t look so alarmed,’ Child-Catcher went on. ‘You could do a very important job for me.’

  He opened his case and took out a wad of papers. ‘Whether or not you and your father agree to assist, I need to tell you from the outset that you will both have to sign some papers.’

  ‘Whatever for?’ Max’s dad butted in, already sounding aggressive.

  ‘Just a formality. The Official Secrets Act.’

  ‘It’s only a football for heaven’s sake!’

  ‘No, Mr Hunter. The football is irrelevant. This is official government business. I’m here in my position as…as, shall we say, a representative of the service, with a request for you. You are at complete liberty to reject my request but I do have to insist that you sign, even before I explain the nature of the operation.’

  ‘Operation? What is this, a grumbling appendix? Or a medical procedure to remove a football from a neighbour’s back garden?’

  ‘It would help if you could remain calm and listen to everything I say, Mr Hunter. It could be to your considerable advantage.’

  By now Max was more confused than ever. He didn’t want all this ridiculous nonsense. All he wanted was his football back. But Child-Catcher looked even scarier under electric light. His balding sweaty forehead glistened, while his slatey eyes remained as cold and calculating as ever. His wispy ginger eyebrows didn’t seem to match, with one looking as if it had slipped slightly. He kept one hand in his jacket pocket as if he were concealing a dagger.

  ‘Just explain yourself,’ Max’s dad said. ‘How do you mean, advantage?’

  ‘Shall we just say that I am prepared to influence your disqualification from driving? I can wipe the slate clean for you.’

  ‘How on earth do you know about that?’

  ‘It’s my business, Mr Hunter. I work at GCHQ.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Max spoke for the first time.

  ‘Government communications,’ the man said coldly, as if his answer explained everything. He held his identity card a few centimetres in front of their noses.

  ‘Hush-hush stuff?’ Max’s dad asked. ‘Espionage?’

  ‘I deal wit
h matters of national security and of immense sensitivity, if that’s what you mean, Mr Hunter.’

  ‘What, like my driving licence?’

  ‘Or lost footballs?’ Max felt even more confused.

  ‘Are you serious about the driving licence?’ Max’s dad said thoughtfully. ‘You can actually get me off the hook?’

  ‘You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours, Mr Hunter. But first I need your signatures.’

  With his left hand the man took a pair of gold-rimmed glasses from his inside jacket pocket and delicately placed them on his long nose, then handed papers to Max and Dad, as well as a fountain pen.

  ‘By signing these you are sworn to utter secrecy. These are legal documents and it is vital you both understand that under no circumstances do you discuss or communicate our business with anyone.’ He looked directly at Max. ‘Do you understand? Not even your mother, grandmother or best friend.’

  Max nodded and looked across at his dad who was carefully reading the document.

  ‘All very government-speak,’ he said. ‘For all you know this room could be bugged.’

  ‘It isn’t,’ the man said, looking over the top of his glasses. ‘We’ve checked.’

  Max was horrified. ‘Do you mean someone’s been round to have a look for bugs?’

  ‘No need,’ Child-Catcher said. ‘Remote surveillance is our speciality. That said, we did sweep through this property last weekend while you were both at the football match. All perfectly clean. I check all details about new recruits. I even know what breakfast cereal Maxwell prefers.’

  ‘You can’t possibly know that!’ Max protested.

  The man flicked through some papers in a file. ‘According to our records, it seems to be Coco Pops. Correct?’

  Dad leaned forward. ‘Have you been going through our wheelie bin, by any chance?’

  ‘Of course. Among other things. Supermarket records can be very useful, too. All kinds of records – telephone, emails and websites visited. We know everything about you.’

  Max sat up indignantly. ‘Have you sent round spies to search my bedroom?’