Voices in Stone - Emily Diamand Page 0,42

to call the police?”

“And going off with a man you don’t know!” Cally shrieked at Isis. “He could be a murderer or anything!”

“Nice to meet you too,” said Merlin calmly.

Cally didn’t even hear, she just carried on shrieking. Then they frogmarched us back to the car park, changing gear between outraged silence and lectures the entire way. Dad and Cally didn’t even do any lovey-dovey stuff, which shows how badly they took it, and as soon as we were in Dad’s camper, he started up again. As he drove he kept going on about how disappointed he was in my behaviour, you know?

But I only wanted to think about what had happened. Why had Isis wanted so desperately to go to the standing stone, so much so that she went off with someone we’d just met? And what did I see up there? Ghosts, or something else? I wanted to talk to Isis, find out what she had seen. But of course I couldn’t.

Eventually Dad wore himself out from telling me off, and just drove in silence, his jaw clenching and unclenching. When we got back into Wycombe, he didn’t head to his house, or to Mum’s.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“I’m picking Stu up,” he said, like that was somehow my fault.

“More UFO stuff?” I hoped that maybe I could distract him by getting him onto his favourite topic. It didn’t work though.

“He’s coming over for your benefit, not that you deserve it. He’s been investigating UFO sightings and other activity at the quarry, trying to dig up any correlations with what happened to your class.”

“That’s what we’re doing after this?” I mean, my dad’s the only person who thinks good parenting is to sit huddled around a laptop for hours, Stu puffing away on his cigarettes and both of them getting all overexcited about aliens and conspiracies.

“You’re not doing anything!” snapped Dad. “I’ve got a mind to take you straight back to your mum’s!”

I knew he wouldn’t though, because then Mum would ask why we were back early, and he’d have to tell her what had happened. He wouldn’t want her knowing I’d escaped on his watch.

“Stu’s car is at the garage,” said Dad, after a minute or two, “so I told him we’d swing by and pick him up on the way home. You’d better be on your best behaviour.”

I nodded. “Sorry, Dad,” I said for the fortieth time. And I was. Sorry, and frightened, and wondering if I was going mad.

We headed west, through the bits of town where all the houses are split into flats and the gardens are just bin-holders. I expected Stu to live somewhere like that, but Dad took a turning into a cul-de-sac lined with bungalows, which was all frilly curtains and neat gardens.

“Stu lives here?”

Dad nodded.

“Does he live with his mum?”

I mean, Stu was at least fifty, but he definitely seemed the type.

Dad shook his head. “He lives with his wife.”

“He’s married?”

Dad pulled the van to the side of the road. “Getting on for thirty years. They’ve got a couple of grown-up kids, I think.”

I tried to imagine having Stu for a dad, but I couldn’t.

Someone stepped out of a gap between two garden hedges. He had an anorak hood pulled around his face, the way celebs do to try to avoid getting snapped by the paparazzi, and he was carrying a massive holdall. He made a run for the camper, nearly falling over because he was in such a hurry. It was Stu, of course. Anyone else would just wait inside their house, but not him.

Stu pulled open my door. “Let me in quick,” he said. “I can’t be in plain sight long.”

Dad nodded at me and I sighed, climbing over the passenger seat and into the back.

“Don’t want them making the connection between you and me,” Stu said to Dad. As if anyone would care!

I sat down on the floor in the back of the camper, put my back to a cupboard, and braced my feet against the side of the van. There aren’t seats in the back; Dad took them out so he could fit more UFO hunting gear in. It’s not too uncomfortable, unless Dad goes over a lot of bumps.

“Anyone follow you?” Stu asked Dad.

Dad shook his head. “I’m always careful.” I wasn’t sure if he was joking or not, they take it all so seriously.

Dad set off, and I didn’t say anything for a bit; I was still getting over the idea of Stu