Jenny Nimmo - Midnight for Charlie Bone

‘Well?’ said Paton, glancing up from a mound of paper.

‘Please can you tell me where Cathedral Close is?’ Charlie asked nervously.

‘Where d’you think? Beside the cathedral of course.’ Paton was a different person in daylight. Chilly and forbidding.

‘Oh,’ said Charlie, feeling foolish. ‘Well, I’m going there now. But could you tell Mum. She’ll want to know, and . . .’

‘Yes, yes,’ murmured Paton, and with a vague wave, he motioned Charlie away.

‘Thanks,’ said Charlie, closing the door as quietly as he could.

He went to his room, hurriedly pulled on his anorak and tucked the photos, in their orange envelope, into his pocket. Then he left the house.

From his bedroom window, Benjamin saw Charlie walking past with a determined expression.

Benjamin opened his window and called, ‘Where are you going?’

Charlie looked up. ‘To the cathedral,’ he said.

‘Can me and Runner Bean come?’ asked Benjamin.

‘No,’ said Charlie. ‘I’m going to get your present, and it’s got to be a surprise.’

Benjamin closed the window. He wondered what sort of present Charlie could buy in a cathedral. A pen with the cathedral’s name on it? Benjamin had plenty of pens.

‘Still, I don’t really mind,’ he told Runner Bean. ‘As long as he comes to my party.’

Runner Bean thumped his tail on Benjamin’s pillow. He was lying where he wasn’t supposed to, on Benjamin’s bed. Luckily, no one but Benjamin knew about it.

The cathedral was in the old part of the city. Here the streets were cobbled and narrow. The shops were smaller, and in their softly lit windows, expensive clothes and jewellery lay on folds of silk and velvet. It seemed a very private place, and Charlie felt almost as though he were trespassing.

As the ancient cathedral began to loom above him, the shops gave way to a row of old half-timbered houses. Number three Cathedral Close, however, was a bookshop. Above the door a sign in olde worlde script, read INGLEDEW’S. The books displayed in the window were aged and dusty-looking. Some were bound in leather, their leaves edged in gold.

Charlie took a deep breath and went in. A bell tinkled as he stepped down into the shop, and a woman appeared through a curtained gap behind the counter. She wasn’t as old as Charlie expected, but about the same age as his mother. She had thick chestnut hair piled up on her head, and kind brown eyes.

‘Yes?’ said the woman. ‘Can I help you?’

‘I think so,’ said Charlie. ‘Are you Julia Ingledew?’

‘Yes.’ She nodded.

‘I’ve come about your photograph,’ said Charlie.

The woman’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘Goodness!’ she said. ‘Have you found it?’

‘I think so,’ said Charlie, handing over the orange envelope.

The woman opened the envelope and the two photos fell on to her desk. ‘Oh, thank you,’ she said. ‘I can’t tell you how glad I am to have these.’

‘Have you got mine?’ asked Charlie. ‘My name’s Charlie Bone.’

‘Come through,’ said Miss Ingledew, motioning Charlie to follow her through the curtain.

Charlie walked cautiously round the counter and through the curtain in the wall of books. He found himself in a room not unlike the shop. All books again, packed tight on shelves, or lying in piles on every surface. It was a cosy room, for all that; it smelled of warm, rich words and very deep thoughts. A fire burned in a small iron grate and table lamps glowed through parchment-coloured shades.

‘Here we are,’ said Julia Ingledew, and from a drawer she produced an orange envelope.

Charlie took the envelope and opened it quickly. ‘Yes, it’s Runner Bean,’ he said. ‘My friend’s dog. I’m going to make a birthday card with it.’

‘A lovely idea,’ said Miss Ingledew. ‘More personal. I always like “personal”. It shows one cares doesn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ said Charlie uncertainly.

‘Well, I’m very grateful to you, Charlie Bone,’ she said, ‘I feel you should have a reward of some sort. I haven’t got much cash about, but I wonder . . .’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Charlie, a little embarrassed, though he could have done with some money, to buy Benjamin’s present.

‘No, no really. I think you’re just the person. In fact I feel that these have been waiting just for you.’ She pointed to a corner and Charlie saw that his first impression of the room had been mistaken. It was not filled entirely with books. A table in one corner was piled high with boxes: wooden boxes, metal boxes and big cardboard cartons.

‘What’s in those?’ asked Charlie.

‘My brother-in-law’s effects,’ she said. ‘All that is left of him. He died last week.’

Charlie felt a lump rising in his throat. He said ‘Um . . .’

‘Oh, dear. No, not his ashes, Charlie,’ said Miss Ingledew. ‘They’re his – what shall I call them – inventions. They only arrived yesterday. He sent them by courier, the day before he died. Goodness knows why he left them to me.’ She fetched one of the boxes, removed the lid and took out a metal robotic-looking dog. ‘It’s no good to me,’ she said. ‘Do you want it?’

Charlie thought of Runner Bean, and then of Benjamin. ‘Does it do anything?’ he asked. Because inventions usually did something.

‘Of course. Let me see.’ She pulled down the dog’s tail. It barked twice, and a voice said, ‘I am number two. You have already pulled my tail, so you know how to make me play. To fast forward press my left ear. To rewind press my right ear. To record press my nose. To stop pull my right foot up. To replace tapes open my stomach.’ The voice that gave these instructions was familiar to Charlie.

‘Any use to you?’ asked Miss Ingledew. ‘Or would you like to see the others?’

‘It’s perfect,’ said Charlie. ‘Brilliant. But the voice, is it your . . .?’

‘Yes. My brother-in-law, Dr Tolly. It was one of his earliest, but he never bothered to sell it. Once a thing was made, that was it. He was a lazy man, Charlie. Clever, but lazy.’

‘It’s him in the photo, isn’t it?’ Charlie didn’t mention that he’d recognised the voice. How could he?

‘Yes, that’s Dr Tolly. He did something terrible once.’ Miss Ingledew’s mouth closed in a grim line.

‘Why did you want his photo, then?’ asked Charlie.

The bookseller darted him a quick look, as if she were sizing him up. ‘It’s the baby I want,’ she said at last. ‘It’s all I have to remember her by.’ And suddenly Miss Ingledew was telling Charlie about the dreadful day when her sister Nancy died, just before her daughter’s second birthday, and how a few days later, Nancy’s husband, Dr Tolly, had given his daughter away.

‘I didn’t think you could give children away,’ said Charlie, horrified.

‘You can’t,’ said Miss Ingledew. ‘I was sworn to secrecy. I should have taken her, you see. But I was selfish and irresponsible. I didn’t think I could cope. Not one day has passed, since then, when I haven’t regretted my decision. I tried to find out who she’d been given to, where she had gone, but Dr Tolly would never tell me. She was lost in a system of lies and tricks and forgery. She’d be ten years old now, and I’d give anything to get her back.’

Charlie felt very uncomfortable. He was being drawn into a situation he didn’t much like. If only he hadn’t heard the voices in the photograph. How could he possibly tell Miss Ingledew that three cats thought the lost baby was in Bloor’s Academy. She would never believe him.

In a shadowy corner, a grandfather clock struck twelve and Charlie said, ‘I think I’d better go home now. Mum’ll be worried.’

‘Of course. But take the dog, Charlie, and –’ she suddenly darted to the table and withdrew a long silver case from the bottom of a pile, ‘will you take this one as well?’