They were all back in the ice cream shop. Linua had paid for another round of hot chocolates with ice cream, and they had taken over the biggest table.

Pickle put a printout on the table, showing a copy of a newspaper article from twenty years ago.

The headline screamed SUSPICIOUS SEA DEATH—ARE CULTISTS AMONG US?

“Cultists?” Eret asked, disparagingly.

Cultists were the sort of thing people had blamed all the ills of the world on a couple of centuries ago. There were occasionally groups of people who barricaded themselves in remote farmhouses and indulged in strange rituals or prophesied the end of civilisation, but they didn’t normally go around sacrificing ordinary members of the public.

“It does actually seem like it might have been cultists.” Pickle pointed to a section of the newspaper report. “When Kala’s body was pulled out of the sea there was a mysterious pattern burned into the palm of her hand. Apparently she was electrocuted, not drowned. And they never found who did it.”

“What kind of a pattern?” Linua asked.

“It doesn’t say. Presumably the police kept that to themselves.”

Eret was still sceptical.

“But if she was murdered, then Bead is one of the primary suspects,” Anith said. “And you went to visit him!”

“He was…” Linua wanted to say nice, but that wasn’t the right word. “He was odd, but … okay?”

“He was suspicious!” Eret declared. “He said she drowned. But he was her friend! He must have been questioned by the police when she died. It was in the newspapers. There’s no way he didn’t know about it!”

That was true, Linua realised. She still found it hard to picture Bead as a murderer.

“What about Horn and Leofryn?”

Pickle frowned.

“They’re both being elusive. I tried calling Horn, but he’s apparently on a trip of some sort and won’t be back for several days. And Leofryn I can’t find any trace of at all.”

“There’s nothing on Leofryn since he graduated,” Anith confirmed. “We were at the library after school, trying to look for information about all of them. That’s when we found this, about Kala.”

“How do we find out more about a murder from twenty years ago?” Eret asked. “There must be more than just this. Police reports?”

“Not easy to get hold of.” That was Pickle.

“How do you know that?” Anith asked suspiciously.

Pickle looked innocent.

“No reason. I just mean that ones from twenty years ago will still be sealed. We need someone who can get that info.”

“You can’t just hack your way in?” Linua asked.

“Not if the records are still on paper,” Pickle said with irritation.

Okay, that would make it difficult.

“And it’s illegal,” Anith declared. “That would also deter you, I would hope.”

“Yeah of course,” Pickle said instantly.

“We need someone whose got access to police records. Who would? A lawyer? A private detective? A journalist?”

Linua thought of Weela Frune and shivered.

“Not that journalist,” Eret said, with a quick glance at Linua.

“We’ll look in the archives a little more,” Anith said decisively. She put her hand flat down on the table and looked severely at them all in turn. “And we are not doing any more interviews with suspected murderers! Or anyone else! I forbid it!”

Linua saluted.

Eret sighed and rolled his eyes, but said; “Aye, aye, Captain Sis.”

Eret rolled his moped silently up the drive while Linua walked beside him. She hadn’t wanted Helged to hear the sound of a moped near the house.

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“Do you have to go back now?” It was just after 9pm.

“I have a little bit of time.” Eret smiled at her.

“Let’s go to the summerhouse, then.”

The summerhouse was in the back garden. They hid the moped just off the road, in the woods, and sneaked around to the back. The summerhouse had a padlock, but the key was kept under an upturned flowerpot by the door. Inside it smelled musty, and there was a trail of dead leaves on the floor.

Linua led the way inside and then turned around with her heart hammering. He put his arms around her, she slid her arms around his neck, and then he bent his head and kissed her. The next few minutes were awkward and tantalising and exhilarating in equal measure.

“I have to go,” Linua said at last, reluctantly. “I have to be back in bed before Helged notices I’m missing.”

He kissed her forehead.

“Okay. Good luck. When will I see you again?”

She sighed.

“I don’t know.”

“What do you do on Sixday?”

“I go to wushu training in the morning and I have schoolwork in the afternoon.”

“What? You don’t get Sixday off?”

“No,” Linua said bitterly.

“Wow, that’s draff. What about Nimrasday?”

“I go to the Temple in the morning with Grandmother, and I have more schoolwork in the afternoon.”

“Seriously?” Eret had a stunned look on his face.

“What do you do?”

“Well, on Sixday we all do household chores in the morning, then I go and hang out with friends in the afternoon, or to the park or something.” Eret shrugged. “On Nimrasday we just chill, and then in the evening I have film night with my family and we all take turns to pick a film to watch.”

That sounded like heaven.

“I can’t keep pretending to be sick. But I’ll think of something,” Linua said.

They met for one last kiss, and then he was gone, and Linua was levering open the toilet window so she could eel her way through it. It was a lot more difficult going in instead of out. Once inside she listened at the door but didn’t hear anything. She crept along the corridor and saw that the hallway was clear. She started going up the stairs.

“Linua.”

Linua thought a really bad word. She turned and saw Helged standing with her arms crossed in the passageway to the kitchen.

“Hi.”

“Come on.” Helged turned and went into the kitchen.

Linua followed her. Helged didn’t say anything, but made two cups of herbal tea and set them on the table. They sat opposite each other.

“That’s a very pretty outfit, love,” Helged said at last.

With a start, Linua remembered her new clothing. She had forgotten in the excitement of the last fifteen minutes.

“Thanks. Anith gave it to me. And some others as well.”

“That was very nice of her. Maybe you can show your grandmother tomorrow.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry Helged, I didn’t like the sewing patterns.”

“It’s okay, lovey. I was trying to help your grandmother see why you didn’t want to wear the clothes she chose for you. I told her that no-one was going to take you seriously as an advanced astronomy student if you were dressed like a schoolchild of ten. She doesn’t do change well anymore, at her age. It takes time for her to get a new idea in her head. She’ll come around.”

“Thanks,” Linua whispered. “Thank you for helping.”

“I do feel for you, lovey, I really do. Your grandmother is an amazing woman but she’s not an easy one to live with.”

There was a little silence, then Helged took a breath.

“Was it a boy, lovey?”

“Uh.” Linua’s cheeks flamed, which she realised would be answer enough. “Yes. It was Eret. But Anith and Pickle were there as well. We went to a hot chocolate shop on the beach.”

“Alright, lovey. I’m not going to tell your grandmother. But,” Helged raised a finger. “Only this once. You can’t disappear like that again. You need to get permission from your grandmother if you want to go out.”

“But she would never give that! She thinks everyone in the Astronomy Club corrupted me or something!”

“Just give it time, lovey. She’ll get there.”

Linua let out a frustrated breath. But worse was to come.

“I’m going to have this conversation with you now because I don’t think your grandmother will, or not properly anyway,” Helged said.

The next few minutes were excruciating. Linua knew the facts of life as Helged had already explained things to her, in a nice simple way, several years ago. This time it was more along the lines of what boys might want to do with you and how you didn’t have to let them.

“Eret’s nice,” Linua stammered at the end of this, her cheeks so scalding that she thought Helged could have boiled tea on them. “He’s not like that.”

Maybe Linua wanted to let him, but she didn’t say that.

“Well, that as may by,” Helged said dryly. “But you remember that he’s two years older than you, and might want more.”

“I’d like to go to bed now.” Linua spoke quickly.

Helged laughed.

“Alright, lovey, I’ve embarrassed you enough. Off you go.”

Linua escaped.

Linua nearly didn’t get up in the middle of the night to check the bulletin board. It wasn’t as if they would be any further forward with the investigation. She doubted Pickle would have had time to unearth any more facts. But there might be more discussion about what they had learned today. And Eret might have sent her a message.

It was mostly that last thought that sent her downstairs. She was so preoccupied she forgot to avoid the squeaky floorboard in her bedroom, which she was always afraid might wake Grandmother, but after waiting for half a minute with no reaction, she crept out of the room.

She padded into the library, where the curtains were half drawn, allowing her a peep of the sky, where she could see the larger moon, Ningal, outlining the tops of the trees. There was little light, but she had been doing this all year, and she barely needed to see to go to the desk and switch on the computer.

Grandmother always conscientiously switched it off at the plug whenever she had finished using it, so Linua needed to remember to do that each time too. Once Linua had forgotten and Grandmother had made a huge palaver out of it, worrying that she herself had forgotten—as far as she knew, she was the only person who used it—and carried on as if leaving it connected to the electricity supply when it wasn’t being used might damage the delicate electronics.

So when Linua knelt down and put her finger on the socket switch, she was surprised to find it on. She sat back on her knees, frowning. Had Grandmother used the computer that evening? She put a hand on the base unit which sat on the desk just above her. It was warm.

Someone had been using the computer only minutes before she had come into the room. Grandmother wouldn’t do that in the middle of the night.

Helged?

She stood up, and something moved against the curtain. A shape—a person, a figure all in black—was suddenly there, leaping towards her over the desk.