3. Keep up with me.

I stand at the corner of the roundabout, near to the payphone. My hands are buried deep in my pockets, my shoulders are lazy and my jaw is clenched. I check my watch again. 1:23pm. I'm thinking about bailing. Standing here on the corner of a roundabout is not a fun way to spend lunch, by any stretch of the imagination. I puff my cheeks out and take one step away, off towards the school campus. The phone rings on my second step. I pause, looking over my shoulder to the payphone. Slowly I turn to face it and stare, balancing on the balls of my feet, on the edge of indecision. The rings peal out into the air, one after another. I think about the note and the weird man last night and what Chloe said. I am stagnating. It's time to kick my life into line. If I don't move now it'll stop ringing.

"Yeah?" I say into the phone.

"Robin?" The voice is familiar, but I can't pin it. It's not the English-gentry voice belonging to the stranger last night. This voice is younger.

"Yeah."

"There's not much time. I'm calling you in because I need your help. And I know I have no right to ask you. But I'm doing it anyway. There is no one else."

"Who is this?"

"Jonathan." I've not seen him for ages. I'd almost forgotten he exists. "Now listen hard, Robin. I figured that something was going down. Big patches of memory were missing from me, and dad too. Then he showed up dead. Drained dry of blood. He's not the only one. He's part of a growing statistic. But I needed closure. What happened? Why? Who? The police can't figure it out." My brows ruffle up as I listen to him. His words are falling over each other, the same as the guy last night. He doesn't put a single pause in. There is no beat in which I can get my oar in, so I listen to him spill out to me and try my hardest to follow it. I'm not sure I do a good job. "It's a vendetta. I don't know the full thing. But she's doing it to get revenge. At least that was how it started. It's possible that she has lost track of where it all started and she's riding the wave that she herself made. Not sure. Doesn't matter."

"I don't think I'm following," I manage to say, eventually. "Start from the top. I need some context. Details."

"No time for details. Here's the context: The Council wanted to know about Vlad; about the Grand High Master. They sniffed around the castle. Ingrid wanted the heat off her and her castle. So she fabricated war. So now her side think our side have Vlad. Our side think her side is hiding him someplace in Europe while he sleeps off whatever. Whatever happened with him at the end. It's too vague, too fuzzy and I don't remember the details. But he's still sleeping it off. Yesterday I went to the castle. All my investigations led there, so that was where I went. He's not in Europe under his people's protection. He's in the castle. But the heat is off Stokey. The heat is in Europe, on the war. So no one knows the truth. They are all too distracted."

"Calm down. Slow down."

"But she's thinking of ending it! If I hadn't been at the castle yesterday she might have killed him then, the Count too. But she smelt me and ratted me out. Said she was going to kill me. Then got this sharp look in her eye. I need your help Robin."

This sounds really heavy, really serious. "Who is 'she'? I'm guessing whoever didn't kill you, since you're talking to me and everything."

"Ingrid. Keep up with me."

"Who?" I hear a sound of annoyance come through the phone. "Sorry," I mutter, though I'm not sure why.

"Ingrid is toying with me. She let me go because she wanted to play a game, to draw it out. So she's distracted right now looking for me and not thinking about Vlad. But Robin, I think it's important that Vlad is kept safe. Maybe there is hope in Vlad. I think he was chosen for a reason." There is a pause. I am too confused to say anything. "Don't you remember any of it?"

"Any of what?"

"You don't remember Ingrid?"

"Never heard of her. Or the Vlad person. Some guy mentioned the same name yesterday. Who is this dude? I need the details, Jonno. Why don't you meet me? If you are running out of coins then we could meet up in school to chat this out."

"Coins are not my problem. My problem is Ingrid. I need to keep on the underneath. I need to stay out of her way. I need to skip out of town more than anything. But it's so skewed. I don't know what to do."

"Neither do I. I understand less than half of what you just said."

"Vlad is strong. He did a good job on everyone's memory. Maybe I can't use you after all. I'm sorry to have bothered you." There is a pause. My mind is whirring, spinning around and about. "But Robin, think about it some more. Push at the gaps in your head and iron them out. If anything comes back to you and you think you can help me, then drop an email my way. You know my address?"

"No." He gives it out and I lodge it into my shredded memory bank. "But Jonno; I want to know! There are huge gaps in my memory. Are you saying you can fill them?"

"No time right now. I have to go. Don't come to my place. Don't lead Ingrid anywhere near my Mum. Steer clear of my place. Contact me only via email." The phone clicks and I get an earful of dial tone. In the distance the end of lunch bell peals.

This chapter is edited from the original that I uploaded.

I will put up chapter 5 and 6 right away.

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Thanks very much.