85 Vauxhall Cross » Clifford a.u

Chapter 6

"I'm going out I'll be back in a bit." I called stepping out of the house. I made Lydia run from my room to the door. I still hadn't told Michael and I wouldn't be telling him anytime soon at this rate.

"Okay, so where are we going?" I asked Lydia as I pulled the hood of my jumper over my head.

"You do know you look like you're the one doing drugs right now." She was right. I was there in one of Michael's big hoodies, with sunglasses over my eyes. I was the definition of shady. "It's just down the road. This is either loaded or he wants people to think he is."

"Why'd you think that?" I ask as we turned onto Layland road.

"We'll this dinner is in the rich part of town. No one that lives around there, well here, would be caught dead at that diner."

"So we know he's either rich or pretending to be." I still only knew about twenty people at school and even then I didn't know anyone them particularly well. This was becoming more of a thing for Lydia to find out.

"Half the school is rich and as for pretending to be they must dress well, so that narrows it down again. There are about fifty possible boys." We rounded another corner onto an extremely well kept road. Each house was the same colour; every law was cut the same with no speck of dirt to be seen. "Here we are." Lydia said nodding at the 'dinner' in front of us. It looks more like a posh American restaurant than a diner.

We entered the diner. The red leather seats were spotless, with matching blue out lines alone with white table cloths. I had to admit I was getting very strange looks from everyone inside. If I saw me I would have given me a weird look too. Lydia strode over to the counter like the confidant person she is."Excuse me. Do you know the person whose receipt this is?" She asked the middle aged man standing behind the counter. Lydia handed the man the crinkled receipt. He studied it before answering.

"No sorry love, I usually work in the kitchen. But I can tell you not many people order Mint milkshakes."

"Okay, thank you. If a boy around our age orders one do you think you could tell them Lydia Andrews was looking for them?"

"Sure thing, love." The man smiled sweetly. The judgemental look's continued as me and Lydia walked out of the diner.

"That was unsuccessful." I say as we make our way back towards the house.

"Well we know now that he like's something that's not common there. Maybe we should just wait and see who orders one." Lydia suggests.

"Lyd, we are going to look like starker's. There must be more evidence we could use." I kept replying last night in my mind but I could remember nothing new. At least the handover was improving slightly.

"You have a good point there. Do you know anyways to remember anything? Maybe if we go back to the lake you'll remember what happened." I nodded. She had a good point, sometimes you just need to jog your memory. "Or you could just go round smelling people on Monday."

"At this rate I'm going to be known as the crazy girl that smells people." I said chuckling. As I blinked a vision of a pair of legs in blacked ripped skinny jeans leaning on a car flash before my eyes. "Lydia, who was wearing black, ripped skinny jeans?"

"The only person I remember wearing them was Cal, why?" Was it Calum? Was he my mysterious guy?

"Oh god."

"Was it Cal?" Lydia asked wide eyed and curious.

"It's looking that way. How do you ask someone if they were the mysterious person that took you home/"

"You're gonna have to smell him." Lydia laughed.

We had been walking around the spot by the lake for nearly an hour. There were still battered red cup, cigarette butts and burnt pieces of wood scattered around. The smell of the bomb fire lingered in the air still.

"I still have nothing. I can't remember anything more." I shouted to Lydia who was relaxing after an exhausting hour of doing nothing what so ever to help.

"Right, let's go but I still recon the smelling plan is a good idea. If you remember anything else call me straight away." I laughed. Lydia kept insisting the smelling plan, where I went round smelling all the possible boys at school, was a good idea. To tell you the truth it wasn't the worst one that we'd come up with. The worst one was probably making a milkshake stall and seeing who got a mint one or the one where we find Hemmings and ask who he's sold weed too lately. "Oh and don't tell Michael anything until you're sure. Unless you want a lecture on drinking and him to probably punch Cal for getting you black-out drunk." she said pulling up to the house.

"Noted." I said smiling as I jumped out of the car. You'd have thought with 17 years of training behind me I would be able to work out what happened and with who but it was proving more difficult. I'd always had a pretty good memory but it seems when alcohol was involved that wasn't the case. So much for Michael punching Calum, I wanted to punch him for getting me so drunk. "I'm back." I called opening the front door to find Michael waiting for me. He lent against the banister looking directly at the door. I couldn't tell if he was worried or pissed off.

"Lea, you're dad's here." His tone was blank.

What do you think of Cal? Is this all his fault? Is he the mysterious guy?