Finding Cathcart: Book Five of Zach's Story (Second Edition)

By Wendy Milton

Zach visits Shady Glades Rest Home where he meets the mysterious Mr Cathcart, who's suffering from amnesia. Who is Mr Cathcart? Can Zach and his friends unlock the secrets of this old man's past? What dangers may lurk there?

• Language: English
• Publisher: PawPrint Publishing
• Release date: Nov 15, 2017
• ISBN: 9780648057475

Wendy Milton

Wendy has written twelve exciting adventures for eight to twelve year-olds, including a five-book series: Angel of Fire, Sophie's Return, Nemesis, Spooks, and Finding Cathcart, and a two-book series: The Boy Who Disappeared and Rafferty's Rules. Stand-alone titles include The Enchanted Urn, A Stitch in Time, Missing Uncle Izzy and Taking Stock. Wendy has also published an adult 'whodunnit', Schooled in Death. Set in the 1970s in the Southern Highlands of NSW, the story revolves around the bizarre murder of the headmaster of an exclusive girls' school.

Book preview

ONE

Our lives are touched by the past. Events that happened before we were born can affect our fate. Do these events affect us by design, or is it mere coincidence – randomness – that shapes our destiny?

Zach Brinkley wasn’t born in 1954 and neither were his parents, so how could an event of 1954 shape Zach’s destiny? The event, terrible for the person whose life it almost destroyed, occurred at Her Majesty’s Theatre in Bottleneck Bay at approximately eight o’clock on a cold, stormy night in August. The theatre was packed with people who’d come to see a magician of international renown, The Great Waldo. The Great Waldo’s fans had no inkling that he was leading a double life; that he was, in fact, a secret agent, codenamed Cathcart, who’d been recruited by Australian Security to travel abroad, liaise with allied security forces and meet secretly with dissidents and Western sympathisers.

Let us return to that stormy August night in 1954 when the unfortunate Cathcart realises that his life is in danger.

• • •

It was bitterly cold. Had the heating gone again? In spite of the cold he was sweating beneath his starry robe. Was he nervous? How could he be nervous when he’d done this routine hundreds of times? No, it was a premonition, not nerves. He’d had many such premonitions lately – harbingers of doom – but never one as strong as this. His heart was racing and his palms were sweaty. How could he go on? He had to pull himself together.

That was when he heard the familiar cough . . . heard it clearly, in spite of the theatre curtain and the music and the hubbub of voices. He was out there! They were both out there! It could only mean that what he’d feared most had happened – they knew. How they’d found out he wasn’t sure, unless . . . Could he have been betrayed?

In the final minutes before curtain call, self-preservation kicked in. He was calm and thinking clearly. They didn’t know that he knew they were there, so they’d be expecting him to complete the first half of his act and then go to his dressing room. Was that where they planned to kill him? In the dim light of the wings, he signalled to a stagehand. ‘Last-minute change. We’ll do the trunk first.’ When the stagehand demurred, he added, ‘Just do it!’ There were only thirty seconds to go. He watched as three men carried the trunk onstage and his turbaned assistant, arms folded, stood beside it. Then the house lights dimmed and the curtain rose.

He walked onstage to tumultuous applause. Bowing deeply, he gestured towards the trunk that his assistant was revolving to demonstrate that it was solid. Soon the assistant would be handcuffed, bound, blindfolded and placed inside the trunk. Once the padlocks were in place, The Great Waldo would climb onto the trunk and hold up a black, three-sided screen extending from his raised hands to the floor. The music would suggest something weird was about to happen. After several seconds, the screen would drop and there would be gasps from the audience, because his assistant would be on the trunk, while he’d be inside, handcuffed and bound.

At least, that was how it was supposed to work. This time, when the padlocks were removed, the trunk would be empty. The Great Waldo would have disappeared.

TWO

Now, dear reader, let us go forward in time to a two-storey house at 48 Denison Street, Lamington, in the kitchen of which a man is reading his newspaper. The four o’clock sun, slanting through the window, catches the silver in his wife’s hair.

• • •

‘Another year gone,’ Zach Brinkley’s mother sighed, casting a glance at her husband. ‘I can’t believe Zach will be fifteen this year. Our baby’s growing up, Jack. It seems like only yesterday we . . .’

‘You’re luckier than most, Julia. Astra and Milly and Billy will always be around.’

‘But we won’t be around for them, Jack. What will Astra and the twins do when . . .?’

Mr Brinkley put down his newspaper and went to his wife, encircling her shoulders with his arm. ‘Zach and Sophie will look after them. And before that happens, Milly will be bringing us tea and biscuits long after we’re too old to get out of our armchairs.’

‘You’re never very serious, are you, Jack?’

‘Not if I can help it.’

‘It would be nice to have grandchildren.’

‘Steady on, old girl. I’m not ready to be a grandfather.’

‘Sophie would make a lovely daughter-in-law. She’s such a sensible girl, and it would be terribly awkward if Zach fell in love with someone who couldn’t see Astra and the twins.’

‘Stop counting your chickens and your grandchildren, Julia. Zach and Sophie are friends, but that doesn’t mean they’ll get married. Drew is keen on Sophie, so she might marry him . . . or someone entirely different.’

There’s a dance at the end of second term. It would be nice if Zach asked Sophie. Why don’t you suggest it to him? It will sound better coming from you.’

‘No way! I’m not telling Zach what to do where girls are concerned, and I suggest you steer clear of the subject, too. If Sophie wants Zach to take her to the dance, she’ll engineer it somehow.’

Upstairs, in the chill-out room¹, an argument was brewing.

‘That would be cheating, Billy!’

‘It wouldn’t! Why can’t I go there?’

‘Because horses jump . . . like this. I’m not going to levitate your pieces for you if you break the rules.’

The chill-out room rang with Astra’s heartfelt cries. Her grasp of chess was excellent, but Billy was determined to win at any cost.

‘Can’t you stick to the rules, Billy?’ sighed Milly.

‘There aren’t rules in real battles.’

‘Chess isn’t a real battle; it’s a game of skill, and there are rules.’

They were ganging up on him. Billy knew it would be pointless appealing to Zach and Sophie, because Zach didn’t play chess – and Sophie, who was winning tournaments, would only confirm that horses jumped. He hadn’t been trying to cheat; he’d just forgotten. He watched as Astra replaced her pawn and returned his knight to its original position. Then he yawned. ‘Why don’t we finish this later? Zach will be home soon.’

‘Suits me. I’ll do some painting.’

Billy wanted to say ‘boring’, but he didn’t. Astra’s pictures were everywhere and it irked him that people kept saying how good they were. Her people looked like stick insects and her furniture was wobbly. Whenever Astra wasn’t painting, all she talked about was the history of art.

‘I’ll help Mrs Brinkley with the dinner,’ said Milly. ‘Are you coming, Billy?’

Billy shook his head. ‘I’ll go and meet Zach and Sophie.’ He glanced at Astra, who was arranging her easel. There was no point in asking her if she wanted to come.

Astra and the twins no longer spent as much time at Josiah Batty Grammar. They were there in the mornings and they sat with Zach and Sophie and Drew at lunch, but in the afternoons they found other things to do . . . well, Astra and Milly found other things to do. Billy was bored. It had been fun when they were working on a case, but since Raoul’s kidnapping² nothing had happened. All Sophie and Zach talked about was schoolwork, while Astra filled the house with stick-insect paintings and Milly helped Zach’s mother in the kitchen. What was he supposed to do?

Billy saw Zach and Sophie before they saw him. Sophie was doing the talking. What else was new? She was always telling Zach what to do, but he didn’t seem to mind any more.

‘Surely you can see that what Mrs Peebles is doing is a good thing, Zach. There must be lots of people in that place who need cheering up.’

‘What place?’ chirped Billy. ‘What people?’

‘Hi, Billy. The principal wants us to visit residents in a care home. She thinks it will bring them out of themselves and cheer them up.’

‘Them?’

‘Old people.’

‘Old people!’

‘Why do you have to repeat everything?’

‘Why would you want to visit old people?’

‘Because in a caring community, people help each other?’

‘How are these old people going to help you?’

‘You might be surprised what you can learn from people who’ve had a lifetime of experiences. They’ve lived through wars and political events that we can only read about in textbooks.’

‘If they can remember them,’ snorted Billy.

Zach grinned. ‘People go into homes when their brains have turned to cottage cheese.’ He saw the look on Sophie’s face and added, ‘That’s what Drew says, anyway.’

‘Why don’t you think for yourself instead of letting Drew think for you? I’ll be going, provided my parents have no objection. Whether you join me or not is entirely up to you. Say hullo to your mother and Astra and Milly. See you. Bye, Billy.’

‘She’s mad at you.’

‘How’d you figure that out?’

‘Are you going to do it?’

‘It’s either that or visit kids in hospital, and I hate hospitals.’

‘You met us when you were in hospital.’

‘Don’t remind me.’

‘If it hadn’t been for us . . .’

‘Yeah. I know. Where’s Astra?’

‘Painting. I wish she’d give up.’

‘Why?’

Billy could hardly say because he resented the fact that Astra had something to do and he didn’t. He shrugged. ‘It’s boring.’

‘For you?’

‘S’pose so.’

‘I thought the two of you were playing chess?’

‘She said I was cheating.’

‘Were you?’

‘No. I just forgot that horses jump.’

‘If you learned to levitate, I could show you how to google things. Astra does it, but it’s really slow because she has to lower something onto the keys. Using fingers is faster, but . . .’

‘Ghosts can’t use fingers?’

‘What about going to classes? You’ve got heaps of time and you’re interested in battles and stuff. Astra went to Mr Feldstein’s classes and now she’s doing her own research. You don’t have to study what we’re doing. In Miss Redpath’s senior classes they’re doing war. Why don’t you check it out? Then, when I have to study war, you’ll be able to help me.’

‘I could sit next to you in exams and give you the answers.’

‘That’d be cheating.’

‘You sound like Sophie.’

¹In Spooks , Mr and Mrs Brinkley convert their spare room into a room where their invisible children can ‘chill out’, which means to relax.

²Raoul, an ambassador’s son befriended by Zach in Spooks , is kidnapped in spite of being protected.

THREE

‘I wasn’t born in the Second World War, Billy,’ said Zach’s father, ‘and I was a bit young for Vietnam. If there’s another war, I’ll be too old.’

‘I told you Dad didn’t fight,’ said Zach.

‘Why would anyone want to?’ said Astra.

‘Because it’s what soldiers do!’

‘Billy says it’s what soldiers do.’

‘We’re certainly grateful to the young men who fought in our twentieth-century wars, Billy, but they suffered terrible privations and many lost their lives. War isn’t glorious.’

‘I just want to know about it; I didn’t say I wanted to do it.’

‘He only wants to know about it.’

‘That’s different. There are hobbyists who study famous battles and re-enact them with models. They have collections of miniature armies and cannons and tanks and horses, or whatever paraphernalia was used in the particular battle they’re re-enacting.’ Billy’s eyes lit up. ‘Then there are historians. No doubt Zach will be studying World War II and the Cold War when he does senior History.’

Billy looked blank. Cold War? What was that?

‘Spies and stuff,’ said Zach.

Mr Brinkley nodded. ‘Hostility between the Soviets and the West started at the end of World War II and continued towards the end of the twentieth century.’

‘Soviets?’

‘Billy doesn’t know who the Soviets were.’

‘The Russians, Billy, and the countries they controlled. People used to speak about them as being behind the Iron Curtain’. The West was us and other democracies like the United States and Britain.’

‘Did you shoot each other?’

‘He wants to know if you shot each other,’ said Zach.

‘There were killings, but it wasn’t armies fighting armies, Billy. It was . . . spy versus spy.’

‘Not much of that now,’ said Zach’s mother.

Billy’s interest was waning. The kind of wars he liked had guns and soldiers, so how could he be interested in a war without guns?

‘Is it over now?’

‘He wants to know if the