Accidents Happen A Novel

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN



Jack woke up at 10 a.m. that Saturday morning, not knowing where he was.

At first he thought he was in the white bedroom with the sloping roof in the thatched holiday house in Dorset, but then he saw Dad’s old Arsenal posters on the wall and remembered he was back at Nana and Granddad’s. They’d arrived back at ten last night after getting stuck on the motorway for hours.

Then he remembered something else.

The computer!

Jack sat up with a gasp and looked at the clock. He hadn’t meant to sleep in so late, but Aunt Sass had been here to meet them with some dinner she’d cooked for them last night, and said it was too late for him to use the computer before bed. After that, he’d lain restlessly, counting down the hours till he could run to the kitchen and check to see if he was right. And now he’d slept in.

Jack jumped out of bed and ran to his bag on the floor, yanking out clothes and brushing aside the shells he’d collected with Nana, to find Jago Martin’s book, hidden at the bottom.

He ripped it open triumphantly.

At first, he’d just made one red mark when he’d noticed something odd about the book.

In Dorset, he’d noticed more.

Now the margins were covered in red marks.

Triumphantly, Jack hoped Dad was watching him.

Saskia sat at the computer in her parents’ kitchen, a cup of coffee and a plate of toast by her hand, reading the email message she had just received, unable to believe it.

She had an interview next Tuesday to do her Part Two work placement at a small architect firm in Banbury.

She sat back, excitement and worry weaving together inside her. How the hell would she tell Richard? ‘Dad, I’m leaving your agency. Oh, and by the way, I’m stealing your big dream for your beloved son Hugo, to be an architect like you . . .’

The kitchen door opened, and she jerked back, thinking it was Dad.

Jack stood there in his pyjamas, his hair sticking up, holding a book determinedly in his hand, glaring at her. He looked so cross, she laughed.

‘Morning, Snores, what’s up with you?’

‘Can I get on the computer?’

Saskia looked at her email. ‘Can you give me a moment? This is important.’

She started to type her reply, assuming Jack would fetch his breakfast, but when she looked up, he was still there. His normally tranquil green eyes raged like a rough sea.

‘What’s the matter?’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s not your Facebook, is it, because I’m a bit worried about what I’ve been reading on . . .’

‘It’s NOT THAT,’ Jack said loudly.

Saskia stopped mid-chew. She’d never seen him like this.

‘Mum’s got a boyfriend.’

Saskia hesitated. She tried to sound casual, as she picked at her toast.

‘Oh. OK. Did she tell you that?’

‘No,’ he said, staring hungrily at the computer like he wanted to rip it from Saskia’s hands. ‘I worked it out.’

His eyes switched back to her, intently. ‘Is it true?’

Saskia rolled her eyes. Great. Another Kate mess to sort out. ‘Snores – I can’t . . . your mum has to . . .’

‘So it is true?’

She sighed. ‘It’s your mum’s business, Jack. If she hasn’t told you, it’s because she’s not ready to do that yet.’

To her shock, Jack yelled, ‘Well, it’s not! Because there’s something wrong with him.’

‘Who? The boyfriend?’

Jack pulled out a book from behind his back and lowered his voice. ‘Look.’

Saskia read the front cover. ‘Jago Martin . . . oh, that’s him. This is his best-selling book, is it?’ she said, remembering what Kate had told her.

Jack nodded. He flicked over a couple of pages and pointed at the red pen in the margin.

Saskia peered. ‘They’re statistics. The chances of things happening to you.’ She looked at him. ‘So?’

‘They’re all the same.’

‘What do you mean?’ she replied, patting Rosie as she lay her head in Saskia’s lap, hoping for some toast.

‘They’re all in a different order but it’s the same list of numbers all the time.’

Saskia shrugged. ‘Well, does that matter?’

Jack banged his hand on the table. ‘Yes. It doesn’t make sense. They’re just fake numbers to fill the space.’

Saskia put down her toast and took the book from Jack. He’d always been good at maths, just like Hugo. Following his pen marks, she flicked through. That was odd. He was right. The same twenty or so percentage figures kept appearing, as if they’d been copied and pasted in repeatedly. She sat back uneasily.

‘Is this a proper book?’ She looked at the cover again, and then at the publisher’s imprint on the title page: New Maine Publishing. ‘Perhaps it’s just an early proof.’

Jack shrugged. ‘It’s a book.’

Saskia ran a finger down the front inside cover. Something wasn’t right here. Something that she couldn’t put her finger on. ‘OK.’ Not even knowing what she was looking for, she pointed at the laptop. ‘Put “New Maine Publishing” in Google, Snores. See what it says.’

Jack sat up straight. She leaned over and watched the page as it loaded. A home page for an American publisher of popular science books came up. They clicked on the ‘Authors’ page and saw a long list of names, including Jago Martin.

Saskia frowned. She opened the front cover again, scanning the title page.

Then as she moved her eye to the page on the right, she saw it.

A tiny sliver of a page, just a millimetre thick, running between the title page and the first page. The remains of a page. . . sliced out.

‘There’s a page missing,’ she said, turning the book over. She scanned the back cover, and there, right at the bottom, where she wouldn’t have noticed, was a tiny logo in a box. ‘Underline’, it said.

‘Jack – put “Underline” in,’ she almost barked at her nephew, feeling unease creep steadily through her. ‘Underline Books, or Publishing, maybe.’

Immediately a page flew up on the screen in front of them. ‘Underline Publishing – the home of quality self-published books.’

Silence fell as Jack and Saskia read what was underneath.

‘Always wanted to get that novel published? Turn that special holiday or event into a beautiful photo book? Underline Publishing is a self-publishing website with an array of pre-designed formats to choose from . . .’

Rosie whined and looked at Saskia with big soft eyes.

Saskia shook her head, confused. ‘This is not a real book, Snores. It looks like one but it’s not. He’s made it himself.’ She turned it over. ‘How’s he done it?’

‘Give it here,’ Jack said, pushing in in front of her at the screen. With an expert flick of the wrist, he returned to the New Maine Publishing site and clicked on ‘Authors’. First he clicked on ‘Jago Martin’ and a profile came up. Randomly, Jack then clicked on another author’s name. A new author profile came up that looked normal. Then he clicked on another. They both gasped. The two author profiles were the same, even the photo. They tried a third and found the same. ‘He’s made that site up,’ Jack said, excited. ‘It’s not real. He’s tried to make it look real.’

Saskia nodded, trying to hide her growing concern. She moved to let him take half of her seat, amazed, as the little boy then continued to work his way easily around the internet, bringing up Amazon, and typing in Jago Martin’s book title. Popular books about statistics with similar titles popped up, but not Jago Martin’s. Jack pointed at two.

‘Look – he’s copied the cover of that book, and the title of that one.’ He then clicked on a third book that offered the option of ‘Look inside’. Saskia read the first ten pages in silence onscreen, as Jack clicked through them for her.

‘Wow, that is weird,’ Saskia said. ‘He’s used some of these pages, too.’

‘But he’s changed the headline and some of the numbers,’ Jack said.

Saskia sat back, trying to work it out. ‘It’s as if he’s scanned different bits of all these books, then put them together in a self-published book and put his own name on it. Then he’s cut out the real title page that would presumably say “Underline Publishing” and put the name of a pretend publisher, New Maine. Only he couldn’t get the “Underline” symbol off the back cover. He must have hoped no one would see it. Why would he do that?’

‘I want to tell Mum,’ Jack said triumphantly.

Saskia blinked, starting to feel uneasy.

‘Look, hang on. Let’s Google him.’

They did, and Jago Martin’s own website came top of a list of five websites that mentioned his name.

‘Click on that one first,’ Saskia said, pointing to it. They both stared as it came up, with a small photo of a smiling man wearing black sunglasses and a helmet on a bike. ‘Bio, journals, press . . .’ Saskia muttered. She pressed on a few links to other sites. They all looked impressive. She blinked heavily.

‘Try the next one,’ she said. It took them to Jago Martin’s entry on the University of Edinburgh’s website.

Saskia stared at it. Something wasn’t right here. A word in the title was spelled wrongly: ‘One of the worlds top universities’.

‘Hang on . . .’ She leaned over Jack and put ‘Edinburgh University’ in Google.

She pressed ‘enter’ and waited, feeling Jack’s nervous breathing on her neck.

An almost identical page came up, but with ‘world’s’ spelled correctly.

Saskia typed ‘Jago Martin’ into the real University of Edinburgh search engine.

‘0 results’, came the reply.

‘Oh my God,’ she muttered.

‘What?’

Saskia searched two more newspaper and education links in Jago Martin’s own website. They all went to the other four listed webpages in the Google search, all of which mimicked real ones.

‘I can’t believe it: he’s . . .’ she turned and saw Jack’s confused face, and hesitated. She patted his shoulder. ‘Listen, there’s probably an explanation.’

She tried to sound calm. ‘Really, don’t worry. When I take you home tomorrow, I’ll tell Mum and she can ask him. Have you met him, Jack? Has he been to the house?’

Jack shrugged. ‘I think so, because sometimes I can smell this horrible aftershave smell in my room.’

‘In your room?’ She paused. ‘But you haven’t met him?’

‘I’ve seen a photo.’

‘That one?’ Saskia pointed to the website.

Jack shook his head. He flicked to the back page of the book.

‘Is that him?’ Saskia gawped, grabbing the book.

She peered at Jago Martin. And then she looked again. Inside, she felt a line of barbed wire start to wrap around her. As it spiked into her, the blood drained from her face.

‘What?’ Jack said sounding scared.

‘Jack? Is this a joke?’

He looked bewildered.

Saskia tried to stand up unsteadily. ‘Right. Jack,’ she said, trying to keep her voice normal. ‘Leave this with me. You’ve done really well. Why don’t you go and have a shower, and get dressed? Then later you could take Rosie out for a walk and get some bread for lunch at the shop. Nana’s making soup, I think.’

‘But . . .’

She put her hand on his shoulder, knowing there were only so many seconds she could keep her face composed.

‘Jack. Please.’