The Key to Finding Jack by Ewa Jozefkowicz (best classic books to read TXT) 📕

don’t think the key opens anything. It’s just a piece of jewellery. Jack used to wear it around his neck, but he didn’t take it with him, which is weird.’ It struck me that it might open something, but if it did, Jack had never mentioned it to me, and now I had no way of finding out.

‘Perhaps he was worried it would get lost while he was travelling? My mum always leaves her rings at home whenever we go on holiday.’

‘Maybe. He keeps his most important stuff under the bed. I didn’t see it when I was helping him pack before he left. He must have put it there at the last minute.’

‘Well, for whatever reason, it’s for S.F.’

‘But I have no idea who that is. We need to find out.’

Keira racked her brains.

‘I can think of a couple of people whose first names begin with S, but none of them have a surname with an F. Could you ask your parents?’

‘I could, but they’re in such a state, they probably won’t even hear me.’

‘Yeah, fair enough. Hey, it was your dad’s fiftieth birthday a couple of months ago, wasn’t it? Do you think your mum might have kept the invitation list?’

‘Maybe. It’s somewhere to start.’

I sneaked into the spare room, where I knew Mum kept her special gold-covered notebook and took it back to my bedroom. We scanned the guest list.

There were only three names that began with S – my aunts, Scarlett and Sally, and Sadie, from Dad’s chambers. None of their surnames began with F.

‘Think harder, Flick,’ said Jack’s voice in my head.

‘Wait a minute,’ I told Keira. ‘I’ll be back.’

In the second drawer of the spare room bedside table Mum kept her old address book, which she still used every Christmas for writing cards. I’d always found this funny for a person who ran a social media marketing company and had her life stored on her phone.

I turned the worn pages until I got to ‘F’. I knew that she had all her contacts arranged by surname. There were only two entries – the first was Mum’s old school friend, Emily Finnegan, but the second was Sol Falcon.

‘Bingo,’ said Keira. ‘Who is he?’

‘No idea.’

‘Hmmm, it’s unlikely, but let me check in case he’s famous. Remember, your mum said she had some celebs that her agency represented.’ She did a quick search on her phone, but shook her head.

‘I think we need to do a search diagram,’ I said.

‘What’s that?’

‘You know, like a big spider diagram that detectives use to solve cases. Whenever we get a clue about an S.F. we can add it in.’

‘Good plan. You want to do it on your noticeboard? Can we take some of these cards down?’ she asked, indicating the pin board above my desk.

‘No, I have the perfect place for it.’ I told Keira to bring my Polaroid camera and the envelope of photos I’d taken on our last family holiday. Then we went up to Jack’s room. The wall opposite his bed was covered in slippery whiteboard paper. He’d used the space to jot down ideas for his riddles and jokes – then he’d copy the best ones into his scrapbook. He’d wiped the wall clean before he left, as if it was a new start. Only faint outlines of his old drawings could be seen if I peered at them carefully.

‘Could you search through that envelope and find a photo of Jack?’ I asked Keira. I couldn’t bear to look at any pictures of when we’d been so happy as a family.

Then I opened the flamingo box and took a close-up of the key.

‘There aren’t really any headshots. This is the closest I can find,’ Keira said, passing me a photo of Jack squinting into the sunshine as he ate an ice cream. Mum had taken it as we walked down a coastal path in the South of France. It was a wonderful, hot day, which couldn’t have been more different to today.

Jack’s photo was our first item on the search diagram, followed by the key.

I decided that rather than making our diagram spider-shaped, I would draw a tree. Jack and the key would form its roots, and different branches would grow out of the trunk, each representing a different S.F. I drew a little lock at the end of every branch.

‘I like what you’ve done,’ said Keira. ‘Now we need to find which of these locks the key fits.’

The way she said this sounded like one of Jack’s riddles, which weirdly made me feel slightly better.

I took one of Jack’s thick green markers and next to the first lock, wrote, ‘Sol Falcon?’ It wasn’t much, but it was a start.

‘I need to run,’ said Keira. ‘I’ll keep thinking of other potential S.Fs. We’ll solve this, Flick, I promise,’ she said, giving me a big hug.

When she left, a strange quiet had descended on the house, and I realised that Mum had finally switched off the TV. I went downstairs to find her sitting in exactly the same position on the sofa, her knees tucked under her chin, staring into space. She looked like a tiny, frightened bird.

I sat next to her and stuck my head under her armpit, as I’d always done when I was little.

‘Oh, hi, pet.’

‘Hi. You OK, Mum?’

She looked at me with her lips pressed tightly together, trying not to cry, and then she slowly shook her head and hugged me. The screen of her work phone continued to light up with people trying to call her. She ignored them. She was only focused on her personal phone. I guessed that she’d given the number of this one to the police and the ICO.

‘Not really, darling. I can’t sleep,’ she said. ‘How have you been feeling? I should have asked earlier. I’m sorry. I realise I’ve been in my own world. It’s horrible not being able to do anything. It gives you too much time to think.’

‘Yeah, it’s true. I’m OK though. Well,