The Silver Boy Read online

  Billie laughed. ‘Carry on and I’ll dance!’ she said.

  Aladdin gave in. There was nobody around anyway. The music filled the church and they both got carried away. Billie danced around the font, giggling, and after only a couple of minutes they were having so much fun that they forgot where they were. Aladdin knew several tunes, and played one after the other. Billie’s dancing grew wilder, and before long she was standing in the pulpit, waving her arms and legs. She looked like a jumping jack.

  All of a sudden they heard a deep voice:

  ‘You two seem to be having a good time.’

  Billie was so scared that she almost fell down the pulpit steps. Aladdin immediately stopped playing and stood up. Neither of them had seen the priest emerge from a door in the corner of the church. Thank goodness he didn’t look angry; in fact, he was smiling.

  ‘You play very well,’ he said to Aladdin. ‘You should come along and play at one of our services.’ He looked at Billie. ‘And perhaps you could dance for us.’

  Billie blushed, while Aladdin hoped the priest was joking. There was no way he could play in front of a whole load of people!

  ‘We couldn’t find anybody,’ he said. ‘I mean, we came here to speak to you, but we couldn’t see you.’

  ‘So you started to play the piano instead,’ the priest said. ‘You did the right thing. I wish more people would come in here and spread a little joy.’ He looked from one to the other. ‘So how can I help you?’

  It wasn’t easy to explain, but Aladdin did his best. He told the priest about the school project, and what he had learned about the silversmith.

  ‘Aha,’ the priest said. ‘So it’s your parents who own the Turk in the Tower. An excellent restaurant – I often eat there.’

  Billie came down from the pulpit to join Aladdin. ‘Did you know about the silversmith?’ she asked.

  ‘Indeed I did,’ the priest replied. ‘There’s a lot to tell. That poor man – he was sorely tested.’

  He suddenly looked sad. ‘But he wasn’t the only one who had problems when the silver disappeared. I presume you’ve heard that a man here in the village was accused of being the thief?’

  Aladdin and Billie nodded, but they still didn’t know who the man was.

  ‘It was such a mess,’ the priest went on. ‘Listen, I don’t have time to talk to you about all this right now; I have to get ready for a funeral. Could you come back tomorrow at the same time?’

  They certainly could. On the way out Aladdin cast a final glance at the piano, and reminded himself that he needed to start practising again.

  It had started to snow. Big, heavy flakes were falling from the sky, covering the ground like a thick white blanket. Aladdin pulled his hat well down.

  ‘I think I’d better go home,’ Billie said.

  ‘Me too,’ Aladdin agreed.

  They decided to meet outside the church at the same time the following day. Billie waved and ran off, while Aladdin set off in the opposite direction.

  Only then did he notice the boy on the steps.

  He stopped and stood there as if he had been turned to stone. There was no one around; Billie had already crossed the road and turned onto another street.

  The boy gazed silently at Aladdin, who thought he looked angry. His mouth was dry with fear. He didn’t dare move a muscle.

  The boy got up and walked away.

  Aladdin wasn’t sure what to do. He remembered all too clearly how frightened he had been in the cellar, and he was frightened now. But his curiosity got the better of him. He ran after the boy, who went round the corner of the church and disappeared into the darkness.

  Aladdin stopped dead.

  Into the darkness. Just like in the cellar.

  His heart was pounding again. He had no desire to run around in a dark churchyard. The outcome was always the same: the boy vanished and Aladdin couldn’t find him.

  Slowly he turned round. It was when he reached the front of the church that he got the feeling something was wrong. He stood there alone in the melting snow and stared at the steps. What was bothering him?

  Eventually he realized what it was. The boy had left no impression in the snow. Not on the step where he had been sitting, nor where he had walked round the church. Aladdin couldn’t believe his eyes. He edged closer; he was so nervous that he was holding his breath.

  He could clearly see his own footprints.

  But there was no trace of the boy.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Aladdin found it difficult to get to sleep that night. He couldn’t stop thinking about the boy. How could he walk through the snow without leaving footprints?

  Just before midnight he gave up and switched on his bedside light. If he read for a little while, perhaps he would be able to sleep.

  That was when he heard something on the stairs. The sound of footsteps.

  He froze.

  The food thief was back!

  Aladdin was so scared that he didn’t even dare to switch off the light and wriggle down. He just kept thinking that there was a thief coming up the stairs, and there was no lock on his bedroom door. His parents had gone to bed over an hour ago. What if something happened to Aladdin, and they didn’t hear?

  He sat there motionless, his heart beating so fast that he could hear a rushing sound in his ears.

  Then he heard a voice speaking quietly:

  ‘I was sure I’d forgotten to lock the front door.’

  Aladdin let out a huge sigh of relief. It was his dad’s voice. Soon he heard more footsteps; his mum, of course.

  ‘Ssh, you’ll wake Aladdin,’ she whispered.

  ‘No I won’t,’ his dad said, although he had lowered his voice.

  Then Aladdin heard his name mentioned again:

  ‘It’s obvious that Aladdin has something on his mind,’ his mother said.

  ‘He’s probably thinking about that business of the stolen silver,’ his father said.

  Aladdin slid out of bed without making a sound and tiptoed over to the door.

  ‘It’s more than that,’ his mother said. ‘I’ve been thinking about that refugee boy who has been hanging around the tower. Aladdin hasn’t mentioned him today. Perhaps they’ve become friends, and are seeing each other more regularly, but Aladdin doesn’t want to tell us about it.’

  What? Had she gone crazy? Why would Aladdin keep something like that a secret?

  ‘Hmm,’ his father said. ‘Not that it matters – Aladdin can be friends with whoever he likes. But that doesn’t really sound like him. He doesn’t usually hide things from us.’

  There was a faint creak from the staircase as his mother moved.

  ‘But we’re hiding things from him,’ she said.

  Aladdin’s stomach tied itself in a knot of fear.

  ‘You mean our financial problems? Aladdin understands more than we think – and we have talked openly about it. Well, to a certain extent,’ his father said.

  ‘I mean the idea of moving back to Turkey,’ his mother said. ‘Shouldn’t we discuss it with him?’

  Now there was a lump of ice in Aladdin’s stomach. Had everything already been arranged? Could they really do such a thing?

  His father’s reply reassured him:

  ‘Nothing’s definite – best not to worry him unnecessarily. Anyway, I thought you didn’t want to move. That’s what it sounded like the other day.’

  ‘I’ve given it a lot of thought,’ his mother said slowly. ‘You’re right – it might be easier for us to open a restaurant in one of the tourist resorts.’

  It sounded as if she was heading up the stairs now.

  ‘But if I go with my heart, I’d rather stay here in Åhus,’ she added.

  It sounded as if she was crying, and Aladdin went cold all over. Should he just open the door to let them know he had heard what they were saying?

  But something held him back. As he edged away from the door, he heard his father consoling his mother.

  ‘Leya, we don’t have to m
ove tomorrow. We’ve still got time to turn this around.’

  They headed on up the stairs, and silence descended once more.

  Aladdin got back into bed and pulled the covers right up to his chin. It was a good job Billie wasn’t there, because otherwise they would both have started crying again. His father had said they had time, but not how much. Suddenly Aladdin felt as if finding the stolen silver was more urgent than ever.

  This has to work, he thought. It doesn’t matter if the silver has been missing for a thousand years. I’m going to find it. Whatever it takes.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Aladdin didn’t know how it happened, but at long last he fell asleep. Perhaps it was because his mother had said she didn’t want to move. Not if she had a choice.

  The following morning it was cold again, as if the weather couldn’t make up its mind. His mother made him put on two pairs of gloves before he dashed off to school.

  His teacher was very pleased when he told her that he and Billie had been to the church.

  ‘We’re going back this afternoon,’ he said proudly.

  ‘How exciting – well done!’ Åsa said. ‘By the way, I’ve got something for you.’

  She went over to her desk and picked up a thin book. ‘There you go,’ she said, handing it to Aladdin.

  He looked at the book and frowned. ‘What’s it about?’

  ‘Silversmiths in Sweden,’ Åsa said. ‘I found it in the library yesterday. Your silversmith is in there, if you want to know more about him.’

  The book was as light as a feather in Aladdin’s hand.

  He just couldn’t wait for the school day to end so that he could rush over to the church. Two hours still to go. Åsa had said that they would be working on their Åhus projects, so he might as well read the chapter about his silversmith right away. Perhaps it would make the time pass more quickly.

  The smith had been a lonely man. He had always lived in a little house just a stone’s throw from his workshop. He had no family. His work had been the most important aspect of his life, and the night the lightning struck the pine tree, everything was destroyed. The workshop was ruined and the silver disappeared, just as Aladdin had already heard.

  His eyes widened as he read on, because according to the book, the silversmith had gone mad when he lost his livelihood. He was angry with everything and everyone, and started to behave badly towards other people. Eventually the whole village was afraid of him. The police came and took him away to a mental hospital. Apparently this was a place for people who were so unwell that they could be a danger to themselves or others.

  No one heard from the silversmith after that. He died in the hospital a few years later. According to the book, lots of messages were found under the mattress of his hospital bed.

  Quickly Aladdin took out his notebook so that he could jot down the questions he wanted to ask the priest.

  As long as he was concentrating on the silversmith’s story, it was easy to avoid thinking about more difficult matters. Such as the fact that he couldn’t work out how the boy in the short trousers could walk through the snow without leaving any footprints.

  I must have been mistaken, Aladdin thought. It was dark and it was snowing when we came out of the church; I must have been mistaken.

  He carried on making notes.

  They met on the church steps after school, the building looming above them like a huge dark shadow. Aladdin looked for the boy in the short trousers, but there was no sign of him.

  ‘Who are you looking for?’ Billie asked.

  ‘Nobody.’ Aladdin didn’t want to tell Billie that he had seen the boy again; instead he told her what he had found out from the book Åsa had given him.

  ‘This is great,’ Billie said. ‘We’ve got to find that silver, and fast! Or we need to come up with another way of earning money. Has any more food gone missing, by the way?’

  ‘Not last night, no.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s over,’ Billie said optimistically.

  ‘Perhaps.’

  Billie smiled. ‘You know what we said: if it carries on, me and Simona will help you catch the thief at the weekend.’

  The thief … If it was the boy who was taking food, Aladdin didn’t think it was right to call him a thief.

  ‘Maybe it isn’t a real thief,’ he said.

  ‘Of course it is.’

  ‘Not if the person who’s taking the food is doing it because he or she is hungry.’

  ‘What are you talking about? You can’t just steal stuff because you’re hungry!’

  ‘Hmm,’ Aladdin said. ‘Come on, let’s go inside.’

  He pulled open the church door and slipped into the warmth. The notebook containing his list of questions was under his arm. He kept thinking about the notes under the silversmith’s mattress.

  They had all said the same thing: It was Orvar who took the silver.

  But who was Orvar?

  Chapter Fifteen

  ‘Orvar was the silversmith’s arch-enemy,’ the priest explained.

  They were sitting in a row in the front pew, right by the altar, with the priest in the middle. Today there were candles burning in the sconces along the walls, their glow casting shadow patterns on the white surface; patterns that almost looked like ghosts.

  Aladdin couldn’t help shuddering.

  ‘Orvar and the silversmith were in love with the same girl, you see,’ the priest went on. ‘They pursued her for several years before she finally made up her mind: she wanted to marry the silversmith, not Orvar.’

  ‘But the book I read said that the silversmith was all alone,’ Aladdin objected.

  ‘That’s true. Or to put it more accurately, he ended up all alone. His fiancée fell ill the week before the wedding. She died before they could get married.’

  ‘Oh no – that’s terrible!’ Billie said, her eyes shining with tears.

  ‘Indeed it was,’ the priest said. ‘And things got worse, because Orvar claimed it was the silversmith’s fault. If he had taken care of the girl, she wouldn’t have died. That was just poisonous gossip, of course; she died of pneumonia, and that was no one’s fault. But neither the silversmith nor Orvar ever got over it.’

  ‘So what happened next?’ Aladdin said impatiently.

  ‘The two of them remained enemies. Orvar found another girl to marry, but the silversmith never did. When the workshop was destroyed, he had nothing left. He had lost his love and his job. That was when he lost his mind too, and ended up in the mental hospital.’

  Lost his mind. It sounded dreadful.

  ‘Did anyone else think that it was Orvar who had taken the silver?’ Billie asked.

  ‘Oh yes,’ the priest said. ‘The police were convinced he was the thief, but they could never prove it. The silver was gone, and they couldn’t lock Orvar up without evidence.’

  ‘Although it sounds as if that’s what he deserved,’ Aladdin said. He felt angry when he thought about Orvar, who seemed to have ruined the silversmith’s life.

  The priest placed a hand on Aladdin’s shoulder. ‘Don’t judge Orvar too harshly,’ he said. ‘He suffered his share of misery too.’

  ‘Serves him right,’ Aladdin muttered.

  The priest looked sad. ‘The silversmith lost his workshop,’ he said, ‘but Orvar lost his whole family. If he really was the one who took the silver, then he was severely punished, even though the police couldn’t do anything.’

  ‘What happened?’ Billie asked.

  But Aladdin broke in before the priest had time to answer.

  ‘What do you think? Do you think Orvar was the thief?’

  The priest laughed. ‘How could I possibly know that? All this happened such a long time ago.’

  ‘Could it have been the silversmith himself?’ Billie wondered.

  The priest lowered his eyes. ‘That’s exactly what we don’t know,’ he said. ‘The thing is, there was never any real evidence against Orvar. And we know that the silversmith hated him. Perhaps he took the
silver and hid it so that he could blame his enemy and ruin his life. Perhaps the silversmith was already having some mental health issues before the silver went missing, but no one had noticed. People who are unwell sometimes do strange things.’

  They sat in silence for a little while. Aladdin tried to sum up what they had learned from the priest.

  They were no closer to knowing what had happened to the silver, but it seemed pretty clear that the thief was either Orvar or the silversmith himself.

  Orvar or the silversmith … How could they find out?

  Then he thought about the question Billie had asked before he interrupted. ‘You said Orvar lost his whole family. What happened?’

  ‘Orvar married a woman from a neighbouring village,’ the priest said. ‘I think her name was Elvira. She and Orvar had two sons. One day she sent the elder boy off on an errand, but he never came home; he died in an accident. His mother was so devastated that she left Orvar. She took their younger son, and she never came back. I think she moved to Kristianstad to be with her mother. Orvar was left all alone in Åhus with his dog.’

  Billie picked up a hymn book from the shelf in front of her. ‘So he wasn’t completely alone,’ she said. ‘Not if he had a dog.’

  ‘You could look at it that way, I suppose,’ the priest said. ‘But if you’ve had a wife and children, I don’t think a dog would be enough, somehow.’

  He shuffled on the hard wooden pew. ‘Well, I’m afraid that’s just about all I can tell you.’

  ‘Is there anyone who might know about the actual police investigation?’ Aladdin wondered. ‘A former police officer who might have been involved?’

  ‘I very much doubt it,’ the priest said with a smile. ‘Anyone who was on the case would be over a hundred years old today.’

  He got to his feet, then quickly sat down again. ‘Although there is one person you could talk to – an elderly lady who helps out here in the church. Her name is Elsa. She looks after our archive, and I’m sure she’d be able to show you some pictures of Orvar and the silversmith. Would that help?’

  Aladdin and Billie nodded eagerly; that would be great!

  ‘Good. In that case I’ll ring her and find out when she’s available.’