Read The Chaos Code for Free Online

reclusive Julius Venture that Dad was sending him to for help? And what sort of help did he need? Matt watched the world going past outside without really seeing it. He was pleased with himself for having worked out Dad’s clues. But at the same time, he was anxious and worried – wondering what had happened to Dad, and what he could do about it …
    The car sped along the narrow Cotswold lanes. A flurry of leaves and spattering of rain followed it on its way.

Chapter 3
    The taxi driver was impressed by the wide gateway into the estate. Huge wrought iron gates swung silently open as the car approached, and closed just as silently behind it.
    â€˜Quite a place,’ the driver said as they caught sight of the manor house through the trees. It was an imposing seventeenth-century mansion built of Cotswold stone.
    â€˜Yes,’ Matt agreed. ‘But that’s not where we’re going.’
    The driver was less impressed with Aunt Jane’s cottage as they drew up outside. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘How quaint.’
    The cottage had been built at the same time as the main house, providing accommodation for the gardener or groundsman, Matt assumed. It was like the manor house in miniature – same grey stone, same style of windows and door, same slate tiles on the roof. It had its own little forecourt, paved with irregular slabs of stone, just off the driveway. Nestling as it did in theshadow of a small wooded area of the grounds, it looked like a setting for a fairy tale. A rather bleak fairy tale, though, Matt decided – dull and grey and square and shadowy.
    He stood with his luggage on the forecourt as Aunt Jane emerged and hurried to pay the taxi driver.
    â€˜Oh, let me give you a hand with that,’ she said, taking his suitcase from him. But she didn’t take it inside, instead she set it down again, took a step back and inspected Matt.
    â€˜You are
so
like your father,’ she said. ‘Goodness, how you’ve grown, it’s been too long since I last saw you. How old are you now?’ She shook her head. ‘No, don’t tell me. I don’t think I want to know.’
    She was much as Matt remembered her, thin and willowy and serious. Only she seemed smaller. Which made Matt realise how long it must have been since he last saw her, and how much he must have grown. He’d changed far more than she had. She was noticeably older – older than Matt’s mum, he knew. Her shoulder-length hair was streaked with grey where it had been uniformly dark brown, and her face was beginning to gain a texture like the stone of her house.
    Matt smiled. ‘I’m fifteen. You sent me a card, remember?’
    â€˜Oh, that just happens automatically. If your birthday is in my diary, you get a card. I don’t keep count. Come on inside. I won’t ask how your father is,’ she saidas she led the way, carrying his case, ‘because I’m sure you won’t know. But how’s your mother?’
    Matt almost said she’d run off too – both his parents had upped and left. If that was really what Dad had done. He tried to tell Aunt Jane he was worried, but her expression told him she was not at all concerned about her brother. He wondered about mentioning the intruder, the missing letters, Dad’s weird website message. But now he was here and safe, Matt decided to wait until he had his own thoughts in order and Aunt Jane was more responsive.
    Still muttering about her brother’s selfish absent-mindedness, Aunt Jane showed Matt to the spare room. It was tiny and square with bare stone walls and a small window that faced the main house. He could just see it through the trees, the morning sunlight reflecting off the windows. The only furniture was the bed and a small chest of drawers beside it. There was a lamp on the top of the chest.
    â€˜I hope it will do,’ Aunt Jane said. ‘Julius – Mr Venture – said that you can stay