Trap command problem

I am having a unix script which in turns calls another unix script.
Both are creating some temp files in /tmp which are supposed to be deleted after the end of each run

In the child script if I have statement like

trap "rm -f $messagefile" EXIT

A similar statement is there in parent script.


In case of error, although the trap command in child script is working fine but the trap command in parent script is not working.

Is there anyway through which I can return some signal/error exit code from child script’s trap statement so that parent works.

Forgot to mention
The interface runs through a java code which is called by this child script. Now in java application we get a timeout exception sometimes and the programme terminates without deleting the temp files created by parent script. But all temp files created from the child script are deleted...