‘He’s not in,’ Lewis whispered, ventriloquist-style.
‘Ring it again,’ I whispered.
Lewis pressed the button again. Nothing.
He rang the doorbell a third time.
Lewis pulled his hand away and the door opened.
The strange man stood there in just a T-shirt and checked boxer shorts, his hair all messed up round his face.
Lewis went as still as one of those painted men who pretend to be statues in town centres.
The strange man looked down at Lewis. ‘Hi.’
Lewis hurried the words out, extra squeaky and fast. ‘Dyouneeanyjobsdoin?’
‘Sorry?’
Lewis took a breath and put more space between the words. ‘Do you need any jobs doing?’
‘Jobs?’ The strange man ruffled his hair. He reached behind for a hairband and started tying his hair back. ‘What are you on about, mate?’
‘Like scouts do. Car washing. Cleaning up leaves.’
‘Oh.’ The strange man finished tying his hair back. ‘OK, I get it. Now you come to mention it, maybe I wouldn’t mind some help with a bit of gardening, maybe some—’
I leapt out and took two photos. I darted back into the side passage and let the two pictures spit from the camera into my hand.
‘RUN!’ Lewis shouted. To himself.
I shrank back in the side passage while Lewis legged it. He was up the road and around the corner, heels flying, as fast as I’d ever seen him move.
The man watched him go, reaching behind for a cigarette and lighter. He stood, facing out of the front door, smoking.
I waited until he had gone back in the house before I put the camera back in my bag and zipped it up.
Wafting the two polaroid photos, barely daring to look, I strolled out of the side passage, making my arms and legs extra loose, trying to look like I belonged down there.
At breaktime, Lewis and I stood at the far end of the school field, looking at the photos.
The strange man looked funny in his boxer shorts. In one of the photos, he had his mouth open. In the other, he was mid-blink, leaving his eyes looking drunk. He had curly hairs sprinkled unevenly across his chest and, though he was skinny, he had a rounded lump of tummy just above the waistband of his boxer shorts.
‘He’s a bit blurry,’ Lewis said.
‘The pictures are fine.’ I snatched the photos back. ‘Unless you want to do it again?’
‘NO! You’re right, they’re great.’ He scratched his chin furiously. ‘Do you think he saw you?’
I felt a cold wind on the warm day.
‘No.’ I shook my head, hard. ‘No, there’s no way he could have seen me. I waited till he was back in the house.’
I thought some more.
‘I’m positive. He definitely, definitely didn’t see me.’
School news! It was a bad lunchtime for Craig Parsons, the hardest lad in fifth year.
He’d been on a bench at the side of the corridor, acting big in front of a crowd, showing how to snap a pencil using a karate chop.
Craig had his hand out, ready. ‘You have to keep your wrist straight, see?’ He was so busy demonstrating, he didn’t see the New Head coming, or the other kids stepping to the side to make room.
The New Head just waited. Craig looked up.
She didn’t even have to put her hand out before Craig picked up the pencil and handed it straight over. She walked away, leaving Craig on the bench with nothing to chop, while everyone around, boys and girls, pointed and went ‘Aaah!’ and ‘Do your karate now, Bruce Lee!’
Despite Lewis’s panic, I’d got the photos I needed, so I worked on my letters in my bedroom that night. Dad was out at the pub and, outside my door, the attic ladder was down. Bumps and shuffling from above told me that Mum was up there, rummaging around.
Dear Crimewatch,
There is a strange man who lives in Monkford. I don’t know his name but he lives at 56 George Street.
This is a photo of him. His mouth looks funny because he was talking. He didn’t know he was having his photo taken.
I think he might be linked to the death of Danielle Larson at Monkford Fair in July 1982.
I thought you could compare the photo with the suspect’s description in unsolved cases? Particularly any certain deaths at fairs.
I will keep investigating him and let you know if I find out more.
Thank you,
Fiona Larson
I wrote the same letter to the police, just changing the section about his mouth to fit the other photo – his eyes look weird because he’s blinking. I put both letters and photos in envelopes. I was just licking an envelope, thinking Mum and Dad were nearly out of stamps, again, when there was a shout from the attic.
‘YES!’
There was a clanging of someone coming down a ladder too quickly. The floor shook as Mum jumped down.
I shoved my envelopes under my pillow just as she threw my bedroom door open.
‘I found it!’
‘Found what?’
She beamed at me. ‘I knew I wouldn’t have thrown the NHS records away!’ She dusted her hands off. ‘They were in the attic, with her old schoolbooks. Danielle was B. B positive.’ Mum grinned like she’d found a lost pet.
It took me a minute to realise.
Mum stayed in the doorway, her smile fading a little. ‘Go on, then! What are you waiting for?’ She made shooing hands. ‘Don’t you want to write it in your book?’
I slipped off the bed quietly. I got my project book from the bookshelf and filled in B positive under Sibling One on my chart, next to the others.
Mum nodded. ‘Told you I’d find it.’
When I looked up again, she’d gone.
I put my project book away. I got the two letters from under my pillow and put them in my rucksack, ready to post.
I reached for my paper fortune teller and slid my fingers and thumbs between the folds. I moved it, making deliberate choices. Knowing what my future would hold.
Secret Pocket. 7. Stage a bike puncture and spy on someone.
Lewis wouldn’t like it. But Lewis had shown that he wasn’t a reliable accomplice.
Maybe, this time, Lewis didn’t need to know.
24
An effective spy finds a reason to linger near his quarry. He can wait for a bus, or repair a bicycle puncture.
The Junior Spy’s Secret Handbook™
Fifteen days to the fair
The most amazing school news!
The teachers have moved the cross-country course this year. The course now does an extra loop round the school field and the back of the sports hall, rather than going down to the railway line and through the fields with long grass, as it used to.
That doesn’t sound exciting?
There’s a second bit. They’ve moved the cross-country course this year because of . . . flashers.
The rumour is that flashers know where us kids run, and there are men in suits and ties, dotted around in bushes, just waiting to flash any kid they can. According to the story, if we ran round the old course, we’d risk seeing some kind of old man, peckers-out, Mexican wave.
I’m not sure it’s true. It can’t be true. Some facts are too interesting to be true.
After managing to keep my plan secret from Lewis all day, I told Dad I was going out for a bike ride after school.
In the garden shed, I pocketed the puncture repair kit and stabbed my bike’s back tyre with secateurs. I wheeled the bike to the lamppost on George Street.
I pulled the bike up onto the pavement and lay it down to ‘examine’ my flat tyre, my best sad face on.
Every so often, I looked up.
The strange man paced across his lounge. I could see him through the front window, talking into a phone.
I did some huffing and puffing. I blew up the tyre with my bike pump. I put my hands on my hips and watched the air hiss back out.
I sat cross-legged in front of my bike.
The strange man came out of the front door, still talking on the phone. He smoked a cigarette.
I tried not to look, but I could still hear his conversation.
‘Thanks, Chris. Yep, I’ll do that. Yep. I’m on it.’
‘Of course. I’ll double-check with logistics, but I think we’re good to go.’
I looked up and the man looked quickly away. He jiggled the phone between his hands, like it was too hot to hold.
I tried to remember his conversation so I could add it to a future list of facts. I was just trying to memorise everything he said when I looked up – right into his eyes.
‘Hi there.’ The man stood over me, smiling. ‘You got a puncture?’
I tried to breathe. I made myself nod.
He crouched down. ‘Let’s have a look.’ He put his mobile phone on the pavement. I couldn’t help staring at it.
He reached for the tyre and pressed it. ‘It’s a big puncture. Like you’ve ridden over a hedgehog or something.’
I was about to frown and say but that would mean loads of tiny punctures, not a big one.
Then I realised. It was meant to be a joke.
Adult jokes need to be funnier if they want kids to get them straight away. Either way, something about him making such a bad joke made me feel less scared.
He stood up. ‘I wonder if there’s somewhere round here we could get a puncture repair kit?’
I took the kit out of my pocket and handed it to him.
He smiled. ‘Girl guide?’
‘No. I don’t like jam. I mean, I like eating it rather than making it.’
He opened the kit. He unfolded the instructions to read.
‘It says start by taking the wheel off.’ He waved his hands at the instructions. ‘But it doesn’t say how to take the wheel off.’
He kept reading. For ages.
I shifted the bike’s chain to the small cog to make slack, and opened the brake. I pushed back the lever and took out the wheel.
The strange man gave a nervous laugh. ‘Right.’ He looked at the instructions. ‘Point two says unseat one side of the tyre. Unseat. What does that even mean, unseat? What kind of word is unseat?’
He was so weird, in an awkward-rather-than-murdery-paedo way, I forgot to be scared. I used the lever to pull the inner tube out, like Dad had taught me. ‘Are you any good at this stuff?’
‘Not really. I’m useless. But I’m a grown-up, so probably better than you, right?’ He adjusted his ponytail. ‘Or not.’
I looked at his mobile phone again. The flip-out bit at the bottom. The buttons. The yellow of the lettering, telling me the numbers would glow in the dark.
‘You like my phone?’
‘It’s amazing. I’ve never seen one before.’
‘It’s really not that great. It’s a work phone. If it rings, it means someone wants me to do some work.’
I kept staring at the phone.
‘Do you want to hold it?’
I jerked my head up in a panic, but he was definitely just talking about the phone. His trousers were still zipped up.
I looked around. There were other people in the street. It was still daylight.
I took the phone quickly. ‘Thanks.’
I felt the weight of it in my hand. I turned it over.
I opened the flip bit and held it to my ear. I said ‘hello’ into the silence.
‘You can make a call,’ the man said. ‘If you’re really quick.’
‘No thanks.’ I flipped the phone closed. ‘My friend Lewis will be having a snack about now. Toast, probably. Peanut butter.’
The man put his phone in his pocket. ‘Fair enough.’
He didn’t seem to be looking to move, and the instructions were slack in his hand, so I reached down for the puncture repair kit.
‘Is Lewis the kid you meet here in the mornings?’
I nodded. I unfolded the piece of sandpaper and started sanding the inner tube.
‘Will you tell him to knock back on my door on the way past?’ He folded the instructions back up. ‘I think I spooked your Lewis, but I would be very interested to take him up on his offer about strimming.’
I nodded. I finished repairing the puncture on my own.
He watched me glue the patch on. ‘Looks like I’m here as moral support.’
‘Thanks anyway.’
‘You’re’ – he made his voice light – ‘Gail’s daughter.’
‘And you’re the man from the supermarket who’s come back because his mum died.’
‘Yep.’ Quickly, he looked at the instructions.
I screwed the lid back on the glue.
‘Seat, again!’ He held the instructions in one hand, batting the back of his other hand against the paper. ‘Reseat this time. What have they got about seats?’ He turned the instructions over. ‘We have to reseat the tyre bead. Any ideas?’
He watched me put the inner tube back in. ‘Right. You’re pretty good at this stuff, aren’t you?’
I didn’t tell him I was a girl plus/boy minus. I just smiled.
He helped me stand my bike up. ‘I used to work in sales with your mum, a long time ago. Did she mention that?’
‘No.’
‘Does she still work at the brewery?’
‘She’s a driving instructor now.’
‘Really?’ He smiled. ‘I can’t imagine that.’
I thought about how angry Mum got at roundabouts. ‘Nor can I.’ I took a breath. ‘Did you know my sister too? Danielle?’
‘I just knew your mum a bit from work; I didn’t know the family.’ But he didn’t react or look caught out.
I nodded.
He crouched down to pick his phone off the ground. ‘My name’s Carl.’
‘I’m Fiona.’ I watched him put his phone in his pocket. ‘But everyone calls me Fi.’
‘Fi.’ He kicked the bike tyre. ‘Looks good, that. You did a good job.’
I made myself ask. ‘Carl, are you going to the fair this year?’
‘Dodgems and donkey derbies?’ He smiled. ‘I’m forty-five, mate. A bit long in the tooth for hook-a-duck.’ He handed me back the instructions. ‘I should get back to work. Nice to meet you, Fi.’
He pushed his hands in his pockets roughly and walked away.
His walk reminded me a bit of Lewis when he knows he’s being watched, his movements all awkward and spiky.
The Strange Man
1)He’s called Carl
2)He has a mobile phone for his job
3)He does work for someone called Chris
4)He used to work with Mum in sales at the brewery
5)He says he didn’t know Danielle
6)He wants to talk to Lewis about something called strimming
7)He doesn’t know how to repair a bike puncture
8)He doesn’t know how to follow basic written instructions
9)He wasn’t that scary up close
10)He says he isn’t going to the fair
11)If you didn’t know he was a strange man, you’d think he was actually . . . quite nice
Maybe I should have included Lewis in the mission, after all.
If I’d included him, he might not have gone so parent about it. Because he stopped playing his computer game the moment I told him that Friday lunchtime. He let his rhino die and span his chair to face me.
‘The strange man wants to talk to me about what?’
‘Strimming.’
‘Strimming! Strimming? What the hell is strimming? I can’t believe you did that!’
‘It’s fine.’
I waved a hand. ‘Eat your sandwiches, Lewis. Chill.’
‘A puncture. You really just got a puncture on George Street? And you needed to repair it, right outside his house?’
I nodded.
‘Just like it says in The Junior Spy’s Secret Handbook?’
I swallowed.
‘Strimming!’
‘I’m sure it’s something fine.’
‘What was the man like?’ Lewis’s voice was less squeaky now.
‘He was nice, actually. He let me hold his mobile phone.’
‘If he was nice to you, that means he’s sneaky.’
‘It was a really good phone. It had a flip bit at the bottom.’
‘And if he’s sneaky, we have to be even more careful. Your mum’s not a liar. She wouldn’t say he was strange if he wasn’t.’
‘She might not be lying; she might just be wrong.’ I really needed to solve Danielle’s death, but I wasn’t convinced anymore that Carl was definitely the murderer. In fact – I was pretty sure now that I’d made a mistake. ‘It wouldn’t be the first time Mum got something wrong. Remember when she said it didn’t matter what rucksack I got? That kids would make friends with me because of my personality?’ I watched Lewis’s rhino on the screen flash dead. ‘And she said everyone would soon forget about me showing my pants at primary school.’
I nudged Lewis’s lunchbox towards him, hoping he’d get distracted by his box of raisins.
‘He must have seen you taking his picture on Wednesday.’ Lewis left his raisins untouched. ‘He suspects you. Otherwise why would he come out to help? Unless he was really good at punctures?’
He waited for an answer.
‘He was useless,’ I admitted.
‘There then.’ Lewis sat up straighter. ‘He must either have seen you take a photo, or he’s a paedo. Those are the only reasons he’d come outside. Which would you prefer?’
‘He didn’t touch his zip once.’ I folded my arms. ‘Or ask me to sit on his knee.’
‘But paedos don’t all act like paedos all the time, do they? They have to go to shops and stuff. They can’t have their peckers out if they’re paying for petrol or sitting in offices.’
‘His name’s Carl.’ I nudged Lewis’s box of raisins closer still. ‘Carl’s not a paedo name.’
Lewis started reaching. He paused. ‘What’s a paedo name?’
All the Fun of the Fair: A hilarious, brilliantly original coming-of-age story that will capture your heart Page 15