Yes, Bludgeon had said Mr Kadinski’d reported a lurker.
Okay, but how had he known I’d even spoken to Bludgeon?
Probably Bludgeon.
I sighed. I’d never make the Special Forces. I was a little slow. Though maybe I just had post-traumatic stress from last night.
I couldn’t face running past Special Agent Kadinski, so I headed up the hill, the way Boodle and I had gone on the bike. I’d take the same route as then, and sprint past PSG, St Alban’s and home, thinking about Ben Latter the whole way round.
A grin pulled at my mouth as I thought of how close we’d come to kissing on Wednesday night, and before I knew it I was flying up towards the woods.
Something odd happens to your persona when you’re pushing yourself to the max through a sleeping town. A strange sort of ownership creeps over you. King of the Road! A Chariot of Fire! By the time I’d vaulted our creaky squeaky gate again, I was seriously pumped.
I Would Talk To Dad.
I Would Get Results From Bludgeon.
The Coven’s Quarter Paperwork Would Appear.
And tonight there would be the World’s Most Awesome Kiss With Beautiful Ben.
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
The library was busy that morning. Or maybe it just seemed that way because for once Mum and I got in before nine. Everyone was milling about in the staffroom getting coffee and stuff. We were among the first to punch in for hot chocolate, keen to get to the office to check for webcam files and open desk drawers.
‘Bring it on!’ hissed Mum, skedaddling up the back stairs in front of me in a particularly voluminous deep red caftan.
‘What’s with your Christmas dress, Mum?’ I puffed.
‘Decided it needed more wear. Plus, I’m power dressing today,’ she puffed back.
The fire door banged against the wall as we flung ourselves into the historical-library offices. We were the first in.
‘Yesss!’ I said. Evidence would be undisturbed.
Mum hit the light switches and fluorescent tubing hummed and flickered into life.
We gasped.
The glass in her office door was shattered from top to bottom and a trail of chaos led from her desk to the fire door where we stood now. A high-tech digital alarm clock matching Mum’s description of a complete video surveillance package was lying smashed on the floor.
Mum moved slowly to the nearest phone.
‘Security?’ she said. ‘We have a situation. Can you come up immediately?’
Even I was dispatched to stay in the staffroom while Mum went through everything with the Security guys. Mike looked disgruntled to be bundled away with all of us. He harrumphed and muttered to himself, refusing to congregate round the coffee machine – lounging on the sofa instead with the Financial Times. Mabel approached him at one point, and he said something so sharp and abrupt that she scuttled away faster than a beetle from a steel-toed boot.
I was soooo desperate to know what was going on I thought my head would explode. Then Sophie Wenger walked in and it nearly did.
The girl was limping, and when she finally took off her gloves, after Claudia Hautsenfurg asked her if she should turn the heating up, we could all see a myriad tiny red cuts covering her left hand.
I remembered that Alex hadn’t replied to my text about Sophie and Vincent Harrow, and pulled out my phone. My thumb danced hard and fast over the keypad with renewed demands before I shoved my mobile back into my pocket.
Arns caught my evil eye at Sophie and ambled over.
‘Don’t,’ he said, pouring himself his, like, fiftieth espresso.
‘Arns, you are going to be so wired.’
‘Like you’re not.’
‘I have a lot of natural energy today, I’ll admit.’
‘Today’s a big day for you,’ conceded Arnold with a nod.
‘I’m pretty focused on a number of issues,’ I said, meeting his eye. ‘One, my main suspect is about to be fingerprinted and called to account for her whereabouts last night, and made to explain where certain key historical documents have gone to.’
‘I knew you’d jumped to that conclusion. The chickens have not hatched.’
‘Arns, they have hatched and are already at full egg-laying capacity. Secondly, my d–’ I stopped myself. What was I thinking? The Dad issue was a personal one, and though Arns and I had shared a lot in the past few days, parental politics would be kept strictly confidential. ‘Secondly,’ I began again, ‘what to order at Hambledon’s finest slaughterhouse tonight?’
‘Does Ben know you’re vegetarian?’
‘Don’t think so.’
‘Right. I guess you don’t look vegetarian.’
Arns sipped his espresso thoughtfully and headed for a small sagging sofa vacated by Mrs Simmons who was going home in a huff.
‘You can call me when all this silliness is over with,’ she said to Mum’s PA, Sally Penridge, and left in a flurry of scarves, chiffon and far too much Chanel No. 5.
Arns coughed. ‘That fragrance,’ he said hoarsely, falling into the sofa.
‘Alex would confirm it as Chanel,’ I said decisively.
‘It needs discontinuing.’
‘Forget that,’ I said rudely. ‘What do you mean I don’t look vegetarian?’ I put my hands on my hips and stared down at him aggressively.
Arnold glanced at me: a quick, nervous flick of his eyes. He coughed again, and took another sip of coffee. I swear his pupils were a pinprick in diameter.
‘Just . . . that,’ he began, then stopped. ‘Vegetarians . . . they’re generally quite . . .’ he winced, ‘spindly.’
I plumped down on the couch so hard Arns’s coffee slopped from its tiny cup into the cushions. He winced again.
‘I knew it! You’re saying I’m not thin? Are you calling me fat? What are you implying, Arnold? You do realise this is a critical time for my self-esteem, right? Critical! I’m about to be Sweet Sixteen! Never Been Kissed! Not Good! Not. Good. AT. ALL!’ I was whispering fiercely and my frantic hand gestures had caught the attention of Sophie Wenger. She ambled over and sat in a straight-backed wooden chair opposite us.
‘Settle down,’ said Arnold to me out of the corner of his mouth.
‘How’re you guys?’ asked Sophie, dropping her bag to the floor and lifting her tea for a quiet drink.
‘Fine, thanks,’ I replied. ‘What happened to your hand?’
Arns’s foot crept across mine and pressed down hard.
‘Uhh, I cut it,’ she replied.
‘Exactly,’ said Arns. ‘Doing any good drama productions at the moment?’
‘Duh,’ said Sophie after a slow blink at Arns. ‘Term starts on Monday?’
‘Right, right,’ said Arns, flushing. ‘Well, I’m just going to –’ but before he could leave me with the criminal goth, one of the Security guys came into the staffroom and said:
‘Can I have everyone’s attention, please?’
The room’s murmuring chat immediately quietened.
‘As most of you know, it seems there was some kind of disturbance in Dr Bird’s office last night and we need to get to the bottom of it. Fingerprints have been lifted and we have three good ones and a partial that are not Dr Bird’s. We will be fingerprinting you all in turn, and asking a few questions, just as a first port of call.’
An angry buzz erupted immediately.
The Security guy grabbed a dirty cup and teaspoon and whacked at the china with the spoon.
Chink, chink, chink.
The talk in the room wound down. ‘Could Sophie Wenger step this way first, please?’ he continued.
Sophie stood up so fast her chair fell back. Her face was whiter than usual and her hands shook as she reached for her bag. Arns picked up the chair as she walked across the room in complete silence. You could have heard a teabag drop.
But when the door closed behind her Arns could barely make himself heard in the pandemonium that broke out.
‘IT’S NOT HER THAT MADE OFF WITH THE DOCU
MENTS,’ he yelled in my ear.
I rolled my eyes. ‘How do you know? Anyway, I think you’re losing the plot, Arns,’ I said loudly back, noise levels returning to normal. ‘Arriving late for work, for one.’ I looked down my nose at him, my eyes wide and knowing.
‘Ha! I’d forgotten about my tardiness in all the disruption here,’ he replied.
‘Yeah,’ I said, bracing myself for a boring tale of how he’d got a puncture on Albert Street or something.
Arns put his cup down with a bang and turned to me, leaning in with scant regard for personal space. ‘I was right on schedule, Lula, locking up my bike in the basement, when a car pulled in right next to me. Eight forty-five.’
I closed my eyes to indicate extreme state of boredom and general uncaringness.
‘I was about to stand up,’ he continued, ‘when I heard the guy open the door straight into the car next to him.’
‘Ouch!’ I said. ‘That is such a wronger. Did he leave a note?’
‘Well, I stayed down low to check, and then someone got out of the bumped car and started really going at this other guy.’
‘What? Like fighting?’
‘No, Tallulah, no.’ Arns’s turn for the slow blink. ‘He was just hissing at him in this stressed-out, familiar-sounding voice, but trying to keep quiet at the same time.’
‘Like, whispering? That’s odd. I’d’ve been yelling about my car.’
‘That’s what I thought. Then the first guy told him to suck it up and asked if he had The Stuff.’
‘The Stuff?’
‘Yes, that’s how he said it.’
‘Okay.’
Arns paused. ‘Then the second guy said of course and he wasn’t going to hand it over till the transfer had gone through.’
‘No! This is so Hollywood!’
‘I know! And even though my legs were cramping, I just kept as still as a stone.’
‘What a man,’ I smirked.
Arnold closed his eyes. ‘You wouldn’t understand, being such a stranger to exercise yourself.’
‘I’m going to let that go,’ I said hotly. ‘You have no idea about my training programme.’
‘Programme?’ he snorted. Rude boy.
‘What happened then? Were there threats? Safety catches taken off powerful weapons?’
Arnold shook his head wearily. ‘The first guy said, “Fine, then you’re going to have to hand it over to him yourself tomorrow morning.” ’
‘Where? When?’
‘They walked away. I couldn’t hear, but I’ve been thinking . . .’ said Arns.
Then Tweedy Mabel wandered closer, almost as if she were trying to hear what we were saying, her face more like a praying mantis than ever. I couldn’t believe she was related to anyone on earth, let alone the town mayor.
‘Hello, Tallulah. Hello, Arnold.’
‘Hello, Mabel,’ we chorused respectfully.
Oh no, please don’t make us converse, I thought. ‘Hey, Ams, I thought your bike was out of action,’ I said, hoping she’d move on.
‘I can fix a puncture, Talluluh,’ replied Arnold, killing the conversation.
Then the Security guy was back.
‘Tallulah Bird?’ he called.
My turn now? Great. Just great. Now we wouldn’t get a chance to talk to Sophie at her most vulnerable.
‘Sophie,’ I mouthed urgently to Arnold, but he shook his head in that I’m not going to waste my time way he does more often than I’d realised before. I stamped on his flip-flopped foot hard as I got up to go.
‘Oops,’ I said lightly, ‘sorry,’ and headed for the door.
Chapter Eighteen
And so. Still Friday morning
A small area had been set aside for interviews near Mum’s office. Up close the damage looked even worse than my first impression. The thing I hadn’t noticed earlier is that Mum’s desk was actually broken, not just in a crazy mess. The front right leg had snapped and if it hadn’t been for the drawer unit beneath it, itself badly damaged, the whole thing would be on the ground, empty in trays and all.
‘Frik,’ I said, with meaning.
‘Step this way please, Miss Bird,’ said the Security guy, and he led me over to Mum.
I sat down in the chair he gestured to. ‘You okay, Mum?’ I asked.
‘I’m fine, Lu,’ said Mum. She did not look fine. ‘Just thought I’d ask for an independent opinion from you because Dr Gordon can’t be here for several hours, and I’d like to get the office put to rights as soon as possible, quite frankly.’
‘You want my opinion? Not my fingerprints?’
‘Those first,’ said the Security guy, and he began rolling the top of my fingers over a purple pad of ink, then rolling them one by one on a white page with TALLULAH BIRD: PART-TIME LIBRARY WORKER typed at the top.
‘How did your desk break, Mum?’ I blurted out. A thought occurred to me and I looked at the Security guy. ‘I don’t remember seeing it broken when we first came up this morning. Were you guys a little clumsy with your investigation in there? That desk is two hundred years old, you know.’
‘It wasn’t them,’ said Mum, and she dropped her head in her hands.
‘Mum?’ I asked, suddenly uncertain.
‘Could we have a few minutes, please?’ asked Mum. The Security guy nodded and hovered uncertainly outside Mum’s office doorway.
‘What’s going on?’
‘Sophie Wenger –’
‘I knew it!’ I raised my arms in triumph. ‘Call me Jack Bauer! Call me Bond – James Bond! Call me Supersleuth!’
Mum was not smiling. ‘This is not easy for me to explain, so I’m just going to spit it out.’ I dropped my arms. ‘It turns out that Sophie Wenger is, um, prematurely – and I must stress that I think this is most unnatural, Tallulah – she is . . . um . . . sexually active.’
‘Exactly! Mum, I sent Alex a text because I think Sophie Wenger is going out with Vincent Harrow – Harry Harrow’s son! Alex will know for certain. As soon as she gets back to me, we –’
Mum held up her hand for silence. ‘Will you just let me finish?’
‘Sorry.’
‘Sophie came into the building after hours, with a friend, and had intercourse on my desk.’ My eyes bugged out so far I thought if I blinked I might lose them. ‘And during the, um, rigours of their action, the desk leg broke. The desk obviously crashed down, damaging my drawer unit.’
‘Yowzer . . .’ I breathed.
‘Precisely. When the couple eventually got off the desk, that spider you lot trapped at the annexe had already begun to crawl out of the drawer.’
‘You hadn’t taken it to the zoology department?’ I whispered. ‘It could have died! How did it get out the box?’
‘The first drawer literally smashed open, and obviously the box along with it.’ Mum shook her head. ‘I can’t believe I’d forgotten all about that spider.’
‘Then what?’ I asked, impatient.
‘Well, panicked by the commotion they’d made, and with the spider on the loose, Sophie threw herself out of the office, but she tripped because her, um, clothing was around her ankles and she fell into my office door.’
‘Oh, geez.’
‘Sophie’s partner abandoned her, concerned that Security would be on their way with all the noise, and he crashed into several desks on the way before he found the fire doors.’
‘Oh, man.’
‘Sophie was quite thoroughly, um, tangled, and cut up, but she saw the spider crawl under the drawers –’
‘Sweet . . .’
‘– across the office –’
‘Frikking . . .’
‘Up the walls, and round the top of the doorframe.’
‘Mercy.’
‘She left promptly – hasn’t seen or spoken to her partner since.’
I had too many questions to be able to speak. My skin was so raised with goosebumps I was afraid it would hurt if I moved.
The Security guy appeared out of nowhere. ‘Some st
ory, huh?’ he leered. ‘She won’t say who loverrr boy is, but we’ll get to the truth.’
Ugh.
Mum’s eyes narrowed. She was about to say something but then he waved my sheet of fingerprints. ‘You’re clear,’ he said.
I ignored him, my eyes still uncomfortably far from their sockets. ‘This is such a mess, Mum. Was Sophie in there for action or info?’
Mum rubbed her forehead. ‘I thought you’d be able to tell me that, Lu. I don’t know. I just don’t know.’ Our eyes met. ‘Mr Michael Burdon next, please, Frank,’ said Mum, turning to the Security guy. Then, ‘Go home, Lula. Have some lunch and relax for a bit.’ Her head tilted ever so slightly in a meaningful nod. ‘Maybe chat with Alex. The office may be back to normal on Monday, but there’s going to be no work for you to do here until everyone’s been questioned and the office properly examined and cleaned.’
‘Sure,’ I said uncertainly. Was she telling me to check out Alex’s info? She nodded at me again. She was.
I gave Frank the meathead a cheery wave and winked at Mum, pulling my bag to my shoulder before taking a last look at the office on the way out.
I got a text from Alex on the way home.
Sophie and Vincent in love. Matching tongue studs.
So was Vincent Harrow shagging Sophie Wenger in Mum’s office? Pretty damn likely. My pulse quickened. Video surveillance, I thought to myself, and began to thumb my phone to thank Alex.
Before I could press send I got another message.
Psycho girl. I’m not stalking you. Don’t flatter yourself.
I flushed crimson as I hit delete. Right! Out-and-out hatred for Jack de Souza was the only way forward. He was the lurking type – I was sure of it! It must have been him! I texted Bludgeon and nearly fell into an open water-mains manhole on Hill Street so my message only got as far as:
Any news on the stalk
before being sent. Knowing Bludgeon, he’d think it some kind of secret code and would puzzle over it for hours. I shook my head and tried to think positive. Maybe Mr Kadinski could shed some light . . .
So for the first time in nearly sixteen long and terrible years, I headed voluntarily up the steps to the Setting Sun.
Kisses for Lula Page 15