The Littlest Detective in London

by Suzy Brownlee

  That was not the worst of it. There was also an incriminating list of her enemies – the names and addresses of the old crones she was after in London.

  If the police got hold of that phone, they might figure out she was up to something. Then she would definitely be stuck in that Slakistanian boarding school for all of eternity.

  But Natasha wasn’t one for feeling sorry for herself. With one parent dead and one in jail, she knew crying and moaning didn’t solve anything.

  Well, there is only one option, she decided. I will follow that busy little body of a girl home and get my phone back. After all, how hard could it be to convince that puny little kid to give it up?

  In spite of herself, Natasha grinned. Those teachers at the boarding school in Slakistan know how persuasive I can be! She rubbed her hands together in anticipation.

  If I can scare a group of teachers, I can easily scare that bite-sized brat, can’t I?

  Chapter Three

  Accidentally – on purpose

  CLEMMY BIRD KNEW SHE COULDN’T LET Mrs Mac find the mobile phone that the girl had dropped, so she pushed it into the pocket of her jeans, hoping the bulge wouldn’t show.

  That sign meant she had to think carefully about the situation before revealing her new possession. The name on the old house meant Mrs Mac’s friends might be linked to Mummy. But how was Natasha Commonov connected to the club? The phone might hold a clue.

  ‘What are you doing, dear?’

  Mrs Mac looked at her suspiciously, at the same time stuffing large, crumbling pieces of cinnamon cake into her mouth. Mummy had always told her to eat with her mouth closed – now Clemmy could see why!

  ‘Nothing, just making sure my toy doesn’t get lost again.’

  Mrs Mac peered at her through slightly askew glasses. ‘Are you quite well, Clementine? You look a little pale.’

  Clemmy wasn’t sure how she felt. But in order to discover how the old people were connected to Mummy, she had to stay quiet about the phone and listen to what went on. Important secrets might be revealed – secrets that could reunite her family.

  ‘Well, be careful with that toy,’ said Mrs Mac through a mouthful of cake. ‘I don’t want your father accusing me of letting you lose things.’

  Mrs Mac wasn’t usually concerned about anything other than food, so Clemmy deduced she must be worried about Natasha. Well, if the Commonovs were connected to tragedy and death, like the newspaper said, Mrs Mac was probably right to worry.

  Her babysitter pushed an enormous slice of cinnamon cake into Clemmy’s hand, but just as she was about to take a bite, there was a cry from the kitchen.

  Mad-Santa Ludwig appeared, his face whiter than his hair. Not a great look, thought Clemmy, even for an old person!

  ‘What is it?’ asked pokey-nosed Lucinda, stuffing Ratcat with too much cake. Yuck! Looking at the animal coughing up food was enough to put Clemmy off eating for a year. Or two. Or two hundred.

  ‘Horrible news. The worst!’

  Apparently, Ludwig had just received a message from one of his old informants, saying the Commonovs were willing to pay lots of money for evidence that would get Vladimir out of jail.

  That must be why that girl is here, thought Clemmy.

  ‘And they think the evidence is with one of the retired spies in this very room,’ finished Ludwig, sinking onto a dirty striped ottoman.

  Evidence! Spies! Clemmy’s eyes widened. Wow. Although admittedly, Mrs Mac being a retired spy with evidence to exonerate a crime lord was about as weird as her belonging to a knitting club.

  ‘Curry and cucumber sandwiches, what could they be looking for?’ said Mrs Mac, scratching her head with a cakey hand. A large crumb remained in her hair.

  Ludwig repeated. ‘According to the Commonovs, someone in this room has something that would prove Vladimir Commonov did not murder the baker in France.’

  There was a long silence, then Mrs Mac spoke again. ‘Well, if someone here has it, they had better confess, or we will all be in danger.’

  With that, the old spies looked around at each other suspiciously.

  To Clemmy, they all appeared rather guilty.

  There was quiet old Marisol, slowly picking crumbs of cake off her plate with the flat of her finger, then dropping them as she raised the finger to her mouth.

  Ludwig, who was twiddling his pointed beard self-consciously and staring out of the grubby living room window, as if there was an answer on the rubbish-strewn lawn.

  Lucinda, owner of the mess in which they sat, was cuddling horrid Ratcat to her face, and mouthing that she ‘loved it, yes she did.’

  Ratcat looked as if it was going to be sick.

  For her part, Clemmy was wondering what evidence could possibly get Natasha’s father out of jail. Especially after ten years.

  ‘You know Doris, you and Ludwig were the ones there at the arrest,‘ said Lucinda. ‘If anyone has evidence, it is you two.’

  Ratcat coughed up a little blob of cake in agreement. It landed on the floor near Clemmy. Yuck! What a disgusting creature.

  ‘I don’t have anything that they could want,’ said Mrs Mac indignantly.

  ‘I was Communications Officer,’ said Ludwig with equal indignity. ‘Stuck in that horrible little room in Paris sending messages. I didn’t have the chance to steal evidence.’

  Then Ludwig shot Mrs Mac a weird look.

  Hmmm. Ludwig sounded a little bitter. Clemmy wondered if maybe he wanted to be more of a spy than he had been? Maybe that beard had held him back? How can you be a spy looking like a mad Santa Claus?

  ‘The evidence could be anything,’ said Lucinda, now fussing with the tea tray, ‘and there is no point discussing this further until we go home and look around. It’s been ten years. Who knows what we may have stored up in the attic, or down in the cellar?’

  There are probably a few dead bodies in the cellar of this house, thought Clemmy. She wrinkled up her nose. Maybe that’s what the funny smell was?

  She noticed Marisol didn’t say a word. Marisol was the sort who could definitely know something – a person who kept musty old secrets locked up.

  The others agreed to look for evidence rather unenthusiastically. Hmmm. Clemmy wondered who else was hiding something, but before she could consider it further, Mrs Mac was by the front door fumbling for their coats.

  ‘Come along dear, we must get back for dinner. Can’t have you going hungry, can we?’

  Clemmy felt a little ill. How could Mrs Mac think about eating? They had just had enormous slices of cinnamon teacake, and because she was worried about her Mummy, Clemmy had great difficulty getting through it!

  However, going home meant she could look closely at the phone in her pocket. Smiling, she took Mrs Mac’s hand and told her that she was, in fact, very hungry indeed.

  … Natasha watched as they left the house …

  ‘Come on Clementine, I can see the bus!’ The old woman’s voice carried across the street.

  Recognising the pair, Natasha cursed at the realisation that the kid had an old spy for a guardian. That was all she needed.

  Squinting, she tried to see which of the lady spies the woman was, but the photos had Igor sent were ancient, so it was hard to tell who was who.

  Waiting until they rounded the corner, Natasha looked for a cab, but in the quiet suburban street there was hardly any passing traffic. Drat. No option but to get on the bus with the spy and the kid.

  Stomping towards the bus stop, Natasha decided that she was going to have to find a proper form of transport, and fast. After all, Commonovs didn’t catch public transport. It was too, well, public.

  A limousine, that’s what she needed. A nice white one. With dark tinted windows. Excellent idea! She would get Igor on to it right away. Plus, she would need some sort of driver. A big, beefy man who could scare those spies into giving her the evidence. Her very own henchman.

  Opening her designer handbag, she looked for her mobile phone to call Igor in Slakistan. Then s
he remembered.

  The busy little body had it.

  … At the bus stop …

  Clemmy patted the phone tucked in her pocket, desperate to discover its possible secrets – but Mrs Mac was uncharacteristically chatty and was asking her all sorts of questions about school and such. The old babysitter was clearly worried about something.

  Clemmy suspected Mrs Mac knew more about that Commonov girl than she was willing to admit. Staring up at her round, red-veined nose and wild, orange hair, she considered Mrs Mac in a new light. A retired spy. A real, proper spy. Wow! Clemmy couldn’t wait to tell Daddy.

  As if on cue, Mrs Mac said, ‘You know, of course, that you can’t tell your father about our little outing today, or about my previous career?’

  Clemmy agreed that telling Daddy might not be in anyone’s best interests. He would go mad if he knew Mrs Mac was a spy.

  ‘Okay, but I think it’s kooky cool that you were a spy.’

  Mrs Mac nodded, full of self-importance. ‘Of course it is, but Clementine dear, you must understand that spies by nature have to be extremely secretive. If we were to go about telling people, we wouldn’t be able to do our jobs, would we?’

  ‘But you’re retired, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, well, sort of. I suppose spies never really retire. We may stop working but all that important information remains active. It could be disastrous for Britain if we revealed what we knew.’

  ‘I s’pose,’ said Clemmy, not entirely sure what Mrs Mac was trying to say. Was she still a spy? Could you be a spy looking like her? It must be hard creeping around spying on people with hair that colour. A circus clown was more subtle!

  The bus arrived. Mrs Mac pushed Clemmy on first, then began negotiating the fare.

  Letting out a loud sigh, the bus driver said: ‘It’s two pounds, madam, unless you have a special card. No discounts. The kid is free, though.’

  ‘Listen, young man. I have one pound. Take it or leave it.’

  Whilst Mrs Mac discussed the fare, Clemmy noticed a dark-haired teenager behind them, standing by the door of the bus. The long straight hair, the almond eyes, the distinctive heart-shaped face. Oh no. It’s her! Natasha Commonov. She’s come for the phone. And judging by what the old spies had said about the Commonovs, she’s not going to be nice about it.

  Well, Clemmy was determined to keep the phone, at least long enough to discover if there were any clues about Mummy on it!

  Leaving Mrs Mac to argue with the driver, Clemmy quickly moved to the back of the bus. She decided to squeeze into a window seat next to a group of businessmen, who seemed to be having some sort of meeting. Perfect! Natasha would have to leap over the men to get her.

  Natasha snuck onto the bus behind Mrs Mac and immediately set about looking for Clemmy. As she made her way down the aisle, their eyes met, and Natasha shot the little girl a very evil glare.

  The Slakistanian crime princess made another move towards her, then stopped, realising it was impossible for her to get closer without drawing attention to herself.

  A furious scowl on her face, Natasha had no choice but to find another seat, and with a final, ‘I’ll get you’ gesture in Clemmy’s direction, she disappeared upstairs.

  ... On the upper level of the bus ...

  Natasha sat fuming. If that busy little body was going to be difficult, something drastic would have to be done to retrieve her phone. Natasha considered her options for a moment.

  Hmmm. A crowded London bus full of slothful drones. What would her father do?

  A smile tugged at Natasha’s well-glossed lips. The perfect plan was forming.

  Of course, it was quite an evil plan and some people might get hurt as a result, but that didn’t worry her. That mobile phone was part of her plot to get her father out of prison. It was vital that she got it back immediately. Time was of the essence.

  Opening her handbag, Natasha took out a small black container. Inside were a variety of small objects. Now, which one would do the job?

  After due consideration, Natasha selected something. ‘Perfect,’ she said quietly.

  Finding a roll of string in her bag, she attached a disgusting, squishy, rubber spider to it and bounced it up and down. Horrible. Disgusting. Excellent!

  As the English don’t have really poisonous spiders, they had no idea how gross they could be.

  Admiring her plastic beast, Natasha felt a jolt of homesickness. It was almost identical to the evil spider beast of Slakistanian fairytales – the Gugenshovidov. A real Gugenshovidov would race up to your face and inject a blue venom into your eyes, permanently blinding you.

  Natasha hoped that the hairy black toy in her hand would have a similar if temporary effect on the driver’s eyesight, long enough to crash the bus.

  Standing, she moved to the seat directly over the driver. Glancing behind her to check no one was watching, she held one end of the string and pushed the end with the spider attached out of the small rectangular window. She let it steady for a moment and then lowered it carefully onto the windscreen of the bus, smack in front of the driver.

  … Downstairs …

  Mrs Mac finally succeeded in obtaining a discounted fare, and the bus began moving quickly towards central London.

  Clemmy waved at the old woman but Mrs Mac seemed to have forgotten that Clemmy was with her, and plonked down in one of the seats for the elderly at the very front of the bus. Being quite wide, and the seat quite narrow, it wasn’t a great fit, and parts of Mrs Mac protruded into the aisle.

  Next to Clemmy, the businessmen were talking presentations and budgets. It was rather boring, particularly as she couldn’t even see out of the window because someone had drawn rude pictures all over it.

  She was about to go and stand near Mrs Mac when there was a loud scream. Next, Clemmy heard a sickening thud. The businessmen next to her began asking themselves, ‘What was that?’

  Someone from the front of the bus called out, ‘He’s hit someone. The driver’s knocked her down.’

  Another called, ‘She’s not moving.’

  How horrible, thought Clemmy. She hoped the person would be alright.

  ‘Clementine Bird, where are you?’ Mrs Mac’s shrill voice penetrated the skull of everyone on the bus. At least she finally remembered I’m here, thought Clemmy, pushing through the crowd of people desperately trying to get off the bus.

  As she passed near the exit doors at the centre of the bus, Clemmy felt a tight grip on her arm.

  ‘Give me zat phone.’

  Clemmy turned and looked straight into the glistening brown eyes of Natasha Commonov. How could someone so pretty on the outside be so bad on the inside?

  Natasha, for her part, noticed that the puny brat would be easy to identify in the future. She was blonde, no taller than a garden gnome, had bright blue-green eyes, and sported a strange, white mark on her front tooth.

  ‘Did you hear me?’ said Natasha, through clenched teeth.

  ‘Yes,’ said Clemmy. ‘But I’m afraid I can’t give it back straight away. Terribly sorry.’

  Natasha pulled herself up tall and pushed herself against Clemmy. ‘Listen, you busy little body, you don’t want to make me angry. Just give me ze phone and I’ll leave you alone.’

  Noticing that the rear exit doors of the bus were now open, Clemmy thought the best thing to do was to make a run for it. She was the fastest sprinter in Year Four at St Joshua’s. That should help.

  For added protection, she stomped down on Natasha’s foot.

  ‘Owwww,’ cried Natasha, letting go of Clemmy’s arm.

  Clemmy raced towards the doors and leapt off the bus, only to bump straight into Mrs Mackleberry.

  ‘Crepes and mushrooms, there you are!’ Mrs Mac peered at her. ‘Are you alright, Clementine Bird?’ She didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Don’t look up the front there. What a spectacle! It’s terrible. Definitely not a sight fit for small children like yourself!’

  Then Mrs Mac preceded to tell her exactly how bad i
t was. ‘There is a lady lying in front of the bus. Blood everywhere, Clementine. Her leg is twisted up at a very odd angle. The driver didn’t see her. He was mumbling something about a spider.’

  Someone pushed past them rather roughly, and Clemmy turned nervously, expecting to see Natasha, but the dark-haired girl was nowhere to be seen. Clemmy knew she should be relieved, but she suspected that Natasha Commonov was not done with her yet.

  ‘Clementine,’ Mrs Mac repeated, thinking she was trying to catch a peak at the gore. ‘I said not to look, it’s too gruesome.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Clemmy was more interested in avoiding Natasha Commonov than sticky-beaking.

  Mrs Mac grabbed her hand. ‘Come along now, all this excitement is making me exceedingly peckish. A nice big slice of pork pie with gravy and a cup of tea, that’s what we need!’

  In spite of Mrs Mac’s warnings, Clemmy couldn’t help sneaking a look as they walked towards another bus. The woman was alive, thank goodness, gesturing wildly towards the large windows of the bus.

  Clemmy looked up at the windows, and saw a spider attached to a long piece of string. As it bumped against the window in the breeze, it reminded Clemmy of the toy spiders in her toy box at home. A toy spider? How did that get there?

  A silly thought, but Clemmy had to wonder if Natasha Commonov had something to do with that spider.

  … Later in an expensive hotel in the city ...

  Natasha Commonov sank into a huge, gold-upholstered sofa and groaned. How bad could life get?

  First Father becomes ill, then she loses her diamond-encrusted mobile phone, and now she was semi-crippled thanks to that busy little body from the spy house. Well, she wasn’t going to let that pipsqueak outsmart her!