She reached for the telephone and began dialing. First, she needed some help. A servant. And a car. A nice big limo. Perfect! Then, she had to find out where the brat lived. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be difficult. Maybe Igor could look under ‘Busy Little Bodies’ in the phone book?
If Igor could stop glugging coffee long enough to do some work. Natasha bristled indignantly, and wished she could fire him. Unfortunately, that would involve contacting her father at the prison directly, and alerting the authorities to her true location.
Never mind. No matter how difficult life was, Natasha was determined to keep going, until her father was free and well.
... In the Slackbean’s cafe in central Slakistan ...
‘You going to work today?’ Leo asked his friend Igor as they called for another cup of thick, black espresso.
The Slackbean’s waitress slowly pulled herself away from the TV mounted above the coffee machine and thumped down a couple of cups, checking her reflection in a spoon in the process.
Igor shrugged. ‘I am working. The boss is in jail. Natasha is in London. There are no Commonovs left to take orders from.”
“So you are working from the cafe.”
“Exactly!’ Igor looked at his watch. “It’s nearly lunchtime, shouldn’t you be at work?’
‘I have a cold,’ Leo tried a fake sniffle, but it came out like a snigger.
‘You had that cold last week,’ commented Igor, ‘and the week before that.’
Leo was a cleaner at the local hospital. ‘That’s nothing. One of my friends, a nurse, has been sick for three years now.’
‘Don’t the bosses at the hospital get angry?’ Igor asked.
‘They don’t care, because there are no patients anyway. People here are so lazy that they would rather die than get dressed and catch a bus to the hospital. Especially if that new show, Slack Factor, is on.’
‘That show is good,’ agreed Igor, ‘The guy who won was so slack – he had an electric bed, even went to the supermarket in it!’
Leo held up his drink. ‘To hot coffee and slacking!’
The two men clanked coffee cups and grinned. That’s what was so great about Slakistan. Everyone was slack.
Well, everyone except people like the Commonovs.
That’s why they were so rich.
Who else could be bothered to commit crimes?
Chapter Four
Mrs Mac’s sneaky secret
THAT NIGHT, SAFE IN HER BEDROOM, Clemmy Bird took out Natasha’s phone and considered it carefully. It was one of those pricey ones they were always advertising on Kensington High Street. It must have cost hundreds of pounds, maybe more. And could those diamonds be real?
The Commonovs must be really wealthy if a fourteen-year-old had a diamond phone. Clemmy was a little jealous. She desperately wanted a mobile. Daddy, however, had other ideas.
Sometimes, Clemmy wished Daddy had money for extras. They only lived in South Kensington because Mummy had inherited their flat when Clemmy was two. At school, there were loads of rich girls. Clemmy tried not to be hurt when they laughed at her clothes, or teased her for not being able to afford school excursions. Or mobile phones.
But Clemmy didn’t like to dwell on what couldn’t be changed, so she turned her attention back to the phone. Eagerly, she switched it on, but instead of the phone booting up, it flashed a message at her:
ENTER YOUR PIN NOW
Clemmy groaned. Not cool! How could she find out more about the Commonovs without that code?
The good news was there must be something worth finding on the phone, otherwise Natasha wouldn’t have bothered with the code.
There was only one solution – crack the code. But how? Clemmy didn’t know anything about mobile phones, except that if you got the code wrong three times in a row, the phone locks permanently. Rodney Shot had locked a girl’s phone at school, and had promptly thrown it into the nearest loo in disgust when he couldn’t use it.
Anyway, the code was probably in another language, and Clemmy only knew English.
Walking into the living room, she found Daddy slumped, half asleep, in front of the TV. ‘Daddy?’
No answer.
Feeling a bit guilty, Clemmy shook him.
‘Daddy?’
‘What, hah, oh ... yes, Pumpkin?’
‘I am reading this book about a girl who finds a mobile phone that is locked. The book says it cannot be unlocked and she has to throw it away. Is that true?’
‘Clemmy, I’ve told you. You are too young to have your own mobile.’
‘Yes, but ...’
‘And there’s the cost. Things are tight.’
‘I know, but ...’
‘When you are older and more responsible, maybe we can consider it.’
‘Daddy I ...’
‘Perhaps when you go to high school and ...’
‘Daddy!’
‘Yes Pumpkin?’
‘I really am reading a book about a girl who needs to unlock a phone.’
Daddy considered her with amusement. ‘What kind of book are you reading, Tiny Thieves Guide to London?’
‘Very funny Daddy. It’s just a novel.’
‘Well, in that case, I think that mobile phone shops can unlock phones if you can prove that you are the rightful owner. But if not, it’s a lost cause. There is a lot of phone theft, you know.’
Daddy pulled her onto the sofa next to him. ‘Now, enough talk of mobiles, how about an ice cream for dessert?’
Clemmy got up. ‘No thanks, I have homework to do.’
‘Really? But you’re on holidays.’
‘Yeah, but Mrs Thomas said we have to keep up with our maths so that we’ll do brilliantly in senior school,’ said Clemmy, heading for her room.
Behind her, Daddy grumbled. ‘Senior school? You are only nine years old. What is the world coming to? This country is a mess, I tell you, a mess.’
… Deep in another mess in Mrs Mac’s flat …
Mrs Mac was standing by a desk in her neat spare room, looking at the contents of a painted box. Inside were a few papers, a couple of those souvenir snow domes from far off places like Reykjavik and Phuket, and a plastic bag that held some sort of dirty material.
Picking up the bag, Mrs Mac pulled out a striped fabric. It was a shirt, covered in old, dried up blood.
‘Did you find anything then?’
Ludwig entered the room behind her. He was rubbing his beard briskly, as if there was something itchy in it.
Hurriedly covering up the shirt, Mrs Mac cursed the fact that she had given Ludwig her spare key? Why couldn’t he have the manners to knock first? She knew he was a spy, but really!
‘Of course not!’ Mrs Mac glared at him. ‘And what, may I ask, are you doing here?’
‘I needed to see you.’ Ludwig grinned weirdly.
Mrs Mac ignored the strange smile. She was used to Ludwig’s odd ways. ‘Ludwig, only you and I know that Vladimir Commonov didn’t kill that American spy, and as long as we stay silent, nothing can hurt us. There is no other evidence. And no one saw us, so we are quite safe.’
‘Well, apparently they know something, because they are coming after us.’
‘The Commonovs are chasing all of us, Ludwig. Haricot beans and salami, they can’t prove anything. Remember that. They don’t even know exactly who was working on Vladimir’s case.’
Not convinced, Ludwig stroked his beard worriedly. ‘Well they are narrowing down the odds, that’s for sure.’
Her back to Ludwig, Mrs Mac stuffed the shirt into the plastic bag. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘Last night someone broke into my house. Tore the place apart.’
‘Ludwig,’ laughed Mrs Mac, pushing the bag back into the box, ‘you need a cup of tea, come with me.’
She led him down the narrow hall towards the kitchen.
‘Vanilla popsicles and melons! You’re not thinking clearly. Anyone could have broken in. You do choose to live in that horrible little flat near the railway.’
/>
‘It was them, I know it.’ Ludwig rubbed away at his beard.
‘Will you stop that rubbing, Ludwig. You look like you have nits in that beard.’
‘I can’t help it. I’m nervous. The Commonovs are on to us. And what if they convince the government to listen? We committed perjury. That means we could go to jail.’
‘How exactly?’ Instead of putting on the kettle, Mrs Mac began to unpack chocolate digestives into her mouth.
‘We lied in court. Told all those people that we saw Vladimir Commonov leaving the scene of the murder.’
‘We did.’
‘We saw lots of people leaving the scene!’
Mrs Mac sighed. ‘They didn’t ask if we had seen anything else. We told the truth.’
‘Not the whole truth. We set him up. We found that bloody shirt in his car. But the blood on it wasn’t the victim’s blood, was it? It was from one of Commonov’s own henchmen. Who is still alive!’
Mrs Mac turned to him. She now had a tiny little ceramic tea pot in her hand. ‘We didn’t lie, Ludwig. Remember, no one asked us directly – everyone just assumed it was the victim’s blood on that shirt. Then the shirt disappeared.
‘Vladimir Commonov is a killer, you know that – and I know that.’
Ludwig stared at her intensely. ‘But the shirt went missing, so they relied on our evidence.’
Mrs Mac paused her biscuit consumption. ‘We did it for Stephen, you know that.’
Ludwig reached over and tenderly patted his fellow retired spy’s back. ‘Of course I remember, Doris. Vladimir killed your fiancé, Stephen – even if we can’t prove it. He is in jail because he deserves to be. ’
Sinking onto a narrow little footstool by the table, Ludwig tweaked at his mad-Santa beard. ‘But whether or not he deserves to be in jail, those Commonovs are after us.’
‘I told you, anyone could have broken into your messy little flat,’ said Mrs Mac, recovering enough to pick up another biscuit and forget the tea.
‘Someone left this,’ said Ludwig, presenting a piece of paper with a black cross scrawled across it. He placed it down on the table.
‘Sherbert and sprouts!’ exclaimed Mrs Mac. ‘It’s the Vladcross!’
The Vladcross was a hand-drawn black cross, created using a special, one-of-a-kind, antique ink pen. Vladimir Commonov the First’s self-created coat of arms! Legend had it that only a real Commonov could issue a Vladcross and once issued, the ancient Henchman family carried out the decree.
It could not be retracted.
‘I’m done for,’ whispered Ludwig.
Not liking to agree, Mrs Mac chewed quietly on her biscuit.
When she didn’t answer, Ludwig spoke again. ‘Doris, what should I do? Maybe if I can find that shirt ...’
But Mrs Mac was well aware that a Vladcross couldn’t be cancelled out, so returning the shirt was useless. She only hoped that she wouldn’t receive one herself. She wasn’t as brave as she used to be.
Staring morbidly at the scrap of paper, the two old retired spies knew that it meant only one thing – Ludwig was now officially an enemy of the Commonov family.
And everyone knew what the Commonovs did to their enemies.
They eliminated them.
Chapter Five
Paper swans and scooters
CLEMMY SET OFF ON HER SCOOTER TO Kensington High Street, having managed to convince Mrs Mac that Daddy always let her go to the library by herself.
Poor Mrs Mac was as distracted as ever. ‘The library you say?’ she asked, as she prepared her second mid-morning snack – pancakes with jam and cream.
‘Well, if your father says so. Be careful when you cross roads Clementine. And I insist you take your green tweed coat.’
Slowly roasting in her too-warm overcoat, Clemmy dragged her scooter down the stairs and out the front door of Mrs Mac’s Bayswater flat.
‘Yo, Cle-men-tine!’ Abdul from next door waved at her, dreadlocks bouncing merrily.
‘Yo Ab-dul!’ called back Clemmy. She liked Abdul. He had kooky cool clothes and sometimes invited her to the loud, music-making sessions he conducted in the basement of the building.
But there was no time for that today. Waving goodbye to Abdul, she set off towards the park, careful to stop at crossings. Soon she was standing on Bayswater Road, waiting for the lights to change so that she could walk her scooter safely across.
Her favourite part of any scooter journey was whizzing along The Broad Walk of Kensington Gardens, and she was having so much fun, pushing her scooter faster and faster, that she didn’t notice she was being followed.
… Walking some way behind …
Natasha Commonov was becoming increasingly annoyed at the speed of the busy little body.
In fact, she would have lost sight of the kid already, had the pesky pipsqueak not been so particular about stopping at crossings and waiting patiently behind the ignorant tourists who ambled out in front of her.
Now at the other end of the park, the kid was waiting again at a set of lights, so Natasha picked up her pace, hoping to grab her before she got to the crowded High Street shops.
Excellent, less than a metre between them now. Natasha broke into a run, but just as she was coming up behind her, the walk lights flashed green and the brat shot off again.
Drat!
Suddenly her new mobile phone rang.
‘Double drat,’ Natasha pressed ‘answer’ to stop it ringing, but it was too late.
Clemmy turned around.
Natasha managed to hide behind the trunk of a big old oak.
Seeing no one behind her, Clemmy resumed her journey with a little shake of her head.
Natasha spat rudely into the phone. ‘What?’
‘It’s me.’
‘Igor. You blockhead buffoon. I’m busy.’
‘It’s your father.’
At that, Natasha stopped dead. ‘What happened?’
‘Our contact in France tells me they’ve taken him to the prison hospital. He’s getting worse.’
‘A prison hospital can’t be good. Worse than a public hospital. It will kill him for sure!’
‘Perhaps we should try to break him out?’ Igor reconsidered his words. He didn’t want to commit to work. ‘Well, not me exactly, but ...’
‘An extremely sick man running from one of Europe’s most heavily-guarded prisons. Are you mentally deficient?’
Igor didn’t answer. He didn’t know what that meant.
‘I will find what we need to release him, Igor. Get a message to my father. Tell him I need a few more days.’
‘Da, I will.’
Suddenly, Natasha noticed that the girl was nowhere to be seen.
‘Great,’ groaned Natasha, snapping her phone shut and setting off at a fast pace. ‘Now she’s vanished.’
Pesky, annoying, busy little body.
Where could she have gone?
…In Phones ‘n’ Fashion on High Street …
Clemmy popped into the first mobile shop she saw. It was painted bright pink, the owner obviously trying to attract young girls to buy his wares. There were loads of feather boas hanging over the phone displays, and most of the models available were crimson or lavender.
Kooky cool, Clemmy decided. When she was finally allowed to get a phone, she would come here.
Trying to look casual, and pulling herself up to her full height of three feet eight inches, Clemmy approached a young, dark-haired Asian man about the same age as her friend Abdul. He was wearing a neat white shirt and those jeans that went tight at the very bottom.
‘Excuse me, do you think you could help me?’
‘Ah so! Very happy to help little girls.’
‘Pardon?’
‘Ah, it’s my accent. I am Japanese.’
Clemmy thought that was wonderful news. Japanese people were very clever, especially when it came to technology!
‘I need to unlock this phone, sir.’
‘Is it your phone, Short Stuff-chan?’ as
ked the man sternly.
Short Stuff-chan? Clemmy was indignant. She wasn’t short. She was nine!
The man shook his head. ‘Ah so, you hesitate. It is not your phone, is it?’
Now she was wishing that Japanese people weren’t so smart!
‘Err, not exactly.’ Clemmy thought fast, then explained that it was her sister’s phone, and her sister was sick at home and couldn’t come in.
Usually she wouldn’t tell lies, but this time she had to, for Mummy’s sake.
The young man observed Clemmy carefully. ‘How old are you, Short Stuff-chan?’
‘Nine!’
‘Really? You look more like five.’
Clemmy began to wonder if this guy was one of those weirdos Daddy had told her about. Five indeed!
‘And you say your sister gave you a one thousand pound phone, is that light?’
Light? Did he mean right?
‘Sort of.’
‘It’s very wrong to lie, Short Stuff-chan.’
Clemmy decided she needed to throw him off guard – fast. ‘Should I be afraid of you?’
The man’s eyes blinked quickly. ‘What?’
‘Are you stranger danger?’
The man cocked his head in confusion.
‘You are acting strange,’ Clemmy explained, ‘and my Daddy says you have to watch men who act strange, because they could be dangerous.’ She tried to look scared. ‘Perhaps I should call the cops?’
However, instead of becoming uncomfortable at her words, the man just grinned and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a police badge. ‘Ah so. I am a policeman, young lady. Working undercover, looking for rotten thieves.’
‘Don’t you mean rotten thieves?’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘You should be afraid of strangers,’ continued the policeman. ‘And you should not annoy them either. So why don’t you take that mobile phone away and I won’t ask any more questions.’
The Littlest Detective in London Page 4