The Hangman's Lair

by Simon Cheshire

  What was still left unexplained was why the diary hadn’t been read. Or, more to the point, why the thief still hadn’t threatened Amy with blackmail, or posted the diary on the internet, or whatever other fiendish scheme they had in mind when they’d stolen the thing in the first place! It was all very puzzling.

  For a while, I thought about another possibility. What if something accidental had happened to the diary? Something we hadn’t accounted for up to now? A-ha! That would explain the strange lack of diary-reading/ blackmail/fiendish schemes, etc, etc.

  But . . .

  No, something accidental didn’t really seem to fit the facts. I couldn’t quite put my finger on exactly why, though.

  My thoughts were interrupted by lunchtime. After a yummy, scrummy school dinner of burned thing, mushy thing and green thing (followed by spongy thing), I took a walk along the classroom corridor. I tried to pick up my thoughts where I’d left off.

  They were interrupted again when Amy came bustling over to me. ‘I’ve been thinking about another possibility,’ she said. ‘What if something accidental has happened to the diary? Something we haven’t accounted for up to now?’

  ‘I already thought of that,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t really fit the facts. Although, I can’t quite . . .’

  ‘I think it might have fallen into the canal,’ said Amy.

  ‘Canal?’ I said. ‘What canal?’

  ‘The houses in our street were once Victorian warehouses. The canal runs right along the back of them. If something fell out of my window it’d drop right into the water. My window was open on Thursday afternoon, and it was quite windy out. One hefty billow of the curtains and the diary on the window sill could easily have been knocked outside.’

  I snapped my fingers. (Well, sort of – when I snap my fingers it makes more of a thud than a snap. Yet another little practical skill I’m rubbish at. Anyway, you know what I mean.)

  Of course! That was why I couldn’t quite put my finger on the reason that an accident didn’t really fit the facts! I hadn’t thought about precisely where the diary had been. Now I realised that an accident - like the one Amy had just described to me - was out of the question.

  ‘Nooooo,’ I said. Then I said ‘nooooo’ again, just to emphasise the point. ‘That’s not possible.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ said Amy.

  ‘Think back to what you’ve told me about exactly where your diary is kept,’ I said.

  Have you spotted why the diary couldn’t have gone out of the window?

  ‘You told me the diary is always under your wooden pencil case. Never anywhere else. If something accidental had happened to the diary, why hadn’t it also happened to the pencil case? A billowing curtain, for example, couldn’t lift up the pencil case, brush the diary out of the window and then replace the pencil case, could it?’

  Amy sighed. ‘Yes, I suppose it’s obvious, really. I got my hopes up just then. Now I’ve got to go back to worrying. As soon as that diary gets opened . . .’

  I stopped still.

  Wait a minute! All this talk about accidents and previously-unseen-possibilities had suddenly kicked my brain into gear! Quickly, I took out Amy’s Thursday timetable and read through it again.

  T think I’ve spotted a motive,’ I said quietly, not taking my eyes off the timetable. ‘At long last!’

  ‘What motive?’ said Amy.

  I glanced at her. I didn’t really want to say, not right at that moment, just in case I was wrong. The motive for the theft – if I was right – didn’t exactly show Amy in a favourable light.

  There was a clear difference between our two remaining suspects. One of them had a reason to be peeved at Amy, and the other didn’t. And one of them had a possible motive for taking the diary, while the other didn’t.

  I was annoyed with myself for not spotting it before. Have you seen the evidence for a motive in that timetable too? No time to explain now – check if you’re right when we get to the next chapter!

  ‘Well?’ said Amy.

  ‘Got to go,’ I said quickly, avoiding her gaze. ‘There’s not a moment to lose.’ As I hurried off down the corridor, I called back to her over my shoulder, ‘With a bit of luck, I’ll have this sorted out by the end of school today.’

  I headed for one of the classrooms close to the assembly hall. Now I had a definite plan. I would do three things:

  1.Locate Suspect No.1.

  2.Tell Suspect No.1 that the game was up and that I

  knew everything.

  3.Get Suspect No.1 to hand over Amy’s diary.

  As it turned out, I needn’t have bothered having a plan of any sort, definite or not. As I neared the classroom door, I was stopped in my tracks by the sound of a low, braying laugh.

  I knew the sound all too well. It was the jeering sneer of that low-down rat Harry Lovecraft.

  The classroom door was open a few centimetres. I crept up to it, carefully making sure that my shadow wouldn’t pass across the crack of sunshine that sliced along the floor. Through the gap I could see Harry Lovecraft sitting on one of the desks. He was talking to someone I couldn’t see. They were alone in the classroom.

  ‘Yes, I’ve got the money,’ slimed Harry. ‘I had some rubbishy old books to sell, and I knew exactly who’d take the bait.’ He reached into his blazer and produced the money I’d paid him earlier that day. ‘Here’s your payment, courtesy of that revolting know-it-all, Saxby Smart.’

  A hand appeared and took the cash. The unseen person said something I couldn’t hear.

  ‘Don’t be an idiot,’ said Harry Lovecraft. ‘You think I want to be caught carrying it around? Drop it off where I told you. And make sure you do it before the end of school!’

  Harry stood up and headed straight for the door. If I didn’t get out of the corridor he’d see me in seconds!

  I hopped on tiptoe, trying desperately not to let my shoes clack against the polished floor. I must have looked like a frog dancing on hot coals! A few bounding strides took me into the classroom next door and I crouched down out of sight.

  I saw Harry slither past. Time to scuttle back out into the corridor, I thought to myself, and catch whoever it was Harry has been talking to.

  But just as I was about to move, the bell for afternoon lessons went. A trickle of kids started flowing outside the classrooms almost instantly. By the time I’d got into the corridor, the trickle had become a river. There was no hope of identifying the correct person now.

  Never mind, I thought to myself, I’ve got a pretty good idea of who it was. Since overhearing Harry Lovecraft, I now also had a pretty good idea of exactly what had been going on all this time.

  The whole case revolved around three things:

  1.What was said at Amy’s house on Thursday afternoon.

  2.That mystery about why the thief seemed not to have read the diary.

  3.The Mega-Sale at the local branch of SwordStore in Hanover Street.

  I hurried along back to class.

  ‘Drop it off where I told you,’ Harry had said.

  So . . . Where might that be, I wondered?

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  OUTSIDE OUR CLASSROOMS, NEXT TO the racking where people put their lunchboxes and assorted other stuff, there is a long honeycomb of lockers. I have no idea why these are called ‘lockers’ because they have no locks on them, just lift-up wooden hatches. Every pupil is allocated one; mine is on the third row up, fourth from the end.

  We use them to store school books, homework, and so forth. Teachers use them now and again to distribute stuff like newsletters and parental consent forms.

  Most people drop by their locker at the end of the day, which was why I was standing beside the lockers when the bell went for the end of school. I positioned myself in front of Harry Lovecraft’s, top row, second from the left.

  ‘Are you getting in my way for a reason, Smart?’ smarmed Harry. ‘Or are you just being your normal awkward self? I told you, I’ll bring those book
s in for you tomorrow.’

  ‘There’s a definite reason,’ I said. ‘This won’t take long.’

  As Amy emerged from the classroom I flagged her down and asked her to round up Nicola, Paul and Kelly for me. A couple of minutes later, we were all gathered together beside the lockers.

  I could see Mrs Penzler, our form teacher, marking homework at her desk with huge swishes of her pen. I considered calling her over too, but I decided that this matter was probably best dealt with amongst the six of us.

  ‘What’s this about?’ said Nicola. ‘I’ve got netball practice in ten minutes.’

  ‘I’ve got to get to the shops,’ said Paul.

  ‘And I’ve got a steak and kidney pie sitting at home with my name on it,’ grumbled Kelly.

  ‘Last Thursday afternoon,’ I began, ‘Amy here had her diary stolen from her room at home.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with us?’ said Nicola.

  ‘I didn’t even know she had a diary,’ grumbled Kelly.

  ‘Get to the point, Smart,’ sneered Harry Lovecraft. ‘You’re boring me already.’

  ‘The point is,’ I said, ‘that only one of you three, Nicola, Paul and Kelly, could have taken it. I was able to rule Kelly out of my investigations, so the theft had to be down to either Nicola or Paul. Now, at this point, Amy, I really do have to say that, in a way, you brought this entire affair on yourself.’

  ‘What?’ she cried. She shook her head in astonishment. ‘What?’

  ‘It was all a question of motive,’ I said. ‘It’s no secret that Amy, Nicola, Paul and Kelly aren’t best buddies. They’re just having to work together on this history project we’re all doing. But you’d need more than that to have a motive to actually steal Amy’s diary. And Amy gave you that motive . . . Paul.’

  Paul stared at me like a small furry animal caught in the crosshairs of a shotgun. He went paler than a slice of white bread.

  ‘Umm . . .’ he said at last, trembling.

  ‘We all know,’ I said, ‘that Paul’s a huge FrogWar fan. He collects all the figures and builds all the weaponry and stuff. Yes?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Paul quietly.

  ‘If you look at the noticeboard further along this corridor, you’ll see that there’s a sale on at SwordStore, which stocks the whole FrogWar range. FrogWar merchandise isn’t cheap. A money-off sale is something Paul really doesn’t want to miss. But it ends this Wednesday. So what’s Paul been doing? Saving up as hard as he can, trying to sell some old CDs, doing his best to raise enough cash by this Wednesday to get a few bargains.

  ‘Last Thursday afternoon, he asked his fellow timeline-assemblers if they were interested in any of the stuff he was selling. They weren’t. Unfortunately, Paul maaaaay have asked them one too many times, and he maaaaay have chattered on a bit about FrogWar in general. His fellow timeline-assemblers maaaaay have found this slightly irritating.

  ‘However, Amy’s response was a little harsh. In fact, she was positively rude to Paul, and even called him a loser. Which, completely understandably, made him very cross. If someone who didn’t like reading crime stories the way I do started moaning about them and calling me a loser, I expect I’d get pretty annoyed too.

  ‘A short while later, an opportunity for revenge presents itself. He’s returning some coloured paper to Amy’s room when he notices her diary. People always value their diaries, he thinks to himself, even if the only thing they put in them is a note or two about the weather.

  ‘He wants to raise some money, and quickly. I’ll hold that diary to ransom, thinks Paul. Now, bear in mind that Paul’s angry with Amy. He’s not in the clearest-thinking of moods. He sneaks the diary away . . . er, in his pocket?’

  Paul looked sheepish. ‘Tucked under my sweatshirt,’ he muttered.

  Tucked under his sweatshirt,’ I said. ‘But as soon as he gets home, he realises how stupid he’s been. He’s no thief. He’s not the sort of person who normally goes around stealing other people’s property. He feels terrible about it. But what can he do?

  The right thing to do, of course, would be to simply return the diary to Amy. But she’s made it absolutely clear what she thinks of him. If I return it, thinks Paul, I’ll have to admit what I’ve done. Amy can’t stand me. She’ll make sure I get into a whole heap of trouble for this.’

  ‘So, Paul simply hangs on to the diary for a couple of days. It’s locked, and he doesn’t want to open it, but he knows he’s got to get rid of it somehow. Why not just throw it away? That’s one obvious solution, but it doesn’t solve his other problem: getting money together for the FrogWar sale.

  ‘And now Paul gets another idea. A very sneaky and unpleasant one. But, he reasons, Amy’s been mean to him, so perhaps she deserves to be taught a lesson after all. Paul goes to see Harry Lovecraft. Everyone in this school knows that if there’s anything sneaky and unpleasant to be done, Harry Lovecraft likes to have a hand in it.’

  Harry took a step closer to me. ‘Watch what you’re saying, Smart,’ he growled.

  ‘So Paul goes to see Harry Lovecraft,’ I said, keeping my eyes firmly on Harry. ‘And he says to Harry, “I’ve got someone’s personal diary for sale. Are you interested?” “I might be,” says Harry. “What’s in it?” “Don’t know,” says Paul. “It’s locked, but the lock can be easily broken.”

  ‘Harry has a think. A locked diary, eh? That might contain all sorts of embarrassing stuff. Stuff he can blackmail the diary’s owner with. Is it worth risking a few pounds? Yes, why not? Naturally, Harry doesn’t want to spend his own money on the diary, so he decides to have a sale of his own. He puts up a notice on the board offering some books he knows I’ll be interested in.

  ‘Not knowing what’s going on, I fall for it and I buy the books. Now Harry’s got some money for the diary. At the end of lunchtime today, he meets with Paul in that classroom up the corridor there and gives him the cash. Paul offers to hand over the diary.

  ‘“Don’t be an idiot,” says Harry. “Drop it off where I told you. And make sure you do it before the end of school.” I overheard that conversation. So, I think to myself, Paul’s supposed to drop the diary off somewhere at school, because Harry’s expecting to pick it up before going home. Where could this somewhere be? It must be somewhere accessible to both Paul and Harry, but also somewhere that it probably wouldn’t be spotted. Somewhere Harry could retrieve it without looking at all suspicious.’

  I turned around and tapped on the door of Harry’s locker. ‘The only place I could think of,’ I said, ‘was these lockers.’

  I looked at the five of them, standing there, and the five of them looked back at me.

  ‘If I’m right about all this,’ I said, ‘then inside this locker is Amy’s stolen diary.’

  ‘You’re wrong,’ scoffed Harry. ‘Whatever you think you overheard, you totally misunderstood. Paul was selling me those old CDs you mentioned. Nothing more than that.’

  ‘Really?’ I said. ‘What were their titles?’

  Harry glared at me. ‘None of your business, Smart. We’re all getting fed up of you poking your nose in where it’s not wanted.’

  ‘If it’s just CDs,’ said Amy, ‘you won’t mind if Saxby takes a look.’

  ‘If I’m wrong,’ I said with a shrug, ‘you get to see me make a fool of myself. I can’t believe you’d miss the chance of that.’

  Harry made a kind of half-tut noise. I spun around and opened the locker door. Sitting on top of a pile of books and papers was a lock-up diary with the words My Diary by Amy Parsons written in felt tip across the cover. Amy bounded forward, hand outstretched, but Harry blocked her way.

  ‘Give it back!’ cried Amy.

  ‘If you lost it, then it’s mine now,’ sneered Harry. ‘Finders keepers, as they say. Losers weepers. I paid good money for it. If you’ve got any complaints, talk to Paul.’

  Amy, Nicola, Paul and Kelly all started talking at once. I raised a hand for silence.

  ‘OK,’ I said in a low voice. ‘You keep
it, Harry. But if that’s what you decide to do, I’ll have no choice but to let Mrs Penzler know what’s been happening. She’s just over there, marking homework.’

  Harry’s snake-eyes slid from me to the nearby classroom and back again.

  ‘Is opening that diary really worth the trouble you’ll get into?’ I said. ‘Are you willing to risk the consequences, for a diary that’s got nothing in it but people’s birthdays and a few reminders? That’s all it contains, isn’t it, Amy?’

  ‘Yes, er, that’s all,’ said Amy hastily. ‘That’s all. But I want it back. I’ll never remember another birthday if I don’t have it.’

  Harry stared at me, like a leopard staring at its prey, wondering when to pounce. ‘You’re lying,’ he growled.

  ‘Am I?’ I whispered. ‘Are you going to take that chance?’

  For a second, I really thought he was going to slam the locker shut and send us all packing. But then he reached in, picked the diary up and flung it carelessly at Amy.

  She caught it mid-spin. Immediately, she pulled out a small key from her blazer pocket, opened the diary, and started to tear out the pages. She ripped them into tiny shreds, dumping the lot into the waste paper bin that stood just inside the entrance to the classroom. Then she took a carton of orange juice from her bag, ripped off the top and soaked the shreds into a sticky pulp.

  ‘How are you going to remember people’s birthdays now?’ asked Kelly.

  Amy dropped the empty carton into the bin. ‘Thank goodness for that. That’s one mistake I won’t be making again.’

  Harry’s face flushed through half a dozen shades of purple fury. ‘You were lying,’ he spat.

  ‘You really think I’d go to all this trouble for an appointments book?’ I said.

  Paul approached Amy, his feet shuffling uneasily and his eyes looking everywhere except straight ahead. ‘Amy, I’m sorry, I really am.’ He handed her the money he’d got from Harry. ‘This is the very least I owe you, as well as an apology.’

  ‘Yes, well,’ said Amy, ‘I, er, shouldn’t have been so rude to you.’

  Mrs Penzler’s voice boomed from inside the classroom. ‘You six! Don’t you have homes and after-school clubs to go to? Off you go! Chop chop! Don’t make me come out there!’