by Anna Dale
When she had heard the low whine of a motorcycle stop abruptly outside Daffodil Cottage, she had stopped reading the booklet of instructions on how to use the radio set, jumped off her bed, and joined Clop at the window. Outside, she had seen a gangly young man astride a moped with panniers on each side. He had been in the process of removing a motorcycle helmet which had a telephone number printed on the back. She had suspected straight away that the moped rider was Nathan, even though he was wearing an unfamiliar outfit: trousers with red-and-white stripes and a T-shirt emblazoned with the words: ‘Nice Slice Pizza Company’.
‘Heavens. I think you’re right,’ said Trudy, appearing beside Dawn. ‘What an earth is he doing here?’
‘Making a delivery, I think,’ said Dawn, watching carefully as Nathan opened one of the panniers and slid out three flat, square boxes. Whistling cheerfully, he wedged them under his arm and unlatched the front gate.
There was a noise downstairs. It was the sort of sound that suggested movement at great speed through a house filled with furniture and ornaments.
‘Felix!’ said Dawn and Trudy, their faces frozen in panic.
By the time they reached the front door, Felix had already flung it open. He was standing on the doorstep, his eyes boring into the boxes that Nathan was carrying. ‘One of those had better be pepperoni,’ said Felix, licking his lips.
‘I think you might be disappointed,’ replied Nathan as he placed the boxes in Felix’s outstretched arms.
‘Thanks. Goodbye,’ said Trudy brusquely, pulling Felix indoors.
Dawn lingered on the doorstep. Back at P.S.S.T. headquarters, Red had mentioned that he was going to use Nathan as a messenger.
‘Have you got something to tell me?’ she whispered.
‘Not this time,’ he replied. Just before he turned away he added mysteriously, ‘Izzie’s been working round the clock. Make sure he wears them.’
Dawn was puzzled. She smiled at Nathan; then closed the front door.
‘Smart idea to order lunch,’ said Felix, grinning. ‘I’m absolutely starving.’ He began to unfasten one of the boxes. ‘I wonder what kind of topping this one’s got … Pepperoni’s my favourite, but I wouldn’t turn my nose up at spicy chicken or …’ His face crumpled in disappointment. ‘It’s a T-shirt!’ he said.
‘And a pair of jeans and a tracksuit,’ said Dawn, rifling through the contents of the box. She realised what Nathan had been hinting at. ‘They’re your new clothes from P.S.S.T.!’
Felix looked totally unimpressed. ‘You mean that guy wasn’t a pizza delivery man?’
‘Right,’ said Dawn. ‘He wasn’t. Didn’t you recognise him? That was Nathan!’
‘What’s in this one?’ said Trudy, tugging at the box underneath. She prised open its lid. ‘Oh, socks and underwear.’
‘Get off!’ said Felix crossly, snatching it back.
‘Izzie must have sewed like stink to produce this little lot,’ said Trudy. ‘You’d better go and get changed right away.’
‘Maybe later,’ said Felix, glowering at her. He dumped the boxes on a table in the hall. ‘After I’ve had something to eat.’
‘Suit yourself,’ said Trudy, ‘but you won’t be showing your face in the village until you do.’
Dawn rested her lunch box on a tree stump and had a furtive look around. She was in the midst of a dense thicket of young birch trees. Ahead of her, through the mesh of thin branches and gauzy leaves, she could just glimpse Felix at the edge of a field, earnestly poking about in a bed of nettles with a stick. She suspected that he was looking for clues again, even though he had been repeatedly reminded, no less than five times during their evening walk, that he must leave all the spying and sleuthing to Dawn.
Trudy moved into Dawn’s line of vision, jogging purposefully towards Felix. Even at a distance, Dawn could hear her give him a short, sharp command. He stopped what he was doing and threw the stick on the ground; then wiped his hands down the front of a faded blue T-shirt which he had eventually donned after several hours of protest.
Dawn looked away, determined not to waste any more time. Dusk would be settling shortly – and there was something that needed to be done.
Kneeling on the ground, she carefully opened her lunch box, into which the radio set had been ingeniously crammed. She stared at the little clusters of dials and switches for a moment; then slipped her hand inside the box and unravelled a length of wire attached to a small aerial. The instructions had said that she would need to position this as high as possible – so she balanced it in the forking branch of a nearby tree. Next she fitted on a pair of headphones and twiddled a large black dial to find the correct radio frequency. She checked her watch. It was nine fifteen. The P.S.S.T. team would be standing by, waiting for her transmission.
‘Shrimp calling Barnacle,’ said Dawn softly into the microphone, using the code words that Red had instructed her to use. ‘Barnacle … come in, please.’
There was a crackling noise. Dawn twisted the big black dial slightly to the left. ‘Shrimp,’ said someone through her earphones. The voice sounded a little fuzzy but Dawn recognised it as Red’s. ‘This is Barnacle,’ he said. ‘What do you have to report? Over.’
Not a lot, thought Dawn guiltily. However, she was not prepared to admit that. Desperate to make up for her earlier blunder, which had resulted in Felix gate-crashing the mission, she tried to make her first day’s findings sound as impressive as possible.
‘Have crossed two suspects off my list,’ said Dawn. ‘Neither of them were at the Garden and Allotment Show so they can’t be Murdo Meek.’ She heard Red clear his throat. Oh … er … Over,’ she added, cursing herself for forgetting to say the word which signified that she had finished speaking and was awaiting a response.
‘Could you please identify them. Over,’ said Red.
‘Their names are Neville Shaw and Martin Gough. Neville was at a tank museum with his girlfriend Diana Flinch, and Martin was on a weekend fishing trip. His wife says he’s married to his fishing rod,’ said Dawn. ‘I had a little chat with her this evening, while she was cleaning her doorstep. I’ve … er … made contact with two other suspects but haven’t been able to eliminate them yet. One’s Seth Lightfoot and the other’s Larry Grahams. Over.’
‘Anything else?’ said Red. ‘Over.’
‘Not really,’ she said feebly. Before she could say ‘Over’ she happened to look round and saw leaves quivering violently behind her. She knew, instantly, that their movement was being caused by something more than a mild evening breeze. Hastily, she removed her headphones and, in doing so, she heard the unmistakable sound of somebody approaching.
‘Shrimp!’ said Red’s voice faintly from the headphones which Dawn had tossed into the lunch box. ‘Shrimp! Please come in!’
‘Over and out,’ whispered Dawn into the microphone before flicking a switch and ending the transmission. As she snatched the aerial from its position in the nearest tree, she caught sight of a pencil-sized Trudy striding across the field with Felix in her wake. Dawn’s heart thumped wildly. The other person in the thicket must be a total stranger and, if she didn’t shut her lunch box in the next two seconds, her undercover career would be very short-lived indeed.
Chapter Thirteen
A Clue or Two
Felix threw his arms around his dog. ‘Haltwhistle must have picked up Granny’s scent,’ he said glowering at Dawn. He was doing his best to follow her trail and you got in his way.’
Dawn was lying on the ground like an upturned tortoise, as if she had just been winded by some rampaging animal and was too shocked to get up (which, in actual fact, was exactly what had happened). Her body didn’t seem to be able to move but her eyes were lively enough. They were darting from Felix to Haltwhistle and then back to Felix again. She was trying to decide which, out of the two of them, she hated the most.
‘Don’t … you … go … blaming … Dawn,’ said Trudy, who was still breathless, having sprinted the entire length of the fi
eld. Although she could not remember, Dawn supposed that she must have made some kind of alarmed noise just before Haltwhistle blundered into her with the force of a battering ram. She could not recall if it had been a scream or a shout or a mixture of both, but it had certainly caused Felix and Trudy to arrive pretty fast.
‘Is my radio OK?’ asked Dawn, twisting her neck to see where it had landed after suddenly parting company with her hands.
Luckily, the lunch box seemed to have been cushioned by a bed of moss and looked surprisingly dent-free when Trudy lifted it in the air to show her.
Phew, thought Dawn as she rolled over on to her side. Thank goodness for that! I think Red may well have booted me off the mission if anything else had gone wrong.
‘Does it hurt anywhere?’ demanded Trudy, kneeling beside Dawn. Her tone was stern but Dawn appreciated that she was trying to be kind. ‘Is there anything broken?’ she persisted.
‘Don’t think so,’ said Dawn. She sat up and examined a graze on her elbow. It stung a little and prompted her to say, ‘Ouch’.
‘Haltwhistle’s all right, too,’ said Felix in a loud, outraged voice. ‘Thank you for asking!’
The withering stare that Trudy gave him was impressively Edith-like in its intensity. ‘Get out of my sight!’ she commanded, getting to her feet.
‘Can’t,’ said Felix insolently. ‘I’m not allowed. You said that I wasn’t to wander off. You said that you wanted to keep your beady eye on me at all times …’
Trudy made a menacing growling noise, which was enough to make Haltwhistle put his tail between his legs and cause Felix to look slightly worried.
‘Just sit down and don’t move,’ she snapped.
Surprisingly, Felix did as he was told, although he grumbled about the dampness of the ground and the unfairness of Haltwhistle being blamed for something that wasn’t his fault.
‘He was tracking my granny,’ said Felix. ‘She must have come through this wood at some stage. If you’d only let him sniff around for a bit he might be able to pick up her trail again …’
Dawn didn’t take much notice of his ramblings. She stood beside Trudy and dusted herself down.
‘What was that?’ she said as a large bird with outstretched wings swooped silently over her head.
‘An owl,’ said Trudy, ‘out hunting. It’ll be pitch dark in half an hour or so. We should get back. All right, you,’ she said rudely to Felix, ‘up you get. Now, where’s that stupid dog of yours?’
‘He’s not stupid!’ said Felix. ‘He’s found Granny’s scent! Look!’
Dawn glanced around the thicket and saw Haltwhistle with his nose buried in leaf litter. He lifted up his muzzle and his jaw began to move as if he were chewing something. When he had finished, his tongue flopped out on to the ground and scooped up what looked like a black liquorice allsort.
Trudy turned to Felix with a disdainful look on her face. ‘The only thing your dog has found is a heap of rabbit pellets.’
‘Yuk,’ said Dawn as she realised what Haltwhistle was doing. ‘He’s eating poo.’
She turned away in disgust, and caught sight of the owl which had flown overhead a few moments earlier. It had cleared the thicket of birch trees and was drifting elegantly over the fields towards a steep slope. Dawn stood on tiptoe and tilted her head so that she had a clear view through the branches. She saw the owl, which was now the size of a five pence piece, hovering in the sky. Then she noticed something else behind it: a flickering light moving up the slope. The light seemed to be approaching a lone building which was silhouetted against the skyline. Dawn remembered the tip of Red’s ruler touching upon a black drawing pin on the map of the village. The house on the hill was a derelict mansion called Palethorpe Manor.
Dawn had never been to church before. On Sunday morning, she went to St Elmo’s by herself, in her Brownie uniform. She mingled with all the other girls her age who were dressed in brown and yellow as they lined up outside the west door at the side of the tower. Along with the Guides, Scouts and Cubs, they were waiting to participate in Church Parade, which happened once every month.
Ignoring the sound of the church bells tolling, Dawn listened to the conversation of the two Guides nearest to her to see if she could find out anything useful, but, to her disappointment, they talked incessantly about a couple of Scouts called Ed and Jay (teenage boys with winsome smiles who were doing their best to forge their way towards the Guides through the crowd). The Cubs, on the other hand, were boys of Dawn’s own age, and they couldn’t have been less interested in gaining the attention of their female counterparts, the Brownies. All they seemed to want to do was pull stupid faces and knock each other’s caps on to the ground.
Dawn felt comfortingly anonymous in the crowd of chattering children. No one enquired as to her name or to which Brownie pack she belonged. She was just another Imp in a brown and yellow mass of Imps, Gnomes, Pixies, Sprites and Elves, and she was free to eavesdrop to her heart’s content.
Led by a few serious-looking children who were carrying flags far taller than themselves, the Brownies, Guides, Cubs and Scouts began to march through the west door. Their chatter died away as they entered the church. Dawn watched with interest as they passed by several dangling ropes and the bell-ringers who had just finished pulling them. Most were youths with their sleeves rolled up; there was one woman wearing a tartan cape and a pork-pie hat, and a distinguished-looking gentleman with a Roman nose and jet-black hair.
Dawn found the church service a little bit dull. The vicar was a young woman with the worst pudding-bowl haircut that Dawn had ever seen, which was the only part of her that was visible when she stood in the pulpit because she was remarkably short. Despite her diminutive stature, the vicar had a powerful voice that seemed to fill every crevice and corner in the vast, draughty old church. Not that Dawn was paying much attention to what the vicar was saying. She was rather more intent on checking out the congregation. Having managed to secure a seat on the end of a pew, she had a clear view up and down the nave and she spent most of the service trying to establish if any of the men in her field of vision were on the shortlist provided by P.U.F.F.
As luck would have it, Dawn had chosen to sit next to a Brownie called Jessica Kingsley, who, it transpired, was a know-it-all Gnome with fifteen badges – and an impressive depth of knowledge when it came to naming members of the congregation. Dawn thought it best to question her unwitting informant during the singing of hymns when the two Brownies’ whispers were drowned out by the warbling voices of those around them.
In an hour the service was over, and Dawn was feeling much more positive about her mission. Jessica had pointed out several men whose names were written on the five of diamonds. She had also been good enough to eliminate two of them from Dawn’s investigation. Clive de Moyne and Winston Edge, both of whom were choristers, had been playing in a tennis tournament on the first of July, which was the day of the Garden and Allotment Show. Jessica had been a spectator at the tournament and was even able to tell Dawn that neither man had a very good serve.
As the vicar and other members of the clergy began to file out of the church, Dawn dug Jessica in the ribs for the final time.
‘That man with the black hair and the big nose – he’s a bell-ringer, isn’t he?’
‘Yes,’ said Jessica. ‘That’s Mr Noble, that is. The Right Honourable Charles Noble. He’s the Tower Captain – that means he’s the head bell-ringer … and he also gives out the prizes at the Garden and Allotment Show.’
‘Noble … ah,’ said Dawn. Certain that his name was written on the five of diamonds, she sneaked a specially long look at him as he walked past.
‘Not again,’ Trudy groaned as the telephone started to ring. She put down her cup of tea, rose out of an armchair and headed into the hallway to answer the phone. She reappeared a few minutes later, waving a pad of paper and frowning. ‘That’s the fourth one this afternoon,’ she said to Dawn.
‘Is it?’ said Dawn, looking up from the co
ded letter she was writing to Red. She sucked the end of her gold-plated fountain pen. ‘Was that another booking?’
‘Yes,’ said Trudy, glancing at the notepad. ‘Mrs Turtle of nine, Mildew Mead wants me to clear some rhododendrons from the bottom of her garden. Her husband’s on that shortlist of yours, isn’t he?’
Dawn nodded. ‘Yes. His name’s Jack.’
‘Good. Well, I told her the earliest I could fit her in would be Thursday afternoon.’ Trudy sank into her armchair and blew out her cheeks. ‘Hurry up and find Angela, would you Dawn? I’ll be exhausted by the end of this week if I have to sort out all these people’s gardens.’ She tossed the notepad on to a footstool and took a greedy gulp of tea.
Dawn shrugged. ‘I’ll do my best,’ she said. Then she continued with her letter to Red. She was writing on a sheet of cream paper from the writing set that P.S.S.T. had provided. She had already written the address and date, and below her alias’s initials (K.A.W.) she had written the first paragraph.
The code that Dawn had chosen to use was called ‘Noah’s Ark’. It meant that she had to conceal her message by writing the letters two by two in each consecutive word. This required a lot of concentration and so Felix and his dog had been sent into the garden with a cricket bat and a tennis ball, and strict instructions not to annoy Peebles, who was halfway up a rowan tree, basking in the sun.
After five minutes had passed by, Dawn put down her pen.
‘Finished?’ said Trudy.
‘Not even nearly,’ said Dawn with a sigh. ‘I’ve asked Red for some more information about the suspects, and now I’m trying to put together a progress report.’
‘Surely that shouldn’t take long,’ said Trudy dismissively. ‘It’s not as if you’ve got very far with your investigations.’ She drained her teacup and looked enquiringly at Dawn. ‘Well … have you made any breakthroughs that I don’t know about?’
‘I’ve managed to cross off two more suspects from my list,’ said Dawn, referring to the tennis-playing members of the choir whom she had mentioned to Trudy over lunch.