by Lauren Child
Holbrook was a fellow field agent trainee and he and Ruby had first met when on dive camp. Since then they had teamed up for survival training, working well together building shelters, canoes, camp fires, rescue fires, and cooked up plenty of roots and berries. They had shared some pretty unappealing undergrowth, whether it be to sleep in or to chew on.
‘Hey,’ said Ruby. ‘You working on anything?’
Holbrook shook his head. ‘Nope. I just had my interview with Agent Delaware.’
Ruby pulled a face. ‘I sympathise.’
‘Yeah, it was pretty brutal. He gave me a super hard time for using the emergency function on my Spectrum contact device when, as he put it, “it was not strictly an emergency”. Believe me, I won’t make that mistake again. So where are you headed?’ he asked.
‘Gotta return the Lemon,’ said Ruby.
‘I hope you have a dinghy, it’s pouring down out there,’ he said. ‘You should see Froghorn – he just stepped in and looks like a rat that drowned.’
‘He always looks like a rat,’ said Ruby, pressing the elevator button.
‘See you around,’ said Holbrook.
When the elevator doors opened, there was the rat himself, soaking wet and dripping everywhere.
‘Hey, there Froghorn,’ said Ruby, ‘is it raining out there or did you shower in your clothes?’
Froghorn gave her a thin smile and stepped out of the elevator. He glanced at the baby. ‘I see you finally brought one of your kindergarten friends in to meet us. Must be nice to have someone on your own intellectual level to talk to,’ he said.
Ruby stepped into the elevator. ‘Yeah,’ she yawned, ‘I was missing good conversation.’ The doors closed, opening again two floors up on atrium level where she was surprised to see Blacker standing talking to another agent Ruby had never seen before. He had thick black eyebrows that met in the middle. When he noticed her, he neither smiled nor said hello, but instead gestured a goodbye to Blacker and hurried off.
‘Hey, I was told you weren’t in today – you just get here?’ Ruby asked Blacker.
‘Just this minute,’ said Blacker. ‘Who’s the little guy?’
‘Archie Lemon,’ said Ruby. ‘It’s stopped raining?’ His coat was bone dry.
‘I got lucky for once, just missed it,’ said Blacker. ‘So you wanted to see me?’
‘Yeah, I thought I had something but I was wrong,’ said Ruby. She held up the bottle. ‘It’s not a mystery drink after all – turns out it’s just lemonade.’
He looked at her like he had no idea what she was talking about and said, ‘OK, so call me if you do get something, any time at all, you know where I am.’
‘I will,’ said Ruby. ‘I better go, gotta get the Lemon home before bedtime.’
It was as Ruby was crossing the vast atrium that baby Lemon decided to screw up his eyes, open his lungs and howl. The sound rang out loud and alien in this usually quiet hive of agents, and LB’s voice could just about be heard from behind the white walls of her office saying, ‘Is that a baby I’m hearing?’ but Ruby pushed the stroller through the heavy steel door and up and out of Spectrum HQ before there was a chance she might have to explain what in tarnation a baby was doing in HQ.
‘Jeepers, Lemon, could you not have waited ten more seconds?’
Ruby took the subway to Flaubert Street and stopped by the billboard. She wanted to take another look, to try and see what the man had seen. But it seemed it was just a billboard.
Are you going completely crazy Redfort?
She walked back up Flaubert, crossed Bleaker and turned into Amster, almost walking on past the little green before she remembered her meeting with Clancy.
I’m never gonna make it for 6.45am, who was I kidding? She parked Archie’s stroller, found a piece of paper in her satchel, wrote a note using the code she and Clancy always used for notes like this. It said:
W vvza mzcm psln rsiwl oyfy jvgy zdzv.fn1
She folded it into an origami butterfly shape. Then she climbed the tree and pushed the paper butterfly into one of the knots in the bark. It was while she was clambering down that she found another note tucked into the bark, it was of course from Clancy and said:
Apmo qs lb ols Owiyh. Xifi we azzsy ndjhpmi.
‘You think you’re so smart Crew,’ she muttered.
Chapter 33.
Doubt
RUBY SLEPT BADLY AS USUAL. She woke several times in the night: the wind was almost hurricane force and it sounded like every dog in the neighbourhood was going crazy. The howling of the wind combined with the howling of the hounds forced her to pull her pillow over her ears.
Almost as soon as she finally fell asleep, her alarm woke her up.
She was brushing her teeth, bleary-eyed, when the soap phone rang.
She grabbed it in her left hand and continued to brush her teeth with her right.
‘Mmeah,’ she said.
‘What?’ said a voice.
‘Rornin Wrancy.’
‘Where are you?’ demanded Clancy.
He sounded angry. Ruby removed the brush from her mouth.
‘What do you mean, where am I? Where do you think I am? I’m in the bathroom.’
‘So why aren’t you here, bozo?’ said Clancy.
‘Watch who you are calling bozo, bozo.’
‘OK, so why aren’t you here, pal?’ said Clancy.
‘As in now?’ said Ruby.
‘Yes, as in now,’ said Clancy.
‘I left you a note,’ said Ruby.
‘I didn’t get any note,’ said Clancy.
‘Well, I left you one,’ said Ruby.
‘In the tree?’ said Clancy.
‘Yes, in the tree,’ said Ruby.
‘There was no note,’ said Clancy.
‘Well, I left you one,’ said Ruby.
‘But I looked,’ said Clancy.
‘I don’t doubt it,’ said Ruby.
‘So why didn’t I see it?’ said Clancy.
‘Clancy, did you take a look at the weather recently? It’s kinda windy out there, a wild guess, my note ended up in some other tree.’
‘Oh,’ said Clancy.
‘I found yours by the way.’
‘What did you think?’ said Clancy.
‘Ha ha,’ said Ruby flatly.
‘So what did it say? Your note, I mean?’
‘Meet me at the Donut.’
‘When?’ asked Clancy.
‘7.15,’ said Ruby.
‘That’s now,’ said Clancy.
‘So I’m late,’ said Ruby. ‘Where are you?’
‘At the Donut,’ said Clancy.
‘So what are you complaining about?’ said Ruby. ‘You’re already there and nice and cosy, I’ll be with you in ten minutes, weather permitting.’
When Ruby arrived she had to scour the room for a minute or two before she spotted Clancy. He was in one of the booths by the far window and he was wearing a large hat with earflaps.
‘What exactly are you wearing?’ asked Ruby as she slid into the booth.
‘I found it on the street,’ said Clancy. ‘I asked in a few shops but no one was claiming it.’
‘I wonder why,’ said Ruby.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Did you take a look in the mirror yet?’ said Ruby.
Clancy ignored her. ‘This wind is giving me earache so this headgear’s gonna be a total life-saver.’
‘And possibly a red flag to any bullying types hanging around out there.’
‘They don’t get style and individuality, that’s the problem with bullying types,’ said Clancy. ‘They’re social sheep. Simple behavioural science.’
‘Yeah, well it really sets you apart,’ said Ruby, ‘but as I always say, if anyone can carry off a giant hat with earflaps, it’s you.’ She paused. ‘And by the way, speaking of behavioural science, here’s your order.’
She slid the little camera she’d stolen from the innovations room at Spectrum over to him.
He marvelled at its small size for a moment.
‘Put it away!’ she hissed.
Clancy slipped it into his pocket. ‘Thanks Ruby. I owe you one.’
‘You already owe me more than you could ever repay,’ she said, good-naturedly.
‘So how’s the babysitting going? You must be about at the end of your punishment duty?’ said Clancy.
‘Only a day of it left,’ said Ruby.
‘I bet you can’t wait to hand the little guy back, huh?’ said Clancy.
‘Well, I’m thinking of keeping him,’ said Ruby.
‘What?’ said Clancy.
‘He’s turning out to be kinda handy.’
‘You’re not serious,’ said Clancy.
‘Well, I was tailing someone yesterday afternoon,’ said Ruby.
‘You were what?’ said Clancy.
‘I was pushing Archie down Flaubert Street when I saw something which struck me as strange,’ said Ruby.
‘What kind of strange, interesting or weird?’ asked Clancy.
‘I guess he would fall into both categories,’ said Ruby.
Clancy looked intrigued. ‘Who was he?’
‘A guy in a red hat who seemed very interested in getting his hands on a Taste Twister,’ said Ruby. She went on to explain just what she had seen and Clancy looked like he was going to pop.
‘I knew it!’ he said. ‘I said it was some clever advertising campaign and I was right. Wait till I tell Elliot Finch.’
‘Before you get all ahead of yourself, you might want to consider some alternatives, i.e. it might not be a clever advertising campaign.’
Clancy looked at her blankly. ‘Meaning?’
Ruby adopted a creepy voice. ‘Meaning the whole Taste Twister thing could be an elaborate riddle which seeks to draw people in, gets the public of Twinford following clues to an end which will bring about their end.’
‘Yeah right,’ said Clancy. ‘Well, if that is true then I’m not sure what pushing around a twenty-four-pound baby could do for you, not unless Lemon’s some kind of karate genius.’
‘Turns out it’s a great cover to push a pram about the place. I mean, no one looks at you twice. Del and Elliot walked straight past me.’
‘That’s because you’re the last person anyone would expect to see pushing a baby around.’
‘Exactly,’ said Ruby, ‘hence it’s great cover.’
‘Might I just remind you that you should be steering clear of trouble, not seeking it out,’ he said.
‘Well don’t get your underwear in a bunch, Clance, because I haven’t been assigned any new cases, dangerous or otherwise.’
‘Good,’ said Clancy.
‘But all I’m pointing out to you,’ said Ruby, ‘is that it’s better to know where trouble is coming from than to close your eyes to it, right? I mean I think we would all sleep better at night if we knew what a super-psycho was planning.’
‘Correction,’ said Clancy, ‘I don’t think that knowing what a super-psycho is planning is going to make me sleep any better.’
‘Oh really? So how do you expect bad guys to be caught if I were just to ignore the signs?’ said Ruby. ‘You want me to just head off in the other direction if I happen to see trouble?’
‘Exactly,’ said Clancy. ‘Just hand it over to Blacker, don’t get involved.’
Ruby didn’t say anything.
‘What?’ said Clancy.
‘I just don’t think that’s such a good idea,’ said Ruby.
‘Why not?’ said Clancy. ‘Sounds like a great idea to me.’
‘I just got a funny feeling,’ said Ruby.
‘What about?’ asked Clancy.
‘One of my fellow agents,’ said Ruby.
‘Not Blacker, don’t tell me it’s got to do with Blacker?’ said Clancy.
‘Yeah, Blacker,’ said Ruby. ‘I have this funny feeling, something’s not right.’
‘What kind of funny?’ asked Clancy. ‘Funny he won’t believe you, or funny he’s gonna stab you in the back?’
‘More like that’s funny I thought it was raining out there,’ said Ruby.
‘I don’t follow?’ said Clancy.
‘So did you happen to notice the rain yesterday afternoon?’
‘Sure, I noticed, I nearly drowned,’ said Clancy. ‘It wasn’t an umbrella sort of rain, more like inflate your life raft.’
‘That’s what Holbrook said,’ remembered Ruby. ‘So Blacker supposedly steps into HQ from out of this rainstorm without a drop of water on him.’
‘And this makes him untrustworthy?’
‘It makes him a liar,’ said Ruby. ‘Froghorn comes in soaked to his undershorts, I leave the place and it’s a total washout, but in the intervening ten minutes Blacker manages to dodge every raindrop and come into HQ dry as a bone? Not a drip, not a splash.’
‘Weird things happen with the weather. I mean it can rain frogs, you know that?’
‘Yeah, I know that, and talking of frogs, if I’m right about Blacker being up to something then Froghorn’s most likely involved too.’
‘Why?’
‘It just stands to reason.’
‘How so?’ said Clancy.
‘Because they work together. It would be hard to keep the truth from Froghorn.’
Clancy shook his head. ‘I can’t agree with you there. You remember that episode of Crazy Cops where information was being fed back to the mob and when it was discovered Lucas was the leak, they just assumed his partner, Synco, must be in on it too? Couldn’t see how he wouldn’t know, since they worked so closely together.’
Ruby nodded.
‘But it turned out Synco knew nothing about it, even though he sorta shoulda.’
‘Yeah, well that’s true, he really shoulda,’ said Ruby.
‘But why didn’t he figure Lucas was betraying the cops?’ said Clancy.
‘Because he trusted Lucas,’ she said.
‘Like a brother,’ added Clancy.
‘Do your sisters trust you like a brother?’ asked Ruby.
‘Minny doesn’t trust anyone,’ said Clancy. ‘Anyway, that’s not my point, my point is it is perfectly possible for a close colleague not to know.’
‘Yeah, but this is Froghorn we’re talking about – he isn’t the trusting, trustworthy type.’
‘You just want him to be a villain because you don’t like him.’
‘OK, I admit it, I don’t, but that is not clouding my judgment.’
‘That’s baloney buster, and you know it,’ said Clancy.
‘Oh yeah and why’s that?’ said Ruby.
‘Because you know that in any good thriller the one who betrays the hero is always the person you least expect it to be. It’s the biggest let down.’
‘That is true,’ said Ruby, ‘but what does that have to do with—’
‘The least likeable person,’ interrupted Clancy, ‘the one you hope is going to be the traitor or the murderer, that person always turns out to be on the side of good.’
‘Agreed,’ said Ruby.
‘Which would make Froghorn the least likely traitor in the whole darned HQ,’ said Clancy. ‘You know it, but because you think he’s a potatohead—’
‘I know he’s a potatohead,’ said Ruby.
‘OK, because you know he’s a potatohead, you are willing Froghorn to be a bad apple.’
‘But the thing you are forgetting here is that this isn’t a thriller – this is real life.’
‘But if it was a thriller, who would you suspect?’ He was looking at her seriously.
‘You mean if I was watching the film or reading the book?’ asked Ruby.
‘Yeah,’ said Clancy. ‘Not if you were a character in the thriller, obviously, then you would be as blind to the truth as anyone else.’
‘So what’s the question again?’
‘If this was a book, who would you most suspect of being the master criminal?’
‘You,’ said Ruby.
‘My money would be on Mrs D
igby,’ said Clancy.
‘I think we can rule her out,’ said Ruby.
‘Yeah,’ said Clancy, ‘and if it is her, I’m switching sides.’
Chapter 34.
Crazy weather
ON THE WAY INTO SCHOOL, Ruby and Clancy bumped into Red, Elliot and Del. They were laughing about something, Elliot unsurprisingly doubled over, tears streaming down his cheeks, barely able to speak.
‘Hey, what’s so funny?’ shouted Ruby.
‘Red was just telling me about what happened yesterday afternoon,’ said Del.
‘What about it?’ asked Ruby.
‘You must have seen the rain,’ said Red. ‘It was crazy rain.’
‘I saw it,’ said Ruby.
‘So me and Mouse got caught in it and were like wet to our skin in the time it takes us to step off the bus and cross the road, and we go into Cherry’s ’cause we are waiting for Elliot, he has his ukulele lesson one block away, you see?’
‘You play the ukulele?’ said Clancy.
Elliot couldn’t respond – he was still crumpled in two.
‘And anyway, he walks in and he is bone dry,’ said Red. ‘I mean, not a drip or a drop on him.’
Ruby by now was really listening.
‘He walks in and he says, “What happened to you? Did you fall in a lake or something?” and we look out the window and guess what, it’s pouring with rain again.’
Clancy looked at Ruby. ‘Like I said, the weather can do some freaky things.’
Ruby shot him a look back as if to say, yeah, yeah, so you were right and I was wrong.
By the time Ruby walked into class, she was feeling both relieved and just ever so slightly stupid.
Blacker was no liar. Blacker was the one person who she could 100% count on, aside from Hitch. If you start doubting your allies Rube, you’re gonna end up mighty lonely.
It was like she had read in one of her psychology books – ‘We are all capable of poisoning our own minds, we need little help with that.’
Rube my old friend, you seem to be suffering from a touch of paranoia. She thought back to the six-second pause book that Dr Selgood had given her. It seemed she should have taken six seconds to think before she walked out on Blacker.