Crowns and Codebreakers (12 page)

There was a long pause. Minnie could hear Sylvie breathe gently. Her grip tightened on the phone.

‘Apology accepted,’ Sylvie said finally.

‘Good. Right. Bye, then.’

‘Wait!’ Sylvie said. ‘Are you investigating anything today? What’s going on? Where are you in the case?’

Minnie had no idea where they were in the case. Nowhere. ‘Dunno,’ she said.

‘Oh. Fine. Well, I can’t help today anyway. I’ve got performance classes. And I’m probably meeting my dad or something later. So, even if you needed me, I couldn’t come. I’ll see you around.’ Sylvie sounded crotchety and weird again.

Minnie sighed. This apology business was more complicated than she’d thought.

When Sylvie was off the phone, Minnie called Piotr’s flat. It was a bit early for Piotr, who liked to sleep in, but he had a younger sister, who was practically still a baby, so the Domeks were usually awake with the dawn.

His mum answered and got Piotr to the phone.

‘I apologised to Sylvie,’ Minnie said, before he even had a chance to say hello.

‘You didn’t?’ He sounded shocked. ‘I never, ever thought you would. What did she say?’

‘Something about a class. I don’t know. So, listen, can we be friends again?’

‘We were never not friends. I’m sorry I shouted at you,’ Piotr said.

‘I think I might have shouted first,’ Minnie admitted.

Piotr laughed. Minnie did too. It felt like all the tension of the last few days lifted with that laugh. As though she’d been carrying a heavy suitcase and now she’d been allowed to put it down.

‘Listen,’ Piotr said. ‘I didn’t get a chance to tell you last night, but I didn’t run after the van because when I looked through the dry cleaner’s window I noticed something.’

‘What?’ Minnie pressed the phone closer to her ear.

‘The T-shirt was still hanging in the shop. And it had something pinned to it. A label or something. I couldn’t make it out because it was too dark. We need to take a closer look at the T-shirt.’

Just then there was a bang on the bathroom door.

‘Minnie?’ Dad’s voice. ‘What are you doing in there? There’s a queue out here!’

‘Huh.’ Mum’s voice. ‘I knew one bathroom wasn’t enough for the four of us.’

Dad again. ‘It’s fine if people don’t hog it.’

‘We have to go back to the dry cleaner’s then,’ Minnie said to Piotr.

‘We’ve been there a lot,’ he replied worriedly. ‘He might get suspicious.’

‘Flora hasn’t been.’

‘Yes, you’re right. She and Sylvie can investigate this time.’

‘Sylvie has a class,’ Minnie said pointedly.

Piotr chuckled. ‘Don’t start.’

‘Minnie!’ The bangs on the bathroom door were solid thumps now.

‘Coming!’ she yelled. ‘Call Flora, Piotr. I’ll meet you there.’

Minnie was the first to arrive at the bench opposite ACE. What if today was the day Omar finally cleaned the T-shirt? What if he took it back to the peanut boy before Flora got there? Should Minnie follow? Should she go on her own? She forced herself to sit. Her trainers scuffed the dust beneath the bench. The sun was warm today and dappled shade from the plane trees fell across her. But the whispering leaves sounded like warnings. And the shouts of children playing hide and seek among the trees made her jumpy.

It was an anxious wait until Piotr got there too. ‘Andrew can’t come,’ he said. ‘His mum has a doctor’s appointment this afternoon and he has to wait with her.’ He sat on the wooden slats that formed the back of the bench.

Opposite, the lights were on and the faded sign read ‘OPEN’. They could make out movement inside, but
they were too far away to see what Omar was up to. The minutes crept past as they waited for Flora. They couldn’t do anything without her. They barely spoke. Minnie lolled back against the warm wood. She pulled out her phone. Checked her messages – nothing. Checked the time. Flora had been ages.

‘Do you think Sylvie has stopped her coming?’ Minnie asked, ‘because I didn’t apologise well enough?’

‘Don’t worry. She’ll be here.’

But it was another hour of anxiously watching the shop before Minnie heard a rustling, panting sound. She twisted to see Flora racing towards them across the theatre square. She held a huge, pink, frothy dress wrapped in cellophane.

‘Am I too late? Did anything happen?’ Flora asked. ‘I’m sorry, Mum didn’t want me to come. She said I had to do my French conversation class. I said “
Maman
, this is
plus important
than learning to
parlez Français
” and she said I was a Philistine. Negotiation took a while. I’ve had to promise to do extra tuition later, which is a shame because I wanted to finish my book about beetles. Did you know you can tell how long a body has been buried by the types of beetle there are in the remains?’ Flora dropped onto the bench with an exhausted sigh.

‘What are you reading?’ Minnie asked in horror.

‘
Forensic Archaeology: An Introduction
, by Professor John Hunter.’

‘Well, stop it, it’s weird,’ Minnie said firmly.

Flora laughed. ‘Sorry.’

‘What’s with the dress?’ Piotr asked, looking at the exploded meringue of fabric in disgust.

‘Me and Sylvie were bridesmaids for my mum’s cousin,’ Flora said. ‘People ask you to do that sort of thing a lot when you’re a twin. I didn’t keep my dress, it was too ugly. But Sylvie still pretends to be a princess in hers. I’ve borrowed it. This is my plan for getting inside the dry cleaner’s. I’ll need a distraction from you two though once I’m in. You need to get Omar away from the counter somehow.’

It was all very well to say that, Minnie thought, but how were they actually going to do it? Especially if they didn’t want Omar to see them?

‘Leave it to us,’ Piotr said firmly.

Had he a plan? Or was he just trying to sound tough?

Flora carried her dress draped over her forearms like a priest’s surplice. She looked left, then right, then left again as she crossed the road.

Then she disappeared into the dry cleaner’s.

‘So,’ Minnie asked Piotr. ‘What’s your plan?’

Piotr grinned at Minnie. ‘You don’t believe I have one, do you?’

Minnie sincerely hoped he had, otherwise they had just sent Flora into the lion’s den with the lion very much at home.

‘Omar’s van is back.’ Piotr pointed to a white van parked on the street in front of them. ‘And there’s a red flashing light on the dashboard, see?’

Minnie could just see a little LED beside the steering wheel.

‘Well,’ Piotr continued, ‘that is a car alarm. What would you do if your van alarm suddenly went off in the middle of the day for no reason?’

Minnie grinned. ‘I’d come running out of my shop to see whether my van was being stolen or not!’

‘Exactly.’

‘How do we make it go off?’ Minnie asked. She didn’t want to smash a window, or do anything that might bring the SOCO team.

‘A good shove will usually do it,’ Piotr said. ‘I’ve kicked enough footballs at cars by mistake to know that. You ready?’

Minnie nodded.

Piotr launched himself off the bench and ran towards the van. He ducked down behind it. Minnie was right beside him in moments. They crouched low, keeping the broad side of the van between them and the shop front. The traffic trundled past alongside them, sending fumes and dust in their general direction. Minnie covered her nose.

‘Put your back into it, on three,’ Piotr whispered.

Minnie spun around so that her back was resting against the van’s side panel. She laid both palms on its grimy surface. She could feel the grit under the pads of her fingertips.

‘One, two, three,
shove
!’

Minnie landed her weight on the van at the exact same moment as Piotr. The van shook violently. Immediately, a high-pitched wail went up.

Waah! Waah! Waah!

‘Move!’ Piotr grabbed Minnie’s hand and dashed across the road between a narrow gap in the traffic. The van was still blaring out angrily.

‘This way!’ Piotr leaped behind a tree, making the small child who was standing there, counting, jump.

‘Are you “it”?’ Piotr asked.

The child nodded.

‘Well, time’s up. Go look for the others.’

The child nodded obediently, then yelled, ‘Coming, ready or not!’ at the top of her lungs and scampered away.

Minnie and Piotr pressed themselves close to the bark, then peered around at the van.

It was still shrieking. A few pedestrians looked at it, mildly curious, but there was no movement from the dry cleaner’s.

‘Come on,’ Piotr whispered, ‘come out.’

Minnie gripped the tree trunk. She willed Omar to leave the shop, to just move, get out!

Just as she could stand it no more, a figure appeared in the doorway. Omar. His white coat whipped around him as he trotted over to his van. They heard a keypad chirrup and the alarm went silent. Omar stalked around the vehicle, checking the bodywork for dents or scratches. He
rested his hand on the bonnet and gave it a little pat, as though it were an obedient dog.

Then a second figure appeared at the door. Smaller, redder. Flora.

She had something stuffed up her top.

Had Omar seen?

His hand was still on the bonnet, but one step back towards the pavement and he’d see Flora and her bulge.

‘We need to do something!’ Minnie said desperately.

Piotr picked up a loose stone, waited until a bus had passed, then hurled it as hard as he could towards the van. It pinged loudly off the broad side.

‘Oi!’ Omar rushed round to have a look. He ran his hand along the paintwork then glared at the passing bus.

It was just enough time.

While he looked right, Flora darted left. She raced along the road, past the gallery and the grill house in a matter of seconds, her thin legs as speedy as a gazelle’s.

‘She can run!’ Minnie said in admiration.

‘So can we. Let’s see what she’s stuffed up her jumper!’

They weaved between the plane trees, putting more distance between them and Omar. Soon they were by the market. Flora was forced to stop running. She dropped
against a wall. Her face was flushed bright pink, with strands of copper hair plastered to her forehead.

‘You OK?’ Minnie asked.

Flora nodded. She was too out of breath to speak. Instead, she reached under her top and pulled out a bundle of green fabric.

‘The T-shirt!’ Minnie said.

Flora grinned. ‘Stitch,’ she said between gasps. She held it up by the shoulders. It was smaller than Minnie remembered. Up close it smelled, ever so slightly, of spices and grime. It had the streets of Lagos in its weave.

‘I was too far away to read the label,’ Flora said. ‘And when Omar ran out of the shop, I didn’t know how much time I’d have. So I just grabbed it right off the rack. I stole it!’

‘You did the right thing,’ Piotr said.

‘Let’s see the label,’ Minnie said.

Flora flipped the neck of the T-shirt. A white receipt with the ace of spades logo was pinned to the seam.

‘Someone paid for it to be cleaned. Someone took it from the boy,’ Minnie said. ‘Does it say who?’

Flora read the label quickly. Then she nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It does.’

‘Who?’ Piotr asked, desperate to know what the label said.

‘Indoors,’ Minnie warned. ‘We need to get out of sight.’

Minnie led Flora and Piotr into the salon. Two customers were sitting in front of the mirrors. Mum and Bernice worked on their hair, plaiting and smoothing and oiling and fixing. All four women were talking too much to do any more than give a friendly ‘Hello!’ to the children, before returning to their gossip.

Minnie sat in the window seat, with Flora beside her. Piotr pulled up a stool from the nail bar.

‘So?’ Minnie asked. ‘What does it say?’

Flora laid the T-shirt across her lap and smoothed out its edges gently. Then she lifted the label. ‘“Charge to account – Swift Limited,”’ she read.

‘Is that it?’ Minnie asked.

‘That’s it,’ Flora said. ‘It tells us who’s paying for the cleaning. And whoever is paying for the T-shirt to be cleaned is behind the whole operation – you can always follow the money, that’s what it says in books, anyway.’

‘Swift Limited? Is that a company?’ Piotr asked, surprised. ‘I was sure it would be Marcus.’

‘Perhaps Marcus
is
Swift Limited,’ Flora suggested.

Minnie looked at the flat piece of clothing on Flora’s lap. If Flora was right, then they would find the peanut boy and the head of the king in the same place. They could rescue him and stop the head being sold off like some knick-knack at the same time.

Flora took her phone from her backpack and tapped the screen. ‘There is a listing for Swift Limited, but not a proper website. It’s just a business address. It doesn’t say anything about them.’

‘Except where they are! We can go there. We can find him!’ Minnie said in excitement.

‘Yes. It’s on the industrial estate, just beyond the railway station,’ Flora said.

‘Well, that’s where we need to go,’ Minnie said.

‘We can’t go without Andrew. Can you imagine what he’d say if we did?’

‘Massive wobbly alert,’ Minnie agreed. ‘Fine. We’ll wait a few hours, he’ll be done then.’

‘What about Sylvie?’ Piotr asked.

Minnie pressed her lips together. She still had a funny feeling that her call to Sylvie hadn’t gone as well as it should.

‘She might join us after her acting class,’ Flora said softly. ‘It will be getting dark if we wait.’

‘Even better,’ Minnie replied.

In the north of the town, a phone rang.

‘Badger One, this is Ace One.’

‘I told you not to call.’

‘I know, boss, but the thing is, the T-shirt’s gone. Nicked. Some kid’s been poking around.’

‘Who?’

‘Red-headed girl. She left a bridesmaid’s dress behind.’

‘You idiot!’

‘Yeah, but the thing is, her name is sewn on a tag inside the dress.’

Piotr and Flora left the salon, Piotr to talk to Andrew, Flora to try and catch Sylvie between classes. A tiny, teeny part of Minnie felt a bit sorry for Sylvie – it wasn’t right to have to go to lessons in the holidays. Not that she would ever say that to Sylvie.