Friday Barnes 3 (14 page)

Melanie rang her father's chauffeur and got him to give them a lift. Friday and Melanie went straight to the police station. Ian arranged for his mother to meet them there, but Ian couldn't go along himself because he had to play in the polo tournament that afternoon.

It took Mrs Wainscott an hour and a half to arrive at the police station, and when she did, Uncle Bernie was with her.

‘What are you doing here?' asked Friday.

‘I offered to drive Helena,' said Uncle Bernie.

‘Who?' asked Friday, although if her brain was working with its usual efficiency she should have been able to work this out.

‘Mrs Wainscott,' said Uncle Bernie.

‘Why were you with Mrs Wainscott?' asked Friday.

Uncle Bernie blushed. Blushing is an awkward tell at the best of times. But it is particularly awkward when you are a large, scruffy insurance investigator.

‘We were at pottery class when I got your call,' said Mrs Wainscott.

‘Pottery class?' said Friday. ‘Is that code for something else?'

‘No, we really do take a pottery class together,' said Uncle Bernie.

‘Bernard suggested it to me,' said Mrs Wainscott. ‘I'm always looking for more ways to be self-sufficient. Now I can make my own crockery.'

‘Hmm,' said Friday. ‘It certainly sounds like a crock to me.'

Uncle Bernie blushed again.

‘I suppose I'd better meet my client,' said Mrs Wainscott with a giggle. ‘It's been years since I last did this. This is going to be fun.'

Friday rubbed her eyes. ‘My father is going to jail, I just know it. And the worst part is, I'm going to have to explain all this to my mother.'

‘You!' snapped Mrs Wainscott, at a constable behind the desk. ‘I'm Dr Barnes's legal representative. Show me to him immediately. You better not have been asking him questions before I got here or I'll file a complaint against you for harassment.'

‘Wow,' said Melanie. ‘Impressive. She must have been a really good acrobat.'

‘What makes you say that?' asked Friday.

‘If she gave up the law to become an acrobat,' said Melanie, ‘she must be even better at twisting herself into a human pretzel than she is at haranguing police officers.'

It was a nervous wait for Friday outside the interview room. She was used to being in the thick of it, not waiting helplessly to find out what was going on.

‘What's happening?' asked Friday as Mrs Wainscott emerged from the interview room where she had been talking with Sergeant Crowley and Dr Barnes.

‘Your father is acting very strangely,' said Mrs Wainscott. ‘He keeps muttering about how rival M-theorists are trying to destroy him. Is that some sort of Star Trek reference?'

‘No, there really are rival M-theorists who would like to destroy him,' said Friday. ‘But you have to understand that in the world of theoretical physics, “destroying” someone means writing a really well-researched paper disproving their thesis.'

‘So you're sure he's not seriously mentally ill?' asked Mrs Wainscott.

‘No, all academics act like that,' said Friday. ‘Muttering, irrational thoughts and obsessive behaviour are all socially acceptable in their work environment.'

‘That's a shame,' said Mrs Wainscott. ‘If he was bonkers, it would be easier to get him off. If he is sane, he's probably going to get in a lot of trouble. The police found $180,000 worth of stolen goods in his car.'

‘What?' exclaimed Friday.

‘Apparently it was jam-packed to the roof with stolen computers, jewellery, kitchen appliances, federal bond certificates –'

‘Why would anyone have federal bond certificates lying around at school?' asked Friday.

‘In case there is a currency crash and they have to flee the country with easily exchangeable assets,' explained Melanie.

‘You're kidding,' said Friday.

‘It happens more than you might expect with the student body at Highcrest,' said Melanie. ‘Last year, the tax department discovered that Hazel Edward's parents hadn't filed a tax return for fifteen years. They landed their helicopter on the rugby field, grabbed Hazel and flew off to Jersey to live as tax exiles.'

‘But my father can't have stolen all those things,' said Friday.

‘Why? Because he's an essentially honest person?' asked Melanie.

‘No, because it would involve carrying heavy objects and packing them into the car,' said Friday. ‘It would be beyond him. He's used to making PhD students do that type of thing for him. PhD students are the academic world's version of indentured slaves. The only reason they get away with it is because the students all have Stockholm Syndrome, plus they're under the misapprehension that a PhD is actually worth something.'

‘The stolen property was in his car,' said Mrs Wainscott. ‘He's paranoid and delusional. That isn't going to look good in court.'

‘Were his fingerprints on the stolen property?' asked Friday.

‘I don't know,' said Mrs Wainscott. ‘There are so many items, forensics haven't analysed them all. But it wouldn't matter. If there were no fingerprints, the police would just argue that he used gloves.'

‘As if my father would ever do anything that sensible,' said Friday.

At that moment Sergeant Crowley emerged from the interview room carrying a plastic tray.

‘Are those my father's personal effects?' asked Friday.

‘What if they are?' asked Sergeant Crowley.

‘I'd like to see them and the stolen property,' said Friday.

‘Why on earth would I agree to that?' said Sergeant Crowley.

‘Sergeant, there's no use pretending I'm an ordinary twelve-year-old,' said Friday. ‘I've already solved several significant cases for your department. You could obstruct my investigation, but if this is all
a misunderstanding the sooner I reveal what's really going on the less embarrassing it will be for you.'

‘My inspector would never go for that,' said Sergeant Crowley.

‘You'll be getting a lot of close attention from your inspector when it's on the six o'clock news that you arrested a Nobel laureate's husband for theft,' said Friday. ‘That would be fine if your accusations were entirely correct, but if your case is going to collapse surely it's better if that happens now, before the international news crews set up their cameras in the car park.'

Sergeant Crowley sighed. He didn't want to agree because, being a police sergeant, he was trained not to be agreeable. But he liked being in charge of a small-town police station, precisely because it was quiet and there wasn't much for him to do. If Friday did solve the case and make the whole thing disappear, he would be secretly relieved.

‘All right,' he said. ‘But you'll owe me a favour.'

‘Agreed,' said Friday. ‘You can call on me any time your own investigative team lets you down.'

‘Harrumph,' said Sergeant Crowley. ‘If I did that, you'd need to have your own office; you'd be here full-time. Come on, I'll show you the evidence room.'

Sergeant Crowley led Friday, Melanie, Uncle Bernie and Mrs Wainscott to a room at the back of the police station. He opened the door and ushered them inside.

There were steel shelves laden with labelled evidence bags. In the middle of the room was a large table where two junior officers were putting items into more evidence bags.

‘Everything on the table was found in your father's car,' said Sergeant Crowley.

‘Wow, that's a lot of stuff,' said Melanie. ‘I can't believe he fit that all in.'

‘It was very meticulously packed,' said Sergeant Crowley. ‘There wasn't a spare inch of space, other than the driver's seat.'

Friday took out her magnifying glass and approached the table.

‘You can look, but no touching,' said Sergeant Crowley. ‘I can't have you contaminating the evidence.'

‘Understood,' said Friday as she leaned in to peer at the first bag.

It took her forty minutes to fully inspect every object. The process involved a certain amount of crouching down and crawling on the floor as she
struggled to inspect each piece from every angle without touching it.

‘Your father certainly has eclectic taste in stolen property,' observed Melanie. ‘The laptop, jewellery and bond certificates I can understand, but what would he want with a set of carbon-fibre golf clubs? If he's anything like you, he would never be able to hit the ball.'

‘They're all things he could easily fence for cash,' said Sergeant Crowley. ‘Pawnshops will always take golf clubs and computers.'

‘Where are my father's personal artefacts?' asked Friday. ‘The things you took off him when he arrived?'

‘In here.' The sergeant placed the small plastic tray on the table in front of Friday.

‘Hmm … interesting.' Friday carefully inspected each item. There was a pair of frayed shoelaces. A wallet. A five-dollar note and sixty cents in loose change. A notebook covered in scribbled equations and a blunt pencil.

‘Tell me,' said Friday, ‘how did you get into the car to take everything out?'

‘It was locked,' said Sergeant Crowley. ‘But Constable Benson used to work with auto-theft. He can break into any car in less than ten seconds.'

‘How?' asked Melanie.

‘That's privileged information,' said Sergeant Crowley.

‘He smashed the driver's window,' said Friday. ‘I know because there are tiny fragments of auto glass in with several of the stolen items.'

‘Yes, well, apparently that's how all the big city police departments do it these days,' said Sergeant Crowley.

‘You really should read some of the industry periodicals you have stored out in your waiting room,' said Friday. ‘One of these days someone other than me is going to notice your total lack of knowledge of any investigative technique developed in the twenty years since you left the police academy.'

‘Hey,' said Sergeant Crowley, ‘I'm doing you a favour letting you see this! There's no reason for you to give me cheek.'

‘Except for the fact that you wrongly arrested my father,' said Friday.

‘Here we go,' said Sergeant Crowley, rolling his eyes. ‘I know he's your dad, but I won't stand for any of your malarkey and tricks just so you can get him off.'

‘I don't need malarkey or tricks,' said Friday. ‘The evidence speaks for itself.'

‘What are you talking about?' demanded Sergeant Crowley.

‘There is no way my father could have packed all this property into one Ford Cortina,' said Friday. ‘He hasn't got the patience, spatial awareness or hand-eye coordination for such a complicated task.'

‘But he's a genius,' said Sergeant Crowley. ‘He could figure it out.'

‘You clearly don't know many geniuses,' said Friday. ‘I, on the other hand, grew up in a house with six geniuses, aside from myself.'

‘Thanks for the touch of modesty,' said Sergeant Crowley, rolling his eyes.

‘I'm only being truthful,' said Friday. ‘Anyway, the thing about geniuses is that they find some things so utterly easy, such as understanding the space-time continuum, that they come to resent anything that is not equally easy, such as deciding what to wear in the morning, or packing a car. Because it doesn't
come as simply to them, they dismiss it as trivial and make no attempt. There is no way my father would have attempted packing all these objects into a car. To him, it would be equivalent to building castles in a sandpit.'

‘I like building sandcastles,' said Melanie.

‘Yes, but you'd have the good sense to do it wearing a swimsuit,' said Friday. ‘Father would try it wearing a tweed jacket and loafers, then give up because he was uncomfortable.'

‘That isn't even circumstantial evidence,' said Sergeant Crowley. ‘It's just speculation and hypothesis.'

‘Then there's the fact that my father has never in his life done anything for the money,' continued Friday. ‘We never had spare cash. When my school had an overnight excursion to the national science museum, I had to wash all the neighbours' cars to pay for myself to go.'

‘Again, that's just conjecture,' said Sergeant Crowley.

‘No, it's not,' said Friday. ‘Why would he steal a carload of property? If he wanted money, he could just take a job with one of the many defence contractors who are constantly wooing him to design the next generation of missiles.'

Sergeant Crowley was astonished. ‘That blithering loony in there has been headhunted to design military-grade weapons?!'

‘I know. It's horrifying, isn't it?' said Friday.

‘Perhaps he did all this because he's finally gone barking,' said Sergeant Crowley. ‘Your mother is off gadding about in Europe. Perhaps that tipped him over the edge and all this is a cry for help?'

‘I like that idea,' said Mrs Wainscott. ‘I can use that in court.'