The Hangman's Lair (2 page)

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I believe you. But why tell
me?
If you feel a sudden need to admit what you’ve done, why not go to the headteacher?’

‘Because I can’t return the money,’ said Bob.

‘Why not?’

‘Because I haven’t got it any more. I need your help to get it back.’

I sat back in my Thinking Chair, letting out a sarcastic blow of the lips which can’t quite be put into words, but which was a sort of ‘prrrrrrrrp’. ‘Let me get this straight.
You
steal some money, but you want
me
to sort things out for you?’ I would have added ‘I don’t think so, matey,’ but I reckoned there might still be a chance of getting thumped.

‘No, it’s not like that,’ said Bob. He shuffled across the shed and sat droopily on my desk. It managed to take the weight OK after all. ‘If I go to the Head without the money, then I’ll just get into a lot of trouble. But if I can bring the money back, then that’ll prove I’ve changed.’

‘Changed?’ I said.

Bob shifted from side to side. This might have been because he was having difficulty saying what he wanted to say, or it might have been because he was sitting on a couple of pencils.

‘Nicking that money has made me realise how . . . well, how nasty I’ve been to people all these years. What a bully I’ve been.’

I eyed him narrowly. ‘How so?’

‘I didn’t nick that money just for myself,’ said Bob quietly. ‘I live in Herbert Street, near that row of shops on the corner. There’s a gang of kids who hang out by those shops at night. They have a laugh, get into all sorts of bother, stuff like that, so I wanted to join them. But they’ve got this test you have to do before they’ll let you be one of the gang. An initiation test. You have to steal something. Not just a packet of crisps from the newsagent’s, something that’s really worth something. Anyway, I saw that money and I thought it’d be the perfect thing to get me into the gang.’

‘So you gave it to them?’ I said.

Bob nodded. ‘They were supposed to share it out, but they just laughed. They gave me a slap and told me to get lost.’

‘What,
you?’

‘Most of them are even bigger than I am. They pushed me over, trod on me, sent me packing. I’d never had that happen to me before. I limped home. It made me think. I’ve been treating people like that for years, but now I’ve realised how they must have felt. I want to make amends. I want to, er, whassitcalled . . . turn over a new leaf.’

‘And giving all the money back will show everyone you mean what you say,’ I said.

‘Right,’ said Bob. ‘If I can’t give the money back, then it doesn’t matter how much I say I’ve changed, nobody will believe me.’

‘Hmm, you’re right,’ I said. ‘OK, I’ll help you. But only because it will make the playground a safer place! I’m doing this to stop half the school being frightened of you, it’s not just for your benefit.’

He grinned at me with relief. Somehow, that was even more nerve-racking than having him loom menacingly over me.

‘What else can you tell me?’ I said. ‘How do you know this gang haven’t just spent the cash on . . . I dunno, whatever it is street gangs spend money on. Flowers for their mums, or something.’

‘They always keep stolen stuff hidden for a while, until they’re sure it’s not being looked for any more,’ said Bob. ‘They put it somewhere away from where any of them live, so that if the police start sniffing around, they’re not caught with it.’

‘And where have they got this money stashed?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Bob. ‘Not exactly. All I can tell you is that it’ s hidden somewhere inside The Hangman’s Lair.’

T
HE
H
ANGMAN’S
L
IRA WAS THE
creepiest place in town. It was an area of woodland, about half a kilometre square, which stood between the back of a long, disjointed row of houses and the gently curving line of the local canal.

There had recently been talk of turning the place into a wildlife sanctuary, but nothing had ever come of it. I can’t say I was surprised. There wasn’t much wildlife living there. The place looked like it was meant for alligators or giant poisonous insects, but the most dangerous animal you ever saw around there was the occasional grumpy squirrel. The Hangman’s Lair was somewhere the local wildlife tended to leave well alone.

It was so called because, legend had it, it was where the town gallows had stood hundreds of years ago. And where, it was said, the town’s mad, one-eyed hangman had lived in a tiny shack.

As soon as I entered the wood, the bright daylight was reduced to a shifting, colourless gloom. It was barely half an hour since school had finished for the day, but in The Hangman’s Lair it could have been almost any time, or any season. I was surrounded by a dark criss-cross of claw-like branches. The trees, their trunks all ridged and cracked with age, grew in horrible twists which made them look as if they were straining and struggling to crawl up out of the ground. Under my school shoes was a patchwork of mud and leaves. Some fallen twigs and branches formed a hazy straight line which vanished among the tree trunks. The whole place was eerily quiet. Nothing seemed to move anywhere, and there was a smell of decay drifting through the damp air.

I looked around, hardly daring to move or make a sound. The woods didn’t vary from one end to the other. Whatever direction you looked in, everything appeared almost exactly the same: trees and branches, as far as the eye could see. And the eye couldn’t see all that far with all those trees and branches in the way. Standing there, I immediately understood why The Hangman’s Lair had gained its reputation.

I took a slow, deep breath.

‘Why didn’t I bring anyone with me?’ I muttered to myself. My words vanished on the air, absorbed by the earth and the canopy of twigs.

I could also understand why the gang from Herbert Street had chosen this spot to hide their loot in. Nobody would ever think of taking a pleasant stroll through The Hangman’s Lair of an evening! Well, vampires and werewolves, possibly, but nobody else.

I looked left, right, up, down. That stolen money was hidden away in here somewhere, but
where?
Each tree looked like every other tree, and each patch of ground looked like every other patch of ground. You’d almost have to
live
in this horrible place to even find your way around. And so, unless I literally mapped out the entire . . .

Wait! Maybe the gang had made a map? Maybe there was no way to locate the money without it?

No. On second thoughts, definitely not. Bob told me that the gang hid stuff in case the police came ‘sniffing around’, as he put it. If the police came across a map pinpointing the location of the money, then the gang might as well not have hidden it in the first place. A location map would be ideal evidence.

Besides, this was a street gang we were talking about. Were they the sort of people who’d go to the time and trouble of making a map anyway? Well, they might when there was four hundred and twenty pounds at stake. Hmm, still seemed unlikely

No, there was no map. Which meant that there was only one possibility left, as far as I could see. There
was
a way I could locate the money

Have you worked it out?

The gang must have marked the hiding place somehow. Without a map, there’d be no other way of making sure they didn’t lose track of the money.

Obviously, I wasn’t going to find an ‘X’ carved into a tree trunk, or anything as blindingly obvious as that. But there had to be a mark of some kind. There had to be something, either on a tree, or marked on the ground, that would be distinctive enough to lead the gang back to the hiding place.

Actually, you know, thinking about it, the mark
could
be something obvious. The gang would hardly expect someone else, someone like me, to come looking for it. They
might
have left a mark in plain sight!

Two hours later, I came to the conclusion that they hadn’t. Not only was there no mark in plain sight, there was no mark that I could ‘sight’ at all!

I’d combed The Hangman’s Lair from end to end. I’d examined every tree, I’d squelched through every muddy puddle, I’d snagged my school uniform on every spiky twig. Nothing. No scratches in tree bark, no carefully placed piles of stones, no items tied to branches. There was nothing whatsoever that might have been a marker, a flag or a signpost. However they’d hidden that money, they’d hidden it very well.

By now, it was six p.m. It was starting to get dark, and the shadows beneath the trees were precisely deep enough to conceal everything from the outside world. You’d need to know exactly where you were going to find anything at that time, so further searching was pointless. Also, I was starting to get hungry. Also, I was starting to get quite scared, but I tried not to think about that.

On my way home, an unpleasant and worrying train of thought rumbled slowly through my mind, like an old-fashioned steam train chugging through a long, dark tunnel. By the time I turned the corner into my street, rapidly scribbling notes in my notebook, I’d come to a decision. I had a definite plan of action. And it wasn’t one I was looking forward to.

I phoned my great friend Isobel ‘Izzy’ Moustique, St Egbert’s School’s all-round genius and official Princess of Facts and Figures. I needed to ask a couple of favours.

‘First,’ I said, ‘see what you can find out about a gang of kids who hang around in Herbert Street. You know loads of people, someone will have come across them.’

‘Okey-dokey,’ she said. ‘What’s the case you’re investigating this time?’

‘Let’s just say that if this works out, we’ll be going on that school trip after all.’

‘Great! I thought you’d drawn a total blank on the missing money,’ she cried. ‘You’ve finally got a lead?’

‘Er, something like that,’ I said hurriedly. ‘Second, I need you to start a rumour.’

‘A rumour? Why? What about?’

That plan of action I mentioned needed . . . hmm, what would you call it? It needed a certain amount of back-up. If my plan was going to work, there was some very specific information that had to be out there on the local grapevine.

See if you can spot what that information was, when it crops up in Chapter Four . . .

T
HE NEXT DAY,
I
WAS
in the dinner queue at school when something made me almost jump out of my skin. The sight of a school dinner can sometimes do that. Or the sight of a school dinner lady. However, in this case, I almost jumped out of my skin because I heard a loud ‘Pssst!’ behind me. I turned round and found myself face-to-shoulder with Bob Thompson.

‘How’s it going?’ he whispered.

‘Oh, er, fine, y’know, er, making progress,’ I said.

‘Is there anything I can do to help?’

‘I have a plan of action worked out, but it relies on the Herbert Street gang not knowing who I am, or that you have any connection with me. If they get wind that you’re involved, they’d smell something fishier than a plate of fish fingers in fish sauce with extra fish on top. So, thanks, but no.’

‘Oi, are you having yer dinner or what?’ squarked a dinner lady at me. I almost jumped out of my skin again. As Bob lumbered away, a dollop of today’s delicious, nutritious recipe was slopped down in front of me. It appeared to be fish fingers in fish sauce with extra fish on top.

‘Yummy,’ I said, with a painted-on grin.

I spotted Izzy and hurried over to sit next to her. She had a book open on the table in front of her.

‘Hi,’ I said. My eyes did a quick zip around the room to check that nobody could overhear me. It made me feel slightly giddy, and I made a mental note not to do that again. ‘Have you managed to set that rumour going?’