The Hangman's Lair (9 page)

‘So, Paul simply hangs on to the diary for a couple of days. It’s locked, and he doesn’t want to open it, but he knows he’s got to get rid of it somehow. Why not just throw it away? That’s one obvious solution, but it doesn’t solve his other problem: getting money together for the FrogWar sale.

‘And now Paul gets another idea. A very sneaky and unpleasant one. But, he reasons, Amy’s been mean to him, so perhaps she deserves to be taught a lesson after all. Paul goes to see Harry Lovecraft. Everyone in this school knows that if there’s anything sneaky and unpleasant to be done, Harry Lovecraft likes to have a hand in it.’

Harry took a step closer to me. ‘Watch what you’re saying, Smart,’ he growled.

‘So Paul goes to see Harry Lovecraft,’ I said, keeping my eyes firmly on Harry. ‘And he says to Harry, “I’ve got someone’s personal diary for sale. Are you interested?” “I might be,” says Harry. “What’s in it?” “Don’t know,” says Paul. “It’s locked, but the lock can be easily broken.”

‘Harry has a think. A locked diary, eh? That might contain all sorts of embarrassing stuff. Stuff he can blackmail the diary’s owner with. Is it worth risking a few pounds? Yes, why not? Naturally, Harry doesn’t want to spend his
own
money on the diary, so he decides to have a sale of his own. He puts up a notice on the board offering some books he knows I’ll be interested in.

‘Not knowing what’s going on, I fall for it and I buy the books. Now Harry’s got some money for the diary. At the end of lunchtime today, he meets with Paul in that classroom up the corridor there and gives him the cash. Paul offers to hand over the diary.

‘“Don’t be an idiot,” says Harry. “Drop it off where I told you. And make sure you do it before the end of school.” I overheard that conversation. So, I think to myself, Paul’s supposed to drop the diary off somewhere
at
school, because Harry’s expecting to pick it up before going home. Where could this somewhere be? It must be somewhere accessible to both Paul and Harry, but also somewhere that it probably wouldn’t be spotted. Somewhere Harry could retrieve it without looking at all suspicious.’

I turned around and tapped on the door of Harry’s locker. ‘The only place I could think of,’ I said, ‘was these lockers.’

I looked at the five of them, standing there, and the five of them looked back at me.

‘If I’m right about all this,’ I said, ‘then inside this locker is Amy’s stolen diary.’

‘You’re wrong,’ scoffed Harry. ‘Whatever you think you overheard, you totally misunderstood. Paul was selling me those old CDs you mentioned. Nothing more than that.’

‘Really?’ I said. ‘What were their titles?’

Harry glared at me. ‘None of your business, Smart. We’re all getting fed up of you poking your nose in where it’s not wanted.’

‘If it’s just CDs,’ said Amy, ‘you won’t mind if Saxby takes a look.’

‘If I’m wrong,’ I said with a shrug, ‘you get to see me make a fool of myself. I can’t believe you’d miss the chance of that.’

Harry made a kind of half-tut noise. I spun around and opened the locker door. Sitting on top of a pile of books and papers was a lock-up diary with the words
My Diary by Amy Parsons
written in felt tip across the cover. Amy bounded forward, hand outstretched, but Harry blocked her way.

‘Give it back!’ cried Amy.

‘If you lost it, then it’s mine now,’ sneered Harry. ‘Finders keepers, as they say. Losers weepers. I paid good money for it. If you’ve got any complaints, talk to Paul.’

Amy, Nicola, Paul and Kelly all started talking at once. I raised a hand for silence.

‘OK,’ I said in a low voice. ‘You keep it, Harry. But if that’s what you decide to do, I’ll have no choice but to let Mrs Penzler know what’s been happening. She’s just over there, marking homework.’

Harry’s snake-eyes slid from me to the nearby classroom and back again.

‘Is opening that diary really worth the trouble you’ll get into?’ I said. ‘Are you willing to risk the consequences, for a diary that’s got nothing in it but people’s birthdays and a few reminders? That’s all it contains, isn’t it, Amy?’

‘Yes, er, that’s all,’ said Amy hastily. ‘That’s all. But I want it back. I’ll never remember another birthday if I don’t have it.’

Harry stared at me, like a leopard staring at its prey, wondering when to pounce. ‘You’re lying,’ he growled.

‘Am I?’ I whispered. ‘Are you going to take that chance?’

For a second, I really thought he was going to slam the locker shut and send us all packing. But then he reached in, picked the diary up and flung it carelessly at Amy.

She caught it mid-spin. Immediately, she pulled out a small key from her blazer pocket, opened the diary, and started to tear out the pages. She ripped them into tiny shreds, dumping the lot into the waste paper bin that stood just inside the entrance to the classroom. Then she took a carton of orange juice from her bag, ripped off the top and soaked the shreds into a sticky pulp.

‘How are you going to remember people’s birthdays now?’ asked Kelly.

Amy dropped the empty carton into the bin. ‘Thank goodness for that. That’s one mistake I won’t be making again.’

Harry’s face flushed through half a dozen shades of purple fury. ‘You
were
lying,’ he spat.

‘You really think I’d go to all this trouble for an appointments book?’ I said.

Paul approached Amy, his feet shuffling uneasily and his eyes looking everywhere except straight ahead. ‘Amy, I’m sorry, I really am.’ He handed her the money he’d got from Harry. ‘This is the very least I owe you, as well as an apology.’

‘Yes, well,’ said Amy, ‘I, er, shouldn’t have been so rude to you.’

Mrs Penzler’s voice boomed from inside the classroom. ‘You six! Don’t you have homes and after-school clubs to go to? Off you go! Chop chop! Don’t make me come out there!’

We all headed off down the corridor, Harry stomping along in a cloud of suppressed rage. He jabbed me on the shoulder. ‘Don’t get too smug, Smart,’ he hissed. ‘The day’s coming when I’ll get my own back on you. And it’s coming sooner than you think.’

He marched on ahead. I smiled to myself. ‘Oh, Harry!’ I called, before he stormed out of sight. ‘Don’t forget our deal. I’ll expect those books in the morning? OK?’

He looked daggers at me for a moment, then stalked away, muttering under his breath.

I walked home, making plans to sit in my Thinking Chair and write up my notes on the case. It was only when I arrived at my shed that I remembered I’d left its entire contents strewn across the lawn. Oh, I thought. Better get to work.

Case closed

A
DULTS CAN BE STUPID.
I
mean really, seriously dum-dum stupid. They fight over the most ridiculous things, they invade each other’s countries and they make TV shows containing no jokes or car chases.

It’s the weird things they’re prepared to
believe
which baffle me most: they read horoscopes, buy celebrity gossip magazines and listen to weather forecasts. You’d think they didn’t have a molecule of common sense between them.

In my files are notes on a case I’ve labelled
Whispers From the Dead.
It’s a perfect example of how, sometimes, adults have to be saved from their own utter idiocy. It all started a couple of days after the events described in
Diary of Fear.

Since the previous weekend, I’d taken everything out of the garden shed, my Crime HQ. I’d chucked away a few broken bits and pieces, and put the rest back in again. I’d made absolutely sure that I was putting everything back in the most space-saving way possible: garden hose neatly coiled, lawnmower hung up on a big hook, paint tins carefully stacked according to size, and so on. I badly needed more space for my desk, my files and my Thinking Chair. It was bad enough being forced to share the shed with all that DIY and gardening stuff, but having to shove it out of the way all the time was adding insult to injury, as they say.

However, now that everything was back inside the shed, I was beginning to wonder what exactly had gone wrong with my tidy-up plan. There seemed to be even less room in there than before! It didn’t make sense. Had someone sneaked along in the middle of the night and added the contents of their shed to mine? The gardening gear was now teetering in a massive pile, which looked like it was about to fall over and bury all my files under half a tonne of plant pots. My desk
would not
sit straight! One side was higher than the other, its legs propped up on a box of paint brushes. And the only way I could even fit my Thinking Chair in was to turn it one hundred and eighty degrees, so it faced the door. It just looked completely wrong!

I was scrambling over the top of the desk (and suddenly realising that it blocked off the drawers of my filing cabinet) when there was a knock at the door.

‘Come in!’ I called. Or, rather, ‘Mff eeen!’ because I was rapidly slipping down the gap between the edge of the desk and the back of the chair.

I heard the door open, and then the unmistakable sarcasm of my great friend Izzy sliced through the dusty air. ‘Do you point your bum at everyone who comes in here, or is it just me?’

‘Hummlee erp, um sperkk,’ I groaned. I think the way my hand was waggling wildly behind my back must have been what told Izzy I was saying, ‘Help me up, I’m stuck’. She took hold of the waistband of my trousers and hauled me free. I sat on my desk, flapping dust out of my hair. My glasses were dangling off one ear.

‘I’ve been rearranging things,’ I gasped.

‘Why?’ said Izzy, raising that trademark arched eyebrow of hers. ‘Weren’t you cramped enough in here before?’

‘I think the paint pots have been cloning themselves,’ I said. ‘I can’t get it all to fit.’

‘Why have you got your Thinking Chair facing the door?’ said Izzy. ‘It just looks completely wrong.’

‘Yes, I know,’ I wailed. ‘I don’t understand it.’

She clambered over the chair and joined me on the desktop. She perched by the shed’s perspex window, clearing herself a space in the dust before she sat down.

I stared at the floor-to-ceiling jumble around me. I suppose it’s not just adults who can be really, seriously, dum-dum stupid. Even brilliant schoolboy detectives like me get it wrong sometimes.

‘I’ve got a case for you,’ announced Izzy.

‘Perfect,’ I said gratefully. ‘Anything to avoid having to think about this hideous mess for a while. How can I help?’

Izzy, the school’s in-house genius and my Chief Research Brainbox, had helped me out on many past investigations. But this was the very first time she’d brought a new case to my attention. I was eager to hear the details.

‘Do you know The Pig and Fiddle?’ she said. ‘The big building in the centre of town?’

‘Er, yes, the pub? Didn’t you once tell me your relatives run it?’

‘That’s right, my uncle and aunt have owned it for about ten years. It’s a sort of pub, restaurant and hotel all in one. It’s got a very good reputation. They’ve had tourists from all over the world staying there, because of all the nearby castles and historic sites.’

‘I think I’ve seen adverts for the place,’ I said. ‘Don’t they have a theatre attached to it or something?’

‘Not quite,’ said Izzy. ‘One end of the pub part is a large stage. My uncle books all sorts of acts for evening performances. Comedians, pop groups, speciality acts, that sort of thing.’

‘What’s a speciality act?’ I said.

‘Oh, the more oddball stuff,’ said Izzy. ‘You know, sword swallowers, dancing dogs, jugglers. A few months ago they had a couple of absolutely brilliant quick change artists, who could zip through different costumes like lightning. Really clever.’

‘So these acts are a sort of daily show?’ I said.

‘Every evening at eight o’clock, yes. Some acts are only on for one night, some get booked for a couple of weeks or more. My uncle won’t let anyone else deal with the bookings - he loves all that. I think he really wanted to be a circus ringmaster!’

‘And I assume something’s gone wrong for one of these acts? Is that why you’re here?’

‘Not exactly,’ said Izzy. She hesitated, and her voice became quieter. ‘There’s a performer called Godfrey Frye. He’s been touring abroad for ages, apparently, and has never been here before. He’s been appearing at the nightly show for the past few days and he’s booked up until the end of next week.’

‘And . . .?’

‘And he’s the creepiest person on the face of the earth!’

I shrugged. ‘Well, there’s no law against being weird, thank goodness.’

‘He’s a clairvoyant, a medium. He picks people out of the audience and starts seeing into their future.’

‘Sure, I’ve seen similar stage acts on TV,’ I said.

Izzy shook her head. ‘There’s more to it than that. I went to last night’s show with my mum. This Godfrey Frye started talking about
me.
I’d never so much as set eyes on him before, but he knew things he couldn’t
possibly
have guessed. What’s more, he knew about
you!’

‘Huh?’

‘He said he’s communicated with spirits and been told your name. “A friend who fights crime,” he said. “You have a friend called Saxby.” If he’d said, “You have a friend called Tom,” or, “You have a friend called Sam,” well, that’s nothing, is it? That could just be guesswork. But
your
name?’

‘And did he predict my future?’ I said.

‘Yes, he did. And I’m really scared.’

‘Why?’

‘Because,’ said Izzy, ‘he said your future was filled with failure and mistakes. He said he heard the voices of the dead speaking to him, and they’ve told him you’re heading for disaster!’

‘H
ANG ON A MINUTE,’
I said. ‘Let’s . . . I mean . . . Couldn’t . . . Hang on a minute.’

I suddenly felt as if my nervous system had been put through a shredder. It’s a pretty terrifying experience to . . . be told that . . . in your future . . .