turned up he actually smiled.
‘If you don’t mind my saying, you look kinda youthful,’ he said.
‘I drink a lot of banana milk – keeps you young looking,’ said Ruby.
‘Is that so? How many pints do you drink exactly?’
He was a dishevelled looking man and his badge was upside down, and his hair didn’t look like it had been combed since Christmas. He had a nice voice though. It had warmth – she could tell this from just a few words.
‘So,’ he said. ‘You gonna solve this Lopez code for us?’ He ruffled her hair and added, ‘You know what? I think you just might.’
Messing with Ruby Redfort’s hair would not ordinarily have been a good idea, but for some reason, today, Ruby didn’t mind. Perhaps she was just relieved that someone was finally on her side.
‘Thanks, but I’m not sure anyone else around here would agree with you – I feel about as popular as a person infected with the Black Death.’
‘Nah, they wouldn’t talk to you at all if you had the Black Death,’ said Blacker.
Ruby was surprised when she was ushered through a door and found herself outside in an alley, facing a dumpster and an old van that looked like a dumpster. ‘There’s our ride,’ said Blacker, walking towards the van.
‘You’re kidding right?’ said Ruby.
But he wasn’t.
‘Where we going – the wrecking yard?’
‘Yeah, I hear what you’re saying Ruby – she is a bit of an old lady but she goes OK. Inconspicuous too.’
‘Only if we are going to a real dump of a neighbourhood,’ said Ruby.
Blacker laughed awkwardly. ‘Yeah.’
Twenty minutes later Ruby understood why. They had pulled up in front of an old office building on Maverick Street on the east side of town in the area known as Trashford. It was a dump.
‘Here we are – the file office,’ said Agent Blacker. ‘Lopez worked from here because it made for a good cover, and it was safe.’
Ruby looked up at the derelict-looking building that was sandwiched between an ancient-looking Laundromat and a boarded up convenience store. ‘If you don’t mind my saying so, it doesn’t look very safe.’
Blacker pointed at the door. ‘Try drilling through this baby in a hurry – it will take you upwards of eighteen hours.’
If that was true then it was disguised well.
He unlocked the door. It was brown – at least the top layer was – large flakes of ancient paint were peeling off to reveal many past colour choices, all the colours of the rainbow. Ruby stepped inside. The small room was lined floor to ceiling with files, brown ones.
‘If anyone did ever happen to tail Lopez, we wanted them to find some dusty old office. Lopez told everyone she was a bookkeeper – no one outside Spectrum knew what she really did.’
‘So, what, she never got to go out on any missions or adventures?’ asked Ruby.
Blacker shook his head. ‘She never ever did anything for Spectrum which involved any danger – LB doesn’t like losing her code breakers, not after… well she just doesn’t. She likes to keep her great minds safe and sound.’
Ruby looked around at the dismal office. She couldn’t help feeling it was capable of depressing a person to death.
‘So every day she sat looking at these drab old walls? What did she do for kicks?’ asked Ruby.
‘Rock climbing,’ replied Blacker.
‘She probably enjoyed the scenery,’ said Ruby, glancing at the window, almost black with dirt.
‘So, I guess LB filled you in on the case,’ said Blacker, pointing at the far wall. ‘All these files on this shelf here cover every little thing we found out about the planned bank heist.’
Ruby counted them – there were more than a few.
‘We want you to read through every single file, and try and spot what we missed the first time around – we know we musta missed something because old Lopez worked it out while she was on her vacation. Her mind musta been ticking over and suddenly – vavoom! – she figured something out. But that leaves us with a problem – we don’t know what it was.’
‘So what tipped you off about the robbery in the first place?’ asked Ruby.
‘We had a call from the Gotz Bank in Switzerland, that’s where the gold’s coming in from. They reported that they were sure someone had infiltrated their security and possibly got their hands on information relating to the gold bullion which is due to be transferred from Gotz Bank to the Twinford City Bank on April 22nd.’
Ruby took some bubblegum out of her pocket. ‘Mind if I chew?’
Blacker shook his head. ‘Why should I mind?’
Ruby shrugged. ‘You’d be surprised.’ She popped the pink cube into her mouth. ‘So anyway, what made them twig?’
‘The person in charge was very, you know, fastidious, she liked everything all lined up “just so”, and was the only person to have access to the documents and papers and although nothing was missing, she was certain that her papers had been disturbed.’
Ruby nodded.
‘Not long after this we intercepted a call from a new customer who claimed she wanted to make a deposit of highly valuable jewellery in the Twinford City Bank – she also wanted to visit the vault it would be kept in.’
‘That’s not unusual, I know my mom would do the same.’
‘But your mom probably wouldn’t ask quite as many questions as this woman did.’
‘Questions like what?’ said Ruby.
‘Like, was it true that the basement was designed by Jeremiah Stiles? Was there really a trick to working one’s way through the maze of passages?’
‘Maybe just interested in architecture,’ suggested Ruby.
‘Maybe,’ said Blacker. ‘According to the bank employee who showed her around, she certainly seemed interested. She actually seemed to be memorising the corridors. And there was something a little off about her. She had a strange accent – strange meaning it sounded a little fake. Kinda staged, like she was trying to sound like she was from around here when she wasn’t. She was wearing a hat with a veil – looked like something from out of an old movie – very stylish and all, but a little over the top for a visit to the bank.’
‘So she was an eccentric – lot of strange people in Twinford,’ said Ruby.
‘I can’t disagree with you there, but when the bank checked out her ID it was discovered that she had been dead for twenty years.’
‘Ah,
