came Hog-trotter, and Agent Deneuve shivered and moved on. It seemed he wasn’t a suspect – ‘Doing a little jail time,’ said Deneuve, ‘a minor misdemeanour involving some unpaid parking tickets but enough to put him out of action.’
Up came another slide, another familiar face.
‘Babyface Marshall, still incarcerated and unlikely to be released this side of this century.’
Click.
‘Lorelei von Leyden was involved in our most recent case and her whereabouts are at this precise time unknown.’
Click. ‘But although we perhaps have many pictures of her. . .’
Click. A picture of a seemingly different woman came up. ‘We might just as well have none since she is a human chameleon.’
Click. Another woman, now with blonde hair. ‘We might know what she looked like yesterday.’
Click. Now she looked Chinese. ‘But we have no idea what she looks like today.’
Click, click, click. Eight slides, eight very different-looking women.
‘As for the Australian, aka the woman with the blue eyes, whom Agent Redfort almost lost her life to, she is still very much an unknown. Apart from one piece of security camera footage we are pretty much scratching our heads here.’ A very blurry image was projected onto the screen.
‘So let me get this straight, we have nothing?’ said Blacker.
‘For now,’ said Deneuve. ‘But all Spectrum agents in all Spectrum divisions in all departments are expected to work every line of intelligence.’
‘Looks like it’s going to be a long night,’ said Hitch.
‘Too bad,’ sighed Ruby, ‘there’s a Crazy Cops double bill on TV tonight.’
The transmitter was
buzzing and working its way
across the steel table top. . .
. . .He picked it up and accepted the call. ‘Yes?’ he said.
‘I know what you’re up to, Birdboy.’
‘I don’t follow.’
‘You don’t think I read the papers?’
Silence.
‘You’re famous, Twinford is enthralled, all this breaking and entering, all this petty theft, yet no sign of who it could be.’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘I think you should stop lying, it’s embarrassing.’
‘I told you, I have no idea what you are talking about.’
‘Just hand it over. . . or face the consequences.’
RUBY WAS DOWNSTAIRS EATING HER BREAKFAST – she’d had a bit of a late start having worked through the night and was enjoying just hanging out in the kitchen listening to Twinford Talk Radio. She had it turned up really loud and almost missed the sound of the phone ringing in her bedroom. She took the stairs two at a time and reached it just before it clicked through to answer phone.
‘Twinford pest control, we spray to kill.’
‘Rube?’
‘Roaches or rats, sir?’
‘This is no time for kidding around, I’m in deep trouble, I tell you, deep.’
‘What is it Clance, are you OK, are you injured or something?’
‘No, but I will be if you don’t think of something quick and by quick I sorta mean now!’
‘OK but first you gotta explain. I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s going on.’
‘OK,’ said Clancy, breathing hard, ‘so you know how I was meant to be searching the ads for a restorer to fix my mom’s Louis XV dressing table because it’s not looking so good on account of Minny’s hair dye?’
‘Yeah,’ said Ruby, patiently.
‘So I couldn’t get hold of an emergency repair service and I’m thinking Minny is going to get grounded for like the rest of her entire life and that kinda sucks. . . so. . .’
Ruby waited for him to finish his no doubt painful sentence; she could hear his arms flapping.
‘So I sorta stepped in. Minny got this stuff from the hardware store which was supposed to be some kind of restorer polish and I didn’t get around to reading the label to check she had got the right whatever it was, you know how it is with me and labels. . .’
‘Yeah, you never read ’em.’
‘Anyway, this stuff turns out to be some kinda paint stripper and now the Louis XV dressing table looks kinda. . . not so Louis XV if you know what I’m saying. . . my mother—’
‘She’s gonna kill you,’ said Ruby.
‘She’s gonna kill me,’ agreed Clancy.
‘Minny’s gonna kill you,’ said Ruby.
‘Minny is also gonna kill me,’ agreed Clancy.
‘Although the whole thing was her fault in the first place.’
‘Minny’s not logical like that,’ said Clancy.
Ruby said nothing, she was thinking.
‘Are you there?’ said Clancy, his voice raspy with panic.
‘I’m thinking,’ said Ruby.
‘Well, could you maybe hurry it up a little,’ Clancy urged.
An agonising pause.
‘I got it,’ said Ruby. ‘Sit tight, I think I have the solution, just stay away from any furniture that looks Louis-ish.’
Twelve minutes later Hitch’s car rolled up outside the Crews’ house. He was wearing dark glasses and carrying a black leather case.
Clancy was there to greet him and opened the door way before he reached for the doorbell.
