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She picked it up and continued to read:
THIS YEAR’S HALLOWEEN PARADE BIGGER THAN EVER!
Mayor Abrahams, keen to make himself popular before the mayoral elections, had decided that there should be a special televised Twinford Halloween parade in Harker Square. The meteorological service thought this unwise due to the recent violent gales and predicted torrential rain, but Mayor Abrahams was not to be deterred:
“No little rain shower is going to dampen Twinford’s spirits!”
Ruby’s friends, Red in particular, were keen to make a big impression, costume-wise. There had been a lot of talk but so far no decision on what ghoulish theme they would all be adopting.
She resurfaced at Crossways, the subway stop just northeast of the Village and not so far from the Twinford River. On Broker Avenue traffic was heavy no matter what time of day or night, and to traverse meant dodging cars. The Dime a Dozen 24-hour supermarket was her destination: brightly lit with fluorescent tubes, the aisles signed with giant cardboard numbers suspended from the ceiling.
Aisle 17 held canned vegetables and jarred baby food on one side, chilled goods in tall refrigerators on the other. She didn’t immediately spot Hitch. He was browsing chickpeas: a tall, good-looking man, wearing an elegant raincoat over a dark suit.
In his hand – only slightly marring the look – was a Dime a Dozen paper bag.
‘Been doing some shopping?’ she said.
‘You’re only three minutes and forty seconds late, good going kid,’ he said.
‘Isn’t this a bit inconvenient?’ said Ruby. ‘I mean, having to walk through a store every time you want to reach Spectrum?’
‘On the contrary,’ he said. ‘It’s a convenience store.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘You know what I mean.’
‘For those in the know, there are always other ways in, I just thought this one would appeal to your sense of mystery,’ said Hitch. ‘Besides, we were out of butter.’
‘I know,’ said Ruby, ‘but how do you know?’
‘Lucky guess,’ said Hitch.
Boy, thought Ruby, that’s some butler.
‘So I’ve managed to restock the dairy goodness and get to work on time,’ said Hitch, shaking the bag.
‘Where’s the door then?’ she asked.
‘Right here,’ said Hitch, pointing to a section of shelving bearing all kinds of fly sprays, fly papers and fly swatters. He reached behind a can of Fly-Be-Gone and the shelf swung open and they walked through into a very white, very cold space. Nothing was in it at all but for a tiny image of a white fly on the white wall in front of them, almost invisible but not quite. Hitch pressed his thumbprint onto it and the wall slid back and stairs were revealed.
At the bottom of the staircase – an industrial refrigerator door; on the other side – Spectrum. A hive of spies all secretly going about their business.
Hitch went over to check in with Buzz. She looked the same as always, bland and beige and looking sort of like a mushroom sitting there in the middle of her round desk surrounded by telephones. Ruby watched her as she phoned through to LB’s office.
‘Agent Hitch and Agent Redfort,’ she said.
This time there was no waiting and Ruby and Hitch were told to just go right on in to the boss’s office.
If LB had been looking tired and twitchy last month, then she seemed doubly so today. And if the dark circles around her eyes were anything to go by, perhaps her head had not been hitting the pillow as often as it should. Next to her was a man Ruby recognised as Agent Trent-Kobie, head of Spectrum 5, aka Sea Division. He was someone LB had a lot of time for and clearly trusted.
Everyone shook hands.
Ruby noticed LB’s face slightly brighten when she saw Hitch. ‘Sorry to bring you back from your vacation, Hitch, I appreciate your returning at short notice.’
‘Don’t mention it,’ said Hitch. ‘To be honest I’m not a big fan of sand in my shoes.’ Ruby couldn’t swear to it, but she thought she saw a flicker of a wink as Hitch spoke – no doubt because he and LB knew the vacation was bogus.
LB turned to Ruby, no smile. ‘Sit down, Redfort.’
Ruby sat.
LB dropped an aspirin in a glass of water before saying, ‘Oh, and Redfort, please don’t irritate me today; I’m a little out of sorts and you may find me less than my usual affable self.’
‘I’ll keep it, you know …’ Ruby mimed turning a key in a lock.
‘Would you?’ said LB. ‘I have a lot on my mind and a rather bad headache to contend with, so please try not to act your age, Redfort … just pretend you’re someone more reasonable.’
Ruby resisted the impulse to roll her eyes. ‘Got it,’ she said. ‘So you have something for me?’
LB shook her head. ‘As you are probably aware, we are not assigning cases to field agents in training at this time,’ she said.
There was a knock at the door and Blacker entered with a Styrofoam cup and a brown paper bag.
LB looked only a touch alarmed. ‘Lose the baked goods would you Blacker.’
‘Oh, sure,’ said Blacker, exiting the room and returning without the bag.
‘Actually, would you mind relinquishing the coffee too? You know how it is with white carpets … every little mark.’
‘No problem,’ said Blacker, popping out once again and returning empty handed. He winked at Ruby and sat down.
‘I requested that Agent Blacker join us since this is as much about coding as it is security,’ said LB. Blacker was a more senior code expert and had collaborated with Ruby on most of her cases.
There was a buzz from LB’s intercom. ‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Agent Delaware has arrived,’ said Buzz.
‘Send him in,’ said LB.
The door opened and in walked a very short man with not too much hair. His blue-black suit was perfectly pressed, he held a shiny briefcase under his arm, had neat glasses on his nose and looked like he got things done.
‘This is Agent Delaware from Spectrum 1,’ said LB. She nodded at him. ‘Good to see you, Stanley.’
Agent Delaware shook everyone by the hand, opened his briefcase, took out a leather-bound notebook and an expensive-looking fountain pen, closed the briefcase, placed it next to his chair, opened the notebook, unscrewed the lid of the fountain pen and held it poised above the blank page.
‘Agent Delaware will be spending some time with us here in Spectrum 8,’ said LB. And that was clearly as far as she was going to go with her explanation as to what this man was doing sitting there with his smart little notebook.
LB looked at Ruby. ‘Redfort, it would be helpful if you could walk us through the events that took place on the night of the 15th of September.’
‘You want me to say it all over again?’ Ruby asked, looking from one agent to another.
‘I am aware that you have been through the debriefing process already, Redfort, but for the sake of our visiting agents, Agent Trent-Kobie and Agent Delaware, could you tell us exactly what occurred up there on the roof of the Circus Grande Hotel and the events leading up to it?’
Ruby took a deep breath and said, ‘OK, this is how it breaks down.’ She tore a piece of paper from the notepad on the desk.
‘You might want to use the board, Redfort,’ said LB.
‘What board?’ said Ruby looking around the room.
LB pointed to the huge expanse of glossy white wall on the right-hand side, which Ruby realised as she looked at it was more than just a wall. It doubled as a very sophisticated blackboard: instead of chalk there was an electronic pen device. Ruby picked it up, unsure what to do next.
‘Just write,’ said Hitch. ‘It will translate your handwriting into typeface.’
‘Oh, cool,’ said Ruby. She picked up the pen and began writing out what she knew. ‘Can I draw with this thing too?’
‘If you really feel the need,’ said LB.
‘OK, so this is Claude Fontaine, our acrobatic cat burglar. He steals the invisibility skin from the Department of Defence and uses it to break in unseen to the DOD safe room and steal the 8 key, your key.’ She looked at LB. ‘What we are in the dark about is how Claude knew it would be there, and how he knew the code to your safe locker. But what we can be sure of is he had some help, probably from the woman who had hired him to do the job, Lorelei von Leyden. How she came by this information we really don’t know.’ Ruby paused briefly before adding, ‘I should mention that Lorelei was disguised as Nine Lives Capaldi and that threw me for a while, after all Nine Lives was confirmed dead back in April, which of course she was …’
Ruby caught the look on LB’s face which suggested she might want to stop rambling.
‘I say this only because Lorelei, it seems, is a master of disguise, which makes her pretty tricky to trace. Fortunately she is now incarcerated in a maximum security government facility, pending her trial – a long way from here, at least I think.’
‘Could you move it along Redfort?’ growled her boss. ‘Where this woman is living out her days is not pertinent to this discussion.’
‘This is a discussion?’ said Ruby. Boy you could have fooled me, she thought, but didn’t say. ‘Getting back to the question of who might have accessed the safe code …’
She drew three military stars.
‘Maybe someone in the DOD leaked it.’
She drew a fly to symbolise Spectrum.
‘Or it could have been someone here in Spectrum.’
She drew a figure to represent Lorelei von Leyden.
‘Maybe Lorelei hacked into our security system, or the DOD’s security system.’
‘Claude was meant to pass both the skin and the 8 key onto Lorelei von Leyden in return for a sizeable chunk of cash. Lorelei in turn was to pass the key and, maybe I’m guessing, the skin also onto the Count, but she was planning to double-cross him.’
‘You’re sure about that?’ asked Blacker.
‘I’m sure she was meant to deliver them to someone because I overheard her saying so and I’m sure it had to be him because the Count was waiting for her.’
‘Why would he wait for her on the roof? If he’d employed von Leyden then why not wait for the items to be delivered?’ asked Agent Trent-Kobie.
‘Because,’ said Ruby, ‘I’m also kinda sure he was expecting Lorelei to betray him; either he knows her pretty well or he’s not much of a truster. What Lorelei was not expecting was for him to second-guess her actions.’
‘So coming back to Claude, what did he say before he disappeared?’ asked Agent Delaware.
Ruby remembered this very well. ‘He said, “Let the girl go Capaldi, or your treasures will be lost forever.” Then he held up the key in one hand, and the invisibility skin – which of course I couldn’t see – in the other, and then he said, “You want this? And this?” and then he threw them both into the air. And then he just vanished.’
‘So you have no idea where he might have gone?’ asked Agent Delaware.
‘Why would I?’ asked Ruby. ‘We never exchanged addresses.’
‘Would you regard him as a risk to Spectrum?’ asked the agent, his voice so steady that it unnerved her.
‘I don’t see why he would be,’ said Ruby. ‘His criminal motivation was highly personal – he was stealing items to avenge his wronged mother and the chances are we will never hear from him again.’
‘You are very quick to dismiss him as a threat,’ said Agent Delaware, without a hint of accusation.
‘You asked me if I felt he was a risk and I said no,’ said Ruby.
‘Why no?’ asked Agent Delaware. He had stopped writing, his eyes trained on her every blink, her every twitch.
Ruby tried to keep her voice even and not betray her irritation. ‘He used the skin to steal a pair of yellow tap shoes, a paperweight, a tie-clip and a poetry book, all things once belonging to his mother, and all stolen for sentimental reasons that had nothing to do with the core plan, which was to steal the 8 key, and everything to do with a personal vendetta against Margo Bardem.’
‘You sound like you have a degree of sympathy for him, Agent Redfort.’ An observation or an accusation? It was hard to tell.
‘He seemed like a pretty broken man. I felt sorry for him, if that’s what you mean.’
Agent Delaware’s eyes were firmly fixed on hers, not a blink, not a twitch. ‘Didn’t he save your life?’
‘Yes,’ replied Ruby.
‘Twice?’ said Delaware.
Ruby nodded. ‘I guess.’
‘Why would he do that?’ asked the agent.
‘How should I know?’ said Ruby. ‘Perhaps he hates to see kids go splat.’
‘As far as he was concerned you were the enemy,’ said Delaware, ‘wouldn’t you say?’
‘I’m not sure he saw it that way,’ said Ruby.
Agent Delaware cocked his head very slightly to one side.
‘Look, I was just someone who might get between him and his goal. I think he wanted to keep me at bay until he had done what he needed to do. He wasn’t what I would term a “danger to society”.’
‘This man somehow obtains a highly classified code and breaks into a top security safe room, and you don’t think he is a danger to society?’ said Delaware.
‘I was talking about his personal motivation,’ said Ruby. ‘In my opinion, he is not one bit interested in bringing about world destruction. What should concern us though is the man who is.’
‘And who is this man?’ asked Delaware.
‘The Count,’ said Ruby, looking around the room. ‘He took the key, and given that it was deactivated even before he took possession of it, what I’m struggling to understand is – why? Why would he want it?’
