Crowns and Codebreakers (5 page)

‘It’s late twentieth century,’ the man said. He was talking about the print that Andrew liked: green and blue waves with a red fishing boat riding the crest.

‘Is it the most expensive one here?’ Andrew asked.

The man chuckled. ‘I said it was an excellent choice; I didn’t say it was our most expensive piece. Do you think the price of a work of art reflects its value?’

Andrew, who had never thought about the value of art before, was lost for words – for about two seconds. ‘Well, if lots of people want it, and there’s only one like it in the whole world, then the price will go up. And if lots of people want it, then it must be good,’ he said.

‘Well said. And are you in the market for art?’

Andrew shook his head ruefully. ‘No, sorry. I’ve never been in a gallery before. Is it all right that we just came in?’

‘It’s a pleasure to have you. As you can see, I’m sadly not over-run with customers today. Perhaps I can offer you some refreshment? I have lemonade – shop bought, but very nice.’

They both nodded.

The man brought his heels together in a funny salute, then he disappeared out the back of the shop.

‘I don’t think it can have been him,’ Andrew hissed.

Flora understood at once – the gallery owner didn’t seem a likely candidate for stealing the suitcase from Minnie’s flat. Or for using index fingers to cast spells. Still, he might have seen something or heard something that would help.

‘We have to find out what he was doing in the alley,’ she said.

The man was back quickly, with a tray holding three tall glasses of sparkling lemonade; ice cubes clinked as he put the tray on the counter.

‘I’m sure you are both as supremely graceful as swans in flight,’ he said, ‘but I’d appreciate it if you stayed away from the exhibits while you drink.’

They went to join him.

The counter was almost empty. A wire tray – also white – held paperwork, A4 letters and bills. A white ceramic pot held some pencils. A red stapler was the only splash of colour.

‘Delicious, thank you,’ Flora said softly as she took a sip. She put her glass back on the tray. It didn’t seem likely that a photographer, a gallery owner, would want to steal a suitcase of boys’ clothes. She wondered how they could ask about the alley. But Andrew got there first.

‘My friend saw you in an alleyway yesterday. Photographing a wall.’

‘Did he? Well, yes, I have an interest in recording liminal boundaries and the conjunction of materials on vertical planes.’

‘What?’

‘Brick walls. I like to photograph brick walls.’

Flora had to stop herself giggling.
Walls?
Who photographed walls?

‘They are fascinating,’ the man said. ‘They divide people, allocate land; bricks are made from fired earth – land itself used to demarcate land.’

Andrew, who was evidently no longer listening, took a gulp of lemonade, emptied the glass and burped.

Flora blushed again.

‘Excuse me,’ Andrew said with a grin.

‘You are excused,’ the man said. ‘Bubbles have that effect on me too sometimes.’

‘Was it good? The alleyway? Could we see the photos you took?’ Andrew asked.

The man frowned, as if troubled by a bit of building gas himself. ‘There was a fine example of Ruabon Red brick, as I recall. But I haven’t been through the shots yet. They are far from ready for the eyes of an audience.’

‘I’m not bothered about the bricks,’ Andrew said. ‘There was a burglary that happened around there and you might have photographed a valuable clue without even knowing it.’

The photographer turned a shade of puce.

Flora stepped in. ‘I’m sure the bricks were very interesting too,’ she said. ‘And we’d love to know more about the Ruabon Red. But, primarily, we’d be interested to know whether there was anyone else nearby. Anything suspicious at all, you see.’

The photographer looked as though he was struggling to stay calm. Not looking at Andrew seemed to help. ‘There were some very irritating boys on a bench. One of them appeared to be attempting to dislocate his own arms. But I saw no one else.’

Oh.

Flora couldn’t help feeling disappointed that he couldn’t give them any new leads. But at least they’d got some nice lemonade out of their enquiries.

‘We’d better go,’ she said. With any luck, one of the others would have found out more.

‘I realise I haven’t had the pleasure of making your acquaintance properly,’ the man said. ‘I’m Marcus Mainwaring.’ He held out his hand.

‘Flora Hampshire,’ Flora said.

‘Andrew Graham Thomas Jones,’ Andrew said.

‘Well, I hope to meet you again sometime, I really do,’ Marcus said with a tight smile.

Sylvie was alone. All around her the market bustled with movement: prams cut up the walkways, bags swung with watermelons and cantaloupes big enough to crack her head if she wasn’t careful. But despite all the people, Sylvie was on her own.

Fine. That was just the way she wanted it anyway. She didn’t want to be with the others. They were all boring and stupid. She didn’t need them.

There was something in her eye. She rubbed it quickly.

It was a short stomp through the noisy market to the cafe. She kept her head down and avoided low-swinging fruit dangers.

The cafe door was propped open to let in the cooler air. The smell of frying bacon and sausage and eggs made Sylvie’s stomach rumble. She managed not to scowl at Eileen, the cafe owner.

‘What’s up with you?’ Eileen asked. ‘You’ve a face like a sunken battleship.’

‘Nothing.’

‘Cookie?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘On the house. Which means it’s free. Now let’s see if that makes you crack a smile.’

Sylvie smiled in spite of herself. But her face dropped again like a slamming drawbridge when she remembered she was here for more than excellent cookies. ‘Eileen, did your window cleaner come yesterday?’

‘Old Derek? Yes, he likes to come on a Sunday when the market isn’t here. And when there are no customers. And when I’m not here. He doesn’t like people very much, you see.’

Eileen put a chocolate chip cookie the size of her hand on to a gleaming white side plate and pushed it across the counter. ‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Your mum need a window cleaner, does she?’

Sylvie picked up the plate with both hands. The gooey chocolate smelled delicious. It made her feel a teensy bit better. ‘No. It’s for a case.’

Eileen’s eyes widened. She’d been so impressed by their last case, she’d cut out the story from the local paper
and pinned it to the cafe wall, next to her food hygiene certificate and a photo of her cat. ‘Well, if you’re investigating, I’ll write down his number. He’s not a suspect, is he? He’d not hurt a fly. Though he has been known to take against humans every now and then. Here.’ Eileen scribbled something on her waitressing pad, tore it off and handed it to Sylvie. It was Derek’s phone number. ‘Although,’ Eileen continued, ‘he usually likes to come in for a pork pie around ten-ish, so you could just wait if you wanted.’

Sylvie looked at the scrap of paper. She could call Derek and try to get him to talk. But she’d probably get more out of him if she saw him in person. And she needed to get
something
useful out of him. She couldn’t go back to the gang empty-handed. Minnie would raise an eyebrow and look smug, and Piotr would look sorry for her. Flora and Andrew probably wouldn’t say anything, but they’d be
thinking
that she was useless. And Sylvie Hampshire was a lot of things, but useless wasn’t one of them.

She was going to stay and wait for Derek.

Sylvie carried the huge cookie to an empty table and sat down to wait. She broke off tiny chunks and nibbled at them hamster-style. She kept a close eye on the open
doorway – families came in, traders, young couples, no window cleaners. She was just hoovering up the very last few cookie crumbs with a damp fingertip when Eileen gave her a low whistle and nodded towards a man who’d just walked in.

He was stooped, with knees that pointed apart like a signpost. He wore overalls that had once been white, but were now the same dirty grey colour as his hair. He collected a pie on a plate from the counter without saying a word, then sat down, with his back towards the room.

Sylvie abandoned her empty plate on the table and made her way over. ‘Do you mind if I sit here?’ she asked.

The man grunted. It could have been ‘yes’, it could have been ‘no’, it could have been, ‘Clear off before I call the police.’ It was hard to tell. Sylvie sat down.

‘You’re a window cleaner,’ she said. It was only now that she wished she’d spent her waiting time thinking of clever ways to find out what Derek knew. But she hadn’t.

Derek grunted again.

‘I’d like to be a window cleaner,’ Sylvie tried desperately. ‘Fresh air, interesting clients, er, clean glass.’

Derek looked up slowly. His dark eyes locked on her. ‘I’m eating,’ he said slowly. ‘Be quiet.’ He took a bite of his pie; flakes of pastry stuck to his chin.

Sylvie sniffed. She sat on her hands. She looked out of the window.

Then she looked back at Derek.

‘Look,’ she said. ‘I’ll be quiet and I’ll even go away if you answer
one
question.’

Derek looked wary. ‘What?’

‘I think you were in the alley by the side of this cafe yesterday. This isn’t the one question by the way, this is me leading up to my one question. I think you were in the alley yesterday morning while something strange was happening nearby. This is the question now: did you see anyone break into the salon next door? Oh, and a supplementary question, which perhaps should have been my real question, so I’m making it my question: did you break into the salon?’

Derek’s wrinkled weather-worn face changed colour. The grey gave way to red, then burgundy. ‘What?’ he yelled.

‘You can’t answer my question with a question, that’s not fair,’ Sylvie said.

‘How dare you? I came in here to eat a pie and I get accused by some little slip of a thing! My old dad didn’t fight in the war so that I could be insulted by girls!’ A fine mist of spittle mixed with puff pastry particles sprayed over the plastic tabletop.

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean –’

‘Clear off. Go on. I won’t have this. Go on!’

Sylvie stood up quickly, banging her knee on the table leg. The sudden pain made her eyes water. It wasn’t the horrible man shouting at her. Definitely not.

‘Hey, Derek.’ Eileen was by the table. ‘It’s all right.’

‘No, no, it isn’t! This girl is a pest, a nuisance … a pestilential infestation of the highest order.’

Eileen smiled. ‘I wouldn’t go that far.’

Eileen had smiled! Sylvie couldn’t believe it. This man was shouting at her, insulting her, and Eileen pretty much agreed with him! She felt a solid lump in her throat, like a cough sweet lodged there. She could feel tears on her cheeks now. This was awful!

Sylvie covered her face, turned and stumbled out of the cafe into the street.

They’d been horrible to her! They’d all been horrible – Derek, Eileen, even Flora and Andrew and Piotr.

And it was all Minnie’s fault.

Minnie met Piotr in the small play park outside his block of flats. She had her phone ready, and she’d printed off a list of dry cleaners. There were quite a lot. ‘I had no idea so many people don’t do their own laundry,’ Minnie said in amazement.

Piotr twirled on the swing with one foot on the ground as a pivot, so that the chain twisted and twisted. When he lifted his foot, he whipped back in the other direction.

‘Piotr! You have to take this seriously!’ It was bad enough that Sylvie wasn’t doing much to help.

Piotr gave a slow grin. ‘I am. I was thinking about this last night.’

‘What? What is it?’ He clearly had something to tell her.

He paused. Then, seeing that he was about to get a thump on the arm if he didn’t speak, he said, ‘It’s that
baseball cap. The one that Lowdog and Gnasher loved so much.’

‘Yeah?’

‘It had an ace of spades on it. What if that wasn’t just any old symbol? What if it was the logo of the company?’

Minnie frowned. ‘I don’t know. This list doesn’t have the logos on. We’d have to go back to mine and look at the internet. If you’re wrong, it would waste a lot of time. Time the boy from Lagos might not have.’ She had dreamed about juju knives last night; it wasn’t something she wanted to do again.

Piotr stopped the swing and leaped off. ‘We don’t need to do that. Think about it. Ace. A.C.E.?’

Minnie frowned, shrugged.

‘We walked right past it the other day on the way to church! Ahmed’s Cleaning Experts!’

Minnie squealed. Of course they had! ‘Why are we still here then?’ she said. ‘We’ve got a suspect to interview!’

The park was abandoned. They raced away, Minnie letting herself sprint as fast as she could, with Piotr close behind. The air whipped at her plaits and pressed her T-shirt flat against her skin. The market was an obstacle
course of crates and cardboard boxes to hurdle over, pedestrians to dodge, stalls to weave between.

Ahmed’s Cleaning Experts was beside the theatre square. They slowed and stopped, pausing to catch their breath. Minnie grinned. ‘Beat you,’ she managed to say between gasps.

‘Only because,’ Piotr wheezed, ‘I wasn’t trying.’

She pushed open the door to the shop. The first thing she noticed was the smell – a kind of harsh chemical one, a bit like the swimming baths, fighting with the floral pong of potpourri. Then the shape of the shop: a counter cut across the narrow width of the room, close to the front door. Behind the counter, a man. He had dark hair, black-brown eyes. His skin was light brown. He wore a white coat, like a doctor or dentist. The name badge on his coat said ‘Omar’. He didn’t smile as they walked in.

He looked as though he were guarding the rest of the shop.

Behind him, long racks of clothes stretched along the side walls. One rack looked like ghosts suspended from a scaffold – every hanger was draped in a white plastic bag. The other rack must have been for the dirty clothes, as they had no bags; they were just on hangers with paper labels clipped to the wire: at the front end, a green T-shirt
with a logo, then a long pink and purple silk dress, followed by sombre black suits, thick brown and tan fur coats and floating cream and white chiffon gowns. Beautiful clothes.