Malice (2 page)

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Mansfield Way, Dolphin Point

9:15 pm

The next night, we all sat around my big dining table after a fantastic meal. I'd twisted up my hair into a knot, and put on a pair of long sparkling earrings. My spirits were sparkling too. I felt better having shared my worries with my friends and I knew we'd get to the bottom of these mysteries.

I hadn't seen Ryan for a while. He was wearing black jeans and a black band T-shirt and he'd styled his hair up into spikes. It was amazing how similar Cal and Ryan were—they had the same tastes in music and food … but not in clothes! Cal was so lucky to have found a brother he got along so well with—most of the time.

Boges excused himself and went upstairs as I told Ryan about the suspicious chewing gum wrapper and how I'd been spooked by
the Drowner
note.

When we realised Boges hadn't come back, we went upstairs and found him in my study, standing on a chair which was precariously balanced on top of my desk. He was fiddling with the downlight in the ceiling. I grabbed the legs of the chair to make sure he didn't fall.

‘Just fitting this little spy camera up here,' Boges said, looking down at us and almost losing his balance. ‘No-one will notice it. I've patched it into the electricity supply.'

‘That sounds dangerous,' Cal said.

‘Only if it kills you, dude. How does that look?' He took his hand away and I looked at the downlight. I couldn't see anything at first.

‘Is that it?' I asked, pointing to a tiny, round black object just inside the silver rim of the light housing.

‘That's it,' said Boges, climbing down from the chair onto the desk and then thudding heavily onto the floor.

‘Cool,' said Ryan. ‘There's no way anyone would notice it. You'd really have to get close up. Even then it just looks like the head of a small rivet or something.'

‘All I have to do now,' said Boges, as we all crowded around his notebook, ‘is activate it,'
pushing a couple of buttons. ‘That's odd,' he said, as he stared at the screen. ‘I've only just switched it on, I haven't even activated it yet, but I'm picking up some kind of interference …' Again, his voice trailed off and he looked up, his eyebrows colliding with concern. ‘This isn't right. There is something seriously weird going on here.' He looked around. He was starting to seem really worried.

‘What is it, Boges?' I said. ‘You're freaking me out.'

‘Tell us,' Cal demanded, looking at a small signal pulsing like a heartbeat on Boges's screen. ‘What's seriously weird?'

‘Apart from you, Boges,' Ryan tried to joke. But no-one laughed.

Boges typed in some commands and on cue, his screen immediately filled. The camera was activated and there we were, or rather a bird's eye view of us, all grouped around my desk.

‘There's nothing wrong with that,' Cal said, pointing to us all on the screen and waving to himself.

‘It's not my camera I'm worried about. It's something else. Switch off your phones, will you? All of you.'

We did as he asked and a few moments later, Boges shook his head. ‘It's not your phones either. I'm picking up interference that shouldn't be here, right at the end of the FM band.'

‘So what does that mean?' Ryan asked.

‘Boges, explain!' I demanded.

Boges thought for a moment, then said, ‘It means there's some other activity going on here.'

There followed a long pause until Cal looked across at me as comprehension dawned. Ryan got it too.

‘You've picked up another signal,' I said, ‘haven't you? Something was already here and it showed up on your screen.'

‘Winter,' said Boges gravely, ‘this is bad news. Someone's bugged your study.'

For a few seconds, none of us could move or speak. Intruders who chewed gum, threatening newspaper clippings and now someone bugging my house. I couldn't believe it.
What was going on?

‘We already know that someone's gotten into your place and searched around,' Boges continued. ‘But it looks like they've also planted a bug, or you've brought something into your study that's hiding it.'

‘Like what?' I asked.

‘Could be anything—a clock, radio, lamp, calculator, a pen … '

‘No. I haven't got anything new …' Then I remembered something. ‘There was a free gift
that came with a catalogue I got last week. It's here somewhere. It's a really neat pen … there it is, next to the pile of folders. Hey, what are you doing, Boges?'

Instead of picking up the pen, Boges had swung round, grabbed my little radio from the bookshelf, tuned it to FM, switched it to Mono and turned up the volume. An unearthly squeal filled the room as he approached the desk where the pen lay.

‘What the hell is that?' Ryan yelled.

‘Commonly called a “squealer”,' said Boges. ‘Otherwise known as feedback detection, or loop detection. Watch this.' As he moved the FM radio closer to the black pen on my desk, the squealing sound became more high-pitched.

‘That pen?' I asked, incredulous.

Boges nodded, bringing the little radio right in close to the pen. The squealing became unbearable in pitch. ‘That's your bug. Take a closer look.'

I lifted the pen out of its stand. It seemed like a normal pen with a screw-off lid … until I looked really closely. ‘Boges! Turn that radio down. It's deafening!'

‘Sorry!' Boges grimaced. ‘But take a look at the top of the lid.'

‘It's tiny! It's like a little bead. It's even smaller than the one I wore around my neck at Sligo's dinner! I can't believe it! It's been sitting right here on my desk, watching everything I did. That means they've seen you installing your camera, Boges. The whole thing's been a waste of time. They know we're onto them!'

‘I don't think so,' Boges said. ‘This kind of bug looks like an audio transmitter. I doubt it's got the capacity to do visual surveillance as well. In any case, I'm going to check every room now.' Boges took the radio and his notebook with him. As he left, the squealing sound faded.

9:44 pm

We waited, looking from one to the other nervously. Boges finally came back shaking his head. ‘I'm not picking up anything anywhere else in the house. So it's just this bug in your study.'

I looked around wildly. ‘Why? Why on earth is someone spying on
me
? I don't have anything that valuable, and anyway, why didn't they just steal whatever it is they wanted when they were in here?'

Ryan jumped off the desk that he'd been sitting on, his face lit up. ‘That means it must be something that's not obvious. Something they couldn't find.'

‘Makes sense, dude,' said Boges, warming to the idea. ‘But that doesn't narrow it down enough.'

‘Hang on,' Cal said, ‘maybe it's a document
that they're after, you know some valuable share certificate or bank document or something. Could be something in this huge pile.'

I went to check the stack on the right-hand side of the computer and I suddenly stopped in my tracks. ‘Look! The Perdita folder … it's gone! It was just there sitting on the top of the pile. You saw me put it there yesterday after I'd found it at the bottom! I even put this on top of it!' I said, holding up a glass paperweight. I started racing round the room, even though I knew I hadn't put the file anywhere else, searching desperately, pulling books out, throwing cushions and papers around, hurling drawers open, going through their contents.

It was true. We looked everywhere, but the Perdita folder was nowhere to be found.

‘They were after that information!' I yelled. ‘My diary had been opened at the page where I mentioned the Perdita file! And I can't believe I helped them find it. I made it easy for them. I could kick myself!'

I grabbed up the spy pen and yelled at it. ‘OK, you thieving criminals! You listen to me. We're onto you. We're coming after you and I'm going to get my Perdita file back, so you'd better watch out!'

‘Very impressive, Winter,' said Boges. ‘But my bet is that nobody is even monitoring that bug anymore. They already got what they wanted. Save your breath.'

‘Why were they after Perdita?' Cal asked. ‘And we still haven't found out who the Drowner is.'

‘And are they related?' Ryan asked. ‘Or just two different kinds of weird?'

‘You mean you don't know?' asked Boges, as we all swung round to look at him. ‘The Drowner is besties with Perdita,' he said, keeping a straight face. ‘We're chasing down the perfect mystery couple!'

Ryan punched his arm before I could. ‘OK, Mr Clever. Where do you reckon we start?'

‘I'm thinking, I'm thinking. Give my brilliant brain a chance to work it out.' He picked up the spy pen. ‘This is cheapskate stuff. You can buy it in electronic shops. They're not really used by professionals—but I guess they didn't want to risk putting in something better. Winter could have walked in on them while they were installing something more sophisticated.'

‘They think they're just dealing with a bunch of kids,' said Ryan, ‘so they're just using kiddie stuff?'

‘I hate the thought that some thief was sneaking around my study,' I said, shivering. ‘It gives me the creeps.'

‘Well, the good news is their observation post would have to be very close by,' Boges said. ‘This signal wouldn't carry very far.'

‘Continue please, Sherlock,' I commanded, rallying from my shock and anger. ‘Where exactly are you heading with all this?'

‘I'm heading … somewhere very local. They would just need a car … or a nearby shed.'

‘So,' I said, slowly, ‘we should search around my place?'

Boges turned to me. ‘Noticed anything unusual in your street lately? Any cars that seem out of place?'

‘Now you mention it,' I said, slowly, ‘there has been a dodgy-looking van parked across the road for a few days. I remember it because it had an Irish sticker,
Beautiful Kilkenny
, on the back window.'

‘Let's check it out,' Boges said.

I grabbed my torch.

Two minutes later, the four of us were standing around an abandoned old van parked on the high point of the hill in Mansfield Way. There was a large towing notice stuck to the windscreen. I did a quick check up and down the street, then deftly dealt with the lock on the driver's side.

Swiftly, I unlocked all the other doors. ‘Ballet and art weren't the only things I learned living with Sligo,' I muttered.

I switched on the torch and ran the light across the front seats of the van as Boges slid in for a closer look.

‘Look at these newspapers—they're just from the last couple of days,' he said, moving across into the driver's seat. ‘Someone's been sitting here reading and doing a lot of crosswords.'

Ryan and Cal flung open the rear doors and crawled into the back of the van. ‘OK,' Ryan said. ‘Let's turn it inside out, see if they left a calling card.'

‘There's nothing much in the back, I'm afraid,' Cal called out as they rummaged around. ‘Any luck up front?'

There was a plastic bag hanging off the gear stick as a makeshift rubbish bin. Carefully, I tipped out the contents onto the passenger seat. Three empty plastic sandwich cases had ‘packed on' dates that suggested the spy had been monitoring my place for at least three days. This did not make me feel any better. There was, however, no empty case with today's date.

‘You were right, Boges,' Ryan said. ‘He didn't need to listen anymore because he'd found the file.' Normally, Boges would've grinned and said something like,
I'm pretty much always right
, but today, what with everything that had happened, he let the joke go.

‘Hey, look at this!' I yelled, plucking something from the corner of the floor mat near the accelerator. I held it up. A Triple Mint chewing gum wrapper, balled up in exactly the same way as the wrapper in my study.

‘Snap!' said Ryan. ‘This has got to be our guy. Is there anything else in that plastic bag?'

‘Only some ripped up paper.' Boges spread the pieces out. We could see that there was writing on it but it had been torn up over and over.

‘Let's go back to your place,' Cal said, ‘and see if we can fit these pieces of paper together. Look at what we've got.'

‘OK. I want to find out how this person got into my house,' I said angrily. ‘And make sure they can't ever do it again.'

We checked every door and window of my place. It didn't take us long to find the weak spot. One of the laundry windows was just a little open at the top and there were dirty finger marks along the top of the dusty frame. ‘He's been coming in and out through here,' I said, ‘and I thought that window was locked. It definitely is now.' I closed it firmly and locked it. ‘I'll lock the laundry door too, just in case.'

We sat around the glass-topped coffee table in my living room. ‘Let's try to put this paper together,' I said. ‘It looks like something from a business notepad.' Eventually, we fitted the pieces back together like a jigsaw and got sticky tape to hold it all together. Someone had scribbled: