Sleuth on Skates (13 page)

Thankfully, we didn't have to go very far. The
third board we got to simply said:

The spiral staircase unrolled under our feet, and we quickly reached R4, which was facing the door to R2.

On to which was pinned, alongside other things, a postcard with a green and white C in a circle.

“What is that C?” I mumbled, and Gemma shrugged.

“Dunno, why?” asked Toby.

“I just—” I said, trying to unpin the postcard from the door, “keep seeing it—everywhere—” and suddenly the door swung open and we were faced with someone I didn't particularly want to see.

“Who's there?” said Edwin.

“My name is Seade—Sesame Seade.”

“Ah, I remember you,” Edwin groaned. “You were the weird kid at the rehearsal. What are
you doing here?”

“Just visiting,” I said. I looked over his shoulder. His room was a mess, with all the feathery wings in a pile, and two computers on the desk. “We want Stacy's autograph.”

“Children aren't allowed in this staircase.”

“We haven't brought our children,” I said. “Now you're here, can I ask you something?”

He eyed me suspiciously. “What?”

“What does that C mean on your door? The one in the circle?”

He didn't even look. He just laughed and closed the door in my face.

“How rude!” commented Gemma. “He's definitely not a gentleman.”

Vengefully, I tried to rip out the C postcard, but then the door behind us opened, and Stacy Vance appeared.

“What's going on?” she said.

She had the most singsong voice I'd ever heard, and was wearing a sort of half-transparent white kimono. If she jumped out of the window she'd probably fly away.

“Honorable dancer,” I said, “I'm delighted to meet you. My name is Sesame Seade, and I am your most devoted fan.”

“That is not true,” said Gemma. “
I
am your most devoted fan. I even enrolled in the orchestra to be able to stare at you every evening.”

“No!” exclaimed Toby dramatically, “
I
am your most . . . er . . .” And then he couldn't think of anything else to say, so he went silent. Stacy looked at us, and then around us, as if we were accompanied by invisible parents.

“Can we come in?” I asked.

She nodded. “I guess so. Tea?”

“Yes please.”

We walked into a very well-kept room with a lot of white in it, and sat down on a muslin-covered bed, waiting politely until Stacy had boiled the kettle.

“So what brings you here?” she asked, pouring the water into a few mugs.

Gemma got the program out, and Stacy signed it benevolently. While she was doing this, I muttered to Gemma and Toby, “Good cop, bad cop, fun cop!”

Gemma said, “Well, Stacy, I admire you so much. I admire your name. Anastasia . . . it sounds a bit like a Russian princess!”

“In fact,” I added threateningly, “it's the name of a Tsarina. And one who's witnessed some seriously illegal activity and won't tell anyone about it. We've got you cornered!”

Smash!

“Oh, I don't like this good cop, bad cop, fun cop thing, Sesame,” said Toby. “You made her break her mug. There's no way I can be fun after that.”

Stacy started shivering so much I thought she was going to shatter in millions of pieces. “What's all this about?” she asked. “How the hell do you know about Tsarina?”

“We just overheard a conversation.”

“Who?” she questioned anxiously.

“Doesn't matter. They don't know. We figured it out on our own.”

“I don't know what you heard,” she said, “but it's simply wrong. I was wrong. Tsarina was wrong. There was nothing going on.”

“Nothing going on where?”

“At the department. Nothing wrong with any software.”

“What software?”

“Wait a minute. What do you know?”

I thought carefully. And then I gave it my best shot.

“We know,” I said, “that you found out something illegal was going on at the computer science department. Something affecting everyone in this university. The normal thing to
do would have been to alert Professor Archie Philips, who's a computer scientist in your college. But you couldn't, because you knew that he was involved in it. You told Jenna Jenkins, who started to investigate the case, and because of that she disappeared. So you started telling Reverend Tan, but the Internet crashed before you could finish. And then,” I concluded, “for some reason, you didn't tell anyone else. Maybe because you were afraid that you might disappear as well—just like Jenna.”

Stacy's big blue eyes were staring past me, at the door. “I don't know what you're talking about,” she articulated. “I was wrong. I thought I'd discovered something, but it turned out to be nothing. I might have told Jenna, but—there was no reason to—to investigate anything.”

“Why are you looking at the door?” asked Gemma, and just then the door opened, and Edwin appeared, his brow as knitted as his ugly jumper. He looked at the three of us, and if looks could zap someone to the other side of the solar system, I'd currently be writing this
on the chilly side of Pluto. I wondered why he'd come in just to glare at us, especially as it seemed like the only thing he wanted to say was, “Everything all right, Stace?”

“Absolutely,” she said.

“Do you know these kids?”

“We're getting to know each other.”

He sat down on the floor next to us. “Good,” he said. “You should drop by later to try on the adjusted wings, Stacy. They're such good quality, I can't get over how amazing they are. They're not flimsy at all—they're rigid inside, with a real skeleton like a bird's wing! I'm sure they could support the weight of kids like you,” he added, looking at us smugly.

“They're definitely a nice
product
, even though sometimes they can get a little
invasive,”
replied Stacy coolly.

“That's the kind of high-quality stuff you can buy when you have enough money,” Edwin commented.

“Anyway,” said Stacy, “I have to get back to work. It was nice meeting you, children. I'm
sorry things don't always
compute
, if you see what I mean.”

I was starting to wonder why Stacy was talking to us in italics, and apparently Edwin felt a little threatened by it too. “Right, time to go, kids,” he said, hurrying us out of the door. “Will you come and see the show?”

“I'm in it,” said Gemma. “Playing cello.”

“Oh yes,” said Edwin, and he winced.

Product. Invasive. Compute
.

I wasn't sure what was going on, but I knew we had to talk to Jeremy Hopkins about it.

But as we left Trinity College, Gemma got a call on her mobile from her mum who was parked on a double yellow line outside the shopping center and could Gemma please hurry up and meet her there or else!

“See you tomorrow,” said Gemma mournfully. “Let me know how the investigation goes.”

“So it's just you and me, Toby,” I said. “We'll solve this mystery together! Toby?”

But Toby was pulling at his hair, staring at what I first thought was nothing at all on a
nearby railing, until I got closer and realized it was a cleanly sawn open bike lock.

“Can you believe it? My bike got stolen again!”

“Isn't it the third time this year?”

“It's the fourth! I've got to go home, Sesame. I'm not allowed to walk back after five o'clock.”

“But cycling is fine?”

“Yes, because I go too fast to get kidnapped.”

Parents have weird rules.

“OK,” I said, “I'll be brave and continue to investigate on my own. Sorry about your bike, Toby.”

“I'd called it Victor,” he snivelled.

“You shouldn't have bothered. It's a fact of life that you can't get attached to bikes in Cambridge. They always get nicked.”

Upon which I bid farewell to poor Toby and skated off.

“Knock knock!”

Fiona was in her room, reading an enormous book in bed.

“Hi, Sesame. How did last night's expedition go?”

“Bizarrely. And now I need to find Jeremy Hopkins. And for that I'm going to need the great web of knowledge.”

“An encyclopedia?”

“No, Facebook, of course. Could you look up his college for me, please?”

“Sure.” She switched on her computer and waited for it to load. “But what's left to investigate? Jenna's reappeared.”

“Mysteriously reappeared,” I politely corrected her.

“Nothing mysterious about it. Don't look so dejected—I'm sure one day you'll find a nice juicy sleuthing case with murders in it.”

“This one might still have murders in it! Jenna Jenkins might not be safe!”

Fiona laughed. “She's just up the river, in Grantchester. No one gets murdered there.”

Now this was news to me, as I'd thought the evasive ballerina was a Londoner. “What's she doing in Grantchester?”

“Her grandma lives there, in a little pink cottage on the river. Jenna's staying with her. I guess after her breakdown, she needed some peace and quiet.” She clicked the Internet icon. “She must have been more fragile than she looked.”

“But Jeremy Hopkins told me Jenna Jenkins wasn't fragile, that she wasn't the kind of person who would—Wait! What's that on the screen? What is that thing?”

“What? Calm down, that's just the new Internet start page for the college.”

“But that C! That green and white C in the circle! What is it?”

Fiona looked a bit bemused. “Don't tell me you've never seen it before.”

“Are you joking, I've seen it way too much recently! What is it?”

“God, Sesame, you live a shielded life, don't you? It's the Cooperture logo, of course.”