Читать книгу The Ruby Redfort Collection: 4-6: Feed the Fear; Pick Your Poison; Blink and You Die - Lauren Child - Страница 49

RUBY HAD A VERY SORE HEAD when she woke up the next morning.

She examined her face in the bathroom mirror. Ruby you look terrible, she told herself. She got dressed and went downstairs to the kitchen, poured herself a bowl of cereal and sat down at the table.

She looked up when Hitch entered the room, but continued to eat her Cheerios.

Hitch said nothing.

‘Look about the skitching—’ she finally muttered.

‘I’m not interested in that,’ said Hitch cutting her off. ‘You want to kill yourself that way, that’s your business.’

She resumed her eating.

‘But there is something I need to ask you and I’m pretty sure I’m not going to like the answer.’

Ruby looked up just for a second.

‘Before I rescued you from that flagpole, where were you exactly?’

‘In the vicinity,’ replied Ruby.

‘As in, near the Warrington Apartments?’ asked Hitch.

‘If the Warrington Apartments are in the vicinity, then I guess so,’ said Ruby.

‘Funny thing,’ said Hitch, he wasn’t taking his eyes off her. ‘The TCPD found footprints in the Thompson apartment, fresh footprints, in the chalk dust – size 3s.’

Ruby took another spoonful of cereal. ‘Must have belonged to the security guard.’

‘You would imagine so but you see the thing that’s going through my mind is, what security guard has size 3 feet?’

‘A real short one,’ said Ruby.

‘And what security guard uses climbing chalk?’

‘An adventurous one?’

‘I think we both know that’s a million to one and so if it wasn’t a security guard’s footprint then who might it belong to? And what the Sam Hill was this person doing in the Thompsons’ apartment last night? And then I get to thinking –’ he tapped his head with two fingers – ‘Ruby has size 3s, Ruby was in the area, Ruby is the sort of numbskull to climb up thirty-seven storeys of an apartment block and break into someone else’s home when she has been strictly forbidden to do any kind of field work.’

Ruby looked up from her breakfast. Her expression said, OK, you got me.

‘What I haven’t figured out and I would be truly grateful if you could enlighten me, is why?’

Ruby put down her spoon.

‘I went back because I needed to find something: the card, OK. Blacker and Froghorn weren’t so sure the Thompsons’ had been robbed, at least not by the window thief anyway, and the police were saying it had to be a copycat burglary, but how many burglars can climb up a building like that and squeeze in through a window of that size?’

‘You,’ said Hitch.

‘Right, but you know what I’m saying, man, you know this has to be connected.’

‘As it happens I agree with you. What I have a problem with is your methods.’ He paused a beat. ‘So, did you find what you were looking for?’

‘Yes.’ She pulled the card from her sweatshirt pocket and laid it on the table. There was a bite mark in one corner, impressions of tiny teeth.

‘Nileston, had it?’ said Hitch, taking the card.

‘It would be more accurate to say, Mr Potatohead had it. The kid must have picked it up before the cops arrived, it was in among all his baby junk. I guess his parents were too freaked by what had happened to even notice.’

‘OK,’ said Hitch, ‘I’ll take it in to Blacker, see what he makes of it, but his department is pretty busy right now due to another security breach.’

‘At Spectrum?’ asked Ruby.

‘No,’ replied Hitch, ‘but a piece of Spectrum hardware has gone missing and as a result all security codes need to be reconfigured.’

He started to leave.

‘Oh. . . if someone has time, they might want to take a look at this,’ said Ruby. She tore the back page out of the novel she was reading. On it were written four sets of numbers.

3	14	1		10	14	8
15	14	13		17	14	15

‘What are these?’ asked Hitch.

‘It’s the code from the cards, from the bumps and indents – turns out they aren’t words after all.’

‘You cracked it?’

‘Yep.’

‘When?’ asked Hitch.

‘Oh,’ said Ruby, ‘I had a spare moment at 3 am, when the pain from my smooshed face was keeping me awake.’

‘How?’ said Hitch.

‘Turn the page,’ said Ruby.

‘So what do the numbers mean?’ asked Hitch.

‘Beats me,’ said Ruby, turning back to her bowl of Cheerios. ‘That’s the big “don’t know” – I’ve figured out that the code breaks down into those numbers. But I haven’t a clue what the numbers stand for.’

‘So. . . give them to Blacker?’

Ruby nodded. ‘Might as well, my head’s too sore to think about them. Tell him it’s a ternary numbering system. He’ll understand.’*

Hitch turned to go, then looked at his watch. He frowned.

‘What’s up?’ said Ruby.

‘A message,’ he said.

‘Who from?’

‘Well, you, actually.’

‘Me?’ said Ruby.

‘Yes,’ said Hitch. ‘Tell me. . . on your little adventure, did you happen to lose the Escape Watch?’

Ruby checked her wrist. ‘Um. . . yeah.’

Hitch sighed. ‘Well then I guess someone got a hold of it.’

‘Someone like who?’ asked Ruby.

‘No idea,’ replied Hitch.

‘So what do they want?’ asked Ruby.

‘How would I know?’ replied Hitch, ‘the message happens to be in code.’

Ruby looked at him. ‘You think it might be the skywalker?’

‘The thought is crossing my mind,’ said Hitch.

‘So what are you going to do?’ asked Ruby – she was beginning to feel the smallest flicker of panic.

‘Sit tight,’ he replied, ‘it’s one of those Spectrum rules. Bide your time, until things begin to make sense – same goes for you by the way.’

And with that, he was gone.

Mrs Digby wouldn’t hear of Ruby going to school. Ruby had mild concussion and as Mrs Digby so wisely said, ‘You don’t want to play fast and loose with concussion.’

Ruby’s donut phone rang.

‘Hey, it’s me,’ said Clancy. ‘You wanna meet at the diner this morning?’ He was trying to sound brighter than he felt; he needed to see her.

‘I can’t today,’ said Ruby. ‘I had a bit of an accident last night, my whole face is smooshed and I took a knock to the head so Mrs D says I gotta lie low.’

‘Are you OK?’ asked Clancy. He sounded alarmed, Ruby could hear his arms flapping.

‘Relax would you Clance, I’m totally fine, OK. I don’t look so good but I’m all there.’

‘You sure you’re sure, Rube?’

‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘I’ll call you if I start dying.’

‘OK, promise you will.’

‘I promise, Clance.’

Ruby’s eye was turning a nice shade of purple and she had a fat lip. The graze to her arm was looking OK but her knee looked gruesome. Ruby looked a long way from picture perfect. Too bad her mother had booked that Ada Borland portrait – today was really not the day for it.

‘You know, I’m going to cancel,’ announced Sabina, sweeping into the room.

‘Why?’ said Ruby.

‘Take a look in the mirror Ruby, have you caught sight of yourself lately?’

Ruby peered at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. ‘I don’t have a problem with getting my picture taken.’

‘But you don’t look how you look,’ explained her mother.

‘What are you saying?’ said Ruby. ‘This is exactly how I look.’

‘Yes, how you look after you collided with a cop car,’ said her mother.

‘And how many mothers can say that about their kid’s picture? That’s gotta be more interesting than the usual snap.’

‘Snap? Snap?!’ Sabina’s hands were on her hips, her voice raised unusually loud. Ruby thought she maybe needed another of Hitch’s herbal teas. ‘Do you have any idea what a privilege it is to have Ada Borland take your picture? I was ecstatic when I won that raffle but you, you couldn’t just do this one thing for me, you had to louse it up Ruby, because it’s all about you and what you want! If my daughter could have just done this single sweet thing for me, I swear I’d be happy until Christmas!’

Sabina turned and strode out of the room with such force that the soap fell out of the soap dish. Ruby heard her mother dial the photographer’s number and leave a message to the effect that she was very sorry but her daughter had been in an accident and the portrait would have to be cancelled. Ruby felt truly bad. As much as she didn’t particularly want her photograph taken, even if it was to be by the great Ada Borland, she did understand how much it meant to her mother. But what could she do?

She tried to block out these unpleasant feelings by switching on the TV matinee and strangely it was while watching The Rise of the Zombies that Ruby thought of something.

She had a plan.