Читать книгу The Agatha Oddly Casebook Collection: The Secret Key, Murder at the Museum and The Silver Serpent - Lena Jones - Страница 16

I had hoped to wake before Dad, but he’s up first, and nudges me awake with his slipper.

‘Agatha? What are you doing on the floor?’

‘I … had a bad dream.’

He smiles and frowns at the same time.

‘That bad, huh?’

‘Pretty bad.’ I get up and hug him. ‘Want coffee?’

‘Please. Big day ahead.’ He sighs, remembering everything that has happened the day before. ‘I feel like I had a bad dream too.’

‘Maybe I can help out in the park today,’ I say. ‘I bet St Regis will be closed without water …’

He chuckles at my optimism. ‘Nice try. I’ve been listening to the radio – sounds like everywhere but St Regis is closed. They’ve shipped in water especially for you.’

I groan.

Dad is right – St Regis is open for business. Lesser schools might have been closed down by the ‘minor crisis’, but St Regis – the school of choice for the sons and daughters of billionaires and oligarchs – is not going to be brought down by something as trifling as a water shortage. So, I will have to sit through maths and chemistry, wishing I could be investigating, but most of all wishing I could keep an eye on Dad.

My first lesson is dance in the Great Hall. Liam must have arrived a little while before me because he’s already changed and standing in the corridor outside the hall. I see Brianna Pike nearby, but the other CCs are standing apart from her. Sarah and Ruth talk to each other closely, as though sharing a secret. This is nothing new. They like to make everyone else feel like they aren’t in on the joke.

Quickly, I change into my dress and shoes and join the class. We all hate ballroom dancing, but there’s some generous donor on the board of governors who thinks all young ladies and gentlemen need to learn, so we have no choice. I can’t wait to tell Liam about everything that happened yesterday and luckily, as we are partners, I don’t have long to wait. Liam and I were paired together at the start of term. Unluckily, we are both dreadful. The portraits of St Regis’ past alumni look disdainfully down on us – surely all of them knew how to dance a foxtrot.

Liam shuffles over quickly, dying to talk.

‘Agatha, have you seen the news?’

‘Of course I have – and I do have so much more to tell you,’ I say in a low voice. But, just as I’m about to recount my tale, the music starts. As Liam stands on my foot during the warm-up and mumbles an apology, I lean in to his ear, ‘I think the water crisis is linked to the hit-and-run.’

‘Whaaat?’ He looks sharply at me. ‘How can it be?’

‘Because Dorothy D’Oliveira is a professor of hydrol— OW! –’ Liam has trodden on my foot again – ‘Careful!’

‘Sorry, sorry … Howz about you explain everything and I’ll concentrate on not stepping on your toes?’

So I do, telling Liam about everything that happened since I’d left him at school yesterday. I tell him about the assault outside the RGS, the mysterious biker, my encounter with Professor D’Oliveira and Brianna Pike. For a moment, I’m aware of Brianna and her partner dancing closely to us, in perfect time, but then they’re gone. She’s with a tall, dark-haired boy who’s rumoured to be from the dethroned royal family of a small country in Eastern Europe. Fleetingly, I wonder if Brianna has heard any of my story.

I finish up – ‘And I could have sworn that I saw the red slime on her shoe as I left … It can’t just be a coincidence. The professor went to hospital early in the day – before the first sightings of the slime!’

Liam doesn’t say anything for a long moment, but I can’t be sure if he’s thinking about what I’d said, or concentrating on not tripping up. Our steps are even more out of step than usual. Finally, he says –

‘Look, Agatha, don’t you think this investigation is a bit … over our heads?’

‘Liam, this is the best case we’ve ever had!’ I cry out. ‘I need your help more than ever. I need you, Liam.’

‘Ahem! You do realise the music has stopped, Miss Oddlow, Mr Lau?’ The teacher’s voice makes us spring apart.

The others in the class are sniggering, and I blush in spite of myself.

‘Nice one, Oddball.’ Sarah Rathbone grins. Next is the polka – a particularly evil dance, which never seems to fit the music. With the music back to cover our voices, I do my best to convince Liam.

‘London needs us – this is a real crisis, not a missing cat.’

Turn, sidestep, hop, reverse.

‘I don’t know … Shouldn’t we leave it to the police?’

‘But they don’t have the leads that we have,’ I say.

‘Change partners! Keep your back straight, Mr Fitzpatrick. Tem-po!’ the teacher interrupts our conversation.

Liam spins away from me, into the arms of another girl, and by the time he returns he seems to have made up his mind. ‘Agatha, look, you’re my best friend … If this case is so important to you, then count me in. Just try not to get us locked up because of it.’ He grins, and my heart leaps.

‘Thanks, Liam, that really means— ouch!’

‘Sorry.’

‘Mr Lau, could you at least attempt to hear the hop in the music?’ calls the teacher.

Liam smiles and whispers into my ear, ‘Apparently, there’s a hop in the music.’

I shake my head, smiling. With Liam on board it really is going to be a proper investigation.

After the lesson, I put my regular shoes back on, rubbing my bruised toes, and go to the toilets to splash water on my face. My hair is a mess from all the whirling around. I look at my flushed cheeks, then stand in front of the mirror and run a brush through my dark bob. I think I’m alone, until I hear a whimper from one of the cubicles. I jump at the unexpected sound – yesterday wasn’t good for my nerves. I pull myself together.

‘Hello?’

There’s no reply except for a choked sob.

‘Hello?’ I repeat, going over to the cubicle and tapping the door. ‘Are you OK in there?’

There’s no sound for a second, then the door unlocks.

‘Come in,’ says a voice. I know that voice, and for a moment I hesitate – surely this is a set-up? But, for whatever reason, I do as she says.

Brianna Pike is sitting inside, muddy tracks of mascara streaking her cheeks. I’m so used to Brianna wearing a certain expression – haughty disdain – that it takes me a moment to realise she’s crying.

‘Brianna … what’s the matter?’

‘Lock the door. I don’t want anyone coming in … Please?’

I hesitate, then do as she says. It’s pretty cramped in here. ‘What’s happened?’

She doesn’t say anything, just shows me the screen of her smart phone. I look at it, trying to understand. I rarely use social media, but I grasp a few key facts –

1. There is a photo of Brianna’s face.

2. Unlike the many photos of Brianna’s face (posted by Brianna), this has been posted by someone else.

3. That someone else is Sarah Rathbone.

4. The photo is NOT flattering.

‘Sarah posted that?’ I ask carefully.

‘Yes … And the caption is “Hot or Not?”’ The words bring Brianna to another spasm of tears. Her shoulders shake and her make-up dissolves further.

‘I take it the comments weren’t … positive?’

She shakes her head. ‘She took that picture before I’d put my make-up on after a sleepover and I’d hardly had any sleep and …’

Now I fully understand what has happened, but I feel like I understand nothing. Who cares about a spot of make-up? Still, I try to be sensitive to Brianna’s tears. ‘But … why would she do that?’ I ask. ‘I thought you were friends?’

Brianna tears off some toilet paper and dries her eyes. ‘Me too –’ she sighs – ‘but I guess she wanted to show me who’s boss … That we’re friends because she lets us be friends.’

I shake my head. ‘That doesn’t sound like much of a friendship. Why do you hang out with her?’

Brianna shrugs, but doesn’t say anything. Her tears seemed genuine, but I feel uneasy – Brianna has been as mean to me as Sarah and Ruth since my first day at St Regis. What’s changed now? Everything seems too convenient, too much like a trap. Everywhere I go, she turns up and with what’s going on in London, I don’t know who I really can trust.

‘Brianna, I have to ask – what were you doing outside the hospital last night?’

Brianna stops drying her eyes and looks right at me. She seems to have forgotten the photo, forgotten Sarah’s betrayal. For a moment, she looks defensive, her old, cocky self. Then she looks away.

‘I … I can’t tell you here.’

‘What?’

‘I can’t tell you … someone might overhear. Come to my house … tonight.’

We leave the cubicle. She takes a piece of paper from her school bag and writes a mobile number and an address. ‘If you come, I’ll tell you.’

She hands the piece of paper to me and goes quickly, leaving me dazed and confused in the girls’ lavatories.

Finally, after the slowest Friday on record, the bell rings, and we almost run out of the gates. I need to do some urgent research into London’s water supply. With Liam at my side I flag down a black cab.

‘St James’s Square, please.’

St James’s Square is home to the London Library – my favourite place in the whole world. I have a young person’s membership, which I begged Dad to buy me as a combined birthday and Christmas present. The library is full of rare books, manuscripts and old newspapers. Agatha Christie used to be a member, and sometimes I pause and wonder, romantically, if I’m reading the same monograph on blood-spatter patterns that she did all those years ago.

But this is no time to be whimsical – something nasty is going on! If this isn’t an opportunity for greatness, stretching its hand out to mine, I don’t know what is. We spend the taxi ride talking about what we need to search for. Part of my mind is still on Brianna, and what happened in the toilets.

‘Liam, can I borrow your phone for a minute?’

‘Sure – what are you looking for?’

‘Oh, just something to do with the algae,’ I lie, taking it from him. Quickly, I search for Brianna’s social media account, where she posts all her photos. It’s all there for anyone to see – countless pictures of Brianna smiling, pouting, posing. She’s wearing all sorts of designer outfits, standing in front of palm trees or next to swimming pools. I scroll through them all, trying to decide if I’m imagining the hollow look in her eyes.

‘Find what you’re looking for?’ Liam asks, frowning a little.

‘Oh, uh, no …’ I say, closing the page and handing the phone back.

I’m not ready to tell Liam about what happened with Brianna, or her promise to tell me more. I don’t know what I think about any of it. I think he would tell me not to visit her at home, but I’m curious to hear her story.

The receptionist at the library recognises me.

‘Afternoon, Miss Agatha.’

‘Afternoon, Clive. This is Liam. Would it be all right for him to come in with me?’

‘Well, I really shouldn’t …’ Clive starts. He taps his nose and winks. ‘But so long as you don’t tell anyone …’

‘Thank you, Clive – I owe you one. Can we have a locker for our satchels?’

‘Of course.’

He hands me a key, and presses the button to open the gate. We hurry in, place our things in the locker and practically run up the grand staircase. The portraits of the library’s illustrious patrons look down on us. We pass Lord Tennyson, George Eliot, Charles Dickens, and, looking particularly disapproving outside the men’s toilets, Winston Churchill.

We reach the second floor and go into the stacks where the books are stored. The stacks of the London Library are unlike any others – all the floors are made of cast iron, with slats for ventilation, so you can see several floors below and above you, and glimpse people passing underneath as they browse.

‘Wow,’ Liam says, looking up, then down. ‘I feel a bit dizzy.’

‘You’ll get used to it. Come on, follow me.’

I move quickly, knowing already where I want to go. Halfway down the shelf of engineering periodicals, I find them – a dusty bundle of plans for the London water mains. As we browse, I can hear someone’s footsteps echoing through the iron frame above us, coming closer. They seem to stop, right above us, and I look up. Strangely, the lights for the next level are switched off. Though they can see us, we can’t see them.

‘There’s someone there,’ Liam whispers, flicking his eyes up.

‘I know,’ I whisper back. ‘Come on – these are all we need.’

We gather the plans and hurry to the Reading Room. If there’s a crisis quietly spreading through the rest of London, you wouldn’t know it here. It’s quiet in the Reading Room, just like always. The leather armchairs are filled with ex-Oxford dons and retired politicians writing their memoirs. They’re not disturbed by the rising red gunge around them, but the arrival of a couple of thirteen-year-old schoolkids is greeted with frowns and murmurs.

I sit down at one of the reading desks and lay the contents of the bundle out in front of us. Liam pulls up a chair next to me. There are more frowns as his chair legs scrape on the wooden floor. The first map I come to is an overview of the water supply for London, titled ‘Location of Ring Main Shafts and Tunnels’. It shows a rough circle drawn around the city, north and south of the Thames.

I read the description of the supply pipe, called the Ring Main – a gigantic loop, eighty kilometres long, and two and a half metres in diameter, encircling all of London. Strung along the line are shafts connecting the pipe to the surface. This is where the problem must be – somehow the red slime has found its way into the Ring Main, pumping in an endless circuit around London like diseased blood around a body. But where has it come from? And how can it be growing underground, without sunlight, in the deep tunnels?

‘So this is where the slime is coming from then?’ Liam says.

‘I think so. But how is it getting into the pipes?’ I say, before someone shushes me.

I rummage through the other papers, which are all plans for the shafts. There seems to be something missing. I check the index for what the bundle should contain, and tick off everything on the list except one – the schematics for the Brixton Pumping Station. I try to think of everything I know about Brixton. I know there’s a hidden river there, covered over by London’s expansion. Could that be important?

‘Come on,’ I tell Liam.

It’s time to get home – Dad will be back soon, and I don’t want to disappoint him like I did yesterday. We trudge back on foot, tired and thirsty in the heat. But I’m also feeling a buzz of adrenaline. I’m getting used to it, ever since the masked biker skidded past me. Neither of us say much – we’re too wrapped up in our thoughts. All kinds of sirens are wailing in the streets around us – police, fire and ambulance. We pass two men yelling at each other in the middle of the road. The lack of water is making everyone crazy. Liam walks with me until he reaches his bus stop.

‘Before I go – about the symbol you showed me yesterday, the tattoo?’

‘Yes? Have you found something?’ I perk up.

‘No, the opposite – I looked at, like, the whole internet. Nothing. It looks like a key, but there are millions of pictures of keys out there. Are you sure you remembered it right?’

I shoot him a withering look – my memory is photographic.

‘All right, hold your fire,’ he says, pretending to hide from my dagger-eyes. ‘Whatever it is, it’s a mystery to me.’

‘But that can’t be right – I feel sure I’ve seen that symbol before. Can you check one more time?’

He grimaces. ‘Urgh … all right.’

A bus pulls up.

‘See you soon,’ he says and waves, as he joins the queue to board.

I wave back, then walk the rest of the way to Hyde Park. Police cars and ambulances speed in opposite directions, but there are hardly any cars on the road – people aren’t going out, aren’t going to work. Offices have no water for making drinks, flushing toilets or washing hands. Without water, London is starting to grind to a halt.

It’s almost five by the time I get in, and I’m tired. It’s time, as Poirot would say, to sit back and use my ‘little grey cells’ to figure it out. Not wanting to waste time, I go straight upstairs, sit on my bed and close my eyes. Just a minute later, I hear the front door open, and the sound of Dad lugging something into the hallway.

The front door closes, and I wait, listening to the sounds from the kitchen – a lot of banging about. Usually, Dad will call up the stairs, but he seems to be busy with whatever he’s doing. Feeling curious, I go to see what the commotion is. Peering round the doorframe, I see the worktop and kitchen table cluttered up.

‘Hey, Dad?’

‘Hmmf,’ he says, gripping a length of rubber tubing in his mouth.

‘What are you doing?’ I ask. I’m not used to doing the questioning. On the worktop next to the sink, seven demijohn bottles are lined up. Dad usually uses them for making fruit wines from rosehips and wild plums he gathers in the park, but now they’re full of the evil red slime. Each one is fitted with a valve to let air out but not in, and these are attached to rubber pipes that lead out of the window. Dad takes the tubing from his mouth.

‘It’s what you would call an experiment.’

‘Are you still trying to kill the algae?’ I frown, listening to the slow bloop-bloop sound of air bubbles passing through the valves.

‘Nope, I’ve tried everything – even the weedkillers and chemicals I swore I’d never use.’ He coughs drily and I’m worried about how long he’s been spending breathing in weedkillers and toxic slime.

‘But, if you can’t kill them, what’s all this for?’

He turns to look at me for the first time, eyes pink and watering. ‘This stuff must be growing underground, right?’

‘Right.’

‘Well, how? It doesn’t use sunlight to grow – so where does it get its energy from?’

‘So you’re … feeding it?’

‘Exactly!’

He has a feverish look in his eyes – I’ve never seen him like this. Since Dad is usually so calm and quiet, I’ve always thought that I get my, ahem, obsessive nature from Mum. Seeing him here, taping up bits of pipe and painting each of the bottles black to keep the light out, I’m not so sure.

‘This one, I’m going to feed with plant matter – vegetable peelings and the like. This one, with meat – I’ve put a cut-up pork chop in there …’

Dad is talking to himself as much as to me. I nod along reassuringly, as though he’s telling me he is the reincarnation of Julius Caesar, or that the royal family are giant lizards, but he doesn’t seem to notice. Finally, I make my excuses and go back up to my room. Everything is crazy, and Dad is acting crazy, and I need to be alone for a bit or I think I’ll go crazy too.