The Eye of the Serpent

by Simon Cheshire

  ‘Val!’ he cried, alarmed. ‘What you doin’ here?’

  ‘Who are you?’ squeaked Val, doing the worst job of pretending not to know somebody I’ve ever seen. ‘I have never seen you before in my life!’

  ‘But, umm,’ I said, ‘didn’t he call you? Last night? After he overheard me and Tom talking? About some top secret auditions?’

  Val glared at me. She looked like an enraged squirrel. ‘I told you it sounded weird!’ she snarled at Kev. ‘I told you they don’t do auditions like that! It was a set up!’

  ‘Aw, shut your face, Val,’ said Kev. ‘You’re the one who wants Tony to be a celebrity.’

  ‘Shall we all go inside and have a little chat?’ I said.

  ‘Get lost!’ snapped Val. ‘Come on, Tony, we’re going!’

  ‘No, Mum,’ grumbled Tony. ‘I’ve had enough of this. They’ve caught you, now own up to it.’

  She blinked at him in bewilderment, then finally slumped at the shoulders. Flashing glances at all of us, she reluctantly stepped inside.

  We all gathered in the hallway. By now, we had a small audience of other workmen, come to see what was going on with Kev Tom’s dad appeared, come to see what was going on with the other workmen.

  ‘Tell them all how it happened, Saxby’ said Tom.

  ‘As we all know . . . because he’s gone on about it so much . . . Tom had his competition prize snatched away from under his nose. It was a simple case of four unfortunate coincidences.

  ‘Let’s go back to Saturday, May 17th. Around eleven in the morning. Tom comes down here, to this hallway, to see if the parcel he’s expecting will arrive today. He waits. It doesn’t turn up. He’s not a happy bunny.

  ‘But he doesn’t know about Unfortunate Coincidence No 1. This is one of those one-in-three Saturdays when the local post office runs half an hour late. The post isn’t due for another thirty minutes.

  ‘He goes upstairs. He starts complaining about the situation. He has to complain loudly, because of Unfortunate Coincidence No 2. He’s won this competition at a time when this whole street is being dug up, and there’s constant noise from the street.

  ‘So, Tom’s moaning away, loudly, which means that the crew of six workmen in the bathroom can hear him quite clearly. He talks all about the competition, and the prize, and the parcel, and he certainly doesn’t expect Unfortunate Coincidence No 3. One of the workmen who can hear every word he says is Kev over there. By coincidence, Kev knows another kid who’d love a prize like that. Or, from what I’ve heard, perhaps it’s Val who’d appreciate it more? What is she, Kev, your sister, I’m guessing?’

  Kev glanced around. Everyone was looking in his direction. He took in a long breath, let it out slowly, and gave a nod.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘so Kev thinks to himself: It’s a pity that parcel’s not on its way to Val and Tony. But then, the fourth and last of our Unfortunate Coincidences comes along. At half past eleven, Kev is sent to get some spare parts for the loo. Meanwhile, two things are happening: first, the postwoman is knocking on the door. She’s got a registered parcel to deliver. Second, the noise out in the street is particularly bad. Nobody inside the house hears the postwoman knock. She assumes the family’s gone out, perhaps to avoid the din. Or the smell. Anyway, she puts a delivery postcard through the letterbox.

  ‘And at that precise moment, Kev comes down the stairs. He sees the postcard dropping on to the mat. He realises at once what that postcard is all about. And he gives in to a terrible temptation. He scoops up the card, pockets it, and sets off for the DIY store, for those spare parts, as if nothing has happened.

  ‘Later on, he . . . I’m not sure what he did, collect the parcel and then take it to Val, or give the card to Val and let her collect the package herself?’

  Everyone looked at Kev.

  ‘Picked it up on the way home,’ he mumbled at the floor. ‘Just showed them the postcard.’

  ‘Okey-dokey,’ I said. ‘So, he takes the parcel to Val, who lives quite a long way away.’

  ‘How can you know where I live?’ squeaked Val.

  ‘Because we couldn’t identify Tony,’ I said. ‘If he’d been a pupil at any school near here, we’d have found him straight away. Anyway, Kev takes the parcel to his sister Val. He explains what he’s nicked. The radio station don’t know the real Tom Bland, do they? All Val’s got to do is take Tony and her husband along, and pretend their surname is Bland. And so that’s just what they do. The radio station are none the wiser. As far as they’re concerned, the prizewinner came along with his mum and dad, and has received his prize.

  ‘However, the fake Blands didn’t foresee one thing. They didn’t realise that the radio station would get the local paper to feature the winner. They must have had a fright when the photographer turned up. They couldn’t very well refuse to have their picture taken, could they?

  ‘Oh well, never mind. They were confident that even if the real Tom Bland saw the picture, he probably wouldn’t be able to trace them. And perhaps, under other circumstances, he wouldn’t. But he had Saxby Smart to call on, didn’t he?’

  Everyone who was crammed into the hallway started to applaud. Well, everyone except Val, Kev and Tony, that is. And me, obviously.

  Tom’s dad tapped Kev on the shoulder. He said he’d like a quiet word with Kev in the kitchen. Val stood there looking like a chipmunk who can’t work out why the lights have gone out and then suddenly realises it’s been eaten by a bear. Tony walked over to Tom. I could see Tom mentally preparing a viciously sarcastic comment.

  ‘I’m really sorry’ said Tony. ‘It wasn’t my idea, honest.’

  ‘Oh. Right,’ said Tom. I could see him mentally putting his viciously sarcastic comment to one side.

  ‘I do quite like the theatre, though,’ said Tony. ‘I like doing the lighting.’

  ‘Really?’ said Tom. ‘The amateur dramatics club I belong to needs someone to do the lighting.’ Ten minutes later, you’d think they’d been best buddies for years!

  Now that the mystery was solved, Tom could go back to the radio station and explain what had happened. He thought they might be embarrassed at having been conned, but no. They realised they could splash the full story all over the media and get lots more publicity out if it.

  And so could Tom. He even got calls from a couple of national papers. He had a chance to go on . . . and on, and on . . . about his various stage performances. He couldn’t have been more pleased.

  Me, I was feeling angry. Not because of the case, but because of my shed. As soon as I returned to it, and remembered what a mess I’d left it in, I hauled everything out in a filthy temper and started again.

  After a lot of work, I found yet another new way to fit everything in. Hmm, not bad, my desk and Thinking Chair had enough space, sort of. The new arrangement was OK, but as I finished and settled down to write up some notes, it all seemed rather . . . familiar.

  Then it hit me. This layout was exactly the same one I’d started with, before I even decided to reorganise. I was back where I’d started. With a long sigh, I flipped open my notebook and began to write.

  Case closed.

  CASE FILE FIFTEEN

  THE GHOST AT THE WINDOW

  CHAPTER

  ONE

  SOMETIMES, LIVING THE LIFE OF a brilliant schoolboy detective can have its drawbacks. ‘Drawbacks’? No, on second thoughts, perhaps ‘complications’ would be a better word. Er, or possibly ‘strange and unforeseen effects’?

  What I mean is, sometimes the results of investigating a case can be very unexpected. Now and again a case comes along which forces me to wonder whether I should have got involved in it at all.

  I once tackled a case – a case I’ve labelled The Ghost at the Window – which made me think deeply about why I’d decided to become a brilliant schoolboy detective in the first place. The end of this case left me flopped in my Thinking Chair, mulling over all sorts of horribly difficult questions, such as: ‘Would it have been better if I hadn’t
interfered?’, and ‘Have I done a good thing or a bad thing?’

  I got through a whole packet of chocolate biscuits before I could even get these questions straight in my head. It’s no wonder people keep telling me to cut down on the carbs!

  The Ghost at the Window was a rather sad and tragic case. It began shortly after I’d had a dazzlingly stupendous idea.

  For a while, I’d been trying to reorganise my garden shed so that there was more room for my detective stuff in there, next to all the gardening and DIY equipment I’m forced to share the shed with. You’d think that a job like that would be quite easy, wouldn’t you? Wrong. It was driving me absolutely mad!

  Each time I took everything out of the shed, and then put it back, I seemed to end up with more boxes of this ’n’ that than I started with. I was starting to believe that the lawnmower and the old paint tins had invited a load of friends over, just to annoy me! This was a simple matter or reorganising things: why did it keep going wrong?

  And then I had that dazzlingly stupendous idea I just mentioned. If, I thought to myself, I can’t stack all this rubbish up without leaving myself less than four square centimetres of space, then why not simply step over the problem? A-ha, all I’ve got to do is lay down the gardening and DIY stuff in a layer across the shed floor. Then my desk, my filing cabinet of case notes and my Thinking Chair can all sit on top. I’ll even have room to pace up and down in! Now that is a dazzlingly stupendous idea!

  Unfortunately . . .

  By the time I’d finished, I’d realised that it wasn’t quite such a clever zap of inspiration after all. My desk, case notes and Thinking Chair were all lurching at peculiar angles. I couldn’t take more than a step or two before getting my foot wedged in a plant pot or caught up in the garden hose.

  I shut my eyes and sighed, sliding my hands down the sides of my face in despair.

  And then there was a gentle knock at the shed door. A voice called, ‘Anyone home?’

  ‘Come in!’ I cried.

  The door was opened by Jennifer Bell, a girl in my class at school. She was a big girl, with rosy cheeks and prominent features. Her dark hair was sliced into a sharply defined bob, and the legs of her jeans were tucked into a pair of green wellies.

  ‘Hi, Jen!’ I said.

  She looked at the layer of debris on the shed floor. ‘Oh, should I stay out here?’

  ‘No, no, come on in. Just tread on stuff. Sorry about the mess. I’m reorganising. Not quite finished yet.’

  She crunched over the lawnmower flex. I indicated for her to sit in my Thinking Chair while I hopped on to the desk.

  I often perch on the desk when talking to clients. It allows me the chance to strike thoughtful, detective-like poses, if necessary.

  ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘I didn’t know you help out at the Wild Rabbit Sanctuary.’

  ‘Yes. I’ve . . . Hang on, how can you possibly know that?’ she asked.

  ‘Your wellies,’ I said. ‘It’s a warm, dry day. The only place I can think of around here where you’d need to wear wellies is the Wild Rabbit Sanctuary.’

  ‘How do you know I wasn’t just visiting?’ she said.

  ‘A visitor wouldn’t have got those little bits of straw stuck to their jeans. You’ve been cleaning out the hutches. Now then, how can I help you?’

  She paused for a moment, almost as if she was reluctant to continue. ‘Have you heard of a thief nicknamed Pat the Hat?’

  ‘Hah! You bet I have!’ I cried.

  A Bit of Background Info: About ten or eleven or so years ago, Pat the Hat (or the Mad Hatter as the media called him before his identity was known), was a criminal based in London. He chose his targets with great care, and when he struck it was with breathtaking nerve and ingenuity.

  He worked out amazingly clever schemes for robbing banks, jewellers, all sorts. He once conned a supermarket into letting him drive away with a lorry load of TVs, by making them think he was an undercover cop and that the TVs were stolen! His schemes were both brilliantly simple and brilliantly executed. If it wasn’t for the fact that he was a common thief who was simply stealing from people, you could almost admire his sheer guts!

  He got his nickname from the way he’d leave a little, neatly folded paper hat at the scene of each crime. I mean, this guy was just stringing the police along and having a laugh! There’d often be cheeky notes written inside the hats: Here’s a clue – I got in through the sewers, that sort of thing.

  Those hats were the only way the police even knew that these robberies had been done by the same man. He was, as they say, a master of disguise – he created a whole new identity for every job.

  What’s more, he was never caught. For two reasons: 1) he made a clean getaway every single time, and 2) after several years on the Most Wanted lists, he was killed during a high-speed chase with detectives from Scotland Yard. He’d been hired by a gang who wanted to rob a security van carrying millions of pounds in cash. He double-crossed the gang and ran off with the loot. A couple of days later the police got an anonymous phone call (obviously from one of the boiling-mad gang members!) telling them the Mad Hatter’s real name (Patrick Bell, as it turned out).

  The chase was on. Pat the Hat managed to get as far as the south coast of France before the cops cornered him! At a hundred and ten miles per hour, his car skidded, went off a cliff and hit the rocks below.

  ‘Oh yes,’ I said. ‘I’ve definitely heard of Pat the Hat. What’s he to do with you?’

  Jennifer looked at me glumly. ‘And there was me thinking you were a great detective! Do you really need me to tell you?’

  I crumpled my brow. Umm . . .

  Have you spotted what I hadn’t?

  ‘Of course!’ I cried, snapping my fingers. ‘His surname was Bell, and so is yours. Sorry, you’re right, I should have spotted that one. What was he, your uncle?’

  ‘No,’ said Jennifer, ‘Pat the Hat was my father. I was barely a toddler when he died. I don’t remember him at all.’

  ‘But what brings you here today?’ I said. ‘His death was more than a decade ago.’

  ‘I can trust you, can’t I?’ said Jennifer in a low voice.

  ‘Of course,’ I said seriously.

  ‘A couple of days ago, the police came to see my mother and me,’ said Jennifer. ‘They told us that the day before, the Steadfast & Permanent Building Society up in town had been robbed. The thief had simply walked in, disguised as the Head of Accounting. He hacked into the office computer, then transferred seven hundred thousand pounds out of various bank accounts into an untraceable account overseas somewhere. On top of that, he opened the safe in the Head of Accounting’s office and made off with another twenty thousand in cash.’

  I almost gasped in amazement. ‘This Head of Accounting. He’s very fat, right? They think the thief hid the cash inside the fake stomach that was part of his disguise?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Hah!’ I cried, clapping my hands together. ‘That’s exactly what Pat the Hat did, oooh, where was it? Some big bank in the City of London. He dressed up as the most unpopular bloke in the office. Nobody took a second look at him! Genius! Er, well, y’know, evil genius, obviously.’

  From the stern look on Jennifer’s face, I realised it was time to stop looking so gleefully interested in Pat the Hat and start looking more sensitive and concerned instead.

  ‘The police said that this crime followed every last detail of what my father did,’ said Jennifer. ‘There was even a paper hat left in the safe. Inside, the words Greetings from a dead man were written in what looked like my father’s handwriting. The police said it was as if my father had risen up out of his grave, and was restarting his career in crime. As a ghost!’

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  ‘WHY HASN’T THIS BEEN ALL over the news?’ I asked. ‘It’d be front page stuff – nothing like that’s happened around here for ages.’

  ‘The police are trying to keep it quiet as long as possible,’ said Jennifer. ‘They say t
hey want time to investigate without the press looking over their shoulders. Even so, they reckon it’ll hit the papers in a day or two.’

  ‘Have they got no clues so far?’ I asked. ‘After all, it’s a pretty startling coincidence, this Pat the Hat robbery taking place in the same town where Pat the Hat’s family just happen to be living.’

  ‘They say they’ve got nothing,’ said Jennifer. ‘And the coincidence is more than startling, it’s frightening. I think that’s why the police came to talk to my mother and me. But they’re clutching at straws. They wanted to know if my mother could remember anything from the old days which might give them a lead.’

  ‘I, umm, don’t want to ask an insensitive question,’ I said, carefully, ‘but all those years ago, when Pat the Hat was committing his original crimes, didn’t your mum know what was going on?’

  ‘No,’ said Jennifer. ‘He fooled her every bit as much as he fooled the rest of the world. Believe it or not, she thought he had a well-paid job . . . in a bank! He’d leave the house every morning, research his next robbery, then come home at night pretending he’d spent the day in business meetings. At the time, my mother had a job which involved a lot of travelling, so it wasn’t hard for him to maintain his cover story.’

  I almost chuckled ‘genius’ again. But I didn’t. (Think sensitive and concerned, you fool!)

  ‘Well,’ said Jennifer, ‘she knew right at the end, but by then it was too late.’

  ‘At the end?’

  ‘When he double-crossed that gang who’d hired him. He realised he’d have to lay low for a while, go somewhere where he couldn’t be traced, because the gang were out for blood. And laying low would blow his cover. So he told my mother everything. But that night the gang gave the police his name, as revenge. He went on the run and then a few days later he was dead. The police questioned my mother but they soon realised she was totally shocked by what he’d told her and that she hadn’t been involved in his crimes.’