A Trail of Trickery

by Adam Frost

  “It’s OK,” Wily whispered.

  “It’s back!” Vladimir screamed.

  In one corner of the room, a glowing shape materialized. Its body was a white cloak with two small red eyes at the top. There was smoke around its feet, which made it look as if it was hovering above the floor. It moved slowly towards Wily and pointed at him with a bony talon. Then it gave a blood-curdling shriek that made the fur on the back of Wily’s neck stand up.

  “I wondered when you’d show up!” Wily growled and pulled the particle freezer out of his coat pocket.

  The ghost seemed to realize he was under attack, because a cane appeared from within its cloak. Wily ducked as the cane was swung towards him. Then he pressed the blue button on his particle freezer. A bolt shot out of the end, hitting the wall behind the ghost and leaving a patch of ice.

  The ghost gave another high-pitched shriek and fled, with Wily in pursuit, firing off another blast from his particle freezer as he went. The ghost lashed out with its cane again, striking Wily on the arm.

  “You’re pretty lively for a dead guy,” Wily snarled.

  Wily followed the ghost into the square, but when they got outside, he stopped dead. The London mist had become fog. He could see three glowing shapes, but which should he chase? They were all moving in different directions.

  Wily whipped out his spyphone and opened the binoculars app. He zoomed in on the first glowing shape – it was the headlight of a motorbike. The second shape was an old otter shining a torch as she tottered home. He zoomed in on the third shape – but it vanished before he got a proper look.

  Wily ran in that direction and soon a glowing light appeared in front of him. The outline of the animal’s body, the way it moved – it had to be the ghost.

  Wily ran after it.

  It turned a corner, so did Wily. For a second, he almost lost it as more glowing lights appeared in the fog – the yellow halo of a street lamp and the red glow of a bike light. But he kept his eyes fixed on the ghostly blur.

  He was seconds away when the light disappeared. He was alone in the fog, listening for the slightest sound.

  Suddenly the light reared up in front of him, almost blinding him. The ghost must have been hiding behind a car or wall. The cane struck him again.

  Wily staggered backwards, then clenched his teeth and dived forwards. He grabbed hold of something hard and yanked it. It was a briefcase.

  The ghost tugged it, too, refusing to let go.

  “Do you mind if I inspect your bag, sir?” Wily growled.

  Then something gave way and paper went everywhere.

  Ghosts don’t usually carry documents around, Wily said to himself.

  As the ghost tried to gather up the documents, Wily pulled out his particle freezer. The ghost emitted another ear-splitting shriek and lashed out with its cane. Just as Wily pulled the trigger, the cane knocked him out cold. The last thing Wily saw was a blue bolt zipping out of his particle freezer. Then everything went black.

  When Wily came round, he was propped up in an armchair in Albert’s lab.

  He sprang to his feet. “What happened?”

  “It’s OK,” said Albert, “you just slept off the bump to the head. It’s Wednesday afternoon.”

  “But … how did you find me?”

  “I built a chip into the particle freezer so I know where it is at all times,” said Albert. “The signal went dead so I knew something had happened.” He gestured at his workbench, where the slightly bent particle freezer was sitting next to a set of tools. “You dropped it when you got knocked out.”

  “Blast!” Wily snarled. “I thought I hit him with it just before he whacked me.”

  “You didn’t hit him,” said Albert, “but you did hit THIS.” He held up a sheaf of papers encased in ice. “I don’t think our ghost spotted them in the fog.” Albert tapped his thick glasses. “But I saw them.”

  Wily took the papers and smiled. “Well done, Albert. They must have fallen out of his briefcase when it sprang open.”

  He peered through the layer of ice that distorted the words on the pages inside.

  “Let’s thaw these out,” Wily said.

  “Give me two more minutes,” Albert said. He hammered and wrestled with the broken particle freezer, finally handing it over to Wily with a grin. “Good as new.”

  Wily pointed the particle freezer at the bundle of paper and pressed the “thaw” button.

  A red bolt shot out of the end of the barrel and the papers started to glow. Within a couple of seconds, they were dry.

  The first sheet read:

  “They’re coordinates, Albert,” Wily said. “Look ’em up.”

  Under this first sheet, there was a holiday brochure from Hapgood Hotels.

  Wily flicked through the first few pages. “Why would the ghost be carrying a hotel brochure?” he said out loud. “Maybe he’s staying at one of these hotels. Or he has done in the past.”

  Wily kept flicking through the brochure. “They specialize in hotels for nocturnal animals,” he continued. “Lights go out from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Breakfast is at seven in the evening and lunch at midnight.”

  “So our villain’s nocturnal?” Albert asked.

  “He could be,” said Wily. “After all, every time he’s appeared so far, it’s been dark outside.”

  Albert nodded, then glanced at one of his computer screens. “Those coordinates are for the London Eye.” Albert rubbed his chin. “That’s an odd place to meet. Pretty public.”

  Wily pondered this for a second and then said, “Unless they’re meeting ON the London Eye rather than AT it.”

  He looked again at the sheet of paper.

  “He says he’s instructing PP – I wonder who or what PP is.”

  “Not sure,” said Albert.

  “And it says Wednesday at five o’clock.” Wily looked at his watch. “Albert, it’s 4.15 p.m. now. I’ve got to dash!”

  “OK, OK, but before you go,” said Albert. “Er … I wasn’t sure whether to give you this – it’s still a prototype, but if you’re going to be racing round the London Eye, you may need to be airborne.”

  He handed Wily a small disc that was a bit like a hockey puck.

  “Press your thumb in the middle, place it on the floor and stand back.”

  Wily did exactly this and watched as the disc sprouted huge wings and a fibreglass frame.

  “A hang-glider!” Wily exclaimed, lifting it off the ground.

  It was so light, he was able to balance it on his finger.

  “Yes, but it’s more than that! It can take off from ground level, too,” Albert said.

  “Really?” Wily asked.

  “Yes, it’s like a kite,” said Albert. “As long as you’re running fast enough, wind will rush under the fabric and lift you off the ground.”

  “Neat,” said Wily. “And how do I put it away?”

  “That button there,” said Albert.

  Wily pressed the button, the hang-glider started to shake and then it collapsed back down into a tiny disc. Wily dropped it into his trouser pocket and patted it.

  “Better fly,” he said.

  Half an hour later, Wily was standing at the bottom of the London Eye. Once again, he pulled out his spyphone and opened the binoculars app. He looked from one pod to the next. Most of the cabins were full of tourists – animals with cameras and guidebooks and flowery shirts. One booth contained a school party that seemed to be trying to break the world record for most animals stuffed into a confined space. Noses and paws were squished up against the windows while the teacher in the middle tried to stop everyone fighting.

  Then Wily saw a cabin near the top of the Eye with just two animals inside. One was definitely a pigeon. The other was tall and thin, but its face and body were obscured by a thick black cloak with a hood.

  Wily remembered the letters in the message – “Instruct PP”. Someone Pigeon? Then in a flash he remembered the news article in the Daily Smear from the day before – written by
Pete Pigeon.

  Ideas flooded into his mind. This animal could have haunted the theatre and then told Pete Pigeon what had happened. Vladimir Vole said he hadn’t spoken to anyone since the haunting. Which left the ghost. Only the ghost knew the details. So had the ghost given Pete the story? And was he now up there in that pod giving Pete another story?

  Wily needed to get to that cabin.

  He looked at the queue for the London Eye. There were at least a hundred animals standing in line.

  He glanced up at the cabin. If he waited for them to get back down he’d have missed everything. He thought about using the hangglider, but they’d see him coming a mile off. He needed a different strategy.

  He remembered the extra-strong smoke pellets that Albert had given him. They were meant to cover his tracks when he was escaping, but perhaps he could put them to another use.

  He looked at the large generator at the bottom of the London Eye, checked that nobody was looking and then tossed a pellet at it. Smoke immediately poured into the air.

  A group of beavers in the queue shrieked: “It’s on fire!”

  One of the London Eye staff whipped out a walkie-talkie and started shouting into it.

  Three seconds later, the London Eye had ground to a halt and an announcement crackled out of a loudspeaker: “One of the generators appears to have overheated. There is no need for alarm.”

  The animals in the pods peered down through the glass, looking confused.

  Wily hopped over the barrier and strode past the ticket booth. The staff were so busy they didn’t see Wily pick up a high-vis jacket.

  He put it on and proceeded to climb the London Eye, leaping from one pod to the next. When he got close to the top, he started clambering through the metal struts. In less than a minute, he was under the cabin containing the pigeon and the hooded figure. Inside he could hear the mumble of voices.

  He clamped his ear against the metal pod.

  “Mrfgh … Daily Smear,” said one voice.

  “Grff … Catalina … mrff,” said the other.

  The Daily Smear, Wily thought to himself. Sounds like it is Pete in there.

  Wily opened the door on the side of the pod, threw in a smoke pellet and then closed it again.

  “That should cause some chaos,” he said to himself.

  The pod filled with smoke and Wily could hear coughing and snarling inside.

  His plan was to wait ten seconds, then press the emergency door release. He’d be able to catch whoever was in there as they rushed to escape the smoke-filled pod.

  But then he heard a strange scraping sound. As he climbed on to the top of the pod to investigate, two animals came flying out.

  He pulled the disc from his pocket, pressed the button and watched it expand into a hang-glider, then jumped.

  The mystery animal was already a dark speck in the evening sky, but the pigeon was closer. If Wily was quick, he would reach him.

  He pulled up the nose of the glider to gain more height. The pigeon was heading for the opposite side of the river. When Wily was directly above the pigeon, he pulled down the nose and dived. The pigeon saw Wily coming and tacked left towards Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. Wily whistled past the pigeon’s tail and had to pull up sharply, skimming the surface of the river. Then Wily swooped under Westminster Bridge and pulled the glider round to the left.

  The pigeon was in front of Big Ben, his flapping getting slower. Wily aimed the glider straight at him, hurtling through the air like an arrow. The pigeon tried to change direction, but couldn’t turn fast enough. He ended up flying straight into Big Ben’s clockface and getting one of his wings jammed under the minute hand.

  Wily pulled up, landing gracefully on the hour hand and retracting the hang-glider.

  “Have you got a minute?” he said to the trapped pigeon.

  “Very comical,” said the pigeon in a strong London accent. He tugged at his wing and winced in pain. “My editor ain’t going to like this. We’re supposed to report the story, not BE the story.” He peered down at the crowd of animals gathered below.

  “Listen, Pete,” Wily said.

  “How do you know my name?”

  “I didn’t. I suspected,” Wily said, “and you’ve just confirmed it. I’ll let you go if you answer my questions.”

  “Who are you? Police?” asked the pigeon.

  “No. Your answers won’t go any further than this giant grandfather clock. Ready?”

  Pete Pigeon tugged at his wing again and sighed. “Don’t have much choice, do I? OK, get your skates on before some joker with a telephoto lens puts me on the front page.”

  “Who were you meeting at the London Eye?” asked Wily.

  “I don’t know his name.”

  “What kind of animal was he?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “I don’t know. He had a hood on.”

  “You can’t tell me ANYTHING about him?”

  “When he shook my wing to greet me, he nearly ripped it off. His hand was like a hook. Now please help me off this thing.”

  “Not so fast. Why were you meeting him?”

  Pete sighed. “He was going to give me another story. Yesterday, he gave me the lowdown on the Griffin Theatre being haunted. This time, he said he had an even better one. About some private-eye fox fella being scared to death by the same ghost. He said— Hang on a mo! That’s YOU, isn’t it?”

  Pete squinted and pointed at Wily with his free wing.

  Wily smiled. “Might be. Listen, I want you to print that story. Then I’ll let you go.”

  “You want me to print it?”

  “Yes. Write that we had a tussle on Big Ben, but that you escaped. I don’t want him to know that you told me ANYTHING.”

  “And if I agree to this, you’ll let me go?”

  Wily nodded.

  “Fair enough,” said Pete, and held out his free wing for Wily to shake.

  “Two more questions,” Wily said. “Who’s Catalina? Your friend mentioned her.”

  “I don’t know,” said Pete. “At the end, he said he had to call Catalina Covasna. I said, ‘Who’s she when she’s at home?’ and he looked surprised. Then he laughed and said: ‘Oh, you don’t need to worry about HER.’”

  “Curious,” said Wily. “OK, final question. How did you get out of the pod?”

  “Search me,” said Pete. “It was full of smoke, wasn’t it? I heard scraping and clicking and then the door was open. I took my chance and hopped it.”

  Wily eased Pete’s wing out from under the minute hand and watched him fly away.

  What’s our villain up to? They don’t usually want publicity. So why is this one talking to a journalist? Wily thought.

  He pressed the button to expand the hang-glider, jumped off the clockface and headed back to update Albert, the chimes of Big Ben echoing behind him.

  The following morning, Wily was in Albert’s laboratory, on a video call with Roderick Rabbit.

  “I’m certain it wasn’t a ghost,” Wily said. “It’s some crook in a costume. He haunted your theatre and then told the newspapers.”

  “So the leak didn’t come from one of my actors?” Roderick asked anxiously.

  “That I’m not sure of,” Wily said. “It’s still not clear who or WHAT the villain is.”

  “This is dreadful,” Roderick gasped. “It’s Thursday morning. I need to open again on Saturday and you’ve no idea who’s doing this.”

  Once again, tears formed in Roderick’s tiny eyes.

  “Don’t worry, we’ve got plenty of amazing clues,” Wily said. “We’re THIS CLOSE to solving the case.” Wily held up his finger and thumb, indicating a tiny gap. He said goodbye to Roderick and hung up.

  “How many amazing clues do we actually have?” Albert asked Wily.

  “Er … none,” Wily said. He glanced down at his notebook. “All of our clues are dead ends,” he continued. “We know the creature has a hook for a hand, but
lots of animals have talons and it might even have been a fake hand. We know that the animal can fly, but he could also be using a contraption like our hang-glider. We know he can open any door – including the doors on the London Eye, but we’re not sure how. We know he can turn himself into a ghost, but we haven’t found a costume. He has a high-pitched shriek, but we’re not sure how he’s producing it.”

  “It is very mysterious,” Albert nodded.

  “You’ve been keeping track of all the actors in Roderick’s company?” Wily asked.

  “Yes,” said Albert. “They’ve done nothing suspicious.”

  “Have you examined the glowing fabric I found on the stage?” Wily asked.

  “Yes, it’s cotton that’s been treated with Glo-fix 7,” Albert said. “The most fluorescent chemical in the world. You need access to a laboratory to create the compound – but thousands of animals will have that.”

  “Another dead end … for now,” Wily said. “OK, we’ve got two clues left. When the villain spoke to Pete Pigeon, he mentioned Catalina Covasna. Can you run a criminal records check for anyone with that name?”

  “Will do,” said Albert.

  “Lastly, the hotel brochure that the villain dropped. Did you look into the company – Hapgood Hotels?”

  Albert frowned, bringing up a password screen on his computer. “I didn’t get far. They have an extremely high level of security. I can’t hack into their guest records. I’ve tried every trick in the book.”

  Wily grinned. “EVERY trick?”

  Albert sighed. “What are you going to do?”

  “Look – we think our villain might be staying at one of their hotels and I don’t have any other leads.”

  “True,” said Albert.

  “So I’m going to check in,” said Wily, “and check them out.”

  Albert frowned. “You’re not going to break the law, are you, Wily?”