Secret of the Skull

by Simon Cheshire

  ‘I can’t be sure, but I guess that’s why you went back to the guy in Doyle Avenue for credit cards – the one you’d got the fake passports from. You needed funds, yes?’

  ‘Right,’ snarled Elsa Moreaux. ‘I came out of prison with barely anything and fake passports don’t come cheap. Getting these dopes away for a day would soak cash I didn’t have, so I had to do something.’

  ‘And when the Doyle Avenue forger was arrested the other day,’ I said, ‘you had to speed things up. If the police had got him, they might soon get you too. So you had to arrange for Skull’s family to go on holiday straight away, this weekend. You had to get the gold as fast as possible, and by the time the Skulyevics came back and your cover was blown, you’d be safely away.

  ‘It was clever of you to act a bit ditsy. That way, if the neighbours saw you pushing that SuperSave trolley down the street, with the gold hidden under a blanket, or a heap of rubbish, or something like that, they’d just think, Uh-oh, there goes that batty old dear again.’

  Elsa Moreaux smiled at me. It made me shudder. It was nothing more than a lizard-like pull at her lips. ‘You’ve covered all the angles, haven’t you? Clever little boy. All the angles except one.’

  ‘And what would that be?’ I said, trying to keep my voice steady.

  ‘If you know about me, you know about all the things I’ve done. All things I’ve been locked up for.’ She picked up a long, hefty crowbar that she’d obviously used to help break into the wall. She weighed it in her hands, smiling that ghastly smile, never taking her eyes off me.

  ‘You know I wouldn’t hesitate,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ve got too much at stake here. This gold’s worth nearly twenty million pounds today. You think I wouldn’t cave your head in for twenty million? All your heads? You’re within striking distance already, boy. The rest of you, go over there, to the back of the garage.’

  For a second, nobody moved. There was silence. Slowly, Elsa Moreaux raised the crowbar. Skull and his parents shuffled quickly aside, past the hole in the garage wall. I didn’t dare move so much as an eyelid. My insides had turned runnier than school gravy and my throat felt like it was lined with sandpaper.

  ‘Might be some time before you’re all found,’ said Elsa. She glared at me. ‘Y’see, boy, all the angles except one.’

  ‘Hmm, no,’ I said, almost in a whisper. I tapped gently at the little lens attached to my jacket. ‘I’ve got that one covered too.’

  With a sudden screech of brakes, a police car skidded to a halt at the edge of the Skulyevics’ front lawn. Another one shot into view behind it. Officers leaped out, yelling at Elsa Moreaux.

  ‘Drop it! Drop it!’

  I suddenly realised I hadn’t taken a breath for about half a minute. I gasped shakily. Turning, I saw a familiar face getting out of a third car: Inspector Godalming, he of the whistling false teeth and the birdish walk, who I’d met during the case of The Eye of the Serpent (see volume five of my case files).

  ‘Ssho, it’s you again, shonny,’ he sshaid, I mean said.

  ‘You know I take a dim view of youngsh-ters interfering in poleesh invesh-tigations.’

  I grinned up at him. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll let you guys take all the credit. As ever.’

  I had a great time the following Monday, basking in glory as Skull told the class about everything that had happened. Even our form tutor Mrs Penzler managed a few words of praise.

  There was also one piece of good news – I’d found out that the bank that Elsa Moreaux’s gang had stolen all that gold from had put up a reward at the time of the robbery. It had never been claimed, so Skull and his family found themselves able to afford a holiday after all.

  I returned to my shed and my Thinking Chair. Skull had shared some of the reward money with me, so I bought a heater and kept it on full blast while I sat and jotted down some notes.

  Case closed.

  CASE FILE TWENTY-THREE:

  DIAMONDS

  ARE FOR

  HEATHER

  CHAPTER

  ONE

  I SAW A MAGICIAN ON TV the other day. I don’t normally like magic shows, I’ve never quite seen the point of them, but I’d been watching the previous programme and I couldn’t be bothered to get up and hunt for the remote.

  This particular show was live. The magician was going to see into the future (ooooh, spooooky) and predict the six numbers that were going to come up on that night’s Moneyspinner Lottery. The lottery would be drawn on another channel, and the magician had a TV set up showing the other channel’s programmes (so you could flick back and forth and see that, yes, this trick was being done totally live).

  Like I said, I don’t normally rate magicians. It’s so easy to see how they do it. But this trick sounded interesting. And, as it turned out, it was to play an important part in an investigation I’ve labelled Diamonds Are for Heather.

  The Lottery trick went like this:

  ‘First,’ said the magician, ‘I need six volunteers.’ In the TV studio there were about two hundred people, plus a row filled with celebrities. Out to the front came a man with mad hair called Dave, a man with no hair at all called Keith, a very thin woman called Tracey and a very large woman called Barbara. There was also a sugary little girl called Donna (everyone went ‘Ahhhhh’; I went ‘Yeuchh’). Finally, from the celebs’ seats, there was a TV reporter called Satnam – I’d often seen her reading the news and interviewing people in shopping centres.

  Suspended behind the magician were six sets of plush red curtains, forming six little booths. They reminded me of a line of changing cubicles in a clothes shop.

  Inside each booth was a chair and a table and on each table was a metal box and a padlock. Each volunteer sat down in one of the booths. Little Donna’s feet didn’t quite reach the floor. Everyone went ‘Ahhhhh’ again.

  ‘Now,’ said the magician, ‘quiet please while I see into the future. A-ha! I see the six winning numbers!’

  He went over to the first booth in the line of six, where Satnam the TV reporter was sitting. He took a piece of paper and a marker pen, wrote a number on the paper and gave the piece of paper to Satnam.

  ‘Please fold up the paper and place it in the box,’ he said. She placed it in the box. ‘Now lock the box with the padlock!’ She locked the box with the padlock. She handed him the key.

  The magician repeated this all along the line. Little Donna giggled when she locked the box. Everyone went ‘Ahhhhh’ again. I looked around for a sick bucket.

  Once he had all six padlock keys, the magician wheeled on a chunky-looking machine. He dropped the keys into the machine and it mangled them up.

  ‘The predictions are safely under lock and key,’ he said. He drew the front curtains of each booth. We could still see the volunteers’ feet poking out. Little Donna’s shoes were just visible, swinging away happily. Aaaaah, yeuchh, etc, etc.

  Down from above came six cameras. Each one pointed into a booth. Six small video rectangles appeared along the bottom of my TV screen. ‘Give us a wave,’ said the magician. All the volunteers looked up and waved at the camera.

  By now, there was less than a minute to go to the lottery draw. There was a lot of tension building in the TV studio.

  ‘Six numbers will be drawn,’ declared the magician. ‘Each of those numbers I have predicted. Each number is in a locked box. The keys to those boxes have been destroyed. The boxes are being guarded by our six volunteers. You at home are watching our six volunteers on the overhead cameras. My predictions cannot be accessed, touched, removed, changed or altered in any way.’

  He turned up the sound on the TV showing the other channel. The draw took place. The six booths and the six camera feeds were visible all the time. The lottery numbers drawn were . . . 6, 34, 102, 7, 19, and 85.

  The magician swept open the six curtains. ‘Out you come, bring the boxes, give ‘em a big hand, everyone!’

  A hefty-looking guy with a hammer and chisel appeared from backstage. With a couple of cla
nking blows he broke open the padlock on the first box. ‘I’ve got him on loan from the ballet,’ said the magician, smiling. Laughter all round.

  The magician asked Satnam to open the box, take out the paper and show us the number written on it.

  It was a 6. The look on Satnam’s face was pure noooo-waaaay.

  Smash! ‘Box number two, please.’ It was a 34. Gasps and whoops.

  Box number three, 102. Number four, a 7. Number five, a 19. Finally, little Donna opened box number six.

  ‘What number do you think it’s going to be?’ said the magician.

  ‘Eighty . . . ffffive?’ muttered Donna, wide-eyed.

  Yup, it was. Little Donna jumped up and down squealing. Everyone else erupted in cheers.

  The magician turned to the camera and said, ‘Y’know, in all the excitement, I forgot to buy a lottery ticket! D’oh!’

  Laughter and applause.

  I was genuinely baffled. I’d seen tricks with vanishing elephants and tricks with young ladies falling into loads of pieces and I’d usually seen through them in a couple of minutes. But this one really got me thinking.

  It wasn’t until I was lying in bed that night, unable to sleep, mulling the whole thing over, that the truth finally dawned on me. I’d been looking at the problem in totally the wrong way. Because the result of the trick had been so apparently impossible, I’d been coming up with all kinds of complicated explanations (mucking around with the whole country’s signals for the other TV channel, putting tiny, dissolving printers in the boxes, that sort of stuff) when all I needed to do was remember that some tricks – like some crimes – rely on very simple ideas.

  The Lottery Prediction trick was performed with . . .

  No, wait. Perhaps you’ve already worked it out for yourself? It depended on three things:

  1. Keys are easily duplicated.

  2. Video is easily looped. (Show three unchanging seconds of an empty street over and over again and it’ll look like hours of empty street!)

  3. People lie. Have you spotted how it was done?

  The magician wrote nothing on those pieces of paper. Not one teeny tiny scribble. Certainly not the correct lottery draw numbers. He just pretended.

  Why? He didn’t need to write anything. All six volunteers, including Satnam the well-known celebrity and Donna the little girl nobody would suspect in a million years, were in on it.

  The magician picked his six ‘volunteers’. ‘Sit inside these curtained booths,’ he said. ‘You can guard the boxes. We’ll watch you all the time using these cameras.’

  Suppose you were one of those six:

  The magician gets you to put a piece of paper into the box on the table in front of you. You lock the box and give him the key.

  The curtain closes. You sit absolutely still for five seconds or so. Enough time for the technical people operating the cameras to loop the video. Yes, the TV crew are in on it as well. Once there are a few seconds recorded of you sitting still, it can be looped around and around and anyone looking at it will simply see you sitting there.

  Now, you mustn’t move your feet. Remember, the people in the studio can see your feet under the curtain. They look at your feet, they look at the looped video and they are totally convinced that you are sitting still, guarding the box on the table in front of you, exactly as you are told to.

  The real lottery draw takes place. The magician turns up the sound on the TV outside so you can hear what’s going on.

  Suppose you’re, say, third in the line. You listen out for the third winning number. In this case 102. From up your sleeve (or down your jumper, or wherever) you produce a duplicate key to the box in front of you, a key you’ve had hidden since before the whole show started. You quietly unlock the padlock, open the box and take out the folded paper the magician gave you.

  Remembering to keep your feet still, you then take a marker pen from up your sleeve (or down your jumper, or wherever), and write the relevant number – in this case 102 – on to the paper. You need to write it in a handwriting style that’s been agreed on, maybe practised, by all of you, so that all the numbers look the same and people will believe the magician wrote them.

  You place the paper back in the box and re-fasten the padlock. A few seconds later, off go the cameras, back goes the curtain and out you come.

  The magician now has six boxes, containing six numbers which exactly match the winning lottery draw. All that stuff with the hammer and chisel is just dramatic window dressing.

  Easy peasy. All you have to do now is act amazed and surprised when your box is opened, and the magician looks like he’s done something incredible.

  Of course, the simple Lottery Prediction trick couldn’t have been further from my mind when Diamonds Are for Heather first came my way. I was in my Crime HQ – the garden shed – when it started.

  I was doing two things: searching through my case files and shivering. No, three things: searching, shivering and hoping that the batteries in my flashlight would last another couple of minutes. It was already beginning to splutter and fade slightly. It wasn’t quite five in the afternoon, but the icy shroud of winter gloom that had engulfed the town was already darker than a black cat in a coal mine. The heater I’d recently bought for the shed had packed up.

  I was looking for information I needed to put in the book I was planning. I’d decided it was time for Saxby Smart, brilliant schoolboy detective, to share his insights into the criminal mind with the world.

  Grumble, grumble where is it? . . . Moan, grumble, bloomin’ freezing in here . . . Grumble [chattering teeth] . . . Ought to get a proper light for this shed . . . [shiver] Grumble and some bloomin’ heating . . . Moan, whinge, the things I do for truth and justice . . .

  Suddenly, my phone bleeped loudly. I almost knocked the flashlight off my desk in fright. Shadows bounced madly off the pile of DIY and gardening stuff that took up half the shed.

  Pausing only to grumble some more about people texting me when I was in the middle of grumbling, I opened my inbox and read, I have a case for you. Will you help me?

  There was no name attached, and I didn’t recognise the number. I texted back, Who are you? Bit busy. Can we talk at school tomorrow?

  At last I found the file I was looking for and tucked it under my arm. Just as I was starting to shiver again and wishing I’d worn my woolly hat, the reply arrived: No. Doesn’t matter who I am. Case is urgent. Will you help me or not?

  I paused at the shed door, frowning slightly at the message glowing up at me from the tiny screen.

  Hmmm.

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  THIS TEXTING BACK AND FORTH between me and a mysterious someone else continued for a while. During that time, I left the shed, warmed up indoors, made myself something to eat, went to the loo, brushed my teeth and got ready for bed.

  The conversation went like this:

  Me: Sure, I want to help. But must know who you are!

  Other: Told you – name not relevant. Help or not?

  Me (after some thought): Te ll me about your problem. But I’m not promising anything!

  Other: Read attached file.

  The attached file read:

  A diamond smuggling operation has been recently tracked across South America and Western Europe. Check the news

  feeds if you want more information. Various security forces from several countries are involved. The smugglers currently believe they have outwitted the authorities. They are using a series of one-off meetings to pass diamonds from one criminal organisation to another. The next such meeting will take place at the Regal Hotel on Saturday. One of the smugglers, codenamed Moss, will book into the hotel at six that evening. His contact, codenamed Heather, will meet him there at 9 p.m. Neither of them knows the other. A reliable source of information at the hotel has overheard the maintenance man, Bryan Beeks, talking to an unknown person by phone. Beeks is thought to have links with several high-profile criminals. He has learned of the smugglers’ meeting an
d is planning to steal the diamonds before they can be handed over. The smugglers are unaware of his plan. You must keep a close watch on Beeks and prevent him from stealing the diamonds. The smugglers are not your concern. Will you help?

  I read the file through a couple of times. I wasn’t sure what to make of it. The Regal was the poshest hotel in town. I’d never been inside it before, but I knew where it was. It occurred to me that the mysterious texter might be playing some kind of trick. It was a possibility which lurked darkly at the back of my mind until the case was all but solved. However, I’ll tell you now that trickery was the last thing on this person’s mind.

  I had only one clue to their identity. It wasn’t so much

  what they’d said, as the fact that they’d said it at all. Remember that – it’ll be important. This single, vague clue would, it turned out, nag at me for days.

  Eventually, I replied: OK. Will see what I can do. But don’t expect to remain anonymous!

  A Page From My Notebook

  My mystery texter. Who could he or she be?

  He or she mentioned the online news. Could they be a journalist, a news reporter? Possible!

  He or she mentioned security services. Could they be from the Government? Highly unlikely!

  He or she mentioned an informer at the hotel. Could they themselves be this informer? Also possible!

  One more possibility – COULD HE/SHE BE ONE OF

  THE SMUGGLERS? Wouldn’t the smugglers be the first people who’d want this Beeks character out of the way?

  Could they be lying about the whole ‘security forces’ thing and simply want someone to remove a thorn in their side?

  What do I do?

  Whoever the texter is, he/she already knows who I am and what I do.