by Lauren Child
‘He’s dead?’ said Ruby.
‘My associate caught up with him.’
‘The Australian?’ whispered Ruby, like her name was too much to say.
He looked amused. ‘Oh, is that what you call her? I must be sure to pass that on. Yes, she’s not a forgiving woman, so I’m afraid Mr Marshall … well, I won’t spell it out.’
‘And Lorelei von Leyden?’
He sighed. ‘Dear meddling Lorelei. I’m afraid she’s quite out of control. I hear she tried to kill you and that little friend of yours. She’s not a forgiver and I’m sorry to say once you’ve crossed her she’ll never give up.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘If only prison walls could hold her.’ He looked at her with interest. ‘But enough about what is past. You must be wondering why you’re here, right now.’
‘You plan to murder me?’ said Ruby – she said this as casually as she was able.
‘Bravo again.’ The Count clapped.
‘What I don’t understand is, why you went to so much trouble? Why the bottles, the clues, the trail? Why go to such pains to bring me here if you simply plan to …?’
‘Because that is what I was hired to do. I needed to make it look like I was making an effort, my employer is … not easily fooled. Besides, I like the fun of it, the drama. Don’t you? Life is short, one must take pleasure where one can.’
‘Your employer?’ said Ruby. ‘It isn’t you who wants me dead?’
‘No. Did I not explain? This is all work for me, a job, a task, and one has to earn a living.’
So this was it, her number up, her fate to die alone, her demise witnessed only by the dead.
‘But what if,’ he began, ‘I told you I had changed my mind? That I did not want to undertake this particular … task.’
She swallowed. ‘I think I’d have a hard time believing you.’
‘But have I ever lied to you in this matter?’
No, the Count had never lied to her about his murderous intent – when he said he intended to kill, he meant it. Just because so far he had been thwarted in his efforts didn’t mean his intentions weren’t bad – they undoubtedly were.
He had wanted to kill her before, and now he didn’t.
He had changed his mind, but why?
‘You want me to say,’ he said, ‘that the world’s a better place with you in it?’
‘Not really – coming from you, I’m not sure what that would say about me.’
‘Well, don’t worry, my reasons are far from sentimental –’ he stared deep into her eyes – ‘I need you, that’s the only reason I choose to keep you alive.’
Now that was creepy. A murderous psychopath needed her – for what?
‘My employer wants you dead, but I don’t think you dead is in my best interests – not at this precise moment anyway.’
This was not very reassuring news.
‘So I have lured you here, and kept my employer happy thus far. But now I intend to let you go. Not that it will do you much good.’
‘Why do you say that?’
He leaned down closer to her. ‘It’s true what they say,’ he said, his voice sympathetic, ‘every secret agent’s career ends in failure.’
‘Do they say that?’
‘Probably not, but they should – it’s inevitable, isn’t it?’
‘What is?’ said Ruby.
‘Failure. You strive to identify the bad apples hidden in a barrel of good ones, but as we all know, good apples can’t cure the bad, yet the bad do contaminate the good. Isn’t that so? When you return to your little agency, do you really think you will be safe there?’
‘You’re saying that you have contaminated Spectrum?’
‘Oh no, not me, the apple has been there for a long time. Look no further than your own colleagues, Ms Redfort.’
‘That’s garbage.’
‘You’re sure about that? Is there not as we speak an investigation to seek out a mole?’
Ruby was silent.
‘Is that a little maggot of mistrust eating away at your apple?’ He smiled. ‘You see what happens when you linger too long with the bad folk.’
‘Who are you working for?’
The Count put his elegant finger to his lips.
‘Information is power, Ms Redfort, that is for me to know and you to find out, but don’t leave it too long … Just as for the fly caught in a web, the spider will come – so just because your predator is not yet upon you, it doesn’t mean your fate is not sealed.’
‘So I’ll make sure I don’t get caught in any webs,’ said Ruby.
‘Too late dear Ms Redfort, you already are.’
He turned as if to leave, and then: ‘One final clue for you, little Ruby, did you ever wonder why Bradley Baker had to die?’
‘You told me he was killed in a plane crash.’
‘So Ms Redfort, you believe everything you’re told?’
‘Not when you put it like that,’ she said, ‘but you said you didn’t have anything to do with it.’
‘I told you his death was not my undertaking, but an accident? Maybe not. There are many ways for a plane to crash.’
‘You’re suggesting someone sabotaged his plane?’
‘It would seem likely, wouldn’t it?’ said the Count. ‘Though shooting it from the sky would be simpler. Yes, let’s say it was shot down. A spy as clever as he has many enemies. But the question is: who pulled the trigger?’ Suddenly he plucked the apple from the tombstone and threw it into the air. ‘An apple for the teacher,’ he called.
She stooped to pick up the fallen fruit, turning it in her hand, and saw that far from being perfect, there was a hole where a maggot had burrowed.
She looked up to face him, to stare deep into those shark-black eyes, to see if she might search out the answer to this complicated game, but he was no longer there.
Chapter 65.
The debriefing
Ruby was sitting in LB’s office. She had told her boss and fellow agents most of what had happened in the crypt of the Sacred Heart, and the mood was sombre.
The Spectrum 8 boss was looking unusually unsettled – talk of Bradley Baker’s death had opened an old wound.
LB: ‘So we are in no doubt now, the Count is not working alone.’
RUBY: ‘No, and whoever he’s working for has been working on this plan since this whole case began, seven months back.’
LB: ‘Yet we have no idea what or why?’
RUBY: ‘No.’
DELAWARE: ‘Did the Count give any reason as to why this employer of his might have targeted you?’
RUBY: ‘No.’
DELAWARE: ‘And he gave no reason as to why he then decided not to follow the instructions he had been given?’
RUBY: ‘To kill me you mean?’
There was no point dancing around the subject: someone wanted her dead.
RUBY: ‘He just said it was in his best interests that I live – though he made it kinda clear that this interest in my continuing to breathe would one day wane.’
DELAWARE: ‘But there was no explanation for Amarjargel Oidov’s poisoning? What their motivation might be for wanting her dead?’
RUBY: ‘No.’
HITCH: ‘And Lorelei? Where does she fit in?’
RUBY: ‘Nowhere, as far as the higher purpose goes. She used to be on the Count’s payroll, was an assassin for hire, but now as far as I can tell, she’s gone “rogue”.’
DELAWARE: ‘So what is her backstory?’
RUBY: ‘The Australian told me that Lorelei was her kid; they obviously don’t have such a great mother–daughter relationship since Lorelei looked like she was going to puke when I mentioned her mom was about to pay a visit. The first time I saw Lorelei she was working for her mom, the second time I saw her she was working for the Count, but she double-crossed them both.’
DELAWARE: ‘So coming back to the Australian – is she working with the Count?’
Ruby made a face; the expression said, oh so now you all believe she exists?
LB, who was no slouch in reading faces, read her expression correctly.
LB: ‘Stop being a child, Redfort, and answer the question: is the Australian working with the Count?’
RUBY: ‘She and the Count seem pretty cosy, but he seems to call the shots.’
Ruby was silent for a moment.
RUBY: ‘You know she’s a dangerous woman?’
HITCH: ‘You don’t have to convince me, you should see the state she left Baby Face in – or rather I should say, states.’
DELAWARE: ‘How do you mean? Where is he now?’
HITCH: ‘Well, he left his heart in San Francisco.’
BLACKER: ‘His head was found in Monterrey.’
HITCH: ‘And his legs have yet to show.’
LB: ‘Excuse me?’
BLACKER: ‘He’s a goner.’
LB took a gulp of water.
LB: ‘So getting back to the issue in hand, where does this leave us?’
BLACKER: ‘My concern is for Ruby.’
Ruby gave Blacker an appreciative look.
LB:‘That’s very touching Blacker, but my concern is for Spectrum. I’m sorry Redfort, but this is much bigger than you.’
RUBY: ‘That’s OK, I won’t take it personally.’
LB: ‘You say the toast message came through to you as if from Blacker, yet we know Blacker could never have sent it since he was in a briefing with myself and Hitch.’
DELAWARE: ‘So not only do we know Spectrum has a double agent …’
HITCH: ‘… We now know this agent is feeding information to the Count.’
His face looked grave.
HITCH: ‘It’s a great deal worse than we’d first thought.’
LB: ‘I agree. Given the reference made to Baker’s death, the premeditated attempt on Redfort’s life and the recent security breach, we have to assume that Spectrum has not only been infiltrated in order to leak information out but is also under attack from within.’
LB looked at them all in turn.
LB: ‘And what we need to ask ourselves is, can we survive this?’
Halloween with a twist
In many ways, Mayor Abraham’s Halloween pageant of 1973 was a success – it really put him on the map. He had ignored all meteorologists’ advice and insisted that Twinford get this show on the road.
‘Don’t let me down Twinford!’ he had rallied on the radio airways. ‘Let’s make this Halloween a Halloween to remember!’
And as darkness fell, it looked like the whole city had lined the lantern-lit streets to watch the parade wend its ghoulish way.
The rains had ceased, the winds had stilled. It was a perfect night.
The Redfort household were all there, all except Bug, who had been behaving oddly all day, barking loudly when anyone tried to venture out. At the very last minute before they were all due to leave, he had crawled under Mrs Digby’s bed and refused to move. Not even a cut of prime Texan steak was enough to tempt him out, and in the end the family had departed dogless.
Mrs Digby, Sabina and Brant were gathered on the sidewalk of Twinford Square along with Marjorie and Freddie Humbert, and Elaine and Niles Lemon.
All were eagerly waiting for their children’s float to appear.
‘I’d so wanted her to go as Snow White,’ said Sabina. ‘Don’t you think she’d make a heavenly Snow White, Marjorie? I mean, I hadn’t really pictured her going as a severed head.’
‘She’ll look cute whatever she’s wearing,’ said Brant.
‘What she’s wearing is Del Lasco,’ said Mrs Digby, ‘and that child is no portrait of cute.’
‘Kids,’ said Marjorie, ‘you just gotta love ’em.’
‘Is your boy in the pageant?’ asked Freddie.
‘He is,’ said Niles Lemon, loud and proud. ‘I wasn’t sure he could handle the excitement since the biggest thrill he has ever had is taking the bus into town.’ He laughed and shook his head. ‘He’s such a timid kid.’
‘Archie really should be tucked up in his crib,’ said Elaine, ‘but Ruby insisted he would love it. I didn’t think it was such a good idea, but I trust her 100%.’ She shrugged. ‘After all, she was right about the baby food.’
A few blocks away, Ruby and her friends were about to take their places on their Rigors of Mortis Square float. Red Monroe’s mother, Sadie, had finished making final adjustments to their costumes and everyone was ready to go.
Red, who was having the best birthday of her entire actual life was particularly thrilled with everything, and even the fact that there were three other Rigors of Mortis Square floats didn’t tone down her delight.
‘We got the original costumes,’ she said as she hopped from foot to foot in her shiny black Cordelia Rigor tap shoes.
‘And we got a real baby,’ said Elliot. ‘No one else has a real Baby Grim.’ He glanced at Ruby. ‘How did you even get him?’
‘Just used my powers of persuasion,’ said Ruby.
They all looked down at Archie Lemon.
And he peered back at them from his large Victorian bonnet and gurgled.
‘He’s kinda cute, isn’t he?’ said Del. ‘Especially with that little moustache.’
‘Yes,’ said Ruby, ‘the moustache is an improvement.’
‘Thanks for showing up,’ said Del, giving Ruby a friendly pinch to her cheek.
‘How could I pass up the chance to have my head stuck under your armpit?’
‘You know your make-up is super realistic,’ said Red. ‘How did you achieve such a perfect black eye?’
‘I got someone to punch me,’ said Ruby.
‘You’re very dedicated,’ said Clancy.
‘So are you,’ said Mouse, ‘I mean, you really got into character.’ She was referring to the fact that Clancy was playing the part of Edgar Mortis who tragically died when bitten by a snake.
‘What can I say,’ said Clancy, ‘I’m a method actor.’
‘Too bad about Bug,’ said Elliot. ‘What are we going to do now we don’t have a dog to play Toadstool?’
But that was about to change.
‘Hey Ruby, it’s me, I’m here.’ A ghost was waving at her and it was holding a leash. ‘And look, I got Dorothy with me!’ Quent Humbert was impossible to recognise, covered as he was in a bedsheet, but his little black pug dog Dorothy was very clearly dressed to play Toadstool.
Ruby found herself giving Quent Humbert, if not a hug exactly, then a head-butt; it wasn’t easy to hug when you no longer had a body, and in any case, she probably wouldn’t actually have hugged Quent. Ruby reserved her hugs for the rare few.
‘You know Quent, I have to say, sometimes you’re not such a bedsheet.’
‘Yeah,’ said Clancy, ‘and who else could rustle up a levitating pug?’
There was a loud bang and a flurry of fireworks to signal the start of the parade and slowly the float began to move.
The parade had been going for no more than forty minutes when something dramatic happened: the wind suddenly picked up, catching bunting and orange lanterns, pulling them from their fixings and sailing them into the sky. And as the parade rolled on, the gusts grew stronger and pieces of costume were snatched and whirled into the night. It was only when someone shouted ‘tornado!’ that people began diving for cover.
A funnel of wind appeared and twisted across the skyline. It moved at such speed that there was little time to do much but run this way and that.
Pageant-goers watched from a distance as it tore through West Twinford making matchwood of houses before losing its power and disappearing altogether.
A few houses in the Cedarwood Drive area were victims of the storm and one of these was the Lemons’ place, though the only part of their home that had been truly destroyed was the room where Archie Lemon slept.
Had he not been playing the part of Baby Grim, the ghostly infant, at 7.23pm on the 31st of October, then he would have been sucked into the wind funnel and taken high into the dark sky, never to be seen again.
The Lemon was a lucky kid.
From the Twinford Mirror
BABY GRIM SAVED FROM GRIM END
Last night’s tornado could have claimed a tiny victim. ‘Had it not been for our babysitter, our nine-month-old son would have been abducted by a twister,’ said thirty-two-year-old mother of one, Elaine Lemon. She went on to say, ‘Ruby is like his guardian angel. If she had not insisted on taking him to the Halloween pageant last night, we would never have seen Archie again.’
ENDANGERED-SNAKE PROTECTOR OUT OF DANGER
Amarjargel Oidov finally came out of her coma last night. She has only a sketchy memory of the events that led to her poisoning and says she has no light to shed on the question of why anyone might wish her dead. She has requested that well-wishers kindly do not send her flowers.
SNAKE BITE EPIDEMIC
There have been an unusual number of snake-bite incidents in Twinford this past October and herpetologists can only put it down to changing weather patterns. ‘Nests of vipers have been turning up here, there and everywhere,’ said snake wrangler, Ralf Erwin. ‘If you see one, back away,’ was his advice.
The public has been warned to keep off wasteland after Ambassador Crew’s son Clancy (thirteen) suffered a severe bite to his arm.
DOG PREDICTS TORNADO
Ten-year-old Old English Sheepdog, Bessie, saved her owner’s life when she prevented him from leaving the house. Seventy-four-year-old Al Budget was planning to drive to the supermarket, but his dog Bessie had other ideas. ‘When I picked up my car keys, she started growling at me in this real spooky type of way, and as I approached the door, she tripped me up, took me clean off my feet, then she just plum came and sat on top of me. There was nothing I could do, she’s a big dog, weighs about sixty to sixty-five pounds.’
MATHLYMPICS MAYHEM
Mathematics prodigy Dakota Lyme has been requested to partake in anger management classes after she attacked another contestant at the Yuleton Mathlympics quarterfinals.
