The Complete Ruby Redfort Collection

Mrs Digby, on the other hand, was missing her reading. . .

She was without her beloved paperbacks, which had apparently been rejected by the burglars and left in her basement apartment. Mrs Digby was a voracious reader and loved her crime fiction even more than she loved her TV thrillers.

If they had to go and steal everything including me then why in tarnation couldn’t they have the decency to steal my valuables too?

Then she stopped to think.

Ah, ah, but they will have stolen Ruby’s valuables and I can count on that kid to have a little old thriller I can settle down with.

Then she noticed the clock – nearly seven.

Quick, not much time.

Although unable to escape her luxury prison, Mrs Digby could at least make herself a cup of tea – although the milk had gone bad. ‘Rats!’ she muttered, before settling down in an armchair to watch her favourite game show, What’s Your Poison?

She was just getting comfortable when she was startled by an alarming, high-pitched scream.

Before Mrs Digby could turn around she heard the voice of a woman. ‘Stay right where you are lady, don’t move a muscle, don’t even twitch an eyelash.’

Mrs Digby was a tough old bird but even she knew when it was wise to twitch an eyelash and when it was not.

Chapter 16.

Don’t look now

IT WAS NICE TO BE BACK ON A BIKE AGAIN, and Lopez’s bike, although a good deal too big, was a pretty deluxe one. It was fast and light and Ruby seemed to be gliding along speedily with little effort on her part, which was lucky since it was beginning to get dark and the bike had no lights. She was just making her way up the steep hill – a deserted stretch of road – which connected East Twinford to West Twinford, when she started to feel the unpleasant sensation of a deflating back tyre.

Oh geez, that’s all I need! She hopped off the bike and surveyed the flat. There was no way of fixing it; she was going to have to walk home and it was a long way. To make matters just that much more miserable, it began to gently drizzle.

Fabulous, just fabulous.

A few cars passed her as she trudged up the hill – some of them slowed down but none of them stopped. She didn’t want them to either, not unless it was someone she knew, someone she could count on. By now it was pitch black, there were a few streetlights but this was the industrial part of town and none of the mostly-abandoned warehouses were lit. The drizzle had become rain, real drenching rain.

Ruby thought about her own bike with its sturdy, heavy-duty, all-terrain tyres – speed was all very well but given the choice she would take reliability any day.

Darn it!

She was so busy cussing and complaining to herself that she didn’t at first sense the car behind her. She had vaguely heard it in the far distance as it approached the hill, its gears shifting down as it began to climb. But what she hadn’t noticed was the sound of the engine slowing to almost walking pace; not overtaking, just following. Puddles were beginning to form on the road and her feet were soaking wet. The lace of her left sneaker had come undone and she bent to tie it. It was sodden and her fingers were cold, unable to get a proper grip. She made an ugly knot and stuffed the ends into her shoe.

And that’s when she really became aware of the car.

Still crouching, she turned her head; the headlights were on full beam and she held her hand in front of her eyes to protect them from the glare. The car was moving very slowly towards her, but she was unable to make out the driver’s face. Ruby’s mind began to weigh the options – friend or foe? What kindly stranger would be so stupid as to shine their lights in a person’s face and edge nearer to them in this creepy way?

Foe, it had to be.

Panic took a grip and Ruby, stumbling to her feet, began to run. She felt the rough stones beneath her soles and heard the sloshing of her shoes in puddles, but mostly she was aware of the thumping of her heart and the single thought that was echoing in her brain, how could you be so dumb?

She quickly turned to check on the car, stumbled and went sprawling onto the road. The car stopped. Through the dazzle of the headlights she saw the door open and the black shape of a figure step out. A man. He paused, faceless behind the light, and then he moved, stepping steadily towards her. Tap, tap went his shoes on the shiny wet asphalt, thump, thump went Ruby’s uncertain heart. She held her breath, her hands unable to make a fist… she felt around for some stone or stick, some inadequate weapon to fend off who knew what. The man leaned down towards her, she could smell his cologne.

‘When are you going to start paying attention kid?’

‘Hitch?’ croaked Ruby, ‘that you?’

‘You better believe it buster,’ came the reply.

Chapter 17.

Strange and uneasy

THE JOURNEY BACK WAS NOT A PLEASANT ONE. Hitch wasn’t mad, he didn’t need to be – Ruby was far too mad at herself already. She was, however, relieved – relieved to be sitting in a nice warm car and not to be in the hands of some mad murderous crazy type. Not that there were a lot of those around but you never could be quite sure and with Ruby’s luck lately, she felt the odds of meeting a mad murderous crazy type were high.

Hitch drove in near silence while Ruby mumbled on. Every now and then he would raise an eyebrow or nod in agreement, but he never bothered to say, “I told you so”.

He didn’t have to.

When they got back to Cedarwood Drive, Ruby slumped down at the breakfast bar while Hitch unloaded Lopez’s bike from the trunk. When he came in he said, ‘Look kid, maybe part of this is my fault, I accept that, I’ve been kinda ribbing you and talking down to you – so maybe you and I need to start over?’

Ruby was astonished – it was the very last thing she was expecting.

‘Yeah well,’ she said, ‘I guess I should have listened but I just like to be independent, you know what I mean?’

Hitch nodded. ‘OK, so how about you get yourself to and from Maverick Street but on your own bike and on the condition that you attach this tracker device to the handle bars.’ He took out a small round orange metal thing that looked exactly like a bicycle bell. ‘The first sign of anything suspicious, you press the green button in the middle and I’ll find you.’

It seemed like a pretty fair deal. ‘Sure, I can do that.’

‘One other condition,’ continued Hitch. ‘If someone ever does tail you, someone meaning someone relating to the work you are doing, someone who’s figured out what you are up to, then we have to pull the plug – no more code cracking.’

‘OK,’ Ruby nodded reluctantly. ‘I guess I can live with that.’ She had no choice other than to agree. But in any case she was determined that no one was ever going to tail her.

On Saturday morning Ruby pulled on her jeans and a T-shirt which simply said, help is at hand. She looked out of the window – Mrs Gruber was walking her cat, as she always did on Tuesdays – apart from that, there wasn’t a whole lot of action. She went downstairs, scratched Bug behind the ears, grabbed her bike and cycled to Maverick Street. Halfway there she got, well, not so much a strange feeling, as an uneasy one. She had no idea why, but she sort of felt as if a pair of eyes were watching her every move.

Getting edgy Rube, that’s not good. Stay alert but don’t ever get edgy.

But she couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen. This feeling was justified when the door was opened by none other than Froghorn – the Silent G.

‘Oh look it’s the wonder kid.’ He tapped his watch. ‘You’re late.’

Ruby’s smile faded, ‘I’ve been missing you too – where’s Agent Blacker?’

‘He might be in later, but right now I’m the lucky babysitter.’

Ruby gave him her best Ruby Redfort bozo-look. ‘So where’s the baby? Don’t tell me you lost it already?’

Froghorn extended his index finger and jabbed it in her direction. ‘You think you’re the cat’s pyjamas, right?’ he hissed. ‘Well let me tell you, I’m in charge so you better toe-the-line little girl. You already got me in trouble once, by cycling off home on your own. But I’ve got my eye on you now, and not much gets by me.’

‘Oh brother!’ muttered Ruby.

There was no jelly donut on her desk today and there would be no helpful conversation, let alone convivial chit-chat to speed up the work.

Ruby picked up from where she had left off and started to read Lopez’s notes.

She saw the way Lopez had put everything together, piece by piece. She had put the decoded messages in some sort of order, so they made a kind of conversation. It was easy to see what it all meant when you were looking at the whole picture. Just knowing any one piece wasn’t enough – it meant nothing. It occurred to her that this whole thing was cleverer than it looked; Lopez had seen that only the person masterminding the bank heist had actually known what the whole plan was. Each gang member had their piece of the plan but that was all.

Smart, thought Ruby, very smart. Now that’s what I call keeping a secret.

Froghorn walked into the room. ‘There’s a sandwich if you’re hungry – hope you like fish paste – I don’t, so I took the egg.’

Jeepers, thought Ruby, remind me never to recommend your charm school.

Ruby sniffed at her lunch, and cautiously took a bite; it wasn’t great, but she had eaten worse.

She had almost worked her way to the very end of the very last file. There was another clipping which she translated as:

Handover to take place at fountain –

plan to be there at 18.00 hours.

That was it, nothing else.

Ruby had reached the end – but what did she know? Not as much as Lopez, that was for sure. She wished she could talk it all over – get a different perspective – but there was no use trying to talk to old Froghorn.

She looked around the dingy office. She could hear him talking on the phone – he barely took a breath, and Ruby began to wonder how Lopez could have stood this. Day in day out, sitting in an office chair trying to figure out things which might in the end lead to nowhere – what kind of life was this? A lonely one.

She caught her reflection in the glass of the adjoining door – she looked at the words of her T-shirt, help is at hand. She tore off a piece of packaging tape and stuck it over is at hand so the shirt now simply read, help.

And then, like a miracle, Blacker walked in.

He looked at her. ‘Did you get into a fight with the tape or are you sending some sort of SOS?’

Ruby kind of smiled. ‘We’ll, let’s put it this way, your timely arrival may have prevented a major felony.’

He motioned towards the little office where Froghorn was working. ‘You two not hitting it off?’

‘Oh me and Froghorn, we are getting along like cats and dogs – couldn’t be better.’

‘Yeah, well he’s an acquired taste that’s for sure.’ Blacker handed her a donut. ‘So I’m guessing you’ve cracked the case.’

‘Yeah, yeah very funny. I got as far as the fountain – did you ever work out where it was?’

‘ ’Fraid not, there must be more than a hundred fountains in the area. We knew it was likely to be in a town, ’cause most fountains are but which town is what we couldn’t figure out.’

‘So you didn’t follow it up?’

‘No way we could. Anyway, Lopez was feeling kinda itchy, couldn’t sit still, it was bugging her that we couldn’t work out who these people were – we’d sorta reached a dead end. We went and got a drink at Blinky’s bar and then at around four I dropped her off at that fancy salon off of Twinford Square – she was always in there getting her hair manicured or whatever – never a nail out of place!’

‘That’s not how I pictured her,’ said Ruby. ‘I guess I thought she might be kinda dowdy.’

‘Dowdy, oh no, not Lopez, always looked like two and a quarter million dollars, always perfect – well, apart from the week before she went away of course.’

‘How do you mean?’ asked Ruby

‘The day after I dropped her off at the salon, she came into work with only half a manicure.’

‘Did you ask her why?’

‘Who am I to comment?’ said Blacker pointing at his dirty finger nails. ‘A person wants to go about with nail polish on one hand but not the other, that’s up to them. But something wasn’t right – she was distracted.’

Ruby thought about this. ‘I bet you miss her, huh?’

‘Yeah, I miss her all right, she was one nice person.’ He paused before saying, ‘I’ve just packed up the things she had with her when she died – got to mail them back to her family.’ He pointed to a small box, high up on the shelf by the door. ‘Doesn’t look like much does it?’

Ruby could only agree.

Blacker said goodbye and wished her luck. ‘Maybe I’ll see you on Monday Ruby. Just keep thinking, I know you’ll get there.’

But Ruby wasn’t so sure. She had been looking forward to the challenge of finding the missing link, the final piece, but three and a quarter hours later she had found exactly zip.

Back at Cedarwood Drive, Ruby went downstairs to find Hitch, who was sitting in his small but comfortable apartment, listening to music and reading some papers.

He looked up. ‘Hey kid, long time no see – how’s the world of crime?

‘Oh, you know, full of criminals.’

‘But no one’s been tailing you? No strange or uneasy feelings, I trust?’

‘No,’ said Ruby, ‘no strange feelings.’ She decided to keep the uneasy ones to herself.

‘Know anything we don’t know?’

She paused for a second, but, realising she had nothing to say, she shook her head. ‘Afraid not.’

‘That’s a shame,’ sighed Hitch, ‘we were all kind of counting on you.’

‘There’s still time though,’ said Ruby. ‘I mean, LB didn’t give me a deadline.’

‘She never does,’ said Hitch. ‘Likes to keep everyone on their toes. Yep, you could have hours before she fires you – let’s keep our fingers crossed.’

Chapter 18.

If in doubt, say nothing

RUBY WENT UP TO HER ROOM, and ignoring the blinking light of her answerphone, she opened her notebook and began writing up the day’s interesting events. She had barely started when she heard the doorbell ring – she slipped off the window ledge and went to look at the door monitor. It was Clancy Crew, standing with his face right up close to the camera so that his eyes looked huge and ridiculous.

Yikes, thought Ruby. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to see Clancy, it was just she didn’t know what to say to him. She decided to keep quiet – RULE 4: IF IN DOUBT, SAY NOTHING. Would Hitch answer the door? She waited a few moments. No, it seemed he hadn’t heard the bell over his music. There was no way Clancy could know that she was home, unless he had staked out the house and that seemed unlikely.

Eventually she heard something drop through the letterbox and his footsteps as he walked back down the drive and through the wooden gate.

Ruby went downstairs and picked up a carefully folded piece of paper. A snake.

On it Clancy had written in code:

‘What is going on Rube??? You aren’t even answering my calls – is that butler guy holding you hostage?’

She went back upstairs, heavy with guilt. Flicked the replay button her machine and listened to her messages. The first voice was Clancy’s. He was asking her if she was going to stop in at the Donut Diner on her way to basketball: ‘we could grab some french toast – hey, I’ll even pay.’

There was a message from Del, who wanted to discuss the game: ‘we need to talk tactics man – Bugwart’s not gonna slam us again’. One from Red asking if she could borrow Ruby’s violin because she had accidentally sat on hers and it was now ‘in several pieces’ and ‘beyond fixing’ and her mom was going to ‘most likely kill her’ and another from Clancy. This time it just said, ‘Rube, it’s Clance, please call.’

Ruby felt a little stab to her gut. She sat there for a while just thinking. She was in an impossible situation – lie to Clancy or break Spectrum rule number one. What kind of choice was that? She became aware that there was noise coming from the kitchen and she took a look through the periscope – Consuela had arrived and was chatting with Hitch as she prepared dinner. All at once Ruby knew what she had to do. She needed to talk to Hitch – he would just have to see her point of view.

She walked into the kitchen and found Hitch drying martini glasses while he chatted to Consuela, who was busy stuffing fourteen large tomatoes with what looked like more tomato. It occurred to Ruby that Consuela was rather over dressed for this task, the stiletto heels and painted fingernails seeming to be more of a hindrance than a help. She was also laughing rather too much, that sort of random giggling that certain girls at Ruby’s school broke into whenever Richie Dare walked past.

‘Oh brother!’ muttered Ruby. She took a breath. ‘Hitch, can I ask you something?’

‘I am sure you can and I have no doubt that you will,’ he replied.

Consuela giggled and Ruby glared at her.

‘Well, if I could drag you away from the kitchen for five trilliseconds.’ She made an eye signal, meaning “not in front of her” and Hitch put down his dishcloth and asked Consuela to excuse him. Consuela adopted a fake pout and giggled again.

‘Jeepers!’ muttered Ruby.

When they were out of earshot Ruby said, ‘What am I gonna do about Clancy?’

‘What do you mean? What’s Clancy got to do with anything?’

‘He has everything to do with everything and now that I’m involved with Spectrum I can’t talk to him about anything!’

‘Goes with the territory kid – you can’t talk to him, you can’t talk to anyone.’

‘But…’

‘Kid, you blab and you’re going to be in the deepest deep water you have ever been dunked in – that clear?’

Ruby nodded – this guy was never going to give in. She felt her spirits sinking as if there was an impossible weight pushing down on her. Lying to Clancy – an impossible task. She was dead meat.

She decided to get some air – take Bug for a walk. She headed off in the opposite direction from Amster Green.

When Ruby got back, her mother was there to greet her.

‘Well, hey there stranger, where have you been?’

Ruby was a little surprised by the question and wasn’t sure what to say – she couldn’t quite discern whether her mother’s tone was serious or playful.

RULE 4: SAY NOTHING. When in a tight spot people often give themselves away by over talking.

‘Um, well, you know,’ said Ruby.

‘Yes I do young lady. I came to pick you up after the match. I was going to take you to get your hair cut – remember?’

Ruby did remember now her mother brought it up – how could she have forgotten something which could so easily have blown her cover? RULE 7: NEVER FORGET THE LITTLE THINGS – IT’S THE LITTLE THINGS THAT WILL LEAD PEOPLE TO NOTICE THE BIG THINGS. This was something Ruby had seen time and time again in Crazy Cops. It was one of her most important rules.

‘Hey, you’ve ripped your new jacket,’ said her mom. ‘How did that happen?’

Yeah Rube, explain that why don’t ya.

‘Uh, well, let me tell you.’ Ruby was thinking fast but unusually nothing was coming to mind.

‘I guess it was at Mrs Beesman’s right?’

‘Uh…?’

‘I was about to go and call coach Newhart,’ said her mother, ‘I was worried, but luckily I ran in to Clancy and he tells me you went off to do some volunteer work helping out poor old Mrs Beesman. Ruby, you never told me about that – so sweet of you honey! But you ripped your jacket huh? Well, I’m hardly surprised – state of her yard.’

‘Yeah, well, you know,’ mumbled Ruby. Her mother was asking her all kinds of questions about Mrs Beesman but what Ruby was thinking was, Clancy covered for me even though I have been ducking his calls and deliberately avoiding him – he still covered for me. Wow, he’s some friend.

This made her feel bad.

Her mother was still talking about Mrs Beesman and how proud she was that a daughter of hers was kind enough to go and help a poor old lady out.

‘Ruby, you really do make me feel ashamed! I have never done anything to help her.’

This made Ruby feel worse.

She tried to make light of it. ‘Don’t beat yourself up Mom, we can’t all be saints.’

But her mother wouldn’t let go. ‘Be modest if you want Ruby, but as your mother I am proud of you, you can’t change that.’ Then she started kissing her on the cheeks – Ruby decided that perhaps this was Clancy’s idea of revenge after all.

At dinner, Sabina was still bragging about Ruby’s charitable work, this time to her father.

‘That’s swell honey,’ said her father.

And later, on the phone she bragged to Mrs Irshman. ‘She cleaned up Mrs Beesman’s yard, yes, Mrs Beesman with all the cats.’

Ruby was feeling steadily more and more horrible – she would have to actually go over and clean Mrs Beesman’s yard now – she was sure to go to hell otherwise. She was really beginning to dislike Clancy. Wow, some friend you are.

As if preventing a bank heist wasn’t enough – now she had to clean some cat lady’s yard.