Darn it!
‘Yes we did,’ continued her mother. ‘And she asked me where my drycleaner was because she was looking for a good one – good drycleaning can be such a problem. I said I would look it up – and she said, “As soon as you find out, could you be sure and let me know?”’
Detective Despo was getting in his car and was radioing for back-up but Ruby had no idea why. ‘Mom, could you just move a little to the right? You are blocking my view.’ She hoped her mother would get the hint. Her mother moved but continued to talk.
‘I told her, “You should really get a little powder blue Oscar Birdet suit yourself, redheads always look beautiful in blue”.’
Ruby’s ears pricked up; many tall, pretty, elegantly dressed women in the world had red hair, but her mother seemed to be bumping into a lot of them lately.
‘By the way,’ her mother continued. ‘It’s nice to see you wearing your contact lenses for a change, I don’t understand this fashion for glasses. This woman I’m telling you about, she was wearing the hugest tinted glasses you’ve ever seen. Such a shame, one could hardly see her face.’
Bingo! It had to be, it could only be! The woman from the hotel, from the square, the woman in the car and of course the woman at the airport – there were coincidences and there was bad luck and her mom was certainly running into a lot of one or the other. Her mother carried on talking, but Ruby heard none of what she said – she was too busy thinking about the little man with the huge moustache. What did he have to do with all this?
And then, suddenly, she knew.
‘So Mom, you remember when you bumped into the guy at the airport, the guy with the moustache?’
‘How could I forget? That suit will never be the same,’ sighed Sabina.
‘Well, he didn’t give you something, did he?’
‘Whatever do you mean Ruby, why would he give me something?’
‘Well, I don’t know but could he have slipped something into your pocket, without you knowing?’
‘Why would he slip something into my pocket, why not just give it to me like a normal human person?’
Ruby took a deep breath. ‘Well you see it happens all the time in Crazy Cops, someone who’s being tailed by the cops or even tailed by the bad guys, purposely bumps into a complete stranger and slips something into their pocket – a secret code, or potion or valuable thing. Maybe the thing is stolen!’
‘I can assure you I would know it – that suit is very fitted, the pockets aren’t made for putting things in, it would ruin the shape,’ said her mother firmly.
‘But what about,’ ventured Ruby, ‘if it was something really tiny, like a note, or something small but valuable, like for example a ring or a key?’
‘If it were a ring or a key then the metal detectors would go off – I had to go through metal detectors to board the plane. Besides if there was anything in the pockets the drycleaner would have phoned to let me know – they always do. By the way they found a watch in your jacket.’
‘Oh did they?’ said Ruby. ‘I was missing that… but they didn’t find anything in yours?’
Sabina looked at her daughter bewildered, and said, ‘Just what are you getting at Ruby?’
Ruby saw that look in her mother’s eyes and knew there was no point trying to persuade her that a small man with a moustache, for whatever reason, had almost certainly planted something on her. Something that other people – ruthless killers in fact – badly wanted. That it was not a coincidence that her parent’s luggage was lost, and the very next day the house burgled. That Mrs Digby was not sulking, but was most probably stolen along with the furniture. And that her mom was very lucky not to have been kidnapped herself – someone had certainly tried. At best her mother simply wouldn’t believe her and at worst she would panic.
Ruby took a deep breath and said, ‘Oh nothing, guess I’ve been watching too much TV is all.’
‘I’ll say,’ said Sabina, patting her daughter on the head. ‘Your father is always saying so.’
She left the room and Ruby thought about what her mother had said. It was true, a ring, a key or something like it would have set off the metal detectors but there had to be a reason everyone was after that jacket – Oscar Birdet wasn’t that good a designer.
She took out her notebook and made a list of what she knew, and just as importantly, what she didn’t know.
WHAT SHE KNEW:
1. That a moustachioed man had most probably slipped something into her mother’s pocket, back in Geneva airport.
................................
2. That an elegant woman with big glasses and red hair was prepared to commit numerous crimes to get it. Steal, kidnap, or maybe even kill, she had a gun after all.
................................
3. That whatever the something was, it was still in the jacket.
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4. That her mother’s life might well be in danger.
...............................
5. That this was no time for sitting tight.
...............................
WHAT SHE DIDN’T KNOW:
1. Who the man with the moustache was, good or bad.
...............................
2. What he had slipped into her mother’s pocket.
...............................
3. Why the redhead wanted it.
...............................
4. Why anyone wanted it.
...............................
5. Which drycleaner had the jacket.
...............................
6. What any of this had to do with anything.
...............................
‘But wait a minute,’ said Ruby out loud – maybe she did know something else after all. Ruby thought back – it was Hitch who had taken the jacket into the drycleaners. It was likely he would have kept a ticket and it was more than likely that he would have stuck it on the refrigerator door – she’d seen him do that many times with other things. Ruby got up and went into the kitchen.
She scanned the refrigerator – it was covered in receipts and lists, postcards and coupons, all stuck in place with magnets.
There it was:
She crossed off number 5 from her list of unknowns – she had the advantage.
Crisp and lean
SHE WAS PRETTY SURE SHE KNEW where ‘Crisp n Clean’ was located – she had seen their sign, which had neon lettering and a neon laundry detergent box that spilled neon bubbles. It was somewhere on the east side of town. She rarely went to that particular district but she had passed it once or twice and the brightly coloured sign had lodged in her mind. The ‘C’ of Clean was broken so it read ‘Crisp n lean.’
Ruby felt there was no time to lose, not if she was right about the woman who had visited her mother’s gallery earlier that day – and she was sure that she was. She grabbed her school bag