‘Skitching,’ repeated Nadal, with more emphasis. ‘It’s an activity that involves hanging onto a moving vehicle while skateboarding, roller skating or cycling.’
‘What?’ said Sabina.
‘I’m sorry to inform you, ma’am, that your daughter was involved in this illegal method of transportation.’
‘Who says it’s illegal?’ said Ruby. ‘Discouraged, sure, but illegal. . . I don’t think so.’
Sabina glared at her. ‘Don’t push your luck, pancake! You are already well and truly in the doghouse, you have a portrait booked for tomorrow for jeepers’ sake, and I can’t cancel Ada Borland – no one cancels Ada Borland – the woman’s a genius.’
‘I’m sorry, ma’am?’ said Officer Nadal, who had no idea what was going on.
‘Might I be of help, officers?’ asked Hitch, who seemed to have appeared from nowhere. ‘Mrs Redfort, why don’t you take Ruby up to her room, she needs to lie down, get Mrs Digby to fix her some soup, while I chat this over with the officers.’
Ruby missed what happened next, but ten minutes later Hitch was in the kitchen brewing up herb tea for her mother, while simultaneously on the line to a highly regarded masseuse, and at the same time listening to Sabina who was saying, ‘What’s the kid trying to do, kill herself? Have I failed as a mother? Have we not been there for her? Is this a cry for help? And someone please tell me. . . what are we going to do about her portrait? Have you seen that bruise? Have you seen the lip? Geez, the kid could double for the ugliest member of the Addams Family.’
Clancy heard their footsteps fading off into the distance, their whoops of laughter as they turned the corner. He reached a hand to his forehead and felt the warm sticky blood oozing from the cut on his eyebrow. He tried to stand, his ribs aching from where they had punched him. His arm felt dead. His hair felt funny, smelled funny; that of course was due to the spray paint – how was he going to explain this to his mom? She was unlikely to understand why his hair was now canary yellow and if he told her the truth she would no doubt call the police, the school and Bailey Roach’s mom, and Clancy really didn’t want that.
He found his bike, the front mudguard now bent out of shape and its beautiful Windrush blue marred by the yellow sweep of the aerosol can.
He picked up the bike and very slowly wheeled it home. He needed to clean the paint off before it set hard.
Ruby must not see this.
RUBY HAD A VERY SORE HEAD when she woke up the next morning.
She examined her face in the bathroom mirror. Ruby you look terrible, she told herself. She got dressed and went downstairs to the kitchen, poured herself a bowl of cereal and sat down at the table.
She looked up when Hitch entered the room, but continued to eat her Cheerios.
Hitch said nothing.
‘Look about the skitching—’ she finally muttered.
‘I’m not interested in that,’ said Hitch cutting her off. ‘You want to kill yourself that way, that’s your business.’
She resumed her eating.
‘But there is something I need to ask you and I’m pretty sure I’m not going to like the answer.’
Ruby looked up just for a second.
‘Before I rescued you from that flagpole, where were you exactly?’
‘In the vicinity,’ replied Ruby.
‘As in, near the Warrington Apartments?’ asked Hitch.
‘If the Warrington Apartments are in the vicinity, then I guess so,’ said Ruby.
‘Funny thing,’ said Hitch, he wasn’t taking his eyes off her. ‘The TCPD found footprints in the Thompson apartment, fresh footprints, in the chalk dust – size 3s.’
Ruby took another spoonful of cereal. ‘Must have belonged to the security guard.’
‘You would imagine so but you see the thing that’s going through my mind is, what security guard has size 3 feet?’
‘A real short one,’ said Ruby.
‘And what security guard uses climbing chalk?’
‘An adventurous one?’
‘I think we both know that’s a million to one and so if it wasn’t a security guard’s footprint then who might it belong to? And what the Sam Hill was this person doing in the Thompsons’ apartment last night? And then I get to thinking –’ he tapped his head with two fingers – ‘Ruby has size 3s, Ruby was in the area, Ruby is the sort of numbskull to climb up thirty-seven storeys of an apartment block and break into someone else’s home when she has been strictly forbidden to do any kind of field work.’
Ruby looked up from her breakfast. Her expression said, OK, you got me.
‘What I haven’t figured out and I would be truly grateful if you could enlighten me, is why?’
Ruby put down her spoon.
‘I went back because I needed to find something: the card, OK. Blacker and Froghorn weren’t so sure the Thompsons’ had been robbed, at least not by the window thief anyway, and the police were saying it had to be a copycat burglary, but how many burglars can climb up a building like that and squeeze in through a window of that size?’
‘You,’ said Hitch.
‘Right, but you know what I’m saying, man, you know this has to be connected.’
‘As it happens I agree with you. What I have a problem with is your methods.’ He paused a beat. ‘So, did you find what you were looking for?’
‘Yes.’ She pulled the card from her sweatshirt pocket and laid it on the table. There was a bite mark in one corner, impressions of tiny teeth.
‘Nileston, had it?’ said Hitch, taking the card.
‘It would be more accurate to say, Mr Potatohead had it. The kid must have picked it up before the cops arrived, it was in among all his baby junk. I guess his parents were too freaked by what had happened to even notice.’
‘OK,’ said Hitch, ‘I’ll take it in to Blacker, see what he makes of it, but his department is pretty busy right now due to another security breach.’
‘At Spectrum?’ asked Ruby.
‘No,’ replied Hitch, ‘but a piece of Spectrum hardware has gone missing and as a result all security codes need to be reconfigured.’
He started to leave.
‘Oh. . . if someone has time, they might want to take a look at this,’ said Ruby. She tore the back page out of the novel she was reading. On it were written four sets of numbers.
| 3 | 14 | 1 | 10 | 14 | 8 | |
| 15 | 14 |
13
|