The Complete Ruby Redfort Collection. Lauren Child

up in her. Sooner or later she was going to say something everyone would regret.

      ‘The collective noun is a school or shoal, or if you must be dramatic, a shiver,’ said LB.

      ‘Well, a mob is what it felt like to me,’ said Ruby, her voice loud and firm. She was on the very verge of telling LB where she might want to stick it. But fortunately, Hitch stepped in.

      ‘Look LB.’ His voice was calm and steady. ‘I wouldn’t have taken a risk like this if I hadn’t thought there was something sound in the kid’s thinking. Ruby’s a smart kid, we all appreciate that. More importantly, I trust her instincts – maybe these guys already plundered the wreck; maybe we were just too darned late.’

      ‘Acting on instincts is all very well. Acting on instincts without getting permission from your senior agent is reckless. Let me remind you both that you are not the ones who have to call up Agent Trent-Kobie at Sea Division and explain the actions of their renegade staff.’

      ‘I’ll give you that,’ said Hitch. ‘But what if the kid had been right? What if the kid is right? Shouldn’t we be trying to track these guys down?’

      ‘Have you ever paused to consider why anyone would go to all this effort for something as corny as treasure? Is it really worth it?’

      ‘No,’ said Ruby. ‘It isn’t worth it.’

      LB turned to look at her, speechless. She waved for Ruby to continue.

      ‘Either the mastermind behind this is a madman or the treasure is only a part of it. To my mind, there has to be something more.’

      ‘Now I’m interested,’ said LB. ‘Continue.’

      ‘I don’t know,’ said Ruby. She didn’t want to mention her theory to LB yet – that someone was after the rubies in a cave that a four-year-old girl had insisted was real exactly 200 years ago. It would sound too crazy. Too ‘fairy tale’, as LB had put it.

      LB stared at her for the longest fifteen seconds ever recorded and then said, ‘Well, come back when you do.’ She picked up the phone, dialled a number and launched right into a whole ’nother conversation.

      Meeting over.

      Hitch closed the door behind them. ‘Well, I think that went well kid.’

      ‘She doesn’t give a person a whole lot of slack, huh?’ said Ruby.

      ‘Never has, never will.’ He patted her on the back. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here. You need to take some time off; you’re growing dark circles around your eyes.’

      Ruby sighed. They had found nothing, but that didn’t mean there had been nothing to find. Maybe, like Hitch said, they were just too darned late. Perhaps it was also too late to catch these particular sea bandits; perhaps they had found exactly what they wanted and were now miles and miles away…

      Or perhaps not.

      Wherever they were though, they had managed to find a pretty secret hiding place. There had been absolutely no sign of them today, neither below the sea nor above.

      Ruby was right back at square one. And worse still, she’d managed to get Kekoa pretty badly injured and really annoy the powerful woman who ran the secret agency she worked for.

      A great day’s work, thought Ruby. Nice going Redfort.