Half Moon Investigations - Eoin Colfer [15]
I wrote down what she said, trying to be non-judgemental. I mean, who would actually pay money for some pop star’s cast-off follicles?
‘You think Red Sharkey stole this… ah… hair sample?’
‘Definitely. He asked me for a look at it, begged me. And I told him sure, as soon as he could list the tracks on Shona’s last CD in order, from memory. So he storms off, saying how he’s gonna get a look at the hair one way or the other, and the next day it’s one hundred per cent gone.’
The facts of the case lay before me, and I wasn’t impressed. I was already feeling low over the theft of my shield, and now my big case turned out to be a missing curl. This was not a good career day for Fletcher Moon, ace detective. I closed my notebook.
‘Listen, April. I think you better take your money back. I’m a detective. Missing hair isn’t really my strong suit. Diamonds, relatives, even pets. But hair? I just can’t. I’m trying to put together a reputation. It’s just hair, and it’s probably behind the sofa.’
April was horrified. ‘Just hair!’ she whispered. ‘That’s like calling pink just a colour. Are you insane, Half Moon? That curl from Shona Biederbeck’s very own head is much more than just hair. It was the centrepiece of my project on culture. I had all these little photos and arrows pointing in at the curl. What are they going to point at now? A blank square? And for your information, Mr Detective, behind the sofa was the first place I looked.’
She had a point. But not one I particularly cared about. This must have shown in my face, because April gave me a look so piercing it could have bored holes in sheet steel.
‘Red and Herod control our school like some kind of mini mafia, running around stealing whatever they want. They bring it home to their pig of a father and he fences it, or whatever the word is. Here you are, a nerd calling himself a detective, too grand to take the case.’
‘Red’s not so bad,’ said May in a quiet voice. ‘He’s never been caught stealing.’
‘He’s never been caught,’ agreed April, then looked pointedly at me. ‘Until now, right, Fletcher?’
April made a strong case. I wasn’t just looking for a lock of pop-star hair. I was trying to bring down an entire crime family. The Sharkeys had made one enemy too many when they stole from April Devereux. And, of course, I was pretty certain that Red had stolen my shield.
I reopened my notebook. ‘OK. I’m hired. Tell me what happened.’
April’s mood instantly vanished. She was once again all white teeth and pink eyeshadow.
‘We keep all our cool stuff right here in the Wendy house. The morning after I brought the Shona curl to school, someone took it from my Love Heart strongbox.’
‘Could Red have known where the hair was?’
April frowned for a second. ‘All the girls knew. It would’ve been easy for him to find out. You know Red, always sweet-talking the ladies.’
‘Wasn’t the Wendy house locked?’
‘Yes. But we keep a spare key under the unicorn statue. The unicorn is my personal symbol, by the way. Maybe Red found it and put it back afterwards.’
There wasn’t much to go on. No evidence, not even circumstantial. Just a couple of hunches and, as Bernstein said: No one was ever convicted on a hunch.
‘Here’s what I am going to do. First, I need to dig into the Sharkey family history. I also need to initiate surveillance, concentrating on Red as the main suspect. If we can catch him in some criminal act, perhaps we can pressure him into returning your keepsake and the…’
I stopped short, unwilling to tell April about my shield. I was embarrassed about the incident, but also knowledge was power, and the more I talked to April the less I wanted her having any power over me.
May looked sharply at me.
‘Returning the what?’
‘All the other stuff he’s taken,’ I said. ‘Some of it, at any rate.’
April was too excited to pick up on my near mistake.
‘God, Fletcher, this is a totally new you. It’s like you know what to do or something. It’s really CSI.’
CSI? I wished. All I had was a notebook and some brains. Not an electron microscope in sight.
‘Shouldn’t you