Half Moon Investigations - Eoin Colfer [77]
‘Innocent?’ I scoffed. ‘Not too innocent to set up everyone who beat you in last year’s show.’
‘But they got me too. My lucky costume.’
‘Maybe,’ I countered. ‘But you’re still here.’
She didn’t answer. Not because she didn’t have an answer, but because she was going for the innocent hurt look.
I ploughed on. May’s credibility had to be torn to shreds. It was the only way this could work.
‘Take a look, everyone. Lovely May Devereux. As pretty as her name. The perfect student and a doting daughter. But behind this facade is someone who will do anything to get her way. Being seventh in a competition was never going to be enough for May. After last year’s humiliation, she plotted her strategy for months. It was a simple enough plan: take out everyone who finished higher than her.’
May had turned so pale that she seemed almost translucent.
‘So Mercedes’s minidisc is stolen. Johnny and Pierce lose their decks. The chocolate phantom visits Maura Murnane. The list goes on. But there was one problem: Master Red Sharkey. Red has already been in more trouble than May can throw at him. Red has backbone and will not be broken, his family can’t be used against him. May is getting desperate, she’s running out of ideas. Then one day her cousin April, who has her own scheme, hires me to track down a fictitious lock of Shona Biederbeck’s hair. It was perfect.’
I paused for breath. You could have heard a crisp crack. But didn’t, because this drama was more absorbing than any snack. Which is saying a lot for schoolkids.
‘April and May set me on Red’s trail like a good doggy. I get assaulted, Red gets blamed and May is the least likely suspect. Perfect.’
May found the resolve to step forward under the lights. Her costume shimmered like a disco ball.
‘You do know I’m only ten, don’t you, Fletcher? And anyway, you can’t prove any of this,’ she said with some steel behind her trembling voice.
Proof. The hole in my case. A rather significant hole. But this was all part of the plan.
‘I don’t need proof, because everyone in this hall knows it’s true. Your life as the popular princess is over.’
What I was doing was cruel. Terrible. I hated myself. I wished there was another way.
May retreated in the face of this onslaught. She mouthed my name, but no sound came out.
‘You had more than most, May, but it wasn’t enough. You had to have the talent-show crown as well, even if it meant climbing over your own schoolmates. Some of your victims have been your friends since kindergarten. How could you?’
‘She didn’t!’ said a voice from the crowd. The outburst I had been praying for. The sound of that simple sentence was like the clanging of a victory bell. I knew, with absolute certainty, that my theory had been correct. It was as if a ghost had taken on flesh and revealed himself to the world.
‘No,’ I said, turning to face the man, who had left his seat and was standing red-faced in the aisle. ‘She didn’t. You did. Isn’t that right, Mr Devereux?’
May’s father, Gregor Devereux, looked back at his seat as if he had no idea why he wasn’t still in it. His eyes swivelled to meet mine, and they were the eyes of a guilty man. Everything slotted into place with the precision of a laser-cut jigsaw and the true thrill of detection sent a shiver through my senses. For a moment everything dissolved but the truth.
Devereux pointed a finger at me. ‘You just… You just leave my little girl… You just shut up, you little…’
‘Unfinished sentences,’ I said. ‘A sure sign of guilt.’
No one moved. No one spoke. Mothers clamped their hands over infants’ mouths.
‘It took me a long time to see it,’ I said, stepping to the lip of the stage. ‘I was so stupid for so long. It had to be you, Mr Devereux.’
‘Call me Gregor,’ said May’s father automatically.
‘Everything pointed to May, because she was the one to benefit. But if she didn’t do it herself, and I never for a moment believed that she did, then who would want her to benefit? Who? Her father, of course.’
Gregor Devereux tried to laugh, but no sound came from his mouth.