Half Moon Investigations - Eoin Colfer [82]
Then, as if my thoughts had summoned him, Red appeared. He slid along the bench opposite, looking as he always did: hurried, harried and cool. His fiery hair stood in shocked stalagmites, and his freckles had multiplied in the unseasonable autumn heat.
‘Half Moon,’ he half whispered, ‘I’m in trouble this time. Real trouble. I’m sunk, done for, up the creek. You have to help me.’
Red Sharkey was actually asking for help. This must be serious.
‘What happened? I’m not supposed to be talking to you, by the way.’
Red ducked low, his chin just above the tabletop, as though someone was watching. ‘Forget that. This is important. Life or death stuff. We can worry about your parents later. You are the only one who can help me.’
I could feel eyes on me. I looked around and spotted Hazel standing by the juice vendor, pointing her video camera at me, hand on hips. Her body language was screaming I’ll tell Mam. But then her gaze met mine and her features softened. She put away the camera and placed a hand over each eye. See no evil. For some reason Hazel had decided to give me a break. Maybe she could sense that I needed one.
‘Hello, by the way,’ I said. ‘How are the lads?’
‘Good. Papa is delighted with me. A Sharkey who was genuinely innocent. Oh, and Roddy wants to be a detective now. How long that will last I don’t know.’ He glanced up nervously, as though he half expected someone to be watching. ‘Now, my problem. Will you help?’
I felt a brushstroke of dread coat my stomach. ‘I don’t know, Red. After our last case –’
Red slapped the table. People jumped. ‘Snap out of it, Half Moon. I need help. I need the truth, and the truth is your speciality. What are you going to do? Mope for the rest of your life?’
Red was right. He needed my help, and I should give it. Without selfish hesitation.
‘OK. Tell me quickly, before I chicken out.’
‘Excellent,’ said Red, grinning his pirate grin. ‘This is a real stumper. Someone will write books about this one some day. Last year I did some work on a country estate. Summer labouring for this American chap who’d inherited a title.’
‘Summer labouring. American nobleman. OK.’
It was enticing. So far, classic mystery set-up. For a moment my depression lifted.
‘So the American’s family has this curse on it…’
A curse. No such thing as far as detectives are concerned. But they can have a devastating effect on superstitious people.
‘According to this curse, every lord of the manor gets done in by a… eh… fox.’
I began to sniff a rodent. ‘A fox?’
‘Yeah. Big fox. Enormous. Roams the moor sniffing for the American chap. Just dying to take a chunk out of his backside…’
‘Wait a second,’ I said, unable to swallow a smile. ‘You’re making this up, or rather stealing it from Arthur Conan Doyle. I believe the story you are butchering is The Hound of the Baskervilles.’
Red was smiling back at me. ‘OK. I’m not in trouble. But tell me your heart didn’t start beating for the first time in a month.’
I couldn’t deny it. So I didn’t.
‘You’re a detective, Fletcher. That’s what you’re good at.’
‘My dad took my badge.’
Red wagged a finger at me. ‘Just because you don’t have a badge, doesn’t mean you don’t have a badge,’ he said, trying to sound wise. And strangely, I understood exactly what he meant.
Red cleared his throat nervously. ‘Anna Sewell, the girl who wrote Black Beauty, said that “with cruelty and oppression it is everybody’s business to interfere when they see it”, which means that you were dead right to stand up to Gregor Devereux. He was certainly cruelly oppressin’ us.’
‘Have you been talking to Murt?’ I asked suspiciously.
‘Yes,’ admitted Red. ‘I’ve been helping him out with a few cases since you’ve been out of action. He says that I am not as