Eye Spy (6 page)

The next day, I was really paranoid in school. Everywhere I went I was afraid I was going to bump into Atlanta and her gum-chewing friend, or Aidan from the Drama class. At break, Donna started having a go at me. “Atlanta's our best lead at the moment,” she grumbled. “If you won't go anywhere near her, how are we ever going to find out anything?”

I was fed up with Donna criticising me. “It's all right for you! Nobody's made fun of you in public!” I turned my back on her and went off to talk to Raji and Ryan. Ten minutes later, she was back, tapping me on the shoulder.

“You've got to come!” she hissed in my ear, trying to drag me towards the boiler room.

I refused to move. “If you think I'm going to risk getting involved in another poker game…” I began.

“It's not poker,” she insisted. “Atlanta and her cronies are in the boiler room having a smoke, and I've been eavesdropping. It's quite safe; they can't see us. Hurry up, or we'll be too late.”

When we got there, instead of going into the building, she crept round the side and stopped just short of the window to the caretaker's room. The top half of the window was open and we could hear talk and laughter from inside. Wisps of smoke drifted from the window into the playground.

Donna put her finger to her lips. “Listen…” she breathed.

A girl's voice said, “You're so lucky, Atlanta, working at the Starship Café.”

“You think so?” I recognised Atlanta's lazy drawl. “You're on the go all the time, and if you break a glass or accidentally spill some food on a customer, you have to pay for the damage.”

“I still think it's better than stacking supermarket shelves,” said the first voice. “And anyway, it's not your only job, is it, Atlanta? She's got another cushy number…”

“What? Babysitting?” said a third voice. It sounded like the gum-chewing waitress. “The kid I used to babysit bawled his head off the moment his mum left the house and didn't stop until she came back. I don't call that cushy!”

“Oh, but little Tati is sweet!” said Atlanta. “She's no trouble at all.”

“Tatty?” someone asked. “What sort of name for a kid is that?”

“T-A-T-I, stupid. It's Russian. It's short for Tatiana.” I caught Donna's eye. At last the conversation was getting interesting.

There was a pause while they seemed to be lighting fresh cigarettes. Then Atlanta continued, “Tati's dad nearly fired me last week. Our dog got out and was running up and down the street barking its head off. I had to leave Tati on her own whilst I got him back. Her dad wasn't best pleased, but he agreed to give me another chance. I'm babysitting again tonight.”

I remembered the conversation outside the café. Now it made perfect sense. It seemed the dog Sergei had mentioned was Atlanta's own pet. We'd leapt to all the wrong conclusions. I felt ashamed. As PIs go, we were rubbish.

On the way to our next class, I said to Donna, “So can we rule out Atlanta and her boyfriend as suspects?”

“Yeah, but not Sergei, even if he does have a sweet little baby daughter.”

“Yes, he's still suspect number-one, because he's the only person we can definitely place at the scene of the crime. If Kiki was stolen, he could have been the decoy. But I don't think he can be keeping Kiki at his place. He wouldn't let anyone else into his house if he had a stolen dog there. And anyway, Atlanta obviously likes dogs if she has one of her own. Wouldn't she have mentioned Kiki if she was there?”

Donna looked glum. “We seem to be going round and round in circles. We might as well give up.”

I tried to cheer her up. “We could try Kath again. I'm sure she knows more than she's telling.”

“OK, but that'll have to wait. Tonight I want to go straight home and find out how Dad got on with the man from the Ministry.” She was right. Kath could wait another day; right now we had more urgent priorities.

As soon as we arrived home that afternoon, Nan pounced on us. “Don't go near the workshop, either of you. Your father's in there with his visitor and he doesn't want any distractions.”

In the kitchen the table was laid with the best tea service, the one Nan only ever uses on special occasions. There was a Dundee cake, a plate of scones, butter and cream and home-made raspberry jam. Nan was doing her very best to impress the man from the Ministry.

“How long have they been in there?” Donna asked.

Nan glanced at the clock. “At least a couple of hours. I'm sure they'll be finished soon.”

As we all stared at the door of the workshop, we became aware of raised voices. Whatever was going on in there, it didn't sound good. Then the door opened, and a man in a pin-striped suit walked briskly down the path towards the house.

Nan opened the back door. As he stepped into the house, Pinstripe looked over his shoulder as if he was afraid Dad was going to pursue him. Nan smiled nervously at him. “Can I offer you some tea and cake?” she said.

Pinstripe looked at the tea and the scones, and the steaming kettle, and I could see he was tempted. He glanced back towards the workshop, and just at that moment the door opened and Dad came out. He looked even more dishevelled than usual and absolutely furious. “How kind… awfully sorry… a train to catch… must dash…” He was already halfway to the front door when he added, “Please thank your son for seeing me. I wish him good luck in his endeavours.”

As the door closed behind Pinstripe, Dad came into the kitchen. He was shaking with anger, but at the same time he looked stunned, as if he didn't quite know what had hit him. Nan took his arm and steered him towards a chair. Then she poured him a cup of tea, added three sugars, and asked, “What happened, Ian?”

We got it out of him bit by bit. It had all started well. Dad was on his best behaviour, Hamish performed impeccably, and the man from the Ministry was so impressed that he handed Dad a contract to sign. Under normal circumstances, Dad would have just signed on the dotted line without reading it, because he loathes paperwork, but just then he was trying very hard to appear business-like. So he read all of it and he discovered that, once he'd handed Hamish over to Pinstripe, that was it. He'd get paid for the design, of course, but he wouldn't be involved in the robot's manufacture, and once Hamish replicas were rolling off the production line and being sold to eager buyers, he wouldn't get any of the profits, either.

“I offered to act as a consultant whilst they developed the robot. I offered to sign the Official Secrets Act. I even said you'd all sign it too if necessary. But he just wasn't having it. That was when I told him to get lost.”

Donna was looking at Dad as if he was off his head. “He offered you money and you refused?” she said incredulously. Nan glared at her, but it was too late – the words were already out.

Dad almost ground his teeth. “It was a paltry sum!” he said. “Paltry! I put two years of my life into this project; it's got vast potential, but they won't pay me what it's worth! They wouldn't even let it be known as the Macintyre robot, so that at least I got the credit for it. They're jackals! Jackals!” He thumped his fist on the table so that all the cups and saucers rattled furiously.

Nobody said anything. There didn't seem to be anything left to say. After a while, Dad got up and put on his coat. All the anger had gone out of him now, and he just looked old and defeated. It was as if he'd switched off his batteries and shut himself down; as if he were the robot, not Hamish. He left the room, and a moment later we heard the front door slam.

He was still out at suppertime. We didn't talk much during the meal, and I could tell Nan was worried about Dad. When he's angry or depressed, he's even more unpredictable than usual, so we didn't know what to expect. Donna looked especially unhappy, pushing food around her plate instead of eating it. I guessed she was feeling guilty because of what she'd said to Dad about the money. Eventually she stopped pretending to eat and said, “Why does he push us away when things go wrong for him? He never lets us comfort him.”

Nan shrugged. “What can I say, lass? Ian's never been good at handling rejection; it makes him feel a failure.”

All three of us felt like failures that evening. I hoped that day was just a low point, and that from then on things would get better. But they didn't get better; they just went on getting worse.

At two thirty on Thursday afternoon, we were sitting in the hall with the rest of Year Eight, waiting for the Managing Director of Holtech to appear. Donna and I sat right at the back. It was only six days since the poker game, and we didn't want to give Mr Bull any more opportunities to pick on us. So far that week we'd been quite successful at keeping a low profile, but it wasn't worth taking any chances.

The buzz of conversation stopped suddenly as Mr Bull walked onto the stage accompanied by a man and a woman. The man was very tall with a high forehead and receding hair. I thought he looked familiar, but I couldn't work out where I'd seen him before. The woman, who had short, glossy blonde hair, was wearing a black trouser suit and a red top. Mr Bull ushered them onto the stage as if they were royalty, pulling out a chair at the table for the woman to sit on. You could see he was in a good mood as he stood on the platform with his hands clasped behind his back, swaying gently from foot to foot and beaming widely at us. He was doing his Father Christmas act again.

“Today, boys and girls,” he began, “we are privileged to have with us the Managing Director of Holtech Systems, Miss Diane Fairchild, and her colleague Mr Lionel Caulfield, who are going to talk about what the company produces and explain to you the fascinating careers that are open to those who work in the field of cutting-edge technology. I'm sure we're in for a really stimulating talk. Miss Fairchild…” He sat down and gestured to the woman to start talking.

The heating was going full blast once more, and it was very warm in the hall. I let my thoughts drift, and the voice of the woman explaining all the different manufacturing processes Holtech was involved in gradually receded into the background. I dozed off for a few minutes until Donna suddenly nudged me.

“What?”

“Listen! This is interesting.”

The woman was listing some of the products the company produced. “…a range of components such as infra-red lenses, which are used for night-time photography, and miniature sensors, which have all sorts of commercial applications.” I saw what Donna was getting at. A company that made sensors and optical lenses might just be interested in a robot that used the same technology. I did wonder briefly how Dad had managed to overlook the fact that the largest employer in Holcombe Bay was also the ideal company to approach with his ideas. Maybe Dad spent so much time locked in his workshop that he had no idea what was going on locally.

The woman finished her talk and sat down. As the man began to give a video presentation about Holtech, Donna and I held a whispered conversation.

“Do you think we should try and speak to them after the talk?” I asked. “Sound them out about the robot?”

Donna was enthusiastic. “We'll never get a better opportunity. We can waylay them in the car park as they're leaving.”

I looked up and saw Mr Bull glaring at us. Had he noticed us whispering? If he had, we were in trouble. As soon as the lecture finished, and Mr Bull had thanked the Managing Director and her colleague in gushing terms for taking the time to speak to us, we started to push our way through the hordes of other Year Eight kids all making for the exit. I was half expecting to hear Bull's voice call out, “Alex Macintyre!” above the noise of scraping chairs, talk and laughter, but he must have had better things to do because we escaped from the hall without being stopped.

To get to the car park at the back of the building we had to fight our way against the crush of kids making for the front entrance in order to go home. I was afraid we'd be too late, but as we pushed open the door that led to the car park, we saw the man and woman standing next to a shiny new BMW, deep in conversation.

“Don't rush!” I whispered to Donna as we started out across the tarmac towards them. We didn't want to arrive in front of them gasping for breath, or they'd never take us seriously.

The man saw us first. He said something to the woman, and as she turned round and stared at us, I noticed she was pregnant. She didn't look very welcoming. You could almost see her thinking:
not more kids!

Suddenly I realised I hadn't a clue what to say. As I struggled unsuccessfully to work out how to broach the subject, Donna took the initiative. “Miss Fairchild? We were wondering if you could give us some advice about our technology project.”

The man touched her arm. “Don't forget we've got a meeting in half an hour!” he said, but she ignored him and went on staring at us. Finally she said, “OK, what's the problem?”

“Well, we have to write an essay about how a new product is designed and manufactured, something futuristic like…” Donna paused as if she was desperately searching for an idea, “…like a robot, for instance. A robot that could be used to find someone trapped in a burning building or detect unexploded mines. Would your company be interested in something like that?”

“A robot!” said the woman. “Now, there's an interesting thought! We've never made anything that complicated before, but we certainly manufacture a lot of the components you'd need to make one.” She broke off suddenly and turned to me. “What's your name?”

Oh, no,
I thought.
She's going to report us to Bull for bothering her.

“Er… I'm Alex Macintyre, and this is my sister Donna.”

She nodded slowly. “Well, you two, I don't think this is really about a technology project, is it? I think you know someone who's designed a robot. OK, tell them from me that we're always looking for innovative ideas, and a robot might fit very well into our development programme. Now, I'm afraid I must go; I'm due at another meeting. Come on, Lionel.”

She climbed into the car, and the man got in the other side and started the engine. As they drove out of the car park, she wound down the window and gave us a little wave, as if she was a visiting royal.

As the car disappeared from view, we looked at each other in astonishment. “She knows!” said Donna. “But how does she know? We haven't told anyone about Hamish, and I'm sure Dad hasn't!”

“She can't know. It must have just been a lucky guess. Anyway, she's answered our question. Now we just have to persuade Dad to talk to her. Maybe it will be easier for him if he knows she's already interested.”

Maybe he would talk to her; maybe he wouldn't. It was always difficult to guess what his reactions would be, especially when he was depressed. We were going to have to pick our moment.