No Rules (8 page)

When Uncle Bernie pulled up outside Ian's new school, Melanie had fallen asleep during the car ride. Friday looked about at the school buildings and was pleasantly surprised. It looked very nice. The administration block was a brand new building and through a gaudy use of primary colours it looked quite cheerful.

‘This school looks nice,' said Friday. ‘I was expecting it to be old and rundown.'

‘Yes,' said Uncle Bernie. ‘A year nine boy burned the main building down two years ago. So this new building has only been in use for a couple of months.'

‘What's the library like?' asked Friday as she followed her uncle into the school office. They left Melanie asleep in the car, with a window open and a note pinned to her chest explaining where she was.

‘Excellent,' said Uncle Bernie. ‘The entire collection was ruined last year in a flood, so the school was able to buy all new books with the insurance money.'

‘It sounds like they must have very high insurance premiums,' said Friday.

‘Oh yes,' said Uncle Bernie. He was an insurance investigator, so he was an expert on such matters. ‘You should have seen the claim they made for their rat problem.'

‘Rat problem?!' said Friday.

‘It's under control now,' said Uncle Bernie. ‘For the most part.'

Once Uncle Bernie and Friday had signed in, the receptionist led them through a glass door towards the principal's office. There was a bench outside and
a scruffy boy wearing the all-grey school uniform was slumped on it. It was only when Friday was a metre away that she realised who it was.

‘Ian!' exclaimed Friday.

Ian looked up and sneered. ‘What are you doing here? Ruining the lives of everyone at one school not enough for you anymore?'

Friday wasn't listening. She couldn't get over the way Ian looked. If she had not known objectively that he was extremely handsome, she could easily not have noticed today. The ugly school uniform seemed to suck the colour from his face and the spirit from his demeanour.

‘I'm here to get you out of trouble,' said Friday.

‘Why can't you mind your own business?' asked Ian.

‘Your mother is upset,' said Friday.

‘Upset that if I'm at home more I'll distract her from her winter pruning,' said Ian. Mrs Wainscott was a keen vegetable gardener.

‘Is that self-pity I hear from the great Ian Wainscott?' asked Friday.

Ian straightened up on the bench and pushed his fringe out of his eyes. ‘When I need help – which I don't – I'll ask for it, which I'm not.'

‘You're not my client,' said Friday. ‘Your mother is.'

The principal's door opened and a flurry of batik rushed at Friday.

‘Thank goodness you're here!' said Mrs Wainscott as she enveloped Friday in a huge hug. ‘Don't let them kick my boy out!'

‘We're not kicking anyone anywhere,' said a very reasonable-looking middle-aged woman standing behind her. ‘Hello, I'm Mrs Hurst. We don't expel students for this type of thing. But stealing exam papers is very serious. There is a mandatory punishment of two weeks suspension.'

‘Hello, Mrs Hurst,' said Uncle Bernie. ‘I'm Bernard Barnes.'

Ian sniggered. ‘Bernard.'

‘This is my niece, Friday,' continued Uncle Bernie. ‘She's a friend of Ian's …'

Ian interrupted with a scoffing noise.

‘Well, she knows Ian from his old school,' said Uncle Bernie. ‘And –'

Mrs Wainscott interrupted at this point. ‘She is a brilliant investigative detective and she's going to see to it that my boy is not wrongly convicted of a crime he didn't commit!'

Now, you have to understand, Mrs Hurst was the headmistress of a very challenging school, and having a twelve-year-old girl turn up claiming to be a detective was nowhere near the top ten of bizarre things she had to deal with in a given week. In her line of work, Mrs Hurst had learned to take the path of least resistance where possible, so when confronted with a scruffy girl in a brown cardigan planning to overturn her disciplinary decision, she simply smiled, nodded, and said, ‘I see.'

‘If the punishment is two weeks suspension,' said Friday, turning to Uncle Bernie, ‘are you sure that Ian didn't commit the crime just to get a holiday?'

‘Thanks,' said Ian. ‘It's nice to know you have such a high regard for my character.'

‘You've got to investigate,' said Mrs Wainscott. ‘Show them that just because his father is a convicted criminal and he's been thrown out of one school for large-scale forgery, Ian isn't really a bad boy.'

‘You can see why she gave away her career as a defence lawyer,' said Ian, rolling his eyes. (Mrs Wainscott literally had been a defence lawyer at one time, but she had thrown it in to pursue a career in the circus, which is where she met Ian's dad.)

‘I'd like to inspect the scene of the crime,' said Friday.

‘Friday, “alleged”. Can't you say “alleged”?' urged Uncle Bernie.

‘There's no “alleged” about it,' said Friday. ‘Either Ian stole the paper or he has been falsely accused of stealing the paper. Either way, a crime has taken place.'

‘You're welcome to come and have a look,' said the Mrs Hurst kindly. ‘There's not much to see.'

‘Thank you,' said Friday before turning to Uncle Bernie and giving him a meaningful glare. ‘Perhaps you and Mrs Wainscott should stay out here.' She waggled her eyebrows at her uncle hoping he would get the hint.

Uncle Bernie immediately understood: Mrs Wainscott's hysterics might hinder the investigation. ‘Come on, Helena, let's find you a cup of organic chai. Friday will sort this out. You've had quite a shock.' He led Mrs Wainscott away.

Ian rolled his eyes. ‘She had quite a shock in that she might have to spend time with me if I was home from school for two weeks.'

Friday and Ian followed Mrs Hurst into her office. Mrs Hurst was right. There wasn't much to see.

A large office desk was covered in paperwork and stationery. Venetian blinds with a broken cord shaded
the window. Three four-drawer filing cabinets were stacked side by side in the corner of the room. On the wall hung a framed photograph of the entire student body. And a golf umbrella sat in the corner, although Friday doubted anyone at the school played golf.

Friday closely inspected the photograph. Ian wasn't in it. It must have been taken earlier in the year.

‘So what happened?' asked Friday.

‘I had been called out into the playground,' said Mrs Hurst. ‘One of the younger students had an upset stomach.'

‘Animesh had thrown up all over the basketball court,' said Ian.

‘Yes, it only took a minute to deal with that. Mr Burgess, the janitor, soon brought out the high-pressure hose and took care of it,' said Mrs Hurst. ‘When I got back to the office, I found Ian taking the papers out of the filing cabinet.'

‘Really?' said Friday, going over to the filing cabinets herself. She closely inspected each cabinet, the floor in front of them and the wall above.

The floor was covered in cheap synthetic carpet, already worn from hard use. Crumpled-up gum wrappers were wedged down the side of the filing
cabinets. The wall behind was white and showed every stain. Water was leaking from the air conditioning vent directly above. Further down the wall, was a black smudge like someone had dragged a squash ball down the paintwork. There was a clutter of paperwork on top of the cabinets.

Friday carefully moved the paperwork to one side, but there wasn't much to see underneath, just a dent where something heavy had been dropped on the metal surface. ‘Which drawer held the exams?'

‘The second drawer down in the third cabinet away from the window,' said Mrs Hurst.

Friday rolled out the drawer. It contained dozens of hanging files. ‘What was the paper filed under? “M” for maths? “P” for pop quiz? “E” for exam paper?'

‘No it was filed under W for WMSA,' said Mrs Hurst.

‘Wmsa?' asked Friday.

‘Weekly Mathematics Skills Assessment,' said Mrs Hurst.

Friday flicked through the hanging files until she found the one marked WMSA. ‘And how did Ian get into the office?' asked Friday.

‘He walked in,' said Mrs Hurst. ‘He'd told the receptionist he needed to leave something on my
desk. The receptionist has only been working here for three days, and she hasn't worked with children before. It didn't occur to her to stop him.'

‘Sorry, Ian,' said Friday. ‘You're not going to get that two-week holiday.'

‘Rats,' said Ian.

‘Exactly,' said Friday. ‘Rats.'

‘Rats stole the paper?' asked Mrs Hurst.

‘No, but they inadvertently contributed to the crime,' said Friday.

‘What's she talking about?' asked Mrs Hurst, turning to Ian.

‘I don't know,' said Ian. ‘But she'll tell us eventually once we're all so irritated that we want to kill her.'

‘Clearly, the paper was stolen,' said Friday.

‘I thought you were meant to be getting me off,' said Ian.

‘But not by Ian,' said Friday. ‘You've had pest controllers in here dealing with a rat problem. To deal with rats, pest controllers lay bait stations around the gardens and in the air conditioning vents.' She pointed to the vent above the filing cabinets. ‘Pest controllers earn approximately twenty-two dollars an hour – which isn't much, considering they spend
their whole day crawling about in dark, confined spaces full of rat poo and spiders. As a result, they tend to be bitter and resentful, so they are prone to cutting corners. Such as not screwing the vent outlet covers back on properly.'

Friday picked up Mrs Hurst's golf umbrella and flicked the corner of the air conditioning vent. The cover fell off and dropped to the top of the filing cabinet. ‘Thus providing an access point for the wily thief.'

‘What are you talking about?' said Mrs Hurst. ‘Ian just walked right in. All the office staff saw him.'

‘Yes, they saw him,' said Friday, ‘but he wasn't the thief. The real thief climbed down into your office from the air conditioning vent. You'll notice the black scuff mark on the wall. That's consistent with someone who is approximately five-foot-four tall hanging out of the vent by their waist and scrambling to find purchase with their feet. Then they simply dropped down, causing this dent in the top of the filing cabinet.'

‘Anything could have caused that,' said Mrs Hurst, peering at the black mark.

‘But did it?' said Friday. ‘Had you noticed this dent before?'

‘No,' conceded Mrs Hurst, running her finger along the indentation. ‘But all the furniture around here is so dented, I might have just not noticed.'

‘Then the thief had to get down to the floor,' said Friday. ‘These cabinets are 1.2 metres high. That's too far to jump, so they tried to lower themselves to the ground using the cord from the Venetian blind, which is why it is broken.'

‘I assumed the cleaning staff did that,' said Mrs Hurst, picking up the broken cord.

Friday shook her head. ‘People always blame the cleaning staff,' she said sadly. ‘Then the thief found the paper, which would have taken a while because there are twelve drawers here to search through. They chewed three pieces of Juicy Loosy gum while they searched, and shoved the wrappers down the side of the cabinet. They found the test papers, climbed back up onto the filing cabinet, leaving a partial shoe print on the corner of the windowsill, then up into the air conditioning vent. I can see the grubby fingerprints from here – it looks like they had Cheezels for lunch. Then they pulled the vent cover back into place behind them before making good their escape.'

‘But I caught Ian taking the paper,' said Mrs Hurst.

‘No, you caught him in your office with the drawer open and the paper in his hand,' said Friday. ‘But he wasn't taking it. He was returning it.'

‘That's impossible to prove,' said Mrs Hurst, shaking her head.

‘Not at all,' said Friday. ‘You were gone for less than a minute because the janitor quickly brought out his high-pressure hose. So, if you subtract the time it took Ian to walk into the building, speak to the receptionist and get into your office, he only had about thirty seconds before you found him.'

‘That would have been plenty of time to steal the exam papers,' said Mrs Hurst.

‘No it wouldn't,' said Friday. ‘You have a shamefully illogical filing system. There is an entire wall of files here. There is no way Ian could have found the right hanging file that quickly unless he already had the paper in his hand and he could see the ridiculous acronym WMSA written on the top.'

‘But if Ian didn't take it, who did?' said Mrs Hurst.

‘Do we have to go through this?' asked Ian. ‘I'm happy to take the rap. The paper has been returned. No harm, no foul.'

‘I want to know who broke into my office,' said Mrs Hurst sternly. ‘Maybe it was Ian, and he felt guilty so he returned the paper himself?'