Smugglers! (3 page)

I looked out of the window a few times that night, but I didn’t see the flashing light again. According to the research I’d done, smugglers often made regular journeys, so perhaps there would be another delivery later in the week. I’d keep an eye out for it. Trouble is, I was so tired the next morning because of all the time I’d spent looking out of the window that I overslept and missed breakfast. Gran wasn’t too pleased.

‘You’ll just have to see to yourself, Amy,’ she said. ‘I’m off out in a few minutes.’

‘No problem, Gran,’ I told her. ‘Have a nice day.’ I plugged in the toaster and took the bread out of the bread bin.

Then, to our astonishment, Mr Hodgkin shuffled in. His black hair was all tousled, he was wearing faded black jeans with a scruffy grey sweatshirt and looked like he hadn’t washed or shaved yet.

‘Any b-b-breakfast g-g-going, M-M-Mrs C-C-C?’ he asked.

Gran bristled. She hated being called Mrs C. ‘Breakfast finished half an hour ago, Mr Hodgkin,’ she said icily.

‘I’m having some toast. I’ll make you some if you like?’ I offered. This was my chance to question Mr Hodgkin and see if I could pick up any clues as to whether he was involved in the smuggling or not.

‘T-t-thanks,’ he stammered. ‘I’ll g-g-go and h-h-have a s-s-smoke.’ He nodded and went out into the backyard.

I placed two pieces of bread in the toaster, then ran upstairs to get my micro-recorder, notebook and lucky green pen, slipping them all in my jeans pocket. A good detective is always prepared.

I went back into the kitchen just as the toaster popped. I buttered the toast, then shouted out to Mr Hodgkin, ‘Your toast is done.’

As Mr Hodgkin opened the back door Fluffy made a dash for the yard, barging into him and knocking his tobacco pouch out of his hand.

‘Sorry,’ I said, picking up the tobacco pouch. I stared at the foreign writing on it. ‘Hey, is this Spanish?’

He snatched the pouch off me. ‘T-T-Thanks.’ He slipped it into his pocket and picked up his plate of toast.

‘Did you go badger watching again last night?’ I asked him. ‘It must be fascinating.’ Actually, I thought it must be really boring, but I wanted to get him into some kind of conversation. I put my hand in my pocket and switched on my micro-recorder. ‘How long do you watch them for?’

He stared at me. ‘Er … a-a-a f-f-few hours. D-d-do y-y-you l-l-like b-b-badgers?’

I sighed and switched off the recorder. Conversation with Mr Hodgkin was going to be difficult. I wasn’t sure I had the patience for it.

‘Amy, please can you pop to the dry cleaners and pick up the clothes you dropped off yesterday?’ Gran asked, coming back in. She handed me the dry cleaning ticket.

‘Okay,’ I replied. I could combine that with checking out the town. I’d just call for Max first.

Max’s mum was on her way out when I arrived. ‘Hello, Amy. Max is on the computer,’ she said as she dashed off. She was a mobile hairdresser, and I could see by the bag she was carrying that she was off to cut a client’s hair. I went straight through to the dining room where Max was playing games on the computer.

‘You on your own?’ I asked. One of Max’s stepsisters usually looked after him.

‘Izzy is at work and Nessa’s in bed. She was out till late at that club in town. Again.’

‘Oh, right. I thought I’d do a bit of detective work. Want to come with me?’

Max looked astonished. I could understand why. I usually spent my time trying to avoid him, but right now I needed him, much as I hated to admit it.

I shrugged. ‘Up to you if you don’t want to come.’

‘Yeah, course I do!’ he said. ‘Where we going?’

‘To case the town to see if we can find any clues as to who’s doing the smuggling,’ I told him. ‘Oh, and I have to pick up Gran’s dry cleaning too.’

On our way into town I told Max about Mr Hodgkin’s tobacco. ‘I’m sure the writing was in Spanish, and he acted dead jumpy when I asked him about it. I’m going to keep a close eye on him.’

We turned the corner and, to our surprise, saw Mr Hodgkin walking in front of us. What luck! ‘Let’s follow him,’ I told Max. ‘He might be going to meet a contact, someone who sells the tobacco for him.’

We kept a safe distance behind Mr Hodgkin, in case he turned around and spotted us, but as we got nearer to the town the streets became so packed we almost lost him. Then, I saw him turn off into a side street and go down a narrow pathway between the houses. When we reached the pathway he had disappeared.

‘We can’t follow him down there,’ Max said.

‘Yes we can. If he spots us we’ll pretend we’re visiting a friend of yours, right?’

‘Okay,’ Max whispered.

As I’d guessed, the path led to some back gardens and the gate to the first one was ajar. I peered around it and saw Mr Hodgkin talking to a well-built man with dark hair. The man went into a shed in his garden, came out with a parcel and handed it to Mr Hodgkin, who gave him some money.

‘I bet those are smuggled goods,’ I whispered to Max. ‘Do you know who that man is?’

Max shook his head. ‘Never seen him before.’

The man put the money in his pocket and then sniffed loudly, wiping his nose with the back of his hand.

‘Yuk!’ Max grimaced.

‘S-S-See y-y-you, S-S-Sid,’ stuttered Mr Hodgkin, walking back towards the gate. I looked around for somewhere to hide and saw some parked cars behind us.

‘Come on!’ I yanked Max’s arm and pulled him over to the nearest car. We ducked down just as Mr Hodgkin walked out of the back gate and off down the path. Sid came out, closed the gate behind him and made his way over to the car we were hiding behind. Sugar! What were we going to do now?

Luckily, he wasn’t planning on driving anywhere. He just opened the boot, took out a big bag and then set off down the pathway with it.

‘Let’s follow them,’ I said to Max.

When we came out of the pathway we saw that Mr Hodgkin was walking in one direction and Sid the other. I made a quick decision to follow Sid.

He headed down to the town and into a pub. We couldn’t follow him in there. We hung outside for a bit, wondering what to do next.

‘He could be in there for hours,’ Max grumbled.

I took out my cellphone, selected memos and made a note titled ‘Suspects’. I wrote ‘Sid, parcel, Mr Hodgkin’ and saved it in the ‘Smugglers’ folder. ‘Let’s pick up Gran’s dry cleaning and then see what other clues we can find.’

‘What are we looking for?’ asked Max as we headed down the hill.

‘I’m not sure, but the smuggler has to get rid of his or her goods somehow, so I guess we look for any shop selling goods that are suspiciously cheap, especially if they come from abroad.’ That reminded me of Marissa’s delivery yesterday. She hadn’t unpacked it all when I left, and I’d asked her to save some earrings for me. I could pop in and collect them and question Marissa a bit about exactly where her goods come from.

‘I know just the place to start,’ I told Max. ‘Leave the talking to me.’ I put my hand in my pocket and switched on my micro-recorder as we walked into Exotic Wares.

‘Hello, Amy. Have you come for your earrings?’ Marissa asked, smiling at me.

‘Yes, please. Have you unpacked all the other stuff now?’ I asked.

‘Yes, it’s all on the shelves. Have a browse. I’ve put the earrings in this drawer for you.’ She went over to the table where the till was, opened the top drawer and took out a small paper bag. ‘I’ll leave them here by the till for you.’

‘Thanks.’ There was quite a lot of new stuff on the shelves. ‘You sell some really lovely things,’ I told her. ‘How did you find out about this stuff and get it all over here?’

Marissa glanced up from the notebook she was writing in. ‘Oh, I go on a business trip twice a year. I visit firms in the Far East, India, places like that, looking for unusual goods to sell,’ she said. ‘Then I order them to be delivered. They keep me up to date with new stock, and when I’m running low I order more supplies.’

‘Does it take long for the goods to be delivered?’ I asked.

‘A couple of weeks, but if I want them urgently I can pay for special delivery,’ Marissa told me. ‘Why the interest? Are you thinking of going into importing when you’re older?’

‘I might. It sounds interesting,’ I told her.

‘Our teacher said that we shouldn’t buy goods made in third world countries because the people have to work long hours for hardly any money,’ Max butted in. ‘She said it’s slave labour and that some of the goods are smuggled in illegally.’

I could have killed him. I’d told him to leave the questioning to me. If Marissa was involved in the smuggling, he’d probably alerted her that we were on to her.

Marissa didn’t look at all concerned however. She carried on writing in her notebook and replied without looking up. ‘She’s right, too. That’s why I go and check out the companies personally. I always make sure that the staff are being paid a decent wage and working in good conditions before I place any orders for goods.’

She sounded so convincing. Surely she wasn’t the smuggler?

We browsed around a bit, and then I paid for my earrings and we left the shop.

‘I told you to leave the questioning to me,’ I grumbled to Max, switching off my recorder.

‘I am allowed to speak you know,’ he retorted. ‘I don’t need your permission. I’m not your slave!’

I glared at him, but bit back the sharp retort that sprang to my lips. I wasn’t going to walk through the streets arguing with a little kid.

We had a look around town for shops that sold cheap souvenirs, and then went in to check out the goods. I tried to ask the shopkeepers some leading questions, but Max kept butting in. In the end I just switched off the recorder.

‘That was a complete waste of time!’ I snapped, as we made our way back up the hill to collect Gran’s dry cleaning. ‘Next time I want to question anyone, I’m going by myself.’

‘Fine by me. In fact, you can do everything by yourself. See how you get on!’ Max snapped. He turned to march off in a huff and collided with someone.

‘Oi, watch where you’re going, kiddo, you almost knocked me over!’ It was Max’s eldest sister, Nessa.

‘Sorry, didn’t see you. Where are you going?’ Max asked.

‘To buy some perfume,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a hot date tonight.’ She gave us a finger wave and walked up the hill.

Max waited outside while I fetched Gran’s dry cleaning. He seemed to have forgotten that he’d been about to storm home.

‘Where now?’ he asked when I came back out.

‘Home. See if there’s anything worth listening to on my recorder.’ I shot him a reproachful look.

He glowered back, and we both walked up the hill in silence.

‘Hey, kiddos, still here?’ Nessa asked, as she came out of the pub carrying a bag. ‘Got it!’ she said, waving the bag triumphantly. ‘And half price too!’

‘You mean they sell perfume at the pub?’ I asked.

‘I got it from Sid the Sniff,’ Nessa told me. ‘He sells everything. It’s amazing what that bag of his holds.’

Sid the Sniff? I thought of the man Mr Hodgkin had met, the one he’d bought the packet from. He was called Sid and was always sniffing. He was carrying a big bag and had gone into that pub. He had to be Sid the Sniff. Could Sid be the smuggler? Was he smuggling stuff from abroad and selling it in the local pubs?

There was only one way to find out. Search his shed and find out exactly what he had in there.

‘I really don’t think this is a good idea,’ Max protested, as I scaled the fence to Sid’s backyard that afternoon. We’d been casing the joint and had seen him go out ten minutes ago, so we knew the coast was clear.

‘I told you it’s the only way. I’ve got to find out what’s in his shed, and then I’ll know if he’s the smuggler or not.’ I cleared the top of the wall and jumped down, bending my knees to soften the impact as I hit the ground below. ‘Now, you know what to do. Three blows on the whistle if you see Sid coming,’ I called to Max. I’d already checked with him that he had his whistle in his pocket before we set off.

I legged it over to the shed and grabbed the door handle. It was locked. I pulled and tugged at it, but it wouldn’t budge. Drat! Maybe I could pick the lock. I bent down to take a closer look at it. ‘GRRRR! GROWWWL!’

I spun around to see a huge, black German shepherd dog bounding across the yard towards me.

Ohmigod! Sid had a guard dog and by the look of it the beast had been trained to tear intruders in two. I knew I’d never make it to the fence in time, so, using the door handle as a lever for my foot, I scrambled onto the shed roof, just as the dog lunged for my ankles. It stood in front of the wooden door, its teeth bared, growling up at me. My stomach churned. If it got hold of me, I’d end up as dog meat. There was nothing else for it, I’d have to stay put and face the wrath of Sid the Sniff.

‘Amy!’

Max was peering anxiously over the fence.

‘You get going,’ I told him. ‘No point in both of us getting into trouble. I’ll make up some story to explain why I was in the garden. Pretend my ball went over the fence or something.’ It was an excuse that had worked before, but I had a bad feeling Sid the Sniff wouldn’t swallow it.

Max held up a grubby bag. ‘I’ve got some doggy treats here. I’m going to throw them to the dog. While he’s eating them you can make a run for the fence behind you. It’s not so far to go that way.’

I glanced over at the fence about two metres behind me, then down at the snarling dog. He looked like he could devour a whole pack of doggy treats in ten seconds flat.

‘How many treats have you got?’

‘Loads. I’ll throw one right by him, then keep throwing them further away to lead him away from the shed. Then, you can run for it. Okay?’

I weighed up the risk. The fence wasn’t too far away, and I was a pretty nippy runner. It had to be better than sitting here waiting for Sid the Sniff to come home and find me.

‘Okay. Go for it.’

Max threw a doggy treat over to the dog. It fell by the side of him and lay on the ground, unnoticed. Great.

‘Try getting it near enough for him to smell it,’ I shouted.

‘I’m trying!’ Max threw another treat. This one landed in the middle of the yard. I groaned and buried my face in my hands.

‘Done it!’ Max shouted triumphantly.

I took my head out my hands and saw the dog wolfing down a treat. It looked expectantly over at the fence. Max threw another treat, this time a bit further away from the dog. It ran over and gobbled it up. Hey, this might just work!

I got to my feet and ran over the shed roof, glancing over my shoulder when I got to the end to see what the dog was doing. It was still following Max’s doggy treat trail and was now well away from the shed, thank goodness. I dropped down and ran over to the back fence, my heart thudding like it was about to burst out of my chest any minute. Keep those doggy treats coming, Max!

Then, I heard a loud snarl and the sound of doggy paws racing across the ground. I glanced nervously over my shoulder and saw that the dog had spotted me and was hurtling my way.

Fear gave me wings. I ran faster than I’d ever run in my life, my heart going thump-a-thump-thump like a bouncy ball.

‘RUN! He’s nearly caught up with you!’ Max shrieked.

I didn’t dare look around again. With a final spurt, I lunged at the fence, grabbed the top and pulled myself up.

Tug! The dog had got the right leg of my jeans and was holding on tight. I gripped the top of the fence hard and tried to wriggle my leg free. The dog just tugged harder, shaking his head and snarling fiercely.

‘Wriggle your leg! Shake him off!’ Max yelled.

Like I wasn’t trying to. ‘Haven’t you got any more treats?’ I managed to gasp, clinging onto the fence for dear life.

Max rummaged through his pockets. Then, he grinned. ‘Got one!’ He threw it over. The minute I felt the dog let go I vaulted over the fence. I didn’t even care that I landed awkwardly on my butt right beside Max. I was safe.

A loud thud shook the fence as the dog threw itself at it, barking furiously. It sounded like it wanted to chew me up and spit me out.

‘Let’s get going!’ I scrambled to my feet.

‘What are you two doing here?’

Uh-oh! Sid the Sniff was barring our way, legs astride, arms folded. He didn’t look like the kind of guy you wanted to mess with.

I gulped. Had he seen me climb over the fence?

Max edged a bit closer to me.

‘Well, what are you kids doing hanging around my house?’ Sid demanded.

I wracked my brain for a plausible excuse. ‘We heard your dog barking and wanted to take a look at him. Sorry. We love dogs, don’t we, Max? My gran has a prize show dog you know.’ It sounded trite even to my ears, but I couldn’t stop myself gabbling. The man was glaring at me so hard he was making me nervous.

‘Is that so?’ He leaned forward so his face was real close to mine. I instinctively jerked my head back, trying not grimace at his smelly tobacco breath and nicotine-yellow teeth. ‘Well, my dog is no prize-winning show pet. He’s a fierce guard dog trained to eat intruders alive, so I’d advise you to keep well away from my house and my yard. Got it?’ He sniffed loudly and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. Gross.

‘We only wanted to look at your dog. Sorreee!’ I said, hoping I sounded braver than I felt. ‘Come on, Max.’

‘And don’t come back if you know what’s good for you!’ Sid shouted after us.

We didn’t stop running until we were two streets away. Then, we both sank down onto a bench to catch our breath. I inspected my jeans and grimaced at the torn, slobbery hem. That could have been my ankle!

‘What a nasty piece of work,’ Max gasped. ‘I wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of him.’

‘Yeah, but it proves he’s got something to hide,’ I said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Think about it. Why would he need such a fierce dog to guard a crummy house like that, and why would he be so angry at us – remember, as far as he knows we were just looking at his dog – if he had nothing to hide? I reckon he could be the smuggler and the shed is full of all his smuggled goods.’ I looked determinedly at Max. ‘And somehow I’m going to find a way to prove it.’