The Poisoned Arrow (8 page)

‘And does he have a lot of friends at uni?’ I asked.

‘Well, no, just the three, really. He’s shy and sensitive, very dedicated to his studies. He’s not one of these students you see on telly going to parties all the time and
making a lot of noise at three in the morning. He lives at home with me, he eats sensibly and he does his share of the chores.’

‘And does he use computers much?’ I said. ‘I suppose he must do if he’s studying maths.’

‘Yes, he’s got two of them,’ said Mrs Hardyman. ‘A laptop he’s had for years, which he takes to classes with him every day, and a large one on the desk in his room
which he bought with money from his part-time job. He works in SuperSave at the weekends. I’m telling you, he’d have no need to steal another one!’

‘So what exactly happened?’ I said. ‘You said he was arrested on Tuesday?’

‘Yes,’ said Mrs Hardyman. ‘The computer was stolen on Monday morning. Dr Shroeder had his laptop in his study at the university. He went for a wee and when he came back the
laptop was gone. He was only out of the room for a couple of minutes.’

‘And then what happened?’

‘When it was clear that the laptop had been stolen, Dr Shroeder went to the head of department’s office to report the theft, and they called the police. A couple of officers were
asking questions around the campus most of the day. A number of students had seen Nat but none had seen the computer. They dusted for fingerprints in Dr Shroeder’s office, but didn’t
find anything useful. It got to about four o’clock and they hadn’t come up with any clues. They were about to go back to the police station when Dr Shroeder came over to them and told
them that Nat had just confessed to the theft. And then they took him in for questioning.’

I jotted down a couple of lines in my notebook. ‘Was there anything special about this stolen computer?’ I asked. ‘Was there any particular reason why someone would want to
steal it?’

‘It was almost brand new, apparently,’ said Mrs Hardyman. ‘One of those flashy white and silver things you see in adverts, very trendy, can’t remember what they’re
called. Very expensive, too.’

‘So the police think it was stolen because it’s a really smart piece of high-tech gear?’

‘No. When they were questioning Nat, he told them he took it because he thought next week’s exam questions might be on it.’

‘There’s an exam next week?’ I asked.

‘Yes, an extremely important one. All the maths students are taking it. This exam counts as a quarter of the total marks for their final qualification. I should think any of them would
love to get their hands on those exam questions in advance.’

I’m not exactly Mr Brainbox when it comes to maths, but even I could see that something here didn’t add up. I could tell at once that Nat had almost certainly lied to the police.
Something Mrs Hardyman had told me pretty much ruled out any idea of Nat wanting to get his hands on that exam.

Have you spotted the oddity in what Nat said?

Nat was top of the class. Someone like him would be
least
likely to want to steal exam questions. If that was what he’d told the police, it was highly unlikely to
be the truth. (Unless, of course, he
always
cheated in tests . . .? No, Dr Shroeder said his in-class work was the best he’s ever seen – you couldn’t cheat at that!)

There was more going on here than I’d first thought. If Nat had owned up to taking that computer, why would he then lie about his reasons for doing it?

‘What about these three friends of Nat’s?’ I said. ‘How do they fit into the picture?’

‘Matt, Jack and Anil have been his best friends for years.’

‘Did they all go to St Egbert’s?’ I asked.

‘Oh no, they went to a nice school that was much less rough. Matt and Jack are doing English literature and Anil is doing engineering. They’re also shy and sensitive. I thought they
were such good boys until they started lying about Nat!’

‘How did that come about?’

‘The police let Nat go late on Monday. They said they needed more evidence before they could do anything.’

‘Wasn’t what he’d said enough?’

Mrs Hardyman shook her head. ‘The police won’t charge someone based on a confession alone and Nat couldn’t produce the computer to prove he’d taken it. I think perhaps
they realised he was making it all up. He wouldn’t talk about it when he got back. I was just glad to have him home. I thought the whole horrible business might blow over and the university
would let him return in a few days, but then the police came to the house and arrested him on Tuesday. Now he’s out on bail, waiting to be taken to court.’

‘Because his friends backed up his story?’ I queried.

‘Yes,’ said Mrs Hardyman. ‘They went to the police on Tuesday morning. All three of them said they’d seen Nat come out of Dr Shroeder’s room with the laptop. Jack
also said he’d seen Nat an hour later carrying the laptop around campus. Anil said he’d seen Nat at lunchtime using the laptop in the library.’

Wait a minute. Something else didn’t add up.

Unless two and two had suddenly started equalling five, there was a strange mismatch here. There was a weird inconsistency between what Nat’s friends had told the police and what the
police had already discovered for themselves on Monday.

Have you noticed what didn’t quite make sense?

On Monday, the police had asked questions around the campus. A number of students had said they’d seen Nat but nobody had seen the computer.

Yet Nat’s three friends had apparently seen him
with
the computer? At
three
separate times? On the
same
day? Although
nobody
else had seen the stolen laptop?
Only
Nat’s own buddies could link him to the crime?

And why hadn’t these friends said anything to the police on Monday? Why wait a day?

‘Surely the police spotted the contradiction?’ I frowned.

‘Maybe they did, maybe they didn’t,’ sighed Mrs Hardyman sadly. ‘All I know is that on Tuesday they had enough evidence to charge him. I think they just wanted a result.
Something’s got to be done about this situation, and quickly. If Nat’s not allowed back to class, he’ll miss the exam, he’ll fail his course, he’ll have ruined his
whole future! And he’s such a good boy!’

‘Never fear,’ I said. ‘Saxby Smart is on the case.’

N
UMEROUS QUESTIONS SURROUNDING
N
AT
’
S THREE
friends kept preying on my
mind.

What kind of friends would rat on their best pal, anyway? No, I shouldn’t say that. That’s not fair. Suppose I saw one of my friends stealing something: wouldn’t I feel I had
to do the right thing and tell the truth about what I’d seen? Even if it was upsetting to think that my friend would get into trouble?

But . . .

Why was there that strange mismatch (as I mentioned near the end of the previous chapter)? Was there something going on here that I hadn’t accounted for yet?

Or . . .

Could it be that Nat’s friends were making a mistake? Could it be that what they saw was perfectly innocent? What if, following Nat’s declaration of guilt, they had
misinterpreted
what they saw?
That
might account for the mismatch.

But . . .

How can you misinterpret seeing someone with a flashy new computer?

I tried to shoo all such thoughts from my mind as I walked over to Mrs Hardyman’s house a little later that day. I told myself that I should concentrate on hearing Nat’s side of the
story, and that I should keep both my mind and my eyes open for clues.

The Hardymans lived only a few streets away from me. Their house was very like mine – rather plain-looking from the outside, a kind of upturned shoebox-shape lined up along the road with a
load of other upturned shoebox-shapes.

‘He’s still in his room,’ whispered Mrs Hardyman. ‘He wouldn’t touch his lunch and I made his favourite – beetroot and pickle sandwich.’

‘I see,’ I said, feeling glad she hadn’t made lunch for me. Then I remembered that on school days she
did
make lunch for me.

I went up to Nat’s room, knocked and went in. It was at the top of the house, overlooking the tiny garden and the backs of the houses in the next street along.

There was an enormous wipe-board fixed to one wall. All over it, mathematical formulae were scribbled in long, weaving lines. You didn’t have to be a detective to see this guy would
definitely not have the same kind of trouble with long division that I’ve always had!

The rest of the room was what you might call ‘neatly cluttered’ – full of stuff, but not a tip. A laptop bag was propped against the wardrobe and the entire under-bed space was
crammed with books.

Nat himself was sitting at a desk under the window, flicking through a textbook on an e-reader. He had a carefully combed side parting in his hair and his trousers were slightly too short for
his legs. He wore glasses and a plain zip-up cardigan. To be perfectly honest, he looked like a bit of a nerd.

‘Hello,’ I said brightly. ‘I’m Saxby Smart.’

‘’lo,’ he grunted, eyeing me suspiciously. ‘
You
are Saxby?’

‘That’s right,’ I said.

‘You’re the detective my mum says she’s hired?’

‘That’s right,’ I said.

‘Good grief,’ he muttered. ‘How old are you? Are you even a teenager?’

‘Er, no, not yet,’ I said. I wasn’t quite sure if he thought that was a good thing or a bad thing. Hmm, a bad thing probably, from the look on his face. ‘Don’t
worry,’ I chirped up, ‘I’m brilliant.’

‘If you say so,’ he said flatly.

‘I need to ask you some questions. I assume you’re sticking to your story? You’re still claiming you stole that computer?’

‘Yup.’

‘Any chance of you telling me where it is, then?’

‘Nope.’

‘Any chance of you giving it back?’

‘Nope.’

‘You’ve still got it hidden somewhere, have you?’

‘Yup.’

‘You’re going to have to give it back at some point, you know.’

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ He went back to his reading.

He was starting to annoy me. Just a teeny tiny little bit.