A Pocketful of Eyes (12 page)

‘Horseshoe crabs,’ said Bee.

‘Exactly. Cranston’s name was muddied and he lost his Nobel nomination. Then there was this whole brouhaha about whether he’d sold the research to the pharmaceuticals company himself, or whether one of his researchers had sold him out.’ He took a sip of his milkshake, and winked at Bee. ‘One more thing I found out about Adrian Featherstone and BioFresh?’

‘Yes?’

‘He left there in 1986,’ said Toby smugly. ‘And didn’t turn up in any other scientific database again. The next mention I found of him was a press release from twelve months ago, when he started working at the museum.’

‘It was him,’ breathed Bee. ‘He sold Cranston’s research to the pharmaceuticals company.’

‘It sure looks like it,’ said Toby. ‘Now, do I get some kind of prize for figuring all that out?’

Bee gave him a flat look. ‘I’ll pay for your milkshake,’ she said.

BEE WASN’T TIRED. HER STOMACH
still felt a little jangly from Luna Park, but she didn’t want to sleep. She sat at her desk, opened a spiral-bound notebook and sharpened a pencil. She half-considered making a spreadsheet, but decided that it would be better done old-school. She smoothed the paper, and started to write.

SUSPECTS

GUS WHITTAKER (AKA GREGORY URIEL SWINDON)

Gus could have committed suicide.

Motive: He was seen yelling at Cranston so was clearly emotional about
something
.

Alibi: n/a

Questions:

• Why would he have done it?

• How did he get into the Red Rotunda?

• Why was he using a fake name?

• Why was he yelling at Cranston a few days before his death?

• What kind of person eats a sandwich and then necks a bottle of poison?

AKIKO KOBAYASHI

Museum Director. Has a lot to lose if she gets caught.

Motive: The museum is having money trouble. Gus was the only person standing in the way of the museum inheriting Cranston’s fortune.

Alibi: Don’t know. Didn’t Faro Costa say she was working late that night?

Questions:

• Why does she act so weirdly around Adrian Featherstone?

• Can they be having an affair?

• Why was she so keen to let all the staff know that Gus committed suicide?

WILLIAM CRANSTON

Gus’s former employer.

Motive: Unknown. Maybe related to Featherstone and the betrayal of Cranston’s research? Gus was seen yelling at Cranston, and Cranston was in tears. Perhaps he was driven into a murderous rage?

Alibi: None (and seen around the scene of the crime)

Questions: How did Cranston get access to the museum, the Red Rotunda and the glass case containing the mercuric chloride?

ADRIAN FEATHERSTONE

Conducted research on William Cranston’s behalf, then sold the findings to a pharmaceuticals company. In possession of Gus’s hoodie. Seen acting suspiciously in the Red Rotunda.

Motive: Perhaps another swipe at Cranston? Or had Gus found out something that Featherstone didn’t want anyone to know?

Alibi: Was seen leaving the building at eleven by Faro Costa.

Questions:

• What was his relationship with Gus?

• Why did he swap hoodies?

• What is he trying to hide?

Bee put down her pencil with a sigh. What was she missing?

She thought of all the dark, complicated crime novels on her bookshelf. Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden were clearly out of their league here. She needed someone from a Raymond Chandler novel, or perhaps Inspector Rebus. What would
they
do? Run a DNA test on something, no doubt. The murder weapon.

Bee picked up the pencil again and wrote
murder weapon
at the bottom of her list, and then drew a circle around it. Perhaps it was time to pay another visit to the Conservation lab.

‘I need your help,’ she said to Toby on Monday morning.

‘
My
help?’ asked Toby with his cheeky smirk.

‘We need to talk to some people in Conservation. Not Adrian Featherstone.’

Toby nodded. ‘You want me to flirt with one of those pregnant ladies.’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s a big ask,’ said Toby. ‘Some might say they are uncharmable. But as I am
very
good at flirting, I’ll give it a crack. As soon as you give me a promotion.’

‘What?’

‘I think this will prove I’m no longer a Worthy Beginner. My powers of charm can deliver some pretty impressive clues – remember when I got that file from Kobayashi? I reckon I should be bumped up to Watson-class.’

‘You can be Sally Kimball,’ said Bee, grudgingly.

‘Who?’

‘Encyclopedia Brown’s sidekick.’

‘Who’s Encyclopedia Brown?’

Bee gave him an incredulous look. ‘Go ask your good friend Wikipedia.’

‘Fine,’ said Toby. ‘But I’ll make it to Watson. You just wait and see.’

There was only one pregnant woman in the Conservation lab. She was bent over an ancient-looking shirt with a needle and thread in her white-gloved hand.

‘What a picture of domesticity,’ said Toby with a smile.

The woman looked up, her brow furrowed. ‘What are you doing in here?’

‘We wanted to ask you some questions,’ said Bee. ‘About Gus—’

‘About being a conservator,’ interrupted Toby. ‘It seems like such a fascinating line of work. Can you tell us about it?’

The conservator looked entirely unconvinced. ‘I’m quite busy,’ she said. ‘You should talk to Adrian if you want career advice.’

‘Actually,’ said Bee, ‘I wanted to know about mercuric chloride.’

The conservator raised a pair of severely shaped eyebrows. ‘And why would you want to know anything about that?’

Toby kicked Bee in the ankle. ‘So what are you sewing there?’ he asked, turning on his charming sparkles.

‘It’s Henry Lawson’s shirt,’ the conservator said. ‘And it’s very fragile, so if you wouldn’t mind . . .’

This was pointless. ‘Sorry for bothering you,’ said Bee. ‘We’d better leave you to it.’

She turned to leave, but Toby didn’t make any move to follow.

‘When are you due?’ he asked.

The conservator blinked, then briefly rested a hand on her belly. ‘April.’

Toby took a gentle step towards her. ‘I hope it all goes well,’ he said. ‘I think you’ll be a great mother.’

Bee nearly snorted.

‘Aren’t you worried, though?’ asked Toby. ‘About all the chemicals you’re exposing the baby to in here?’

The conservator seemed to soften a little. Bee couldn’t believe it. ‘We don’t use anything toxic here,’ the woman replied. ‘There are conservators whose job it is to strip items of all their harmful preservatives, and replace them with new, non-toxic ones. I stopped doing that once I knew I was pregnant.’

Bee leaned forward. ‘So nothing on display is preserved with toxic chemicals?’

The conservator stiffened again, as if she’d forgotten that Bee was there. ‘I really should be getting back to work.’

‘Of course not,’ said Toby to Bee, shaking his head. ‘Because our conservators are some of the best in the world.’ He looked at the woman. ‘Right?’

She smiled at him again. ‘It’s part of this museum’s policy. No DDT, no lead, no arsenic, no mercury.’

Toby leaned closer with his flirtiest, most charming smile. ‘What about that display of old preservation materials? Those little glass bottles of chemicals?’

The conservator actually laughed. ‘Them?’ she said. ‘They’re replicas. They’re full of water.’

Bee couldn’t help gasping. The woman looked at her, suspicion creeping over her face. ‘What exactly did you come in here wanting to know?’

‘Thanks so much for your time,’ said Toby. ‘Good luck with the baby!’

He dragged Bee from the room, and they hurried back to the Catacombs and stared at each other for a moment.

‘Told you I was good,’ said Toby.

Bee ignored him. There was no way Gus could have been killed by the mercuric chloride. Someone had stolen the bottle from its case and planted it in Gus’s hand. As a decoy. To hide the
real
way he’d been killed.

‘So how
did
he die?’ she murmured.

She started to pace the room. This changed everything. She absently picked up a seagull wing.

‘Okay,’ said Toby, taking the wing away from her and putting it back on a shelf. ‘How’s this for a theory: Featherstone stole research from Cranston twenty-five years ago, right?’

‘Right.’

‘And Gus was Cranston’s assistant.’

‘Right.’

‘So what if Gus was coming after Featherstone, as revenge, but Featherstone got there first and murdered him.
Or
, Featherstone had been threatening Cranston, and killed Gus to show he was serious.’

Bee continued to pace. ‘So how do you explain the fact that Featherstone wasn’t in the building at the time?’ she asked. ‘And why would Featherstone plant the fake mercuric chloride on Gus? Surely that would just throw
more
suspicion on him, as he’s one of the only people with access to that case. And why would he have swapped hoodies?’

‘Well,’ said Toby, looking increasingly out of his depth, ‘maybe Featherstone locked Gus in the Red Rotunda earlier in the evening, and administered some kind of poison that takes a few hours to work. And planting his hoodie on Gus was a message to Cranston. The glass eyes! They were the message. They were telling Cranston that he was
watching him
, and that he’d better do what Featherstone wants.’

‘Which is?’

Toby shrugged. ‘Money? More research to sell?’

‘And what about planting the mercuric chloride on the body?’

Toby looked stumped. Bee shook her head. ‘It can’t be that complicated,’ she said. ‘Occam’s razor. There
has
to be a simple explanation.’

‘Why?’ asked Toby. ‘Not everything’s simple.’

Bee picked up a pair of tweezers and examined them. ‘You know, NASA spent millions of research dollars inventing a pen that could write in space. The Russians just took pencils.’

‘Not true,’ said Toby. ‘The space pen was invented by a guy called Paul Fisher, and NASA didn’t pay him to invent it. Prior to that both the Russians and Americans used pencils, but they were dangerous when the leads broke and went floating around, and they were combustible in a one-hundred per cent oxygen atmosphere, and after the fire in Apollo 1, they wanted to be carrying less stuff around that could spontaneously catch on fire.’

Bee opened her mouth to reply, but found she had nothing to say. She put down the tweezers.

Toby grinned. ‘Don’t try to out-nerd me, Wikipedia Brown. It can’t be done.’

Bee decided she would never figure Toby out, and that it was pointless to try. ‘On the other hand,’ she said, ‘maybe Occam’s razor is the wrong way to look at it. Sherlock Holmes always said that when you’ve eliminated the things that are totally impossible, whatever’s left over must be the truth, no matter how improbable it is.’

‘So let’s eliminate the impossible,’ said Toby.

They thought about it for a moment. It
all
seemed impossible.

‘What does Agatha Christie say?’ asked Toby.

‘Poirot says that it’s dangerous to let your imagination run wild, because the simplest explanation is always the best one.’

‘Well, then. Back to Mr Ockham and his razor of doom.’

‘It just doesn’t add up. The circumstances all point towards Gus killing himself, but I can’t see how that’s possible. It’s like we’ve completely missed something. Something big. It doesn’t make sense. If it were a book, we would already have met the murderer by now, but not figure out it’s them for another hundred pages or so. But . . .’ Bee floundered.

Toby reached out and put his hand on hers. Bee felt all the hairs on her arm stand on end.

‘Agatha Christie said something else,’ said Bee.

‘Oh?’

‘She said, “Very few of us are what we seem.”’ Bee looked up at Toby. He had a strange expression on his face, sort of puzzled and smiling and . . . something else.

‘What?’ She pulled her hand away, feeling suddenly cranky.

Toby shook his head and smiled some more. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘I just . . . never mind.’

Bee glared at him. ‘
Anyway
, the glass eyes led us to Featherstone, but not in a conclusive he-did-it kind of way. And now we know that the missing bottle isn’t a smoking gun either, because Gus
can’t
have been poisoned by the mercuric chloride.’

‘So we’re back to square one.’

‘Maybe.’ Bee picked up the tweezers again and toyed with them, thinking. ‘On the other hand, someone wanted it to
look
like Gus was poisoned using the mercuric chloride. So maybe whoever killed him is trying to cast suspicion on the museum staff. On Featherstone in particular. Will you
stop
looking at me like that?’

‘Sorry,’ said Toby. ‘But you’re
very
cute when you’re detectiving.’

And he leaned forward, cupped her chin in his hand, and kissed her very gently on the mouth. Bee’s entire body suddenly felt as if it had been dunked in fire and ice, and before she knew what she was doing she was kissing Toby back. He scooted his chair right up against hers, then pulled her off and onto his lap, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her face down to his. Bee touched his hair, then let her fingers rest on the back of his neck, just above his collar. He made a satisfied little noise in the back of his throat and grazed his teeth against her bottom lip. Kissing Fletch had never made her feel like this.
Nothing
had ever made her feel like this.