Friday Barnes 3 (8 page)

‘The polo pitch,' said Ian. ‘Right in the middle of it.'

‘Really?' said Melanie. ‘That's not very romantic or private. It's no wonder you got your photo taken if you were kissing there.'

‘We weren't kissing,' said Ian.

Friday peered at the photograph. ‘What are you saying? That this picture has been digitally altered?'

‘No,' said Ian.

‘Well, your lips are clearly pressed against hers,' said Friday.

‘And you are both lying down,' said Melanie. ‘We can tell because of gravity and your floppy fringe.'

‘I didn't kiss Princess Ingrid,' said Ian. ‘I was warming up my horse when she started yelling at someone on her mobile phone.'

‘But students aren't allowed to have mobile phones,' said Friday.

‘I don't think all the rules apply to visiting royalty,' said Ian. ‘Anyway, her yelling in Norwegian spooked Butterfly Buttons.'

‘Who's Butterfly Buttons?' asked Friday.

‘My horse,' said Ian. ‘She reared up. I fell off and landed on top of Princess Ingrid. She fell over and my face ended up pressed against her face.'

‘How embarrassing,' said Melanie.

‘Then her necklace got caught on my shirt button, so we were stuck to each other,' continued Ian. ‘There would have been plenty of time for the photographer to set up the shot. Luckily, Ingrid had a pair of diamond-encrusted manicure scissors in her pocket, or we'd still be attached to each other.'

‘That story does not sound very believable,' said Friday. ‘Are you just being chivalrous?'

‘This isn't the seventeenth century,' said Ian. ‘What interest would I have in being chivalrous? It would be more to my advantage if everyone thought I was the type of guy who snogged European royalty on a polo pitch.'

‘You're in luck,' said Melanie, ‘because that's what everyone does think.'

‘I've got a hole in my best polo shirt that can prove it,' said Ian. ‘Princess Ingrid sliced out a huge chunk getting her necklace free.'

‘I'll check out your shirt later,' said Friday.

‘I'm sure you will,' said Melanie mischievously.

‘But now, let's go and investigate the scene of the crime,' said Friday.

‘I don't think you can call kissing a crime,' said Melanie.

‘The photograph,' said Friday. ‘Taking the photograph is the crime.'

‘Oh yes, of course,' said Melanie. ‘You're still pretending to be focused on that.'

As Ian went back to grooming his horse, Friday stared at the back of his neck. The hairline was crooked. ‘Do you realise that there is a nick of hair shaved out of the back of your head?'

Ian rubbed the back of his neck with his fingertips. ‘I guess that's what happens when you have to go to a budget hairdresser.'

‘I'll cut your hair with the grooming shears next time,' offered Debbie, with a giggle.

‘So nothing was stolen from around your neck?' asked Friday.

‘I did lose my room key yesterday,' said Ian. ‘I kept it on a cord around my neck. Debbie suggested it. I assumed the strap snapped.'

‘Interesting,' said Friday.

‘Look, there's the model of Saturn,' said Friday as she held up the magazine and aligned the picture with her view of the school building. ‘So they must have been –' she took several paces to the right and a few back until the picture was perfectly lined up ‘– right about here.'

Melanie looked at their feet. ‘Yes, this grass looks very similar to the grass they were lying on.'

‘So where was the person who took the photograph?' Friday turned and looked behind her.

There wasn't much to see on the polo field. It was just a large, flat area of grass. But along one side was a clump of bushes. ‘Over there!' Friday said.

The girls approached the bushes.

‘Do you think a bush did it?' asked Melanie. ‘I've read
The Day of the Triffids
, so I know that plants are capable of much more wicked things than you might imagine.'

‘No, it must have been someone hiding in the bushes.' Friday got down on her hands and knees and started crawling round underneath them.

‘What are you looking for?' asked Melanie.

‘I don't know,' said Friday. ‘Some sort of trace evidence, I suppose.'

‘You mean like fibres or paint smears?' asked Melanie.

‘Yes, that sort of thing,' said Friday.

‘So this sweater wouldn't interest you?' asked Melanie, holding up a jumper she'd found snagged on a branch.

Friday got up and looked in the collar. There was a name tag on the label. ‘Harriet Chow,' she read out.

‘I know her,' said Melanie. ‘She's in fourth form.'

‘If someone was crouched behind this bush, waiting for the perfect photo opportunity with the sun beating down, they probably would've gotten hot,' said Friday. ‘Hot enough to feel the need to take their jumper off.'

‘You think Harriet did it?' said Melanie.

‘Let's go and talk to her,' said Friday.

When Friday knocked on Harriet Chow's door it was answered by a short girl with thick-framed glasses and the most beautiful glossy long black hair Friday had ever seen. It almost reached down to the back of her knees.

‘Harriet, I presume?' said Friday.

‘That's right,' said Harriet with a smile.

‘Can we come in?' asked Friday.

‘Why?' asked Harriet.

‘We found your jumper in a bush,' said Friday.

‘And we think you sold a photo of Princess Ingrid snogging Ian Wainscott, so we want to search your room to see if you've got a camera,' said Melanie.

Harriet laughed. ‘You can come in, but you won't find a camera.'

Friday and Melanie stepped into the room. Harriet smiled at them.

‘You seem awfully smug,' observed Friday.

‘Do I?' said Harriet, smiling even more smugly.

Friday looked about the room. Everything was as neat as a pin. It would be very hard to hide anything because all the school equipment and books were perfectly arranged so that everything was visible at a glance. Friday peered into the wastepaper basket. ‘May I empty this out on the floor?'

Harriet chuckled. ‘Of course, but only if you promise to pick it all up again.'

Friday upended the bin. There was a lot of scrunched-up paper covered in notes and mathematical scrawl, several chewing gum wrappers, a warped piece of red cellophane and two bottles of two-in-one shampoo. ‘Chewing gum is against the school rules,' she pointed out.

‘I know,' said Harriet gleefully. ‘I'm a bad girl, aren't I?'

Friday started putting the rubbish back in the bin. ‘Ow!' She stopped suddenly and looked at her
finger. A drop of blood started to form. Friday's face went white.

‘Don't look at it!' urged Melanie. She rushed forward, pushing past Harriet, and covered Friday's finger with a tissue.

Friday sat down heavily on the floor. She breathed deeply and stared at the carpet while Melanie found a bandaid (she always carried them because she often fell over) and wrapped it around her finger.

‘How did you do that?' asked Melanie.

‘With this,' said Friday, carefully leaning forward and plucking a sewing needle from the floor.

‘Oh dear,' said Harriet. ‘Sorry about that. But if you come into someone's room, empty out their bin and search through their rubbish, what do you expect?'

Friday pulled herself up to her feet. ‘May I look in your wardrobe?'

Harriet smiled. ‘If you like.'

‘You don't normally ask,' said Melanie.

‘I wanted to see how Harriet would react to the request,' said Friday.

‘And did I shock you?' said Harriet with a smirk.

‘No,' said Friday. ‘Your body language and facial expressions are entirely consistent with an over-
privileged teenager who thinks they have got away with something clever, and is therefore confident they will never be caught.'

‘Really?' said Harriet. ‘What a shame facial expressions can't be taken down and given as evidence in court.'

Friday slid open the wardrobe door. It was as neat as the rest of Harriet's room. Her dresses and blouses were all hung up. Her sweaters and t-shirts were all folded and on shelves, and her shoes were neatly lined up on the floor of the wardrobe. One pair was even still in the shoe box. Friday ran her fingers across the lid. There was a slight tear on the surface of the cardboard as if someone had torn off a label.

Friday closed the wardrobe and turned to look around the rest of the room.

‘Found anything yet?' said Harriet with a snigger.

‘Yes. Melanie, you had better go and fetch the Headmaster,' said Friday. ‘We've found our culprit.'

The smug smile disappeared from Harriet's face. ‘You can't prove anything.'

‘Yes, I can,' said Friday. ‘I've caught you red-handed with a camera.'

‘What?' said Melanie.

‘I've found all the evidence,' said Friday. ‘The red cellophane in the rubbish bin –'

‘I was wrapping a present!' said Harriet.

‘The cellophane is warped from exposure to heat,' said Friday. ‘As it would've been when you wrapped it around a lightbulb to construct a makeshift dark room in your wardrobe. Red light is used in dark rooms because it doesn't affect the photographic paper. Then there are the shampoo bottles.'

‘Washing my hair is not a crime,' said Harriet.

‘No, but according to any hairdresser, using two-in-one shampoo is.' Friday picked up a bottle from the bin. ‘No wealthy student at this school would ever use shampoo-and-conditioner-in-one, certainly not a girl with luxuriously glossy hair like yours.' She opened the bottle and sniffed. ‘Just as I suspected – developing fluid.' Friday opened the other bottle and sniffed that. ‘And this is fixative. So in this bin you have everything you need to make a dark room to develop a photograph.'

‘But I don't have a camera,' said Harriet.

‘Yes, you do,' said Friday. ‘I just saw it in your wardrobe.' She strode over to the wardrobe and picked up the shoebox. ‘To make a camera, all you
need is a light-proof chamber and a tiny aperture. This shoe box was your light-proof container. And the aperture would have been made by the pin that I just pricked my finger on.' She took the lid off the shoe box and held it up to the light. A tiny beam shone through.

‘There's a pinprick in the lid,' said Melanie.

‘That is the aperture,' said Friday. ‘The sticky-tape tear on the front is where Harriet would have taped a piece of cardboard across the hole to act as a shutter.'

‘You can't dob me in!' wailed Harriet. ‘I'll be expelled. And I can't get expelled. I'll be the first person in my family to get anything less than a postgraduate degree.'

‘I
can
dob you in,' said Friday, ‘because that is what I've been hired to do, and I can't see any moral justification for what you've done. You only did it for the money. And your family must be well-off if you're studying here.'

‘But I do need the money,' said Harriet.

‘Why?' asked Friday.

‘The Pimpernel stole my laptop!' wailed Harriet.

‘I didn't see that coming,' said Melanie.

‘But laptops aren't allowed on school property,' said Friday.

‘I know,' said Harriet. ‘That's why I couldn't report the theft. It was 3G capable. I'd been using the laptop to do extra online study drills to keep my grades up. If my parents find out I've lost my laptop and my grades drop, they'll kill me.'

‘Surely they won't literally kill you,' said Melanie.

‘I don't want to find out,' said Harriet.

‘The first thing you need to worry about is not getting expelled,' said Friday. ‘The Headmaster is seriously angry, but if you donate the proceeds from your crime to the school's beautification program, I'm sure he will be forgiving.'

‘But my laptop?' said Harriet.

‘Don't worry,' said Friday. ‘No thief is going to elude me for long. When I catch The Pimpernel you'll get your laptop back, or at the very least get the ticket stub for the pawnshop he sold it to.'