Smugglers! (4 page)

When I got back home I was surprised to see Miss Pearce’s car parked at the back of the house, as she was usually out all day selling her designer stuff.

She was talking to Mr Winkleberry in the lounge when I walked in. ‘Honestly, David, the clothes were just flying off my stall,’ she trilled. ‘I completely ran out so had to close up early. At this rate I won’t have enough clothes to last the week and will have to order some more.’

My ears twitched at that. Did that mean she was going to contact someone so she could smuggle some more goods?

I had to pass Miss Pearce’s room on the way to my attic bedroom. Usually, her door was firmly closed but today if was half open. I peered around it and saw her case of designer clothes lying open on her bed. Here was my chance to see if the clothes really were ‘designer seconds’ or cheap imitations. I went back to the top of the stairs and listened. Miss Pearce was still talking to Mr Winkleberry. At the rate they talked, I probably had at least half an hour to search the room.

I crept into her room and over to the open case. I picked up a designer handbag and studied it, trying to remember what I’d found on the Internet about how to spot a fake. From what I’d read, fakes were usually badly made, had the labels missing or the logo was in the wrong position. The seams were a bit frayed and the logo was slightly wonky, which meant it could be a fake. Then again, ‘seconds’ were cheaper because there was some fault in them.

‘Put that bag down this instant and get out of my room!’

I jumped and spun around to find Miss Pearce standing in the doorway, her hands on her hips. She looked furious. I had to think on my feet, and fast!

I smiled innocently at her. ‘Sorry, I was just checking if you needed some clean towels when I saw this bag. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? I was wondering how much it was. I’d like to buy Gran something special as a goodbye present when I go back home.’

Miss Pearce wasn’t fooled. ‘I think we’d both better have a word with your gran, young lady. Come on.’ She spun on her heels, obviously expecting me to follow.

What choice did I have?

I tried to guess how many days Gran would ground me for. Two? Three? A week? Bang would go my chance of catching the smuggler then.

Gran was busy in the kitchen preparing a salad for lunch.

‘I’d like a word with you, please, Mrs Carter,’ Miss Pearce said briskly. ‘I found young Amy here in my room, looking through my things. She said that you sent her up to see if I needed clean towels.’

Gran fixed her an icy glare. ‘Amy often helps me out, as you must have noticed, Miss Pearce. It’s difficult to run a B&B like this single-handed.’ Clever. She’d backed me up without lying herself, or letting on that I was. She shifted her gaze to me. ‘You know that you shouldn’t look through the guests’ personal things though, Amy. I’m surprised at you.’

‘Sorry, Gran. Miss Pearce’s case was open, the one she keeps the stuff she sells in, and a handbag caught my eye. It was really neat. I didn’t mean any harm.’ I turned to Miss Pearce. ‘I’m very sorry.’

‘So you should be. I’ll be keeping my room locked at all times in future, and I’ll thank you to keep out. I’m not happy with you walking into my room whenever you feel like it and rummaging through my stuff.’

She turned on her heels and marched out.

‘Thanks,’ I said to Gran.

‘Think yourself lucky that I can’t stand that woman. But don’t you ever go into my guests’ rooms again unless I ask you to, or you’ll be grounded for a week. Do you understand?’ Gran said sternly.

‘I won’t. Sorry. I was only trying to help,’ I said quickly. ‘Why don’t you sit down and relax a bit? I’ll finish preparing the salad and bring you a frothy coffee.’

I always made Gran a frothy coffee when I wanted to get round her. I just hoped it worked this time. I sprinkled extra cream and chocolate on the top just to make sure.

‘Do you think Miss Pearce’s designer things are fakes?’ I asked Gran when I thought she’d had enough sips of her coffee to mellow her.

She looked over her cup at me. ‘So, that’s what you were up to. Playing amateur detective again?’

‘I’m not an amateur! I’ve solved two crimes since I’ve been here,’ I protested. ‘And I think someone is smuggling goods and …’

Gran stood up, her mouth compressed into a tight line. ‘Enough!’ she snapped. ‘Smuggling, indeed! You’ve got far too vivid an imagination. Smuggling stopped years ago.’

‘Actually, it didn’t,’ Mr Winkleberry chipped in, arriving with his newspaper. ‘Smuggling is a highly profitable international crime nowadays, often organised by criminal gangs.’

‘Well, thank you for that information, David,’ Gran said icily. She pushed past him and trounced out, carrying her empty coffee cup.

Mr Winkleberry watched her leave, a worried look on his face. ‘Been upsetting your Gran again, have you?’ he asked.

‘I’m not the only one,’ I told him, and stomped out. Who does he think he is?

I went up to my room, took out my notebook and studied the names of the smuggler suspects I’d written down. So far, I hadn’t been able to eliminate any of them. And now I had an extra one. Sid the Sniff. Although I wasn’t exactly sure what it was he smuggled. He seemed to deal in everything. I added his name to the list and underlined it. As I’d said to Max earlier, he was my top suspect.

Then again, as Vince was always telling his sidekick Mac, the culprit was often the person you suspected the least. Maybe Sid was too obvious.

Maybe it was someone I hadn’t even thought of yet.

I chewed the end of my pen and studied the list. Right now, any of them seemed a likely suspect to me. Maybe I should write a few notes about each one and sum up what I knew about them.

I started with Sid the Sniff. All I knew about him was that he sold all sorts of cheap stuff in the local pubs, kept a fierce guard dog, his shed was locked and he didn’t like anyone going within sniffing distance of his house.

Then, I went on to Mr Hodgkin. He smoked cheap foreign tobacco, which I think he bought from Sid the Sniff, and went out at night. He was definitely out the night I saw the flashing light. But, if he was the smuggler, why was he buying stuff from Sid the Sniff? It didn’t make sense.

Another thought occurred to me. If the smuggler was using the cave, it surely meant that he, or she, lived in or near Little Cragg. Or, maybe they moved around seaside towns so that they had less chance of being caught. Well, I knew that Miss Pearce travelled all around the country selling her ‘designer seconds’. Were they really fakes that she’d smuggled in from abroad? I tried to imagine Miss Pearce going down to the beach at midnight to meet the smugglers, walking through that tunnel into the cave above, and failed. She wouldn’t get very far in those high heels for a start. She could have an accomplice, though. I hadn’t thought of that possibility.

I had no idea where Mr Hodgkin lived or whether he travelled around the country ‘badger watching’. He did fit the stereotypical image of a smuggler, but as Vince often told Mac, you couldn’t go by appearances.

Then, there was Marissa. She sold exotic goods from abroad and had a delivery yesterday morning – the morning after I saw the light flashing. She said she travelled abroad a couple of times a year to find suppliers. Was this true, or did she meet up with people who would smuggle the goods cheaply for her?

And there was Nite Life, the bar Max’s sister went to. I didn’t know much about that apart from that it sold very cheap alcohol. I’d have to go and check it out soon.

I thought about the secret cave we’d discovered. The smuggler must have left the newspaper that was dated a few weeks ago and the crates. Maybe it was worth going back to the cave. We may have overlooked a vital piece of evidence.

I was still unsure what to do the next morning, so I went for a bike ride to clear my head. I cycled through the back streets, away from the crowds, and over to the cliffs. After a while the grass got too long to ride over, so I got off and pushed my bike. When the edge of the cliffs came into view, I laid my bike down and walked over to it.

It wasn’t a sheer drop; several wide grassy ledges broke up the cliff face until about halfway down. I sat on the top ledge and gazed at the boats dotted about on the sea below: a fishing boat, a couple of yachts and some motorboats were within easy sighting distance, and some larger boats were visible further out to sea. Where had the boats come from? Did any one of them have smuggled cargo on board? What sort of boat did smugglers use? Where did they store goods? How long did it take to travel across the sea with them? Maybe the smugglers were on their way right now to drop off more illegal goods.

It was so peaceful. I felt like I could stay there all day, watching the boats, gazing at the calm sea. Then my phone bleeped as I got a text message and the moment was gone. I took the phone out of my pocket and looked at the screen. It was from Max.

I was tempted to say no and stay here, but I hadn’t been to the music shop before. It might be an idea to check out that area of town. So I replied:

Max was leaning against the gate with a sulky look on his face when I got back. ‘You could have told me you were going on a bike ride,’ he grumbled.

I sighed. ‘Look, sometimes I just like to get away by myself for a while, have time to think.’

He scowled. ‘And have you thought?’

I nodded. ‘I reckon I should visit the cave again, see if any smugglers have been back and if I can find any more evidence of what they are smuggling.’

Max looked a bit reluctant. ‘But, it was empty apart from those crates. And I don’t fancy getting trapped by the tide again.’

Neither did I. It had been a seriously scary experience. I wasn’t going to risk it happening again, especially with Max. He was a lot younger than me and I couldn’t put him in danger. I shuddered to think what would have happened if he’d fallen while climbing up that wall. ‘You don’t have to worry about that, you’re not coming,’ I told him.

Max glowered. ‘If you’re going, I’m going,’ he said. ‘I was the one who showed you the smugglers’ caves in the first place.’

‘I can’t let you. It’s too dangerous.’

‘Well, I’ll follow you then. You can’t stop me from following.’

He was right, I couldn’t stop him, so it was best if he came with me, at least then I could keep an eye on him.

‘All right, you can come,’ I agreed. ‘We’ll go after lunch. The tide will be way out by then.’

Max nodded. ‘Good idea. We can go to the music shop first. I want to get my stepdad something for his birthday on Saturday.’

It wasn’t worth riding my bike down into town, because the streets were too crowded with tourists and there was nowhere to park it outside the shops, so I wheeled it into Gran’s backyard.

‘What are you going to get your stepdad?’ I asked Max as we set off for the town.

‘Some guitar music.’

‘He plays the guitar? Is he any good?’

‘Yeah, not bad. He plays a lot of rock though. Not really my thing, but him and Mum like it.’

The music shop, Mendoza Music, was in one of the cobbled side streets just off the main shopping street, between a health food shop and a surf shop. There were some unusual violins and guitars in the window; a really cool pink guitar caught my eye. ‘That’s neat. I wouldn’t mind one of those,’ I said, pointing to it.

‘Coming in?’ Max was waiting by the door for me. I stopped staring at the cool instruments and walked over to him. He turned the handle and pushed the shop door open. It chimed as we stepped inside and a dark-haired youth came out from the back of the shop.

‘Hi, Juan,’ Max said.

‘Hello again, Max. And who is your friend?’ He looked at me and smiled, revealing very white teeth.

‘This is Amy, Auntie Sue’s granddaughter. She’s from America,’ he added, importantly. I’d noticed that Max liked letting people know where I was from and giving the impression that I was a close friend of his.

‘Hello, Amee,’ Juan nodded. ‘I am from Amereeka too. South Amereeka.’ He smiled again.

‘You are from the USA. Yes?’

We ended up talking about our home towns and would probably have been there all morning if Max hadn’t got a bit peeved and butted in.

‘I’m after some sheet music for a guitar,’ he told Juan. ‘Anything by The Neanderthals. My stepdad’s mad on them.’

‘Sure. The sheet music is over here.’

I left them to it and wandered around the shop, looking at all the fascinating instruments.

‘You’ve got some really unusual guitars and violins here,’ I shouted over to Juan, who was still huddled over a box of sheet music with Max. ‘Where do you get them from?’

‘My father, he makes them mostly,’ Juan told me. ‘We have a few, not many, we buy from customers who want to … how you say? … upgrade?’

‘Well, your dad is one clever guy,’ I said, admiring a light wood violin with an intricate pattern engraved on the neck.

There was a display case by the counter with guitar picks, strings, violin bows and all sorts of other things in it. Then I noticed the neck of a guitar peeping over the counter. I leant over to have a better look and saw that it had a really neat brown-patterned finish.

‘You no touch, pleeze!’ Juan was beside me in a flash. He picked up the guitar and took it into the back of the shop.

‘Sorry. I was only looking. I haven’t seen a guitar with a neck like that before,’ I told him when he came back, still looking a bit flustered. ‘It’s lovely. Did your dad make that too?’

‘No, he is repairing it for a customer. It is very valuable. I shouldn’t have left it there. It was careless of me.’ Juan walked quickly past me and over to Max. ‘Have you chosen your music yet?’ he asked. I got the impression he wanted us to leave. Pronto.

‘Yep. My stepdad will be made up when he sees this.’ Max handed Juan a thin music book and reached into his pocket for some money.

‘Can you show me that bar your sister goes to?’ I asked as we walked out. ‘Might be an idea to check it out.’

‘We’re not allowed inside,’ Max told me.

‘Duh! I know that. But, we might be able to pick up some clues from outside. And I could probably sneak in pretending I want the washroom.’ I’d done that before.

‘Loo,’ Max corrected me.

I groaned. I thought I’d pretty much mastered the UK–US language differences, but I still slipped up every now and again.

The bar was called Nite Life, and it looked mega trendy. There were posters outside advertising cheap drink deals.

‘Stay here,’ I told Max. ‘I’ll be back out in a minute.’ I pushed open the doors of the bar and entered a narrow hall.

‘Where are you off to, lass?’ A man came out into the hall and stared at me. ‘Kids aren’t allowed in here.’ He was wearing a black tee shirt with the words Nite Life emblazoned on the front in white. Obviously a member of staff.

‘I just wanted to use the loo,’ I told him, smiling brightly. ‘Is that okay?’

‘Yeah, sure. It’s out the back there.’ He indicated to a door behind him.

‘Thanks.’

I walked towards the door, but as soon as the man disappeared into the bar, I pushed open another door instead. As I guessed, it led into the yard. There were crates piled up in the yard with writing on them. I walked over to them and saw that it was foreign writing – Spanish, I was sure. Inside the crates were some small bottles. I stared at them. Had I found the smugglers?

Suddenly, I heard voices and the back door opened. I dived behind a crate and held my breath. A fair-haired, suntanned man came out, followed by a woman with long, blonde hair. They both started talking. I put my hand in my pocket and flicked the ‘on’ switch of my micro-recorder:

PODCAST 2

Go to
www.amycartermysteries.com/smugglers-2

The woman turned on her heels and flounced back into the bar. The man picked up a case of small bottles and followed her.

I switched off my micro-recorder and went out the back gate. I couldn’t wait to tell Max what I’d just heard.