The Hangman's Lair Read online

  ‘We’ll sell them to you,’ I said.

  Moz loomed forward. He stood with the toes of his trainers almost touching my shoes. He jabbed a grubby finger against my chest. ‘I hope you like hospital food, Steve, ‘cos if you don’t do what I tell you, you’ll be having a lot of it.’

  I stood absolutely still. Which wasn’t easy, when my legs felt like they were shouting ‘Run away!’ and the rest of me felt like it was agreeing with my legs.

  ‘You can have the discs,’ I said, in as un-wobbly a voice as I could manage. ‘But we want paying for them.’

  ‘If you don’t give me those discs,’ growled Moz, ‘I’ll set my gang on you.’

  ‘If you set your gang on me,’ I said, ‘I wouldn’t give you those discs in a million years. You know you can make a big profit. Pay up, and we all get something out of this. Otherwise, everyone loses. Your choice.’

  I tried to steady my breathing. I couldn’t let Moz think I’d back down. I had to convince him that I meant what I said. I glared up at him, hoping that my expression said ‘I Mean Business’, rather than ‘I Want To Go Home’.

  At last, Moz emitted a loud snort and turned to the rest of the gang. ‘I like this kid. He reminds me of me.’

  Eurgh, I thought to myself.

  ‘How many games d’ya say you got?’ said Moz.

  ‘A hundred and forty,’ I said.

  He glanced around at the traffic, as if the next thing he was going to say could be seen painted on the side of a passing van. ‘You’ll take one pound for each.’

  I shook my head quickly. ‘No. Five is fair. You can sell them for three times that. You can triple your money, easy.’

  ‘Two pounds each, no more than that,’ said Moz.

  ‘Four,’ I said. ‘Four, or forget it.’

  ‘Three.’

  I pretended to have a careful think about that. ‘Three,’ I said at last. ‘Hundred and forty times three . . . That’s . . . That’s four hundred and twenty pounds, exactly . . . Hmm . . . OK, three for each. You’ve got that amount of money, have you?’

  Moz snorted again. So did the rest of the gang. They were starting to sound like a herd of buffalo.

  ‘Yeah, we’ve got plenty of money,’ smiled Moz. ‘Haven’t we, lads?’

  The rest of them laughed. Zippy giggled into his coat hood.

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘We’ll meet right here, tomorrow morning, eight o’clock. I don’t want to wait, I want to get rid of this gear as soon as I can.’

  ‘Shut it, Steve,’ said Moz, ‘I say when we meet. Eight it is, then. If you’re not here on time, you and your secret agent friend here are going to get a pounding. Understand?’

  Without another word, Muddy and I hurried away. We were half a kilometre away from Herbert Street before either of us dared even breathe.

  ‘Phew, that was close,’ gasped Muddy.

  ‘Which part of “Let me do the talking” was confusing you there?’ I asked.

  ‘We did it, didn’t we?’ said Muddy. ‘We convinced them.’

  ‘We certainly convinced them you’re a complete twerp.’

  ‘Which works in our favour,’ said Muddy. ‘If they think we’re a couple of bumbling amateurs when it comes to crime, they won’t suspect we’re trying to pull the wool over their eyes.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ I said. ‘But remember, if they discover we’ve just told them a pack of lies, and that there are no stolen discs, and that we really are working undercover . . . we’re going to get a pounding.’

  ‘Er, yeah, that bit I got,’ said Muddy.

  ‘Come on,’ I said, ‘we’ve got work to do!’

  A Page From My Notebook

  Operation Hangman’s Lair: Status Report - at the midpoint in the plan, all is well so far. Just. Must now think carefully about final stages of the operation!

  Beware! I’m sure the Herbert Street gang have NO INTENTION of giving us a penny. Right now, I reckon, they’re planning to flash the cash at us tomorrow morning, then boot us aside the minute we’ve revealed where the discs are. I’m sure they’ll be planning to get away with the discs, the money, the lot.

  Sneaky! If the next bit goes according to plan, we won’t have to worry about their double-crossing tactics.

  Beware, part 2! However, the next bit is probably the riskiest of the lot. For this, we will need:

  •2 x Whitehouse Personal Communicators With Ear Attachments (as made by Muddy from a couple of old mobile phones)

  •2 pairs x Whitehouse Ultra-Soft Shoe Covers (as made by Muddy for creeping out of the house after being grounded)

  •6 x Whitehouse Dazzletron 6000 Mega-Beam Lamps (as made by Muddy from a load of car headlights)

  •1 x Whitehouse Sound Amplifier And Distorter (as made by Muddy to scare the poo out of the hideous little brats next door).

  CHAPTER

  FIVE

  A LITTLE WHILE LATER, MUDDY and I were hiding behind a hedge on Deadman’s Lane, close to the edge of The Hangman’s Lair. Beside us was Muddy’s tatty old school bag, bulging with the equipment I’d listed in my notebook.

  ‘Don’t you ever clean that bag?’ I whispered, peering at it snootily and wrinkling up my nose.

  ‘I think it’s only the mud stains which hold it together,’ whispered Muddy. ‘Can’t we hide on the other side of the road? I think my trousers are soaking something up.’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘we wait here. The gang should be along in about ten minutes.’

  Muddy thought for a moment.

  ‘How do you know they won’t enter the wood from the other end, way over there?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I replied, ‘but it’s likely they’ll come past us here. Herbert Street is back in that direction, so unless they’re going to go completely out of their way and circle around to the other end of the wood, then they’ll be coming along here.’

  Muddy thought for another moment.

  ‘How can you possibly know what time they’ll come to retrieve the money?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I replied, ‘but I can make a good guess. We do know it’ll have to be before tomorrow morning, of course, so they’ll make their move tonight. They’ll want to fetch the money when there’s the least chance of them being spotted, a time when it’s dark enough to be hidden in those woods, but light enough to find your way, if you know where you’re going.’

  Think back to my previous visit to The Hangman’s Lair. There was a specific hour at which conditions in there would be exactly right for the gang to move around with minimal risk.

  Did you make a note of the time?

  ‘When I came here the other day,’ I said to Muddy, ‘it became too shadowy to search at six p.m., just when it was getting dark. My guess is that the Herbert Street gang will be here in precisely . . .’ I checked my watch. ‘. . . four minutes.’

  Six and a half minutes later, all five members of the gang came scuffing along Deadman’s Lane. Moz walked in front, with Zippy just behind him, looking around in all directions.

  ‘There you go,’ I whispered with a grin. ‘Only two and a half minutes out. Not bad.’

  The gang made a sharp turn between two houses, heading for the woods. Muddy and I clipped the Whitehouse Personal Communicators to our ears, and slipped the Whitehouse Ultra-Soft Shoe Covers over our trainers.

  ‘You’re going to have to work on these communicators, Muddy,’ I whispered, as we scuttled across the road, crouched down. ‘My head keeps lolling over.’

  ‘Yeah, the weight’s a problem,’ whispered Muddy. ‘I had to use larger batteries than normal.’

  ‘We look like we’re wearing giant earrings,’ I spluttered.

  ‘At least if the gang spot us,’ hissed Muddy, ‘they’ll be too busy laughing to give us a pounding.’

  ‘Shh,’ I hissed. ‘They’ve stopped. Keep down.’

  Moz had paused at the outer edge of the trees. For a couple of seconds, I was terrified that one of them had heard us. But then Moz and Zippy said somethin
g to each other that I couldn’t overhear, and with one last glance over their shoulders, they all disappeared into The Hangman’s Lair.

  I beckoned to Muddy and we followed, keeping as low to the ground as we could. Those Whitehouse Ultra-Soft Shoe Covers did a perfect job of silencing our footsteps. However, silent footsteps seemed a bit pointless when the gear in Muddy’s bag kept clanking around.

  ‘Keep it steady,’ I whispered.

  ‘You carry it, then,’ whispered Muddy crossly.

  ‘Keep it steady,’ I whispered. ‘Come on, we can’t let them get too far ahead, or we’ll lose them in the shadows.’

  Now that the gang were under the cover of the twisting, spiky branches, they were marching straight ahead and not bothering to keep a lookout behind them. The sounds of their crunching against fallen twigs was enough to mask any slight noises Muddy and I were making.

  We darted from the shadow of one tree trunk to another. There had been heavy rain the night before, and the bark still felt damp and slippery. A smell of wet, sagging vegetation had been stirred up all through The Hangman’s Lair.

  With the gang well inside the wood, I was starting to wonder about the method they’d used to mark the place where they’d hidden the money. Before, you’ll remember, I’d found no trace of anything that might lead me to the cash. Now, I was watching them carefully, eager to see what tiny little detail I might have missed.

  ‘Here’s the line,’ said Moz. ‘It’s up this way.’

  I risked going a few steps closer, to get a look at what he was talking about. On the ground, fallen twigs and branches formed a hazy straight line which vanished among the tree trunks, and which the gang were now following.

  I almost gave myself a clunk on the head. I’d seen that line last time I was here (see page 16), but I hadn’t realised what it meant! Had they simply marked a trail?

  A minute or two later, the answer was clear. The gang stopped at a murky spot in front of a plain, anonymous-looking tree. On the ground, the straight line they’d been following came to an end, and where it ended it was joined by two other lines, one to each side of the original line, and vanishing off into the darkness at angles of around forty-five degrees.

  No, they hadn’t marked a trail. They’d placed the shape of a gigantic arrow on the ground, pointing to the hiding place! Unless you knew the arrow was there, you’d never have spotted it. I’d been looking for something too small!

  ‘Oh, that’s clever,’ I muttered, admiringly. ‘You’ve got to admit, that’s clever.’

  ‘Shhh,’ hissed Muddy. ‘This is it.’

  ‘Give me the shovel, Moz,’ said Zippy, ‘and I’ll dig it up.’

  ‘What shovel?’ said Moz. ‘You can see I’m not carrying any shovel! What do you think I’ve got, some sort of magical giant pocket or something?’

  ‘What am I going to dig it up with?’ said Zippy

  ‘That’s your problem, mate,’ grunted Moz.

  The others laughed. I nudged Muddy.

  ‘Now’s our chance, while they’re distracted,’ I whispered. ‘You take two of the lamps, I’ll position the rest.’

  Muddy nodded. I took the bag and crept away, moving in a wide semi-circle around the gang. Every few metres, I stopped and wedged one of the Whitehouse Dazzletron 6000 Mega-Beam Lamps into the tree branches beside me. When the last one was in place, I crouched down and waited, silently.

  By now the gang had stopped arguing about shovels and had made Zippy unearth the money with his bare hands. He dropped to his knees and started digging with his fingers, grumbling and griping under his breath.

  I watched from behind a mass of undergrowth, never taking my eyes off the spot where Zippy was digging. I was shaking with nerves, half of me thrilled by Operation Hangman’s Lair, and the other half of me scared to death in case some fang-toothed woodland monster suddenly oozed up out of the ground at me.

  Zippy sat back, slopping mud off his hands. ‘There it is. Safe and sound.’

  He reached into the hole he’d dug and pulled out a tightly wrapped bundle. It slurped against the earth, as if the woods were trying to hang on to it. By now, the sun had set and the shadows beneath the trees were thickening into the inky chill of night. I could barely make out the bundle in Zippy’s hand. It was rolled into a plastic shopping bag and secured with brown parcel tape, to keep the moisture out.

  ‘Now, Muddy,’ I whispered into my communicator. ‘Switch on now.’

  Suddenly, six sharp white beams of light flashed into life. I blinked in the harsh glare. The gang were dazzled, screwing up their eyes and shielding themselves with their hands. Everything was suddenly lit up, every tiny detail of the woods standing out, bright and stark against the blackness beyond.

  ‘What the —’ yelled Moz.

  Quickly, I raised the Whitehouse Sound Amplifier And Distorter to my lips. Thanks to Muddy’s skill with all things electronic, my voice emerged sounding very deep, very angry and very loud. ‘This is the police! You are surrounded! Raise your hands and stand still! We’ve caught the kids who stole those computer games, and now we’ve caught you!’

  For the tiniest split fraction of a micro-second, the gang stood there, faces bleached by the light beams, eyes goggling, jaws dangling like kiddies’ swings in a gale. Then Moz yelled, ‘Leg it!’

  Like crows startled off a fence, they flapped into motion with an almighty series of squawks. Zippy dropped the bundle of money with a yelp and bounded away into the dark, pushing the others aside.

  ‘Halt!’ boomed my distorted voice. ‘Stay where you are! Get ‘em, Sergeant! Arrest those youths! Oi! Come back ‘ere!’

  We gave them time to get clear of The Hangman’s Lair, then Muddy switched the lamps off. By now, we’d both started giggling, but the sudden darkness that fell on us when the lights went out quickly shut us up.

  I picked up the bundle, stumbling slightly in the gloom. I pulled a small tear in one end of it, and there, inside, was a wad of crumpled banknotes.

  ‘Mission accomplished,’ I whispered with a smile.

  ‘Come on, let’s get out of this creepy place,’ said Muddy.

  CHAPTER

  SIX

  AT PRECISELY 8:22 A.M. THE following morning, I walked past the school gates with more spring in my step than a pair of rocket-powered ejector-boots. I couldn’t quite decide whether to whistle a happy tune or adopt a milewide grin, so I must have looked as though my mouth was trying to dance a tango. But I didn’t much care. The four hundred and twenty pounds was tucked into my pocket. I’d counted the money when I got home from The Hangman’s Lair, and I’d resealed the bundle. It was all there, safe and sound.

  Muddy was sitting on the low wall outside the main school building, reading his dog-eared copy of this month’s Engineering Projects Round-Up. As soon as he spotted me, he stuffed the magazine into his bag and dashed over to me, his shoelaces flapping around his ankles.

  ‘We did it!’ he said, almost jumping up and down with excitement.

  ‘With a bit of luck,’ I said, ‘the gang will be in hiding for a few weeks. And even if they turned up to our prearranged meeting, let’s see . . . about twenty minutes ago, the fact that we’re not there should confirm the idea that the police have caught up with us.’

  ‘Hah! You think of everything!’ cried Muddy.

  I pulled the taped-up plastic bag out of my bag. ‘Yes,’ I said quietly. ‘I do. I must say, I’m relieved that this case has come to a successful conclusion. A couple of weeks ago, I was worried that my skills as a brilliant schoolboy detective were going down the pan. But now, once again, I can say that nobody gets the better of Saxby Smart.’

  ‘Too right!’ declared Muddy. ‘Look, there’s Bob Thompson. Shall we give him the good news?’

  ‘Let’s,’ I said.

  Bob Thompson was lumbering past the gates, a worried expression on his face. As he looked up, I beckoned him over and he veered across the flow of kids like a huge cruise ship changing course.

  �
�H-have you got it?’ he asked nervously.

  I held up the taped bundle. ‘Safe and sound,’ I said.

  His face melted into joy. ‘Thank you! I’ve been so worried the past few days. You don’t know what this means to me. I really owe you one. Now I can take the money back to the office, and put everything right, and start turning over that new leaf at last.’

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to return it to the head?’ I said. ‘I’d happily tell her the full story.’

  ‘No,’ said Bob, ‘I must do it myself. I must admit what I did, it’s important.’

  ‘Y’know,’ said Muddy, ‘I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but I admire your guts, Bob.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Bob with a feeble smile.

  I handed Bob the bundle.

  His feeble smile suddenly became rather more confident. Then, with one lumbering movement, he barged Muddy and me over. We thudded painfully on to the tarmac.

  ‘Suckers!’ he brayed loudly. ‘What a couple of prize dipsticks!’

  Muddy almost exploded with rage. ‘You liar! You double-crossing, back-stabbing, no-good, miserable . . .’ And the rest of that sentence I can’t repeat here.

  With a snort of triumph, Bob Thompson turned and trotted off. He growled at other kids to get out of his way. They did as they were told.

  ‘We’re not going to let him get away with that!’ cried Muddy. ‘Are we?’

  ‘No, we certainly are not,’ I said. ‘Come on, he’s heading back out of the gates. We’re going to follow him.’

  We had to hurry, to keep up with the pace of his tree-trunk-leg strides. He walked out of the school, crossed the road and turned left towards the town centre. Muddy and I trailed along at a distance, keeping hidden around corners and behind bus stops wherever we could. All the way, Muddy kept muttering more sentences I can’t repeat here.

  After a few minutes, it was clear where Bob Thompson was heading. Herbert Street.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ said Muddy. ‘Is he going back to the gang? He’s not going to return the money to them, surely?’