Secret of the Skull Read online

Have you spotted it too?

  Surely, nobody who was writing someone’s life story would fail to talk to that person’s son? Any brief glance at the available info on Emerik Skulyevic would reveal that Emerik had a son, Antonin – Skull’s dad.

  As soon as Izzy had mentioned this Janet Smith, I wondered why Skull’s family – being so proud of Emerik – hadn’t mentioned this biography to me. The reason was they’d never heard of it, or of Janet Smith. Conclusion: ‘Janet Smith’ wasn’t really doing this research at all!

  (Of course, it could have been that she was real and was researching a biography, but was simply a complete twit for not knowing about and/or not contacting Antonin. However, since I’d already established that something dodgy was going on, this didn’t exactly seem likely.)

  For a minute or two, I felt extremely pleased with myself, because I’d so quickly realised that this mysterious ‘researcher’ was nothing of the kind. But then . . .

  Several increasingly uncomfortable thoughts occurred to me . . .

  Thought 1: Someone had been out in Vojvladimia. Someone had been asking all about Emerik Skulyevic. Someone had got hold of Mirna’s wooden box.

  Thought 2: Because of Thought 1, and because it now turned out that our ‘Mirna’ was an imposter after all (still couldn’t quite get my head around that!), then it seemed reasonable to suppose that Mirna and this Janet Smith character were one and the same. She’d rooted around for stuff in Vojvladimia, then travelled to the UK and become Mirna. The timings seemed to fit, anyway.

  Thought 3: Because of Thoughts 1 and 2, I couldn’t escape the creeping suspicion that maybe I’d been too quick to dismiss the Elsa Moreaux connection. What was Mirna’s real identity? What was Janet Smith’s real identity? Could they both be the infamous leader of the Minkstreet and Batt armed robbers?

  My stomach did a quick backflip and went to hide somewhere in my lower intestines. The possibility that I’d have to confront one of the nastiest villains I’d ever come across was deeply disturbing.

  The only fly in the ointment, as they say, was that same problem which had puzzled me earlier – how could Mirna be Elsa Moreaux, since Elsa Moreaux – constantly watched out for at airports, on ferries, etc, etc – definitely left the country, definitely hadn’t come back again, and was probably still running a sushi bar in Spain?

  With a jolt of alarm, I suddenly realised that there was a way for them to be the same person. Thinking back to the contents of that wooden box Skull had shown me, and thinking back to what Muddy had told me, I could see a way for Elsa Moreaux to have become both Janet Smith and Mirna Skulyevic. She could have returned to the UK, she could now be living in Skull’s house – the house she herself had once lived in – and the idea filled me with horror.

  Have you worked out how she might have done it?

  I knew she’d been in contact with the skilled forger from Doyle Avenue. Since the real Mirna was dead, that newly issued passport that was in the wooden box must have been faked by the forger (a real passport can hardly be issued to a dead person!). Everything else in the box was real, but that passport must have been a fake.

  And if the forger could create a fake passport in the name of Mirna Skulyevic, he could easily have created one in the name of Janet Smith. Both must have been good enough to fool the authorities, since the Mirna passport had all those border stamps in it (or, at least, it had leaving-Vojvladimia and entering-the-UK border stamps in it. The others could have been faked, but since ‘Janet’/’Mirna’ must have genuinely travelled from Vojvladimia to the UK at some point, those stamps were probably real).

  The timetable would have gone like this: Elsa Moreaux gets two faked passports from the forger. She travels from Spain to Vojvladimia as ‘Janet Smith’. The cops aren’t looking for any Janet Smith, so she gets through without being noticed (although, I’d guess she has to adopt some sort of disguise to avoid face recognition computers).

  As Janet Smith, she starts asking around about Emerik Skulyevic. She claims to be researching a biography. She manages to get hold of Mirna Skulyevic’s wooden box.

  She then travels to the UK, this time as Mirna. She now has with her enough proof to convince the Skulyevic family that she is the long-lost Mirna. After all, the only person in that house who’s ever met Mirna before is Antonin, and he was only a young boy at the time, many years ago. ‘Mirna’ settles down in the Skulyevic’s spare room. So far, so —

  Wait! Wait! Wait!

  Why would Elsa Moreaux do all that? Why?

  Whichever way I looked at it, there was only one possible answer. There was only one reason Elsa Moreaux could have had for returning to her old home: that stolen gold was still in the house!

  But the police had searched the place from top to bottom. They’d taken up all the floors. They’d dug up the garden. They couldn’t possibly have missed several million pounds’ worth of gold bullion! The idea was ridiculous. For a start, all that gold would take up quite a bit of space. It would be heavy, too.

  And yet . . .

  I retreated to my garden shed and my Thinking Chair. It was absolutely freezing in there, so I grabbed my notebook and a pen and retreated to underneath my bedsheets instead. By my flickering flashlight, I scribbled down a few ideas.

  A Page From My Notebook

  I’ll approach this from Elsa Moreaux’s point of view.

  1. After years in prison, I get let out. Hee hee, I think, now I can retrieve that stolen gold.

  2. I go to my old home, which is now Skull’s home. Obviously, I already realise people will be living there, so I need a plan to get around them.

  3. I find out that the people living there are called Skulyevic. Very unusual name. Doesn’t take me long to discover who Emerik Skulyevic was, and that he left a sister behind when he fled Vojvladimia all those years ago.

  4. The fact that Emerik has died gives me an idea. He was the last person who could have positively identified his long-lost sister, Mirna. Therefore, as long as I turn up with enough proof, then I can become Mirna and gain access to the house.

  5. Under the watching eyes of the police, I leave the UK, having already got hold of a couple of fake passports through the Doyle Avenue forger guy. I go to Spain. I travel to Vojvladimia as Janet Smith, leaving the police thinking I’m still happily nibbling sushi.

  And so on. That’s all pretty clear now. However, I’m still left with two HUUUGE questions:

  Question 1: WHY would Elsa go to all that trouble? She’s a vicious armed robber. Why not simply bash in the door of the Skulyevic’s house, and threaten them until she can retrieve the gold and leg it? That would be much more her style. Why all the sneakiness? What’s stopping her just raiding the house as if it was a bank, just as she always did before?

  Question 2: WHERE does the credit card thing come in? Why would Elsa need to go back to the Doyle Avenue guy and start dabbling in fake cards? It would surely be risky? Her cover could be blown!

  Little did I know, but everything would become clear the following day at school. The final piece of the weirdly shaped puzzle which surrounded the Skulyevic family fell into place at last. All it took was a brief conversation with Skull himself.

  ‘How’s it going?’ said Skull. The class was slowly traipsing in for the start of the school day and teachers were slowly traipsing along the corridors towards the staff room.

  ‘Oh, er, not too bad,’ I said, not quite knowing how to bring him up to date on all the worrying recent developments. ‘Um, y’know, making progress . . .’

  ‘So, you haven’t actually found out any more about those credit cards?’ asked Skull.

  ‘Umm, not as such . . .’ I said vaguely.

  ‘Good!’ said Skull. ‘Because I think we can forget the whole thing now.’

  ‘Huh? Why?’

  ‘Her money’s come through from her bank back in Vojvladimia,’ said Skull cheerily. ‘It occurred to me that she only got herself mixed up in stolen credit cards because she’s been as short of cash as t
he rest of us at home. But now the problem’s solved. I’m sure we’ll see no more of that sort of thing from her. Let’s just put it behind us, move on, forget the past and so on. Yes?’

  ‘Ah,’ I mumbled, going slightly red with embarrassment. ‘To be perfectly honest, um —

  ‘And she’s done just what she said she’d do,’ Skull went on. ‘Remember, I told you, about how she was going to thank us for letting her stay? She’s booked us a night at a hotel on the south coast. Plus train tickets for getting there, plus dinner, plus passes for Ocean Depths Aquarium. Isn’t that nice of her?’

  ‘Yes, now I think about it, you did mention it when you came to my shed,’ I said. ‘Can’t have been cheap, all that for four people.’

  ‘Three people,’ said Skull. ‘Mirna’s staying at home. She says her gammy leg’s playing up.’

  As soon as Skull said that, the truth suddenly dawned on me. That final piece of the jigsaw clicked neatly into place and the picture was complete!

  ‘She’s not going!’ I cried. ‘Of course! What an idiot! I should have seen this from the very beginning! Skull, when are you and your parents off on this trip?’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ said Skull.

  I almost squeaked with fright. ‘Good grief! We have to act fast! Sorry, you can’t go.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  I waggled my arms about in a bit of a panic. ‘No. Scratch that. You are going —

  ‘Phew.’

  ‘— but then you’re coming straight back again!’

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘Trust me! Say nothing to Mirna. Nothing! I mean it this time! Tomorrow morning, the three of you leave for the train station as arranged. I’ll meet you halfway there and we’ll all sneak back to your house.’

  ‘No way – we’ll miss the train!’

  I wanted to jump up and down and make ‘Ggnnnghh’ noises. ‘I promise you, you’d rather do things my way! We have to stop a serious crime being committed. Or rather, completed. And anyway, the three of you need to be there to . . . well, to find out what’s been going on.’

  ‘But Saxby . . .’

  ‘Don’t argue! I haven’t a moment to lose! For a start, I need to go and see Muddy!’

  Already, I was feeling nervous. I could have gone straight to the police with what I knew, but I felt it was important that Skull’s family should see proof of what I’d discovered before the cops showed up. The truth was going to hurt them, but at least if they learned it for themselves it might not be quite so much of a shock. They deserved to find out about Mirna first, before any arrests were made!

  The trouble was, doing the right thing for Skull’s family also meant doing what I was dreading most: confronting the notorious Elsa Moreaux, face to face. The more I thought about it, the more my legs started to wobble.

  I’d found the final piece of the puzzle thanks to three specific factors. There were three things which, considered alongside the weekend trip Skull had just told me about, added up to answer the questions that remained. Those factors were:

  1) The negative results of the police’s search of Skull’s house, all those years ago.

  2) The fact that Skull’s house never used to have a garage. Or that hideous fireplace in the living room.

  3) The way Skull’s parents both worked and shopped from home.

  How much of the puzzle have you pieced together?

  CHAPTER

  SEVEN

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING, SKULL’S PARENTS were not happy bunnies. They weren’t happy when Skull told them about my don’t-catch-the-train plan. They weren’t happy when Skull insisted they keep everything secret from Mirna. And they really weren’t happy when I stood in the middle of the road, hands outstretched, blocking their car’s way to the railway station. Happy bunnies, they were not.

  ‘Listen, Saxby,’ said Skull’s dad with a sigh, ‘I really don’t want to hear any more of these wild stories.’

  ‘We’ll miss our train!’ protested Skull’s mum.

  ‘Please, please, please do as I ask,’ I pleaded. ‘I know this seems mad, but it’s also very, very important. If I’m right, you’ll be glad you never went to the station. If I’m wrong, you’ll only be delayed by an hour or so, you can catch the next train and you’ll have my deepest apologies from now until the end of time. Deal?’

  Reluctantly, they agreed. We all piled back into their car, and parked just out of sight of their house.

  Keeping to one side of the street and stepping as softly as possible, the four of us made our way back towards Skull’s house. A couple of net curtains twitched as neighbours wondered what we were up to, but apart from that everywhere was quiet.

  I tapped at the small camera lens that was pinned to the front of my jacket. ‘Muddy?’ I whispered. ‘All set?’

  ‘Yup,’ said a tinny voice in my ear. I adjusted the Whitehouse Listen-O-Scope Mark III that was curled around my right ear. ‘Are you sure about this? It sounds potentially dangerous.’

  ‘It is potentially dangerous,’ I replied.

  ‘So why couldn’t I come too?’ moaned Muddy. ‘Spoilsport.’

  ‘I need you to phone the police!’ I hissed. ‘Is this video feed live on Izzy’s FaceSpace page or not?’

  ‘Yes,’ grumbled Muddy. ‘I’ll phone as soon as we get to the good bit. Hang on . . . Izzy’s here. She says why not phone the police right now?’

  ‘Because I don’t want them finding out about this and turning up too early,’ I said. ‘Now shush. We’re nearly at Skull’s house.’

  ‘We’re not the ones who need to shush,’ mumbled Muddy grumpily. ‘You’re the one who’s there.’

  I ignored him.

  Slowly, Skull’s parents, Skull and I sneaked across the front lawn of the house. There was no sign of movement inside.

  ‘What if she sees us?’ whispered Skull.

  ‘She won’t,’ I whispered back. ‘She’ll be in the garage. But she might hear us, so shhhh.’

  The four of us crept up to the garage. It had a swing-up-and-over metal door, which was very slightly open.

  Suddenly, a sharp crack, like a hammer striking a nail, came from behind the garage door. Then another.

  We looked at each other. Skull’s parents couldn’t quite believe what they were hearing.

  The cracking came again, louder and heavier this time – more like a mallet being whacked down on to a hard surface. It sounded again and again, regularly, over and over. It stopped and started for the next few minutes until at last the garage fell quiet again.

  Then we could hear scraping sounds, a grating noise and something crumbling on to the concrete floor inside. Finally, something clanked against metal.

  I turned and nodded to Skull. He tiptoed to the far side of the garage door. We each took hold of one edge.

  On my signal, we heaved the door up high. It clattered against the roof with a squeal of rusty springs.

  Standing halfway down the garage was Mirna. She was wearing workman’s overalls. In front of her, above a pile of loosened bricks and an assortment of tools, was a gaping hole in the wall which joined on to the house.

  Behind her was a SuperSave trolley. In the trolley was a large, gleaming gold bar, about the size of a loaf of bread. In her hand was another one. Similar bars were stacked behind the hole.

  She gaped at us. Her face showed a mixture of anger and surprise. For a split second, nobody moved.

  ‘What on Earth . . .?!’ cried Skull’s dad.

  Mirna dropped the gold brick she was holding into the trolley. She turned to face us again and this time the expression on her face was nothing less than pure fury.

  ‘Hi there, Elsa Moreaux,’ I said as casually as I could. Not casually at all, really – my voice was shaking like a nodding car mascot on a mountain trail.

  She snorted. ‘If you know who I am, you’re sharper than the cops, I’ll give you that.’

  ‘Brilliant hiding place,’ I said. ‘Inside the wall cavity itself. The police would only have found it i
f they’d demolished the entire building.’

  ‘Would someone please tell us what is going on?’ cried Skull’s dad.

  I broke the news to them that Great Aunt Mirna wasn’t Great Aunt Mirna after all. Briefly, I told them about the chain of clues in my investigation. ‘I’m very sorry,’ I added, ‘but you’ve been conned from the outset.’

  Elsa Moreaux picked up one of the bricks she’d removed from the wall and dropped it with a loud clack to the ground. I jumped with fright. She growled, ‘Why didn’t you send for the cops straight away?’

  ‘That gold was still hidden,’ I said. ‘I was pretty sure it was in that wall, but I needed to wait. Until, that is, you went to fetch it yourself and showed me exactly where you’d put it.’

  ‘And how could you possibly know it was inside this wall?’ she spat. ‘I made it perfect. It looked totally untouched!’

  ‘Logical deduction,’ I said. ‘Your original plan, I think, was simply to turn up here as Mirna and stay just a day or two, until you had a chance to retrieve the gold. You couldn’t simply burst in and grab it. Because of the way it was hidden, you needed a couple of hours in which to get the gold out. Which is why you decided to adopt a disguise.

  ‘When you got out of prison, you worked out your plan: you went to Spain, then to Vojvladimia, then came back to the UK as Mirna Skulyevic. But when you finally got into the house you saw that Skull’s dad had built a large, stone fireplace in the living room, on the other side of this wall – right over the top of your hiding place.

  ‘That fireplace was far too thick and heavy to get through without major effort. You’d have to get to the hiding place from this side of the wall instead, from what had been the outside wall when you lived here. However, you had a piece of luck. There’d been another addition to the house – the garage. It would conceal you while you broke into the wall from this side instead.

  ‘Unfortunately, your plan was upset by something else as well as the fireplace. Skull’s parents were always at home. There was always somebody in the house. You’d assumed that it would only take a few days before you could grab an hour or two alone. It turned out that you might need weeks and weeks. So you had to outstay your welcome and you had to devise a way to get these three out of the house for a while.