A Pocketful of Eyes (16 page)

FARO COSTA WAS QUITE HAPPY
to provide Bee and Toby with the key to the Red Rotunda.

‘The sooner you find the answer,’ he said, ‘the sooner Gus’s soul can be free and you can both come out of the shadows.’

‘Thanks,’ said Bee. ‘Um, also?’

Faro smiled as if he already knew what she was going to say.

‘I kind of have to ask you an awkward question.’

‘No, I did not kill him,’ said Faro. ‘We have to log a report every ten minutes on the computer in the Security office. To prove we are not asleep, we have to press a button and confirm nothing strange is happening. I logged reports every ten minutes for all the time I was there. There was not time for me to go to the Red Rotunda and kill him. I can show it to you, if you like.’

‘No, it’s okay,’ said Bee. ‘Thank you. I didn’t think you did kill him, but a detective has to be thorough.’

He ducked his head in a little bow. ‘I will leave a printout of the reports on your desk,’ he said, and handed Toby a torch. ‘Good luck.’

The museum was dark and eerie, with only the green glow of the exit signs and faint emergency lighting illuminating the major thoroughfares. The air was crisp and cool compared to the humidity outside, and Bee felt suddenly awake and alert.

Toby’s torchlight glinted off the glass cases, casting looming shadows that gave the illusion of movement within them. Bee’s skin crawled as she thought she saw a giant snake uncoil in the Reptile Room, and in the Great Hall she felt as if the dinosaurs could come alive at any minute and tear her to pieces.

‘Creepy,’ observed Toby calmly.

Bee tried to laugh.

They reached the Red Rotunda and Toby shone his torch on the door while Bee unlocked it.

‘So,’ he said, his voice echoing strangely in the darkness. ‘Who else could have got in?’

‘Well, if someone
knew
he had a copy of the key, they could have taken it from him.’

‘So it could be anyone.’

‘It’s unlikely to be anyone who doesn’t work here,’ said Bee. ‘But not impossible, I suppose. The next question is, how did they manage to get Gus in here?’

‘You mean there’s a possibility he was killed somewhere else? And his body brought here?’

‘It’d be a good way to frame an employee, if that’s what you wanted.’

‘What if Cranston wanted to frame Featherstone?’ Toby asked. ‘For stealing his research? A kind of delayed justice?’

Bee thought about it. It was an interesting idea. But would he really have
murdered
his oldest friend in order to exact revenge for something Featherstone had done almost thirty years ago?

She shook her head. ‘It doesn’t really work. Why would Cranston make it look like Gus committed suicide if he wanted to frame Featherstone?’

Toby looked disappointed. Bee pushed open the door to the Red Rotunda, and they slipped inside.

There was no emergency lighting or exit signs in the Red Rotunda, and everything was pitch black. Toby swung the torch around a few times, and Bee shivered as she imagined the murderer – whoever it was – sneaking up behind her. Then Toby took a few steps away from her, and with one click of a light switch, blinding light filled the room. Bee screwed her eyes closed against the sudden brightness.

‘Sorry,’ said Toby. ‘But we’ll never find anything in the dark.’

Bee walked to the middle of the room, where Gus’s body had been found.

‘So there are only two possible solutions,’ she said. ‘The first is that Gus came in here, on his own, and killed himself.’

‘How? The mercuric chloride was fake.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What’s the second solution?’ asked Toby.

‘Someone killed him,’ said Bee. ‘And planted the bottle in his hand.’

‘But who? And why?’

Bee wandered over to the glass cases. ‘This is stupid,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what we’re doing here. We’re not getting anywhere.’

She stared absently at the skeleton of a quagga. The white plaque next to it noted that it was one of only seven such skeletons in existence. She wondered what the quagga had done to deserve such an evolutionary dead end.

‘So where do we go now?’

Bee shrugged. ‘Home, I guess.’

‘I mean, what do we do next? What’s the next step?’

‘I don’t know.’

Toby leaned against the horseshoe crab’s case. ‘But you must know! WWPD?’

‘Poirot would have figured it out by now,’ said Bee. ‘This would be the bit in
The Affair at Styles
where Poirot taps his head and says that he has to use his little grey cells to unravel the mystery. And he’d just figure it out and then annoy everyone for another four chapters by not telling them.’

‘That doesn’t sound like fun,’ said Toby. ‘What about Sherlock Holmes?’

‘Holmes would be waiting for the final piece of evidence to confirm his outlandish hypothesis, but also wouldn’t be telling anyone his theory, just to infuriate Watson. And Trixie Belden would realise that the answer had been staring her in the face all along.’

‘Nancy Drew?’

‘Nancy Drew would have some incredibly useful piece of evidence dropped in her lap. Probably along with a winning lottery ticket and a voucher for a free manicure, knowing her luck.’

‘Maybe if you sat down?’

Bee looked at him.

‘To make a lap,’ Toby explained. ‘You can’t have something fall into your lap if you don’t have a lap.’

Bee smiled in a distracted sort of way. She was out of ideas. She thought about all the mystery novels she’d read. She needed an
aha!
moment. One where everything would fall into place and she’d see the entire picture, clear as day. But how did she
get
that moment? There was usually a trigger. Somebody would say something innocuous and the detective would snap his or her fingers and cry
buttons! Aha!

‘Say something,’ said Bee, desperately.

‘What?’

‘Talk about something. Tell me some useless trivia about insects.’

‘Er, okay. There are about two hundred million insects for every one person. A snail can sleep for three years during a drought. Bees have five eyes – three little ones up on top and two big ones in front. Slugs have four noses. Actually, that’s not true. They have a pair of gills that they breathe through, and then two things called rhinopores which help them smell.’

Bee shook her head. ‘It’s no good,’ she said. ‘I never should have started this. I’m not a detective, and life isn’t an Agatha Christie novel.’

She wanted to cry, but not in front of Toby. She wanted to go home and watch TV with Angela. Or go to the movies with Maddy. Except Angela would be with the Celestial Badger. And Maddy was with Fletch. Bee was on her own.

‘Come on, Bee,’ said Toby. ‘There must be
something
you can think of. One last idea?’

There was only one thing Bee could think of. Only one idea left.

She pulled Toby towards her and kissed him.

He stiffened in shock, but then his arms wrapped around her. He wound the fingers of one hand into her hair and cupped her head, his other arm circling her waist. She felt safe, warm, supported. It was as though she was dissolving into him, their kisses drawing them closer and closer. It drove all rational thought out of her mind, and she felt a blissful calm in the silence broken only by quick breaths.

Bee ran her hands up Toby’s back, and he moaned gently, his teeth scraping Bee’s lower lip in that way that made her tremble inside. He picked her up, spun her round and sat her on the glass case.

He kissed her cheek, her lips, her throat. He started to pull up her T-shirt, but then drew away, panting a little.

‘I didn’t think you wanted to do this,’ he said. ‘You didn’t say anything, after last time.’

Bee raised an eyebrow. ‘Neither did you.’

‘I didn’t think you wanted me to.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you didn’t say anything.’

Bee looked down at the horseshoe crab. Next to it, the deathstalker scorpion glared up at her, its tail poised, ready to strike.

‘I thought we had fun,’ said Toby. ‘On the tiger.’

‘We did.’ Bee felt a sudden rush of warmth at the memory. Why was Toby talking? What had happened to the kissing? Bee had liked the kissing.

‘So . . .’

‘So what?’

‘So why didn’t you say anything?’

Bee looked up from the case. Why did they have to talk about this? ‘Because our boss was murdered and I had other things on my mind. Also, you didn’t show any indication that you actually liked me.’

‘I
kissed
you. Three times. Although technically this last time you kissed me.’

‘I’ve kissed plenty of people I don’t like.’ This wasn’t strictly true. Bee had only kissed Fletch before Toby, and she hadn’t disliked him, she’d just found him dull. But how
dare
Toby accuse her of not making her feelings clear? What was she supposed to do, wear a sign around her neck? Get a skywriter?

Toby’s cheeks were flushed, and somewhere at the back of Bee’s mind she registered that she had genuinely hurt him. But the angry bit at the front of her mind was louder.

‘Every time you kiss me,’ she said, ‘you leave immediately afterwards. We don’t ever talk about anything, because you’re too busy answering your mysterious phone calls. You don’t know anything about me.’

‘Well,
sorry
,’ said Toby, his face clamming up. ‘I didn’t realise we were having a
relationship
.’

What? He stopped the kissing to talk about their feelings, and now he was trying to play the aloof male card? Did he like her or not?

‘Who said anything about a relationship?’ What was
wrong
with him?

‘You did. Just then.’

‘No I didn’t! I never said I wanted to have a relationship with you,’ said Bee, trying to decide whether to try to kiss him again, or punch him in the face. ‘Right now I’m not sure I want to be having a
conversation
with you.’

‘But you said—’

Bee gritted her teeth. ‘I don’t want to have a relationship with you. But if we’re going to be making out up against display cases or on stuffed tigers, I want it to be because you want to make out up against a display case or on a stuffed tiger
with me
. Not just because you want to be making out, and I happen to be there.’

‘So you don’t want me to make out with anyone else?’

‘That wasn’t at all what I was saying, but, no, now that you mention it, I don’t want you to make out with anyone else.’

‘Because that’s my definition of a relationship.’

Bee laughed, a little hysterically. ‘Your definition of a relationship is not kissing anyone else?’

‘Sure.’

She shook her head. ‘I’m beginning to understand why it is you haven’t been snapped up yet.’

‘How do you know I haven’t? There are plenty of girls who would
love
to snap me up.’

‘This is ridiculous.’ Bee suddenly felt the eyes of cats, dogs, spiders, toads, a horseshoe crab and a very fierce scorpion staring at her.

‘
You’re
ridiculous,’ he said. ‘You have no idea what you want, do you? You’re just running around pretending to be Beatrice Ross, Girl Detective, and ignoring the fact that the world is going on all around you.’

A small part of Bee was surprised that Toby even knew her surname, but it was overtaken by a much bigger part that was marauding angrily through her.

‘Well, at least I’m not the one who’s stuck here all summer because I
failed
my exams
,’ she said. ‘You want to talk about ignoring the world going by? Why’d you fail, Toby? Too busy with your social life? I can just imagine you out every night, getting drunk and picking up any girl who’d listen to your stupid animal trivia. I bet you’ve had girls pressed up against display cases in every museum and library in the state.’

Toby opened his mouth to retort, then shut it again with a snap. ‘You don’t know anything about me either,’ he said finally, his voice low and angry. ‘You don’t know what happened to me last year. You don’t know about my life. And you don’t even want to find out. You’d rather add up all your little clues and observances and fabricate stories about people so they fit your perfect storybook idea of how the world works. Where every mystery has a villain and every death can be solved if you follow a trail of breadcrumbs. Well, let me tell you, I’m not the villain of your story. I don’t even want to be
in
it.’

Bee couldn’t reply. Toby was right. Everything he had said was right. She
had
been running around ignoring the real world. She’d been ignoring the fact that her mother had a new boyfriend and was starting a whole new part of her life, a new part that didn’t include Bee. What if Angela wanted the Celestial Badger to move in with them? What if they got married? What if Angela got pregnant and Bee suddenly had a baby Badger brother or sister? And Bee was ignoring the fact she’d lost her boyfriend and her best friend. What was going to happen when school started? Would Fletch and Maddy be walking around together? Holding hands? Kissing in public? Who would Bee sit with at lunchtime? Would everyone think she was a loser because she’d been abandoned by her friend
and
her boyfriend?