Smugglers! (6 page)

I sent Max a text the next morning.

I went down to the kitchen to get some food; breakfast had been over an hour ago and I had a lot to tell Max. He was at the back door before I even had time to open the fridge.

‘Hello, Auntie Sue,’ he said to Gran. ‘Amy asked me to come round.’

‘Hello, Max. How’s your mum?’ Gran said, smiling at him. ‘I haven’t seen her for a while.’

‘She’s fine, thanks.’ Max bent down to make a fuss of Fluffy, who had run to greet him, as usual. ‘Hello, girl!’

I poured two glasses of fruit juice and grabbed a packet of cookies. ‘Let’s go up to my room,’ I told Max.

Once we were both in the privacy of my attic room, I told Max about following Mr Hodgkin last night. ‘He was heading for the beach, so I’m pretty certain that badger watching story is just a cover.’

Max’s eyes were like saucers as he listened. ‘Do you think he’s the smuggler?’

I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’ve also been thinking about the turtle smuggling information that I found on the Internet and I’m sure the neck of that guitar in the music shop was made out of tortoiseshell. And remember how shifty Juan acted when he saw me looking at it and how quickly he moved it to the back of the shop?’

‘That’s ’cos it was a customer’s guitar they were repairing,’ Max said. ‘I like Juan, he’s nice. He’s not a smuggler.’

I gave him a pitying look. ‘And I like Marissa, but that’s not the point. Just because you like someone doesn’t mean you can dismiss them as a suspect. Vince said that …’

‘I know, I know, a good detective looks at everyone as a suspect,’ Max finished for me. I guess I did repeat what Vince said a lot, but he was my hero. One day I was going to be an FBI agent just like him.

‘I’ve thought of a plan,’ I continued. ‘The only way we’re going to find the smuggler is to investigate each suspect in turn and then eliminate them one by one.’ I paused. ‘And I think we should start with the music shop. I want you to keep Juan talking while I check out the back of the shop and see if the neck of the guitar is tortoiseshell.’ I wanted to check out if there were any other tortoiseshell products too, but I decided not to tell Max that. He was a bit defensive about Juan.

‘Even if it is, it’ll be the customer’s fault, not Juan’s,’ Max said hotly.

‘If it really is a customer’s guitar,’ I pointed out. ‘So, are you in or not?’

Max scowled. ‘Okay, but only to prove to you that it isn’t Juan. Then, we can go and investigate someone else.’

‘Okay, Marissa is next on my list and then Nite Life,’ I told him. ‘I’m not going to stop until I find out who the smuggler is.’

I grabbed my micro-recorder, checked that Max had his whistle and doggy treats (all very important equipment for conducting a surveillance operation) and then we set off.

‘How do we get to the back?’ I asked when we reached the music shop.

Max shrugged his shoulders. ‘Dunno, there must be a gate somewhere around here.’

Oh, very helpful.

We walked past the block of three shops and identified a tall, wooden gate between the end shop and the block of houses next to them. That had to be it. I tried the latch of the gate and was relieved to find it open.

‘You need to keep Juan talking for at least ten minutes while I sneak in the back and look for the guitar,’ I told Max. ‘And keep him well away from the door leading to the back of the shop. I don’t want him to see me.’

‘No problem. I’ll tell him that I want a new guitar pick for my stepdad’s birthday too, and then I can take ages looking at them all. They’re over in the corner at the front of the shop.’

‘Have you got enough money to buy a guitar pick?’ I asked him.

Max shook his head.

‘How much are they?’ I reached in my pocket.

‘About a fiver.’

I gave him three pound coins, all I had left until I got my allowance on Saturday. ‘See if you can get one for this.’

‘Thanks.’ Max took the coins and put them in his pocket.

‘Remember, keep him talking for as long as you can,’ I told Max.

I pushed open the gate and sneaked down the pathway, which led to the back of the three shops, as I thought. The music shop was in the middle, so I made my way down the pathway and peered through a gap in the fence. It was empty. Then I tried the gate. It was unlocked. This was too easy. I checked around to make sure the coast was clear, opened the gate and went into the yard, closing it quietly behind me. I glanced at my watch. That had taken me two minutes. Max should be in the shop talking to Juan now, so I had about eight minutes to look around and get back out.

A swift glance around the yard revealed nothing but a bin, a washing line, a couple of plant pots and, luckily, no sign of any CCTV. I looked up at the windows above the shop. They were concealed by thick net curtains. Max had told me that Juan and his dad lived in the flat above the shop. Was his dad up there?

The back door of the shop was half open. Honestly, these people had no idea about burglar protection. As I crept in, I could hear Max talking to Juan about guitar picks.

The back of the shop was bigger than I’d imagined. Again, there didn’t seem to be a camera anywhere. Although, if there was, I was sure that the only time Juan and his father would check it was if there was a robbery. That’s what Rory told me anyway. His folks owned a grocery store back home, and he said that was the only time they ever checked their cameras.

There was a small kitchen area with a kettle, a table, a couple of chairs, and then a big storeroom. I walked in and looked around. Boxes of all different sizes were piled on the shelves. On the front of the boxes was a name, Castillo.

I guessed Castillo was the name of a firm they bought supplies from. They keep an awful lot of stock I thought, looking at the boxes. Then, a couple of guitars leaning against the far wall caught my eye. I was sure one of them was the guitar that I’d seen behind the counter the other day.

‘Juan! Where are you? Come and help me!’ a voice shouted from just outside the storeroom.

‘Coming, Papa! Max, pleeze will you watch the shop for a minute?’

‘Uh, Juan …’

Despite Max’s attempts to keep Juan in the shop, I heard footsteps that were getting closer.

Sugar! How did I get out of here now? I ran over to a pile of boxes in the far corner and crouched down behind them. There was a gap between them, just big enough for me to see what was going on.

A nanosecond later Juan came in, followed by an older man, obviously his father. They started taking the boxes off the shelves and carrying them out.

If they took any of the boxes I was hiding behind I’d be done for. I tried to gauge the time it took for them to carry the boxes outside and whether I would have enough time to sneak out before they returned to get some more. I was going to have to risk it.

I stepped out from behind the boxes and ran for it. As I got to the storeroom door I saw Juan standing by the back of the shop door. Drat! What did I do now? He hadn’t seen me yet, but he would as soon as he looked in my direction.

‘Apollo calling!
Apollo calling!
Apollo to Houston.
Do you receive me?
Over.’

For a moment I didn’t know what was going on, then Juan whisked a cellphone out of his pocket, flipped it open and went out of the back gate. Well, I’d heard some strange ringtones in my time, but that one took some beating.

‘Hola!’ I heard him say, followed by a torrent of Spanish.

It sounded like he’d be busy for a while. I quickly sneaked into the shop and stepped the other side of the counter to join Max

‘Phew, that was a close shave!’ I gasped.

‘Did you find anything?’

‘I’ll tell you later,’ I said. I knew Juan would be back in any minute and would be suspicious if he saw me with Max because the door hadn’t chimed, as it did every time someone came in. I went over to the door, opened it and closed it again. The musical chimes rang out and Juan poked his head around the door, still holding his cellphone.

‘Ah, Amee. Hello. I will be with you in a minute.’

‘It’s okay, I just came in for Max,’ I shouted, but Juan had gone again.

He came back a few minutes later, looking a bit flustered. ‘I am very sorree. I had to help my father load some things into the van,’ he explained. ‘Have you chosen your guitar pick, Max?’

‘Yes, I’ll have this one,’ Max said, handing Juan a shiny black guitar pick and my three pound coins.

We were walking down the hill when a white van with the letters Mendoza Music written on the side went past. That must be Juan’s dad delivering the boxes he’d just loaded into the van. I wondered what he was delivering and who he was delivering to.

‘Right, spill,’ Max said. ‘What did you find out in there?’

‘I didn’t get much of a chance to look. Juan and his dad came in and started lifting boxes of stuff to load into the van. If it hadn’t been for Juan’s cellphone ringing he’d have rumbled me for sure.’

‘I heard that, isn’t it brilliant? I’m going to ask him to Bluetooth it to me.’ Max wanted to be an astronaut when he grew up so that was the sort of naff ringtone he’d think was cool. ‘So, you’ve got no evidence against him then,’ he added, triumphantly. ‘I told you so.’

‘I haven’t eliminated him yet,’ I said. ‘Let’s go on to Marissa’s now.’

But, when I got to Exotic Wares I found that it was closed for lunch. I groaned. Vince Bronson never had this much trouble with his investigations. I’d almost drowned, been mauled by a fierce dog, been chastised for rummaging among Miss Pearce’s things, been threatened by a tramp, rumbled tailing Mr Hodgkin at midnight and nearly caught searching through the music shop storeroom, and I was still no nearer to finding out who the smuggler was. It wouldn’t be so bad if I could at least eliminate someone, but I still had the same number of suspects as when I started investigating.

‘Still reckon you’ll find out who the smuggler is?’ Max asked, as if he could read my thoughts.

‘Of course. I always get my man – or woman,’ I told him, hoping I sounded much more confident than I felt.

As soon as I got home I went up to my room to do an Internet search on Castillo, the name I’d seen on the boxes in Juan’s storeroom. I guessed it was Spanish for castle, and was probably the name of a business. As I booted up my laptop, I remembered that Juan and his father had put the boxes in the back of their van. Who were they delivering them to? Or,were they taking them somewhere else where no one could find them? It was a possibility that they were doing something illegal. I might have made them nervous when I discovered the tortoiseshell guitar.

I typed in the word Castillo and found that I was right; it did mean castle. I also found lots of businesses with the name Castillo, ranging from hotels, golf clubs and holiday resorts, to firms selling bed linen. It was hopeless. There was no way I could look through them all. I did a search on guitar picks just in case there was a firm called Castillo that sold those online, but I drew a blank. Then, I had a stroke of genius and did a search on Castillo, Cornwall. And there it was, Castillo’s, Little Cragg, Cornwall – makers of quality leather belts, bags and purses.

So, that’s what all the boxes in the storeroom contained.

I clicked on the webpage and looked at some of the designs. They were real neat. Juan was talented, I’ll give him that. There was even a vintage turtle skin collection. I knew from my research that it was legal to sell tortoiseshell and turtle skins before the endangered species act. Perhaps I’d been wrong about Mendoza Music. Juan and his dad ran a perfectly legitimate business. So, who was the smuggler?

My head was spinning. I had to make some order of my thoughts before I went crazy. I got out my notebook and lucky green pen.

I wrote at the top ‘Suspects Not Sure About’ and underlined it.

Underneath, I wrote ‘Miss Pearce’. Firstly, I reckoned a fake designer goods operation was too much for one person to handle and Miss Pearce seemed to be working alone. Secondly, she didn’t live locally, and I was pretty sure the smuggler had to be someone local. It was too much of a stretch of the imagination for them to be travelling around the country using different smugglers’ caves.

Which meant Mr Hodgkin was out of the picture too because he didn’t live locally, did he? Actually, I wasn’t sure where he lived. I chewed the end of my pen as I thought about it. Mr Hodgkin had bought a parcel from Sid the Sniff, which meant he wasn’t the smuggler, otherwise he’d be selling the goods.

I thought hard about the evidence I had on Mr Hodgkin. Maybe he really was badger watching. Maybe the night I followed him he was just going for a walk on the beach like he said. Whatever, having thought about it, I was pretty sure he wasn’t the smuggler either. So, I added his name to the Not Sure list.

I moved on to Juan and his dad. If they were smugglers they wouldn’t be advertising Castillo’s on the Internet, would they? So, I added them both to the list as well.

Then, I wrote another heading, ‘Still Suspects’, underlined it and wrote the remaining suspects: ‘Sid the Sniff – tobacco and other stuff.’ ‘The couple from Nite Life – alcohol.’ ‘Marissa – goods from developing countries’, which meant sweatshops and slave labour. I really, really hoped it wasn’t her.

I studied my lists. According to the research I’d done, tobacco and alcohol were the top items smuggled into the country, and Lee from Nite Life had said they were getting stock at the weekend. I’d learnt that most of this smuggling was done by car or plane though. Maybe the flashing light had been something completely innocent, and the newspaper in the cave had been left by the tramp. But, my instinct told me that I was right – there was a smuggler in Little Cragg – I just had to find them.

I sighed, pushing my hand through my hair. This had to be the most frustrating case I had ever worked on.

You’ve narrowed it down to three suspects, I told myself. You can’t give up now.

It’s time to test your detective skills! Note down all of the clues you’ve discovered so far, then decide who you think the smuggler could be. At the end of the book, you will find out if you’re right!

I wasn’t going to risk sneaking around Sid the Sniff’s place again, not with that fierce dog guarding it, but I hadn’t really investigated Nite Life or Exotic Wares. It was difficult for me to snoop around a bar, of course, and I could go and talk to Marissa again, if only to eliminate her. She’d be back from lunch now.

I glanced out of the rear attic window and saw Max in his backyard cleaning his bike. Great! If I sneaked out the front he’d be none the wiser and I’d get the chance to talk to Marissa without him butting in all the time. I made for the stairs.

‘Won’t be long, Gran!’ I called, as I cleared the bottom step and headed for the front door. I was out before she could protest.

Marissa was just opening up when I got there.

‘Hello, Amy. Have you come to buy something else?’ she asked, smiling.

‘I’m looking for a present for my mom,’ I told her. It wasn’t really a lie, I did want to give my mom something special when I went home.

‘Feel free to look around,’ Marissa told me. ‘I hope you find something you like.’

I could spend hours browsing around Marissa’s shop, there was so much cool stuff there, but today I was looking for clues as to whether the stuff had been smuggled in. Which meant I really needed to see the storeroom or the backyard and find out if there were crates or boxes like the ones Max and I had found in the smugglers’ cave. And there was one tried and trusted way to gain access to the back of a shop.

‘Can I use your loo, please?’ I asked. ‘I don’t like to use the one at the pub, and I really can’t wait until I get back home.’

‘Yes, of course. If you go out that door, you’ll find it on your left,’ Marissa said. ‘Put the kettle on as you pass the kitchen, will you? I could do with a nice, refreshing cup of green tea. Make one for yourself too, if you want.’

‘Thanks.’ I smiled at her and went through into the kitchen.

I filled up the kettle and was about to go out to the loo when Marissa’s cellphone bleeped.

‘Amy, I have to pop out for a few minutes!’ she called. ‘Please can you watch the shop for me?’

‘Sure!’ I shouted back. Brill! This was my chance to have a quick look around.

As soon as Marissa had left, I checked out the back of the shop. There was a storeroom with boxes containing more stock, and a backyard, which had some pretty plants in tubs and a bench. Nothing suspicious there.

I thought I’d better get back in the shop before a customer came in or Marissa came back. I popped my head around the shop door, still empty, and then went into the kitchen where the kettle had just boiled. I saw a box of green tea bags on the side, took two mugs off the mug holder and slipped a tea bag into each one.

‘I’m back!’ Marissa called. ‘Has anyone been in?’

I poked my head around the door. ‘No, and I’ve just made your tea.’ I came out, carefully carrying the two mugs and handed one to Marissa.

‘Thanks, love.’ She sipped it gratefully. ‘Sorry about that. Had to go and have a quick word with someone.’ She smiled at me. ‘How are you finding it living in an English seaside town?’

‘It’s okay.’ I took a sip of my drink. Gran liked green tea too. When I first tasted it I’d thought it was bitter, but now I quite liked it. I decided to broach the subject of smugglers and see if Marissa acted guiltily in any way. ‘Max and I found some real smugglers’ caves the other day.’

‘Did you? How fascinating. Of course, a lot of smuggling used to go on around here, didn’t it?’

I looked her straight in the face. ‘Do you think smugglers still use the caves? Smuggling still goes on today, doesn’t it?’

She paused for a moment. ‘Yes it does, but I believe most smuggling is done by plane and car now. There aren’t any smugglers like in the olden days, Amy.’ She smiled again. Marissa smiled a lot. ‘Now, have you found anything for your mum?’

I shook my head. ‘I mean, you’ve got lots of nice stuff, but I wanted something really special …’

‘Well, I have deliveries quite regularly so keep popping in and you might find something. Or, if you think of something your mum would like, I’ll try and get it for you.’

‘Thanks.’

Well, Marissa hadn’t acted guilty at all, and I’d found nothing suspicious in her shop, I thought, as I walked home. I was still no nearer to finding the smuggler.

The trouble was, I didn’t really know what I was looking for. All the other crimes I’d solved had been pretty straightforward. Fluffy had gone missing, so I had to find her. I suspected someone was sabotaging Old Joe’s cottage, so I set out to find out who it was. All I had to go on with this case was a flashing light and a string of what could just be coincidences.