The Complete Ruby Redfort Collection. Lauren Child

She just had to find a way to put them back before anyone noticed they were gone.

      On the way to Spectrum, while stopped at lights, who should cross the street but Clancy Crew, Del Lasco and Elliot Finch, stuffing donuts into their mouths. Ruby slid down in her seat.

      ‘Don’t worry kid, they can’t see you, only me.’

      ‘How’s that?’ asked Ruby

      ‘Special glass,’ said Hitch, knocking on the windshield. ‘If this switch is flicked down,’ he said pointing to a little silver lever, ‘then on the passenger side it just shows a blank space, as if you aren’t there.’ To prove his point he wound down his window, stuck his head out and called, ‘Hey kids, don’t suppose I could persuade you to let me have one of those donuts?’

      ‘No way man,’ said Del through a mouthful of donut, ‘I only have two left .’

      Clancy said nothing but he certainly wasn’t going to let that butler guy have anything of his, not for free anyway. He didn’t like him and he didn’t trust him either.

      Elliot looked thoughtfully at the remaining donut in its paper bag. ‘How much you offering?’ he asked.

      ‘How about I guess what flavour donut you got – I’m right, I get it for free; I’m wrong, I give you ten bucks for it.’

      Elliot couldn’t believe his luck – the guy was never going to guess what flavour donut he had; this meant a big profit. ‘Sure,’ said Elliot, ‘I don’t mind taking ten bucks off ya.’

      ‘So?’ whispered Hitch out of the corner of his mouth.

      ‘Well the one he was just eating was banana flavour, which means the one in the bag is chocolate raspberry with strawberry frosting and rainbow sprinkles.’ hissed Ruby

      ‘OK,’ said Hitch holding his finger to his temple as if he was channelling the information. ‘I’m guessing… chocolate raspberry, strawberry frosting, rainbow sprinkles – am I right?’

      Elliot, speechless, handed over the donut.

      ‘Pleasure doing business with you,’ said Hitch as he pulled away from the lights.

      ‘Who is that guy?’ whispered Del.

      ‘Some bozo who works for the Redforts’ muttered Clancy.

      ‘They got a magician working for them?’ said Elliot.

      ‘Pretty cool,’ said Ruby as they sped along towards Twinford Bridge.

      ‘I aim to please,’ said Hitch handing Ruby the donut.

      When they arrived at Spectrum Ruby was told to sit in the waiting area. She was kind of fidgety. She wasn’t particularly looking forward to meeting Agent Blacker – so far everyone she had encountered at HQ had not exactly been “Mickey Mouse” friendly.

      But when Agent Blacker turned up he actually smiled.

      ‘If you don’t mind my saying, you look kinda youthful,’ he said.

      ‘I drink a lot of banana milk – keeps you young looking,’ said Ruby.

      ‘Is that so? How many pints do you drink exactly?’

      He was a dishevelled looking man and his badge was upside down, and his hair didn’t look like it had been combed since Christmas. He had a nice voice though. It had warmth – she could tell this from just a few words.

      ‘So,’ he said. ‘You gonna solve this Lopez code for us?’ He ruffled her hair and added, ‘You know what? I think you just might.’

      Messing with Ruby Redfort’s hair would not ordinarily have been a good idea, but for some reason, today, Ruby didn’t mind. Perhaps she was just relieved that someone was finally on her side.

      ‘Thanks, but I’m not sure anyone else around here would agree with you – I feel about as popular as a person infected with the Black Death.’

      ‘Nah, they wouldn’t talk to you at all if you had the Black Death,’ said Blacker.

      Ruby was surprised when she was ushered through a door and found herself outside in an alley, facing a dumpster and an old van that looked like a dumpster. ‘There’s our ride,’ said Blacker, walking towards the van.

      ‘You’re kidding right?’ said Ruby.

      But he wasn’t.

      ‘Where we going – the wrecking yard?’

      ‘Yeah, I hear what you’re saying Ruby – she is a bit of an old lady but she goes OK. Inconspicuous too.’

      ‘Only if we are going to a real dump of a neighbourhood,’ said Ruby.

      Blacker laughed awkwardly. ‘Yeah.’

      Twenty minutes later Ruby understood why. They had pulled up in front of an old office building on Maverick Street on the east side of town in the area known as Trashford. It was a dump.

      ‘Here we are – the file office,’ said Agent Blacker. ‘Lopez worked from here because it made for a good cover, and it was safe.’

      Ruby looked up at the derelict-looking building that was sandwiched between an ancient-looking Laundromat and a boarded up convenience store. ‘If you don’t mind my saying so, it doesn’t look very safe.’

      Blacker pointed at the door. ‘Try drilling through this baby in a hurry – it will take you upwards of eighteen hours.’

      If that was true then it was disguised well.

      He unlocked the door. It was brown – at least the top layer was – large flakes of ancient paint were peeling off to reveal many past colour choices, all the colours of the rainbow. Ruby stepped inside. The small room was lined floor to ceiling with files, brown ones.

      ‘If anyone did ever happen to tail Lopez, we wanted them to find some dusty old office. Lopez told everyone she was a bookkeeper – no one outside Spectrum knew what she really did.’

      ‘So, what, she never got to go out on any missions or adventures?’ asked Ruby.

      Blacker shook his head. ‘She never ever did anything for Spectrum which involved any danger – LB doesn’t like losing her code breakers, not after… well she just doesn’t. She likes to keep her great minds safe and sound.’

      Ruby looked around at the dismal office. She couldn’t help feeling it was capable of depressing a person to death.

      ‘So every day she sat looking at these drab old walls? What did she do for kicks?’ asked Ruby.

      ‘Rock climbing,’ replied Blacker.

      ‘She probably enjoyed the scenery,’ said Ruby, glancing at the window, almost black with dirt.

      ‘So, I guess LB filled you in on the case,’ said Blacker, pointing at the far wall. ‘All these files on this shelf here cover every little thing we found out about the planned bank heist.’

      Ruby counted them – there were more than a few.

      ‘We want you to read through every single file, and try and spot what we missed the first time around – we know we musta missed something because old Lopez worked it out while she was on her vacation. Her mind musta been ticking over and suddenly – vavoom! – she figured something out. But that leaves us with a problem – we don’t know what it was.’

      ‘So what tipped you off about the robbery in the first place?’ asked Ruby.

      ‘We had a call from the Gotz Bank in Switzerland, that’s where the gold’s coming in from. They reported that they were sure someone had infiltrated their security and possibly got their hands on information relating to the gold bullion which is due to be transferred from Gotz Bank to the Twinford City Bank on April 22nd.’

      Ruby took some bubblegum out of her pocket. ‘Mind if I chew?’

      Blacker