Agent Crew

Agent thingy

Hitch and Clancy were back in the kitchen, for want of anywhere better to go. It didn't feel like a good plotting place, and the absence of both Ruby and Mrs Digby (one of whom was almost always hovering) was starting to get depressing.

"You're a high-ranking agent thingy, right?" said Clancy suddenly. The second the words left his mouth, he felt his cheeks turning pink. (Agent thingy. Good one Clance.) Hitch turned his head, one eyebrow raised. Clancy flushed harder.

"Sure, kid," he said finally.

"So, these records that Ruby couldn't find, you could find them?"

For a second, Hitch looked like he was really considering it, and a flash of hope lit up in his eyes. Then, he exhaled sharply.

"Not if I know Ruby," he said. "That kid could break into the White House."

"But you could at least try," Clancy pressed. He didn't have a better idea. He didn't have any ideas. That was Ruby's job.

With a deep sigh, Hitch nodded. "Without a name it's going to be tough," he warned.

Clancy nodded quickly, feeling stupidly hopeful. He knew it was a long shot, but Ruby had got her information somehow and -

"The mud!" shouted Clancy suddenly, shooting upright. Hitch looked at him in vague concern.

"I saw mud!" Clancy cried. He felt excitement race through him, and with a last look back to make sure a (very surprised) Hitch was following, he sprinted back towards Mrs Digby's apartment.

By the time Hitch appeared in the doorway, Clancy was already holding one of the crime paperbacks aloft in triumph. He brushed his thumb over the clump of mud obscuring the author's name, and it fell to the floor.

"You want to explain what's going on here?" asked Hitch, still looking mildly concerned as he leant against the doorjamb.

"Look!" ordered Clancy, brandishing the book, then realising it no longer held the incriminating evidence.

"There was mud on it," he explained, gesturing to the floor. "Ruby would never let that happen to one of her books, and neither would Mrs Digby. It has to mean something."

Looking interested now, Hitch pushed himself off the doorjamb and walked over.

"You think one of them left it there on purpose?" he asked.

Clancy glanced down at the book again, It was black, with a red outline of a figure with a gun in the centre, broken up with the title 'Running Scared'. Pretty generic stuff. Then his eyes drifted down to the by-line. It was written in ridiculously small red lettering, almost unreadable. Clancy brushed a last bit of dried mud away, and squinted.

"Hugo Winter," he read. It almost sounded like a pseudonym, really.

Beside him, Hitch sucked in a startled gasp.

"Hitch?"

When Clancy looked up, he couldn't quite place the expression on Hitch's face.

"I haven't heard that name in years..." whispered Hitch.

And that was when it hit Clancy. The expression was unfamiliar because it was one he'd rarely seen on Hitch's face before.

It was fear.