What Makes A Detective.

Chapter 9

Toby didn't see his brother until the following morning, so therefore, for the most part, was unaware of the previous night's dramas. He was icing some little cupcakes for the fête (which was still happening) when Quinne came in, looking harrowed. Without a word, he crossed to the opposite counter to his brother and started making something. Toby looked at him with a mixture of curiosity and worry. His mother, who was also in the room, busied herself notably with the showpiece. There was a silence.

"What happened?" Toby asked. He knew it was a cliché thing to say, but he still wanted to know.

Nobody replied.

"Mother! Quinne! What happened?" Toby repeated, as his family looked shiftily at one another. Toby rolled his eyes and folded his arms.

"Tell me briefly" he amended himself.

"We found Jake Kingston dead in the woods" Quinne told him. "He'd been stabbed with two mirror shards, one in the eye, and one in the heart."

Tobg recoiled, disgusted. This, and Quinne's heavy, thick tone of voice, was all wrong. On so many levels. He shook his head, looking back down at his work. He would ask Quinne more questions when his mother was out of the room.

"There was a lot of blood" his mother added meaningfully. "It wasn't a nice thing to have to witness."

Bother, Toby thought. He was getting some serious hintage that Tarquin wasn't going to want to talk about his adventures last night. Which was a shame, he grumbled to himself, as he finished icing the last little cake and began to pack them into one of the boxes, as it meant he was going to have to find some other way of finding out anything else he needed to know.

Beginning to make a chocolate soufflé on his mother's orders, Toby considered his options. This killing of children couldn't go on, he knew that, and despite his reputation, Carmen didn't seem to be at all close to working out who was behind it. Toby assumed that the two detectives hadn't found any reason to suspect anyone in the village, or they would have sent the search party out to find that someone when they discovered Jake's absence. Tarquin was out of the equation, as Toby reckoned his brother was still recovering from the previous night. By contrast, Toby's fears had been more towards the darkness and the unknown that the death and destruction, which meant really, he was the only one left standing that wasn't chasing his tail. Just a fourteen-year-old boy against possibly a raging psychopath, Toby thought lightly, trying not to allow the danger of the situation to get to his head.

He realized too late that he had allowed his mind to run away with him, and the chocolate soufflé he had put in the oven a few minutes ago was now decidedly more of a chocolate sou-flop. Wrinkling his nose in annoyance, Toby levered it out of the heat and began to scrub it off the bowl. It had burned into the sides with just the right amount of black crustiness for it to be hard on the outside, but still clumping into sticky lumps of goo once you broke through the black. As he dropped the dirty bowl in the sink to be washed later, Toby beamed at Bridget as she stuck her head around the bakery door.

"Smells like heaven" she smiled back. "What's cooking, Mrs. Smart?"

"Something which you will not be eating, Bridget McKinnon" Toby's mother replied firmly. "Now, if you're here to be helpful, help. If you're not, clear off."

"Can we borrow Toby for setting up the marquee?" Bridget asked. "We need someone smaller."

"Must you?" Mrs. Smart sighed, before relenting as Toby turned pitiful eyes on her. "Alright. Don't get out of sight, Toby."

Toby beamed at Bridget again, as the two of them slipped outside and began walking up to the green patch of grass where the fete was to be held.

"Did you hear about last night?" Bridget gossiped, as the two of them headed along the pavement.

"I know there was another body" Toby admitted. "But not much else."

"Jake Kingston" Bridget sighed. "Poor little soul. Gory way to go, it has to be said-"

"One shard of glass through the eye, and another through the heart" Toby mused.

Then he stopped.

"Bridge?" he asked slowly. "Could you...could you cover for me, for a couple of hours?"

"No way" Bridget scoffed, shaking her head. "Where you go, I go too. It's safer for both of us, and I'm dying for an adventure."

"Bridge, this isn't a game" Toby sighed. "This is dangerous stuff."

"Then why are you allowed to go into danger and I'm not?" Bridget argued. They both stood sulkily, arms crossed, until Bridget gave in.

"Alright" she grumbled. "You've got two hours."

"I won't need that long, really" Toby sighed. "I'm just off to the library. Reading up."

Bridget glowered at him.

"It's not fair, Toby" she said petulantly. "Just because I'm a girl, you think I can't look after myself. You're younger than me, so you shouldn't be doing this stuff either!"

"Stay safe, Bridge" Toby reasoned. "And avoid anything that seems like a fairy story."

He smiled sadly and walked away, leaving Bridget standing. As he did, something moving in a nearby bush caught his eye, but only for a second. Toby shrugged it off, breaking into a jog and running the rest of the way down to the library. It would have been a bird of some kind.

Having made his way down to the children's section, Toby folded into one of the chairs and grabbed the bumper book of fairytales, skimming through the pages until he found what he was looking for. He had been right, with the shard of mirror through the eye and the heart. It was a reference to The Snow Queen, a story written by Hans Christian Andersen. He couldn't exactly check what the tale was, since all of the stories were missing, but he knew it was something to do with a broken heavenly mirror, whose fragments had fallen to earth, and if they got in your eye and your heart they would make you see only the bad things in the world.

Toby shuddered. Looks like someone forgot about the 'heavenly' part of the mirror.

As he was sitting there, listening to Mrs. Horton the librarian quietly clunking to and fro around the corner, a thought struck him. Surely she would have realized, by now, that books were going missing from her library?

Why hadn't she mentioned it to Carmen and Barnes?

Toby got up from the chair. Subconsciously, he reached for a hefty leather bound copy of Snow White, and went to tackle the librarian.

"Mrs. Horton?" he called cautiously, walking blindly towards the sounds.

"Yes?" the librarian's voice called back, from a few aisles to the right. "Who is it?"

"Toby Smart" Toby replied. "I want to ask you about something, if that's alright?"

"What is it, dearie?" Mrs. Horton asked, appearing suddenly from nowhere, making Toby step back and stub his right heel on the bookshelf. The young boy winced.

"I can't find any copies of Sleeping Beauty" Toby lied, looking as innocent as he could manage. "I wanted it for a school assignment" he added, using his oldest and most treasured excuse perfectly.

Mrs. Horton seemed to sag.

"I'll show you where they are, dearie" she said weakly, shuffling away, beckoning for Toby to follow her down the aisle. The young boy followed cautiously, fully aware of what he could be walking into, and determined not to let it beat him. Snow White was fast becoming his safety line, and he gripped the cover tightly as Mrs. Horton unlocked the door to the cellar.

"In there" she pointed.

"No, thanks!" Toby replied quickly, backing away. The librarian's face turned to one of understanding, and of sorrow.

"Quite" she sighed. "Quite right too, young man. Stay here. Shout if you see anyone. I'll fetch them."

"Have you been keeping secrets from the police, Mrs. Horton?" Toby called down the stairs, as the librarian disappeared into the darkness.

"More than you know, Toby Smart" came the dejected reply.