Top-Secret Grandad and Me Page 5

  “Right, but if you don’t use water, how do you get it clean?”

  Maw Cleggan sighed. At least it might have been a sigh. It might also have been the sound an asthmatic orangutan makes after it climbs a tall tree. Her lip curled into a snarl. Her thick, greasy fingers clenched around a large stapler. I could see she’d had enough, and she was about to chuck the stapler at me. That’s when I backed off and raised my hands.

  “You know what, I can see you’re busy, so I’ll be off.”

  As luck would have it, that’s also when Grandad reappeared from through the back. “Are you alright, boy?”

  But he could see I wasn’t. I was backing towards the door, waving and grinning through clenched teeth. Meanwhile, Maw Cleggan came out from behind the counter. She was wearing luminous yellow trainers.

  “Fred, Ginger, show him what the pavement looks like,” said Maw Cleggan. Fred and Ginger advanced on me. I flung open the door and was about to run for it. That’s when Grandad stepped in.

  “Watch this, boy!” He puffed out his cheeks and blew. It was amazing, like a wind had sprung up from nowhere. A stack of papers sitting on the counter fluttered into the air like confetti. It was just what I needed to distract Fred and Ginger, who were flailing their arms about trying to catch the paper.

  “You idiots!” said Maw Cleggan, before taking another slurp of her cola.

  “Come on, Jayesh,” said Grandad. I held the door open for him and he floated out. I snatched one of the bits of paper out of the air as I left, and slipped it into my pocket.

  We nipped across the road. I hoped the flow of traffic would put them off following us, even if the flying paper didn’t.

  “That was brilliant, what you did there,” I said to Grandad. “You never told me you could do that.”

  “I was not sure myself until I did it.”

  “What else can you do? Because this could be useful.”

  He puffed his cheeks. “I am not sure, boy. I am kind of new at this ghost business.”

  It was a pity we couldn’t find out all this stuff before, I thought. But we’d just have to learn as we went along. “So, what did you find back there?” I asked.

  “Very little, and that includes cleaning. All the washers and dryers are empty, there’s no laundry being done. Either business is very slow or…”

  “Maybe Maw Cleggan wasn’t joking,” I said. “Maybe she really doesn’t want customers.”

  Grandad stopped in his tracks, a shocked expression on his face. “What did you say there?”

  “Maw Cleggan…”

  “MAW CLEGGAN!” He whimpered like he’d just seen a, well, a ghost. Grandad rubbed his see-through hand down over his see-through face. “Maw Cleggan? Don’t tell me we are mixed up with Maw Cleggan??”

  “I take it you’ve heard of her then?” This was strange, as I hadn’t.

  “You forget, boy, that my cash-and-carry business was in this part of Glasgow. In my day, she ran half the gangs on the southside. Last I heard she was retired and living on the Costa del Sol.”

  That would explain why I hadn’t heard of her. I knew the names of most of the gang bosses. I even knew some of them by their faces. I had made it my business to find these things out, in my efforts to find my Dad again. It also explained something else – why would anyone take their clothes to be cleaned in this place?

  “There’s no laundry being done in Duke’s Laundry,” I said.

  “Huh?”

  “It’s a front. It’s not really a laundry. It’s fake.”

  “Ah, you mean it’s some kind of money-laundering business,” said Grandad. “You know what money-laundering is, don’t you? It is when criminals take the cash from their crimes and put it through a fake business. It makes the cash seem legitimate and clean.”

  “Aha!” I said. “Which is exactly why she doesn’t want customers. It’s why the outside is so grotty – to put people off.”

  Grandad shook his head. “This is a murky business, Jayesh. You should not be involved in it. That woman is dangerous.”

  “I’ve got no intention of being involved any longer than I need to,” I said. “I just need to find some evidence.”

  Before we rounded the corner a voice called out, “Oi!” A stern, firm voice. And a hand gripped my elbow and pulled me back.

  Chapter 14

  The Spooky Shakedown

  It wasn’t Fred or Ginger grabbing my elbow. It was a woman, not Maw Cleggan either. A set of grim, determined eyes sized me up.

  “Aw, no!” said Grandad. “It’s Morning Burial.”

  “Eh?” I grunted.

  “I’m DI Dawn Graves,” the woman said. “Remember me?”

  It was the police detective from the school library brawl. She wouldn’t let go of me.

  “Dawn Graves? Morning Burial?” grinned Grandad. “Get it?”

  I shot him a glare. He wasn’t taking this seriously. And here I was, his own grandson, being collared by the cops.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, with a mixture of suspicion and disdain. I noticed the car door flung open behind her. A bland looking Ford, a standard unmarked police car. I cursed myself. I should have spotted that, except I was too busy escaping from Fred and Ginger.

  I glanced back in the direction of the laundry then it all added up. DI Graves must be on a stakeout. The police were watching the laundry. They must be onto them already, but for what? The chances were it was nothing to do with the missing corpse or Davie’s death, mainly because, as far as they were concerned, there was no missing corpse and Davie had suffered a tragic accident.

  “Sorry, what do you mean?” I said, playing innocent.

  Grandad cut in. “Do not tell her anything, boy. If you get dragged into a police investigation you might have to testify in court. And let me tell you, no one has ever lived to testify against Maw Cleggan. The story goes that most of her enemies are wrapped in concrete propping up the Kingston Bridge.”

  The Kingston Bridge was a huge motorway bridge crossing the Clyde, so that added up to a lot of dead witnesses. Grandad was right.

  “I mean, what were you doing in that laundry?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “It’s a free country.”

  “Didn’t see you go in with anything. And Govanhill is a long way to come just for a dry cleaner.”

  “Um,” I scratched my head.

  “Come on, think up some story!” said Grandad.

  “I’m a scout. I’m trying to get sponsorship money,” I said.

  “What?” said Grandad. “That is pure rubbish!”

  “Sponsorship for what?” she asked.

  “A trip to Argentina. To see the gorillas.”

  “There are no gorillas in Argentina you fool,” snapped Grandad.

  Graves raised one eyebrow. “Argentinian gorillas?”

  “They’re in a zoo,” I said, calmly.

  “So, where is your scout’s uniform?” replied Graves.

  “It’s at the dry cleaners.”

  Another figure stepped out of an alley behind me. It was Constable McBurnie. His truncheon was drawn and there was a look of excitement on his face. “Is he a criminal, Boss? Can I clobber him with this?” He swung the baton like a propeller.

  DI Graves sighed and rolled her eyes. “No, Constable. Get back in the alley. You’re giving yourself away.”

  “Uch!” McBurnie’s shoulders slumped, and he traipsed back into cover in a huff. “It’s no’ fair!”

  Graves tightened her grip on my elbow. “Listen, son, I don’t like you. Know why?”

  “You’re jealous of my winning personality?”

  Grandad sucked his teeth. “Careful!”

  “No, I don’t like the same faces showing up in different places, it’s suspicious.”

  “Huh! She is a charmer,” said Grandad.

  She let go of my elbow. It felt like being released from a vice. “I’ll be watching out for you.” She pointed her first and middle fingers to her eyes and then jabbed them i
n my direction. “Watchin’!”

  With that, she got back into her car and slammed the door.

  “Phew!” said Grandad as we hurried down the street. “So, the police must have cottoned on to Maw Cleggan’s operation, eh?”

  “Yup.” I turned up a flight of steps and ducked down, peeking back over the wall towards the police car and the laundry.

  “What are you doing?” said Grandad. “We should be getting back. I am beat.”

  I stared up at him. “How can you be beat? You’re not even alive.”

  “Ghosts can get tired. That wind blowy thing really took it out of me.”

  “Well, we’re not going yet,” I said. “We’ve got to try and find that white van. It’s our best link to the dead body. If we find that, we might be able to tip off the police. There might be evidence. The body might even still be in it. Or, at least, they can do forensics. If we can do that, then we might be able to step out of this whole thing.”

  “That sounds good to me,” replied Grandad, “because you do not want to be involved with Maw Cleggan.”

  I gazed along the line of vehicles parked on each side of the high street. The white van was definitely not there. Parking would be difficult as it was a busy street… or maybe they deliberately parked the van further away.

  “Grandad, do you fancy taking a walk round the block there, see if the van is parked in one of the side streets?”

  “Sure. What about you?”

  I had another idea to follow up – one that very quickly proved to be right.

  Chapter 15

  The Van Deduction

  There was a big supermarket car park along the road. I figured a lot of people in the area would use it for parking. And that’s exactly where I found the van, nose-first against a low wall.

  Grandad had completed his circuit of the block and found nothing, then met me there.

  “How did you know?” he asked.

  I explained, and he grinned and nodded. “That is my clever boy.”

  I strolled around the vehicle, scrutinizing it closely, soaking up every detail I could find. By the time I’d come back round I had all the answers I needed.

  “I’d say they’ve done away with the body already. In fact, I know exactly where it is.”

  “Pff! Rubbish!” said Grandad. His faith in my abilities was astounding.

  “They buried it in a shallow grave up the country park.”

  “How could you possibly know that?”

  “It’s the best spot within twenty miles. If I had to get rid of a body that’s where I’d hide it. In fact, there’s a thick bit of woodland called Hagg’s Pocket. That would be perfect.”

  “So? That is all guesswork, Jayesh,” he said, folding his arms.

  “C’mere,” I knelt down to point out the reddish dust marks on the wheel arches. “See that? There’s a road made of red gravel there. It’s quite unusual. That’s where this dust has come from.”

  Grandad gazed at me in disbelief. “Away you go!”

  “Sherlock Holmes was an expert on tobacco ash, you know. He could identify one hundred and forty different types of ash.”

  “So? You are an expert on road dust now?”

  “What do you think I’ve been doing these last nine months?” I said. “Sitting on my hands? I had to ask myself, what would the great detectives be doing? Would they be doing the same, or would they be swotting up on every piece of information possible?” I added, “It’s a quiet spot. They did it about ten to six last night.”

  “Oh, come on, boy,” he said. “I mean, I can believe the red dust thing, but how could you possibly know that?”

  “Oh,” I said, “I forgot to show you the most important piece of evidence.” I led Grandad round the front and pointed out a carparking ticket stuck to the inside of the windscreen. “You have to pay to park in the country park now.”

  “What?” he cried. “What a rip-off!”

  “They might have been burying a dead body, but they’re very law abiding, these two. I’m guessing they didn’t want any unwanted attention from the parking attendants, just in case. The ticket says it ran out this morning at nine forty-four. You only have to pay up until six, and after that, if you’ve got any time left over, it rolls onto the next day. So, that means they arrived there at five forty-four yesterday afternoon. That’s not long after they picked up the body. They must have taken it straight there.”

  Grandad puffed out his cheeks. “Well, I must say, Jayesh, I am impressed. I do not know where you got these brains from; not from your father, that is for sure.”

  “They’re sloppy, these two,” I added. “I would’ve washed the van by now, and cleaned out the inside. And if they haven’t washed the outside then I’m guessing the inside hasn’t been done either.”

  I unzipped the inside pocket of my parka and whipped out a piece of special equipment that I always carried with me: a plastic, thirty-centimetre ruler. I flexed it. Its bendiness was its greatest quality. It was perfect for what I wanted to do next.

  I rammed it down inside the gap in the driver’s window.

  “What are you doing, Jayesh?” Grandad gasped, looking this way and that.

  “I’m a detective. Detectives snoop. Keep an eye out, will you?”

  A few seconds of jiggling was all it took for the button to pop up. I flicked the end of my sleeve over my fingers to avoid leaving fingerprints, then opened the door and crawled inside.

  The van’s interior was a mess: empty juice cans, crisp packets, newspapers and parking tickets. I poked around a bit, then slipped over the seats into the back.

  There was a treasure trove of forensic evidence in here, and I didn’t want to disturb it too much. I didn’t want to leave my forensic evidence all over it either, so I unzipped one of the pockets on my arm and pulled out another piece of equipment that I took with me everywhere: a pair of surgical gloves. I pulled them on, and started rooting around in the mess.

  Grandad squeezed his head through the back door.

  “Urgh!” he said.

  “You gave me a fright!” I said.

  “Sorry! I really HATE passing through solid things!” he said. “What are you looking for?”

  Aside from the two dirty spades, there was a whopper of a piece of evidence: a plastic bag holding keys and a wallet.

  I flipped the wallet open, and pulled out bank cards, loyalty cards, a business card and even a driver’s licence. The picture on the card was of a man with ginger hair and a beard. His name was James Morrison. The business card said he worked at a place called Marlin Shipping Agents.

  “That’s our man.”

  I’d hit the jackpot, and my face must have shown it. Grandad chortled. “You are smug! But well done, boy.”

  They say that pride comes before a fall, although in my case it was more of a bust, as at that moment, Grandad suddenly groaned and turned white. That’s if it’s possible for a ghost to turn white. Perhaps a paler shade of green than usual.

  The doors of the van flung open. Standing there, on top of Grandad, glowering at me with menace, were the two men I hoped least in the world to see at that moment – Fred and Ginger.

  Chapter 16

  The Sneeze Escape

  The tall man’s mouth curled up into a sneer.

  “Well, lookee here,” he said. “We’ve got a sneak on us.”

  “Aye,” said Fred. “A sneaky sneak thief. Looks like we’ve got him exactly where we want him n’all.”

  The two men laughed. “No escape,” said Ginger.

  Unfortunately, they were right. Here I was in the back of their van. All they had to do was slam the doors shut and drive off. I’d be pushing up the daisies in the country park within half an hour. Unless…

  I gazed pleadingly at Grandad. “Do something!”

  “I am on it!” He turned and ran. At first, I thought he might be abandoning me, but then I saw he was running in the direction of a woman. She was carrying a gigantic bunch of flowers and heavy shopping, a
nd was being dragged along by two huge white dogs on a lead.

  Grandad flailed his arms and moaned: “Ooooh! Waaaaaahh!”

  I’ve never seen anything like it. The dogs went berserk. They said dogs have a sixth sense, but now I knew it was true. They barked frantically. One dog bolted in one direction. The other took off the opposite way. It was too much for the woman, whose arms were stretched apart as the dogs pulled. She screamed:

  “AAAAARGH!”

  Her bunch of flowers catapulted into the air, exploding in colour. Purple and white petals scattered everywhere, falling like a blizzard across the tarmac.

  Grandad sneezed. That was weird, I briefly thought. How could a ghost possibly have allergies?

  Fred and Ginger turned away, startled. It was a small distraction, no more than a glimpse of a chance. But it was all I needed.

  I slipped over the seats, jumped out the front door and vaulted the low wall of the car park. Before the two men knew what was happening I was sprinting up the street.

  I glanced over my shoulder. The chubby one was struggling to get over the wall, so him I didn’t have to worry about. But the skinny one was right behind me, and gaining fast.

  The high street was busy. There were lots of obstacles. Each one was an opportunity. I only hoped I could avoid them all myself. I skipped past a team of burly deliverymen wheeling a washing machine out of the electrical shop. I dodged round a gaggle of women wearing burkhas. I weaved in-between the people queuing for the bus. Next was a short, tubby old lady carrying heavy shopping – one of those tiny grannies that somehow manages to take up an entire pavement. I slid through the gap between one of her shopping bags and the wall.

  I cast a hopeful glance behind me, only to find that none of these obstacles had held Ginger back one bit. He just barged through everyone, leaving a lot of angry people shaking their fists in his wake.

  I pulled off my surgical gloves and threw them at him. He swotted them aside. I passed a hardware store with lots of bins and storage boxes sitting outside. I kicked them into his path, but he just leapt over them.