Novel - Half Moon Investigations by Eoin Colfer Page B

myself. Especially not on clients. That would be very unprofessional.
    The gate to May’s house was open. I crept in, sticking to the grassy verges to avoid crunching the gravel underfoot. Pretty smart thinking for someone suffering the aftereffects of anesthetic.
    A fine mist pattered on to my head from the fountain. They must have gotten it fixed. The water was most refreshing, so I opened my mouth and tried to catch a few drops.
    I caught sight of a shadowy figure in an upstairs window. Even in my foggy state it was clear that it was not May or indeed her father, unless one of them had sprouted a beard since we had last met.
    I was immediately concerned. Was this my attacker? Had he moved on to his next victim? My heart pumped faster.
    Who was this mysterious bearded man, and what was he doing in the Devereux house? It was too late to conceal myself in the bushes. I was standing under the moonlight in a pool of white gravel. There was only one approach to take. The direct one.
    “Who are you?” I shouted, the words vibrating inside my fragile head. “What are you doing in there?”
    The shadowy figure pressed against the glass, beard hair spreading like a halo.
    “If you’ve done anything to May, I will find you.”
    The window creaked open, and a tremulous voice drifted down to me.
    “If you’re looking for May Devereux, she lives next door.”
    I was, of course, outside the wrong house.
    I retreated sheepishly, bowing slightly as if that would help. My little trip was no longer a secret. No doubt the person in the window would be burning up the phone lines between here and the police station as soon as I was out the gate. I had minutes before a couple of boys in blue came to drag me back to hospital.
    I hurried next door, trying not to let my head wobble too much. The dizziness was worse now, and I wanted nothing more than to lie down in the rose garden and have a little rest. Perhaps if I went to sleep here, I would somehow wake up in my own bed.
    Just a few more minutes and I could rest. Record the evidence, then back to bed. Two minutes at the most.
    Two minutes would have been plenty if something hadn’t caught my eye. The entire side of May’s house was glowing a flickering orange. There was a fire somewhere nearby. I loped around the corner, feeling slightly duller than a jelly knife.
    I heard the fire before I saw it. Pistol-crack flames and boiling hiss. Black smoke filled the garden, rolling in thick coils from a bonfire near the Wendy house. I staggered closer, trying to see what was being burned. All I could make out was the elbow crook of a sleeve, glinting with golden thread.
    I gasped with sudden horrible recollection. May’s Irish dancing costume had gold thread.
    She could be in the fire, I thought. May could be in there.
    “Fire!” I screamed, and my head nearly exploded. The pain drove me to my knees in a bed of roses.
    “Fire!” I howled again, and the unlikely combination of pain and anesthetic shut my entire body down for a few crucial moments.
    I awoke to find myself somehow closer to the fire. Alive then, but only barely, judging by the pulpy feel of my skull. I staggered to my feet, working up to a sprint to the Devereux’s side door. Please, God, let May herself answer my knocking.
    I reached up to check my nasal splint, and realized that there was a blackened stick in my hand.
    That doesn’t look too good, I thought.
    That was when two of Lock’s finest hurdled the garden wall and buried me deeper than the flower roots.

IN THE PUBLIC EYE—
AND NOT IN A NICE WAY
    WHEN I WOKE UP in my hospital room, Chief Inspector Francis Quinn was perusing a copy of Woman’s Way from the magazine rack.
    “Knit one, purl one,” he was mumbling when I sat up.
    The chief was as close as it was possible to be to a human bulldog, just not as cuddly. He had black eyes buried in his head like driven nails, and red jowls that wobbled when he was talking, as he was now. I knew it should be