.

think my folks are in danger?’ asked Ruby. ‘Mrs Digby even?’

      ‘I wouldn’t fancy anyone’s chances if they were to go after Mrs Digby.’ He smiled. ‘But yes, I just don’t want any of them to become any kind of target.’

      ‘You think that could really happen? Really, I mean?’ asked Ruby. ‘The Count knows that my parents aren’t involved in Spectrum; they aren’t exactly agent material.’

      ‘You’re missing the point, kid. If the Count has a mind to rattle you, or worse, destroy your world, he knows how to do it. He knows where you live, he knows what makes you tick,’ said Hitch.

      ‘Meaning … he might make an attempt on their lives?’

      ‘Meaning, it’s possible.’

      ‘Hence the safety upgrade.’

      ‘Hence the safety upgrade.’

      ‘So what are you going to do when they get back?’ asked Ruby, ‘I mean you can’t stop them going out?’

      ‘I’ll do my best, kid, anything I can to ensure their safety and I’ll try my darndest to keep them from knowing anything about it.’

      ‘So what did you tell them? About the house, I mean?’

      ‘I didn’t want to get them all in a stew about it, so I got a friend of mine who happens to be in construction to persuade them that the windows needed replacing. He told them they had a bad case of window weevils.’

      ‘How did he convince them of that?’

      ‘Sprinkled a bit of glass dust around the place and loosened one of the window panes; they got the picture.’

      ‘Glass dust?’ said Ruby.

      ‘They were very concerned,’ said Hitch.

      ‘I’ll bet,’ said Ruby. ‘Since when was it possible for a weevil to eat through glass?’

      ‘I know,’ said Hitch, ‘alarming, isn’t it?’

      ‘And Mrs Digby?’ said Ruby.

      ‘It was a big job and I didn’t want her picking up on what was really going on. She has eyes like a hawk. I told her I had changed the locks and upgraded the alarm system because I had mislaid a set of keys but I kept the real reason from her.’

      ‘Well, so far you seem to have succeeded at keeping her in the dark. Mrs Digby thinks you packed her off because you wanted to have a high old time with your friends.’ She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. ‘I told her I didn’t think you had any friends.’

      ‘One day I’ll introduce you to one of them,’ said Hitch.

      ‘Mrs Digby probably thinks you sent my folks to Paris because you couldn’t handle their crazy social life.’

      Hitch winked at her. ‘I’m a trained agent, I can handle any party they throw at me.’ He paused. ‘Speaking of training, right now we have to get our skates on.’

      ‘Why? Where are we going?’

      ‘A date with LB,’ he said.

      He caught the expression on her face. ‘Jeepers, kid, relax a little. Anyone would think you were about to meet with the Grim Reaper.’

      

      THEY PARKED THE SILVER CAR down a side street and walked perhaps another two hundred yards.

      ‘Here?’ asked Ruby.

      ‘Here,’ said Hitch.

      ‘So you meant literally,’ said Ruby, ‘actually get our skates on?’

      They were standing in midtown outside the ice rink on Bowery.

      ‘No, not actually.’

      ‘But this is the way into Spectrum?’

      ‘It is today,’ said Hitch.

      ‘So why did you get me crossing town to meet you at the planetarium when you coulda just told me to make my way to the ice rink?’

      ‘I like that place,’ said Hitch.

      ‘The planetarium?’

      ‘Yeah, like I said, I find it soothing.’

      Ruby rolled her eyes. ‘Whatever floats your boat.’

      They pushed through the turnstile and headed to the skate room, a labyrinth of shelves and cubbyholes each holding a pair of skates, too many to count. At the far end of this room was a door without a handle, and pinned to it was a poster of a skater mid-twirl. The skater looked happy, unaware that her tooth had been blackened by the casual swatting of a fly now squashed onto her picture-perfect smile. Hitch pressed his thumb into a barely visible identity scanner and the door clicked open. The door led to some stairs, the stairs led to Spectrum.

      Once in the atrium they made their way across the vast space to the place where the Spectrum coordinator sat.

      Nothing had changed, at least nothing had changed as far as the eye could see, but the atmosphere was very different. Breathe deeply and one could practically choke on the tension.

      Buzz was where she always was, seated in the middle of the great round desk just off the main hall. Coloured telephones encircled her, and Ruby guessed that a web of wires and cables must trail around her feet. And though the administrator’s expression was as blank and unsmiling as always, in some strange way it was a relief to see her. That said, Ruby had no desire to hang out with the woman – she could bore you to death, if nothing else.

      There was no ‘how are you’, no ‘we’ve missed you’, not the briefest snip of small talk, all Buzz said was – ‘LB will see you now.’

      And Ruby felt her limbs become heavy as she walked the short walk to her boss’s door.

      This time it wasn’t the fear of failure or of getting fired that made Ruby Redfort dread coming face to face with LB – this time it was a fear of getting found out. What if LB knew what she knew?

      Ruby was grateful to have Hitch with her, though felt no certainty that he would take her side if he had to choose between her truth and his boss’s.

      LB was looking steelier than she had done five weeks ago. The signs of fatigue and stress were gone and had been replaced by a cold, unwavering determination. Perhaps she was eating an iron-rich diet, as Consuela would no doubt recommend, or perhaps she had been working on her martial arts. Ruby had heard it rumoured that the Spectrum 8 boss was no slouch in this department, having studied karate in Japan under the great master, Funakoshi. It all seemed very unlikely to Ruby, who had never seen LB outside the walls of HQ, let alone out in the field. It might simply be gossip or it might be a very tall tale, but Agent Holbrook had told her that LB was the only Spectrum 8 agent to have mastered the deadly wrist grasp otherwise known as the ‘assassin’s handshake’.

      None of these assertions were exactly comforting at this moment.

      LB waved at her to sit down.

      ‘Do you want me to stay?’ asked Hitch.

      Stay, thought Ruby, for Pete’s sake, stay.

      ‘No, that won’t be necessary,’ said LB. ‘Would you give me and Redfort five minutes?’

      ‘Of course,’ said Hitch, stepping out.

      Ruby had a strong desire to jump up and follow him. But she kept her face composed and herself in her seat.

      LB waited for the door to close behind Hitch before addressing