The Eye of the Serpent by Simon Cheshire

Author:Simon Cheshire [Cheshire, Simon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781848123175
Publisher: Piccadilly Press Ltd.

CASE FILE FOURTEEN

THE STRANGER IN THE MIRROR

CHAPTER

ONE

I ONCE TACKLED A CASE IN which the most vital piece of evidence was to be found by examining the cover of an old hardback book, the Colin the Hedgehog Annual 1997: the villain had written a note on a piece of paper and had used the book to lean on. The pressing of the pen had gone through and left a faint indentation on the book cover, proving that the note was written in a particular place.

There was another case in which I would never have identified the bad guy if he hadn’t – totally by chance – borrowed the same book from the school library as I had. There was a page marked in the book which I wouldn’t have discovered without that one-in-a-million coincidence.

What I’m getting at is this: sometimes, crimes can be solved (or even carried out) because of the tiniest little details. The Stranger in the Mirror – a straightforward problem in many ways – was an interesting one because nobody could have predicted the series of events and coincidences around which the whole case revolved.

It began the day I came up with yet another idea in my battle to reorganise the garden shed. As you may have read in some of my earlier case files, I was determined to make more room for my detective kit in amongst the gardening and DIY stuff I’m forced to share that shed with. I was having about as much success as an ant trying to force a ten-ton weight up a waterfall backwards.

And then I thought: A-ha, why not simply push all the boxes and flowerpots and paint tins to the back of the shed? This will leave enough space for my desk, my files and my Thinking Chair, and possibly even that pacing-up-and-down area I wanted, too!

A couple of hours later, I’d finished. I was exhausted. I was also left with the same amount of floor space I’d have had in a small kitchen cupboard. My desk, notes and chair were all squashed up in a line. So much for that idea!

I was about to start yelling, jumping up and down, tearing my hair out and generally having a screaming fit, when there was a sharp knock at the shed door.

‘Saxby? You in there?’ called a commanding, posh-sounding voice. ‘This is an emergency!’

Standing outside on the grass was Tom Bland, a gangly, swirly-blond-haired guy from St Egbert’s School. He was rarely in the same lessons as me, but I knew him well. Everyone at St Egbert’s knew Tom Bland.

He was going to be the next Big Name in showbiz. So he said. To anyone who’d listen. He was in all the school plays, and he was convinced that he was, literally, the world’s greatest actor. He was quite good, actually. But only quite good. The thing he was most famous for at St Egbert’s was being a right drama queen. (Or should I say drama king? Drama Royal Person of Some Kind, anyway).

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