Fraud at Snowfields Read online

  ‘Okay,’ said Contractus, nodding slowly. ‘I understand your problem. What exactly are we looking for? And how are we going to examine the parcels?’

  ‘That’s quite simple. We just have to examine each one with the transparency spell and see if it’s a regular present or if it’s something else. What that something might be? I don’t know.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘And we’ll have to do that just several thousand times. So we’d best get on with it.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Contractus, ‘let’s split up, then we should get through this faster. Lektroror and I will perform the transparency spell. Will, you’ll fetch us new parcels to scan. Annabel, you’ll put them back again. It would be best to store them over there on the empty shelves so we don’t confuse them and scan them twice.’

  He picked up the first package, put it down in front of him, pointed his wand at it, and performed the transparency spell. The parcel turned partly transparent so they could look inside. Will could see a teddy bear lying there. Contractus swept his wand over the parcel again, performing a spell to detect irregularities. Nothing happened—at least nothing that Will could see—and the box turned non-transparent again.

  Contractus nodded and motioned to Annabel, who picked up the present and placed it on a mobile cloud beside her. Will promptly placed a new one on the workbench in front of Contractus, who repeated the scanning spells. Meanwhile Lektroror had finished scanning his parcel and Annabel had already removed it, so Will put the next one in front of Lektroror. They continued this until the transporting cloud next to Will was empty. He gave it a shove, and it floated over to Annabel, who had just finished putting the last gift on the mobile cloud beside her. She pushed it over to the empty shelf, where she stored the presents away neatly.

  Will hurried over to the heaps of boxes and carefully pushed another heavily loaded transportation cloud over to the examination desks. Then they continued scanning the presents. This went on for some time, and slowly—much too slowly, Will thought—the heaps waiting to be scanned grew smaller, while the shelves on the opposite side of the room filled with parcels that had cleared the process. At one time Will saw a movement at the entrance to the storage room out of the corner of his eye, and when he turned his head to have a look, he thought he saw Richard peering into the room. But he immediately dismissed this thought. He really had not seen much more than a shadow. And why should Richard be there? And why should he have looked into this specific room?

  Will shook his head silently and concentrated on his task again. Annabel had already removed the last present after Contractus had scanned it, and Will belatedly placed the next parcel in front of his teacher. They continued this for another twenty parcels or so, until Contractus stopped and sighed.

  ‘Whew, I think I need a break. This is exhausting!’

  ‘Definitely a good idea,’ agreed Lektroror.

  Will pushed some empty transporter clouds towards the workbench: ‘We could rest on these.’

  ‘That’s a good idea,’ said Contractus. He pushed a smaller cloud into the middle and waved his wand in a complicated pattern over it. Four glasses, several bottles with juice and water, and a platter filled with sandwiches appeared on the cloud.

  ‘Wow,’ said Will.

  Contractus grinned. ‘Don’t stare. Dig in!’

  And that was what they did. Soon they had finished the sandwiches and the juice. Contractus got up and cleared the table with another spell. They went back to scanning the parcels. Will continued placing them in front of Contractus and Lektroror, and Annabel in turn removed them and stored them away again.

  Then Contractus suddenly exclaimed, ‘What’s this?’ He pointed at the present lying on the workbench in front of him. The others gathered around him. Lying there was a parcel that Contractus had already spelled, so its sides were transparent and Will could look inside it. He could see what appeared to be a gun. A gun as a Christmas present for a child? No wonder Contractus was surprised.

  Lektroror looked at it. ‘Hmm, let’s see….’ And he pointed his wand first at the object and then at the hand-held screen lying by his side. Will could see that a sort of code popped up on the screen. Then the code vanished, and a description took its place, but it was too small for Will to read.

  Lektroror looked at the screen. ‘Ah, yes, that’s what I thought. That’s a genuine-looking water gun. You know, like those water guns we had as children.’

  ‘That’s the first time I’ve seen one of those. I didn’t even know that we produce anything like this.’ Contractus eyed the gun. ‘It looks awfully real to me.’

  Lektroror just shrugged his shoulders and continued scanning the next parcel.

  ‘Oh well,’ said Contractus. ‘Not the time or place to wonder about this.’ And he handed the parcel to Annabel while motioning for Will to place the next one in front of him.

  They continued this for a while with nothing spectacular happening. Will looked around and judged that they had sorted through about half of the presents that were lying in the room. He continued putting box after box in front of Contractus and Lektroror, and twice they thought they had found something. But when Lektroror compared it with the shipping information in the distribution system, they saw that the parcels contained exactly what was supposed to be in them. Once or twice Will glanced towards the open door, as he had the feeling somebody was looking into the room, but he never saw anybody apart from the instant when he thought he had seen Richard.

  He was recalled from his musings when Contractus said again, ‘Let’s check this one! This certainly doesn’t look right.’

  Will looked up and saw Contractus give him a quick but very pointed look. At first he did not understand why, but then he looked at the present in front of Contractus, who had already performed the transparency spell on it so they could see its contents. Will could not quite believe what he saw: money—loads of money! There were several bundles of notes tied up neatly with paper bands—and they were twenty-pound notes! Now he could understand Contractus’s look at him,. This had to be a shipment by the forgers they had been hunting in Snowfields.

  Lektroror was already consulting his hand-held screen. ‘Hmm, I can’t find anything about this parcel in the database. There’s absolutely no information on it—no code, no contents, nothing. As far as I can see, this parcel shouldn’t even exist!’ He looked again at his hand-held, completely confused.

  ‘Ay,’ said Contractus under his breath, but loud enough for Will to hear, ‘it certainly should not.’

  Before Will could do anything, something strange happened: suddenly everything seemed to become very slow. The movements of Contractus and Lektroror, Will’s own movements, even his thoughts seem to be getting slower and slower, seemingly coming to a complete stop. Then, just as suddenly, everything seemed to be normal again. Will could not remember what exactly he had been doing. He only knew that somehow his left side was hurting. He gingerly touched his stomach, and it felt as if he had a bruise there. He looked down and saw that he was holding a present in his other hand. So he put it in front of Contractus, who frowned at it and shook his head. He and Will looked at each other and Will shrugged his shoulders. Contractus motioned for him to be quiet, and turned round to Lektroror and Annabel.

  He said to them, ‘I’ve just thought of something. I’ll have to go outside and check it. I’ll need Will to help me. We won’t be long. Just keep checking the presents, okay?’

  He signalled for Will to follow him, turned round, and went out of the room. In the corridor he turned left and led Will only a few yards down until he reached a narrow door. He opened it and Will followed him into what turned out to be a small conference room that could hold a handful of people.

  Contractus turned round to Will and looked at him gravely. ‘Okay. You looked as if you felt something as well inside there.’

  Will nodded.

  ‘What did you feel?’ asked Contractus.

  ‘Well, I can’t really say. I don’t even know if I felt anything at all.
It just seemed to me like everything was frozen for a moment, and then everything was back to normal again. Except I have the feeling that something happened during that moment.’ Will hesitated. ‘A lot, really. But I can’t remember a thing. I can’t really even remember what exactly I was doing the moment everything froze.’ He glanced down and carefully touched his side, which felt very sore. ‘And somehow I got a bruise on my side and stomach that was not there before.’ He looked up at Contractus and was rather surprised by his reaction. Contractus looked quite intrigued, impressed, and even a bit taken aback.

  ‘Will,’ he finally said, ‘I’m more than impressed. Most people wouldn’t have felt anything at all. I’m sure Annabel and Lektroror didn’t feel a thing and just kept on doing what they had been doing. And I’ve had special training to detect something like this. But to feel and to realise as much of it as you did is a rare talent. Extremely rare.’

  Contractus looked at Will as if he wanted to add something, but then he just shook his head. ‘We’ll have to talk about this later. First we have to find out what this was about. What you felt there was a freezing spell. It freezes every person in the room and modifies their memories so they don’t remember anything about it later. Quite often they can’t even remember several moments before the spell. Now we have to find out what happened during that time and why the spell was used on us.’

  ‘How can we find that out?’ Will could not imagine how that might be possible.

  ‘Fortunately,’ Contractus said, and dramatically raised a finger into the air, ‘there is a spell that replays this lost period of time, and that’ll show us what this was all about. Come, sit down. It’s a bit like watching a film. Want some popcorn?’

  Will stared at Contractus, who grinned. ‘No popcorn. That was a joke. But watch closely.’

  And he took out his wand and used a spell Will had never seen before. In front of them, right on the wall, a picture appeared. It was like watching a film. Will could see inside the storage room where they had been working. He could see himself as he placed a new parcel in front of Contractus, Lektroror as he performed a spell on the parcel lying in front of him, and Annabel as she put some presents on the shelves.

  ‘These are the last few minutes before the freezing spell was conjured. Just wait,’ said Contractus. And Will continued to watch himself as he fetched new presents and placed them in front of Contractus and Lektroror in turn. Nothing unexpected was happening. Then Contractus suddenly said, ‘Now!’ and he pointed towards the entrance to the storage room.

  Will could see a wand that was aimed into the room from outside. But he could not see the person holding the wand. The person was hidden by the door frame from this perspective. The wand moved in the pattern of a very complicated spell, and Will could see a blue shimmer emanating from the tip. The shimmer flooded the room, and finally reached Contractus, Lektroror, Annabel and himself, who had all stopped their work and were staring at the door and the person holding the wand. The Contractus in the film reached for his wand, but then the blue shimmer reached him, and his movements froze.

  ‘Ah,’ said Contractus, more to himself, ‘too slow!’ By then the shimmer had enclosed the others too, and they also froze in their tracks. ‘Look, here he comes!’

  Will looked intently at the scene. Then he caught his breath—for the person that walked into the room with a satisfied smile on his face was none other than Richard! So Will had in fact been right when he had thought he had seen Richard earlier. He felt quite angry with himself. He should have trusted his feelings and should have checked then. But he pushed the anger aside quickly. He had to watch the rest, to see what Richard had done.

  Richard had strolled into the room. He stopped when he reached the frozen Will, the edges of his mouth curling up in a cruel grin. He kicked Will viciously in the side. Without taking his eyes off the ‘film’, Will’s hand involuntarily touched the bruised and tender area. Richard moved forwards and stopped before Contractus. He looked down at the package that was lying on the workbench in front of the teacher—the one with the bundled notes inside. Richard smiled again, picked it up, and strolled out of the room, not really in a hurry. He reached the door and went out, so Will could not see him any more. He could just see that Richard pointed his wand back into the room and performed a short spell. Then Will could see himself and the others unfreeze, looking up in bewilderment for a moment, and then going back to work.

  Contractus’s spell stopped, and the projection on the wall disappeared. He raised his eyebrows and looked at Will. ‘Well? What do you think?’

  Will looked back and slowly said, ‘I always thought there was something strange about Richard. He’s always so arrogant, and he never does anything with the rest of us. He’s always hanging out with Michelle. And they always stick together, talking in secret and turning really tight-lipped when anyone joins them. But I’ve never seen him actually do anything suspicious, or something that connects him directly to the forgery—at least until now.’ Will thought for a moment. ‘The only thing I can remember is when I found the forged note in the corridor, Richard was following close behind me. But I don’t think he saw anything. I immediately hid the note.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Contractus said, stroking his beard, ‘but now we’ve caught him red-handed. So what do we do about him now? He’s certainly not the leading figure behind all this. This is a rather large case of forgery, and quite a few people must be involved in it.’ He was still rubbing his beard, deep in thought. ‘What to do now….’

  Will jumped up from his chair, looked at Contractus, and asked, ‘Shouldn’t we follow Richard?’

  Contractus shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think that would be a good idea. Firstly he’ll be long gone by now. And secondly he wouldn’t really be of much use to us. We’d only catch him, but not the others who are involved in this. No, that wouldn’t help us at all.’

  ‘And what do we do instead? What do we tell Annabel and Lektroror?’ asked Will, slowly sitting down again.

  Contractus looked at him. ‘Good questions. Let’s see…. We obviously can’t tell them the whole story. But we’ve got to tell them something. We’ve got to finish this search and get back to our task at hand, the correct delivery of the presents. We mustn’t forget that it’s Christmas after all. And Cloudy’s needs to start up operations again as soon as possible. We’ve lost enough time as it is!’

  ‘Oh,’ said Will, slightly embarrassed. ‘I’d nearly forgotten with all this happening.’

  Contractus smiled at him lopsidedly. ‘We need to get back to the others.’

  Will got up again. ‘What do we tell them?’

  ‘We’ll tell them what happened. We’ll say we were spelled and the present was stolen.’

  ‘And what are you going to tell them if they ask what was in the parcel?’ Will pressed on.

  Contractus replied, ‘That we don’t know. That it was stolen before we could have a look inside. And that we’ve done all we can, and the security service has to take over.’ He winked at Will. ‘And who is the head of security?’

  Will frowned. ‘That’s Mr Securitas, and...oh, now I understand, sir.’ He looked at Mr Contractus. ‘He’s part of the investigation team. He’ll know what to do and can carry on the search in an appropriate manner.’

  ‘Exactly,’ confirmed Contractus. ‘And we can carry on with the delivery of the presents. As I’ve already said, it’s still Christmas after all.’

  He led Will back into the storage room, where Annabel and Lektroror were still examining the presents.

  Mr Contractus walked right over to them. ‘You can stop it, you two.’

  Lektroror looked up in surprise. ‘Oh, did you find something?’

  Annabel looked up as well.

  ‘Yes. And no.’ Contractus smiled grimly. ‘I could detect that we were spelled with a freezing spell. We had obviously found the parcel we were looking for, but then someone used the freezing spell on us and took it.’

  Lektroror looked worried
. ‘It was stolen? But you know who it was? And what was in the parcel?’

  Will looked at Contractus, who pointedly ignored him.

  ‘Unfortunately we don’t know either. Will and I tried to follow him, but he was already gone. And he had taken the parcel before I could have a closer look at its contents.’

  ‘But—’ Lektroror continued. Contractus interrupted him at once and held up a hand towards Annabel as she started to say something as well.

  ‘There’s nothing more we can do here right now,’ Contractus continued, ‘and we need to get back to the delivery of the presents as quickly as possible. After all, it’s still Christmas!’

  Lektroror nodded and squared his shoulders. ‘Of course you are right. We must get back to our actual work immediately—as you say, it is Christmas, and we’ve got to get things up and running as fast as possible. I’ll go and inform my superiors.’ He turned to leave. But then he turned back to them. ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ He bowed deeply and smiled mischievously. ‘Your obedient valet!’

  Contractus groaned, and with a final laugh Lektroror turned around and quickly left the room.

  Contractus looked at Will and Annabel. ‘And we’ll hurry back to our sleigh and return to our sector. Follow me!’

  They followed him out of the storage room, back through the corridors, and into the hangar.

  Contractus pointed to their sleigh. ‘You two get over to the sleigh and get it ready so we can leave straight away. I’ll just inform headquarters about what we were able to find out.’ And he went over to a console on the wall of the hangar. Will and Annabel hurried over to the sleigh and were so busy preparing it for the take-off that, to Will’s relief, Annabel had no time to question him more closely about the events in the storage room. Soon Contractus jumped up onto the sleigh and they were off again, flying back to their sector.