The Blurred Man by Anthony Horowitz Read Free Book Online

“And where did you get the knuckleduster? Have you been in the evidence room again?”
    “It’s mine!” Boyle protested.
    “Well, put it away…”
    Boyle slid the contraption off his hand and sulked.
    Snape sat down behind his desk. Tim and I were sitting opposite him. We’d been waiting for him in the office for a couple of hours but he hadn’t offered either of us so much as a cup of tea.
    “What I want to know,” he began, “is what the two of you were doing at the circus tonight. Why were the performers trying to kill you? And what happened to Boris the balloon-seller?”
    “Someone killed him,” I said.
    “I know that, laddy. I’ve seen the body. Someone stuck a knife in him.”
    “Yeah.” I nodded. “The circus people thought it was us.”
    “That’s an easy enough mistake to make when you two are involved.” Snape smiled mirthlessly. “We went to the circus because we wanted to talk to the balloon-seller,” he explained. “Luckily for you. But why were you interested in him? That’s what I want to know.”
    “I wanted to buy a balloon,” I said.
    “Don’t lie to me, Diamond! Not unless you want to spend a few minutes on your own with Boyle.”
    “Just one minute,” Boyle pleaded. “Thirty seconds!”
    “All right,” I said. “We were interested in Lenny Smile.”
    “Ah!” Snape’s eyes widened. Boyle looked disappointed. “Why?”
    “We’re working for a man called Joe Carter. He’s American…”
    “He thinks Lenny Smile was murdered,” Tim said.
    Snape nodded. “Of course Smile was murdered,” he said. “And it was the best thing that ever happened to him. If I wasn’t a policeman, I’d have been tempted to murder him myself.”
    Tim stared. “But he was a saint!” he burbled.
    “He was a crook! Lenny Smile was the biggest crook in London! Boyle and I have been investigating him for months – and we’d have arrested him if he hadn’t gone under that steamroller.” Snape opened a drawer and took out a file as thick as a north London telephone directory. “This is the file on Lenny Smile,” he said. “Where do you want me to begin?”
    “How about at the beginning?” I suggested.
    “All right. Lenny Smile set up a charity called Dream Time. He employed two assistants … Rodney Hoover, who comes from the Ukraine. And Fiona Lee. She’s from Sloane Square. We’ve investigated them, and as far as we can see they’re in the clear. But Smile? He was a different matter. All the money passed through his bank account. He was in financial control. And half the money that went in, never came out.”
    “You mean … he stole it?” I asked.
    “Exactly. Millions of pounds that should have gone to poor children went into his own pocket. And when he did spend money on children, he got everything cheap. He provided hospitals with cheap X-ray machines that could only see halfway through. He provided schools with cheap books full of typing errrors. He took a bunch of children on a cheap adventure holiday.”
    “What’s wrong with that?”
    “It was in Afghanistan! Half the children still haven’t come back! He bought headache pills that actually gave you a headache and food parcels where the parcels tasted better than the food. I’m telling you, Diamond, Lenny Smile was so crooked he makes an evening with Jack the Ripper sound like a nice idea! And I was this close to arresting him.” Snape held his thumb and forefinger just millimetres apart. “I already had a full-time police officer watching his flat. It’s like I say. We were just going to arrest him – but then he got killed.”
    “Suppose he isn’t dead,” I said.
    Snape shook his head. “There were too many witnesses. Mrs Lovely, the woman who lived next door, saw him leave the flat. Hoover and Lee were with him. There was Barry Krishner, the driver. And Boris…”
    “Wait a minute!” I interrupted. “Mrs Lovely didn’t actually see anything. Barry Krishner has gone mad. I’m not sure Hoover