Andrew and Flora watched Marcus go into the warehouse. They waited anxiously for Minnie and Piotr to come sprinting towards them.
But there was nothing.
Then from inside the building came the sound of screams.
‘He’s hurting them!’ Flora shrieked. She bolted to the front door and tugged hard at the handle, but it was locked from the inside.
Andrew was at her side, both of them pulling the door, rattling it in its frame. It didn’t budge.
She banged the door with the flats of her palms. ‘Let us in! Let us in!’
Andrew pulled her away. ‘Flora! Let’s try the back.’
Just then the door opened.
A small boy was looking back up at them. They’d found the peanut boy!
‘Have you come to stop the demons?’ he asked in a small voice.
‘Yes,’ Andrew said firmly. ‘We have.’
‘Good, because Uncle Marcus has got a sword. But I don’t think swords will work on demons, do you? And she’ll be angry if the demons hurt Uncle Marcus.’
Flora and Andrew stepped into the darkness of the warehouse.
Flora didn’t know how she was going to stop demons, but this shivering whippet of a boy needed her to try. So she was going to.
The boy pulled her along a narrow corridor, dark on all sides, then into a big room where two terrifying creatures rattled and clacked, and all around were shelves of heads, nailed, hammered, warped – heads looking back at her. Flora gasped. Demons?
Demons fighting Marcus. The two moving creatures were monstrous, huge. Marcus was backed into a corner. He did, indeed, have a sword, which he was pointing at the upright crocodile.
The little boy whimpered miserably.
‘You stay back!’ Marcus yelled. He swung the sword wildly; the blade flashed under the clinical strip light, like a surgeon’s scalpel.
The crocodile jerked away from the slashing metal.
Flora didn’t know what to do. Demons? Really? Should she help Marcus? Get the boy out of there?
‘Demons?’ Andrew said, standing by her side. ‘Not in those trainers. Oi! You two. You’ll need this.’ Andrew grabbed something from a nearby shelf – a wood and leather shield. He threw it across the room to the crocodile.
The crocodile turned at the sound of Andrew’s voice. Its arms shot up to catch the shield and Flora caught a flash of brown hand, pink sleeve – Minnie! It was Minnie inside the costume. And Marcus was waving a sword at her!
Minnie spun back to face Marcus, who stood with the sword held high. The metal gleamed. He brought it down hard.
At the same moment Minnie swung her shield like a cricket bat and caught Marcus hard on the jaw. The sword clattered to the floor.
The rainbow creature – who, Flora realised, must be Piotr – jumped on to Marcus’s back. The two fell to the ground. Minnie launched herself forward too, shield and all, and landed on the gallery owner with a yell of triumph.
‘Andrew!’ Flora said. ‘Find some rope, or something to tie him up with!’
She and Andrew scoured the shelves. There was nothing. Then Andrew gave a cry and held up some thick brown packing tape.
The wriggling figures were doing an excellent job of holding Marcus down. The weight of the costumes was more than enough to keep him pinned to the floor, let alone the weight of the two people inside them.
Flora kicked the sword away and passed the tape to Minnie. In seconds, Marcus’s hands were secured behind his back and his ankles were packing-taped together.
Minnie stood up and pulled the crocodile head off. She was sweaty, but smiling. ‘We’ve done it!’ she said. ‘We found the boy and we found the stolen art! We did it!’
Marcus rolled on the floor like a human sausage roll. Then he met Flora’s gaze and froze. He looked confused, then panicked. ‘You shouldn’t be here,’ he whispered.
Minnie, Piotr and Andrew didn’t hear. They were too busy whooping with joy that they had solved the case and saved Femi. Minnie got out of the costume and picked up Femi. She twirled him around like a carousel horse.
But Flora didn’t celebrate. She felt a stab of worry. She stood over Marcus, looking down at him. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked. ‘Why shouldn’t I be here?’
Marcus shook his head. He clamped his lips tight. He wasn’t going to say anything.
There was something else bothering her, too, like the beginning of toothache. Something Femi had said. She turned to him. Minnie had stopped spinning, but was still holding the little boy.
‘Femi,’ Flora said, ‘when we came in you said that she would be angry if the demons hurt Marcus. Who is she?’
Femi frowned. ‘The boss, of course.’
The boss? Marcus wasn’t the boss?
The celebrating fizzled out as they all realised what Femi had said.
This wasn’t over.
‘We should call the police,’ Piotr said.
‘No!’ Femi cried. ‘No police! Uncle Marcus says the police are worse than the demons.’
Minnie put Femi down, crouched in front of him and took both his hands in hers. ‘You’ve done nothing wrong,’ she said. ‘It’s Marcus who should be frightened of the police, not you. The police can help you find your family again. Would you like that?’
‘My family?’ Femi’s sliver of a smile was painful to watch. ‘I’d like to see my family,’ he whispered.
Minnie pulled out her phone. ‘I’ll call Jimmy,’ she said.
She looked at the screen and gasped.