Free Novel - Half Moon Investigations by Eoin Colfer

hundred-square grid. Then I mapped each crime onto the grid using a color-coded system. It took a while, but eventually I had an overview of suspected Sharkey activity in Lock. I studied the plottings for a while and realized if the Sharkeys had actually committed all these crimes then they must be operating twenty-four hours a day, every day. There was the option that they had people working for them. Not all the sharks had to be Sharkeys.
    Something rustled outside the house, startling me. I turned off the bedroom light, dropping my gaze to the back garden. After a few moments, my night vision kicked in and I could make out the familiar shapes of walls and bushes. One of the bushes seemed to be moving. Unusual. It was unlikely that I was witnessing the birth of a new mutant species of bush, so I concluded that there was someone behind the plant.
    I was correct. Seconds later a hooded head popped from the foliage. This was followed by an arm, which beckoned me down. Strange. Why would someone wish to talk to me at this time of night? Someone roughly my own age, judging by the height.
    It’s perfectly reasonable, I told myself. You are a detective on a case. Everyone knows about the investigation, thanks to May. This person lurking in the evergreens must have some sensitive information.
    I made sure I had my notebook, pulled on my jacket, and resolved to make my e-mail address more widely available in future so this kind of skullduggery wouldn’t be necessary.
    My parents were in bed, having had a rough day raising their children. Hazel was in her bedroom acting out all the parts in a new play entitled Not So Happy Now, Are You? It was a simple matter for me to sneak downstairs.
    I did pause for a moment, listening to the voice of reason inside my head screaming: Are you insane? Don’t you watch horror movies? Go back upstairs.
    But I was a detective. How could I turn away from this development? Even so, I thought it best to play it safe and take a shortcut through the garage. Maybe I could get a look at my snitch before he got a look at me.
    I padded across the kitchen and through the adjoining door to the garage. I had been this way so many times that I picked my way through years of junk without causing the slightest clatter.
    One slipped bolt later and I was in the garden, crouching behind Dad’s prized gnome. Dad’s gnome looked pretty traditional, but when Hazel accused him of being old-fashioned, he claimed it was a post-modernist ironic gnome that was mocking its own heritage.
    I heard footfalls nearby, and peeked over the gnome’s pointed hat. A huge mistake, as it turned out. Something sliced through the darkness at speed, heading directly for my head. A club of some kind, definitely being wielded as a weapon. I heard the prowler grunt from the effort, like a tennis professional serving for the match. No sooner had I raised my hand to protect my face than it was pinned to my forehead, and everything above my neck seemed to be on fire. The force of the blow lifted me six inches from the ground, sending me sailing into a rock garden.
    I lay there unable to do anything except wonder why the stars were going out one by one. I still had the darkness, but no more stars.

DR. BRENDAN’S BEDSIDE MANNER
    I WOKE UP ALONE, which I felt was highly unfair. I had always known that someday I would be knocked unconscious; it went with the job. But for some romantic reason I had believed that when I came to, there would be a crowd of concerned family members and admirers hovering around the bed. But there was nobody. Just a sterile hospital room.
    The pain was something else I hadn’t bargained for. Every time I moved, it felt as though brain jelly was seeping out through cracks in my cranium. There weren’t, in fact, any fractures in my skull, just bone bruising. A very cheerful doctor explained this to me when he arrived much later on his morning rounds.
    “Did you ever see those movies where the bad guys kick the devil