Free The Unknown Spy by Eoin McNamee Page B

the pocket of his coat. The coat had many pockets that weren’t immediately apparent. He found lockpicks, a comb, a pen with a secret compartment in it, a broken spy camera and a foldable grappling iron before he finally put his hand on the old-fashioned-looking but reliable flashlight.
    As he pulled the flashlight out something clinked against it—the “S” and “G” ring he’d been given in the Butts. He studied it in the light. Who were S and G, and why had the hand of the Unquiet slipped this into his coat?
    Returning the ring to his pocket, he started to walk back toward Wilsons, keeping the light shaded with his hand so that he wouldn’t be too visible, not so much because there was a killer at large, but because he had started to acquire a spy’s habit of secrecy. There were noises in the darkness, night creatures starting to move about, but they didn’t disturb him. Then he heard something different—not like a badger scuffling in the leaves, but like people struggling. As he got nearer he could hear groans and panting from somewhere to his left. He switched the torch off and listened. A voice in his head told him to leave it, walk back to Wilsons, that it was none of his business.
    I can’t leave it if they’re in trouble, he said to himself. And a quiet cold voice in his head said,
Go to whoever it is. Anybody about this time of night is up to no good. They might be useful to you!
    He put the torch back on, shading it again, then picked his way through the undergrowth, pausing everyfew steps to listen. Whoever or whatever Danny had heard was growing tired—the sounds had become feeble—but there was no sign that he had been detected. Then the noises stopped altogether. Instead, Danny heard someone sobbing. Whoever it was didn’t sound dangerous anymore. Danny straightened and took his hand away from the torch.
    He had found Vicky the siren. She had been caught in a trap and was hanging in a net from a tree branch. Below her, sharpened spikes had sprung from the earth. Whoever had set the trap had clearly taken no chances. Vicky’s dress was torn and her hair was full of leaves, but when she saw the torchlight, without knowing who was holding it, she cried out in a breathy girlish voice.
    “Oh, thank goodness, kind stranger! I have been caught in this dreadful trap. I was just getting some medicine for my poor sick mother and some evil person left this awful thing here. If you could just help me I would be so grateful.…”
    “It’s all right, Vicky. It’s me.” Danny angled the torch so it showed his face.
    “Oh,” she said, bad-tempered and sulky. “You. I suppose you lot helped Brunholm build these traps. My dress is ruined.”
    “No!” Danny said. “I wouldn’t help Brunholm build something like that. Course I wouldn’t.”
    “You wouldn’t?” she said, surprised. “Well, maybe you could just step over here for a second and cut one or two strands of this net.…”
    “Why would I do that?” Danny said, feeling thecunning part of his brain taking over, deep in the forest at night with a trapped creature.
    “I could do things for you,” Vicky said with a coy smile. “I could help you.”
    “I don’t think there’s anything you can do for me,” Danny said, pretending to turn away.
    “Wait, wait, don’t go, there must be something. If Brunholm gets his hands on me …”
    Danny waited. Brunholm had been setting traps for Vicky for months, ever since Danny and Les had been fooled into releasing her from her cell in Wilsons.
    “You’re probably better under lock and key,” Danny said. “All you do is make ships run aground on rocks by beguiling sailors.”
    “I’ve given up beguiling, honestly I have,” Vicky said. “I’ve put all that behind me. I’m a very respectable siren now.” She put on an innocent face, which Danny didn’t believe for a moment.
    “Besides,” Danny said, “you’d promise me anything to get free and then you’d try to double-cross