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it,” Minerva exclaimed. “He wanted to protect me! It was Harold who persuaded me to get a bodyguard!”
    “He did that to throw off any suspicion. At the same time, he made sure you hired the worst private detective in London. Someone too stupid to get in the way of his plan.”
    “And who was that?” Tim asked.
    “Have some more champagne, Tim,” I said.
    “And then Harold Chase killed Reginald Parker,” Snape said.
    “You’ve got it in one, Chief Inspector. Chase had chosen Parker because he knew he was going to be the Santa Claus at Harrods. First of all he hired him to go on the roof. Then he killed him and took his place. Tim’s business card must have fallen out of his pocket during the fight. It was when I saw the card that I put two and two together…”
    “You did your maths homework?” Tim asked.
    “No, Tim. I cracked the case.”
    There was a long silence. Either I’d been talking too slowly or they’d been drinking too quickly but all the champagne was gone. And I hadn’t even touched my lemonade.
    Jake Hammill put an arm around Minerva. “Baby, I’m so sorry,” he said. “What a terrible experience for you!”
    Minerva shrugged. “It wasn’t so bad,” she said. “I’ve got rid of Harold. I’m going to get lots of publicity. And my CD’s certain to go to number one.” She got to her feet. I thought she was going to leave, but she took one last look at me. “You’re quite smart for a scruffy fourteen-year-old,” she said. Then she flicked her eyes towards Tim. “As for you, you’re just an utter loss.”
    She walked out.
    “What did she mean?” Tim wailed.
    I thought for a moment. “Justanutterloss. It’s Greek for sensational,” I said.
    “Really?” Tim’s eyes lit up.
    “Sure, Tim,” I said. Well, after all, it was Christmas.
    There are a few things to add.
    Two weeks later, Tim and I got a surprise in the post – and this time it wasn’t a bomb, an unpaid bill or a poison pen letter. It was a note from Jake Hammill. It seemed that he wasn’t so bad after all. We had just saved his most famous client from a murder attempt that would have been not only the end of her career, but – even worse – the end of his percentage. And as a token of his gratitude, he’d decided to send us a cheque for ten thousand pounds. I’ll never forget the sight of Tim holding it between his hands. The last time he had seen that many zeros, it had been in his school report.
    We talked a lot about what to do with the money. Of course, we were going to have a proper Christmas lunch. Tim was going to pay off the rent. I was finally going to get a new school uniform – the last one had so many patches in it, it was more patches than uniform. But that would still leave us with several thousand pounds, which was just about the most money we’d ever had.
    I forget who suggested it first, but that was when we decided to fly out to Australia to be reunited with our parents. It had been years since we’d seen them, and sometimes I thought it was unnatural for a young lad to be living without his mother, often crying himself to sleep, having to be tucked in every night and cheered up by his brother. Not that I minded doing all that for Tim, but even so I thought it would do us all good to be a family again, just for a while.
    And the next day we bought two British Airways tickets to Sydney. We were going to travel out as soon as the Easter term ended, and maybe one day I’ll write down what actually happened when we got there.
The Radius of the Lost Shark
. That’s the title I’ve got written down in my notebook. It’s another story I’ve got to tell.
    What else is there? Harold Chase got life in jail for attempted murder, but looking at him I didn’t think that would be too many years. Snape took the credit for the arrest, of course. They actually put his face on the front cover of the monthly police journal,
Hello, Hello, Hello
magazine. Reginald Parker’s remains were scattered in