‘Sometimes it’s not about us, Foaly. I’ll figure this out somehow. I do have help, right?’
‘That’s right,’ confirmed the centaur. ‘It’s not as if it’s the first time we’ve saved the fairy world.’
Foaly’s confident tones made Holly feel better, even if he was hundreds of miles underground.
Artemis interrupted them. ‘You two can swap war stories later. We can’t afford to miss a word that these people say. If we can beat them to their destination, it could be an advantage.’
Artemis was right. This was not a time for drifting. Holly ran a quick systems check on her helmet instruments, then pointed her visor at the humans below.
‘You getting this, Foaly?’ she asked.
‘Clear as crystal. Did I tell you about my new gas screens?’
Artemis’s sigh rattled through the speakers.
‘Yes, you did. Now be quiet, centaur. We’re on a mission, remember.’
‘Whatever you say, Mud Boy. Hey, look, your girlfriend is saying something.’
Artemis had a vast mental reserve of scathing comebacks at his disposal, but none of them covered girlfriend insults. He wasn’t even sure if it was an insult. And if it was, who was being insulted? Him or the girl?
*
The girl spoke French as only a native could.
‘Technically,’ she said, ‘the only crime we are guilty of is fare-dodging, and perhaps not even that. Legally speaking, how can you kidnap something that is not supposed to exist? I doubt anyone ever accused Murray Gell-Mann of kidnapping a quark, even though he knowingly carried a billion of them around in his pocket.’ The girl chuckled gently.
No one else laughed, except an eavesdropping Irish boy two hundred miles away at Fontanarossa International Airport, about to board the last Alitalia flight to Rome. Rome, Artemis reasoned, would be a lot more central than Sicily. Wherever the demon was headed, Artemis could get there faster if he flew from Rome.
‘That wasn’t bad,’ Artemis commented, then relayed the joke to Butler. ‘Obviously, there are differences in the scenarios, but it’s a joke, not a quantum physics lecture.’
Butler’s left eyebrow cranked up like a drawbridge. ‘Differences in the scenarios, that’s just what I was thinking.’
Back on board the bullet train, one of the men, the one with the miraculously healed leg, shifted on the leatherette upholstery.
‘What time do we get into Nice, Minerva?’ he said.
This single sentence was a goldmine of information for the listening Artemis. Firstly, the girl’s name was Minerva, named presumably for the Roman goddess of wisdom. So far, a very apt name indeed. Secondly, their destination was Nice in the south of France. And thirdly, this girl seemed to be in charge. Extraordinary.
The girl, who had been smiling still at her quark joke, switched to irritated mode.
‘No names, remember? There are ears everywhere. If a single person uncovers a single detail of our plan, everything we have worked for could be ruined.’
Too late, Mud Girl, thought Captain Holly Short, from her luggage rack. Artemis Fowl already knows too much about you. Not to mention my own little guardian angel, Foaly.
Holly snapped a close-up of the girl’s face.
‘We have a mugshot and a first name, Foaly. Is that enough for you?’
‘Should be,’ replied the centaur. ‘I got stills of the males too. Give me a while to run them through my database.’
Below her, the second man from Barcelona unzipped the fake top from the golf bag.
‘I should check on my clubs,’ he said. ‘See if they’re settled OK. If they’ve started to move about, I might put in something to keep them still.’
All of which would have been a perfectly acceptable code, had there not been a camera pointed right at them.
The man reached into the bag, and after a moment’s feeling around, he pulled out a small arm and checked the pulse.
‘Fine. Everything’s fine.’
‘Good,’ said Minerva. ‘Now, you should get some sleep. We have a long journey ahead of us. I will stay awake for a while, because I feel like reading. The next person can read in four hours.’
The three men nodded, but nobody lay down. They just sat there, staring at the golf bag, as if there were a demon in there.
Artemis and Butler picked up a lucky connection to Nice with Air France and by ten they had checked into the Hotel Negresco and were enjoying coffee and croissants on the Promenade des Anglais.
Holly was not so lucky. She was still perched on a luggage rack on board a train. Not the same luggage rack. This was her third rack altogether. First, they had to change in Rome, then again in Monte Carlo, and now finally they were headed for Nice.
Artemis was speaking into his little finger which transmitted the vibrations to the fairy phone in his palm.
‘Any hints as to the exact final destination?’
‘Nothing yet,’ replied a tired and irritated Holly. ‘This girl is controlling the adults with a rod of iron. They’re afraid to say anything. I am sick of lying on this rack. I feel like I have been lying on racks for a year. What are you two doing?’
Artemis put his decaf cappuccino down gently, so as not to rattle the saucer. ‘We’re at the Nice Library, trying to dig up anything on this Minerva person. Perhaps we can find out if she has a villa near here.’
‘Glad to hear it,’ said Holly. ‘I had visions of you two drinking tea at the beach, while I sweat it out here.’
Six metres from where Artemis was sitting, waves swirled along the beach like emerald paint poured from a bucket.
‘Tea? At the beach? No time for luxuries, Holly. There is important work to be done.’ He winked at Butler.
‘Are you sure you’re at the library? I thought I heard water.’
Artemis smiled, enjoying the exchange. ‘Water? Surely not. The only thing flowing here is information.’
‘Are you grinning, Artemis? For some reason I get the feeling that you’re wearing that smug smile of yours.’
Foaly cut into the line. ‘Pay dirt, Holly. It took a while, but we tracked down our mystery girl.’
Artemis’s smile vanished. All business now. ‘Who is she, Foaly? To be honest I am amazed that I don’t already know her.’
‘The girl is Minerva Paradizo, twelve years old, born in Cagnes sur Mer, the south of France. The bespectacled man is her father. Gaspard Paradizo. Fifty-two. Cosmetic surgeon, of Brazilian descent. One more child, a boy, Beau, five years old. The mother left a year ago. Lives in Marseilles with the ex-gardener.’
Artemis was puzzled. ‘Gaspard Paradizo is a cosmetic surgeon? Why did it take so long to find these two? There must have been records, pictures.’
‘That’s just it. There were no pictures on the Net. Not even a local paper snapshot. I got the feeling that somebody had systematically wiped out every e-trace of this family they could find.’
‘But nobody can hide from you, eh, Foaly?’
‘That’s right. I ran a deep probe and came across a ghost image on a French TV archive page. Minerva Paradizo won a national spelling bee when she was four. Once I had the name, then it was easy to retrieve all the other wipes. Your girlfriend is quite something, Artemis. She has already completed high school, and is currently studying for two distance learning degrees. Quantum physics and psychology. I suspect that she also has a doctorate in chemistry under an assumed name.’