"Excuse me?" Alex Roberts asked a Recruit, who stared at him. Not surprising, really, since he was covered in sweat and dirt from the long run back. "Have you seen a small yet slightly fat man with a black moustache, bowler hat, and a very strong French accent?"

The Recruit raised his eyebrows.

"You mean Hercule Poirot." It was not a question. Alex nodded, and, quickly heading in the direction the boy was pointing, ran headfirst into Vanessa and Rachel.

"Oh, hi girls."

"What happened to you?" Vanessa eyed him disgustedly. Rachel immediately did the same.

"Oh, you know. Long story." Alex wasn't liking the dissapproving glances they were giving him. "Where's Poirot?"

The two girls just looked at him.

"Man with black moustache ..." he explained slowly.

Rachel waved a hand behind her vaguely before walking away with Vanessa.

Alex scowled at their retreating backs. When he was a Cadet he wasn't that rude. Honestly, some people should just learn some respect ...

"Hey, Pwazzo!" Abbie and George were taking this whole gangster thing to a new level. Needless to say, Hercule Poirot was going along with it. Obviously.

"Yo, wazzup?" he asked, with a gesture to put Eminem at shame.

"Someone's looking for you. They remind us vaguely of Alex Roberts, but ... nah."

Poirot glanced expertly round the room, which was empty.

"Bring 'im in ..."

"You are aware," Sarah Craine was attempting to keep the peace, "that if you hadn't said Mike's name none of this would've happened?"

She and Luna Lovegood were having a very heated argument outside the hospital. Passing staff were giving them concerned looks, as for one it's not every day you pass the blond girl most commonly found in the Harry Potter series; and at any rate neither of them looked very friendly. That was probably because they had been yelling at each other for the past half hour, though.

"How was I supposed to know?" Luna snapped, all serenity gone. "I was just gazing out of the window, thinking about Christopher, when I remembered that Mike Walsh was the one who told the whole school Christopher was going to propose to me! Which, as you can imagine, wasn't a very nice thought, now, was it?"

Sarah glowered.

"And to think," she replied, with heavy sarcasm, "Richard thought you were talking about moving on to Mike!"

"The idea," Luna agreed, not catching Sarah's sarcasm. "There's nothing wrong with Mike, though ..." she quickly said, in case anyone got the wrong end of the stick. Or, in her case, wand.

"Hmm, well." Sarah started edging back towards the doors, keen to make a swift exit back to her injured friends; but a thought struck her so suddenly she had to stop. "Wait ... who have you moved on to, then? If it's not Mike."

Luna blushed slightly.

"I haven't," she said. "Not even Cho Chang moved on that quickly from Cedric, and no offence to Cho, but she's not exactly very, er, innocent."

Sarah shook her head.

"I disagree," she frowned. "If I were Cho -" ("Heaven forbid," Luna muttered under her breath.) "- I think that after a year I would like to move on, and to someone like Harry as well ..."

Richard and Mike, who, via the open window behind Luna, could hear very clearly everything that had gone on; started sniggering as the two girls started discussing Harry Potter's physical features. A-HEM.

"I'M SO SORRY!" Alex Roberts wailed, kneeling at Poirot's feet. Abbie and George laughed, and Matt Cullen actually joined in.

"Yo, it's too late ter 'pologize, homie."

Alex started crying at that point, which, in the three Cadets' opinion, was slightly unnecessary yet hilarious.

"Yo," Poirot lifted Alex up by his grubby collar. "I ain't serious, ever heard of One Republic? 'sides, it ain't me you should be grovellin' to; you should be 'pologizing to Kenno's grave, y'all."

This revelation only made Alex cry harder.

"Good grief," Andrew Davies had entered the room, and he meant business. "Pull yourself together, Roberts. And Mr Poirot, did I not say if you continued talking like that then there'd be serious consequences?"

Hercule Poirot gave what he thought to be a sheepish grin.

"And don't smirk at me," Andrew snapped. "Now, Roberts, are you back for good?"

Alex nodded slowly.

"How spiffing." Andrew didn't think it was spiffing at all. On the contrary, as far as he was concerned, he had enough people to manage without an extra rebellious Sergeant. "Now, I expect you in uniform tomorrow, do you hear?"

Alex also gave what he hoped to be a sheepish grin.

"WILL ALL OF YOU STOP SMIRKING AT ME!"

Vanessa and Rachel crept very slowly along a corridor, stopping every few minutes in case they were being followed. Needless to say, they weren't.

"Come on," Rachel whispered, as they reached their destination. Vanessa rolled her eyes.

"Just get on with it," she sighed, wishing she had gone with Sarah Craine to visit Richard and Mike.

Rachel was already at Andrew Davies' office; she opened a side door and entered Poirot's temporary study without Vanessa. Vanessa Owen had already been instructed to act as a look out, in case the axe-wielding maniac who killed Christopher Kennedy appeared. What did Rachel think this was, an Agatha Christie novel? Vanessa was not enjoying her job one bit. She wondered whether Andrew had any food in here. Hmm.

"Oh em GEE!" Rachel was taking this very seriously indeed, as you can tell. "Look what I've found!"

"I can't," Vanessa rolled her eyes again. "You specifically told me not to go anywhere in case anyone came along."

"No, look!" Rachel came out of Poirot's room holding something small. "It's the same knife that was used to cut Polly's rope when we all went abseiling!"

"And how do you work that one out?" Vanessa asked drily.

Rachel Concannon tapped the side of her nose mysteriously.

"You shall see, enfant, in due course."

Vanessa, for the third time, rolled her eyes exasperatedly.

"AHA!" Ben #1 yelled, as the duo finally reached their destination. Michael Szuplewski's campsite. He wasn't in sight, which wasn't exactly surprising. The two Bens had had enough experience of Poirot's cases to know that criminals usually did a runner after a week or so. Not that Szuplewski was a criminal, of course.

"He's not there, Ben," Ben #2 stated unnecessarily. "But something is ..."

Ben #1 followed his gaze.

"BENNY!" he squealed. "YOU'RE A GENIUS!"

"Well, you know, I do my best." Ben #2 tried not to smirk.

"What in Poirot's name is that?"

Ben #1 nudged the mangled heap with his foot.

"It looks like ... a dead rabbit." He couldn't help snickering at Ben #2's expression.

"How ghastly," Ben #2 murmured.

"Vile," Ben #1 agreed, smiling widely.

The two boys continued staring at the destroyed corpse of Voldemort for a moment before Ben #2 made a startling discovery.

"A note!"

Ben #1 picked it up tentatively.

"'To whatever idiot is reading this,'" he read aloud, ignoring Ben #2's protest about being called an idiot. "'Alex Roberts has left me. He's gone back to Calday, and I shall be returning shortly, too. I will confess that no, it was not me who murdered the Cadets, but I do know who did. After hanging out on my own for a long while I realized the ending is the only place to start. Er, basically, I'm coming back, and I'm bringing with me the answer to this gruesome murder business. Signed, Mike Szuplewski.'"

"How cryptic," Ben #2 said after a while. "How very cryptic."

"You know what this means, Benny, don't you." Ben #1 shook his blond hair out of his eyes. Ben #2 stared at him.

"No, I don't!"

Ben #1 sighed.

"TO THE BENMOBILE!!"