Dognapped! (2 page)

‘She was here a few minutes ago.’ Max’s crop of short red hair appeared over the fence. He gasped when he noticed the swinging gate. ‘You didn’t shut the gate properly!’ he accused me. ‘Now Fluffy has run off.’

‘It was shut. I checked!’ I protested as I raced up the yard. But I hadn’t checked that it was latched securely, had I? The wind must have blown it open. I reached the gate and looked around wildly. ‘Fluffy! Fluffy!’

Max joined me. ‘You look that way, and I’ll look this way,’ I told him, dashing off to the left. I raced around the corner of Gran’s end terrace house and down the street, shouting for Fluffy at every turn. She couldn’t have gone far. Max said he’d seen her in the yard a few minutes ago. Oh why hadn’t I checked the gate was latched properly?

‘Fluffy!’ I ran down the street, frantically looking in all the pocket-sized front gardens as I passed. Then I spotted one of the neighbours standing at her garden gate, holding a smug-looking tabby cat. ‘Have you seen a little white dog wearing a pink collar?’ I asked her, trying not to stare at the big hairy mole on her chin.

The lady narrowed her eyes. ‘You’re that girl from America, aren’t you? Sue Carter’s granddaughter?’

I nodded. ‘Gran’s dog has run away. Have you seen her?’

‘No, I haven’t. And I don’t want to either. She’s a menace.’ The woman clutched the cat even closer to her, turned and strode swiftly back into the house, slamming the door behind her. Sounds like she didn’t like Fluffy very much.

I searched the narrow streets surrounding Gran’s house, asking everyone I met if they had seen Fluffy, but there was no sign of her. Where had she gone? I tried not to think of what Gran would say when she returned home and discovered that her precious pooch was missing. I glanced at my watch, she’d be back soon. What was I going to tell her?

I sat down on a nearby bench and tried to think logically. Where was the most likely place for Fluffy to have gone?

‘Have you found her?’ spluttered Max as he hurtled down the street towards me.

‘Yeah, she’s in my pocket,’ I replied sarcastically. ‘Does it look like I’ve found her?’

‘No need to be funny with me,’ Max retorted, ‘I’m not the one who lost her.’

I ignored him and concentrated on thinking what a pampered pooch like Fluffy would do when she tasted freedom. I remembered how my pal Rory’s dog would bolt to the end of the road whenever he got the chance, get scared, run back and sit on the doorstep waiting for someone to discover that he was missing. He certainly knew where he was well off. I bet Fluffy did too. She was probably yapping at Gran’s back door right now, waiting for someone to let her in.

‘Where are you going?’ Max asked as I jumped up and headed back to Gran’s.

The back door was still wide open. I’d been in such a panic when I found Fluffy missing that I’d dashed off without stopping to close it. I ran in, hoping to find Fluffy curled up in her basket. It was empty. Through the open door of the guests’ lounge I could see Mr Winkleberry sitting in his usual armchair, reading the newspaper.

‘Have you seen Fluffy?’ I asked.

He looked over his glasses at me, his left eye twitching, as usual. Even if Gran hadn’t told me, I’d have known he used to be a schoolteacher, it was written all over his raised eyebrows and pursed lips. ‘I thought Sue, er … your Gran asked you to look after her.’

‘I did. I … I left her in the yard and … um … somehow she got out.’

Mr Winkleberry’s look and tone were laced with reproach. ‘Well, I suggest you find her quick, young lady. Your Gran will be back any minute.’

‘Tell me something I don’t know.’

I went back into the yard just as Max came through the gate. He pushed it shut behind him and I heard the latch click.

CLICK?

I raced down the path and opened the gate. Then I gave it a push. It sprang back and clicked shut. CLICK! I opened it and did the same again. CLICK! I tried to pull the gate open but it wouldn’t move until I released the latch.

Max looked at me as if I was deranged.

‘Watch,’ I told him. I carried on experimenting with the gate, trying to push it shut without it actually locking, but it was impossible.

‘Okay, you’ve learnt how to shut the gate,’ Max drawled. ‘Wonderful. Shame you didn’t do it before Fluffy went missing.’

‘Don’t you see? Unless you leave the gate at least half open, it springs shut and the latch automatically drops. There’s no way it could have blown open.’

‘So?’ Max didn’t look too impressed.

‘So … someone deliberately opened the gate and let Fluffy out.’

That got his attention. ‘That’s really evil. Why would anyone want to do that?’

That’s exactly what I was asking myself. ‘There are only two reasons I can think of. Either someone wanted Fluffy to run away and get lost or someone’s stolen her.’

‘Fluffy! Where are you darling? Mummy’s back!’

I froze as I heard Gran’s voice. Then I heard Mr Winkleberry talking to her, and the next minute Gran flew out of the back door, her face ashen.

‘Is this true, Amy?’ she demanded. ‘You’ve lost my darling Fluffy?’

I swallowed. ‘It wasn’t my fault, Gran. Someone let her out of the yard and she ran off.’

‘Amy thinks someone might have stolen her,’ Max butted in.

Gran clutched her throat ‘What?’

‘The gate was shut when I left her in the yard, but when I came to let her in again, it was wide open and Fluffy was missing,’ I explained. ‘Someone opened it and let Fluffy out on purpose.’

‘Are you sure it wasn’t you?’ Mr Winkleberry demanded. ‘You’ve made it quite obvious that you find the dog annoying. Maybe you left the gate open hoping Fluffy would run off.’

I glared at him. ‘Of course I didn’t! I wouldn’t do that!’ I turned to Gran. ‘I wouldn’t. Honest, Gran.’

Gran dabbed her eyes. ‘I’m sure you didn’t do it on purpose, Amy. But you did leave Fluffy in the garden alone.’

‘Only for a little while. She wouldn’t come back in, and I wanted to watch the end of the film …’

‘How long has she been missing?’ Gran asked.

‘About an hour. We’ve looked everywhere … I’m sorry!’ I shouted, as Gran hurried back into the house. She grabbed her car keys and headed for the front door.

‘Sue, wait!’ Mr Winkleberry called after her. ‘You’re in no state to drive. I’ll come with you. We’ll look for Fluffy together.’

‘I’ll have another look too,’ I shouted. Gran was so upset that I felt really guilty. I should never have left Fluffy on her own like that. I knew how much she meant to Gran.

When Mr and Mrs McFarlane returned, they joined the search too. So did Emily Williams. She adored Fluffy and always made a fuss of her. Actually she loved animals, period. I saw her stop to stroke a vicious-looking cat in the street yesterday. The cat looked like it would scratch your eyes out as much as look at you, but it came meekly to Emily and happily cuddled up to her.

We all searched until it was too dark to search any more, but there was still no sign of Fluffy. The little dog seemed to have vanished off the face of the Earth (or at least from the town of Little Cragg). Gran was distraught.

‘My precious little princess, what can have happened to her?’ she sobbed. ‘She’ll be scared and hungry. What if she’s trapped somewhere? Or injured?’

I felt terrible, I can tell you. ‘I’m sorry, Gran. I’ll find her,’ I promised. ‘First thing tomorrow, I’ll be on the case.’

‘On the case! I think you watch too many detective movies, young lady,’ Mr Winkleberry said scathingly.

I didn’t bother to tell him that I was actually a bit of a detective myself and had solved a couple of mysteries back at home. I thought I’d keep that information to myself for a while. My instincts told me that whoever was responsible for Fluffy’s disappearance was someone who knew her well, and I didn’t want that person to be on their guard. As Vince always says, the culprit is usually right under your nose!

I thought about how Vince would try to find Fluffy. Find a reason for the crime, list the suspects then eliminate them one by one is what he always told his sidekick, Mac. So, the first thing I had to work out was whether someone had let Fluffy out of the garden hoping she’d get lost, or whether she’d been taken. I remembered Gran telling me that Fluffy was favourite to win a dog show next week. Could this be why someone had stolen her?

I got out my notepad and lucky green pen, and sat in bed, making notes:

I knew that Mr and Mrs McFarlane had gone out right after breakfast, as usual, and I had seen Emily fussing over Fluffy in the hall at about eleven thirty, just as she was on her way out too. (Emily wasn’t one for getting up early.) I looked back at my notes. That meant there was a ‘window of opportunity’ of thirty minutes when Fluffy could have been taken.

First thing in the morning I checked out the crime scene. Standing outside Gran’s garden, with my back to the open gate, I looked around. Facing me was a patch of waste ground, where people often parked their cars, then gates backing onto another row of houses. High fences or walls surrounded each of the yards, so unless anyone was walking past, or looking out of their bedroom window, someone could have opened Gran’s gate and let Fluffy out, completely unnoticed.

With so many conflicting thoughts flying around my head, I had to keep a record of all the possible reasons for Fluffy’s disappearance. Opening up my notepad at a clean page, I wrote:

‘What are you doing?’

It was Max – again. I was about to tell him to shove off, when it occurred to me that he might be useful. He knew more about Gran, Fluffy, the neighbours and the neighbourhood than I did.

‘I’m going to find out who’s taken Fluffy,’ I said. ‘Do you know if any of the neighbours have a grudge against Gran or might want to get rid of Fluffy?’

‘Mrs Brewson,’ Max said immediately. ‘She and Auntie Sue are always arguing ’cos Kittikins, Mrs Brewson’s cat, digs up Auntie Sue’s plants, and Fluffy keeps chasing Kittikins and frightening her.’

Kittikins. I remembered the woman with the hairy mole clutching the tabby cat yesterday, saying Fluffy was a nuisance. ‘Where does she live?’

‘Two doors away from us,’ Max told me.

That was definitely the woman I saw.

I wrote another heading. Suspects. Underneath it I wrote – Mrs Brewson.

‘What about the other neighbours? Has Gran fallen out with any of them?’

‘Well … she doesn’t like the Arnold sisters – they live next door to us. She says their house is messy. It is too! Mum’s always moaning about it. Auntie Sue says it’s bad for trade.’ Max frowned. ‘And then there’s Mrs Crystal. She lives in Seagull Villa, a B&B over the road. One of her guests left her to stay at Beachview last year and she’s never forgiven Auntie Sue for it.’

‘Ok, we have three neighbours who could be suspects then.’ I added the Arnold Sisters and Mrs Crystal to the list.

‘Do you think one of them could have taken Fluffy?’ asked Max.

I shook my head. ‘No, they live too close and wouldn’t be able to hide her. But they could have let her out on purpose, hoping she’d get lost. We can’t eliminate anyone just yet.’

Time for some more deductions. If Fluffy was stolen rather than set free, how did the culprit do it, and more importantly, why? I put another header into my notepad:

‘Do you know the names of any of Gran’s competitors?’ I asked Max. ‘You know, people who enter their dogs in shows too.’

Max considered this. ‘There’s Mr Mudlark. He was mad ’cos Fluffy won ‘Best of Breed’ at the last show. His Bichon, Maisy-May, is entering the Rivington show next week.’

‘Amy! Can you come here a moment please,’ Gran called from the back door. ‘PC Lambard wants to question you.’

Gran had telephoned the police last night and they’d promised to send the local officer around this morning to investigate Fluffy’s disappearance. ‘Better go,’ I told Max.

‘Doesn’t he want to talk to me too?’ he asked. ‘I was the last one to see Fluffy in the garden.’

He had a point. Max told me he’d seen Fluffy a few minutes before she went missing. ‘What time did you see her?’

Max didn’t hesitate. ‘Ten past two.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Amy!’

‘Coming!’ I looked at Max. ‘You come too.’

PC Lambard took a statement from me and Max, then asked Gran for a photo of Fluffy. ‘Dogs disappear all the time,’ he said. ‘Sometimes they turn up again a few days later, sometimes we never find them.’ He looked sternly at me. ‘You should have taken better care of …’ he glanced at his notepad, ‘Fluffy, young lady. There are a lot of holidaymakers down at this time of year. If someone saw a valuable dog like that wandering the streets, they could have taken her home with them.’

‘Oh no, poor Fluffy! I might never see her again!’ Gran wailed.

Mr Winkleberry put his arm around her shoulder and glared at me.

‘Don’t you think someone local might be behind her disappearance?’ I asked.

PC Lambard gave me another stern look. ‘This isn’t New York. We don’t have such crimes in Little Cragg. Besides, Fluffy is too well known. No one could hide her for long. Nope, I reckon she’s either wandered off or been taken well out of the area by now I’m afraid. I presume you have her micro-chipped, Mrs Carter?’

‘Oh yes, of course,’ Gran sniffed.

‘Sooner or later a dog will need to go to thevet, and that’s when we’ll find her. Until then, there’s nothing we can do but wait and hope she turns up.’

‘I’m not going to sit around hoping Fluffy will turn up,’ I told Max as I went into the kitchen to make myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch. ‘I’m going to find her. This crime will be a cinch for a super-sleuth like me to solve.’

‘Super-sleuth?’ he raised an eyebrow cheekily. ‘You?’

‘Yes, me. I have solved quite a few mysteries back home in the US,’ I told him.

‘Really?’ He didn’t sound too convinced.

The music on Gran’s kitchen radio suddenly faded, and a newsflash came on. ‘We’re interrupting this programme to bring you some breaking news. Threats have been made against entrants of the Rivington dog show, due to be held next week,’ the newscaster’s voice boomed.

The Rivington Show? That was the show that Fluffy was supposed to enter.

‘Shhh!’ I told Max, turning up the radio so I could hear the bulletin …

PODCAST 1

Go to
www.amycartermysteries.com/dognapped-1

Max looked at me wide-eyed. ‘Do you think it has anything to do with Fluffy’s disappearance?’

‘I really hope not,’ I replied. ‘Because if it has, we might never see Fluffy again, and Gran could be in great danger.’