The Case of the Missing Cats (5 page)

The van moaned and spluttered reluctantly but eventually the engine turned over. Dirty smoke billowed from the exhaust pipe and the van, the two men and the crate drove away.

‘Come on,' said Dirk, ‘get on.'

‘Are we going to follow it?' asked Holly eagerly.

‘Yes. Quickly.'

She scrambled on to his back and clasped her hands behind his ears. Dirk surveyed the rooftops and, satisfied he had a route, leapt to the next building, and then the next in pursuit of the van.

They followed the van through the London streets, further east along the River Thames. The smoke and loud banging noises that it produced made it easy to follow from some distance. But as they headed out of London, the buildings were lower and there were fewer of them. The landscape changed from the built-up narrow streets of London to a more sprawling, barren industrial area. A thin sheet of white cloud covered the sky. It was getting cold and Holly
wished she had something warmer than her cardigan. She wrapped herself close to Dirk, hoping to steal some of his body heat, but found that his hard, scaly back was not actually very warm at all. And still the van rattled along the road.

Dirk was making bigger leaps than he had in the city, jumping high into the air and then gliding down towards the next building.

With a screech of the brakes, the van turned left off the main road and headed down a tree-lined dirt track to the riverside. Dirk's descent took him on to a rooftop of an old disused church by the road. He came to a sudden halt.

‘Why have we stopped?' asked Holly.

‘There aren't any buildings down there,' said Dirk, indicating where the van had gone.

‘Can't you use the trees?'

‘No, I can't. I'm a Mountain Dragon, not a Tree Dragon. Trees tend to bend or break when I land on them and there's not enough cover to fly over.'

‘But we can't see what they're doing,' complained Holly.

The van and the two men were obscured behind the small wooded area, overgrown through neglect, and they were well out of earshot.

‘We'll just have to wait until they move on again,' replied Dirk. ‘I can't risk being seen. I've told you what would happen.'

‘That's rubbish,' said Holly.

Dirk snarled, ‘It's called being a detective, waiting for the right moment, staying out of sight. Sometimes you just have to be patient.'

‘But we might miss something important!' Holly exclaimed urgently.

‘Have you got a better idea?' snapped Dirk.

‘I'll go,' said Holly.

‘What?'

‘I'm small. I'll sneak up and see what they're up to.'

Dirk considered this. He didn't really want this human any more involved than she already was, but it was true, she was small. And he had to admit that it would be useful to know what those two crooks were up to.

‘All right,' he said. ‘But stay out of sight.'

‘I will.'

‘And don't let them hear you.'

‘I won't.'

‘And be careful crossing the road.'

‘Hurry up,' snapped Holly impatiently. ‘They're opening the van.'

‘OK.' Dirk surveyed the road. There was nothing coming. There was no one else around. He swooped down to the ground. Holly jumped off his back and he returned to the safety of the roof.

He watched as Holly looked both ways then crossed the road. She ran up the path towards the van. He strained to see what the two men were doing, but it was no use. Dragon eyesight was good, but not good enough to see through the overgrown trees that swayed lightly in the cold evening breeze. Halfway down the track Holly turned, gave him the thumbs-up and then disappeared off the track into the trees.

‘What am I doing letting a human kid help me?' Dirk asked himself. ‘I must be going soft in the head.'

Making her way through the undergrowth, Holly approached the van. Her heart beat fast. She felt scared, exhilarated. She could see the men more clearly now, but what with the crunching of the leaves and the snapping twigs beneath her feet it was extremely difficult to move quietly. Luckily the fat man called Reg was moaning loudly enough to cover her as she scuttled forwards.

‘This'll be the fourth crate this week, and they ain't getting any lighter. I'll do myself an injury if I'm not careful.'

Holly dived behind a nearby bush and found a place where she could peel back a branch and watch
as well as listen to the two men. She could see the van parked alongside the river, its back doors open. The ground sloped down to where the high-tide river lapped at the muddy bank. A raft bobbed on the river, connected to the shore by a long rope, the other end of which was tied to a wooden post.

‘Quit your moaning and haul it in,' said the man called Arthur, pointing at the raft.

The fat man grabbed the rope and pulled it towards the shore.

‘I mean, it's not a normal job, is it? I been doin' this sort of caper for I don't know how long and I ain't never had a job like this before.' He wound the rope around the post as the raft got nearer.

‘My advice to you would be to stop worrying about the whys and focus on the remunerative benefits of the assignment,' said Arthur.

‘The what?'

‘The money, Reg. The money.'

‘Oh, well. The money's good, I'll give you that.'

‘Good? For the sort of money we're getting for this job Mr G could ask me to paint myself with black-and-white stripes, dowse myself in tomato ketchup and jump into a cage full of peckish lions. And I would happily oblige, no questions asked.'

‘Only you'd probably get me to do it,' moaned Reg.

‘That is the unique and peculiar nature of our partnership, yes, but you have to remember, without me Mr G wouldn't entrust us with such an important task.'

The raft was by the riverbank now.

‘He says it's important. You say it's important. But what's it important for? I'd rather be doing a good honest bank job or breaking and entering or just breaking. Because at least with those things you understand what you're doing it for.'

‘If understanding is so essential to you I am astonished you do anything at all,' replied Arthur, with a snide smirk.

Reg secured the rope round the wooden post, walked over to the van and jumped in the back. The vehicle shuddered under the strain of the man's bulk.

‘Mr G is a very brilliant man,' said Arthur. ‘Whatever his reasons are I guarantee they are very brilliant.'

Reg stumbled out of the van, clutching the large crate, his short chubby arms covering the words
HANDLE WITH CARE
. He stepped on to the muddy ground and instantly lost his footing, staggering
forward and dropping the crate, which landed in front of him and slid down towards the water's edge, dragging the fat man with it. There was a big splash and for a moment Holly thought Reg had fallen in the water. In fact, he had somehow landed with the crate and the top half of his body on the raft, but with his feet still on the edge of the riverbank. His large belly wobbled dangerously over the water between land and raft.

‘Oh, bother,' he said. ‘Can you get the rope and pull me back in, please?'

‘Sorry, Reg. No can do. You see, I have a rare but pathological fear of rope. More of a dread than a fear, really. A mortal dread is what I have of rope and all rope matter.'

‘I didn't know that,' said Reg, trying not to let the up and down movement of the crate drag him into the river.

‘Oh yes. I caught it in India, while watching an old Indian rope trick known as “Biriani Poppadum Masala”, which translates as “Rope trick that is both Indian and old”. I've never been able to so much as touch a rope since. It ruined my dream of becoming a sailor. I'm all right with string funnily enough.'

While Arthur was saying this, Reg had managed to
bend his legs, arch his back, lean backwards, and successfully free himself of his dilemma, remaining completely dry. Looking pleased with himself, he brushed himself down, unwound the rope and carefully kicked the raft so that the crate bobbed out on to the river.

‘Well done, Reg,' said Arthur, slapping him on the back with such force that the fat man flew head first into the river with a loud SPLASH.

Holly suppressed a giggle, but Arthur didn't find it at all funny. ‘Stop messing about,' he said. ‘It's time to go.'

‘Sorry, Arthur,' said Reg, treading water, then climbing up the muddy bank. ‘I must have slipped.' He was soaking wet, with streaks of mud down his face and clothes.

Caught by the river's current, the raft and large crate bobbed out into the middle of the river, pulling the rope taut.

The two men returned to the van.

‘Can we go to my place so I can change my clothes?' asked Reg.

‘What's wrong with those ones?' demanded Arthur.

‘They're all wet.'

‘Well, you should have thought about that before you decided to go for a swim, shouldn't you?'

They climbed into the van, closed the doors and, after some protest from the engine, drove away.

Holly jumped out from her hiding place and ran to the river's edge. She looked at the raft bobbing on the river. She listened. To her horror, she could hear the unmistakable sound of a cat's miaowing. She gasped.

The crate was full of cats.

She grabbed the rope and tugged at it, but it wouldn't budge. Far out on the water she could hear desperate feline pleas coming from the crate.
Those poor cats
, she thought,
they must be terrified. What was going to happen to them?
She needed to rescue them, but how? She needed Dirk.

Dirk was getting worried about Holly. Not that he cared what happened to the girl. Oh no. He was too tough and too old to get sentimental. And even if he did care a little, it was only because of the possible repercussions for him. It was one thing a cat going missing but a human girl was an entirely different matter. Besides, she had called him from home. The police only had to do a few checks and his number would come up, then they would start asking difficult questions, wanting to know his involvement. The police wouldn't leave it at a phone call either. They would want to actually come round and check out his office. Yes, it would only make life complicated if
anything happened to her. That was the only reason he found himself hoping that Holly was OK.

His thoughts were disturbed by the sound of the reluctant once-white van chug-chug-chugging its way down the path, turning right on to the road and disappearing noisily into the distance.

A few seconds passed while Dirk stared intently ahead and then Holly appeared, her arms outstretched, running towards him, shouting at the top of her voice, ‘Dirk! Help. Come now. You've got to help them.'

Amateur
, thought Dirk. If there was one thing he knew about being a detective it was that no matter how bad things got, you always kept your nerve. You didn't go screaming blue murder at the first sign of problem.

‘Dirk Dilly. You've got to save them!' she cried.

Cursing the girl, Dirk quickly checked that the coast was clear, spread his wings, jumped and glided across the road, down the tree-lined path, landing in front of her. He raised himself up on to his hind legs and said, ‘Shut up, will you. Do you want everyone to know we're here?'

But Holly just grabbed Dirk's paw and dragged him towards the river. He looked across the water.
The area was fairly rundown this far from the city. On the north bank was an old rusty boat that looked like it hadn't been used in twenty years. Behind it was a shabby collection of ugly grey apartment blocks overlooking some overgrown allotments.

‘What?' asked Dirk.

‘It's full of cats,' said Holly, pointing to the crate floating in the middle of the river. ‘Listen.'

Dirk listened and, sure enough, he could hear the desperate miaows drifting across the water.