The Great Escape (20 page)

Also, Scott Bradley, the tabloid journalist that Ben had contacted, had written an exposé on his paper’s website, claiming to have snuck into the building disguised as a cleaner.
Photos of cats’ paw prints were featured in the article.

‘This is great,’ said Ben, as the four of them sat in his room, checking all the papers and watching the twenty-four-hour news channel. ‘I wish we’d thought of
that.’

‘Yeah, good idea,’ said Jake. ‘They would almost certainly have let you into the building. Who couldn’t mistake you for a midget cleaner?’

Ben narrowed his eyes. He’d been watching Max and picking up tips.

Millie was less enthusiastic about this story. ‘My footprints are probably there as well. I hope no one comes checking,’ she said, worried.

‘Shepard’s not going to set the police on a twelve-year-old girl . . . probably,’ said Jake. He thought for a moment. ‘Actually, maybe you should chuck the shoes
away.’

‘I can’t. My dad’ll notice.’ She looked ruefully at her incriminating feet.

‘Have we got any sandpaper?’ asked Ben.

‘Mmm, I think so,’ said Jake. Ben looked at him patiently. ‘Oh, I see,’ he added, and wandered off to find it.

‘Here you go.’ He handed it to Ben, who picked up Millie’s feet one by one and sanded the base of each shoe in a few small places.

‘What are you doing?’ Jake asked. ‘Those are Millie’s shoes you’re wrecking, you little monster.’

‘I’m not wrecking them. It’s just that if anyone did check, they’d have a different wear pattern from the prints they’ve got from the lab.’

Jake grinned. ‘Smartarse.’

‘Mum says you’re not supposed to call me that.’

‘If Mum was here, she’d call you that, too.’

By lunchtime, Edward Davies was outside the lab again, reporting that the staff had all left and the building seemed to have been shut up. Only the security man who had pulled
faces at Millie still appeared to be working there. Another journalist was at Playmatic’s head office in Milton Keynes.

‘It looks evil, that building,’ sniffed Max.

Playmatic still refused to comment on camera, but they had issued a statement which the man read out on air, saying they would never condone or practise any kind of animal testing.

‘Yeah, right,’ said Ben.

A third reporter was outside Arthur Shepard’s home, trying to get an interview from him, but he wasn’t there so they couldn’t get any comment.

Ben wasn’t surprised by this – he had spent some time trying to track Arthur Shepard down with no success. He had no mobile phone registered to him, or to his wife and children, that
Ben could discover. He had tried every one of his usual tricks, and some unusual ones too, but to no avail. He kept apologising to Max for being so unhelpful – they all knew every day that
went past would surely make it harder to find Celeste, and less likely that they would be able to rescue her. But none of them had any more ideas of where she might be. All they did have was the
hope that with so much public attention on him, he probably wouldn’t be moving Celeste anywhere or stealing any more cats, because he would surely be recognised.

They munched their way through every snack Jake and Ben’s parents had in the house as they watched more of the story on TV. A woman interviewed the journalist who’d taken the
pictures at the lab before it was shut down. He claimed that he had seen cat hairs all over the top corridor, and that he had removed some for testing. They had identified hair from at least eleven
cats. The news programme then showed the photo of Max that Ben had taken, saying there was little doubt this had come from inside the laboratory.

‘This is perfect,’ gloated Ben.

‘I think I could have done a better face,’ moaned Max.

Later that day, Vakkson issued a statement saying that Arthur Shepard hadn’t worked for them for some time and had rented the building for a private project. The cameras
outside Playmatic were now trained on several hundred protesters, who were accusing the company of being thieves, torturers and murderers. Playmatic issued another statement saying that this was
all a mistake and that they had never worked with Arthur Shepard. The tabloids went crazy and printed copies of the emails Ben had tricked from Arthur Shepard, and the picture of Max. Playmatic
called them fakes, but no one believed them. A journalist asked them what their secret Christmas toy was, if not anything to do with these missing cats. They produced a feeble-looking Frisbee
substitute that fooled no one.

Scott Bradley’s newspaper was now running a competition – if your cat had gone missing and had recently reappeared, it was worth asking it a few questions to see if it could talk,
because they were offering forty thousand pounds for an exclusive interview with one of the kidnapped cats.

‘Forty thousand pounds,’ said Jake hungrily, eyeing Max.

‘Not a chance,’ said the cat calmly. ‘They have all the evidence they need. What kind of publicity-hungry idiot would put himself up for public inspection?’

That evening, Millie had left her dad downstairs after dinner, hoping he didn’t think she was avoiding him. Max was lying casually on her chair, and she was sitting
reading a book, something she felt she hadn’t done in weeks. She was surprised by the phone ringing.

‘Turn on your TV right now,’ said Ben, and promptly hung up.

Millie flicked on the television. Max had opened one eye when the phone rang, a trick Millie longed to be able to do herself. They both watched as the screen came to life, hearing a familiar
voice before they saw the matching face.

‘Obviously, it’s been a very difficult time . . . ’ Millie looked at Max in horror, but it was true. There was Ariston, being interviewed by Patricia Forsyth on the news
programme. ‘Yes, of course, I do feel my feline rights have been violated,’ he was saying.

‘Oh no,’ whispered Millie. ‘What if he tells them about us breaking in? We could go to prison. Well,
I
could. Well, a young offenders’ institution. You’d
probably be sent to a home for criminal cats.’

‘Shh,’ said the cat, who was still watching the screen intently. ‘I think you are safe.’

‘How did you escape?’ asked the breathless reporter, her face an image of sympathy and admiration.

‘There are some things which must remain secret,’ said Ariston, sounding more pompous than ever. ‘But, suffice it to say that we would all still be in the laboratory if it
hadn’t been for my bravery and cunning.’

‘The cheek!’ said Millie.

‘I knew he couldn’t pass up the chance to say he was the hero,’ said Max. ‘You’ll be fine, Millie. None of the other cats will talk, I don’t think. None of
them would want this.’ He jerked his head at the television, where Ariston’s PR agent was explaining that his client had no more time for this interview, as he had to be at a photo
shoot in ten minutes.

Arthur Shepard’s house was now being watched by about twenty television crews. Eventually, his wife appeared on the doorstep and told them that he no longer lived with
her and their children, so could the media please leave them alone. She had no idea where he was nor, she hastily pointed out, did she especially care. This was apparently connected with the fact
that another tabloid had printed a story from one of the Haverham employees saying that they had had no idea what was happening on the third floor, but that Shepard was having an affair with his
secretary.

‘He didn’t seem the type to have an affair with anyone,’ said Millie, pulling a disgusted face. ‘I mean, urgh.’

‘Not urgh,’ said Max urgently. ‘
Aha
.’

‘Aha?’ She was puzzled for a moment, then her face cracked into a smile. ‘Oh, yes. Aha.’

And so the next morning Millie and Max went back to see Jake and Ben. Finally, they had an idea who might be holding Celeste.

‘It’s his secretary,’ said Millie, as she almost tripped into their hall.

‘Is it?’ asked Jake, alarmed. ‘Where?’ He looked out into the street, expecting to see a woman with a notepad and pencil hoving into view.

‘We think that’s where he’s got Celeste,’ said Max. ‘At his secretary’s house. They were having an affair.’

‘Really?’ said Ben, who’d come to find out what all the noise was about. ‘Urgh.’

‘I know – but it helps us, doesn’t it?’ said Millie. ‘I mean, we don’t think Celeste is at Shepard’s place. We know she wasn’t kept in the lab,
because that journalist went in and poked around, and he would have seen her. We know she wasn’t at the houses of his security men, because Max went and looked and couldn’t find any
sign of her.’

‘Celeste was not there,’ Max agreed.

‘I reckon they’ve gone away,’ added Jake. ‘I’ve been past their places a couple more times, and I haven’t seen anybody around, or even a car on the
driveway.’

‘So, surely it’s possible that Celeste is with this woman,’ said Millie. ‘It’s the best lead we have.’

None of them said it, but they were all thinking that it was, in fact, the
only
lead they had, so they had better hope it was good.

‘Do we know her surname?’ asked Jake, as they trooped upstairs.

‘No,’ Millie said. ‘She just introduced herself as Elaine to me, and they called her his secretary on the news. Someone must have got her full name by now, though.’

They waited patiently as Ben typed various combinations of words into a range of search engines.

‘No good,’ he said, annoyed.

‘Hold on,’ said Jake, and disappeared. He returned ten minutes later with a pile of that morning’s tabloids. ‘These guys make you look like an amateur, mate,’ he
said, dropping the papers on the desk.

They all began to pore through the articles, which were indeed full of extraordinary details, until Ben shouted triumphantly. ‘Elaine
Peters
,’ he said. ‘Now’
– he turned back to his computer – ‘where are you hiding, lady?’

Two minutes later, they were looking at her address. ‘Hold on,’ said Ben. ‘I’ll get us an aerial photo.’ He typed a few more words. ‘There,’ he said.
‘Ooh, she’s got a garden shed.’

‘What better place to imprison a cat?’ asked Max.

‘Exactly,’ said Ben. ‘Shall we go and get her?’

‘Hold on, hold on,’ said Jake. ‘No one’s going anywhere until we’ve got a proper plan.’

Ben wrinkled his nose in disappointment and Max hissed.

‘He’s right,’ said Millie, reaching over to Max and stroking his back gently. ‘We can’t just wander up to her front door, ask ourselves in, sneak into the garden
and steal back Celeste – always presuming that’s where she is,’ she added, trying her hardest not to tempt fate.

‘We could threaten her,’ Ben suggested cheerily, eyeing his water pistol again.

‘No,’ said Jake firmly. ‘No one is going to be threatened with guns, even ones that just squirt water. We could be arrested. We’ll have to be a bit more discreet. And a
lot more legal.’

‘Could we get over the fence to the back garden?’ asked Millie, scanning the aerial photo.

‘I think so,’ said Ben, looking regretfully once more at the water pistol. It was hardly worth having it at all. ‘She could see us, though, from the back windows.’

‘Hmm.’ Millie thought for a moment. ‘Not if we provide some sort of distraction at the front of the house. Who has the most innocent face?’

‘You,’ said Jake simply.

‘It can’t be Millie,’ Max pointed out. ‘They’ve met, remember? She knows what Millie looks like.’

‘Fair point,’ said Jake. ‘Then it’s Ben. That’s not saying much, by the way.’

‘OK,’ said Millie. ‘Ben provides the diversion, Jake and I steal Celeste. Max keeps a lookout. Agreed?’

‘I hate being the diversion.’ Ben looked sulky. ‘Why do I have to be a diversion?’

‘Jake was the diversion last time,’ said Millie soothingly. ‘You probably won’t even get chased by dogs.’

Ben looked even more disappointed at the prospect of not being chased by dogs, but there was really no alternative.

‘And we’ll need your bike,’ said Millie to Jake.

‘Er, OK,’ he said. ‘You remember it’s broken?’

‘Exactly,’ she said, and smiled.

‘It’s too big for him,’ said Jake critically, as they wheeled the injured bike through the streets. Max was once again hiding in Millie’s bag, to avoid
attracting attention as they walked along together.

‘I know,’ she admitted. ‘I don’t think Elaine Peters will notice, though. She didn’t strike me as much of a cycling expert.’

‘How long were you with her for?’ asked Ben, curious.

‘In total?’ she said. ‘About four minutes, I think.’

‘Oh, right,’ said Jake. ‘Well, you probably know her as well as anyone, then.’

Millie pulled a face. She knew it was a bit of a risk, but Jake wasn’t so much taller than Ben, and the bike was unride-able anyway. They were almost at Elaine Peters’s road, and it
was time for them to separate.

‘Are you sure you know what you’ve got to do?’ asked Jake.

Ben nodded.

‘Max?’ said Millie.

The cat jumped out of her bag and nodded too. ‘I’ll be at the front of the house,’ he said. ‘If I see any sign of Arthur Shepard, I’ll yowl like this.’ He
gave a blood-curdling cry.

‘Yes, that’ll do it,’ said Jake, jumping visibly. ‘It would certainly get my attention.’

‘And if anything happens to you,’ said Millie to Ben, ‘you have my alarm?’ She had a personal attack alarm that Bill’s overly cautious wife had given her when she
got her first bicycle, ‘just in case’, as she had rather unnervingly put it. At the time Millie had thought, rather ungraciously, that a set of lights would have been a more suitable
present, but the alarm, which could be heard up to a half-mile away, was something she was now delighted to give to Ben to make sure he could alert them if anything went wrong.

‘And we meet back here in fifteen minutes?’ asked Jake.

‘Yes,’ they replied as one, and looked nervously at each other.

‘Let’s go,’ said Millie.

She and Jake disappeared down a narrow lane which would take them to the fields at the back of Elaine Peters’s house.

Ben and Max, following at a discreet distance, and mostly under hedgerow, went the opposite way. Max settled himself under a large shrub a few houses up from their target. Ben looked around to
make sure there were no passers-by watching, although this was a small, residential street, and heaved his rather short legs onto the bike. He hoped that no one was looking out of a window to
notice that his feet didn’t come near to reaching the pedals and that his bike was crumpled beyond repair.