The Case of the Missing Cats (4 page)

‘Today is the stakeout.'

The sobbing noise stopped instantly and Holly said, ‘Stake-out. Cool! Wow, where are we going?'

‘But that's it,' said Dirk, a tad suspicious of Holly's instant recovery. ‘Then you leave the detective work to the dragon, OK?'

‘Absolutely,' said Holly and, as if sensing his suspicion, she looked away and wiped a tear from her eye. ‘You won't regret this, Mr Dilly,' she said.

‘I've got a feeling I might,' replied Dirk.

Dirk was regretting his decision, but he had said it now and if there was one thing that all those years of being a detective had shown him, it was that if your word was no good, then nor were you. However, he was beginning to wish that, just this once, he had made an exception to the rule. The girl had an endless line of annoying questions. ‘What do you eat? Where were you born? How long have you lived in London? Has anyone ever seen you before?'

He batted each one off with a non-committal grunt. The less she knew the better. He hadn't even told her about the dragons he had seen stealing the cats. He figured he could take her out today as he had
promised and then she would leave him alone.

‘How do you avoid being seen? Can you turn invisible?' asked Holly, finding it difficult to mask her excitement.

‘Invisible, no,' replied Dirk. ‘We avoid being seen by taking the high road. Now shut up and climb on my back.'

Holly clambered on. His back was hard like armour, but as she climbed on she accidentally kicked him in his soft, green underbelly.

‘Ow,' he grumbled. ‘Watch what you're doing. I'm not a bouncy castle. Hold on tight.'

Holly squeezed her arms tightly around the dragon's neck.

‘Noh thah tight,' Dirk said in a strangulated whisper.

‘Sorry,' said Holly, loosening her grip.

Dirk checked that the coast was clear then pulled the blind up and threw open the window.

‘Try not to make any noise,' he said, leaping out, with Holly clinging on to his back. They landed on the roof across the road from his office and Holly surveyed the rooftops of London.

‘Wow,' she exclaimed loudly in Dirk's ear, ‘this is brilliant.'

‘Be quiet! Do you know what would happen if we were seen?'

‘Sorry,' she said more quietly.

Dirk leapt to the next roof.

‘Would they put you in a zoo?'

‘A zoo? Put me in a zoo? I'd like to see them try. Hold on, this is a big one.'

He soared high into the sky and landed on an office block, scampered along the flat roof and jumped to the next building.

‘What would happen if you were seen, then?' asked Holly.

‘Rats. Window cleaners,' said Dirk, turning and changing direction. ‘We'd better take the long route.' He leapt to another nearby rooftop and then another. With each jump he stretched out his wings, enabling him to glide to the next building without his footsteps landing so heavily as to be heard below.

‘What would happen if you were seen?' Holly persisted.

‘Stay very still,' he said, coming to a very sudden halt on a rooftop. Before she could ask why, Holly heard a clattering mechanical sound getting louder and louder. A police helicopter flew towards them. She looked down at the dragon and to her surprise
saw that Dirk's red back was the same colour and pattern as the rooftop upon which he was sitting. He was still there, breathing below her, his wings by his side, his eyes, looking furtively ahead, and yet he was, well, roof-coloured. The helicopter flew overhead, unaware of the dragon below.

‘I thought you said you couldn't turn invisible,' she said.

‘That's not invisible,' replied Dirk. ‘That's just blending.'

‘How do you do it?' she asked.

‘It's not that difficult,' said Dirk, standing up on all fours, returning to his natural colour. ‘You just have to stay very still and think like a roof.'

‘But what would have happened if you were seen?'

‘If humans knew that dragons existed?'

‘Yes.'

They continued on their journey. ‘There would be a war,' he said casually, ‘dragons against humans.'

‘But dragons are much stronger than humans, surely you'd win.'

‘Individually we're stronger, yes. But humans have weapons that can wipe out entire cities. I may have a tough back, but drop a nuclear bomb on me and see what good it does.'

Dirk landed heavily on a supermarket roof and Holly let out a small yelp and grabbed his ears tightly.

‘Ow!' said Dirk irritably. ‘Ow and sh!'

‘What about Mrs Klingerflim? She knows you're a dragon.'

‘Mrs Klingerflim can't see further than the end of her own spectacles. Why else would she think you could be my niece?'

They were winging their way eastward. Holly sat up, relaxing a little. ‘How many dragons are there in London, for example?' she asked.

‘Look, kiddo, it's bad enough that you've seen me. I'm not answering any more questions. I said you can come with me today, then you can let me get back to doing my job.'

‘Well, I didn't think that dragons existed at all until this morning.'

‘You never wondered about the Loch Ness monster?'

Holly gasped. ‘Why? Does it really exist? Is it a dragon?'

‘No,' said Dirk, laughing. ‘There's nothing in Loch Ness except fish and water.'

‘Oh,' said Holly, disappointed. ‘What about Saint George?'

‘You call him Saint George. We just call him George the cold-blooded murderer. He killed a defenceless pregnant mother. Very heroic. Nice guy to choose for your patron saint,' snapped Dirk angrily.

‘I didn't choose him. Don't have a go at me,' she replied.

‘Hey, look, if you've had enough . . .' Dirk stopped on a sloping roof. He lowered his body by the chimney top and said, ‘You can get off here and I can go about my business on my own. You run and tell your mummy and daddy that you met a dragon and he told you that the Loch Ness monster is just a rubbish story made up by scared humans. Go on, get off.'

‘There's no need to be like that. I only pointed out you aren't very friendly, but it's to be expected, you don't have much company. Nor do I. Lots of people don't think I'm very nice either.'

‘Don't you care?'

‘Not really,' replied Holly. ‘I know what I'm really like and if other people can't be bothered to find out then I can't be bothered to care what they think.'

Dirk craned his neck round to look at the girl. She looked stubbornly back at him.

‘You're not like most humans,' he said. ‘All my
clients ever care about is what other people think. They don't want it getting out that their wives are having affairs or that their business has gone under or that their daughters have run away from home. They want it kept quiet, brushed under the carpet.'

‘Well, I just want to know what's happened to Willow. She's only a cat and can't really look after herself.'

‘OK, then, let's find out.' Dirk stood up and they continued their journey in silence.

They came to rest on a flat factory rooftop across the road from the warehouse where he had seen the mysterious dragon take the cat. Lying in the yard outside the warehouse was the drainpiping that Dirk had ripped from the wall.

‘Are we there?' asked Holly.

‘Yes, get off,' he replied.

She clambered off his back and stretched her arms out. ‘You're not very comfortable.'

‘I'm not very friendly, I'm not very comfortable. It's a wonder you're here at all.'

‘I told you, I . . .'

‘Want to find your cat. Yes, yes, yes. Well, this is how we find her. We wait here and watch.'

‘OK,' said Holly and she sat down. ‘What are we watching?'

‘That building.'

For an hour, they stared at the warehouse, but nothing happened. No dragons landed on the roof. Nobody went in or out of the building. Dirk was expecting Holly to moan about being bored. In fact, he was hoping she would. That way he could be shot of her. People always thought detective work was exciting but in reality most of it was like this. Sitting still, watching nothing happen slowly. He glanced at her, but she showed no signs of getting tired. Her eyes stared at the building as unblinkingly as they had an hour ago.

She caught him looking at her and said, ‘What?'

‘Nothing,' said Dirk

Suddenly a loud BANG rang out.

‘Get down,' shouted Dirk, diving on top of Holly, pulling her to the floor.

‘Get off,' she said.

‘Don't be stupid. Somebody's shooting.'

‘No, they're not,' she said, struggling beneath his heavy belly.

‘Listen, kiddo. I've been in this business long enough to recognise a gun shot.'

‘Then, how do you explain that?' she said, wrestling herself free and pointing down to the street. Dirk raised his head slowly and cautiously and saw a dirty once-white van, emitting more smoke than an angry Firedrake on a cold day. It rattled unhealthily down the road then with another loud BANG came to a stop outside the barbed-wire surround.

‘That was close,' Holly laughed.

‘Very amusing,' said Dirk, looking very unamused.

Two men stepped out of either side of the van.

‘I think we need a new van, boss,' said the short, fat man.

‘This mode of transportation meets all of the vehicular requirements of our current engagement, vis-à-vis the transportation of undisclosed items from hither and inevitably to thither,' said the taller man pompously.

‘Come again?'The fat man looked perplexed.

‘It still works.'

‘Oh yeah, right,' the other man said.

Holly noticed that Dirk's ears had pricked up and he was staring intently at the two men.

‘Who are they?' she asked.

‘Suspects,' he replied through gritted teeth.

The taller man took a key from his pocket and opened the large padlock that kept the gate shut. The shorter, fatter man drove the van into the yard, climbed out and entered the warehouse. He emerged carrying a large and, judging by the redness of his face, very heavy wooden crate, with the words
HANDLE WITH CARE
printed on the outside.

‘Flippin' 'eck, this is 'eavy, Arthur. What do you suppose they're all for, anyway?' asked the short, fat man.

‘Ours is not to reason why, Reg. Ours is but to do and die,' replied the man called Arthur before adding smugly, ‘Shakespeare.'

Reg dropped the crate into the back of the van, causing the forlorn vehicle to dip unhappily with its new burden.

‘I don't get poetry,' he said, leaning against the van. ‘I can't see why people can't just say what they mean. I mean, a poet will go on about his lady's eyes, saying they're like windows or stars or chocolate truffles or something, but really they're just eyes and if they're like anything it's other eyes because they're all eyes. You can't change what something is, can you?'

‘What a fascinating thesis. Thank you, Reg. Tell me, are you familiar with the word ignoramus?'

‘Course,' said Reg. ‘It's a big lizard. My uncle Phil had one. But it bit him on the bum, so he shot it. Made a right mess. Aunt Dot weren't too pleased with him on account of it being a new carpet.'

‘That's an iguana, Reg.'

‘Oh right. What's that you said, then?'

‘You, my friend, are an ignoramus. Now shut the doors and let's go. You know how particular Mr G is about the schedule.'

‘You ask me, there's something funny about Mr G.'

‘I didn't ask you to do anything other than lift and drive. Come on.'

‘How come we never seen him, then?' Reg said,
slamming the back doors of the van and walking round to the front. The two men climbed in.

They pulled the doors shut and their voices cut out.