‘Prison?’
Harper shrugged. ‘It happens. What you said about Maria ties in with something I noticed. See how “Pantanal” is misspelled on Ramon’s biography? Pantanel. It should have three As. It happens twice more – once in his blog, and another time in an interview with a local paper. Chances are, the reporter was in a hurry and asked him to spell it. Either Ramon can’t spell for toffee, or he’s never been anywhere near the Pantanal swamp turtles.’
Harper scanned her notes. ‘I also listened to an interview with Ramon. The blogger asked about his family in the US. Ramon didn’t really answer. He just said, “Some ties go deeper than blood.”’
Kat stared at the words scrawled on Harper’s yellow pad. ‘What did he mean?’
‘I’m not sure, because the next moment he was talking about Bluebell Bay. He said he came here because he liked the thought of living in a place where dinosaurs once walked and barn owls still fly.”’
‘Ghost owls again,’ murmured Kat.
‘What about them?’
‘There’s a picture of a white barn owl in Ramon’s kitchen. Some people call them ghost or death owls. There’s also an owl icon on the laptop he lent me.’
Harper cupped an ear. ‘I’m sorry – I thought you just said you had his laptop.’
‘I did.’
‘And you were planning to tell me this when exactly?’
‘I didn’t think it was important,’ protested Kat. ‘He only lent it to me so I could learn Move 58. That’s the Way of the Mongoose technique I was telling you about. There’s nothing else on the computer. Ramon erased all the files.’
‘You said there’s an owl icon,’ Harper reminded her. ‘Icons are shortcuts to files or programs.’
‘Maybe, but it’s password-protected.’
Harper gave her a cheeky smile. ‘We’ll see about that.’
Kat bounced off the chair. ‘Forget it. You’re not touching it. I’m going out to exercise Charming Outlaw. I have a new game for him.’
Harper said slyly, ‘Does the new game have whiskers and a tail?’
Kat went red. ‘How did you know?’
‘Because a white-and-ginger paw keeps poking out of the holdall on the back of your bike. I can see it through the window, parked against that cherry tree.’
‘She’s a stray,’ admitted Kat. ‘Her name’s Hero, and she’s a gorgeous calico colour. But she has one chewed ear and a kink at the end of her tail where it’s been broken, and she’s an older cat, and nobody wants those, even when they’re perfect, and—’
‘Are you trying to break my heart into a million pieces?’ Harper said unhappily. ‘I’m sure she’s lovely, but Dad is allergic.’
‘But she’s an outdoor cat. If Charming Outlaw takes to her, I think she’d help him as much as he’d help her. Most of his problems stem from him being lonely. If he had a stable companion, he’d be so much happier.’
‘Sorry, Kat. Dad would have a fit.’
Kat pretended to be looking for something in her rucksack so Harper wouldn’t see her blink away tears. ‘I understand. I shouldn’t have brought her without checking with you first.’
But Harper hadn’t finished.
‘Course, if Nettie finds a feral cat hanging around the stable yard when she goes out to feed Charming Outlaw tomorrow morning, what can we do? We’d have to look after the cat then. Nettie would never let a stray go hungry on her watch. Nor would Dad. And if Charming Outlaw likes her she’ll have to stay.’
There were footsteps in the hallway. Kat whispered, ‘Thanks, Harper. You won’t regret it.’
She left her rucksack within reach of Harper’s chair. ‘For the next hour, I’ll be busy with Charming Outlaw. If someone sneaked a peak at Ramon’s computer, I’d never know.’
Nettie came in as Kat was strapping on her riding hat. ‘Rather you than me, girl. Mind that rascal doesn’t kick your head off. The Pocket Rocket’s in a right old mood today.’
‘Maybe it’s because he’s lonely?’ mused the American girl as if the thought had only just occurred to her.
Pulling on her boots in the hall, Kat smiled to herself when Harper added, ‘One of these days, Nettie, we really should think about finding darling Charming Outlaw a friend.’
16
Trojan Horse
Harper fired up Ramon’s computer and double-clicked on the death owl icon. When the password box appeared, she ran through the most obvious options: birthdate, pet’s name, football teams, Password and 123456. She wasn’t expecting a hit, but it was worth a try.
She didn’t feel guilty about trying to hack into a private account. If she could use what she knew to help Ramon, she was going to try everything in her coding toolbox.
Thanks to Jasper, one of her father’s students at Yale, that was safer than it sounded. Professor Lamb’s head was mostly in the Triassic period and he could barely send an email, but he was also a father – a fiercely protective one.
As soon as he’d learned that Harper had a passion for coding, he’d asked Jasper to teach her how to keep secure online. Jasper was a painfully shy teenage prodigy with glasses as thick as a snorkel mask, but he worshipped Professor Lamb. He took this responsibility seriously.
As a result, Harper could whizz around cyberspace as if she wore an invisibility cloak. Among friends, she kidded about hacking, but Jasper had taught her that it was no laughing matter.
Online, she followed a strict code of conduct. She never, ever engaged with real people, and she didn’t believe in ‘breaking and entering’. She only moved through ‘open doors’.
Harper’s dream was to become a cyber-security expert or environmental lawyer when she grew up. She figured that if, while she was young, she practised slipping undetected in and out of the websites of companies who were mean to their employees or dumped toxic waste in the Antarctic, it could be an important weapon in her future fight to help innocents trampled on by the cruel, greedy and powerful.
She’d never expected to be using her untested skills a month after her thirteenth birthday.
At the same time, she wasn’t surprised. Harper loved quaint, sparkly Bluebell Bay, but it fairly bubbled with intrigue.
‘If we’re going to solve this mystery while I’m stuck on the sofa in a cast, you’ll need to be my eyes and ears around town,’ she’d told Kat earlier.
So Kat had described Edith and her ghastly son, Reg, and a peculiar scene in the deli, where she’d gone in search of Sergeant Singh.
According to Kat, three young soldiers had been trying to cheer up Roley George, head chef at the army base.
‘He was down in the dumps because he’d been to his aunt’s funeral in Newcastle, and it had rained so much he’d caught a cold,’ Kat explained. ‘They said he was devoted to her and visited her every chance he got. The soldiers were trying to convince Margo to brighten his day by giving him her famous lasagne recipe for the Royal Tank Regiment’s anniversary dinner next weekend.’
Harper scoffed. ‘What kind of chef can’t cook lasagne?’
‘It isn’t just any lasagne. It’s a family secret, passed down for generations.’
‘Did she give it to him?’
‘Eventually. You could tell she didn’t want to. She only felt sorry for him because of his aunt and his cold. What clinched it was when he told her that a super-famous VIP will be attending the dinner. It’s rumoured to be Prince William.’
‘I love Prince William!’ said Harper. ‘Although Harry is much more fun.’
‘Margo loves Prince William too. Chef Roley told her that if her recipe’s a success he’ll give her all the credit, and it’ll put the Jurassic Fantastic Deli on the map. She gave him the recipe then and there. Everyone cheered, and Chef Roley gave her a hug. It was sweet. Then, suddenly, the laughter stopped and the deli went quiet.’
Harper was agog. ‘What happened?’
The way Kat had described it, the deli door had swung open and in stomped Colonel Axel Cunningham, the base commander, like
a gunfighter sweeping into a saloon in a western.
‘All he did was growl, “Good morning,” and the place cleared as if he’d lit a stick of dynamite,’ Kat reported. ‘The only people left were Margo, the waitress, the guinea-pig lady, Chef Roley, Colonel Cunningham and me. The colonel isn’t big, but he made the deli feel small. He’s like a walking, talking granite statue. The waitress trembled so much that she spilled his coffee and had to get him another. Before I could escape, Margo told everyone I was the vet’s daughter and about Paws and Claws. She even said I was taking care of your horse, Edith’s retriever and Ramon’s parrot. She was trying to be kind, but it was embarrassing. I was desperate to get away, so I just blurted out that I was looking for Sergeant Singh. Then they all clamoured to know why.’
Harper felt for her. ‘What did you say?’
‘It was hard to get a word in because Margo and the guinea-pig lady freaked out as soon as I mentioned the police. They were sure I’d lost Ramon’s parrot or set fire to Avalon Heights. I had to invent a lame excuse about wanting to ask Sergeant Singh a homework question. The whole time the colonel was glaring at me as if he eats children alive with a side order of nails. Then he barked, “Isn’t it school holidays now? Why are you doing homework?” ’
‘Poor you,’ sympathized Harper. ‘What a beast.’
‘Chef Roley came to my rescue and told them that these days homework happens all year round. While they were distracted, I shot out of the door. Five minutes later, Sergeant Singh found me.’
Harper had taken an intense dislike to Colonel Axel Cunningham without even meeting him. How dare he terrorize Kat? When she got a minute, she was going to do some digging on him.
Now, she turned her attention to Ramon’s computer, beginning with the browsing history. In the past twenty-four hours, Kat had searched for Way of the Mongoose videos, the BBC news and a radio play on an SAS mission. No surprises there.
The earlier search history had been erased, but there was a year-old bookmark for a pest-control company. A red-eyed rat with vampire teeth loomed out of the page, accompanied by shivery type.
ANXIOUS? CALL VANQUISH!
Had Avalon Heights been overrun by vampire rats? If so, Harper supposed they’d been vanquished.
After checking for cookies, she signed into her own email account and downloaded a Trojan horse virus on to Ramon’s Surface Book. It wouldn’t do it any harm, and it would give her route access to it, allowing her to see if anyone other than Kat was using it remotely. The owl icon bothered her. She couldn’t shake the feeling it was watching her.
For added security, she stuck a privacy sticker over the webcam.
Her phone pinged. She had an app set up to alert her to any activity spotted by the Trojan horse. Harper was startled to see that in the two minutes since she’d installed the virus, her Trojan horse had already picked up movement – from another Trojan horse.
Had Ramon put it on the Surface Book to protect Kat, or had someone been tracking him before his disappearance? Who was that someone? A fraudster? A rival bird watcher? British or US Intelligence?
Kat’s riding hat bobbed past the window. Harper gulped. If she was caught red-handed installing a virus on Ramon’s computer, it could put a strain on their brand-new friendship.
Fortunately, Nettie called out and Kat was diverted to the kitchen.
Harper was torn. If she told Kat about the second Trojan, she’d have to admit how she’d found out about it. If, however, she left her own stalking horse on Ramon’s computer, she’d have access to it. She could try to find out who was tracking it – a stranger or Ramon himself. She’d be keeping Kat safe.
When Kat came in with a warm apple pie wrapped in foil, Harper was practising Mandarin characters with a fountain pen. She looked up with a smile.
‘How did it go with Charming Outlaw and Hero?’
Kat grinned. ‘There was a lot of hissing and snorting, but I think it’ll work out.’
Harper put down her pen. ‘I’ve been thinking. How about giving our opponent – whoever we’re up against in our quest to find Ramon – a code name? We could call him or her Arch Villain Number One.’
Kat looked at her. ‘We’re really doing this, aren’t we? We’re really going to investigate what’s going on at Avalon Heights.’
It was only then that it hit Harper that their mystery train was about to leave the station. If she didn’t leap off now, it would be too late.
‘We’re really doing this,’ she heard herself say.
‘I’ll report back tomorrow,’ said Kat. ‘Same time, same place.’
That evening, Kat was dead to the world by 9 p.m. She slept the dreamless sleep of the good, blissfully unaware that she’d attracted the notice of one of the UK’s most deadly men.
Shortly after midnight, Arch Villain Number One turned into Summer Street. He chain-smoked in the shadows as he stared up at the dark windows of number 5.
No human noticed him come and go. He was as stealthy as a death owl.
But Tiny saw him. Growling softly, the Savannah cat watched from the dormer window until the assassin crushed out his cigarette and melted into the night. Tiny glanced at the sleeping girl. Springing on to the futon, he snuggled up as close as he dared.
Kat slumbered on. Tiny kept one eye open.
17
Hat Trick
‘You’ll never guess what’s happened!’ Edith called from the sofa when Kat returned from a beach walk with Toby on Saturday morning.
Kat hung the lead on the coat rack. ‘I think I might. Bluebell Bay is buzzing with the news about Prince William being guest of honour at the Tank Regiment’s dinner next weekend. It’s supposed to be a secret, but Mum says it’s all anyone can talk about. The woman who runs the sailing club told her that Will – and Kate, if she joins him – will bring tourists flocking to Bluebell Bay!’
‘Really?’ Edith pursed her lips. ‘I can’t abide the royals. Except for the Queen. I do have time for the Queen.’ She added hopefully, ‘Kat, help yourself to a lemonade if you have a minute to spare. I wasn’t referring to Prince William. There’s been a new development in our case.’
Kat was confused. Had Edith somehow found out about the Wolfe & Lamb investigation? Did she want to join them?
‘Our case?’
‘The Oxford Street Phantom Mystery, of course.’
‘Oh, that one.’ Kat was relieved. ‘Yes, I do have time, and I’d love a lemonade. Thanks, Edith.’
The sharp, cold fizz was exactly what she needed. Her fossil-hunting expedition with Toby had been fun but tiring. While sipping her drink, she studied a photo on the fridge of Reg and his giant pumpkin. There was, Kat thought uncharitably, a similarity between the two. They were both orange, for one thing.
‘What’s the startling development?’ she asked Edith as she flopped down on the sofa.
Edith handed over Ramon’s computer. Kat had left an audiobook playing for her while she was out walking Toby. She’d convinced herself that Ramon wouldn’t mind. He and Edith were friends, after all. Added to which, Edith was proving a quick learner on the laptop. She’d spent most of the past hour surfing the net.
‘Breaking news on the BBC,’ Edith announced. ‘They’ve found a hat on Oxford Street.’
‘Isn’t that like saying they’ve found a bee in a hive, or a fish in the sea?’ Kat said lightly. ‘Aren’t there trillions of hats on Oxford Street?’
She was finding it hard to be serious. She’d been on cloud nine ever since she’d woken to discover a Tiny-shaped hollow in her duvet. By then, the Savannah had gone AWOL, but there was no doubt he’d slept there.
Kat was elated. It was the first sign that she might one day get through to him. She’d left some chicken treats on the window ledge to say thanks.
There were other reasons to be cheerful too. Harper had messaged to say that Nettie’s reaction to finding a stray curled up in the Pocket Rocket’s stable had been positive.
N told Dad that Charming Outlaw�
�s taken a shine to the cat. Long as she keeps away from my father and his allergies, she can stay. I’ve named her Hero!
Ha ha! xx
After breakfast, Kat had gone over to the animal clinic to play with Bailey. He’d objected so noisily to staying in the aviary that Dr Wolfe had allowed him to sit on the reception desk during the day. He loved greeting each new client. They were less sure about him.
‘By the way, is there anyone on board who knows how to fly a plane?’ he’d demanded as Kat walked in.
‘Please can he be my new assistant?’ asked a woman perched on a large suitcase. ‘Any bird that can quote from Airplane! is a star in my eyes.’
‘Tina!’ cried Kat, rushing forward to hug the veterinary nurse she’d last seen in London. ‘What are you doing here? If you promise to come and work with my mum in Bluebell Bay, I’ll ask Bailey if he’ll assist you on reception – at least until his owner comes home.’
No sooner had she wished it than it happened. When Dr Wolfe found that Tina Chung had quit her miserable job at Nash & Craw Premium Pet Care, she hired her on the spot.
Better still, Tina was going to move into their spare room until she found a place of her own. Kat hoped that took forever. Her mum was a first-class vet, but a hopeless cook. Tina, on the other hand, could rustle up Malaysian laksa and black-bean stir-fries with the best of them.
At Kittiwake Cottage, Edith broke into Kat’s happy reverie. ‘You don’t seem very interested in the Phantom. I suppose it’s daft of me to get caught up in these things. It’s not as if they’re any of my business.’
Something in the sag of her shoulders tore at Kat. She thought of the Glebe Gardens website, the residents smiling thinly over their poached eggs.
‘I’m extremely interested,’ she assured Edith. ‘And getting caught up in mysteries is not daft in the least. Me and Harper do it all the time.’
She tapped the screen and it came to life.
‘There’s the link,’ said Edith a little impatiently as Kat hesitated.
Her grandfather was on the front page again, being interviewed about cyber security. The prime minister, sour as last month’s milk, stood beside the Dark Lord.
Kat Wolfe Investigates Page 10