Mrs Biggs called the vet and discovered that Malcolm and Stanley were fine – physically, at any rate. According to her we couldn’t possibly leave them there overnight – all dogs are terrified of vets, she assured us. The mental distress Malcolm and Stanley would suffer would be appalling. She wasn’t going to allow it. And neither were we. Mum, Graham and I were despatched on a Canine Rescue Mission. Our goal? To retrieve the shih tzu and deliver them safely into Mrs Biggs’s care.
The rescue mission was easy enough. The little dogs were ridiculously pleased to see me and Graham, and pathetically grateful to be taken away from the Big Bad Vet. They trotted along at our heels, tails held high, all the way back to Mrs Biggs’s house.
When we got there, we discovered we had another task to complete. We had to go to Mumsiewumsie’s house and collect Malcolm and Stanley’s personal possessions: food, treats, toys and beds.
“I need to get the tea on,” protested Mum. “It’s getting late.”
But when it came to Canine Welfare, the usually mild-mannered Mrs Biggs had an edge of steel. “It won’t take more than five minutes,” she said firmly. “She lives at forty-one Leeds Street. It’s only round the corner. Her neighbour’s got a key – he’ll let you in. Go on, dear. The poor loves won’t settle otherwise.”
Mum looked at her watch. Her stomach rumbled noisily and mine and Graham’s joined in. We sounded like a chorus of frogs. “Graham and I can do it, Mum,” I offered. “You get started on the food while we nip over. We don’t need to go through the park – we can cut through the side streets. We’ll be perfectly safe.”
Mum wasn’t happy, but she was hungry. We all were. Very. “OK, then,” she sighed. “But be quick and no hanging about anywhere. Take my mobile just in case. Give me a call if you need me.”
Mrs Biggs had underestimated the length of time it would take for us to reach Mumsiewumsie’s house. It was a good ten-minute walk, and once there we had to stand on her neighbour’s doorstep for ages while he found the key and then bored us to death by telling us how dreadful it all was and how dangerous drivers should be imprisoned or at least have their driving licences taken away from them and if he had his way no one under the age of thirty would ever be permitted behind a steering-wheel. He fixed Graham with an accusing look. “I bet it was a young man in that car. Dangerous, they are. Reckless. Unreliable. Shouldn’t be allowed.” It seemed very unfair: Graham is hardly the mad, reckless, daredevil type – and besides, he can’t drive – but he didn’t protest. There didn’t seem to be any point.
It was another twenty minutes before we got inside the house, and then we had to find everything on Mrs Biggs’s list. Mum called me on the mobile in a panic. As I reassured her that we hadn’t been murdered, I surveyed the front room. Malcolm and Stanley’s puppy photos were on the mantelpiece. In fact, pictures of the dogs adorned every available inch of space: Malcolm and Stanley on the beach; Malcolm and Stanley in the park; Malcolm and Stanley at Christmas; Malcolm and Stanley sharing their first birthday cake; Malcolm and Stanley sitting in high-chairs, eating their Sunday dinner.
When Mum had finished worrying, Graham and I searched the house for the dogs’ gear. It wasn’t hard to find. Malcolm and Stanley’s names were hand-painted on the rims of two delicate bone china food bowls in the kitchen. They were neatly embroidered across two enormous floor cushions in the bedroom. They even had their own little velvet winter coats hanging up in the hall, their names picked out in diamanté studs.
“Well at least they won’t be needing these,” I told Graham. “It’s far too hot for coats.”
“True,” said Graham earnestly. “But they may need their swimming trunks. I expect they’re around here somewhere.” He shot me another of his blink-and-you-miss-it grins.
We gathered up everything we thought Mrs Biggs might find useful, including a carrier bag full of the most expensive individually foil-wrapped meaty chunks money could buy.
“Well, we were right about one thing,” I said as we pulled the door shut behind us. “She treats them like her children.”
“Spoilt children,” said Graham. “I don’t have a hand-painted cereal bowl, do you?”
“No. Or a diamanté-embossed velvet coat.”
We dropped the key back through the neighbour’s letter box and headed home. “What do we reckon?” I asked Graham. “Do we still think she might have killed Gabbie Robinson?”
“I must admit, I find it hard to picture her cold-bloodedly striking Gabbie Robinson over the head.”
“Same here. And what about the car accident? It was a deliberate attack,” I said confidently. “Someone drove into her, I can just feel it.”
“It could be a coincidence,” Graham pointed out. “I gather that the number of hit-and-run incidents is on the increase.”
“Two dog owners attacked in less than a week? No … something weird’s going on. They’ve got to be connected. In which case, Mumsiewumsie’s off the hook as far as Gabbie’s murder is concerned.” I stopped to readjust my load. Malcolm and Stanley’s stuff was extremely heavy. “The car that hit her had a dog guard across it. You know, Dermot O’Flannery had one of those.”
“Along with hundreds and thousands of other people.”
“Yes, but he claims not to have a dog. He told us he’s more of a cat man. So why the guard?”
“It could be perfectly innocent. He could have purchased the car second-hand, for example,” suggested Graham. “It might not even have been his vehicle – it could be a staff car belonging to the TV station.”
“True.” I sighed. “Why would anyone hurt Mumsiewumsie? Do you reckon she might have seen something?”
“PC Black said she’d seen Kyle Jacobs leaving the park by the back gate. But that’s not possible, as we know.”
“So what reason could anyone have for wanting Mumsiewumsie out of the way? It doesn’t make sense.”
It was late but it was still hot and airless, and what with the armloads of cushions and bowls and food and toys, it wasn’t long before we were too puffed-out to talk. By the time we staggered up Mrs Biggs’s path we were faint with hunger. Next door, Mum had got the barbecue going, and as we arranged the cushions to Malcolm and Stanley’s satisfaction and unwrapped meaty chunks for their tea, the smell of chargrilled sausages drifted over the fence. I started drooling like Kyle’s hellhound.
“I called the hospital again,” Mrs Biggs told us as we left. “Poor Doreen’s got three cracked ribs and a dislocated shoulder. She’s concussed, too, but they say she’s sleeping quietly now. All things considered, it could have been worse.”
When did we finally manage to sink our teeth into our sausages, I couldn’t stop thinking about the accident.
Mrs Biggs was right. It could have been a lot worse. If the driver of that car had succeeded, Mumsiewumsie wouldn’t be sleeping quietly in intensive care. She’d be lying on a slab in the mortuary.
arresting
developments
In the morning, Mum accompanied me and Graham – and Bertie, Malcolm and Stanley – to the park. We hadn’t been there for more than five minutes when the TV crew arrived in the shrubbery. The police had removed their crime tape and Dermot was preparing to do his piece to camera. The make-up girl was dabbing at him with a powder puff and smoothing his hair into place. He was standing on the exact spot where Graham and I had found Gabbie’s body.
Now, like I said, Mum has Big Objections when it comes to us being involved in murder investigations, but these seemed to shrink into Such Tiny Little Objections That They Don’t Really Exist At All when Dermot O’Flannery was within sniffing distance. Mum headed for him like a beagle on a trail, and she wasn’t the only one. The TV star was attracting attention from all across the park. Even Grant Robinson, who was out walking Jessie again, was watching him.
Despite the make-up girl declaring him to be in a presentable condition, Dermot still checked his hair and teeth in a hand mirror before he started his piece.
“Friend or foe?
” he said earnestly to the camera. “Reliable companion or dangerous nuisance? Love them or hate them, the subject of urban dogs arouses great passions on both sides of the debate. And here, on this very spot, passions became so inflamed that they led to violence. This morning police charged local mother-of-two Kathryn Hughes with the murder of Gabbie Robinson.”
Gasps rippled around the onlookers. I glanced at Grant Robinson to see his reaction. He looked pained but not shocked – I suppose the police must have told him about it beforehand.
But as far as the other dog walkers were concerned this was major news. “Dios!” exclaimed the small Spanish woman, clutching Hamlet’s neck for support. Gertrude’s owner squeezed her so hard she started to yelp and wriggle. Ball Obsessed Collie Woman let out a low moan. Graham and I exchanged glances but didn’t say anything. We didn’t want Mum to remember her Responsible Adult duties and hurry us away.
The noise from the assembled crowd had been fairly muted, but it was enough to mean that Dermot had to re-record his bit. For the next take we were all ushered further away so no one could possibly be a distraction. We were elbowed aside by bigger, nosier people, and while Mum remained at the front of the group of onlookers, Graham and I ended up pretty much at the back. It would have been annoying if it wasn’t for the fact that Horrible Hoodie – aka Kyle Jacobs – chose that moment to make an appearance.
He was wearing his usual top and the dog was on its usual chain, but on this occasion it was sporting a badly torn ear. It had been stitched up, but there was no disguising the fact that it was a serious injury. The pair of them were a scary sight.
Graham shuddered and picked up Bertie. Malcolm and Stanley cowered behind his legs. But curiosity got the better of me. Mum’s attention was all on Dermot, so I turned around and smiled at Horrible Hoodie.
He did a kind of double take – I guess people didn’t often grin at him. “Hi.” I nodded towards his dog’s tattered ear. “Nasty cut,” I said sympathetically.
“Been in a fight,” he said.
“Oh? Does he do that a lot?”
“Nah. Soft as butter, he is. He only done it coz something went for ’im.” His voice was squeakier than I’d expected – rusty, almost – as if he didn’t get the chance to use it much. He glanced at Dermot. “What’s he doing here, then?”
“Breaking news,” I said. “They’ve arrested Kathryn Hughes. You know, that young mum?”
“Oh, her.” He grinned wickedly. “She done it, did she? She was a right old cow.”
I changed the subject. “Did you get one of those poo packages through your door too?”
All of a sudden Kyle looked both extremely shifty and extremely amused. “Yeah, course I did.” He sniffed loudly. “All got one, didn’t we?” He was trying but failing to hide a malicious smirk. I threw the smallest of Significant Looks at Graham. I could see he was thinking the same as me: Kyle was lying. At that moment I’d have sworn that not only did he not get one, but that he was responsible for posting the bags in the first place. His eyes had virtually admitted as much.
“One?” I said. “Mrs Biggs got two. The second one had writing on it.”
“Did she?” He looked puzzled. “Writing? What did it say?”
“Die.”
“You what?”
“Die. That’s what it said. Didn’t you get a second one too?”
“No. Yeah. I… Course I did.” He fell silent.
Mum was still fixated with Dermot, but at any second she might turn round to check on us and then my conversation with Horrible Hoodie would come to a sudden end. I had one more important question to ask.
“Did you see anything the other night? I mean, when Mrs Surf— Gabbie Robinson was killed?”
“What?” He was startled by my change of tack. “What you on about?”
“Well, you were there in the shrubbery, weren’t you? Before you came back past us. Did you see anything odd?”
“I weren’t,” he said hotly, fixing me with an angry stare. “I come straight through the side gate. I weren’t nowhere near them bushes.”
It was really odd. There could be no doubt at all that he was lying through his teeth. We’d seen him going in there ourselves! But if I hadn’t known that – if I hadn’t watched him with my very own eyes – I’d have sworn that he was telling the truth.
Once she’d heard about Kathryn Hughes’s arrest, Mum decided to relax her self-imposed minder duties. After Dermot had finished his report and climbed into his car to leave, Mum suddenly realized she had A Million and One Better Things To Do than walk one reluctant Pekinese and two overweight shih tzu. She went home, leaving me and Graham to exercise the dogs.
“I reckon Horrible Hoodie posted those packages, don’t you?” I asked.
“He certainly had the appearance of a guilty man,” Graham agreed grimly. “I’ve never seen anyone look so shifty.”
“How did he know everyone’s addresses, though? I mean, we’d have noticed if he’d followed us home, wouldn’t we? He’s not exactly the kind of person you can miss.”
Graham shrugged as if the answer was obvious. “There are other ways. You had to give Mrs Biggs’s address when you picked up Bertie’s eye-drops, if you recall. One would only have to sit in the vet’s waiting-room and listen to obtain that kind of information.”
“Oh … yeah, I see. I wonder why he did it, though? No one seems to like him much. Maybe he was just getting his own back.”
Graham nodded. “The packages may have been his idea of a joke; something that came into his mind after the encounter between him and Kathryn Hughes. If so, it was just a rather malicious prank. Nasty, but not deadly.”
“Mmmm,” I murmured. Something was tickling inside my head. I was juggling the various bits of information we’d read about Gabbie Robinson on the Web. Judging a dog show … dealing with cruelty cases … and then there was that investigation that had been described as “ongoing”.
Kyle’s dog. A mastiff, with a tattered ear.
“What did you say mastiffs were bred for?”
“They were attack dogs,” said Graham. “For use in battle. And in peacetime I think they were used for bear-baiting, dogfights, that kind of thing.”
“Dogfighting! Gabbie was investigating something like that! And Kyle’s dog has a ripped ear…” I stopped and looked at Graham. “What do you know about dogfights?”
Graham frowned. “Not a great deal,” he confessed. “It was once socially acceptable but it’s been illegal for years. People still do it, though. Some like it, strange as that seems. And there’s a lot of money involved, what with the gambling and so on.”
Kyle’s face swam before my eyes. That nasty smirk when I’d asked about the packages … yes, he seemed exactly the kind of person who would regard dogfights as light entertainment.
“You don’t think Gabbie knew something about him, do you?” I said. “He looks the type to be involved in something really dodgy, don’t you reckon?”
“It’s perfectly possible,” agreed Graham. “In fact, it seems quite likely to me. After all, we already know he has a criminal record. And if Gabbie knew something incriminating about him, it would have put her in a very dangerous position indeed.”
fight club
The trouble was, we knew full well that Kyle Jacobs couldn’t have killed Gabbie. We’d both seen him go into the shrubbery. But then he must have turned around, because he’d come back past us before Jessie had run off and Gabbie had gone in pursuit. Kyle Jacobs had been in full view when Gabbie was being bashed over the head.
“It was weird, though, him turning round,” I said. “Why would he do that?”
“There could be a perfectly simple explanation. He could have changed his mind about where he wanted to walk.”
“Or there could have been a reason for him wanting to be in full view at the crucial moment…”
“What do you mean?”
“If he knew what was going to happen to her, he would have wanted to make sure no one
suspected him,” I said.
“So why did he go into the bushes in the first place?” asked Graham.
“I’m not sure.” I considered the matter. “If he’s involved with dodgy dogfights … well, it wouldn’t be just him, would it? I mean, you couldn’t do something like that on your own. There must be a whole gang of them.”
“An accomplice,” mused Graham. “Yes, that seems reasonable.”
“And maybe Kyle was the only one who knew Gabbie by sight. Perhaps he pointed her out to the attacker. Someone who was already in the bushes, waiting for her.”
My theory was taking shape nicely, so I ignored the odd feeling I’d had that Kyle had been telling the truth when he’d said he hadn’t been in the shrubbery. I didn’t want to be distracted from my train of thought. “So we’re probably looking for a complete stranger…”
“The mysterious Mr X,” said Graham. “Find him and the murder is solved.”
We strolled on quietly while I thought back to the evening of Gabbie’s murder. It was strange that we hadn’t noticed anyone, but then no one seemed to have seen anyone unusual. The police wouldn’t have arrested Kathryn Hughes if there had been any other suspects, would they? And unfamiliar faces did get spotted: look at what had happened each time the film crew turned up. Poor Dermot O’Flannery had nearly been flattened by the crowd that had gathered to look at him.
Graham and I had slowly walked the three dogs all around the park and were coming back towards the side gate when we heard a peculiar noise coming from the shrubbery. It was halfway between a growl and a yelp, and for a moment I thought an animal was lurking in the undergrowth. Then I realized that whoever was making the sound was not only human, but suffering from some sort of Extreme Emotion. Sadness? Anger? It was difficult to tell. Graham and I looked at each other. As one we dropped to our hands and knees and crawled under the bushes so we could get closer. Intrigued, Bertie, Malcolm and Stanley followed.
From behind a large hydrangea we saw Grant Robinson kneeling on the ground exactly where his wife’s body had been found. His arm was around Jessie, his face turned into her neck, and he was muttering into her fur. He had his back to us, so we couldn’t see his expression. But we could hear what he was saying clearly enough.
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