Catnapped! Read online

  “OK,” said Dirk. “I’ll find out what he’s up to, but are you sure you want to know? In my experience secretive husbands are very rarely organizing surprise parties for their wives.”

  “I need to know,” she said, “before it’s too late.”

  Dirk took down the details.

  Fast forward four days and Dirk had never followed anyone less suspicious. Every day was the same. He kissed his wife goodbye and walked to the station. He always bought a copy of the Telegraph from the newsagent in the station, picking up the newspaper in his right hand and handing over the correct change with his left. He caught the 8:11 train to Liverpool Street then travelled one tube stop to Moorgate, where he exited and walked to work. He took the same route every day, spoke to the same security guard for the same amount of time, took the same lift to the same floor, hung his same coat in the same place and sat at the same desk until lunchtime when he bought the same sandwich (ham and pickle on brown) from the same sandwich shop.

  At half past five every day, he did the whole journey in reverse, reaching home at 18:24 on a good day and 18:38 on a bad one. After dinner, he went upstairs to his study while his wife watched soaps on her own in the living room. He kept a blue roller blind pulled down in the study window, so Dirk couldn’t see inside.

  Today was Friday and Dirk was expecting the same, so it came as a surprise when at half past five, instead of grabbing his coat, the professor remained at his desk for another hour until everyone else had left the building and the sun had gone down, then slipped out of a side door. In his hand, he carried a large silver case. He walked purposefully to the station where he hailed a black cab.

  The sky was dark, the air cold and moist. Dirk moved to the edge of the building, spread his wings and glided to the next rooftop, landing in a forward roll then springing up again. He followed the taxi to the outskirts of the financial district, where the buildings looked older and grubbier. It stopped by a disused redbrick hospital, which had worn brickwork and boarded-up windows. Dirk landed on the roof and peered over the edge.

  Professor Rosenfield paid the taxi driver and watched him drive away. A man at the other end of the road sold watermelons outside a nearby mosque. Rosenfield glanced around then entered the old hospital.

  Dirk found a door on the roof, shouldered it open and entered, pulling it shut with his tail and following a flight of stairs down.

  He moved quickly and silently through the gloomy building, stealthily slipping down the corridors, listening for footsteps. Dirk wasn’t easily scared but there was something spooky about the old, dark and deserted hospital corridors.

  He heard the professor’s voice coming from the floor below.

  “Hello?” he called out. “Is there anyone here?”

  Dirk noticed a light coming from a hole in the floor. He crouched down and put his eye to it. He could see Professor Rosenfield enter what looked like an old operating theatre, carrying a torch. He looked nervous.

  “Hello?” said Rosenfield again. “Are you… Are you there?”

  “Do not come any further,” said a deep baritone voice. Dirk couldn’t see who it belonged to.

  “I can’t see you,” said the professor.

  “That’s the idea,” replied the voice. “Is that it?”

  “Oh yes, yes. This is it.” He held up the silver case.

  “And you are sure no one suspects anything?”

  “Positive. The AOG project is top secret but I can’t see what use it is to you. I told you, I can enter co-ordinates but you can’t operate it without—”

  The deep voice interrupted him. “That is not your concern, professor.”

  “What about your side of the bargain?” asked the professor.

  “It’s in the parcel,” said the gravelly voice.

  The professor walked to the middle of the room, where he picked up a brown package.

  “Open it,” said the voice.

  The professor did so excitedly, like a child opening a Christmas present. Dirk couldn’t see what was inside, but he saw the professor’s face light up and a tear form in the corner of his eye. “My goodness,” he gasped. “Is it real?”

  “Yes, and there’ll be more once you have reprogrammed the machine. The co-ordinates are also in there.”

  The professor looked up vacantly, then blinked and said, “This is marvellous.”

  “Thank you, Professor Rosenfield. Now go home and I will contact you shortly with details of where you should go next,” said the voice. “Please make sure that no one knows of this.”

  “Gosh, no.”

  Rosenfield tucked the parcel under his arm, picked up the silver case and left the room.

  Dirk kept his eye on the room below, wanting to catch a glimpse of the owner of the deep voice. He shifted slightly to get a better view, waiting for him to step into sight, but no one appeared. Then he heard a noise and raised his head, but not quickly enough. A sharp pain shot through his skull and he slumped to the ground, knocked unconscious.

  About the Author

  Gareth P. Jones is a Blue Peter Award-winning children’s author of over 40 books for children of all ages, including The Thornthwaite Inheritance, The Considine Curse and Death or Ice Cream. His series fiction includes Ninja Meerkats, Adventures of the Steampunk Pirates, Pet Defenders and Dragon Detective.

  Gareth regularly visits schools all over the world as well as performing at festivals. He plays ukulele, trumpet, guitar, accordion and piano to varying levels of incompetence. He lives in South East London with his wife and two children.

  STRIPES PUBLISHING LIMITED

  An imprint of the Little Tiger Group

  1 Coda Studios, 189 Munster Road,

  London SW6 6AW

  www.littletiger.co.uk

  A paperback original

  Originally published in Great Britain under the title

  The Case of the Missing Cats by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc in 2007

  Text copyright © Gareth P. Jones, 2007, 2020

  Illustration copyright © Scott Brown, 2020

  Author photograph © David Boni

  Additional images used under licence from Shutterstock.com

  eISBN: 978–1–78895–263–7

  The right of Gareth P. Jones and Scott Brown to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work respectively has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed upon the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.