The Case of the Stolen Film Read online

  It cut back to the presenter. ‘Lampton will also be directing his own son, Dante Lampton,’ she said, as the picture behind her showed the director standing next to a boy who looked like a scaled-down version of him. ‘And talking of keeping things in the family, can you guess who’s providing the soundtrack as well as picking up an executive producer credit? Of course, it’s Petal’s famous mother …’

  Holly switched channels. She hated Petal. The spoilt pop star’s daughter got everything she ever wanted and probably always would. Holly wasn’t jealous that Petal was making a film or that she was in Hollywood but she did envy her freedom.

  Hearing the door creak, she quickly switched off the TV and froze, blending with the sofa, but the footsteps that entered the room were too light to be Dad or Big Hair. Holly’s head reappeared as she turned to see a black cat with a white face and a black smudge on her nose padding into the room. She reached down and scooped her up.

  ‘Hello, Willow,’ she said, stroking her and noticing that her fur was cold. ‘You’ve been outside, have you?’ she said into her ear. ‘Lucky thing.’

  Willow miaowed in reply and Holly noticed something attached to her collar. It was a biro case but instead of a pen inside there was a rolled-up piece of paper.

  ‘What have you got here?’ asked Holly, removing the biro and pulling out the piece of paper. She unfurled it and read the note scrawled in capital letters:

  COME TO THE CAT FLAP

  Holly muted the TV and crept to the kitchen. She crouched down and looked through the cat flap to find Archie Snellgrove’s blue eyes blinking back at her, his unkempt dirty blond hair falling over his face.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked.

  ‘Can I come in? It’s really cold,’ said Archie, shivering as he spoke.

  Chapter 4

  Back in the safety of his top-floor office, Dirk sat back, his feet on the desk, sipping a cocktail of orange and blackcurrant squash. On the TV was one of his all-time favourite films, The Big Zero. It was one of the classic American detective films. It was the reason Dirk had become a detective in the first place. He blew a smoke ring and relaxed.

  ‘Mr Dilly, are you awake?’ whispered a shaky voice from outside his door.

  ‘Wide awake, Mrs Klingerflim,’ said Dirk.

  The door opened and his elderly landlady’s owl-like face appeared.

  ‘Sorry to bother you so late, Mr Dilly,’ she said.

  ‘I’ve always got time for you, Mrs K,’ he replied.

  ‘Oh, you are sweet,’ said Mrs Klingerflim, removing her thick glasses and wiping the lenses. Dirk noticed how old and fragile she looked without them. She put them back on and said, ‘That’s better, now I can see you.’

  For years, Dirk had assumed that Mrs Klingerflim was so blind that she thought he was human. It had come as a complete surprise to learn that she knew not only that he was a dragon, but his exact subspecies, due to having spent years dragon-spotting with her late husband, Ivor. She had even helped write his definitive guide to dragons.

  ‘I was worried you might be sleeping,’ said the old lady. ‘My dear Ivor was a very light sleeper. He used to say that a whispering ant could wake him up,’ she said, shaking her head fondly. ‘I’m the complete opposite. An elephant with a foghorn couldn’t rouse me. Ivor used to wake me up by putting on Glen Miller records at full blast. That was on my old gramophone, of course. These days it’s all electronological music played on computers, isn’t it? CDs and empty threes and whatnot. It’s funny how things change. I imagine one day we’ll be able to stick our fingers up our noses and music will start playing.’

  ‘Sorry, Mrs K, did you want me for something?’ replied Dirk, assuming that she hadn’t popped in to give him her theory on the future of music production.

  ‘Oh yes, I’m sorry. Things fly in and out of my head like paper aeroplanes sometimes,’ she said. ‘Would you mind checking the cellar? There’s a funny noise. I’m worried we might have rats in there or something. I’d go down myself but the steps are very steep and the doctor says I shouldn’t take any unnecessary risks at my age, what with my knees and ankles.’

  On the TV, two men were watching a burning building.

  ‘Hold on, my favourite line is coming up,’ said Dirk.

  ‘I used to love the movies,’ said Mrs Klingerflim. ‘What’s this one about, then?’

  ‘They’re brothers who run a detective agency. That was their office. You find out later that the one on the right, Chuck Tanner, paid someone to burn it down, but we don’t know that yet,’ said Dirk.

  There was a close-up of the man, his craggy face reflecting the flickering yellow light from the fire. As he spoke, Dirk said the line along with him.

  ‘You realise, Joe, that everything we worked for over these past ten years has just gone up in smoke? Let’s go get a bagel.’

  ‘Brilliant,’ said Dirk, following Mrs Klingerflim out of the room and down the stairs.

  ‘This is very kind of you,’ she said.

  As usual, Dirk was careful to make sure his scaly skin didn’t knock off the photos that lined the wall. He glanced at them as he slowly followed Mrs Klingerflim down and noticed a picture of his landlady when much younger, standing in front of a large rock, smiling at the camera. She had her arms linked with a man who had a wide grin, deep dimples and kind eyes.

  ‘Is this Ivor?’ he asked, realising that, after all his landlady had told him about her husband, he didn’t even know what he looked like.

  Mrs Klingerflim turned round and climbed back up one stair. She pulled the picture off the wall and squinted at it. Like a number of others, it had a scratch across it. She turned it around and read the back at arm’s length.

  ‘Oh, that’s right,’ she said, ‘that was one of our little holidays. They were happy days. I do miss him, Mr Dilly.’

  Dirk felt uncomfortable. He wasn’t used to human feelings. Things were simpler for dragons. What family connections existed were easily severed. Dragons didn’t fall in love or get married. Even mothers didn’t hang around for long.

  ‘So, the cellar,’ he said awkwardly.

  ‘Yes, the cellar,’ said Mrs Klingerflim, pulling herself out of her thoughts.

  They continued in silence to the bottom of the stairs and round the corner to the cellar door. Dirk pushed it open and looked down.

  ‘I can’t hear anything,’ he said.

  ‘It comes and goes,’ replied Mrs Klingerflim.

  ‘I’ll go and have a look. Where’s the light switch?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s on the wall, but it won’t do you any good. The bulb’s blown. I’ve been meaning to change it but the doctor said I shouldn’t be standing on chairs and things with my hips.’

  ‘No problem, I’ll make my own light,’ said Dirk, opening his mouth to breathe fire.

  ‘I’d rather you didn’t,’ said the old lady, ‘only there are a few things with sentimental value down there, and I fear they may be rather flammable. I’ve found you a torch.’

  She handed him a black plastic torch. Dirk switched it on and headed down the cellar stairs.

  In the cellar, he swung the torch around. There were boxes full of notebooks and scraps of paper. He picked up a notepad from under a curved paperweight and flicked through it. It was full of sketches of dragons.

  ‘What is all this stuff?’ he shouted up the stairs.

  ‘It’s Ivor’s notes for the book. I know it’s silly but I couldn’t bear to throw them away.’

  Dirk stopped at a page with a line drawing of a dragon with hundreds of thin spikes covering its back. At the bottom of the page Ivor had written: Californian Desert Dragon – 1973.

  ‘Can you hear anything now?’ called Mrs Klingerflim.

  ‘Nothing yet,’ said Dirk. ‘What sort of noise was it?’

  ‘It sounded like a kind of scratching.’

  Dirk placed the notepad back on the pile and looked around.

  ‘There it goes,’ said Mrs Klingerflim.
r />   Dirk listened. Sure enough, the old girl’s eyesight might have been failing but her hearing was fine. There was a quiet scratching coming from beneath a faded wooden dressing table in a dark corner of the cellar.

  Dirk moved quietly to the dressing table and gently eased out the bottom drawer. He was bracing himself for rats. Dirk wasn’t a big fan of rats, but the pair of eyes was too big to belong to a rat and the skin was scaly rather than furry.

  ‘Hi, Dirk,’ whispered Karnataka Cuddlums, his unreliable friend.

  ‘Have you found anything, Mr Dilly?’ called Mrs Klingerflim.

  Dirk looked down at the Shade-Hugger’s brown head inside the base of the dressing table.

  ‘It’s just as we thought,’ he shouted. ‘A rat.’

  Chapter 5

  Archie looked freezing.

  ‘I can’t open the door,’ said Holly. ‘They’re alarmed. You know how serious they are about keeping me in.’

  ‘I could climb in through a window,’ he suggested.

  ‘The whole place is shut up like a prison. You have to go home,’ insisted Holly. ‘If they find you here now, they won’t let you visit any more.’

  ‘I can’t go home,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’

  Archie stared back at her stubbornly. Holly could tell that he wasn’t going to answer her question but over the short time that they had known each other she had learnt to trust him.

  ‘Are you telling me that they’ve locked this place up so tightly that even the great Holly Bigsby can’t get round it?’ said Archie, with a challenging smile.

  ‘Well …’ Holly smiled back. ‘Stay there,’ she said, letting go of the cat flap and making her way up the stairs.

  As it happened, Holly had worked out a way around her parents’ precautions. She had no intention of carrying it out. It was just something to do. But as long as she could get Archie in and out unnoticed, Dad and Big Hair would be none the wiser.

  At night Big Hair kept the keys on her bedside table. Last week, Holly had overheard her and Dad arguing about it.

  ‘But, Bridget, what if there’s a fire?’ her dad had said. ‘Isn’t it a bit dangerous?’

  ‘The most dangerous thing in this house is that daughter of yours,’ she had replied. ‘It’s time to rein her in unless you want a delinquent on your hands.’

  Holly had wanted her dad to defend her, but as usual he just said, ‘I suppose you’re right, dear,’ and went back to the newspaper he was reading.

  ‘And I’ve come up with a way to help you remember the alarm code.’ Big Hair had lowered her voice. ‘I’ve put the number into your mobile phone.’

  ‘Very clever, darling. Good idea,’ he replied, without looking up from his paper.

  Big Hair had looked pleased with herself. Then she said, ‘Shouldn’t you be doing some work?’

  ‘Er …’ Dad shifted uncomfortably. ‘Brant has employed me more in an advisory capacity. He said he would let me know when he needed me.’

  Holly had felt her blood boil, knowing full well that Brant Buchanan had only employed him to reveal the whereabouts of a secret government weapon. Now the billionaire had successfully stolen and used the weapon, Dad just sat around reading newspapers.

  Holly’s plan was to sneak into Dad and Big Hair’s bedroom, remove the mobile phone from Dad’s pocket and the keys from Big Hair’s bedside table, deactivate the alarm, open the door and let Archie in, then reactivate the alarm, lock the door and replace the phone and keys. If she left a window unlocked, Archie could sneak out through the window in the morning and no one would ever know he was there. Simple.

  Holly darted up the stairs, careful to avoid the noisy floorboards, and across the landing to the bedroom door. She pushed it open and poked her head round the corner, ever ready to freeze and blend if either of them stirred.

  Her dad was snoring lightly. Big Hair was sleeping silently beside him. Holly tiptoed into the room. On a wicker chair on her dad’s side lay his discarded clothes. On the back of the chair was his suit jacket. Holly checked the trouser pockets but there was no phone. She slipped around to the other side of the chair. Her dad muttered something in his sleep. She froze, but he didn’t wake up so Holly carefully picked up the suit jacket and reached into the inside pocket, pulling out the mobile phone. She slipped it into her own pocket and moved swiftly to the other side of the bed.

  Big Hair was sleeping with her face disconcertingly near to where the keys rested on the bedside table. Holly approached. She noticed that Big Hair’s eyes were only half shut. For a moment she thought that she was awake, but she quickly realised that her eyes weren’t focusing on her and from the rhythmic breathing it was clear that she was asleep.

  Holly reached inside her T-shirt and pulled out the dragon claw she had taken to wearing round her neck, having threaded a piece of string through a hole in it. She knew it was risky to carry around proof of dragon existence but she wore it because it reminded her of the world that had opened up to her since meeting Dirk. She used it to hook the key ring and lift it from the table before clasping a hand over the keys to stop them jangling together. Big Hair let out a small moan. ‘Yes, we’re thinking of having it refurbished,’ she muttered in her sleep. Holly could feel her heart pounding against her chest and the blood rushing through her ears so noisily that she began to worry that if the keys didn’t wake Big Hair, the sound of her own fear would, but Big Hair rolled over, still asleep.

  Holly carefully placed the keys in her pocket and made her way across the room, out of the door, and down the stairs, where she pulled out her dad’s mobile and unlocked it. The screen lit up and she read:

  You have 78 missed calls

  She OK’d the message and searched through her dad’s contacts until she found Mr A Code.

  ‘Mr A Code,’ she said to herself, smiling. ‘Alarm code. Subtle!’

  Sure enough, Mr Code’s telephone number was only four digits long. She opened the cupboard under the stairs where the alarm was kept and typed the numbers into the keypad. The alarm let out a long beep to indicate that it had been switched off.

  Holly ran to the back door, unlocked it and opened it.

  ‘Under five minutes – not bad,’ said Archie, looking at his watch.

  ‘Shh,’ hushed Holly. ‘Go to the front room.’

  She shut the door behind Archie and locked it before following him into the room.

  ‘Do you know how much trouble I’m in if we’re found out?’ she said.

  Archie reached into his pocket and offered Holly a jelly bean.

  ‘No thanks,’ she said.

  ‘Sorry. I had nowhere else to go.’

  ‘Stay here,’ she said, unlocking a window. ‘I’m going to put everything back then I’ll come back down again.’

  ‘You want help?’ offered Archie.

  ‘It’s easier alone. I’ll be back in a second,’ replied Holly, slipping back out into the hallway, up the stairs and into the bedroom.

  This time she did everything in reverse, replacing the keys on the bedside table first then crossing the room and dropping the mobile phone into the jacket pocket. She turned to leave but a buzzing noise stopped her. It was the phone vibrating, rattling against the wicker chair. Her dad murmured in his sleep. Scared that it would wake him up, Holly reached back inside the pocket and lifted it out, to turn it off. On the screen were three words that made Holly’s blood run cold.

  Brant Buchanan calling

  She hit the cancel button. The screen now read, 79 missed calls. She felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked around to see her dad standing behind her, staring angrily at her.

  ‘Holly, what on earth are you doing?’ he whispered.

  Chapter 6

  Dirk raised a claw to his lips to indicate to Karnataka to stay quiet.

  ‘Do you want a cup of tea, Mr Dilly?’ called Mrs Klingerflim from upstairs.

  ‘Yes, please,’ he responded. ‘Two sugars, please, Mrs K.’

  He waited until he heard th
e old lady shuffle away to the kitchen and switch on the radio before addressing the Shade-Hugger.

  ‘This is interesting behaviour for the Captain of Dragnet,’ he said in a hushed voice, ‘or have the councillors finally seen sense and sacked you?’

  ‘Sacked me?’ whined Karnataka. ‘They’re talking about giving me a special commendation.’

  Dirk couldn’t help but smile. ‘All this time you’ve spent on the wrong side of the law and it turns out you’re better suited to working for the right side,’ he said.

  ‘I know,’ said his old friend, with a shrug. ‘Who’d have thought it?’

  ‘So you’re an honest dragon these days, are you?’ Dirk asked sceptically.

  ‘I’m doing the job well,’ insisted Karnataka.

  Dirk gave his old friend a look of disbelief.

  ‘Well, of course, being Captain there are still plenty of opportunities to make an extra bit of gold to … you know … supplement my wage.’

  Dirk smiled. ‘I’m relieved. For a minute there I thought you’d gone all respectable on me,’ he said.

  ‘Come on, it’s not just me – every Drake in the Dragnet is looking for a backhander.’

  ‘No wonder you fit in so well,’ said Dirk.

  ‘Look, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t go shooting your mouth off about certain things.’

  ‘You mean like the time you stole the council’s Welsh gold reserves?’

  ‘Exactly. I’m a changed dragon.’

  ‘I find that difficult to believe, since I currently find you in my landlady’s cellar with your head jammed inside a cheap Edwardian dressing table. What are you doing here?’

  ‘I came to find you. The rock brought me most of the way but these human settlements have concrete foundations. You ever tried talking to concrete? It’s a very one-sided conversation, I can tell you. So I had to claw my way through. Give me a hand, will you?’

  ‘My heart bleeds. You shouldn’t be here,’ said Dirk.