Kat Wolfe Takes the Case, Page 2

  Kat was hardly listening. She wished they’d never come. ‘I’m counting to three and then I’m going – with or without you.’

  ‘OK, OK – keep your wig on.’ But Harper stayed where she was, transfixed by the view.

  ‘One . . . two . . .’

  ‘Hey, what’s that?’ The telescope tilted sharply.

  ‘Don’t know and don’t care,’ said Kat, losing patience. ‘I’m leaving.’

  ‘There’s a dog. I think it might have fallen down the cliff.’

  ‘A dog? Let me see! Is it hurt?’

  Kat flew to Harper’s side and pressed her eye to the viewfinder. A brown-and-white blur was moving behind a gorse bush on the old cliff steps. She adjusted the focus, but the creature had lain down. All she could make out was an ear.

  She leaned over the railings in an effort to get closer to the steps that zigzagged down the cliff. The minutes ticked by with no further movement. ‘Do you think it’s climbed up on its own?’

  ‘I’m sure it’s fine,’ replied Harper, more with hope than conviction. ‘Probably scampering around Bluebell Bay by now, stealing sausages.’

  A howl of pain cut through the air. From that moment on, Harper knew that nothing short of a nuclear disaster would convince Kat to leave without the dog. Nor did Harper want her to. It’s just that there were two ways of rescuing it, and she was already sure that she was not going to like the Kat Wolfe way.

  ‘Kat, wait!’

  It was too late. Kat was already halfway down the fire ladder on the side of the deck. She ran along the cliff and leaned past the warning sign at the top of the crumbling steps.

  ‘There it is!’ she shouted over her shoulder. ‘Looks like a Border collie. Seems to be trapped. I’m going down to try to free it.’

  ‘Are you nuts?’ demanded Harper from the deck. ‘Those steps are closed to the public for good reason. Any second now, they might fall into the sea. And if the dog is hurt, it could bite you. What if it has rabies? Don’t move. I’m on my way!’

  Harper left the house via the front door and rushed to Kat’s side. ‘Let’s call your mum. She’ll know what to do.’

  ‘Mum will be operating now. By the time she gets the message and calls the fire brigade or whoever, it might be too late – especially if the dog is bleeding or severely dehydrated. In emergency situations, every minute counts.’

  ‘What about Sergeant Singh?’ persisted Harper. ‘If he’s not out chasing burglars, he could sprint up here and lend a hand.’

  Kat shook her head. ‘If the dog is nervous, more people will only make it worse. Harper, these steps have been shut for years. There are whole gorse bushes and hay fields growing up through the cracks. They’re not going to collapse in the next ten minutes. The quicker I go, the quicker I’ll be back.’

  Without waiting for a reply, she squeezed past the warning sign and started down the steps. She rounded the bend and was gone.

  Left alone, Harper suddenly felt fearful. What if Kat fell? Fifty metres below, the waves steamed up to the rocks with unnerving force. She tried to comfort herself with the knowledge that the cliff had stood for millions of years and survived marauding dinosaurs. It didn’t help. She kept envisioning Kat being crushed flatter than a tortilla by falling boulders.

  ‘Kat! Come back! Please, let’s call the emergency services!’

  Invisible, Kat responded in the calm, patient voice she used around frightened animals. ‘Harper, I’m close to the dog, so I’m going to go quiet in case I scare it. Don’t panic if you don’t hear anything.’

  Don’t panic if you don’t hear anything.

  Easier said than done.

  On the cliff below, Kat was nowhere near as confident as she’d made out. Even from a distance, she’d been able to tell that the collie was a stray. Her dull, matted coat stretched taut across her ribs as she struggled to her feet, growling. Spots of dark blood marked a crooked path down the steps to her present position beneath a gorse bush.

  The dog was in a desperate state. Though the late afternoon sun was still hot enough to fry an egg, she shivered constantly – a sign of fever and infection. Weak as she was, her hackles were raised. She was in attack mode.

  Winning over animals made lethal by pain and fear was Kat’s special gift, but soothing them took time, and time was not on her side. She’d have to fast-track a few dog-whispering techniques and pray they’d work before it was too late.

  The steps were uneven and broken in places. The tide was high, and the sea felt disturbingly close, ready to drag Kat under if she fell. The sooner she was back on solid ground, the better she’d feel.

  First, she had to prove to the collie that she wasn’t a threat, which she did by sitting on the concrete and hugging her knees. She closed her eyes, too. Waiting for a sign that it was safe to approach took all the patience she had.

  At last, she heard it – a desperate whine.

  Kat turned to find the collie slumped on her side, as if her brief show of defiance had drained her strength. She barely stirred when Kat stroked her head. A silver disc on her tatty collar gave her name: Pax.

  Kat blinked back tears when she saw the problem. Pax had caught her front paw in a rusty noose attached to a steel stake. The more she’d fought to escape, the deeper the wire had cleaved into her flesh. Kat saw that the collie also had lacerations on her side.

  She tugged at the stake, but it was embedded in the concrete and impossible to lift. She’d have to try to loosen the wire – a move that could get her bitten. Before she could attempt it, Pax surged at her with a savage snarl. Her hot breath seared Kat’s cheek.

  Kat reeled back, shocked. Though she’d had her fair share of nips and scratches, no animal had ever attacked her. It was only when Pax began barking that she realized the collie’s fury was directed, not at her, but at something in the ocean.

  A fiery light flared over the sea. The cliff seemed to shudder and there was an unholy rumble, as if an ancient monster had awoken in its underground lair. Kat and Pax were flung together and shaken like popcorn. Dirt and shredded gorse stung their skin.

  Then, suddenly, all was still.

  Kat scrambled to her feet. On the clifftop above, Harper was screaming her name. As Pax lay dazed, Kat whipped off the wire noose. The collie whimpered but didn’t snap at her. Swiftly, Kat bound the wound with one of her socks. Now all she had to do was persuade the dog to climb forty steps on three legs before the cliff disintegrated.

  ‘This is going to hurt, but you need to trust me,’ she told Pax as she helped her to her feet.

  The collie’s legs trembled with pain and effort, but she followed willingly enough, confirming what Kat had suspected: Pax had once been well trained and, most likely, well loved. She was a young dog. If they survived this, she might recover.

  Hunger and blood loss had, however, left Pax weak. Halfway up the cliff, she started weaving. Kat was breathless from trying to lift the collie from step to step. A hard knot of panic clamped her chest. Shale and churned-up roots kept pinging past them.

  What if they didn’t make it?

  ‘I’m coming down to help!’ shouted Harper.

  ‘NO!’ Kat almost screamed it. ‘Stay where you are in case you need to call the emergency services. Three on the cliff might be one too many.’

  Harper didn’t reply, and Kat knew what she was thinking: What if two on the cliff was too many?

  Twenty-one steps to go . . . seventeen . . . sixteen . . . fifteen . . . fourteen . . .

  Pax’s legs buckled, and she crumpled into a dead faint. The collie had given all she could. There was nothing left.

  An image of a firefighter popped into Kat’s head. If firefighters could carry towering or overweight humans using a ‘fireman’s lift’, surely she could do the same with a skinny collie. Kneeling, she slung Pax across her shoulders. Gripping the collie’s front paws in one hand and her back paws in the other, Kat began to climb.

  Thirteen steps. Could she do it in thirteen seconds? Would
it be quick enough?

  Twelve . . . eleven . . . ten . . . nine . . . eight . . .

  An orange life ring came bouncing down the cliff. Kat caught it and was relieved when Harper tugged the other end. ‘YOU CAN DO IT, KAT!’ her friend encouraged. ‘You’re SO close!’

  Seven . . . six . . . Kat paused. Her thighs felt as if they were being chargrilled by flamethrowers.

  ‘Don’t you dare give up!’ screamed Harper. ‘Your mum needs you! Tiny needs you! I need you!’

  Five . . . four . . . three . . .

  Harper grabbed her arms just as a crack shot across the last concrete step at the speed of a striking snake. One final heave, and girl and dog were on the clifftop.

  Kat scrambled to her feet. ‘Run! Run for your life!’

  It wasn’t possible. She was carrying the collie and the most Harper could manage was a fast hobble.

  When at last they were a safe distance from the edge, they looked back. Immediately, they felt silly. Nothing had changed. Avalon Heights was still standing. So were the cliff steps. There’d been no landslide or any other natural disaster.

  Far below, Bluebell Bay still basked sleepily in the sunshine: the high street thronged with shoppers, kids played frisbee on the harbour front and picnickers sunned themselves in the park.

  ‘Was any of the last hour real or was I hallucinating?’ asked Harper. ‘At one point, I thought I saw a humongous shark swimming past the cliff.’

  As she spoke, a seagull rose screeching from the roof of Avalon Heights. The cliff gave a soft, almost human, sigh and snapped off like a broken biscuit, plummeting into the sea. A bloom of white foam was all that marked its passage into the depths.

  The girls stared after it, stunned.

  Until that moment they’d managed to persuade themselves that what they’d done, though extremely risky, was not actually life-threatening. Seeing the sea swallow the steps Kat and Pax had just climbed, and the cliff edge Harper had been leaning over, left them under no illusion that they could have been swallowed up too.

  Harper stammered, ‘Y-you were just . . . I could have . . . We nearly died.’

  ‘Yes, but we didn’t,’ Kat said firmly. ‘That’s what counts. We’re still here and breathing.’ She hesitated. ‘Do you think we should say anything to my mum or your dad?’

  ‘Are you kidding? No! I mean, they’d only worry, right?’

  ‘Right. Why cause a fuss when we’re safe and sound.’ Kat shuddered. ‘In future, remind me to stay away from creepy, empty houses.’

  ‘And crumbling precipices,’ agreed Harper.

  Kat soothed the collie, who was beginning to come to. ‘It’ll all be worth it if we can save Pax. I think I saw a wheelbarrow behind the house. If we use it as a stretcher, we can get her to the animal clinic in record time. Just don’t mention where we found her.’

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s erased from my memory,’ muttered Harper, knowing, even as she said it, that this was purely wishful thinking.

  When the machine-gun clatter of helicopter blades woke Kat the next morning, her first, hopeful thought was that the Dark Lord might be swooping in for a visit.

  It wasn’t hard to see how her grandfather – aka Lord Hamilton-Crosse, the government’s Minister of Defence – had come by his nickname. Whenever he appeared on the news, his falcon face and unforgiving gaze tended to reduce even hard-boiled interviewers to stuttering imbeciles. Reporters forgot their questions. Opponents melted into blobs of dismay. Then there was his job, which was shrouded in secrecy. From what Kat could gather, her grandfather had enemies the length and breadth of the country.

  For a long time, he and her mum had been on opposite sides too. When Kat was born, he’d refused to accept that she was the daughter of his late son Rufus, who’d died while surfing a giant wave. Her grandfather had turned up at the maternity ward and accused Ellen Wolfe of being a gold-digger, desperate to get her clutches on the billion-pound fortune of the Hamilton-Crosses. Anything further from the truth was difficult to imagine, yet it had taken him eleven years to admit he was wrong, and longer still to say sorry.

  Had Kat and her mum not moved to Bluebell Bay, their paths might never have crossed again. Fortunately they did, because when Kat and Harper’s first investigation turned deadly, he and Kat had saved each other. More than that, they had developed a grudging respect for one another. Not that either of them would ever dream of admitting it.

  ‘See you when I see you, Kat Wolfe,’ the Dark Lord had said vaguely when they’d last met in the spring.

  ‘Not if I see you first,’ Kat had quipped.

  At the time, she didn’t think he’d heard her. Now she wondered if he had. Certainly, she hadn’t seen him since. That was the trouble with kidding about caring. You didn’t always get a chance to take it back.

  She knew from the newspapers that in recent months he’d made a number of official visits to the nearby army base. Never once had he dropped in to number 5 Summer Street for so much as a cup of tea. Yes, he was busy and important, but it still hurt. And, last week, a long-promised weekend at Hamilton Park – her grandfather’s famous stately home – had been postponed yet again, hours before they were due to leave.

  ‘Don’t take it to heart, honey,’ Dr Wolfe had implored, giving Kat a hug. ‘Your grandfather’s dying to see you. It’s just that, as per usual, the prime minister has scuppered his plans. If it’s any consolation, your grandfather has promised to make our stay extra special when it does finally happen.’

  It didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to deduce that Dr Wolfe had invented the last part, but Kat loved her mum for trying to let her down gently and for choosing to believe, despite all evidence to the contrary, that the Dark Lord was full of warm, grandfatherly thoughts. Dr Wolfe always saw the best in everyone – even him.

  The helicopter was back and had now been joined by a second. They whirled so close to Kat’s attic bedroom that Tiny, who’d been purring on her chest, spotty tail swishing, flew into the wardrobe at the speed of a cheetah on the scent.

  When Dr Wolfe had applied to manage the Bluebell Bay Animal Clinic, a condition of the job was that the Wolfes adopt Tiny, an F1 Savannah cat requiring a wild animal licence. A traumatic kittenhood had left him scarred. It had taken a great deal of love and patience for Kat to win his trust. Even now, strangers and loud noises terrified him. All Kat could see of him was one green eye, glaring through a crack in the wardrobe door.

  ‘Why is a BBC News helicopter trying to land in your garden?’ Harper asked plaintively from the sofa bed, startling Kat, who’d forgotten she’d stayed over. ‘How’s a girl supposed to get any sleep?’

  ‘BBC News?’ Kat sprang off her futon, belatedly discovering that the exertions of the previous day had left her feeling as if she’d been pummelled by grizzly bears. She sat down, head spinning. It all came rushing back then: the collapsing cliff, the race against time to get Pax to the animal clinic and the relief of watching her mum’s skilled, tender hands stitching up the collie and administering antibiotics and fluids. Pax had spent the night in the clinic kennels recovering from her ordeal. Kat couldn’t wait to see her.

  She recalled something else: the fiery light she’d seen arc across the sea, like a rocket launcher, and the shadow of an immense shark, spotted by Harper. Pax must have seen it cruising the shoreline too. Was that why she’d barked with such ferocity?

  As the helicopter did another fly-by, Harper’s phone made music in her rucksack. She fumbled for her glasses. ‘What is this – Grand Central Station? It’s the crack of dawn on Sunday. Is Bluebell Bay on fire? Have aliens landed on the roof of the Armchair Adventurers’ Club?’

  Kat giggled. ‘Oh, I hope it’s an invasion of little green men. We need a new mystery for the holidays.’

  She opened the window and leaned out into a sparkling morning. The two helicopters were now circling the beach. A crowd was gathering near the harbour.

  A terrible thought occurred to Kat. What if someone had been attacked by the
shark Harper had seen skulking in the depths?

  The largest marine predator ever spotted on the Jurassic Coast had turned out to be an innocent eight-metre basking shark, hungry for plankton. A vegan, like her! But what if a great white had swum into town? How would Bluebell Bay cope with its very own Jaws?

  Before that thought could pick up speed, Harper interrupted by passing over her phone. ‘Look at this message from Dad.’

  Hey, kid. Want to be part of something historic? Get yourself to the beach PRONTO. Don’t even stop to brush your teeth. Tell the guards that you and Kat are my assistants x

  ‘What guards?’ asked Kat. ‘Does he mean lifeguards?’

  Harper was pulling on shorts and a sweatshirt. Her face was alive, sleep forgotten. ‘All I know is that my dad’s the most laid-back man in the universe. If he says to get to the beach in a rush, we should fly. If history’s being made, I want to be there. Don’t you?’

  They raced down to the harbour on their bikes, pausing only – at Kat’s insistence – to check on Pax in the kennels. She was asleep, bandaged paw twitching as she dreamed.

  ‘You’ll be glad to know she’s doing beautifully,’ said Tina Chung, the veterinary nurse who lodged with the Wolfes. ‘Better still, we’ve found her microchip. We’ll reunite her with her owners as soon as we can. They’ll be thrilled to have her home.’

  Kat tried to feel thrilled too, but couldn’t quite manage it. She was already in love with Pax, whose name meant ‘goddess of peace’, and had been secretly hoping that the collie could stay with them forever. As she and Harper cycled through the streets of Bluebell Bay, Kat told herself off for being so selfish. If Tiny were lost, and some other girl found and decided to keep him, she’d be devastated. It was right and proper that Pax should be returned to her own family. Kat would just have to get over it.