Kat Wolfe Investigates

by Lauren St. John

  ‘If Kat’s happy to do it, I’m happy to let her,’ Dr Wolfe assured him.

  Her phone rang and she excused herself to answer it.

  Ramon zipped the parrot into his carrier. After putting his contact details in Kat’s phone, he pressed his hands to his heart.

  ‘There’s no way for me to express my gratitude. Thanks is quite inadequate. I’ll call you later with instructions for getting into the house.’

  Kat smiled. ‘Don’t fret about Bailey when you’re gone. I’ll give him lots of treats and love. Hope your business trip goes well.’

  He picked up the parrot carrier, hesitated, then put it down again.

  ‘Kat, if it would help you learn the Way of the Mongoose, you’re welcome to borrow my spare Surface Book while I’m away. It’s a small but powerful notebook computer. I’ll leave it in the bread bin, under the rye. I’d recommend Move 58. All are excellent, but in a life-or-death situation Mongoose masters consider that to be the most effective. They call it the “Get Out of Jail Free Card”.’

  Before Kat could respond, he was gone.

  10

  Private and Confidential

  The path to Avalon Heights was steeper than Kat had expected and wound unnervingly close to the cliff edge. She was grateful for the guard-rail. Though ice cold and slippery, it felt solid, which counted for something on a day when mist made a mystery of most of Bluebell Bay.

  Halfway up, a scarlet sign reared out of the gloom: DANGER! SLIP HAZARDS! SUDDEN DROPS! TRIP HAZARDS! FALLING ROCKS! CRUMBLING CLIFFS! Beside each warning was a yellow triangle in which stick figures slipped or tripped to their doom, or were simply crushed to death by boulders.

  Kat was nervous, and the sign didn’t help. She was thankful when the path brought her, at last, to the steps of Avalon Heights. Up close, its steel, glass and sharp angles gave it the air of a futuristic fortress. Kat fought the urge to run away. She’d begged to be allowed to pet-sit, and now she had to see it through.

  Her main concern was that she wouldn’t be able to get in. The door had a sophisticated locking system. Ramon’s instructions had been complicated. For added security, the fourth number of the six-digit code moved forward by one digit every day. Seven became eight, and so on. Kat had visions of locking herself out. Bailey would slowly starve. Ramon would arrive home to find his beloved parrot with his toes in the air.

  As it turned out, no code was needed. Kat was reaching up to tap it in when the door slid open.

  Her first thought was that Ramon’s trip had been delayed or cancelled. She hoped it was the former. That way, she’d get the best of both worlds. He’d show her where everything was, and she’d still get her parrot-sitting cash. With luck, he’d have time to teach her another Mongoose move before he left.

  She rang the bell, then knocked for good measure. ‘Ramon? Anyone home?’

  Only the wind answered.

  The unlocked door made Kat uneasy. Ramon had been obsessive about his fancy security system. He’d even asked her to memorize the numbers.

  ‘Tell no one,’ he’d said in a hushed tone, as if imparting nuclear codes. ‘Write nothing down.’

  She was about to knock again when she noticed a pebble trapped in the sill, preventing the door from closing. Ramon must have left in such a hurry that he hadn’t noticed. She flicked it away. Before her feet could take over and carry her back down the hill, she stepped boldly into the hallway.

  Freed, the door hissed shut. Bolts shot into place.

  ‘Hello?’ called Kat. ‘It’s the pet-sitter.’

  Silence.

  In Kat’s favourite mystery novels, these scenes often ended with the hero – i.e. her – finding a dead body on a Persian rug.

  There was a rug on the stripped wood floor, but it was fluffy and white. Pleasingly, it was also corpse-free.

  At that point, she forgot to be scared because she was too busy gaping at the house. The living area was straight out of a Hollywood film. The furniture was wall-to-wall designer luxury in matching shades of charcoal, white and smoky blue. A vast flat-screen TV was suspended from cables. Wildly expensive gadgets blinked on every surface.

  The ceiling was two storeys high, and the entire front wall was glass. Beyond it was a deck with a hot tub and Ramon’s telescope. In clear weather, the bay would be a sparkling wonder of blue. Today it was more like whipped cream. Far below, the waves whispered.

  A faint crunch made Kat snap round.

  What she’d thought was an oversized black lampshade was actually a covered cage. In her excitement, she’d forgotten the reason she was there.

  When she lifted the drape, she was distressed to see the parrot huddled against the bars. His water and food had spilled. When she reached for him, he shrank away.

  ‘Bailey, angel, don’t be sad,’ said Kat. ‘Are you pining for Ramon? He’ll be back before you know it. Meantime, you and me are going to have lots of fun. Let’s start by getting you out of this horrid prison.’

  On the sofa, she rocked him like a baby. Bailey’s downy green feathers trembled beneath her hand. She fretted that he might be ill.

  She was on the verge of calling her mum when he perked up. He waddled up her arm. ‘Tell Kat,’ he squawked. ‘Tell Kat! TELL KAT!’

  Kat wondered if Ramon had taught Bailey a few phrases to amuse her. ‘What do you want to tell me?’

  ‘September Nile!’ shrieked the parrot. ‘Poor Bailey. Otto quarter. Otto quarter!’

  ‘Yes, poor Bailey. I think you might be hungry. You’re not making sense.’ Kat took a packet of almonds from the pocket of her jeans. ‘Here, have a nut.’

  After cleaning his cage with the dustpan and cloth Ramon had left in a bag beside the table, she carried his water dish through to the kitchen. A white breakfast bar with sky-blue stools separated it from the living room.

  For reasons known only to himself, Ramon had left instructions for Bailey’s care in a book: As Kingfishers Catch Fire. It was squeezed between his recipes. As with the secrecy around the door code, it all seemed a bit cloak and dagger.

  Fortunately, his note was normal enough.

  Welcome, Kat! Mi casa es su casa. My home is your home, as we say in Spain. I trust you will take care of it, but please also enjoy it. See the framed photo of Tyto alba? That’s ornithologist for ‘white owl’, though some call it the ghost, silver or death owl. I’ve spent half my life in pursuit of this silent hunter. Wrapped up in this one picture is my whole history. Ha! But I must keep to the point or I will miss my flight.

  Behind the owl is what I call my box of tricks. You’ll figure them out, I’m sure.

  On the wall above the toaster was a photo of a snowy barn owl in flight. Kat had to stand on a chair to reach it. The frame was heavier than she expected and she almost dropped it.

  An iPad-type panel was secured to a metal plate. It had thirteen functions. The first made drinks. Kat selected vegan hot chocolate. There was even a choice of milks, including Kat’s favourite, almond. A puff of cocoa tipped into a mug and was whisked to a froth.

  Kat was impressed. Next time, she’d order a mango smoothie.

  Tapping option 2 set the Jacuzzi bubbling on the outside deck. Option 3 switched on the stereo. Kat selected a few tracks. As music filled the room, Bailey bobbed and danced on her shoulder, making her laugh. Option 4 unfurled a home cinema screen and offered up hundreds of films. Option 5 controlled the lights. Option 6 heated up ready meals in the microwave. Option 7 turned an armchair into a massage therapist. Option 8 fired up the barbecue on the deck. Option 9 turned on the air conditioning. Option 10 watered the living wall of herbs, tomatoes and lettuces in the kitchen.

  Kat was in her element as she worked her way down the list, sipping hot chocolate, flicking between tunes, and considering a black-bean enchilada for lunch. Her earlier anxiety had gone. She didn’t mind being alone in Ramon’s empty house – not with so many toys at her fingertips. Until he returned, she was Queen of a Highly Entertaining Castle.

  Optio
n 11 powered up the state-of-the-art equipment in the small gym next to the living room. Option 12 was for the CCTV. She clicked on ‘Living Room’ and rewound a few frames. There she was in black and white, cuddling Bailey on the sofa.

  Option 13 was the only button not labelled. When she pressed it, a password request popped up. She entered the door code, but it was rejected.

  The doorbell rang. With a screech of alarm, Bailey fluttered on to the breakfast bar. ‘Tell Kat!’ he shrieked over the music of Sia. ‘TELL KAT! TELL KAT!’

  Whoever was outside leaned on the bell. Kat killed the music. In the hallway, she peered through the spyhole. An eyeball filled it. She sprang away. ‘Uh, who is it?’

  ‘Delivery for Raymond Curzon,’ said a muffled voice.

  ‘Thanks. Just put it through the letter box or leave it on the step.’

  ‘Needs to be signed for. ’S ’urgent.’

  Kat put the chain in its slot, unbolted the door and opened it a crack. ‘I’ll sign for it.’

  A courier in a baseball cap grimaced on the misty steps. He scratched his sweaty forehead. ‘No can do. ’S ’private and complimentary.’

  ‘Confidential, you mean?’

  ‘’S ’what I said. My orders were to give it to Raymond Curzon poisonally. Nobody said nothin’ about a daughter.’

  Kat didn’t bother correcting him. ‘Ramon’s not here. You can come back another time or leave it with me. I’ll make sure he gets it.’

  His buggy eyes veered to the cliff path. She could almost hear the gears clanking beneath his cap. ‘I could lose my job.’

  ‘I won’t tell if you don’t.’

  He wrestled with his conscience for all of two seconds before shoving a grubby tracking device through the slot. ‘Mind you sign yer dad’s name.’

  Kat used the attached plastic pen to do an elaborate scrawl on the screen. It could as easily have said ‘My Dad Lost a Fight with a Twenty-metre Wave’ as ‘Ramon Corazón’.

  In exchange, she received a padded brown envelope marked ‘PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL’ and ‘URGENT’ in black ink.

  After he’d gone, she studied the package. There was no postmark and nothing to indicate who’d sent it. Nor could she feel anything inside it. Sherlock Holmes might have been able to tell what sort of person had written out the name and address, but Kat couldn’t. They’d used a Sharpie like half a trillion other people.

  The house was worryingly quiet. Leaving the parcel on the hall table, she hurried into the kitchen. The parrot was gone.

  She did a quick search of the living room and gym, even checking behind the sofa and cross-trainer. No Bailey.

  Butterflies did a fly-by in Kat’s stomach. What if he’d escaped while she was signing for the parcel and was now free in Bluebell Bay? Her pet-sitting career would be over before it had begun. Ramon would kill her. Forever more she’d be known as the girl who’d lost a parrot in her first hour on the job.

  Then she remembered the CCTV. If Bailey was in the house, the camera would find him.

  Her fingers were clumsy on the control panel as she navigated from room to room. The parrot wasn’t in any of the three bathrooms, nor was he in Ramon’s messy study or the spare bedroom. Finally she spotted him. He was strutting along the headboard in the main bedroom.

  Kat took the curving wood stairs at a sprint. The first door she tried was a marble bathroom. The next was Ramon’s study. Unlike the rest of the house – which, despite the luxury, had a hotel feel to it – this was homely. Books on birds and flowers, and artist’s supplies were piled on every surface. An easel with a half-finished painting of a sparrowhawk stood in one corner. His desk was cluttered and dusty.

  Seeing it, she recalled Ramon’s promise to leave his laptop in the bread bin.

  The main bedroom was at the far end of the passage. Bailey looked pleased with himself when she walked in. He lifted a foot in greeting. ‘September-Nile-Otto-Quarter. Deuce Testy It.’

  ‘What are you on about, you naughty bird?’ scolded Kat, holding out a hand. He skipped up to her shoulder. ‘Are you speaking Spanish?’

  She stopped. Stared.

  On the other side of the bed was an open suitcase, half packed. Clothes spilt from it. Socks, toothpaste and a can of shaving cream were strewn across the carpet.

  A cold feeling went through Kat. Something was wrong. She’d known it from the minute she saw the unlocked front door.

  ‘Tell Kat,’ Bailey crooned as she backed out of the room. ‘Tell Kat, tell Kat,’ he repeated as she rushed down the stairs.

  ‘Tell me what?’ she asked him. ‘Where’s Ramon? You know something, don’t you?’

  Her mind was a whirl of dark possibilities. If Ramon had decided to postpone or cancel his trip, he’d have called her. Why hadn’t he?

  Could he have nipped out with the rubbish and fallen over the cliff in the fog? Or, worse, had someone broken in? Was someone in the house right now?

  Kat wanted nothing more than to flee and never return, but for Bailey’s sake she forced herself to keep a cool head.

  She was being silly. There had to be an explanation. Ramon might have been taken ill. He could be lying in a hospital bed, unable to call.

  Or perhaps it was a sliding-doors situation. As she’d been puffing up the hill to Avalon Heights, he’d been on his way to the Bluebell Bay Animal Clinic to tell her that he wouldn’t be going to Paraguay after all.

  It was easy enough to find out. She rang the practice. The agency nurse answered.

  ‘Hi, it’s Kat . . . Dr Wolfe’s daughter. Has anyone been in asking for me?’

  ‘Like who?’

  ‘Ramon Corazón. I’m pet-sitting his parrot. He’s from Paraguay.’

  ‘From where?’

  ‘Never mind,’ said Kat. ‘Thanks.’

  She hung up and dialled Ramon’s number. If he was in the country, he’d answer and reassure her. If he was in mid-air, he’d at least pick up her message when he reached Paraguay. Either way, she had a good excuse for calling – the ‘Private and Confidential’ parcel.

  His number rang only once before a recorded message intoned: ‘This number is no longer in service. This number is no longer in service. This number . . .’

  Kat switched off her phone, as if shutting it down would make whatever was happening stop happening. She was desperate to leave Avalon Heights, but she didn’t want to abandon Bailey.

  Earlier, she’d seen his carrier in the corner of the gym. She fetched it and bundled him in. Before leaving, she returned the ghost owl picture to its hook above Ramon’s ‘box of tricks’.

  The computer was in the bread bin, beneath a dish towel and two loaves of rye. She stuffed it into her backpack, along with Ramon’s note. The blinking gadgets watched her go.

  At the last second, she grabbed the brown package off the hall table. She’d promised to take care of it, and that’s what she intended to do.

  Outside, it was drizzling. Mist floated like a wraith above the cliff path. Kat took hold of the wet, cold guard-rail with one hand and hoisted the carrier on to her shoulder with the other. She and the parrot stepped blindly into the unknown.

  11

  The Trust Technique

  Kat knew she’d found the right place before she saw the sign on the gate, half hidden by a shaggy hedge and fragrant strands of jasmine: Paradise House.

  She was surprised that the name in itself hadn’t been a warning to Professor Lamb. In her London suburb, the Paradise Fish Bar had been exactly where you’d buy fish fingers if you had a hankering to spend a week in intensive care. The nearby Paradise Motel was a soulless carbuncle overlooking a flyover shrouded in toxic fumes. And the Paradise Pet Shop traded in tragic farmed puppies, kittens and goldfish, all looking as if they hoped that the end – any end – was nigh.

  But this Paradise House did look heavenly. Exuberant roses climbed the redbrick walls. The garden was a riot of apple and cherry trees. Kat inhaled. The air carried a delightful hint of horse.

  She prop
ped her muddy bike against the trellis, took off her riding hat and untied a large blue gym ball from the carrier. Inside the house, someone pecked listlessly at a piano.

  As she reached for the door knocker, a raised young voice with an American lilt carried clearly through an open window. ‘Oh, Nettie, I’m so bored I might have to hack into the Pentagon, if only to stop myself going stark staring crazy.’

  ‘Tch, Harper Lamb, one of these days you’re going to get yourself into hot water, and I, for one, will not shed a tear.’ This was an older woman with a Welsh accent. ‘MI5 will be paying you a visit.’

  ‘Huh, if only. When is the pet-sitter getting here anyway? That’ll kill five minutes. Only another nine million and fifty-five to go while I’m stuck indoors, missing out on life, on fun. Without adventure, what’s the point of even breathing?’

  She stabbed a piano key in frustration.

  ‘Let’s play a game, Nettie. I’ll have a try at guessing what she’s like, and you can do the same, then we can compare and contrast when she gets here. She’ll be nuts, of course. All pet-sitters are. You should see them in Central Park in New York. They’re like human merry-go-rounds, with leads going in every direction, and eight dogs winding themselves around lamp posts, getting into fights and going to the bathroom in flowerbeds.

  ‘Bet you two pieces of fudge that this pet-sitter’s hair will be like wire wool and sticking out from under a rainbow beanie she’s knitted herself. She’ll be squeezed into jodhpurs and have a loud, commanding PE-teacher voice. Charming Outlaw will whimper at the sight of her. He won’t dream of bolting and leaping over a five-barred gate the way he did with me . . . Nettie, where’ve you gone now?’

  The door opened so suddenly that Kat had no time to pretend that she’d only just arrived. A long, lean woman, her hair hanging like basset-hound ears on either side of her face, smiled down at her. The Welsh housekeeper, Kat presumed. She must have spotted Kat coming up the path.