Kat Wolfe Investigates

by Lauren St. John

  Charming Outlaw shied violently, throwing Kat. She landed on her feet, still clutching the reins, but the wild ride had turned her legs to jelly. She sat down hard in the mud.

  Shoving back her rain hood, she pleaded, ‘Please don’t come any closer. You’ll only frighten my horse even more.’

  ‘My God, it’s a kid. A drowned rat of a kid. Are you hurt?’

  She saw the soldier’s nametag – Lieutenant Winterman – and had a sudden memory of him getting out of an army vehicle as she strolled down the high street asking her mum if she could start a pet-sitting agency. Nine days later, she was staring down the barrel of his rifle.

  A baby-faced soldier leaned over her. ‘I recognize you from the deli. You’re that pet-sitter girl. What the heck are you doing out here? Are you lost? You could have been killed.’

  He hauled Kat to her feet. She wrenched away and turned to Charming Outlaw. His flanks heaved and his nostrils were scarlet, but she felt him calm beneath her touch. When she looked round, three guns were trained on her.

  ‘I need to speak to the Minister of Defence. It’s an emergency.’

  The soldiers laughed.

  ‘Oh, you do, do you?’ said the officer in charge. ‘I think you’ll find you need an appointment for that. Next time, write him an email.’

  ‘My name’s Kat Wolfe. I’m his granddaughter.’

  ‘Do you have any ID?’

  ‘No, I—’

  ‘How about a photo on your phone of the two of you at some family gathering?’

  Kat felt chilled and shaky. ‘I – I – No.’

  ‘What’s so urgent that you’d risk your life getting here?’ Lieutenant Winterman asked more kindly. ‘If Lord Hamilton-Crosse is your granddad, can’t you just call him? What’s really going on here? Have you run away from home?’

  The officer checked his watch. ‘Lads, I need to go. The dinner starts in ten minutes. Judd, you know about horses, don’t you? Take the beast down to the stables and see that he’s looked after. Winterman, find someone to babysit the girl ASAP. Try the nurse. I’ll deal with the situation when the dinner is over.’

  He glared at Kat. ‘We’ve been planning our regiment’s anniversary dinner for over a year. We have high-ranking generals and officials in attendance. I’m not having our special night ruined by a hysterical girl, especially not one in your state. Wait until your mother hears about this.’

  Ignoring her pleas, he marched away. Judd prised Charming Outlaw’s reins from her hands, and she was left with Lieutenant Winterman. He marched her to the guardhouse. After giving her a towel to dry her hair and mop up the worst of the dirt, he presented her with an XXL Royal Tank Regiment sweatshirt.

  ‘Lieutenant Winterman, you have to believe me,’ begged Kat as they went in search of the nurse. ‘I need to speak to my grandfather before the dinner, not after it.’

  ‘Sorry, Kat, the security for this event is intense. Bomb detectors, sniffer dogs, background checks – you name it, we’ve done it. We can’t make exceptions for anyone, least of all a girl with no ID who shows up on a horse. Lord Hamilton-Crosse is our guest of honour this evening. Unless you can tell me what you want to see him about, there’s nothing I can do.’

  ‘I can’t,’ she said miserably. ‘It’s top secret. I can only tell my grandfather.’

  They’d reached the nurse’s office. The lights were off, and her door was locked.

  The soldier threw up his hands. ‘Now what?’

  ‘Problem, Lieutenant?’

  It was Chef Roley George, ruddy from his hot kitchen. He smiled down at Kat. ‘I remember you. You’re the vet’s girl. The pet-sitter. Is everything all right? Can I help?’

  ‘Thank you, sir, but I don’t think so,’ said Lieutenant Winterman. ‘There’s been a bit of an incident, and Kat here needs speak to one of our dinner guests. That won’t be possible until it’s over, so I was hoping the nurse would take care of her. I have to get back to the guardhouse.’

  ‘Relax, Lieutenant. I think I saw the nurse in our catering tent, having a bite on her break. I’d be delighted to take Kat to her.’

  ‘Are you sure, sir?’

  ‘No problem at all. Go back to the guardhouse. She’s in safe hands.’

  ‘What can I do to make things better?’ the chef asked when Lieutenant Winterman had gone. ‘Looks as though you’ve had a rough evening. Is that mud in your hair?’

  ‘I’ve had a terrible evening,’ said Kat. ‘And if I can’t speak to the Minister of Defence in the next five minutes, it’s about to get a lot worse. No one will believe he’s my grandfather or that it’s a matter of national security. It’s life and death. Will you help me, Chef Roley?’

  He put a hand on her shoulder. ‘A matter of life, death and national security? Kat Wolfe, it would be my pleasure.’

  35

  Recipe for Disaster

  ‘I don’t know what else I can do,’ said Sergeant Singh. ‘The Tank Regiment’s phones are just ringing and ringing. I’ve left three messages, but I doubt they’ll check them till the morning. I did get hold of one of the coppers guarding the road that leads to the base. If they see a girl on a horse, they’ll hold her there and alert me. Do you have Dr Wolfe’s number?’

  ‘Sergeant Singh, take a look at this,’ called Harper. ‘From what I can make out, it’s the man Ramon suspected of being the Ghost Owl.’

  He rushed to her side. On her screen was an out-of-focus photo of a smiling man with thick black hair. Beside it Ramon had written: Kazimir Gorev?

  ‘Must be a case of mistaken identity,’ said Sergeant Singh. ‘That’s Roley George, the army chef. Top cook. The soldiers love him over at the base. He’s a friend to everyone. Harper, what’s wrong?’

  ‘Sergeant Singh, Kat had this theory that the Ghost Owl might use the Royal Tank Regiment anniversary dinner to assassinate Prince William. But what if it’s about something even worse?’

  ‘Worse than assassinating the future King of England?’

  ‘You’ve seen the guest list for the anniversary dinner. There are aristocrats and five-star generals. And the guest of honour is the Minister of Defence. Imagine the catastrophe if the chef slipped poison into their food!’

  Sergeant Singh began pacing the room. ‘Say you’re right, and I feel in my bones that you may be, the dinner starts in minutes. I don’t have my car. I can try to ring my superintendent again, but he’s not going to halt the dinner on a hunch.’

  Harper clicked on the dinner menu. ‘The starter is asparagus with balsamic vinegar, but there probably won’t be too much of that. If I were Roley George, I’d doctor the main course or dessert.’

  ‘Margo Truesdale gave Chef Roley her famous lasagne recipe,’ said the policeman. ‘It could be in the sauce.’

  ‘The pomegranate molasses,’ cried Harper. ‘Chef Roley ordered an industrial quantity of it. That must be the secret ingredient. If the dinner begins at 8 p.m., it’ll be twenty or thirty minutes before the guests get to the main course. Sergeant Singh, how fast can you run?’

  36

  Move 58

  ‘Where are we going?’ asked Kat as the chef steered her through a poorly lit section of outbuildings. ‘I thought the dinner was in that big tent back there. The one beyond the trees.’

  ‘If we go directly there, we’ll be stopped by security.’ Chef Roley smiled. ‘I’m taking you to a place where you can wait while I call your grandfather. But first I have to pick up an item from the cold room. It’ll only take a minute.’

  He took the keys off his belt and approached a humming trailer. When he opened the door, a cloud of meaty mist billowed out. Rows of beef and pork carcasses hung from hooks.

  ‘Come take a closer look,’ said the chef. ‘An army marches on its stomach, you know. This is how we feed our fighters.’

  Nerves buzzed in Kat’s stomach. ‘No, thanks. I’m a vegan.’

  She tried to move away, but his bulky frame blocked her. ‘Just take a peek. It’ll be educational.’

&n
bsp; ‘Chef Roley, is everything all right?’

  A sous chef came hurrying up with an empty basket. ‘If you needed anything from the cold room, you could have asked me. I was on my way to get the ice cream and raspberries anyway . . .’

  He stared at Kat in surprise.

  ‘This is the granddaughter of our guest of honour,’ explained the chef. ‘I was giving her a quick tour of our kitchen and facilities between courses. Get what you need, Jerome. I’ll lock up.’

  Kat wanted desperately to ask Jerome to take her back to the guardhouse, but something about Roley George’s stance, and the fixed smile he turned on her, caused the words to dry up in her throat.

  After the sous chef had gone, Roley George steered Kat into the cold room and dug a slim black case from the bottom of a cabinet of yellow chickens. Even before he removed the heart-attack gun, Kat knew she’d made an error she was going to pay for with her life.

  The Ghost Owl gestured with the gun. ‘Let’s go, before we’re interrupted again. Move. I don’t have all night.’

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ Kat spoke between chattering teeth as he forced her along a dark walkway behind a long building. ‘You don’t even know me. Why would you want to hurt me?’

  ‘Because you wouldn’t stop nosing around, asking questions about the bird watcher,’ said Chef Roley. ‘I had to email Margo, pretending to be Ramon in Paraguay, because she started gossiping too. Then your little hacker friend got half the spies in Britain and America sniffing around my Trojan horse. That’s OK. She’ll get what’s coming to her. I sent an assassin to shut her up for good.’

  It was on the tip of Kat’s tongue to say that if he was talking about the clawed and bandaged pirate, a parrot and Sergeant Singh had prevented him from doing any such thing. But she managed to stop herself. The less he knew, the greater her chance of survival.

  He paused at a fire exit, entered a code and shoved her in. They were in a split-level gymnasium. The lights were off, but the flickering glow of the torches that lined the path to the dinner shone through the windows, pooling like gold on the floor.

  ‘Up the stairs. Go.’

  ‘You’ll never get away with this,’ said Kat.

  He chuckled. ‘I’ve been getting away with it for years. If you think you’re going to jeopardize my final mission by telling tales to the Minister of Defence, I’m happy to inform you you’re too late.’

  Kat stopped in shock. ‘What do you mean? What have you done? If you’ve hurt my grandfather, I’ll do everything in my power to have you locked up for the rest of your life.’

  ‘You and whose army, kid?’

  ‘Not all battles are about who’s strongest,’ Kat said fiercely. ‘The world is changing. Some day a girl who can code will be able to take on an army and win.’

  He laughed. ‘Unless that happens in the next hour, it’ll be over for your grandfather and the others.’

  ‘What others?’

  ‘The doomed dinner guests. The Minister of Defence will make an excellent scalp, but why stop there? One might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb, as they say. Within the hour, Colonel Cunningham and some of the more famous lords, ladies and army generals will be extinct. It will be headline news around the world.’

  In the half-light, his pupils blazed like fires.

  Kat’s only hope was to keep him talking and pray that help would arrive. ‘You’re planning to start shooting people in front of a tent full of soldiers?’

  He chuckled. ‘Who said anything about shooting? I have twenty-five waiters dishing up death as I speak. I’ve also added a secret ingredient of my own to Margo’s special lasagne recipe.’

  Two guards marched past the window, boots drumming the concrete. The chef clamped his palm over Kat’s mouth. Despair engulfed her as the soldiers moved off in the direction of the tent.

  The chef removed his hand, but shook a finger in warning. ‘If you scream, you’re dead.’

  Kat pictured her grandfather and the other guests chatting and smiling as the jazz band played, not knowing it was their last supper. She had to do something. A dumb-bell shone dully beneath a workout bench. Kat sneaked out a foot and set it rolling. The chef lunged for it, but snatched air. The twenty kilogramme weight hurtled off the stage, smashing on to the wood floor of the cardio studio below.

  The chef grabbed Kat by the throat. ‘I’d throttle you now if I had the time, but the gun will be more efficient. Turn around.’

  Kat did as he ordered. It seemed bizarre that she was going to die in an army gym, looking out at the treadmills and bikes.

  Tears burned her eyes. Around about now, the mum she worshipped would be sharing a box of popcorn at the cinema with Tina, blissfully unaware that her daughter was moments away from dying at the hands of a Russian spy pretending to be a British Army chef, using a heart-attack gun invented by the Americans.

  She almost wept when she thought about Tiny, whose nightly purring made her feel so safe and loved. Who would understand him if she wasn’t around?

  If she had the last week to do over, she’d tell Harper she was the best friend anyone could wish for. She’d thank Sergeant Singh, and give a whole packet of almonds to clever Bailey, and make sure that Edith and cuddly Toby knew how smart and amazing they were too. She’d tell them that libraries and homes were like adventures – worth fighting for.

  As for Charming Outlaw, who’d carried her so bravely through the storm, she’d take him to the beach and let him race the waves and be free.

  Because of one evil man, she would not now get to do or say any of those things. It filled her with rage. ‘You’re going to shoot a girl in the back? What kind of coward are you? Is that what you did to Ramon?’

  ‘That fool. He got what he deserved. One kiss of the ice bullet and it was all over.’

  The cold gun pressed against her back, level with her heart. ‘Don’t worry. They tell me it’s quick. Say your prayers, Kat Wolfe—’

  ‘I’d rather you said yours, Kazimir Gorev.’

  The Dark Lord stepped from the shadows. He was in a tuxedo, his Glock pistol rock-steady in his hand.

  ‘Put your weapon down and step away from the girl. We have the place surrounded. This madness ends here, tonight.’

  ‘Lord Hamilton-Crosse, how good of you to come,’ said the Ghost Owl. ‘You’ve saved me from trying to get a gun past security at dinner. I can kill you and be gone before dessert. Put your weapon down, and I’ll consider sparing your granddaughter. If you love her, you’ll give up now.’

  ‘Grandfather, don’t listen to him,’ said Kat. ‘It’s a trick. He has a heart-attack gun with a deadly ice bullet. Save yourself and the other guests. He’s put poison in the lasagne.’

  The Dark Lord didn’t take his eyes from the Russian. ‘Gorev, she’s a child. No one but a psychopath would use that abomination of a gun on a girl with her whole life ahead of her.’

  ‘If you care so much, save her,’ jeered the chef. ‘Put down your weapon and kick it away from you.’

  The pistol clattered across the floor. Though she couldn’t see it, Kat knew that the ice dart was now aimed at her grandfather. For some unfathomable reason, he’d volunteered to take a bullet for her.

  The chef clamped an arm round her throat. ‘Put your hands behind your head. One squeak and you’ll be joining Granddad in the next world.’

  As Kat raised her arms, weak with terror, Ramon’s words came back to her: 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’.

  Kat calculated that she was around a metre from the edge of the stage. There was no banister, only a low, decorative rope.

  A commotion erupted outside. Soldiers ran past the gym windows and into the trees.

  ‘Say your prayers, Minister,’ said the Ghost Owl. He cocked the heart-attack gun, ready to fire.

  And, with that, Kat pulled Move 58.

  As a plan of
action, it worked spectacularly well. A short, sharp tug on his chef’s jacket, a lunge and a twist, and Chef Roley soared out over the gymnasium. He crash-landed on the studio floor below and was out cold.

  Weak with relief, Kat turned to her grandfather. It was only then she realized that in her desperation to keep the Russian from firing, she hadn’t thought of what might happen if his finger was on the trigger at the time. The Dark Lord lay motionless.

  Kat raced to his side and fell to her knees with a sob. ‘Grandfather, you can’t die yet – you just can’t. Not before I’ve had a chance to get to know you.’

  Soldiers burst through the entrance at the far end of the gym. ‘Lord Hamilton-Crosse! Kat!’ yelled Colonel Cunningham.

  ‘Help!’ screamed Kat. ‘Call an ambulance.’

  The Dark Lord’s eyes blinked open. Wincing, he struggled upright.

  Kat stammered: ‘I d-d-don’t understand. He shot you. How are you alive?’

  Her grandfather patted the chest of his tuxedo. ‘Bulletproof vest. Wouldn’t be without it. But my collapse was a little too theatrical and I banged my head on the floor. Was I dreaming or did you just perform Mongoose Move 58?’

  Kat grinned. ‘Wouldn’t be without it.’

  37

  Families and Other Animals

  On one of those dazzling seaside days when water, sky and beach look freshly laundered, a curious procession made its way along the coastal path.

  The army firing range was closed on Sundays, so the guard in the watchtower merely looked on with amusement as the party ambled, rolled and pranced in the direction of Durdle Door.

  Leading the charge were two mobility scooters, one driven by Edith and the other, borrowed one, by Harper. Kat wouldn’t have put it past them to start racing.

  Next came Kat herself, sitting high on the bouncy, but so far charming, Outlaw. Nettie and the retriever dawdled behind them.

  Bringing up the rear were Professor Theo Lamb and Tina Chung, engrossed in a conversation about Malaysia’s carnivorous ‘fish-eating’ dinosaurs.

  Eleven days after answering his desperate call at Bluebell Bay Veterinary Surgery, Kat had finally met the professor. She’d imagined him with grey Einstein hair and a coffee-stained corduroy blazer, but he wore a flat tweed cap tugged over brown curls, faded jeans and a Grateful Dead T-shirt.