It was Thursday morning. If anyone had told Kat that, forty-eight hours after her cat and dog had been dragged yowling and howling to the animal control prison, she’d be on her way to London to meet a stranger who called himself ‘Dragon Boy’, she’d have declared them stark staring crazy. And yet here she was.
Weirder still, she’d been inspired to come by Robyn. That was the name of the homeless woman. Kat had bumped into her the day after Mr Bludger had wrenched Tiny from her grasp. Given a choice, she’d have spent the rest of her life under her duvet, but she had pet-sitting commitments. It wasn’t the python’s or the horses’ fault that her own animals had been dragged away like criminals.
As Kat had pedalled miserably from one end of Bluebell Bay to the other, Robyn had stepped into her path. ‘I heard what happened to your animals. I’m so sorry,’ she’d said, before pressing a scroll of brown paper into Kat’s palm. It was secured with a ribbon of bark threaded with sprigs of lavender.
Kat had barely had time to thank her or ask her name before Robyn – ‘with a Y’ – was halfway across a field, sleeping bag slung over her shoulder.
Kat had waited until she was back at Summer Street to open the scroll. Inside was an exquisite ink sketch of Winnie the Pooh with a cloud of bees around his bear ears:
Always remember,
you are braver than you believe,
stronger than you seem,
and smarter than you think.
The thoughtfulness of the gift and the power of the words lifted Kat’s spirits like nothing else. By the time Harper rang with a convoluted tale about meeting ‘Dragon Boy’ in an online fossil forum, Kat was not only willing to go along with her grand scheme, she helped talk Tina into taking them to London’s Natural History Museum on her day off.
But Kat hadn’t agreed to anything until she’d grilled Harper on how and where she’d found this boy who claimed to have information on the Order of Dragons. ‘How do you know he’s not a sixty-year-old axe murderer pretending to be a kid?’
‘Because I told him to meet us at eleven on the bench beneath the blue whale skeleton, and he said he’d buffer there for five minutes max. How many adults do you know who’d say buffer instead of wait?’
‘That’s it? That’s your only proof?’
‘Are you kidding? Dad would kill me if “safety first” wasn’t my online motto. So would Jasper. He checked him out for me. Dragon Boy’s good at hiding his IP address, but not as good as he thinks he is. We’re ninety-nine point nine per cent sure that he’s a twelve-year-old gaming fanatic. Pretty talented at it too.’
‘How’s he going to assist us?’ Kat hadn’t been clear about that part.
‘He might not. We won’t know till we meet him. All I did was visit a couple of fossil-collecting sites and drop a few hints that I was working on a Jurassic Coast excavation and would consider parting with a few dragon’s teeth in exchange for some information about the Order of Dragons.’
Kat was horrified. ‘You don’t own any dracoraptor teeth!’
‘No, but I have a few pretend ones. Dad had a spare set made when he asked the sculptor to make the others. I borrowed them.’
‘What happens if this boy realizes they’re pretend, and things turn nasty?’
But Harper had just waved away her fears. ‘We’ll be in the crowded main hall of the Natural History Museum. If he turns psycho on us, we’ll scream blue murder, and Tina and half a dozen security guards and brave members of the public will come running. It’ll be fine. What could possibly go wrong?’
‘I don’t understand why you’re tearing along like cats with their tails on fire,’ said Tina. ‘It was clearly a mistake to allow you to eat so much chocolate on the train. Harper almost hyperventilated when the Tube got stuck in that tunnel. And now we’re finally in the museum, you want to race from exhibit to exhibit.’
‘We only want to see as much as possible,’ said Kat.
They’d persuaded Tina to begin with the first floor, where they’d have a bird’s-eye view of the bench beneath the whale skeleton. They planned to watch from a safe distance until they were sure that Dragon Boy wasn’t a potential kidnapper.
At eleven o’clock, a man with a pock-marked face, wearing a black leather trench coat and dark sunglasses indoors – a hitman, if Kat ever saw one – took ownership of the bench. His menacing looks frightened away two pensioners.
‘Seems like Dragon Boy might be Dragon Man,’ remarked Kat, when Tina was out of earshot.
‘Or Dragon Boy is as nervous as we are,’ said Harper. ‘Look over there.’
Across the hall, a Chinese boy in glasses was leaning over the balustrade, gaze fixed on the assassin-type on the bench. Below them, the man jumped up, his face relaxing into a grin as he was engulfed by an adoring wife and two children.
Not a hitman, then, thought Kat, who was beginning to doubt her own judgement. She and Harper watched as the Chinese boy rushed down the steps and took the man’s place on the bench.
‘Game on,’ said Harper. ‘Tell Tina you have an overwhelming urge to visit the American mastodon – that’s an Ice Age relative of the elephant. I’ll say I need the bathroom and that I’ll meet you on the bench. Meanwhile, I’ll try to get some information out of Dragon Boy. If I scream, come to my rescue.’
Everything went to plan right up until Harper handed the boy the false dragon’s teeth. They’d been sitting back to back on the bench, as if they were nothing to do with one another, talking out of the corners of their mouths.
‘What do you know about the Order of Dragons?’ was Harper’s first question.
The boy stared around in a panic, as if a doom of dragons might swoop on them. ‘Never, ever say their name out loud,’ he said. ‘Call them the OD, in case anyone overhears. I’ll tell you one thing, then you give me the long chi, and we go our separate ways.’
Harper kept a wary eye on Tina and Kat over by the mastodon. ‘Make it short and sweet. I don’t have much time.’
‘They’re a dragon cult. They worship dragons. In Chinese culture and mythology, dragons have a special significance. They symbolize power, wisdom, happiness and immortality, and they bring prosperity. They have unlimited supernatural gifts. A dragon can transform itself into any shape, from a snake to a storm, and they can stop floods or tsunamis.’ He stopped. ‘That’s it, until you hand over the dragon’s teeth.’
Harper risked turning around. ‘You cannot be serious? You expect me to give you two long chi for some fortune-cookie stuff about dragons I’ve known since I was a toddler? Bú shànsh zhě bù shànzhō ng. Don’t you know a bad beginning makes for a bad ending?’
‘You speak Chinese?’
‘A little. At least tell me why the dragon’s teeth are so important to the OD? What do they do with them?’
He exhaled. ‘OK, in Chinese alchemy, dragon’s teeth are highly prized. One of the oldest texts in Chinese medicine says long chi can be used to cure epilepsy, madness and convulsions. The Dictionary of Chinese Medicine lists “dragon’s bone and teeth” under Tranquilizers. It claims that long chi can be used as a sedative to treat insomnia, depression, fever and liver disease, among other things. Some people believe dragon energy has the power to extend life. That’s why the OD want it. They want to live forever. Now give me the dragon’s teeth.’
Reluctantly, Harper handed over a velvet pouch. She felt guilty about giving him false fossils. He seemed vulnerable, as if he were in some kind of trouble. ‘How do you know about the OD?’ she asked. ‘Have you met any of them?’
He tipped the fossils into his palm and sniffed them. The blood drained from his face. He began to shake.
Harper was alarmed. ‘What’s wrong? Are you ill?’
‘You tricked me,’ he said in a low, exhausted voice. ‘These are fakes. You were my last hope. We’re dead now, me and my dad. That’s what they’ve told us. If Patient X dies, they’ll kill us.’
Harper knew, in that instant, that whatever she and Kat had stumbled upon, it w
as no longer a game. ‘Who are they? And who is Patient X?’
‘There you are, Harper!’ cried Tina, interrupting. ‘You wouldn’t believe how obsessed Kat is with the mastodon. I couldn’t drag her away.’
Harper mustered her most cheerful voice. ‘Tina, would you mind if we visited the main dinosaur exhibition now? I’d love to show you both the megalosaurus tooth.’
The boy was ready to make a run for it, but she gripped his sleeve as Kat distracted Tina.
‘If you’re in trouble, me and my friend can help you,’ Harper told him. ‘That’s what we do.’
‘Two girls,’ he said bitterly. ‘Fat lot of use you’d be.’
‘Never, ever, underestimate girls,’ Harper cautioned him. ‘Especially not girl detectives.’
He turned on her. ‘Listen, Nancy Drew, Sherlock Holmes himself couldn’t help us. You can’t fathom who we’re up against. These people are monsters.’
Neurons sparked in Harper’s brain, lighting up connections. All along, she and Kat had been working on the theory that a valuable fossil or an investigation into some nature-destroying company had got Johnny killed. They hadn’t considered that he might have delved into the murky cut-throat world of the illegal bone traders.
‘Are the OD monstrous enough to kill a young reporter who might have been investigating them?’ she said urgently. ‘Because that’s the case Kat and I are working on now. After a landslide in our town, a human skeleton was discovered. We believe that the victim, Johnny Roswell, was murdered. We also have a hunch that bone collectors are linked to a break-in at the hall where my dad’s working. He’s a palaeontologist.’
The boy leaped off the bench as if it had suddenly become red hot. ‘You never said on the forum that your dad was a palaeontologist! What are you doing here? Is this a trap?’
‘Harper, why are you dragging your feet?’ called Tina. ‘I thought you wanted to show us the megalosaurus tooth.’
Under cover of tying up her shoelaces, Harper hissed to the boy, ‘You never said you were in danger on the forum either. And, no, this isn’t a trap. Tell us what you know. If the OD are blackmailing you, we can help – even if it’s only online. Follow us to the dinosaur hall. We’ll talk between exhibits.’ She raised her voice. ‘Coming, Tina! I had a stone in my sneaker.’
In the dinosaur hall, she and Kat took it in turns to conduct their most surreal client interview ever. While Harper told Tina everything she never wanted to know about the torvosaurus claw, Kat dropped back to listen to the boy’s story. His name was Kai. In November, nearly eight months earlier, a stranger had walked into Eastern Healing, his father’s acupuncture practice in Chinatown, and blackmailed Dr Liu into making a dragon’s teeth tincture for a grievously ill person known only as Patient X. Since then, their lives had been a daily nightmare.
‘If your father doesn’t deal in illegal fossils, where did he get the long chi he gave the patient?’ accused Kat.
‘A long time ago, a trader tried to sell him rare Maotianshan fossils from Chengjiang in China. Dad was refusing them when the police raided, looking for rhino horn. The trader dropped the fossils and ran. Dad hid them, thinking he’d come back for them, but he never did.’
Kat must have looked disbelieving because Kai said angrily, ‘My father is one of the best Chinese healers in the UK. He’s never used fossils in his life and thinks it’s a crime that unscrupulous bone collectors are destroying palaeontology sites across China and in other countries. It made him ill to grind up the rare fossils for the stranger. He did his best to warn the man that the long chi wouldn’t cure the patient, because their medical records show they have a terminal condition.’
Kat’s heart skipped a beat. ‘Are you saying that Patient X is dying? Dr Liu’s sure of that?’
‘One hundred per cent. The patient has a rare cancer. It spreads slowly, but there is no cure. When the man from the OD refused to take no for an answer, Dad hoped that the dragon’s teeth would have what doctors call a “placebo effect”: if a patient believes strongly enough that a pill or potion is working, it can temporarily improve their symptoms or take away their pain. Dad and I badly wanted the stories about the long chi’s powers of healing to be true. We needed a miracle.’
‘Did you get it?’
‘For a while, yes. Then last week, the same man called in a rage to say the patient was getting worse. In three days, our long chi will run out. Dad and I are afraid for our lives.’
‘Kat, come and look at this interesting exhibit on the “Dragon Doctors of Ancient China”,’ called Tina. ‘Dinosaur remains were believed to be those of dead dragons and were ground up for medicine.’
Kat lifted an eyebrow at Kai, then got up to join Tina. While she and the nurse enthused over dragon doctors, Harper slipped back to talk to Kai.
‘How did you work out that the Order – I mean, the OD – were the ones blackmailing you?’
‘Every month, an envelope arrives in the post. No postmark. Inside is a map of Hyde Park with an X on it. I drop the medicine in the nearest bin. I’ve never seen anyone collect it. Last month, I had the idea of rubbing the back of the map with charcoal in case someone had leaned on it to write something – a phone number, a name. Anything. This came up.’
He showed her a photo on his phone. Harper gasped. It was a dragon with its tail twisted into an infinity symbol – identical to the one on the black-and-gold card Kat had lost. Only Kai’s dragon had a scroll above its head: ‘ORDER OF DRAGONS: In æternum vive. To live forever.’
The boy was watching her. ‘You’ve seen it before. Where?’
‘On a card someone dropped at a hotel in Bluebell Bay.’
Tina glanced round, searching for Harper. The Chinese boy shot behind a glass cabinet. He said hurriedly, ‘After I found the dragon image, I asked around my friends. Kept it cool. One boy recognized it right away as the sign of the OD. His father told him it was a secret club, like the Masons, for rich, ruthless people who don’t want to die. They pay the highest prices for the best fossils with the strongest dragon energy, but my friend’s dad said their money wasn’t worth it because bad things happen to traders who deal with them.’
Tina started towards Harper, but Kat diverted her to a chart on “The Death of the Dinosaurs”. They were nearly at the end of the exhibition. Time was running out.
Harper said quickly, ‘Kai, can you describe the stranger who came to your father’s practice?’
‘He was very tall – nearly two metres. Not much else, because he wore a mask and gloves. His coat looked expensive. I’m no good at accents. English, I think. I got the feeling he was someone important, so maybe Patient X is someone high up in the OD – otherwise, why would he bother? I do remember one silly thing. He was wearing these smart black shoes with blue laces.’
Harper’s heart rate spiked. ‘Navy-blue, baby-blue or sky-blue?’
‘Sky-blue. I thought I’d be able trace where they were made. I was hoping they would be very rare. Then I find they’re in fashion. There are trillions of them.’
Harper nodded. She’d come to the same conclusion. ‘Kai, last weekend, we were at Kat’s grandfather’s house. He’s the Minister of Defence.’
Kai stared at her. ‘Who are you people?’
‘Doesn’t matter. While we were there, I overheard a weird conversation. I couldn’t see the men talking, only that one of them was wearing blue laces. Blue Lace Man was complaining about the son of a doctor he was having trouble with and saying that when he and his dad outlived their usefulness, they’d . . .’
Harper’s voice trailed off. She could hardly tell Kai that the man had discussed eliminating them both.
Kai filled in the blanks. ‘Disappear? Be killed?’
Harper didn’t answer. ‘He seemed to think that the boy could see right into his soul. The other man was teasing him about dusting cobwebs off it.’
‘Could have been talking about anyone,’ said Kai, ‘but the doctor part is quite a coincidence. What’s his name?’
‘We’re still trying to find out. He and his friend were talking in riddles about an order. The second guy wanted to buy two black T-shirts for his arthritis and a striped one because his wife was redecorating. He also asked if there was any fancy white plastic –’ She stopped when she saw Kai’s expression. ‘What have I said? What’s wrong?’
‘That’s black-market code for illegal wildlife products. Me and Dad love animals, and my father’s spent most of his life fighting the trade. Two black T-shirts equals two ounces of powdered rhino horn. Striped T-shirts are tiger skins. Zebra juice is tiger-bone wine. White plastic, that’s ivory. Red plastic is pangolin scales . . .’
‘Harper, I’m really surprised at you,’ scolded Tina, popping up out of nowhere and forcing Kai to dive under a display to avoid detection. ‘Kat told me you were desperate to visit the Natural History Museum for a school project. But every time I’ve glanced round, you’ve either been missing or staring into space. What’s going on? Are you unwell?’
While Harper spouted nonsense about how being close to the triceratops skull had put her into a dreamy state of wonder, Kat met Kai under the table. ‘Any clues that might help us identify Patient X? Age? Gender? Symptoms?’
‘No, because the personal details had been removed from the medical forms. There is one thing, though. This cancer, it attacks the liver. The whites of the patient’s eyes turn yellow, like mustard. There’s cosmetic stuff they can do to hide it in the early stages, but it won’t last long.’
‘KAT WOLFE, what are you up to?’ Tina reached down and pulled Kat up by the hand. ‘I’m not sure what mischief you and Harper are plotting, but I’m not having it. Fun is cancelled for the rest of the day. We’re taking the next train back to Dorset. You can eat sandwiches from the buffet car on the way.’
There was no chance to say goodbye to Kai, although Harper did manage to scribble her number on a ticket stub and toss it to him. As they exited the museum, she could think of nothing but the threat she’d overheard at Hamilton Park: ‘When the boy and his dad have outlived their usefulness, they’ll be eliminated.’
Kat Wolfe Takes the Case Page 15
