Monty and Me

I spot a cold chip, missed by the cleaners, under a seat. I extend my long tongue and snap it up. A bit soggy, but nice all the same.

‘Some months after the locket incident, Dante set up a nest in Paddy’s garden. At first he ignored me, so I left him to it. He was like all magpies: stand-offish. Then one day I found him in the garden shed using a stolen laptop. A shiny, silvery one, of course. He needed the power point, you see. When he realised I could read a bit, he warmed to me and showed me how to use the laptop. Even helped me set up on Twitter. He was my first follower. I felt a bit sorry for him, to be honest. He only has six Twitter followers, well, seven, counting me.’

‘I’m surprised he’s got any at all.’

‘I don’t think he has any real friends. And he doesn’t realise it’s his own fault. I think he’s quite lonely.’

‘Serves him bleeding well right. He needs to learn some manners.’

The brakes screech and we stop at Geldeford station. My home is nearby! My old home anyway. I stand up, unable to fight the urge to leave the train and run to Paddy’s place.

‘What’re you doing?’ squeals Betty. ‘Hide!’

I lie down just in time. A woman gets into our carriage. Fortunately, she sits at the other end and doesn’t notice us, despite the puddle at the door and the paw prints. We are silent for the rest of the journey. At Greyfield Common we jump out, startling the woman, and run for the tunnel. Hidden in the darkness, we wait for the train to leave the station. We hear the flap of wings and Dante lands beside us.

‘Listen up!’ says the magpie, yelling like a drill sergeant. ‘These are your directions to the Truscott Estate. Follow the tunnel this-a-way.’ He points his beak into the blackness. ‘When you come out, you’ll see steep grassy verges either side of the line. One side has beech trees. Climb that slope. You’ll cross a road and then follow the riverbank path. But you’ll need to take the pavement for the last half a mile. It’s lined with houses so you’ll just have to take your chances. Follow me.’

‘Yes, sir!’ says Betty and salutes him.

He ignores the sarcasm and flies off.

‘Best get going,’ I say to Betty, ‘and best you get up on my back. I know you’re fast but you won’t be able to keep up once I get into a run.’

She clambers up my back leg and along my spine, until she sits behind my collar and hangs onto it like a little jockey. I set off at a jog and then, once I’m following the river, I run. It’s still bucketing and I have to blink away the rain as I peer up at my guide in the sky. We reach the final leg of our journey. I’m soaked. So is Betty. We sneak past front gardens and garages. If Dante sees a big’un coming, he squawks a warning and we hide until he gives us the all clear.

‘What a racket!’ Betty complains as we near the council estate. ‘If I ever meet the bloke who invented that wretched Twitter, I’m going to bite him.’

There’s a myth about the dawn chorus which I’d like to clear up. Big’uns assume the bird population is welcoming the new day in song, and that’s certainly how it all began. These days, it’s more raucous because they’ve discovered Twitter and they can’t tweet without tweeting – out loud. Every message has to be accompanied by bird song.

Big’uns don’t feel the need to sing when they tweet and I don’t need to bark, so why do birds have to make such a commotion? I just don’t get it.

We peer through the heavy rain at the Truscott Estate, which is a blur of street lighting and grey walls. Built on what used to be common land – a green open space everyone enjoyed – it now consists of four housing blocks in a row, fronted by garages, street parking and rubbish. Discarded appliances rust in the rain. Wrecked sofas, torn mattresses, broken glass and beer cans litter the pavement. Some cars have their wheels missing. Stairwells lead up to open walkways that connect each flat. Light grey breeze blocks, charcoal grey asphalt, blue grey gravel, silver-grey weathered timber fencing, gunmetal grey street railings. The whole estate seems to drip a dismal grey. It’s as if the architect was asked to design the most depressing housing possible, in keeping with the area’s name – Greyfield Common. The only hint of colour is from the angry graffiti and a child’s merry-go-round, once painted red, now faded to rust. Somebody has spray-painted ‘Release The Wolves’ along the length of a concrete walkway. I sniff the air but can’t detect any. Just a dog or two.

Dante lands next to me.

‘Which block?’ I ask him.

‘Block D, over there,’ he nods, ‘Number 251. I’ll meet you on level two, by the steps.’ He flies off.

A few people, heads down, sheltering under umbrellas, race to their cars or duck through covered walkways. We make it to level two unseen, but just as we turn the corner a big man in a blue overall, who smells of car grease and toast, almost collides with us. Betty scarpers.

‘What the …!’ The man tries to get round me. ‘Get outa here, you filthy stray!’

He attempts to kick me and I race back down the steps with him hot on my heels. I skid through a puddle and fall onto my side. I get up quickly and hide behind some industrial rubbish bins. The man squints in my direction, cursing and walks off. I wait a bit and then run back up two levels.

‘What happened to the warning?’ I ask Dante, panting. ‘And where’s Betty?’

‘Here!’ she says, appearing from a dark corner. ‘Jeez, you’re almost black. What happened?’

I realise that I’m covered in dirt from the puddle. The estate’s greyness is rubbing off on me.

Dante is defensive. ‘I can’t watch you all the time. I’m not God!’

Then I see he’s clasping a shiny beer bottle top in one claw.

‘Got distracted, did you?’ I tease.

He ignores my comment and nods to his right. ‘Four doors down. Larry’s in there. I’ve just seen him at his kitchen window making a cup of tea. So, what’s your plan?’

Good question. In my enthusiasm to find Larry Nice, I haven’t thought about how I’m going to get close enough to smell him.

Betty and I creep down the puddle-riddled walkway and stop outside number 251. The door is shut and looks as if it’s been kicked in at some point: the bottom panels have been replaced and the wood around the lock is splintered.

‘Betty, you stay out of sight,’ I say. ‘Dante, use your beak to knock on the door. When you hear him coming, fly away.’

Betty conceals herself behind a drainpipe. Dante stands on the doormat and taps three times, but nobody comes. I hear the radio inside his flat. The weather forecast man is predicting showers. I could have told him that!

‘Louder. Give it a good whack.’

‘I’m doing my best,’ he protests, but he bangs harder and keeps going.

I hear footsteps, Dante flies off, and the grimy lace curtains are pulled back a fraction. Larry’s face appears at the kitchen window. He looks at where an average height big’un might stand if he were outside the door, and as a result he doesn’t see us.

‘Bloody kids!’ I hear him say.

He disappears from view and Dante returns.

‘Knock again,’ I say.

‘My beak’s getting sore,’ Dante complains, but follows my instructions.

I hear Larry, his voice angry. ‘Right, you little bastards, I’m going to give you a bloody good hiding.’

The door opens wide and a skinny man, with a face like a whippet and legs like a chicken, stands there in his burgundy nylon dressing-gown. Larry Nice has been smoking weed and is enveloped by an acrid fug. Initially, that’s all I can smell. It’s overpowering. I remember Paddy’s killer smelt of it too, so I stand my ground, bedraggled, a filthy grey, on his soggy doormat.

Larry gawps at me. ‘What the f—’

I jump up, pressing my nose against his skin, but he thinks I am about to bite and he squeals. I knock chicken-whippet man flat on his back. He lies winded on a carpet that stinks of beer, then struggles to push me off him. His slippery dressing-gown is short sleeved and in the struggle my claws scratch his arm, but he has no bite mark. He smells of cheap aftershave and pubs, Rich Tea biscuits and polystyrene. But not that weird, stinky food stench, and not the disease that reminds me of an insect, which I still can’t place. As I charge out of the door and down the steps, I know for certain that Larry Nice did not kill my master.

Chapter Twelve

Rose helped PC Joe Salisbury raise the roller door to Larry Nice’s lock-up on the Truscott Estate, wearing an unflattering blue rain jacket that made her look like a blueberry. Her shoes were soaked through from searching for Monty in the rain. She’d woken to find the dog gone and Kay’s old torch in the garden. How Monty had escaped she had no idea since the exterior doors were shut.

‘This is going to take a while,’ said Salisbury, jolting her from her cogitation.

The garage was packed full of boxes.

Salisbury’s uniform had attracted a small crowd of jeering teenage boys. The oldest, probably eighteen, shouted, ‘Filth!’ and threw a bottle, which hit Rose’s arm, then shattered at her feet. Salisbury was a muscular giant whose mere presence was usually enough to cause troublemakers to think twice. He headed for the perpetrator, who turned to run but Rose got there first. Shoving him into the wall, she cuffed one wrist and then the other before the stunned offender knew what was happening. The rest of the gang scarpered.

‘Name?’ Rose demanded.

‘I ain’t saying nothing.’

‘Hold him,’ she said to Salisbury. She searched his pockets and found a wallet and driving licence. ‘Damien Flannery.’ Rose looked at the young offender. ‘I’m Detective Constable Rose Sidebottom and you’re going to apologise for throwing that bottle at me.’

‘Get fu—!’

‘Language!’ snapped Salisbury.

‘If you apologise,’ Rose continued, ‘I may change my mind about charging you with assaulting a police officer.’

Salisbury gave Rose a questioning look. She ignored it. ‘Well, I’m waiting.’

‘No way.’

‘I’m still waiting,’ she said, cupping an ear.

‘You got it all wrong. The bottle fell. I didn’t throw nothing.’

‘Don’t make me do it,’ she warned.

‘All right, all right.’ Flannery scanned the carpark, checking nobody was within ear shot. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered.

‘Right. Consider this a warning. Now you leave us alone to get on with our jobs, okay?’

‘Yes, detective.’

Salisbury undid the handcuffs and Flannery shuffled off, hands in pockets.

‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’ Salisbury asked. ‘Not even a formal caution?’

‘We don’t want a riot on our hands, and anyway, he’s young. I want to give him a second chance.’

Salisbury shook his head but didn’t argue.

‘Best we get started,’ she said and tore open a box.

‘You handled yourself well just then.’

‘Thanks, Joe.’

Rose had always considered Salisbury handsome, despite a potato-shaped chin hidden beneath a thick beard. At Police College she had developed a crush on him, but it became obvious he was in love with a local nurse so she’d resigned herself to the role of friend. Now he was married, a devoted father to a baby boy, and her closest mate at the nick.

The first few boxes contained flat screen TVs, the next, iPads.

‘Must’ve fallen off the back of a lorry,’ Salisbury joked.

Rose plonked down on a box of a dozen bottles of shiraz, rubbing her arm.

‘What’s the matter?’ Salisbury asked. ‘Are you hurt?’

‘No.’

‘Is this about Operation Nailgun?’

Rose nodded.

‘It’s no secret Leach laid into you. But look on the bright side. He gave you a second chance.’

Rose leaned forward so her forearms rested on the tops of her thighs, and stared at the concrete floor. Leaves from a nearby elm tree blew into the garage and swirled around her soggy shoes.

‘I’ve been a complete idiot, but I’m going to show everyone I can do this. I know I can.’ If she kept telling herself this, perhaps it really would come true? ‘My problem is Pearl. He’s made it clear he wants me gone from Major Crime.’

Salisbury opened a wine box next to her. ‘Gotta say he doesn’t seem very supportive.’ Earlier, Pearl had taken Salisbury aside and loudly instructed him to, ‘Make sure she doesn’t turn this into a bloody fiasco.’ He’d intended her team mates to hear.

‘And he’s supposed to be mentoring me. How perfect is that? Who’s the boss going to believe? Him or me?’

Salisbury moved on to the next box. ‘You’re just going to have to make sure you don’t put a foot wrong. Don’t give Dave any reason to push you out.’

She shook her head. ‘And to cap it all, the dog I rescued from the vet, you know, Monty, has run away.’

‘That dog’s a survivor. I’m sure he’ll turn up safe and sound.’

She covered her face with her hands. Tears were welling up in her eyes. Stop it, you baby! she said to herself.

Salisbury gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. ‘Rose, I think you need a cuppa and some breakfast. Knowing you, you haven’t had anything to eat. How’s about I go get us some?’

Rose couldn’t help but look at him and smile. Salisbury was a firm believer that a cup of tea could help solve almost any crisis. ‘Love a bacon and egg sarnie, and tea would be great. Thanks, Joe, you’re a real mate.’

As Salisbury strode off to the café round the corner, Rose continued the laborious task of opening every one of Larry Nice’s boxes. She shoved yet another wine box aside to get to the back of the lock-up when she heard a clank of metal on metal. Kneeling, she discovered a black backpack that seemed out of place in a sea of cardboard. She unzipped the top of the pack, her hands in disposable gloves. She glimpsed polished silver plates, a silver teapot and candelabra. She immediately called Pearl.

‘That inventory from Salt’s insurer. Any chance it listed some silverware that’s now missing?’

Rose heard him yell across the room to Detective Sergeant Kamlesh Varma, who confirmed that some silverware was indeed missing from Salt’s house and that the fastidious professor had photographed all his precious possessions and sent the images to his insurance company. Varma had these photos.

‘Can you send the photos to me via WhatsApp, sir?’

She received them within seconds and compared them to the contents of the bag. Identical.

‘Well, I think we may have found the missing silver,’ she said to Pearl, spotting Joe returning with breakfast.

‘Don’t touch anything else. I’m on my way,’ said Pearl.

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