demichat and the kent street mystery
DESCRIPTION
This Sherlock Holmes spoof for 8 – 12 year old readers about a cat and dog team will keep readers guessing to the very end! London detectives DemiChat and Lord Flannery Beagle discover that a scientist has gone missing! Will Scotland Yard Police Dog Jake and Detective Robert Cooper help or hinder their investigation and why do gangs of Italian and Irish crooks get involved in the case? Demi and Flan follow the clues from London through France to Rome. Demi relies on her feline intuition and wit – and the devoted help of Flannery and Jake – to save the kidnapped victim and stop his formula from getting into the wrong hands!TRANSCRIPT
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DemiChat and the Kent Street Mystery By Toni Brisland
Chapter 1 – Police Dogs
The day I met DemiChat was both the saddest and the happiest day of my life.
It was a typical rainy London day: grey clouds, grey buildings, grey
pavements and everyone dressed in grey clothes. All grey except for the police men
and women of the Dog Squad of Scotland Yard who stood at attention in their stark
white and black uniforms waiting for the Police Commissioner and guests of honour
to arrive.
I was one of those guests.
My response vehicle had pulled up at the kerb and my uniformed handler had
opened my comfortable soundproof air-conditioned kennel compartment. I looked out
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at two straight lines of police officers leading from the kerb to the Town Hall steps at
Chigwell in the Redbridge Police Borough. My tail drooped.
The badges on the police officers’ hats glistened and their boots shone in spite
of the raindrops. Everyone smiled and their happiness should have brightened my
mood but nothing could lift my spirits.
My handler pulled me down to the wet pavement and into a puddle. I shook
my front paws. I looked up at him all dressed up in his best uniform to meet the
Commissioner.
‘Cheer up, Lord Flannery,’ he said. ‘How many police beagles get a medal
from the Commissioner on their retirement day? It’s not the end of the world.’
Not the end of the world!
It was for me. It was the end of the world as I knew it!
I wailed and my hazel eyes filled with tears. My retirement day! I rubbed the
round tip of a long ear across my eyes with my paw. Where had my life gone?
Yesterday I was just a puppy bred and born, and taught to sniff and find, at the
Metropolitan Police Dog Training Station at Keston. Today I was being put out to
pasture like an old horse!
I had enjoyed the benefit of one handler all my life. I lived at the station in a
comfortable concrete kennel and spent every working day with him. I had thought
that when I retired I would live with him as a pet. But, alas, no! He was replacing me
with a younger and fitter dog and sending me to live with his archaeologist brother in
Kent Street in the Greater City of London.
A soggy police flag flapped and I looked up. There, standing on the top step of
the Town Hall in front of the six other dogs of my unit was my dear young friend
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Jake, a tawny German Shepherd, also born at Keston. I barked and Jake and the other
dogs barked in reply. I trotted up to them pulling my handler behind me.
Jake nuzzled me and said, ‘Hi, Flan, we’re all proud of you and jealous that
the police are throwing you a big party.’
‘Today’s not just about me, Jake,’ I replied, timidly. I was pleased though that
Jake had said something so kind. ‘Quite a few officers are getting medals and retiring
today, even your handler, Jake,’ I said.
‘Yes, too bad about that,’ Jake sighed. ‘I am very fond of him.’
‘What’s going to happen to you?’
‘I’m transferring to the city into homicide this afternoon and working with a
young detective.’
I whistled. I wish I were Jake, I thought. ‘Good for you. What’s he like?’
‘Haven’t met him yet but his name is Inspector Robert Cooper. Saw a photo of
him though: about thirty, dark hair, chubby hands, a square chin and big teeth. He’s in
the Scotland Yard Criminal Investigation Unit.’
‘Sounds like you’re being promoted. Congratulations.’
My handler pulled hard on my lead and dragged me into the Town Hall. Jake
and the others followed.
I sighed.
The hall was decorated with bunting and balloons and people buzzed
excitedly. The Commissioner hadn’t been to this area for years. Newspaper reporters
were everywhere and a camera flash blinded me momentarily.
My nose, ever alert, smelt food and my stomach rumbled. I looked at the
sandwich-and-cake-filled trestle tables at the side of the hall. Steaming urns bubbled
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in the centre of the table and I hoped that I might be lucky enough to be given a cup
of tea.
My handler dragged me onto the podium next to Jake. ‘Sit, Boy,’ he said.
I was in no mood to obey. I barked in protest. After all, I didn’t know where I
was going to be taken after the ceremony!
At that very moment the Commissioner walked into the hall and the crowd
must have thought I was signalling for them to stand because they all did! Jake leant
closer to me and whispered,
‘Good work, Flannery. You’re always on the ball and first to notice something
important as usual.’
The Commissioner strode towards us and mounted the steps. He bent and
rubbed my head.
‘Hello, Boy,’ the Commissioner boomed. ‘I hear your good work led to the
arrest of a prolific burglar who has been making the lives of people in this area a
misery. One of your many accomplishments they tell me. You deserve a good rest
now after a life of hard work.’
And that’s exactly what my handler said to me two hours later as we walked
along a poplar-lined street, past a busy construction site and crossed the road to a
cream gate. He bent down and looked at the commendation medal that hung from a
leather collar around my neck. I barked.
‘Pity they didn’t give me one,’ he said. ‘I suppose I should leave this with you
Boy. You’ve earned it. You have had a hard life and deserve a peaceful retirement.’
I whined. How insensitive of me not to realise that he felt that his good work
had not been recognised. Everybody knows that good police work is good teamwork
and that I couldn’t have caught over two hundred and fifty criminals without him.
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He rubbed his forehead against mine. ‘Sorry I have to leave you, Flannery.’
He grabbed my ears. ‘I’ll come and visit you every week, promise.’
I knew he meant it. I also knew he wouldn’t keep his promise. He’d get too
busy and time would pass without him realising.
I looked up at him and then at the two-storey brick house before us. We
headed through the gate into a rose garden and up the front steps of my new home in
Kent Street. It started to rain again and as we hurried I thought I saw something move
in the bay window upstairs.
He pulled me to follow him. I trotted submissively up to the mahogany door.
He knocked and knocked and waited.
‘They mustn’t be home, Flannery. Typical.’
I watched him take a key from under the mat. He opened the door and let us
into the house. It was dark and quiet and cold. He dropped the key into a glass bowl
that stood on a little table in the hallway.
‘Come on and I’ll show you around,’ he said. My paws slipped on the wooden
floorboards as he pulled me behind him.
A library was off to the left of the hallway. He flicked on the light switch and
we walked into the room. Dusty Egyptian statues and artefacts lined the walls, some
on stands in glass cabinets. I shivered.
‘They keep it cool in here to help preserve their collection of museum pieces
from around the world,’ he told me.
Journals and books of all shapes and sizes stood on the floor in tall columns
ready to topple. Two desks strewn with maps and papers and computers were pushed
up against the front windows, their black leather chairs scratched with claw marks. I
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barked. Then I sniffed. There was an unusual scent in the air. I looked up at my
handler.
‘You’ll get used to it. I know it looks like a mortuary but the rest of the house
isn’t this bad. They’ve got a housekeeper who keeps things clean and in order
generally, but she’s not allowed in this room. This is where my brother John and his
wife Melissa work. I thought I’d show you this room in case they don’t let you in
here.’
I scratched behind my ear. Was I going to be restricted in my new home?
What next?
‘They’ve put a kennel for you in the laundry so I’ll have to leave you tied up
in there. I’ve got to get back to the station.’
I followed him down the long hallway, past a staircase, through the kitchen,
across the doorway of a downstairs bathroom and came to an abrupt stop outside a
spacious green tiled laundry. My eyes bulged. My front paws struggled
unsuccessfully to dig into the tiles.
‘Look. They’ve left you some food and a bowl of water.’
It was not the food and drink bowl that I was looking at. To one side of a
washing machine under a big window were two litter trays. I sniffed and smelt that
same unusual scent that I had detected in the library. I looked at my handler
enquiringly and let out a short whine.
‘The litter trays are not for you, Flannery. They’re for the cat.’
CAT! I thought. What cat? Nobody said anything about a cat!
--
Toni Brisland, born in Wollongong, NSW, Australia, and of Italian heritage, taught
English and History in high schools before undertaking further study in management
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and law and working as a Senior HR Manager and Corporate Lawyer. In 2005 she
won a Children's Book Council of Australia writing competition for children's authors
and now focuses full-time on writing for children and young adults. Toni lives in
Sydney with her husband and two Himalayan cats.
Find out more at: http://tonibrisland.com