Atticus Claw Breaks the Law Read Free Page A

to the old lady in whose wheelie basket he’d been riding and stepped off the bus in Littleton-on-Sea. The journey had been reasonably straightforward: a comfortable cabin on a cruise ship with a couple from Spain who thought he was the ship’s cat and brought him delicious scraps every mealtime; followed by a pleasant train journey in first class and a short ride on the bus with the old lady in a shopping basket full of biscuits. He rubbed the crumbs off his whiskers.
So far
, he thought,
so good
.
    Atticus looked about him, taking in his surroundings . To his left was a parade of open-fronted shops and cafés, which wound its way into the distance. The shops sold ice cream and buckets and spadesand postcards. The delicious smell of fish and chips wafted from the cafés. Atticus sniffed the air.
Maybe later
, he thought, turning his back. Right now, he had business to attend to.
    Across the road was the sea. The tide was out and the beach seemed to stretch for miles, flat and muddy-looking. Only a few people were on it. Atticus could understand why. A cold wind was blowing and it had started to drizzle. Like all cats, one of the things Atticus disliked most was rain. Fluffing out his coat, Atticus sighed. He missed Monte Carlo already.
    Sidestepping a little girl with sticky hands who wanted to stroke him, Atticus crossed over to the beach, hunching his shoulders against the wind, and jumped on to the sea wall. From here he had a better view of the pier. It stood a little way along the sand, beside the car park. He gazed at it, taking in every detail. It was roughly as wide as railway tracks and stuck out into the sea for about a hundred metres. Rusty rails ran along both sides of the wooden walkway , which was held up by huge iron pillars covered in seaweed.
    Atticus approached cautiously along the wall, ready to disappear in an instant if there was anytrouble. He reached the car park and gazed along the walkway. The pier was deserted. There was no sign of anyone. Or anything. Atticus hesitated. He heard the town clock strike once to signal the quarter hour. 11.15. He was bang on time. But where was the mysterious client who had sent for him?
    Suddenly he heard a strange noise.
    ‘
CHAKA-CHAKA-CHAKA-CHAKA
!’
    The chattering was loud and angry as though someone or something was warning him off. He listened again. The sound was coming from somewhere
below
the pier, where the iron columns held the walkway in place. Atticus jumped down lightly on to the sand and tiptoed under the pier. He followed it out towards the sea, glancing up from time to time. About halfway along, he stopped. Balanced between several rusty struts way above him was a scruffy mess of twigs and leaves. Leaning over the side of it were three bright-eyed birds with black heads and flashes of blue and white on their wings.
    ‘
Magpies!
’ he whispered.
    ‘What are you doing down there?’ the first of them jeered.
    ‘Yeah, if you’re Claw and you’re really as good as you say you are, you’ll climb up here so we can talk,’ the second one sneered.
    The third one said nothing, but even from a distance and in the shadow of the pier, Atticus could see its eyes glittering.
    Atticus thought about walking away. He’d never worked for a bird before. People: often; dogs: sometimes ; cats: occasionally; and once a pig who paid him to steal every truffle in Italy – but never a bird! A cat working for a magpie? The idea was ridiculous . And yet … Atticus’s curiosity got the better of him again.
What on earth could a bunch of magpies want with him
? He couldn’t resist staying long enough to find out. And if they
were
just messing around, he decided, he could always give them a nasty fright and go and get some fish and chips.
    ‘Sure,’ he agreed lazily, jumping on to one slippery beam and then to the next, balancing effortlessly on the thin edges.
    Soon, he reached the ledge where the magpies perched. They had climbed out of the nest to greet him.