Dognapped! Read Free Page A

another row of houses. High fences or walls surrounded each of the yards, so unless anyone was walking past, or looking out of their bedroom window, someone could have opened Gran’s gate and let Fluffy out, completely unnoticed.
    With so many conflicting thoughts flying around my head, I had to keep a record of all the possible reasons for Fluffy’s disappearance. Opening up my notepad at a clean page, I wrote:

    ‘What are you doing?’
    It was Max – again. I was about to tell him to shove off, when it occurred to me that he might be useful. He knew more about Gran, Fluffy, the neighbours and the neighbourhood than I did.
    ‘I’m going to find out who’s taken Fluffy,’ I said. ‘Do you know if any of the neighbours have a grudge against Gran or might want to get rid of Fluffy?’
    ‘Mrs Brewson,’ Max said immediately. ‘She and Auntie Sue are always arguing ’cos Kittikins, Mrs Brewson’s cat, digs up Auntie Sue’s plants, and Fluffy keeps chasing Kittikins and frightening her.’
    Kittikins. I remembered the woman with the hairy mole clutching the tabby cat yesterday, saying Fluffy was a nuisance. ‘Where does she live?’
    ‘Two doors away from us,’ Max told me.
    That was definitely the woman I saw.
    I wrote another heading. Suspects. Underneath it I wrote – Mrs Brewson.
    ‘What about the other neighbours? Has Gran fallen out with any of them?’
    ‘Well … she doesn’t like the Arnold sisters – they live next door to us. She says their house is messy. It is too! Mum’s always moaning about it. Auntie Sue says it’s bad for trade.’ Max frowned. ‘And then there’s Mrs Crystal. She lives in Seagull Villa, a B&B over the road. One of her guests left her to stay at Beachview last year and she’s never forgiven Auntie Sue for it.’
    ‘Ok, we have three neighbours who could be suspects then.’ I added the Arnold Sisters and Mrs Crystal to the list.
    ‘Do you think one of them could have taken Fluffy?’ asked Max.
    I shook my head. ‘No, they live too close and wouldn’t be able to hide her. But they could have let her out on purpose, hoping she’d get lost. We can’t eliminate anyone just yet.’
    Time for some more deductions. If Fluffy was stolen rather than set free, how did the culprit do it, and more importantly, why? I put another header into my notepad:

    ‘Do you know the names of any of Gran’s competitors?’ I asked Max. ‘You know, people who enter their dogs in shows too.’
    Max considered this. ‘There’s Mr Mudlark. He was mad ’cos Fluffy won ‘Best of Breed’ at the last show. His Bichon, Maisy-May, is entering the Rivington show next week.’
    ‘Amy! Can you come here a moment please,’ Gran called from the back door. ‘PC Lambard wants to question you.’
    Gran had telephoned the police last night and they’d promised to send the local officer around this morning to investigate Fluffy’s disappearance. ‘Better go,’ I told Max.
    ‘Doesn’t he want to talk to me too?’ he asked. ‘I was the last one to see Fluffy in the garden.’
    He had a point. Max told me he’d seen Fluffy a few minutes before she went missing. ‘What time did you see her?’
    Max didn’t hesitate. ‘Ten past two.’
    ‘Are you sure?’
    ‘Amy!’
    ‘Coming!’ I looked at Max. ‘You come too.’
    PC Lambard took a statement from me and Max, then asked Gran for a photo of Fluffy. ‘Dogs disappear all the time,’ he said. ‘Sometimes they turn up again a few days later, sometimes we never find them.’ He looked sternly at me. ‘You should have taken better care of …’ he glanced at his notepad, ‘Fluffy, young lady. There are a lot of holidaymakers down at this time of year. If someone saw a valuable dog like that wandering the streets, they could have taken her home with them.’
    ‘Oh no, poor Fluffy! I might never see her again!’ Gran wailed.
    Mr Winkleberry put his arm around her shoulder and glared at me.
    ‘Don’t you think someone local might be