67f695396320fe1a34a41489ddea0fac

‘No, of course not. I’m just using their feet as an example. The person also managed to access Tomasz’s keys, but as Claire said, he had it in his jacket pocket so it could have been anyone with access to the jacket while he wasn’t wearing it.’

‘Right, so this evidence is really not very good. We are looking for someone with big feet,’ George summed up.

‘You’re right, it’s not a lot to go on.’ I scratched my head; it was a perplexing situation.

‘We’ll have to go to the hall when they’re making sets or rehearsing and see if we can see anything suspicious. Search for clues, watch people,’ George suggested.

‘There’s a rehearsal tonight, and Polly said they would be setting up the trees as well.’

‘Great, well at least we have a starting point,’ George said.

‘Can I come?’ Pickles asked.

‘I guess you’ll have to, seeing as you’re a reindeer,’ George replied.

‘I’m not a reindeer, I am Rudolph – the best reindeer ever.’

‘You are,’ I said quickly before my son could say anything scathing to the poor pug.

‘So, I can help you catch the baddie,’ Pickles said.

George shook his tail. I knew he thought that Pickles would be more hindrance than help, but then, you never knew. Maybe he would be able to help us. Or, then again, maybe he wouldn’t.

I needed to go and rally my troops. It was going to be a long day, I could feel it in my fur, but I would make sure that I was prepared.

‘George, I have to go and see Snowball. You can go and fill in Hana, I guess?’

‘Sure thing, Dad.’

‘What about me?’ Pickles asked.

‘What I really need for now is for you to stay here and keep guard. Note anything suspicious and tell us when we get back. Think of yourself as being in charge of ground control.’ I knew I wasn’t technically supposed to leave Pickles but Claire would be back any minute – or so I hoped – and this was an emergency. It was a case of neighbourhood security after all.

‘Oh, now that does sound important. Am I important?’ he pushed.

‘Very,’ George said, staring at his paw. ‘Right, I’m off. Let operation foil the saboteur begin.’

‘What’s that mean?’ Pickles asked.

‘I’ll explain later,’ I said. ‘For now, we really have to go and you need to stay here and be in charge.’ I followed George out of the cat flap and the house before Pickles could ask any more questions.

It wasn’t even midday and we were already weary. My first stop had been Snowball, but Harold was clutching her, so we’d had to wait, because he really didn’t let her go for a minute. Thankfully Sylvie called round with Theo, and Snowball was at once discarded and replaced by baby Theo. That baby wasproving very useful, it seemed. We quickly ran outside and finally had a chance to chat.

‘We’ll get it sorted,’ Snowball said reassuringly when I finished telling her.

‘Yes, but we don’t have much time and we need a plan,’ I said.

‘You and your plans! But yes, this time I agree, it’s important.’ Snowball sounded serious, she wasn’t even taking the opportunity to tease me … much, anyway.

‘It’s vital. And we cats will probably end up having to solve it as usual,’ I pointed out.

‘You’re probably right. Alfie, what if the person is really bad? The show is for charity so to try to ruin it is awful; we don’t want to put ourselves in danger.’ Her fur shook.

‘No, Snowball, I promise I’ll make sure that we aren’t in danger.’ Thankfully she didn’t notice that I had my paws crossed. I couldn’t promise any such thing, but I could hope, and I certainly hoped we wouldn’t get into too much danger. But then, sometimes danger did seem to be my middle name.

Our second stop was the recreation ground, where I filled in our other cat friends. They all sat to attention like an army as they listened to me.

‘Right, so we need to see if we can find out who is doing this?’ Oliver said. He was quite a smart cat so I had high hopes for him being able to help.

‘Yes, and as a lot of the people involved in the show live on this street, you guys can be our eyes and ears here on Edgar Road,’ I explained.

‘Got it, I’ll see if there’s anything suspicious going on,’ Rocky said.

‘We can do a bit of a patrol of the street between us,’ Nellie said.

‘Rest assured, Alfie, we are on your team,’ Elvis finished.

‘I know I can always count on you,’ I said.

‘Now we need to find Salmon. If anyone knows anything, it’ll be him,’ Snowball said. So off we trotted.

Salmon was sat just outside his front door, under a shelter. He looked as if he was guarding his house and I was glad for his, and his humans’, busybody behaviour for once.

‘I heard about this,’ Salmon said when we finished telling him what had been happening. ‘Claire phoned us and Vic and Heather are already on the case. They are talking about organising a neighbourhood watch meeting to help sort this out.’

‘Good,’ I said. For once I was keen for a neighbourhood watch meeting. Normally I wasn’t, because they went on for ages and ages and were incredibly tiresome. Jonathan had fallen asleep in quite a few, which annoyed Claire, but I honestly couldn’t blame him.