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  “Gabbie must have been killed between 6 p.m. – when we last saw her – and 6.15 p.m. when we found her corpse,” objected Graham. “Alexandra and Grant were talking the entire time. We sat and watched them. She may have had a motive, but she certainly didn’t have an opportunity.”

  “I suppose so. I guess we can rule both of them out, then.”

  We talked for a bit longer but didn’t come up with anything else. The dog-phobic young mother was the only person in the park who had the motive, means and opportunity. As far as we could see, the case against Kathryn Hughes was an open-and-shut one.

  I really hate those.

  bad news

  There may have been a murderer on the loose, but Mrs Biggs still had a broken leg and Bertie still needed exercise. However, now things had turned nasty Mum insisted on coming to the park with us.

  The next day there were lots of police in and around the shrubbery, and then – surprise, surprise – a TV crew arrived with a squeal of tyres to cover the latest gruesome developments. When Dermot O’Flannery climbed out of his car, Mum did her hair flicking thing and moved towards him, a friendly smile playing across her lips.

  He gave her a quick nod, a wink and a grin – the professional reaction of a TV personality to a fan.

  We watched while he did a serious piece to camera, explaining how RSPCA inspector Gabbie Robinson had been brutally murdered in the park. Then he talked to Mumsiewumsie, who was in tears throughout the interview, and Collie Woman, whose voice was husky with shock. The small Spanish lady wailed about how terrible it was, and the short, fat man did a lot of sighing and tutting and fretting about how nowhere was safe any more. Byron’s owner refused point-blank to do an interview – he was far too traumatized, he said. It was all too awful: he’d never let his beagle off the lead again for fear of what he might find.

  After Dermot had completed the interviews, he shed his earnest manner like a winter coat and grinned at Bertie as the Pekinese trundled towards him, tail wagging.

  “Hello again there, little fella.” He bent down to stroke him. “Sure, you’re a friendly one, aren’t you?”

  “Isn’t he just?” said Mum, stepping in front of me and Graham with an eagerness that was downright embarrassing. “Bertie loves people.”

  “So is he your dog?” Dermot asked, looking Mum up and down in a way that made her blush with pleasure. “You don’t look the Pekinese type.”

  “No … he belongs to our neighbour. My daughter and her friend have been exercising him for her. She’s got a broken leg.”

  “A broken leg?” Dermot’s journalistic instincts stood to attention. It was like watching Byron catch a distant whiff of fox. “An accident, was it? Or deliberate? Was it linked with the other incidents?”

  “Oh no, no, no,” said Mum hastily. “Mrs Biggs tripped. One of those silly accidents, you know?”

  “Ah, OK.” Dermot was losing interest, so Mum added eagerly, “But Poppy and Graham were the ones to discover the body!”

  Oh, so suddenly me and Graham getting mixed up in Violent Deaths wasn’t so bad after all! Outrageous.

  “Were they now?” Dermot’s eyes narrowed. It was like being stared at by a man with X-ray vision. “Mind if I have a word, then?”

  So Graham and I had to do an interview too. It was exceedingly brief – we knew full well that we weren’t allowed to give any actual details about what we’d seen in case it interfered with the police investigation. All we could do was murmur softly about how upsetting it was, which was perfectly true. When I saw myself on the news later I looked devastated. But what was really bothering me wasn’t so much Gabbie Robinson’s death: it was how we were going to shake Mum off so Graham and I could investigate properly. I don’t believe in open-and-shut cases. I knew in my bones that there had to be more to it – and Graham and I were both determined to find out what.

  After we’d returned Bertie to Mrs Biggs, Mum took Graham and me to the swimming-pool. Our parents had agreed that while they were working we needed to be taken to a safe public place and left there. Mum escorted us into the lobby of the sports centre with strict instructions to go straight to the pool and remain in the water until she came back.

  “I’ll tap on the glass,” she said. “I want to see you in there, OK? No running about poking your noses in where they’re not wanted. I’ve only got a few lawns to mow; I’ll be an hour. Two at the most. You’re not to leave the building, got it?”

  We nodded meekly and pushed our way through the turnstiles. But instead of heading straight to the changing-rooms, we hid around the corner until Mum had gone. Then we doubled back to the lobby and set off up the stairs to the Internet café, which was oh-so-conveniently located on the first floor.

  “So,” I said, sipping a Coke, “is Kathryn Hughes our number-one suspect?”

  “She has to be,” said Graham. “We saw for ourselves how emotionally volatile she is.”

  “There have got to be other suspects, though. Who might want to get rid of Gabbie Robinson? I still reckon Super Speedy Sprinting Woman and Gabbie’s husband had motives.”

  “But not the means or the opportunity. We have to rule them out,” Graham said wisely.

  “Who else, then? Didn’t Dermot say Gabbie was an RSPCA inspector? She could have had lots of enemies.”

  “He did.”

  “How do they work? Is it like social services?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, if someone’s not looking after their pet properly, could Gabbie take it into care?”

  “I believe that would be possible.”

  “So…” I reasoned. “Maybe Gabbie was involved in cruelty cases or something. She might have been responsible for taking someone’s pet away from them. Hey! She could have had it put down if it was like a dangerous dog or something. She might have had loads of chances to upset people. Let’s look her up.”

  The first thing we discovered about Gabbie was that she’d been the judge in a local dog show at the start of the summer holidays. For a moment I wondered if that might have given someone a motive for killing her. But it wasn’t exactly Crufts: the classes were things like “cutest puppy”, “waggiest tail”, “biggest smile” and “dog the judge would most like to take home”. It didn’t look like the sort of competition to inspire murderous rivalries.

  Then, as Graham scrolled down, we came across something a whole lot more sinister.

  Gabbie had been involved in some hideous animal cruelty cases, ranging from mild neglect to savage violence. Some of the photos we found made my stomach turn: wounded cats, starved dogs, blinded rabbits. There’s something sick about hurting an animal that can’t fight back.

  From what we could see, Gabbie had prosecuted some truly evil people and several more cases were pending. There was one against a man who’d kept twenty-seven horses on a piece of land that wasn’t much bigger than my back garden; a photo showed the poor things standing ankle-deep in mud, hips and ribs sticking up through their matted coats, eyes glazed and despairing. Another case involved a young man who was being prosecuted for shooting neighbourhood cats with a crossbow. A third “ongoing investigation” concerned a suspected dogfighting ring. As far as we could see, Gabbie could have had hundreds of enemies.

  And yet, when I thought back to the evening Gabbie had died, I recalled that there hadn’t been many people around.

  “Do you reckon we’d have noticed someone unfamiliar?” I asked.

  “It’s a public place,” replied Graham. “There could have been any number of complete strangers there.”

  “I know. But were there?” It occurred to me again that anyone who visited the park had a very particular reason for going. They all fitted into one category or another: dog walkers; joggers; young mums with kids; teenage gangs; old folk. Very occasionally a lone adult might take a short cut through it, but they always headed very purposefully from one side to the other.

  “Whoever attacked Gabbie must have hung around for a while waiting for t
he chance to bash her over the head,” I said. “But I didn’t notice anyone out on their own – without a kid or a dog, I mean. I reckon they’d have stood out like a sore thumb. Anything out of the ordinary attracts attention in the park. Look what happened when the TV crew arrived.”

  “If you’re right, the attacker would have had to be someone we’re familiar with, at least by sight. Possibly one of the dog walkers?”

  I flipped through them in my head. There was only one person, apart from Kathryn Hughes, who might have been in the right place at the right time. “Mumsiewumsie,” I said slowly. “We don’t know where she was when Gabbie died. We couldn’t see her, could we?”

  “Are you suggesting she could have done it?”

  “I don’t know … maybe. Gabbie was worried about Malcolm and Stanley’s weight. And she told Grant she was going to take action, didn’t she?”

  “Yes, she did.” Graham looked thoughtful. “In fact, as I recall, Gabbie described their overfeeding as a form of abuse.”

  We eyed each other.

  “Abuse,” I repeated. “So Gabbie – as an RSPCA inspector – might have threatened to take Malcolm and Stanley away? I bet that wouldn’t have gone down well with Mumsiewumsie.”

  Graham saw exactly where my thoughts were heading. “I read somewhere that according to a recent survey, many people are more attached to their pets than their relatives. As we’ve observed, Mumsiewumsie’s terribly protective of Malcolm and Stanley. She treats them like her own offspring.”

  “And mothers are fierce when it comes to defending their young,” I added. “If Gabbie was planning on taking those two shih tzu away … well, anything might have happened.”

  crash-landing

  Once we’d finished our Cokes we headed to the changing-rooms to put on our swimming gear. We’d barely had time to get ourselves convincingly wet when Mum tapped on the glass in the viewing gallery.

  There was nothing we could actually do about our suspicions. Mum had appointed herself our personal security guard, so there was no way we could even talk about it any more, let alone phone the police. In any case, we doubted they’d be interested in our theory unless we could produce some solid proof.

  All three of us walked Bertie again that evening, Mum sticking so close to me and Graham that it felt like we were all grafted together at the hip.

  We kept our eyes peeled for Mumsiewumsie but she didn’t arrive at her usual time, which was odd – her routine had seemed pretty fixed up until then. Graham and I exchanged puzzled looks but didn’t say anything.

  Dogs need exercise no matter what, and we hadn’t been in the park long before we noticed Jessie, bounding back and forth over the grass while an extremely white-faced Grant threw a stick for her. Every time she brought it back, he hugged her as if his life depended on it. Mum, not being much of an animal lover, didn’t pay them any attention. All dogs look the same to her and she wasn’t to know that Grant was the grieving widower. On the other hand, she did notice Super Speedy Sprinting Woman thudding towards us.

  “Crikey! She’s a bit stunning, isn’t she? Amazing hair,” said Mum, herding us to the edge of the path. “She was here yesterday, wasn’t she?”

  “She’s here every day,” I replied. “Morning and evening, like the rest of us, regular as clockwork.”

  Super Sprinter whizzed past, but something happened to her when she saw Grant. It was like watching a plane crash. The red setter was running rings around her as usual, but as soon as Alexandra spotted Jessie’s owner she stopped dead. Her own dog bowled into her, knocking her clean off her feet. She fell forward onto the tarmac and there was suddenly blood gushing from her knees.

  Every single person who saw the accident rushed at once to her aid, including me, Mum and Graham. Grant was the only one who didn’t move towards her. Either he hadn’t seen her trip – which seemed totally impossible – or he was too wrapped up in his own problems to care about anyone else.

  While Mum dabbed at the bloody knees with a tissue and Ball Obsessed Collie Woman wondered aloud whether she ought to call an ambulance or drive her to A & E, Alexandra’s eyes kept flicking across to Grant. At first there was a kind of furious anger in them, but as it became increasingly obvious that he wasn’t coming over, her expression changed to one of confusion followed by Deep Distress. Her lower lip started to tremble and tears spilt down her lovely cheeks.

  “Oh dear,” fretted Mum. “You must be in shock. I really think you ought to get some medical attention – these cuts are quite deep.”

  “I thought he liked me!” Alexandra sobbed.

  “Ah…” Mum oozed instant sympathy. Man problems? She was an expert on that subject. “You need a cup of tea, sweetheart. Let’s get you to the café, shall we?”

  Alexandra looked at Mum and clearly decided the prospect of Tea and Sympathy was irresistible. “But I’ve got Paddy,” she said weakly, indicating the red setter. “I can’t go in the café with him.”

  “Poppy and Graham will look after him, won’t you?” said Mum. It wasn’t a question, it was an order.

  So Graham and I spent the next half hour standing outside the café, desperately trying to eavesdrop. We could only hear the odd phrase from Alexandra: “I thought we were friends, you know? A married man… I should have known better… He was using me…”

  Mum’s voice flowed in a soothing murmur between Alexandra’s sentences. It was all deeply frustrating – and deeply odd, too. Mum and Alexandra had never met before. So why was Alexandra pouring her heart out to a complete stranger?

  When Alexandra and Mum had finished their pot of tea, they started to make Better Get Going gestures at each other. There was still no sign of Mumsiewumsie.

  “Do you think something’s happened to her?” I asked Graham.

  “Possibly. It does seem odd that she hasn’t walked Malcolm and Stanley. Perhaps one of the other dog walkers knows something.” I noticed that Ball Obsessed Collie Woman was about to leave the park. If we wanted to ask her any questions, it was now or never. She was too far away for me to attempt a casual greeting, so I accidentally-on-purpose dropped Paddy’s lead, hoping that he’d make a beeline for Sam the collie. If they sniffed noses – and, inevitably, bottoms – maybe I’d get the opportunity for a quick chat with Sam’s owner.

  Unfortunately, the minute Paddy felt the lead drop he took off, hurtling across the grass with such reckless abandon that I didn’t have a hope of catching him. I screamed his name but the dog completely ignored me. He galloped past the collie and away into the distance. All I had achieved by my frantic yelling was to alert Alexandra to the fact that her dog had escaped from me. She leapt to her feet looking furious. Useless though it was, I set off in pursuit.

  Luckily for me, Collie Woman was fully equipped to cope with Canine Emergencies. When she saw what had happened she pulled a treat box from her handbag and rattled it.

  Every dog in the park heard and responded accordingly. Byron dragged his owner across the grass on his new extending lead, Hamlet and Jessie bounded towards her and Gertrude sped over as fast as her short legs could carry her. Meanwhile, Paddy had reappeared from the other side of the park. He circled her once, twice, and then came in like a homing pigeon. Collie Woman grabbed his lead.

  “Thanks,” I puffed.

  “No problem.”

  Mum and Alexandra were fast approaching.

  “Have you see Mums … er … Malcolm and Stanley’s owner today?” I asked quickly.

  Collie Woman frowned in concern. “No. I wonder where she’s got to? It’s unusual for her to miss her walk. I hope the dogs are OK.”

  I couldn’t say any more without risking Mum’s wrath, but my mind went into overdrive. I knew that Mumsiewumsie always came and left the park through the back gate. If we headed in that direction we might hear or see something interesting. But first I had to persuade Mum to go home by a different route. As she was saying her goodbyes to Alexandra, I remembered the shops near the rear entrance. There was a café and
a hairdressers, neither of which was remotely useful. But there was a newsagent’s, too…

  I gave Graham a Significant Look and set off.

  “Where are you going?” asked Mum. “Home’s that way.”

  “But Mrs Biggs asked us to get her a paper,” I said innocently.

  “Did she?” Mum looked puzzled.

  “Yes,” I said firmly. “Weren’t you listening?”

  Mum flushed. I knew perfectly well that she let most of what Mrs Biggs said wash clean over her. All I had to do to convince her was to tut and roll my eyes at Graham.

  We got more than I’d bargained for at the newsagent’s. Mum picked up a copy of the local paper and stood in the queue to pay for it while Graham and I hovered in the background with Bertie. It took some time for Mum to get served because the man behind the counter was chatting to a pair of customers, both of whom had witnessed a nasty car accident earlier on that day.

  Mumsiewumsie was in hospital, fighting for her life.

  It seemed that she had stepped out in front of a car. The driver hadn’t stopped. It had all happened so quickly that the two witnesses disagreed about the make and model and even the colour of the vehicle. But they both agreed on one thing.

  There had been a dog guard fixed across the boot.

  rescue dogs

  Mrs Biggs was extremely upset when she heard about Mumsiewumsie’s accident. “Hospital?” she said. “Oh my goodness! Is she badly hurt? Poor Doreen!” And then, a millisecond later, “Her boys! Who’s looking after Malcolm and Stanley?”

  We didn’t have a clue – no one had mentioned them in the newsagent’s. Mrs Biggs immediately swung into action. From her armchair she made about a million phone calls to various friends and acquaintances. Eventually she tracked Malcolm and Stanley to the vet’s. Thinking they might have sustained internal injuries in the smash, a passing stranger had taken them there after Mumsiewumsie had been loaded into an ambulance.