Piotr and Minnie were on the terracotta-coloured sofa in Minnie’s living room. Minnie had her dad’s laptop open and was busy searching for everything she could find about the Honourable Miranda Fairbanks.
‘She gets to call herself Lady!’ Minnie said in an awed voice. ‘Like something from a Disney movie!’
Piotr shrugged. She could call herself anything she liked; what he wanted to know was, did she have a motive for creating a curse? ‘What else is there?’
Minnie scrolled down, clicking on a few interesting-looking articles. ‘She teaches history at a college. There are a few pictures of her at university. They’re just in old magazine articles about who was at what posh dinner.’
Piotr leaned in to see. The photos showed a girl with dark hair and big eyes standing in a white dress looking uncomfortable. ‘She looks too sweet to want to frighten Tilda.’
‘Looks can be deceiving, Piotr,’ Minnie said sternly. ‘But there’s nothing that could be a motive here. Wait! There’s a link to her grandfather here.’ She clicked, and a black-and-white photograph of a man in military uniform appeared on screen. ‘Sir Douglas Fairbanks served under Lieutenant-General Montgomery in Egypt during the Second World War,’ she read. ‘Wow! That’s him, in Egypt! He might have gone straight from taking this picture to discovering the mummified cat!’
‘He probably had to finish fighting in the war first,’ Piotr said. But it was weird to be looking at a photo of the man whose discovery had started all this trouble.
Minnie sighed and closed the laptop. ‘There’s nothing here,’ she said. ‘No motive. I think what we need is boots on the ground.’
‘Let’s go and spy on the Lady!’ Piotr said.
Piotr leaned casually against a wall at the corner of Old Wynd Mews and Church Road. From here he could see the front door of Old Wynd House, but was far enough away not to attract attention. He hoped. He let his arms flop down by his sides and tilted his head as though his neck was missing a bone or two. He tried to look like a teenage boy with attitude. Like Lowdog and his mates, who used to hang out on a bench near the market, until the newsagents installed a machine that made a horrible high-pitched sound that only kids and dogs could hear and it irritated Lowdog away.
It was tough to look cool.
It made his back ache.
‘What are you doing?’ Minnie asked. ‘You look like jelly.’ She was leaning beside him, hands in her pockets and one foot flat against the bricks. She actually did look cool.
‘Nothing,’ he said.
He was about to change position and try to look like a sensible young man waiting for a friend, when the door to Old Wynd House opened. A woman stepped out. He recognised her from the photo Minnie had shown him online. Miranda, a few years older but definitely her. A dog trotted beside her, clipped on to a shiny pink lead.
The perfect trailing opportunity.
‘She’s walking Bruiser,’ Minnie said.
He nudged Minnie and they crossed the road quickly. With their backs to Old Wynd Mews, they stopped in front of a shop window, pretending to admire the pottery bowls and jugs on display. But he could see Miranda and her yappy dog clearly reflected in the glass. She set off towards Theatre Square.
Piotr and Minnie followed at a distance, always keeping her in sight but never getting too close. Once or twice she stopped to let Bruiser sniff a lamp post and leave his own wee-mail. When that happened, Piotr bent to tie a shoelace, or Minnie stopped to pat her pockets as though looking for a ringing phone.
Once they reached the square, Miranda unclipped Bruiser’s lead and the little dog bounded towards the bins, leaping to try and grab an overhanging chip wrapper.
‘Bruiser, no!’ he heard Miranda shout, but the dog ignored her, lost in his own world of delicious smells and abandoned fish batter.
Piotr and Minnie slid behind a plane tree and watched.
Miranda wandered over to one of the park benches. The day was a bit cold, but weak afternoon sunshine filtered through the branches. She closed her eyes and turned her face to the light. Her legs crossed at the ankle and she relaxed back against the wooden slats.
She sat like that for a while. ‘Do you think she’s gone to sleep?’ Minnie whispered.
‘Hush.’
It was at that moment that Miranda stretched, took out her phone and tapped the screen. She held it to her ear and waited. When the person at the other end picked up, Piotr was just close enough to hear Miranda say a name.
His jaw dropped.
This changed everything.