Sewer Mayhem Read online

  Ricky stifled a yawn. Maybe it would be best if he continued in the morning. It was late and breaking into all the shops tonight probably wasn’t the way to go about this. He’d better be patient and observe his prey before he attacked. The person who took his loot was going to regret he’d ever so much as looked down at that manhole cover, let alone open it!

  * * *

  Paddy

  Since when did two-leggeds go down into the sewer? I watched as the figure dressed in black put the cover back over the manhole and sat down in the doorways of one of the shops across the street. Of course, Vinnie and I had only been living in the sewers for two weeks, but so far I’d never seen any two-leggeds down there.

  I’d just made my way up to the top and was now looking out over Woolaston Road, from a downstairs window of an abandoned old building. It was great to be away from the sewer for a little while and enjoy the solitude of the night. I inhaled deeply. The air was fresher and I could see the stars.

  I watched as the two-legged got up and walked away. His behaviour intrigued me. Was this something the two-leggeds of Woolaston Road did, something I didn’t know about yet?

  I jumped as I heard a noise behind me.

  ‘There you are, Paddy!’ Vinnie said, as he and Leo crawled out of the hole in the wall that led down to the sewers. ‘We’ve been looking all over for you.’

  ‘Gus was driving me crazy,’ I said. ‘He never stops talking about his treasure.’

  The cousins joined me on the windowsill.

  Vinnie rolled his eyes. ‘I know. He’s a bit obsessed.’

  ‘More than a bit,’ Leo said. He looked about him, eyes wide, as if this was the first time he was above ground in his life. ‘I’ve never seen him like this before.’

  We looked out over the quiet street. The two-legged had disappeared out of sight and everything seemed normal again.

  ‘Is there any more news about the Mob?’ I said.

  Vinnie shook his head. ‘No. Let’s hope it stays that way.’

  ‘Oh, let’s hope indeed,’ Leo said. ‘I don’t think I could deal with Gus’ craziness and the Three Bambini at the same time.’

  ‘I saw something interesting, just now,’ I said. ‘There was a two-legged that went down into the sewer.’

  Vinnie’s ears pricked up. ‘Really? Interesting.’

  ‘He’s gone again now, but it’s a bit of a conundrum.’ I turned to Leo. ‘Do the two-leggeds of Woolaston Road normally go down into the sewer?’

  Leo shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think so.’ He screwed up his eyes in thought. ‘Sometimes some of them do come down into the sewer, but they are special ones. You know, to do repairs.’

  ‘Ah… Does this happen at night?’

  ‘No, never.’ Leo shook his head again.

  I looked at the manhole cover in the street. An idea occurred to me. ‘Could it be possible that tonight’s two-legged had something to do with Gus’ treasure?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Leo said.

  ‘Well, you know. That he was the one that dropped the backpack into the manhole.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Vinnie said. He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I suppose it was only a matter of time before one of them came looking for it, so why not?’

  I nodded. ‘He did seem upset about something. Maybe the fact that the backpack was gone?’

  We watched as a black cat walked by our window. It didn’t even see us… silly creatures. Leo stared at it as if he’d never seen one before.

  ‘We don’t know yet if the two-legged who dropped the backpack had something to hide, do we?’ Vinnie said, looking up at the sky in thought. ‘I mean, he could just have lost it.’

  I snorted. ‘I don’t think so! The backpack dropped down in the middle of the night. Two-leggeds don’t skulk about at night, unless they have some sinister intentions. Remember Priscilla?’ I shivered.

  ‘I guess you’re right, Paddy.’

  The black cat had crossed the road and made its way back along the shops on the other side.

  ‘Oh, Leo, I’ve been meaning to ask,’ I said. ‘When Johnny and Curtis came to warn us about the Mob, they said they were going down to Ratville. What is that? Some sort of town?’

  ‘Have you never heard of Ratville before?’ Leo said, his whiskers twitching. ‘How extraordinary.’

  He looked out of the window and up and down the road. ‘I couldn’t actually tell you how to get to it from here, but I could show you where to go when we’re back down in the sewers.’

  ‘But what is it?’

  Leo shrugged. ‘It is a sort of town, I guess. At the top of Woolaston Road there is an old abandoned factory the two-leggeds once built. We’ve taken it over from them and made it into a village. There’s quite a few of us there.’

  ‘Intriguing.’

  ‘It’s great, as two-leggeds almost never go there. I’ll show you one day.’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘Talking about two-leggeds,’ Vinnie said. ‘Let’s go down and see if tonight’s two-legged has left a treasure behind.’ He jumped off the windowsill and made his way back to the hole in the wall. Leo and I followed him.

  ‘If he had, I’m sure Gus would have found it by now,’ I said.

  ‘Gus was too busy showing his treasure to his girlfriend, Daisy,’ Leo said.

  I stopped in my tracks. ‘Gus has a girlfriend?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Vinnie turned around and looked down his nose at me. ‘Why wouldn’t Gus have a girlfriend? He’s Italian, like me. The females love us.’

  We started moving again through the wall until we came to the broken water pipe that led down into the sewers. I’d forgotten how touchy Vinnie could be about his Italian heritage.

  ‘You don’t have a girlfriend,’ I muttered to Vinnie’s tail, but was glad he didn’t hear me.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  As he came around the corner of Upper Tile Street, Jacob saw that the sewer maintenance crew had put up a small roadblock around the manhole in front of Posh Nosh on Woolaston Road. Dave hovered nearby keeping an eye on it all. As soon as he spotted Jacob, he beckoned him over.

  Curious as to how a camera survey would work, Jacob walked up to him. He had stuff to do on his allotment, but a quick look couldn’t hurt.

  The crew had erected a large tripod with a winch over the manhole and now started winching down a small black box with a lens and two caterpillar threads, one on each side.

  ‘This is Gareth Johnson,’ Dave said, as Jacob neared and pointed at a burly man with red hair, dressed in a green coverall and yellow dayglow vest. As he finished attaching some cables to a small screen, he looked up at Jacob.

  ‘You must be the professor,’ he said, taking in Jacob’s lab coat. ‘Your reputation precedes you.’

  ‘Does it? How so?’

  Gareth smiled. ‘Dave here tells me you’re into creepy-crawlies. Plenty of those in the sewer.’

  ‘No doubt.’

  ‘The camera’s in the sewer, boss,’ one of the crew members said.

  ‘Good.’ Gareth handed him a remote control and the man started manipulating the two small joysticks to manoeuvre the camera down the sewers. His face was puffy and red under the hard hat he was wearing.

  ‘I really hope you find something,’ Dave said and he poked Jacob with his elbow to indicate that Peggy had arrived, standing on the pavement studying the procedure, her arms folded across her chest. ‘Otherwise we might have a mutiny on our hands.’

  ‘I’ll do my best for you,’ Gareth said with a grin. The three men congregated around the little screen, while the number 2 bus to High Woolaston slowly made its way past the roadblock. A few of the passengers stared down on them from up high.

  It took a little while for the camera to make its way down the sewer. Jacob stared at the screen, expecting to see a perfect outline of the sewer. Instead, all he could see was a darkish spot, with grey edges.

  ‘That’s the sewer pipe,’ Gareth said and pointed at the dark spot.

>   ‘How can you tell?’ Dave said.

  Gareth smiled. ‘It’s not a great view I admit, but these grey areas are the walls.’ They bent forward to concentrate on the image, not noticing the figure that approached them from up the road.

  ‘What the heck is going on here?’ All three men jumped and turned around to find Inspector McDermott glaring at them, his face like thunder. ‘You’re blocking the traffic. Can’t you see there’s another roadblock still up because of the murder?’

  They all looked up Woolaston Road, where at least 150 yards away, two police cars and a van were parked in front of Field’s Watches & Clocks.

  ‘That’s not near here,’ Dave said with a wave of his hand. ‘And there’s hardly any traffic, so it shouldn’t be a problem.’ He turned his eyes back to the screen. ‘Besides, we’ll be finished soon.’

  ‘You’d better be out of here in an hour,’ McDermott said and walked off, his heels clicking on the empty road, the tails of his dark grey trench coat flapping behind him.

  ‘Is he always like that?’ Gareth said.

  ‘Worse.’

  They watched the screen as the camera made its way along the sewer.

  ‘Aha, that’s interesting,’ Gareth said. ‘Can you zoom in to the left, Peter?’ The image on the screen shifted, then in one corner, a lighter coloured blotch of grey emerged.

  Gareth pointed at it. ‘Looks like there’s some kind of muck sticking to the roof of the sewer.’

  ‘Can you tell what it is?’

  ‘No, not yet.’ Gareth shook his head. ‘We have to get a bit closer still.’

  ‘Could it be the source of the smell?’ Dave’s voice was hopeful.

  ‘No idea.’

  Jacob had lost his interest a bit. There weren’t even any bugs or other animals visible on the screen. He looked up and saw how a young man intently watched the proceedings from the doorway of the old abandoned post office. He looked vaguely familiar, but it was hard to say who he was, as he wore a hood pulled over his head. As soon as he noticed Jacob watching him, he skulked away along the shopfronts.

  ‘How can muck stick to the sewer roof?’ Dave said, drawing Jacob’s attention back to the matter at hand.

  Gareth shrugged. ‘It happens sometimes. We just need to hope it doesn’t block the sewer.’ He scratched his chin. ‘Although we’ve had no complaints of diminished water flow.’

  Jacob saw a movement from the corner of his eye and looked up to see Spencer Peacock walking towards them. This camera survey was attracting all kinds of attention. As always, Spencer was dressed in a well-cut suit, a colourful cravat around his neck.

  ‘Are you trying to get to the bottom of this sewer smell?’ he said, holding a hanky against his nose and being careful not to get too close to the open manhole and maintenance crew.

  Dave sighed. ‘Yes, we are, Spencer.’

  ‘I hope that this matter can be solved quickly as the judges of the competition arrive in five weeks’ time.’

  ‘I know. You’ve mentioned it to me before.’ Dave looked down into the manhole. ‘We’re doing our best to go as quick as we can.’

  Spencer wrinkled his nose, then looked Gareth up and down. ‘It doesn’t seem fast enough to me.’ He walked off.

  Dave rolled his eyes and turned back to the screen. ‘How can you find out for sure what it is?’

  ‘There’s actually a few things we could do,’ Gareth started to say, but Jacob realised he’d seen enough.

  ‘I’m going to skedaddle and leave you to it,’ he said, interrupting. ‘I’ve got things to do on my allotment.’

  ‘No problem,’ Dave said. ‘We’re going to be here a while.’

  ‘Better not make McDermott angry.’

  ‘Actually, it’s my plan to make McDermott angry.’ Dave grinned.

  Jacob grinned back. ‘Good idea.’

  * * *

  Paddy

  This holiday wasn’t turning out as peaceful as I had hoped. After the to-do about the backpack, Gus’ obsession with his new treasure and the rumours of the Rat Mafia setting their sights on Milbury, we woke up to another intrusion this morning, when a strange mechanical device rumbled past the digs that Vinnie and I were sharing.

  My heart raced as I peeked around the corner into the main sewer, to see what it was that made the weird noise that had woken me up.

  ‘It doesn’t seem to have any large teeth,’ I said, observing the strange box as it shone a strong light down the sewer, illuminating the brick wall of the tunnel.

  ‘Perhaps we should warn Gus and Leo about it?’ Vinnie said. His eyes were still half closed and he yawned, scratching the fur on his chest.

  ‘It’s probably not very dangerous,’ I said. ‘It moves at a snail’s pace.’

  ‘Still, they might want to know about it.’

  We followed the device down the sewer, then squeezed past it. The thing radiated a gentle heat, almost like a living being.

  Leo emerged from the side-pipe that led to his and Gus’ digs.

  We ran up to him.

  ‘Have you seen this?’ I said, motioning with my head to the device as it moved along behind us.

  ‘Oh, we’ve seen it before,’ Leo said. He didn’t seem worried at all and watched as the thing slowly moved closer. ‘It belongs to the two-leggeds I told you about last night. The ones that come down to do repairs to the tunnel. I think it carries their lunch boxes for them.’

  The bright light on top of the device now blinded me as it shone right in my face.

  ‘Why would it have a light if it just carries lunch boxes?’ I said blinking. ‘That doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘It looks for the best spot for the two-leggeds to have their lunch, and then waits for them,’ Leo said. ‘I found a whole pile of sandwiches once after they’d left.’

  Gus stuck his head around the corner as well, to see what the commotion was about.

  ‘It’s not for lunch boxes, you fool,’ he said. Today he had shoved his head through a gold watch and was wearing it like a necklace. ‘The light helps the two-leggeds to see in the dark when they work down here.’

  ‘Well, whatever it does,’ Vinnie said, ‘it probably means that the two-leggeds will come down. Do you think it is wise to let them see this?’ He pointed at some of Gus’ treasure that had spilled out of the digs into the side-pipe and now threatened to fall into the main sewer.

  ‘Eeeek! Of course not!’ Gus said, eyes wide and fur puffed out. He frantically started to push his treasure back into his digs. ‘Help me!’

  The device rumbled closer. Dangerous or not, it did make me somewhat uncomfortable. ‘I’m going out for some fresh air,’ I said to Vinnie.

  He nodded. ‘I’ll come with you.’

  Via a network of pipes and drains we made our way back to the abandoned old building and from there, via a hole in the back door, outside to the car park. I inhaled deeply. It was great to be in the sunshine, breathing in the fresh air!

  ‘What do you want to do?’ Vinnie said, looking at a two-legged walking up to her car, dragging a reluctant dog with her on a lead. The car blinked its lights at her as she came closer.

  I shrugged. ‘Don’t know. Just explore a bit? We haven’t seen much around here yet.’

  We rounded the corner of a building. There was a bit of green grass next to it, on which stood a bench and an overflowing rubbish bin. I sniffed the air.

  ‘Look at that,’ I said, pointing at a discarded bag of half-eaten fish and chips on the grass. ‘Breakfast!’

  We quickly made our way to the grass and started eating.

  ‘Leo should be here,’ I said through a mouthful of chips.

  Vinnie nodded. He was chomping down on a piece of battered fish. ‘I don’t think my cousins come up to the surface very often.’

  ‘They don’t know what they’re missing.’

  I looked around a bit. A few cars drove past on Woolaston Road, but a bit further up I could see some two-leggeds in orange clothing hanging about a manhole. ‘
That’s a bit dangerous to do, standing in the middle of the road like that.’

  We studied them for a moment.

  ‘Do you think those are the two-leggeds that let the device down?’ I said.

  ‘Quite possible.’

  Then my eye fell on a two-legged who was skulking about a bright orange van parked in a narrow street just off Woolaston Road. My tail quivered. Wasn’t that the same two-legged I’d seen last night coming out of the manhole?

  ‘Vinnie, look at that.’ I pointed at the two-legged. ‘Is that the way two-leggeds normally open their car doors?’ We looked on as the two-legged forced the back door of the van open with a large implement and disappeared inside. Soon the contents of the van started appearing, thrown willy-nilly out of the back and on to the pavement.

  ‘Very secretive behaviour for a two-legged,’ Vinnie said. ‘In broad daylight as well…’

  ‘It looks like the same two-legged who went down into the manhole last night,’ I said. ‘Same dark clothes and yellow hair.’

  We’d both stopped eating and watched as Yellow Hair came back out of the van, empty handed. He picked his way around the stuff on the pavement and walked back up to Woolaston Road, his face like thunder.

  My whiskers and ears tingled.

  ‘It’s him,’ I said. ‘No doubt about it. This is the two-legged who dumped the backpack down the manhole and who came looking for it last night. Now he’s looking for it in other places, coz he couldn’t find it in the sewer.’

  Vinnie’s scratched the fur on his chin in thought. ‘But if he keeps looking for it above ground without finding it, sooner or later he’ll realise that the backpack and its contents are still down in the sewer.’

  I nodded. ‘And when he does, we’re in danger down there!’

  A terrific scream made us both jump about a foot in the air. A female two-legged stood pointing at us, rigid with fear, her eyes wide and mouth open.

  ‘We’d better get out of here,’ Vinnie said. I couldn’t agree more.