The Nosy Detectives

Louisa Bennet

Description

A barking mad mystery.
The Nosy Detectives agency is like no other. For a start, one of the detectives is a dog called Monty, a rescued Golden Retriever with a heart of gold and a super-smart nose. Rose Sidebottom, an ex-copper, has an uncanny ability to know when a suspect is lying. And Ollie Fernsby is a teenage super-geek and inventor of the rat-cam. They make a great team. There is just one problem - no clients.
Then one day, Phyllis O'Neal, a grumpy grandmother from the village of Nether Wallop, offers them an unsolved cold case they can't refuse - who really lit the fire that killed Tony and Marie Toyne? The surviving son and only witness, Finn, hasn't spoken since that terrible night.
Monty sets out to locate a forgotten second witness, a dog called Panda, who might recognise the arsonist if she had a good sniff. The tricky case gets harder when Rose is distracted by a handsome fire-scene investigator.
Can Monty get Rose back on track? Is Tiffany the giant cat friend or foe? And why is the whole village lying about the night of the fire?
Can the Nosy Detectives solve the pawfect murder?

Sujets

• Cozy
• Detective
• Mystery
• Dogs
• Cats
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Clan Destine Press
• Date de parution: 01 juillet 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781922904386
• Langue: English

Extrait

Published by Clan Destine Press in 2023
Clan Destine Press PO Box 121, Bittern
Victoria, 3918 Australia

Copyright © Louisa Bennet 2023

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including internet search engines and retailers, electronic or mechanical, photocopying (except under the provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locations is entirely coincidental.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-In-Publication data:
Bennet, Louisa
The Nosy Detectives
(Book 3 in the Monty Dog Detective series)
ISBN: 978-1-922904-36-2 (hardback)
ISBN: 978-1-922904-37-9 (paperback)
ISBN: 978-1-922904-38-6 (eBook)

Cover Illustration by Laura Gaitán
Cover background artwork by Judith Rossell Cover Design by Willsin Rowe
Design & Typesetting by Clan Destine Press
Digital distribution by Ebook Alchemy

www.clandestinepress.net

In memory of my beloved Golden Retriever, Pickles.
You will always be in my heart.
1 MONTY

I stand with my front paws in the paint tray. The cool gloopy liquid squelches, a bit like soft mud in a puddle. And do I love puddles? Oh yeah! Some yellow blobs splash onto the grey concrete floor. I look up at the two hoomans in the room but neither of them has noticed. Phew!
This is the first time I’ve encountered paint, and, naturally, I have to investigate. After all, I am now the furry half of a detective agency: a canine sleuth with a nose for trouble. Rose Sidebottom is the hooman half of the business, formerly a detective. At twenty-one, she was the youngest ever Detective Constable with the Geldeford Police and I’m proud to say that I am her criminal-detecting canine.
It’s a Saturday in February and Rose is up an A-frame ladder, wearing baggy dungarees, using a roller to transform the dusty and red brick interior of what used to be a storage shed into a dazzling sunflower- yellow office. Up another ladder is seventeen-year-old Ollie Fernsby, who has somehow managed to get more paint on his hair and clothes than on the ceiling he is trying to paint. He’s a good lad from a bad part of town who has apprenticed himself to our newly founded PI agency, despite Rose’s protestations that she hasn’t the money to pay him and that it might be better for him to focus on his schoolwork. Since Rose resigned from the police force, she has barely had enough cash to put that smelly liquid in the car that makes it go. Her grocery shop gets smaller every week and the content of my food bowl is also shrinking, which has me scratching my ear with worry.
Dogs aren’t too good at keeping track of time, but a while ago Rose placed an advertisement in the local paper announcing that our new PI agency was open for business. Rose has had prank calls and one lost dog enquiry. The lost dog found her own way home, which means we have had ZERO cases.
And that’s not the only thing bothering me.
Two boxes in Rose’s car are bothering her . And if they are bothering her, they are bothering me. One is on the passenger seat; the other is in the footwell.
They are covered in an old, woollen blanket that smells of mothballs and beeswax, a pungent mix that makes it hard for me to detect the aroma of the boxes’ contents. Every now and again, when the heater is on and blowing towards the back of the car where I sit, I detect the dry, acrid smell of ash. Ash means fire. I have barked warnings, but each time Rose tells me everything is okay. I fear that she is mistaken.
I lift a paw a few inches and watch yellow globules drip into the paint tray. My normally blond furry paws are now vibrant-sunshine-yellow. I ask myself if that matters and come to the conclusion that it’s hard to look like a serious dog-tective when you have yellow paws. I decide to go outside and find some grass to roll around in. That should do the trick. Stepping out of the tray, my paws slip on the smooth concrete. I almost tumble but I right myself just in time and head for the open door. It’s early spring and the air is ripe with regrowth – snowdrops poke their little white heads through the frosty grass.
The owner of our shed-cum-office is Malcolm Kerr, part-owner of Geldeford Vet Hospital, who kindly offered us the use of it for free. I like Malcolm, except when he tries to stick a thermometer up my bum, which, to be fair, he has only done once or twice. He’s a kind man with big hands and crazy black hair that sticks out like a hedgehog’s bristles. Our office is located at the back of the vet building. The vet nurses leave the rear door open during the day so I can wander in and say hi to the visiting patients and, if I time it right, I snaffle a dog treat or two.
Standing in our office doorway, I sniff the air and detect the delicious aromas of cooked chicken, bread, and best of all, a variety of cheeses coming from the vet’s kitchen. Ahhh cheese! One of my many weaknesses. I shake my head and send my ears flapping as I try to clear the distracting food images from my head. What was I about to do? Ah yes, clean my yellow paws.
I turn my head and pick up the sweet scent of grass coming from a garden that backs onto the vet hospital. I set off and accidentally tread on a recently painted sign that is drying on the ground. Ollie has carefully written the name of our new agency on a blackboard in white letters – The Nosy Detectives.
I continue on my way, past Rose’s ‘poochmobile’ as she calls it and then past Malcolm’s car, the tyres of which carry the heady aroma of cow poo. I squeeze through a hole in the spiky beech hedge, then lie down on the lawn and move my front paws as if I’m running, hoping to rub off the yellow paint. I stop for a moment to check my progress, but my paws are still yellow. There’s a tapping noise and I see an elderly woman frowning at me through a sliding door as she taps her knitting needles against the glass. She slides open the door and flicks a hand at me.
‘Shoo! You’re turning my lawn yellow! Get out of here!’
I sit up. I’m a super friendly dog but I’m big for my breed. Maybe I scare her? I give her the famous Golden Retriever smile and wag my tail reassuringly. Her frown deepens. The woman shuts the door and picks up her landline phone. Oh-ow! In my experience, whenever a hooman makes a phone call about me, the result is never good. Once, somebody reported me as a stray and I ended up at the dog pound.
I make a hasty retreat from the garden, squeezing through the hedge. When I am out the other side I notice something different about the car park – yellow paw prints form a trail on the black asphalt from the office to where I’m standing. What fun! As hoomans like to say, I have left my mark!
Which gives me an idea. I trot down the side of the vet’s building to the main entrance and peer in through the glass door. There are now yellow paw prints from the car park to the vet hospital and when I turn around, there will be more prints from the vet’s to the office. This will make it easy for people to find the Nosy Detectives. Ha! Why didn’t I think of this before? Rose will be so pleased.
Mavis, the receptionist, glimpses me and gasps. I proudly raise a yellow paw and then trot back around the corner to our office.
‘Monty! What have you done?’ Rose says from the doorway.
I run up to her and sit, head held high. Yes, I think, I did that. I left my mark! Isn’t it wooftastic!
Rose’s auburn hair is covered in yellow spots like freckles. She shakes her head and her ponytail flicks from side to side. ‘Oh no! You’ve trodden it everywhere.’
I know from Rose’s voice that I’ve done something bad, although I have no idea what that might be.
‘Sit!’ she commands, and I obey. ‘Stay!’
She heads for her car and takes out an old dog towel which she keeps in there just in case I get more than usually dirty on our walks.
Ollie pokes his head out of the office, sees the yellow paw prints on the black tarmac and bursts into raucous laughter. ‘Brilliant! Like it’s a path to our door. You know…follow the paw prints. Good on you, Monty!’
‘Not sure how Malcolm will feel about it.’ Rose shrugs. ‘At least it’s water-based paint so if we hurry, we can clean it away with some soapy water and a broom.’
‘Don’t get rid of them,’ Ollie says. ‘They’re so cool.’
Rose spies the sign that I knocked over earlier. Even from where I stand, I see yellow paw prints across one corner of the sign. Rose kneels down and studies it.
‘The Nosy Detectives,’ she says, reading the sign. Her forget-me- not blue eyes sparkle and she smiles. ‘I kind of like the paw prints.’ She looks at me. ‘Clever dog!’
2 MONTY

It’s lunch time and we are all eagerly waiting for Ollie to come back from the fish and chip shop. It’s hungry work painting the office and I’m proud to have made a valuable contribution to the sign above the entrance and to the very stylish paw pattern on the floor.
My tail has a life of its own. Right now it’s slapping the dog bed where I’m lying, which is a good sign. I don’t control it. It conveys my mood without me even trying.
Rose’s desk is a trestle table that was stored here before we moved in. As she types on her laptop, the table wobbles but she doesn’t seem to mind. On the wall behind her is a photo of Rose at her police graduation, looking smart in her uniform. Ollie suggested she hang it there to assure would-be clients that we know how to solve crimes. Rose was reluctant because she doesn’t like to show off how very clever she is, but Ollie talked her into it.
On the wall behind me is a hand-written sign that says Monty’s desk . I sit at my “desk” busily licking the fur of my front paws, which, even though most of the paint has been washed away, still have a yellowish hue. Rose has a