The meal itself was being served in Odelia and Chase’s backyard for a change, as the backyard of the chef himself was the scene of an extensive home renovation project—or you might call it what it was: erecting an entirely new home practically from scratch.

  “So you did it again, Max,” said Harriet as the four of us were all lying next to one another on the porch swing. “You caught yourself another killer.”

  “I guess I got lucky again,” I said modestly.

  “Or smart,” said Dooley.

  “So the Kitchen King is actually a killer king, huh?” said Brutus. “I should have known. He looked like a crook to me.”

  “No, he didn’t,” said Harriet. “In fact when you first saw him you said he looked like a great guy—the kind of guy you could imagine yourself being adopted by.”

  We all stared at Brutus. “You’re looking for another home, Brutus?” I asked.

  “Well, no—or yeah, maybe. Look, this family is lovely and all, but it’s always something, you know. Like with this house falling apart. I mean, it’s all very stressful, you guys. And yesterday I spotted my first gray hair. Can you imagine? Me! A gray hair!”

  “It’s only the one gray hair, Brutus,” said Harriet.

  “Where is it?” asked Dooley solicitously.

  “Here, on my ear,” said Brutus, bending his head to show us.

  “Yeah, that’s a gray hair all right,” I confirmed.

  “It’s very small,” Dooley said as he studied the hair.

  “It’s the beginning of the end, Dooley. Things can only get worse. And I know why this is happening to me. It’s the stress. Murderers and thieves and criminals galore, and now my own home collapsing, practically falling down around me. Imagine if we’d been inside when that thing fell down. We could all have been dead now!”

  “Every home has its advantages and disadvantages, Brutus,” I said. “I think all in all we can count ourselves lucky with humans like the Pooles.”

  “Yeah, I know, but why do they have to skirt danger all the time? Between Odelia who’s always getting involved with murderers and crooks, and Chase who’s a cop, and then of course Gran with her neighborhood watch?” He shook his head. “It’s all too much for me, and if you’re smart you’ll all join me in looking for another family to live with—a nice and peaceful family. A family like the Trappers, for instance.”

  He was referring to Marge and Tex’s neighbors Ted and Marcie Trapper.

  “The Trappers have a dog, Brutus,” Harriet pointed out. “I don’t think they’re going to take a bunch of cats.”

  “And why not?!” Brutus cried, getting a little worked up. “Rufus is a nice dog. He’s a cat-loving dog. I think I could live very happily side by side with a dog like Rufus.”

  “Well, if you want to get yourself adopted by the Trappers, go right ahead,” said Harriet. “But I’m staying right here.”

  Brutus frowned, grumbled something, then shut up. He might be willing to get rid of the Pooles, but he wasn’t ready to get rid of his lady love, that much was obvious.

  “Max is right,” said Harriet. “Every family has its advantages and disadvantages. I’m sure that the Trappers will have something that’s not so great, too. And it only takes one conversation with Rufus to find out.”

  But before we could have that conversation, suddenly there was the loud sound of an explosion, and when we looked up we saw that Tex had managed, through some inexplicable procedure, to blow up the entire grill!

  Pieces of fish and meat and veggies had been catapulted in all directions, and the grill itself was now a charred piece of twisted metal!

  “That does it!” Brutus declared as he jumped down from the porch swing. “I’m going over to the Trappers and ask if they’re willing to adopt a gorgeous black cat!”

  And with these surprising words, he was off at a trot, in the direction of the next-door backyard. Well, the next-door, next-door backyard if we’re being nitpicky, and I am—at least according to Harriet.

  “Brutus! Wait!” Harriet yelled, and before we could stop her, she was tripping after her mate.

  And then it was just me and Dooley.

  After a pause, in which we both tried to imagine life without Harriet and Brutus, Dooley said, “They’ll be back.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “I mean, I can’t imagine they’d really move out. You, Max?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “So they’ll be back. Right?”

  “Well, I certainly hope so.”

  But five minutes passed, and then ten, and Brutus and Harriet still hadn’t returned.

  The Pooles were picking up pieces of the grill, and collecting the scattered foodstuffs, and so they weren’t paying any attention to us cats. Odelia probably hadn’t even noticed Harriet and Brutus had left, and neither had Gran or Marge, who’d been hit by a sausage, or Uncle Alec, whose practically bald pate had been scalded by a flying piece of steak.

  But when another half hour had passed, I had to admit the impossible had happened.

  Harriet and Brutus had gone over to the dark side: they’d gone to the dogs!

  THE END

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  Excerpt from Between a Ghost and a Spooky Place (Ghosts of London 1)

  Chapter One

  “I didn’t think you’d show up,” the gruff voice announced.

  Harry looked up from her perusal of the latest James Patterson. She quickly closed the book and shoved it into her backpack, then rose from her perch on the low wall of the underpass. She shrugged as she approached the hulking figure. “I’m always true to my word,” she told the man, doing her best not to look or sound intimidated.

  He really was a giant of a man, though she’d been told he wasn’t as dangerous as he looked. He could have fooled her, though. He had no neck to speak of, his arms alone were probably as thick as her waist, and she could have fitted several times in the long black overcoat he was wearing, she herself being rather on the petite side.

  She pushed her blond tresses from her brow and fixed her golden eyes on the stranger, rubbing her hands to keep warm. She’d removed her gloves and knitted cap and now thought perhaps she shouldn’t have. The cold drizzle that had started overnight had turned into a real downpour, and even though they were protected from the brunt of the autumn weather by the underpass, the wet cold still crept in Harry’s clothes and chilled her to the bone.

  “Let’s do this,” the man grumbled. “I haven’t got all day.”

  The watery sun that had tried to pierce the dark deck of clouds that afternoon had finally given up its struggle, giving free rein to the driving rain. But then this was London, a city that for some reason had collectively decided the sun had no business here, except on those very rare occasions.

  She quickly unzipped the main compartment of her backpack and took out the package, then handed it to the client. Through the clear plastic protective cover it was easy to make out its contents, but the burly man insisted on taking the book out nonetheless.

  “You’re going to get it all smudged,” Harry murmured, though she knew this was none of her business. Once the transaction was made, the book belonged to the client, to do with as they pleased, whether she liked it or not.

  “Looking good,” the man muttered, flipping through the pages of the voluminous tome. “How do I know it’s the real deal?”

  “You have Sir Buckley’s word,” she said with a light shrug.

  The client scrutinized her carefully, shoving the book back into its plastic covering. Then he nodded once. “Good enough for me,” he announced. He handed her a small black briefcase. “One million. As agreed,” he told her.

  She balanced the briefcase on her knee and clicked it open. Two thousand 500 pound notes should be there and as far as she could determine they were all present and accounted for. But then again, she didn’t think the client was going to cheat her. And even if he did, Buckley would handle it.

  So she clasped the briefcase under her arm and looked up at the man, a little trepidatious. Buckley had always told her to conclude the meeting the moment the transfer was done, and only rarely did a client linger. This one still stood staring at her, however, as if their business wasn’t concluded yet. They were the only two people there, as the underpass was quite deserted.

  This was Buckley’s favorite place to make a transfer, as this particular spot wasn’t covered by any of London’s half a million cameras. Which also meant that if a client decided to get any funny ideas, Harry had no recourse. It wasn’t as if she had a black belt in jujitsu or some other martial arts discipline. She’d recently watched a video on the Daily Mail website on how to protect yourself against an attack, but hadn’t the foggiest notion how to execute those nifty self-defense moves in real life.

  The man gave her an unexpected grin, displaying two gold teeth. It was something you didn’t see that often these days, and she found herself staring at the shiny snappers before she could stop herself. Along with his bald dome, it gave him the aspect of an old-fashioned James Bond bad guy. But then his smile suddenly disappeared, and he gave her a curt nod. “I guess that concludes our business,” he grunted.

  “Yeah, I guess it does,” she returned.

  He abruptly flipped his hoodie over his head, then turned and walked away. Soon he was swallowed up by the shadows stretching long tendrils of darkness beneath the overpass. Moments later she heard a motorcycle kicking into gear, and then its roar as it raced away into the falling dusk.

  She heaved a sigh of relief. These exchanges were going to be the death of her one day, she thought as she hurried out of the underpass, to where she’d fastened her bicycle to a streetlight. Fortunately, it was still where she’d left it. She tried to fit the entire suitcase into her backpack but failed, so she tipped its precious contents into her trusty Jack Wolfskin rucksack and dumped the suitcase in a nearby trashcan. And as she adjusted the straps, she noted a little giddily she’d never worn a million pounds on her back before. Then she pressed her pink knitted cap to her head, used her gloves to wipe that fabled London precipitation from her saddle, mounted the bike and was off.

  Five minutes later she was pedaling down Newport Street, anxious to get back to the store. She’d only feel at ease once the money was safely transferred to Sir Geoffrey Buckley’s cash register. And as she waited for the traffic light to turn green, she idly wondered what she would do with so much money. She could quit her job, buy herself a great house and take that trip around the world she’d been dreaming of for ages. The lights changed, and traffic was off and so was she, stomping down on her silly daydreams. The money wasn’t hers and never would be. She was, after all, only a lowly wage slave in Sir Buckley’s employ. Why there was a Sir in front of his name, she didn’t know, even after working for the man for close to a year now.

  Buckley Antiques, the store where she spent her days when her employer wasn’t sending her to dark and creepy places to exchange packages with obscure and dangerous-looking clients, was a smallish shop tucked away in the more dingy part of Notting Hill. It carried rare antiques and other items for the connoisseur, its owner and proprietor, the eponymous Sir Geoffrey, priding himself in his capacity to obtain items for his clients that no other antiquarian could find. There was a whiff of the illegal and the criminal attached to both the man and the shop, and oftentimes Harry wondered where he obtained these rare and exclusive items if not by illicit means.

  She’d never asked, and Buckley had never told her, of course. She merely did as she was told, and delivered million pound books to men with no necks without asking pesky questions. Such as: why would anyone buy a book for such an incredible price? And why not transfer the items at the store? She didn’t ask because she was afraid she wouldn’t particularly like the answer.

  She couldn’t help wonder, though, where the priceless tome would end up, for No-Neck, like Harry herself, was probably only the messenger.

  But even though Harry knew that her employer was something of a high-end fence, her conscience was no match for her need of a regular paycheck.

  With her history degree she didn’t stand much of a chance to find a decent-paying job in London, or anywhere else in the United Kingdom for that matter, and she knew she should be grateful to have found a job at all that was a cut above being a waitress, cleaning lady or nanny. The job might not be completely on the up and up, but it was better than being on welfare.

  Besides, for her discretion Buckley paid her a nice little stipend around the holidays, so there was that as well.

  She attached her bike to the lantern in front of the store, and entered the shop, her trusty backpack burning with the money. As she stepped inside, the doorbell jangled merrily. As usual, the store was dimly lit, Buckley’s way of adding atmosphere. She picked her way past the antique cupboards and Louis XIV armoires and tried to ignore the quite horrendous oil paintings adorning the walls. When she reached the counter, fully expecting to find Buckley pottering about, she was surprised to see him absent from the scene.

  No sound could be heard, either, except for the ticking of a dozen antique Swiss cuckoo clocks Buckley had obtained from a Swiss traveling cuckoo clock salesman. A real bargain, he’d called them, though Harry failed to understand who’d ever want to pay good money for such monstrosities.

  “Buckley?” she called out. “Buckley, I’m back!”

  Usually the prospect of money brought out her employer like the genie from the bottle, but no frizzy-haired elderly gentleman popped up now.

  Harry shrugged, and started transferring the money from her backpack to the cash register, which had a deep and convenient space beneath the money drawer. Here it would be quite safe until Buckley put it in the ancient but very sturdy vault he kept in his office.

  She wondered briefly if she shouldn’t close up the shop, as she wasn’t even supposed to be working today. Buckley had called her in to deal with this urgent delivery, and she’d grudgingly complied. He didn’t like to deal with his ‘special clients’ himself, reserving that particular privilege for her.

  And it was as she stood wondering what to do when she became aware of a soft groaning sound coming from deeper into the shop. It seemed to come from the back. With a slight swing in her step, relieved to be rid of the huge pile of money, she decided to take a look. She didn’t like to lock the door without Buckley’s say-so. He had this thing about wanting the store to be open at all hours, even if that meant she had to take her lunch break in between serving customers. But she didn’t like to leave it unattended either.

  She would just have a look around and as soon as she’d found her employer—probably messing about somewhere in his office—she’d go home. After riding around in the rain for the past half hour she was wet, tired and numb, and a hot shower and some dry clothes looked pretty good right now.

  Besides, she needed to put in some shopping and wanted to get it done before rush hour, hoping to salvage what little she could from her day off.

  “Buckley?” she called out as she moved deeper into the store. Behind the showroom were two smaller rooms. One was Buckley’s office, where he liked to meet with clients and suppliers, and the other was the small kitchen reserved for personnel—which meant her. It wasn’t much. Just a table, some chairs, a sink, gas stove and fridge. Next to the kitchen a staircase led upstairs, to the apartment Buckley rented out for a stipend. In exchange, the man, who was rarely in during the day, kept an eye on the store after six.

  “Buckley?” she tried again. She noticed that the door to his office was ajar, so she pushed it open. And that’s when she saw her employer. He was stretched out on the floor, his limbs arranged in an awkward pose, blood pooling around his head. She clasped a hand to her face, her throat closed on a silent scream, and looked down at the lifeless body. It was obvious she was too late. His eyes were open and staring into space, his face pale as a sheet.

  “Oh, Buckley, Buckley,” she finally whispered hoarsely, automatically taking her phone from her pocket with quaking hand and dialing 999.

  Minutes later, the store was abuzz with police and medics, as she sat nursing a cup of tea in the kitchen, stunned and fighting waves of nausea.

  She looked up when she became aware of being watched, and she saw a man looking down at her from the entrance to the kitchen. He was tall and broad and easily filled the doorframe, both in width and height. She noted to her surprise that he was gazing at her with a scowl on his handsome face. Perfectly coiffed dark hair, steely gray eyes, chiseled features and an anvil jaw lent him classic good looks, and for a moment she thought none other than David Gandy himself had wandered into the store, mistaking it for the scene of his latest swimwear shoot. But then the man cleared his throat.

  “Inspector Watley. Can I ask you a few questions, Miss McCabre?”

  She nodded, wiping a tear from her eye. “Yes, of course, Inspector.”

  The inspector took a seat at the table and placed a small notebook in front of him, checking it briefly. “Your name is Henrietta McCabre?”

  “Yes, but most people just call me Harry,” she said softly.

  “You were the one who found the body, Miss McCabre?”

  “Yes, I did,” she said, tears once again brimming in her eyes.

  “And what time was this?”

  “Must have been… around four. I’d just come back from an errand.”

  He gave her a dark look. “An errand connected to the store?”

  She nodded again. She was loathe to reveal the nature of her errand. Even dead, she didn’t want to betray Buckley’s confidence.