Molly by Colin Butcher

Author:Colin Butcher
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Celadon Books

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The following day I printed up some photos of the missing dog, as well as a stack of business cards featuring my contact details. For each investigation, I would use a different pay-as-you-go mobile phone number, a practice that I’d originally introduced to the private-eye side of my business but which I’d also decided to employ as a pet detective. Sadly, not every call I’d received in the past had been helpful or well-meaning; sometimes, the person on the end of the line would direct threats toward me or the animal I was seeking—especially if I was working on a stolen-dog case—and it made sense, therefore, to use a temporary SIM card that would be destroyed once the missing pet had been recovered.

My first task was to establish, with as much certainty as possible, that Buffy hadn’t escaped during the burglary. With this in mind, I roamed the streets of Willesden Green and spoke to as many local residents as possible, focusing particularly on dog-walkers. Having the ever-friendly Molly with me made this infinitely easier—she was a brilliant ice-breaker—and I was able to strike up a number of useful conversations. None of the walkers, it transpired, had seen this distinctive little puppy on the evening of the burglary, or indeed, ever since. One close neighbor, a Barbour-jacketed gentleman with an elderly Airedale terrier, was particularly obliging.

“I walk my Jerry every night, between nine o’clock and eleven, and I go right past the lady’s house,” he said. “It’s almost like I’m on sentry patrol—I stroll up and down the same road, at the same time—and I’m pretty certain I’d have seen that little dog running about.”

“Thanks,” I said, as Molly and Jerry bumped noses. “You’ve been really helpful.”

His testimony—as well as the total lack of sightings of this distinctive dog—convinced me that the thieves had left the scene with Buffy in tow. And as I began to build up a picture of the crime and draw up a profile of the thieves, I started to suspect that it had been a planned and professional theft, as opposed to an impromptu, ad-hoc raid. Having perhaps staked out the property for weeks, and aware that the family often went out on Fridays, the offenders had specifically targeted Sachin’s car that evening. When they’d come across Buffy, however—and had realized she was a pup with a price tag—they’d decided to snatch her, too. I wondered whether this pretty little dog had been opportunistically stolen to give to a gangster’s wife, or a girlfriend, along with the handbags and the jewelry; it seemed quite odd that the household iPads and laptops had been ignored.

Due to a lack of forensic evidence at the crime scene and the failure to find the stolen BMW, within two weeks the Met Police had gradually scaled down their inquiries. I wasn’t prepared to give up that easily, though, despite the passage of time, and I planned to approach this case with the rigor and diligence it deserved. Keen

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