The Case of the Stolen Film (12 page)

‘This is a plateosaurus,' said the boy, who was beginning to get on Holly's nerves. ‘And over here is the pterosaur, a flying reptile. And here is a … oh, that's not right. This isn't a dinosaur.'

Holly and Archie looked at the model the boy was pointing at.

‘Dinosaurs don't have smoke coming out of their noses and they certainly weren't red and green.'

Holly gasped and Archie almost dropped his ice cream. Standing frozen to the spot, moving his head robotically, was Dirk.

‘How do you know what colour they were?' said Archie. ‘They could have been bright pink for all anyone knows. All they've ever found is bones.'

‘Well, that's not a dinosaur. It's a dragon and that's stupid because dragons don't exist,' said the boy, stamping his feet.

Dirk paused then moved to look at the boy. ‘No one likes a know-it-all. Beat it, kid,' he said.

‘Th … th … that's so rude,' stammered the boy, bursting into tears and running away.

‘Dirk!' said Holly, throwing her arms around his neck.

‘And you're right, Archie, some of them were pink,' said Dirk.

‘You remember dinosaurs?' said Archie.

‘I'm not that old,' replied Dirk, ‘but I once met a dragon that claimed to have kept a pink tyrannosaurus rex as a pet. It was very loyal apparently but it did bite.'

‘What are you doing here?' asked Holly.

‘Buchanan's got the film,' said Dirk.

‘Buchanan?' said Holly.

A group of Japanese tourists entered. Dirk froze and went back to his small robotic head movements.

‘Ooooh!' they said, seeing him. ‘Will you take a photo of us?' said one of the tourists, handing a camera to Holly.

‘Sure,' she said.

They gathered around Dirk, and Holly took the photo, but instead of taking a picture, she pressed the off button.

‘That's a good one,' she said, handing the camera back to the grateful tourists, who thanked her and moved on.

‘So Buchanan is involved,' said Holly.

‘Seems so. Sorrentino sold him the film,' said Dirk.

‘Who's Sorrentino?' asked Holly.

‘He's a dragon who hires himself out to humans to solve their problems.'

‘It sounds like what you do,' said Holly.

‘Yeah, except he doesn't mind people getting hurt … oh, and he's got a receptionist.'

‘You've got Mrs Klingerflim,' said Holly.

Dirk laughed then froze again as a mother and her two children walked past. Once they had gone, Holly continued, ‘You think Buchanan knows about you and me? I mean, Dad hasn't exactly been busy since he's been here. If Buchanan suspects I know a dragon, he could be using me to get to you.'

‘We'll need to be extremely careful,' said Dirk, ‘but I do need to get that film back.'

‘The mansion's covered in cameras,' said Holly.

‘Even the security cameras are watched by security cameras,' added Archie.

‘We're going round for dinner,' said Holly. ‘We could find out where he's keeping it.'

‘Good,' said Dirk, ‘but be cautious. No blending. We can't take any risks if there's the slightest possibility that Buchanan suspects that you have a connection to me.'

‘OK,' said Holly.

‘And if I'm going to find a way in, I could do with some details about the mansion,' said Dirk.

‘Buchanan gave Big Hair that book about its history,' said Archie.

‘Great. I'll come and see you later tonight at your house to pick up the book,' said Dirk. ‘In the meantime I'm going to keep an eye on the two guys he's got working for him.'

‘We'll find the tape,' said Holly.

‘Good work, but don't let him find out what you're doing. Make it look like a game,' said Dirk. ‘Now, I'd better get out of here. I'll see you tonight.'

Holly squeezed his right paw. ‘Bye, Dirk,' she said.

‘Hey, little lady, no touching the exhibits,' said an official in a T-shirt with ‘Dinoworld' written on the front. ‘Some of them might bite,' he added, with a false laugh. ‘No, but seriously, you really shouldn't touch them … Hey, I don't remember this fella.' He looked at Dirk. ‘This fella's more like a dragon than a dinosaur, isn't he?' He reached up and pinched the skin on Dirk's cheek. ‘How do they make them so realistic?'

A low growl came from Dirk's throat.

‘I thought you said no touching,' said Holly.

‘You're quite right, little lady,' said the man, moving his hand away.

‘Can you show us the way out?' asked Archie. ‘We're lost.'

‘Sure, follow me. It's right out of Triassic, past
Jurassic and you're into the canteen where you can feast on one of our terrific dinoburgers. Don't worry, they're not made from real dinosaur,' he said, sounding like he was reading from a script.

Dirk waited until they were out of sight before jumping up to the roof of the Haunted House.

‘Look, Mum, a dragon,' said a little girl holding a lollipop.

‘Yes, lovely, dear, you've seen all sorts of things today, haven't you?' replied her mother.

At dinner at Brant Buchanan's that evening Holly tried hard to be on her best behaviour. She managed to be polite as they arrived at the mansion and as they took their places around the impressive table in the centre of the cavernous dining hall. A waiter brought in the starters and announced that everyone would be eating foie gras except for Holly, who was a vegetarian and was served asparagus.

Archie found it funny the way the waiter said foie gras in a French accent and asked, ‘What's fwa grar then?'

‘It's a kind of pâté,' explained Mr Buchanan. ‘It's made from a duck's liver that has been enlarged by
force-feeding the animal before slaughter.' The billionaire scooped up a bit on a wafer and ate it. ‘Delicious,' he said.

‘That's so cruel,' exclaimed Holly, unable to contain herself. ‘Only a monster would do something like that.'

‘Holly,' said her father, glaring at her.

‘It's fine, Malcolm,' said Mr Buchanan. ‘We are all entitled to our opinions. Some do find the process rather barbaric, but then, I say, why is it any worse than wringing a chicken's neck? In which case, are you saying that all meat eaters are monsters?'

Holly looked at Archie, who had a piece of the pâté held up to his mouth. She scowled at him.

He put it back down guiltily.

Holly turned back to Mr Buchanan. ‘It's worse because you're not just killing the animal, you're torturing the poor thing first. It's as bad as the experiments you do on animals.'

‘So, I hear Global Sands stock went up this morning,' said Mr Bigsby, trying desperately to change the subject.

‘Yes, it's been a good day for us,' replied Mr Buchanan.

For the rest of the meal, the adults went on about
inflation and real estate and emerging markets and all the other boring things that adults talk about. Holly and Archie talked amongst themselves. After dessert, Mr Buchanan suggested that they retire to the lounge for coffee.

‘Can we go and look around?' asked Holly.

‘Feel free,' said Buchanan. ‘I'm afraid that having no children myself I have no toys or computer games but I'm sure you can find some way to amuse yourselves.'

As they left the room and headed up the stairs, Archie said, ‘That was easy.'

It was a huge mansion. They took one room each, trying to make it look like they were playing a game of hide-and-seek, searching for places to hide. The rooms were stylishly but sparsely decorated, which made them quick to check, and it wasn't long before they were heading back downstairs. But the search downstairs proved equally fruitless.

‘The problem is we're looking for a reel of film but it could be anything by now – a DVD, an MP3, anything,' said Archie.

‘I know but we've still got to try,' said Holly.

‘Where's left?' asked Archie.

‘The library,' said Holly.

They found their way out of the main building,
across the floodlit courtyard to the cylindrical building surrounded by scaffolding.

They pushed the tarpaulin back and found that the door was unlocked. Holly stepped inside and looked up at the night sky, through the glass ceiling. Archie flicked the light switch on, illuminating the curved walls of books.

‘Have you noticed something odd?' said Holly, looking up.

‘What?'

‘There are no cameras.'

Archie saw she was right. Unlike every other room in the building there wasn't a single security camera.

‘But didn't he say that it was full of expensive books? Why wouldn't he have cameras?'

‘Because he's got something to hide,' replied Holly. ‘Look for a clue.'

There were books on everything from fly-fishing to fencing, histories of every country in the world, biographies of great leaders, explanations of astrology, astronomy, mythology. In fact, every subject in the world. Then something caught Holly's eye. It was a red book spine with a small triangle of white at the bottom. It was sticking out slightly on a high shelf just out of reach.

‘
Dragonlore
,' she gasped, trying to jump and reach the book. ‘It's too high up.'

‘Try this,' said Archie, pulling out four larger books from a lower shelf and placing them on top of each other.

Holly stood on top of the pile and grabbed the spine of the book. She tried to pull it out. ‘It's stuck,' she said, only succeeding in tilting it at an angle.

‘It's not a book, it's a switch,' said Archie.

A section of books had vanished, revealing a blank screen. The screen flickered and then a desert landscape appeared.

‘It's the film,' said Holly.

They watched as the camera moved across the scene. They heard Theo Leggett's voice giving instructions to the cameraman. The shot zoomed in and found the two spiky dragons moving on the shimmering horizon, sending clouds of dust up as they fought.

‘That's so cool,' said Archie.

‘But where's the actual film?' said Holly.

A voice outside interrupted them. ‘Holly, Archie, come along now. It's time to go home.' It was Big Hair.

‘Come on, we'd better put everything back,' said Archie.

‘But we haven't found the film,' protested Holly.

‘At least we know it's in here somewhere,' said Archie.

Holly pushed the false book back and replaced the other books as they had found them.

The desert disappeared and, once again, was replaced by the image of book spines.

Holly and Archie went back into the main building, where the others were standing in the hall.

‘I trust that you found a way to amuse yourselves in my stuffy old house,' said Mr Buchanan.

‘We played hide-and-seek,' said Holly.

‘It was fun,' added Archie.

‘I'm glad it wasn't too boring for you,' replied the billionaire.

Following the yellow van across town, Dirk found he was enjoying himself. As he leapt from roof to roof, he recited the opening lines from the voice-over that ran through
The Big Zero
.

‘In some stories,' Dirk muttered, ‘the kind they like to tell you in Hollywood, the good guys always win and the bad guys always lose. Well, I live in the real Hollywood and I can tell you that in real life it ain't like that. In my experience, the bad guys get their fair share of winning too.'

The van parked in a side street and the two long-haired men in flared trousers stepped out.

‘All I'm saying is that we got to give Buchanan
something really good, Frank, man,' said Hunter.

‘That's what I'm talking about,' replied Frank, slamming the car door shut. ‘It was a classic cover-up story – no pictures, no one remembers what happened. He's the most reliable source we got.'

‘Reliable? I think we must have different dictionaries, man.'