Читать книгу The Third Pig Detective Agency: The Complete Casebook - Bob Burke - Страница 12

As I drove back through the forest I kept going over the events of the past two days. Things were starting to make a little sense – although not much. As I mulled over the case Jack nudged me in the side with a very bony elbow.

‘Mr Pigg,’ he said, ‘don’t look now, but I think we’re being followed.’

‘What makes you say that?’ I asked.

‘Well, the car behind us doesn’t appear to have a driver and it’s been tailing us since we left the dwarves’ place.’

I looked in the mirror. He was right. Directly behind us was a very large, very black and very battered car with no driver obviously behind the wheel. As I looked it began to speed up. I could see the steering wheel rotate but it seemed to be doing so of its own accord. Maybe the Invisible Man was driving the car but, frankly, I doubted it – he had been advised to take taxis, as, every time he got behind the wheel, he tended to cause a small panic.

This was now getting beyond a joke and I wasn’t the one who was laughing. Suddenly, the car accelerated again and rammed us from behind. The impact jolted us forward. Fortunately, apart from being winded, we didn’t suffer any injuries, our seatbelts preventing any major harm.

‘Whee!’ shouted Jack. ‘This is just like a roller coaster. Does this always happen when you drive?’

‘No,’ I said, trying to keep one eye on the road ahead and one on the car behind (not an easy task). ‘Only on good days.’

Of course, car chases never take place on straight wide roads that run for miles with no sharp turns or oncoming traffic. Oh no, apparently convention dictates that they must take place through a busy metropolis with lots of hills, a narrow dirt track running along a sheer drop into the ocean or, as in my case, through a dark forest with a twisty road, lots of sharp bends and (being an enchanted forest) trees that might take exception to being woken up and take a swipe at whatever vehicle had done the waking. The bigger the tree, the more likely your car was to suddenly develop the art of flight when one of its branches made contact. Typically it wasn’t the flying that one needed to be worried about; usually it was the landing – which tended to be uncontrolled, totally lacking in technique and, almost inevitably, resulted in your vehicle being embedded up to its rear doors in the ground. Most cars tended never to get back on the road after contact with one of our magic trees.

As I swerved to avoid hitting one of these trees and to try to ensure that my pursuer didn’t, I had another of my really bright ideas.

‘Hold tight,’ I roared at Jack as I pressed hard on the accelerator. ‘This could get scary.’

‘You mean it gets better?’ he shouted back, grinning from ear to ear. ‘This is the coolest ride I’ve ever been on. Go Harry!’ He stretched both arms up over his head, as people do just as they get their photograph taken on the scary part of a roller coaster ride, and yelled at the top of his voice. Truly this child had no fear.

The sudden burst of acceleration had, for a few seconds, taken me away from my pursuer. Rather than head towards the forest’s edge, however, I took one of the trails deeper into the trees. I had a very specific destination in mind and one that might, if my timing was right, get this particular pursuer permanently off our backs.

As we drove further into the forest, the trees grew closer together and, eventually, their branches became so entwined over the road they formed a natural tunnel, shutting out daylight completely. I flicked on the headlights and they gave just enough illumination to prevent me driving off the road. On either side, gnarled branches were trying to grab at the car as we passed but I was going so fast they only scraped off the sides. They might be ruining the bodywork, but at least the bodies inside the car were undamaged – for now.

I recklessly navigated turn after turn (by the skin of my teeth in most cases), the road getting narrower and windier as we drove. I wasn’t particularly scared of the forest; being chased by an invisible maniac tended to force all other thoughts of being frightened from one’s mind. Our pursuer wasn’t quite as reckless though, preferring to drive fast enough to keep us in his sights but not so fast as to spin off the road. We would hardly have been that lucky but that wasn’t my main objective. It would, however, have made what I was about to do much less of a risk – especially to Jack and me – if he’d managed to hit something other than us in the interim.

A fork in the road came up so fast that, even though I was expecting it, I still nearly ploughed straight into the tree that stood right where the road split in two. I swung the steering wheel in an effort to keep the car on track. It screeched around the right-hand turn, leaving a liberal helping of rubber on the road. I was hoping my pursuer might not be so lucky but as I looked in the mirror I saw him take the fork a little less dramatically than I had and continue his relentless pursuit. We were now driving in total darkness such was the tree cover all around us. Even the car’s headlamps didn’t do much to light the way.

I was now driving purely on instinct. Bends came and went in a blur and all the while I could see the lights of the other car behind us, never closing the gap but never losing any ground either. Well, if things went according to plan, there would soon be a fair, and somewhat unexpected, distance between us. I turned to Jack.

‘Hold on tight. Things might get a little bumpier.’

His face lit up like a searchlight. ‘You mean it gets better?’

‘Oh yeah, much better,’ I replied grimly. ‘Just make sure you’re well strapped in.’

At last we were arriving at our destination. In front of us the road narrowed and curved around sharply to the left. Right on the bend stood a large and very old ash tree. Its gnarled branches hung down over the road, trailing long green strands of moss. As we approached they began to twitch as if anticipating our imminent arrival. I stood on the brakes and the car stopped abruptly just in front of the tree, jerking both of us forward. Moss draped across the windscreen, obscuring our visibility, but I was only interested in what I could see out of my side window. Jack was looking over his shoulder to see where our pursuer was and was finally starting to panic.

‘Why have you stopped, Harry? He’s getting closer.’

‘I know. Just another few seconds.’ I began to rev up the car.

‘We don’t have a few seconds. He’s right on us.’ Jack was really panicking now.

There was a blurred movement of something grey and gnarled coming towards us from the side and I instantly accelerated. The car shot forward as if it had been fired from a cannon. Our pursuer, who had sped into the space we’d just vacated, was suddenly swept sideways by a large and very fast-moving branch. There was a loud wail from inside the car as it was catapulted across the road and smashed through the undergrowth on the opposite side, leaving a large and impressive vehicle-shaped hole in the bushes. Where the car had been on the road, a few leaves floated gently to the ground.

‘Now that’s what I call a flying car,’ I muttered with satisfaction. ‘James Bond, eat your heart out.’

Before I could take too much pleasure in the somewhat premature end to the chase, I had to drive my own car out of reach of the ash tree’s branches before it had a second swipe. Better safe than even more damaged, I always say.

‘Well, let’s take a look at the incredible flying car,’ I said, as I opened the door and got out. ‘From the noise that it made as it flew through the air with the greatest of ease, I very much doubt that it was driverless.’

As Jack joined me and we began to make our way across to where the other car had landed I turned to the ash tree. ‘Thanks Leslie,’ I said. ‘I can always depend on you to miss me.’

The tree shook its branches violently and sprayed moss in all directions.

‘Maybe next time, Pigg,’ it said in a voice that made Treebeard sound like a soprano. ‘You can’t be lucky forever.’

‘What’s his problem?’ asked Jack.

‘Some other time,’ I replied. ‘It’s a long story. Suffice to say that, ever since my last encounter with him, he’s had a deep longing to play baseball with me – using me as the ball.’

We made our way through the undergrowth. It wasn’t too difficult as the flying car had cleared a wide path for us. We found it in a tree, jammed into the junction of two large branches. On the driver’s side the door was open. Fortunately for me it was within climbing distance. Very carefully, I climbed up to the car and peered inside. Whoever – or whatever – had been driving had clearly done a runner, leaving nothing in the way of clues behind. Apart from the glass all over the floor, the inside of the car was spotlessly clean. I was now convinced that, despite initial appearances to the contrary, there had been a driver. Something had been screaming in terror as the car took flight and that same something had managed to open the door and disappear before we got there. All I had to do now was figure out what that something was, and if there’s one thing I’m good at (actually, there are lots of things I’m good at) it’s figuring things out. I hadn’t actually expected to find anything in the car – that was a long shot. I was more interested in what may have been on the front. I swung around to the remains of the hood. Steam hissed from the mangled engine but there was no obvious smell of gasoline so I figured I was safe. I ran my trotters carefully over the front grille and felt something jammed in.

‘Let’s see what we’ve got here,’ I muttered, pulling at the mysterious object.

There was a sudden screech of metal as the object I was investigating came off in my hand. With a loud shout, I fell back off the branch and plummeted to the ground. Fortunately for Jack I missed him when I landed. Unfortunately for me I also managed to miss anything remotely resembling a soft landing and hit the ground with a very unsatisfactory (from my viewpoint, at any rate) thud. As I groaned in pain and checked all extremities for damage for the second time in a day, I swore I could hear the ash tree sniggering in tones so low I could feel my fillings vibrate. He was obviously enjoying a minor victory at my expense. As I’m not a petty pig – but more because there was a small boy in the vicinity – I refrained from making an obscene gesture at him, although someone had once pointed out to me that it was very hard to make obscene gestures when you didn’t have any fingers.

I was, by now, mastering the art of getting gingerly to my trotters so I managed it much better this time. Once I had dusted off the leaves and other debris, I examined the object, the removal of which had caused me to fall in the first place.

‘What is it, Harry?’ asked Jack.

‘Exactly what I’d expected,’ I replied. ‘It’s a very small but very powerful camera.’

‘What was it doing on the front of the car?’

‘Well, think of it like this, if you were really small and had to drive a car, how would you be able to see where you were going if you couldn’t see over the front dash?’

I had now dismissed the idea of being beaten up by an invisible superhero. All the evidence I’d gathered during the course of the day had led me to a different, less super and far more irritating solution. The camera had now confirmed my suspicions. I now needed to pay a visit to someone very annoying. This someone would not appreciate me visiting him, so, in order to prevent a recurrence of the previous night’s unfortunate incident, I needed some additional protection.

‘OK Jack, let’s head back to the ranch. There’s nothing more to see here.’

As we walked back to the car, being very careful to avoid any aggressive branches, I reached for my shiny new phone and made a quick call. For my next trick I would definitely require a very specific type of assistance, and I knew exactly who could provide it.