The problem was that they had now exhausted every line of enquiry he could think of, except for Bob’s idea of speaking to the baby. He wasn’t convinced this would work, but he would try anything at this point.
He approached the little boy, who was sitting in a bouncy chair, sucking on a teething ring and eyeing up Leger. Leger sat before him and twitched his nose. He had no idea what to say.
‘Hello, young man,’ Leger said, clearing his throat. ‘How’s the teething coming along?’
Louis sighed and stared at Leger, continuing to suck on the ring.
‘I’ll bet you can’t wait to be up and about, eh?’ Leger said. ‘Oh, no. This is so lame. I have no idea how to talk to you.’
‘You’re not speaking his language,’ Bob grunted, padding into the living room after devouring half of Annabella’s sandwich. She was apparently too worried to eat her lunch, although Leger suspected she would have shared it with Bob anyway.
‘Show me how it’s done,’ Leger said.
He watched as Bob sat before the little boy and made no sound at all, at least not one that Leger could hear. Louis was captivated by whatever Bob was saying and began to wave his arms around and cackle. Bob thumped his two front paws on the floor below him and Louis wiggled his chubby little legs.
‘What’s he saying?’ Leger asked, truly intrigued.
‘Nothing, we haven’t started talking yet,’ Bob replied.
‘Well, get a move on!’ Leger grumbled, his patience wearing thin.
‘Louis! Louis! Where’s mummy?’ Bob asked.
‘Dada,’ Louis replied.
‘He says she’s with his dad. That would be Gordon,’ Bob said, as if translating.
‘I gathered that. Right. Where…did…mummy…go…with…daddy?’ Leger said, slowing his speech and meowing slightly louder than he normally would.
‘You don’t have to talk to him like an idiot, Leger! He’s a baby, not an imbecile,’ Bob snapped.
Louis replied with a few nonsensical noises that neither Bob nor Leger could decipher.
‘I wonder if…’ Leger trailed off.
‘What?’ Bob asked.
‘Well, we’ve been to the loch and we’ve been to the village, via the beach. We didn’t see Carole and Gordon on our travels. Do you think they could possibly have taken the ferry back to the mainland?’ he wondered.
‘It’s possible,’ Bob agreed. ‘If only we had a liaison over there.’
Leger grinned. ‘But Bob, we do!’
*****
When Leger noticed Annabella calling the police to report Carole as a missing person, he knew he had to act fast and find her. He didn’t want things to get any more complicated than they already were. Being a mother of young children, she might be in trouble for leaving them even if she knew they were safe with her aunt and uncle.
He raced down to the harbour to seek out some gulls. First, they scattered on seeing him, just as he would have expected them to do. However, one bold gull returned, in search of a scrap of bread she had left behind and Leger called out to her.
‘Excuse me! Could you relay a message to someone on the mainland for me, please?’ Leger requested.
The gull looked around herself, then at Leger from the side of her head. ‘Who? Me?’
‘Yes! I have a gull friend in Glasgow I need to contact,’ Leger said.
‘You’re kidding!’ she squawked, continuing to look for her bread.
‘I’m not. Perhaps you know him. His name is Joe. He’s from the city.’
‘Yep. I know Joe,’ the gull said. ‘He likes chips.’
‘That’s him!’ Leger enthused. ‘Please can you ask him to come over to the island and speak with me? It’s extremely urgent.’
‘Will do,’ the gull said, then took flight once more.
*****
Leger waited at the harbour for an hour, watching the ferries come and go, as they arrived every fifteen minutes from Largs. After that time, he assumed that the gull was not planning to return, so he left and walked home to re-think his plan.
‘Any luck?’ Bob said as he slid through the cat flap.
‘I found a gull who knows Joe. She said she would fetch him but she didn’t return and Joe didn’t show up,’ Leger grumbled. ‘I have to re-think my plan.’
‘There is one thing you could do,’ Lily said, from her resting place on top of the cupboards. Leger had related everything that had happened to her when they returned from the walk with Hugh and she had said nothing about the investigation, other than that she was happy it had turned out not to be Carole who killed Sean Gilbert.
‘Oh, this should be good,’ Bob snarled.
‘I made a mistake, all right? I saw a possible explanation and I vocalised it. I have done nothing wrong!’ Lily defended.
‘You could have ruined an innocent woman’s reputation!’ Bob barked.
‘Bob, shhh!’ Leger instructed. ‘Yes, Lily? What did you have in mind?’
‘Why don’t you go over to the mainland on the ferry and ask around? There has to be someone who saw Carole and Gordon. It’s better than waiting around here with no other plan. You can return to the island quickly and easily and if you see Joe on your travels, well then all the better,’ she said.
‘It might be worth a shot,’ Leger conceded.
The conversation was interrupted by a fierce rattling on the pane of the kitchen window. They all looked up to see Joe ramming his beak into the glass and glaring in with his unmistakable beady eyes.
Leger stepped back out through his cat flap to greet the bird.
‘What is it? I’m busy! I’ve got chicks waiting,’ Joe screeched.
‘Congratulations!’ Leger gasped. ‘I had no idea you were a father.’
‘Get on with it,’ Joe snapped.
‘I need you to look on the mainland for Carole, Annabella’s niece. Do you know her?’ he said.
Joe appeared to think this over. ‘Young woman, dark hair, two little ones?’
‘That’s her!’ Leger said.
‘I know her. I’ll take a look. Maybe ask around,’ Joe decided. ‘You coming?’
‘I am indeed. Fly on ahead without me. I have to get the ferry over,’ Leger said.
He watched Joe soar into the cloudless sky and popped his head back through the cat flap.
‘It’s full steam ahead. I’m off to the mainland. I’ll be back for dinner,’ he said to Bob and Lily.
‘Good luck!’ they chorused.
‘No fighting while I’m gone,’ Leger warned, narrowing his eyes at the pair who were at opposite ends of the kitchen. ‘When I get home tonight, I’ll have this solved and hopefully Carole will be back with me.’
*****
Leger boarded the ferry unnoticed by most passengers. The only person who noticed was an elderly lady who was determined she would help him hide from the staff and stow him away, even though there was no danger of him being seen by anyone who worked on the boat.
He stayed up on deck, not caring one bit that there was a stiff breeze in his fur. He would suffer it so that he could stay in touch with Joe and hear any news about Carole. It was unfortunate then that he had suffered for nothing and he didn’t see Joe again until they reached Largs.
‘Has anyone seen Carole?’ Leger asked as soon as he disembarked the ferry and walked onto the harbour.
The site where the ferry dropped off passengers in Largs was treacherous, with the ferry releasing both passengers and cars onto a busy main road, while at the same time having cars speed towards them as they were leaving a nearby car park. The scent of the town was something quite strange to Leger. He could taste ice-cream in the air mixed with what he could swear was sweaty feet. As he prowled along the seafront, he noticed a large bowling alley adjacent to the ferry terminal and wondered if perhaps the scent of all the bowling shoes was where the smell had come from.
‘I see her!’ Joe said. ‘In a car. She’s locked in.’