The Great Escape by Natalie Haynes Read Free Book Online

hundred, in fact. They couldn’t breed them, because cats take
too long to mature – they didn’t have months to sit around waiting for gambolling kittens to become adult cats. It would have to be theft. He had also realised that if they stole them
all from the Haverham area, the ensuing cat drought would not go unremarked by residents. Even if his staff broadened their search to the rest of the country, they ran the risk of being seen and
traced to the laboratory. The most sensible thing was to do it abroad, in a rented van, and keep as much distance between the project and the outside world as possible. Belgium had been the ideal
place to start – barely any distance from Calais and the Eurotunnel and car-ferries. The men transported the cats a dozen at a time – none of them was ever stopped, but if they had
been, it would have been such a minor offence, they would not have been in much trouble. The transport had been easy to arrange: transfer the cats from the van to a car – customs were on the
lookout for large-scale cigarette and alcohol smuggling, or illegal immigrants – they had no interest in a small car with tinted windows that contained only a few crates.
    And, of course, his masterstroke had been to avoid any real harassment from the protesters, because Arthur Shepard owned them. Two men and three women were paid by him to keep the protest
happening, so no real protesters could feel it was a cause no one cared about and decide to get involved, like the meddling idiots they were. These employees (he liked to think of them as moles, as
he had always had a faint interest in spying) ran a mildly critical website, which copied everything that came into it to him. He believed there had been some sort of argument with a few meddling
idiots, who’d decided that his moles were insufficiently committed to their cause, and had set up a rival website, but it was so small-scale that it caused him no real anxiety. Everything was
running smoothly. Until yesterday.
    Yesterday, he had
not
felt the buzz of a job well done. He had felt the queasy panic of a job mucked up. The technician who had been in charge of the cats was already in
a great deal of trouble, and if Arthur could have fired him he would have, immediately, as an example to the others. But the problem with that was that the project was top secret, obviously, and
the man was a great deal more dangerous to Arthur
outside
of the laboratory, where he might say something to somebody, than
inside
, where he would be sterilising Petri dishes for the
next five years. The cat had escaped, which was infuriating and risky. But, more worryingly, it had escaped when there were outsiders on the property – those stupid window cleaners. If only
Vakkson hadn’t hired them to keep the building clean. Any one of them could have seen something, and one of them probably had. Arthur felt no compunction as he rang them. He felt no guilt as
he lied to the man to get them back there the next day. He simply took the opportunity to try and sort things out so that his cover wasn’t blown, his contract wasn’t terminated, he and
several of his colleagues weren’t arrested, and he continued, as he expected, to be on the verge of making tens of millions of pounds.

Chapter Eleven
    Millie could hardly believe her luck. Her dad had come home from work, explaining that there was an extra shift at the Haverham lab and that they had arranged to do it the very
next day. However, she was also puzzled: they had surely cleaned every window the day before. But, it transpired, the lab had cleaning staff who looked after the doors and windows inside the
building, while Millie, her dad and Bill cleaned the outside. There had been some sort of staff shortage, and so they were being called back to do some additional work. Millie had said she would
probably come and help, trying not to make her dad suspicious by being too eager. She wandered off upstairs to find Max.
    ‘I might