Page 14 - Billy the Cat and Katie

glowing footprints on the road leading to more glowing tracks but this time made by a car. The
night vision was also picking up the heat from the shoes of the robbers and from the tyres of
the car. All they had to do was follow the tracks to the crooks hideout. Meanwhile Billy had
tuned into the police radio wavelength and had broadcast the fact that there was a robbery in
progress at Burnham Provincial Bank. As they skipped and jumped across the rooftops they
could hear the police cars racing to the scene and the police were surprised to find the other
two robbers tied up very tightly indeed. As they were bundled into the back of a police van
they kept shouting that they’d been attacked by two giant cat-people to which the policemen
just laughed as it seemed to them that other robbers had turned on their mates and left them
to their fate. No one believed their story of being thumped and kicked and then tied up by
giant cats. But that was all about to change as Billy and Katie swung on their ropes across the
road towards the railway yard where the escaped crooks had fled. The lone policeman they’d
seen earlier at the end of the high street was hurrying towards the commotion when he
happened to look upwards and see the cat-like crime fighters bathed in moonlight as they
swung through the night air. This sight caused him to stop dead in his tracks, not really
believing what he’d just seen, but all the same he would report it to the Superintendant as soon
as possible.

Billy and Katie could hear the robbers on the radio and the signal was getting stronger the
closer they got towards the old railway sheds at the back of the sidings. An old guards van was
lit from inside by torchlight as Billy and Katie landed silently upon the roof. Just as they were
about to jump down and confront the escaped men Billy’s foot fell through a rotten plank on
the roof of the carriage and the men realised they’d been found. The noise of a gunshot rang
out as one of the men shot at the leg poking through the roof but Billy was too quick, smashing
his way out and landed on the ground next to the railway line. Katie wasn’t so quick and fell
through the hole onto the carriage floor whereupon the two men jumped on her and tried to
hold her down. Katie struggled but when she saw the gun pointed at her she stopped trying to
get away. As the men grabbed her and lifted her off the floor there was an almighty flash and a
huge explosion. Unknown to Katie, Billy had taken one of his father’s explosive charges with
him and had set it off on the end of the carriage causing the whole wall of the guard’s van to
disintegrate, just as Billy swung down from a nearby railway signal and kicked both men
squarely in the chest sending them flying backwards out of the now open carriage door and
onto the railway line below. Needless to say the noise of the explosion was heard by the police
in the high street who immediately raced to the scene, to find two very blackened and very
dazed robbers tied up lying next to the stolen money and jewellery. Again they told the police
that they’d been attacked by giant cats but this time the policemen were a little more believing
as one of them had actually seen what he thought were two giant cat-like figures running
across the rooftops of Burnham. ‘What is the Chief Inspector going to make of all this?’ the
desk sergeant exclaimed when the crooks were bundled into the cells back at the police station.

Billy and Katie watched the proceedings as they sat on the rooftop across from the police
station and felt quite satisfied that they’d managed to catch a gang of crooks single handed but
as they left to silently return home a very faint voice could be heard inside their helmets. It
sounded like someone trying to contact the robbers so it must have been another gang