Cat Among the Pumpkins (4 page)

While Bugs Anderton had what appeared to be a serious conversation with her treasurer, Delirium Treemints made her way to the stage with a laden tray of tea and cake for Hettie and her party. In spite of the rattling and Delirium’s nerves, it might have been delivered successfully were it not for the arrival of Teezle Makepeace shouting ‘murder!’ at the top of her voice. The crockery crashed to the floor, and the Methodist Hall fell silent as all eyes turned towards the new arrival.

Teezle Makepeace had been the town’s post-cat for several years, larger-than-life in all senses of the word and loved by all, not just for the fact that you could set your watch by her two deliveries a day, but also for her keen interest in the community in general.

Teezle always seemed to have time for a cup of tea and a chat with some of the more neglected cats on her rounds, and she could turn her paw to all sorts of helpful little jobs like changing light bulbs, filling coal scuttles and sweeping snow from paths. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about her, though, was that she had managed to find favour with the Post Mistress, Lavender Stamp, who – until taking her on – had managed to get through an average of two post-cats a month.

Today was clearly a day that Teezle would remember
for the rest of her life. Bugs pulled herself away from her conversation with Balti, irritated by yet another calamity poised to derail the November meeting.

‘Miss Makepeace! Whatever do you mean by such a dramatic entrance? Murder is not a word to be used lightly in the Methodist Hall.’

Teezle, it seemed, had no time to stop and chat. It was Hettie she was seeking, and – having located her at the other end of the Hall – she pushed unceremoniously past Bugs.

‘Hettie, thank goodness I’ve found you! You must come with me – the most terrible thing has happened. I went straight to your office when I found her but there was an old cat I didn’t know watching your TV, so I asked one of the Butters and she pointed to a poster in their shop. I hightailed it down here hoping you hadn’t left yet. I locked her door and took the key in case someone called on her. They wouldn’t want to see her like that. It’s awful and all done up for Halloween. I thought she’d made a Guy for bonfire night, then I realised it was her.’

Teezle gulped for air, giving Hettie the space she needed to get a word in edgeways. ‘Start from the beginning. Who are you talking about?’

‘It’s Miss Spitforce. She’s dead!’

Delirium Treemints had been collecting up the broken crockery from her abortive tea run, but on hearing the news she fainted clean away in a puddle
of tea and Victoria sandwich. Tilly and Jessie dragged her to one side to allow Hettie and Teezle some space and left her in the capable paws of Hilary and Cherry Fudge, the Club’s elected first-aiders. Seeing that a new incident had taken place, the Friendship Club began to converge on the stage end of the hall, leaving only Marmite Sprat with a table of unsold books, and Bugs Anderton, who for the first time was seriously considering resigning her presidency and going to live by the sea.

‘We need to get out of here,’ said Jessie, fighting her way through the crowd. ‘Let’s go across to my shop – it’ll be easier to talk there.’ Hettie nodded in agreement, and Jessie led them out of the scrum and into the peace and quiet of her parlour. She made a pot of hot, sweet tea and sat quietly with Tilly, while Hettie gently coaxed Teezle into sharing her account of the discovery of Mavis Spitforce’s body.

‘I was doing my afternoon deliveries and I’d got to Whisker Terrace. Mr Dosh came out of his shop and asked if I’d like a couple of samosas for my tea – they were a bit past their date, but he knows they’re my favourite and he’s nice like that. Anyway, I already had a chop in for my tea so I decided to offer a samosa to Miss Spitforce. I did a couple more deliveries and got to her house at about two o’clock, then I remembered it was her afternoon at the Friendship Club so I decided to put her samosa and a couple of letters in her back
porch – she always leaves it open, you see. That’s when I saw her. The porch leads into the kitchen and the door was wide open. I thought it was a dummy to start with, then I looked more closely and …’ A giant sob swallowed the rest of the sentence.

Hettie knew they would get no further while Teezle was in such a state; the only way to piece together what had happened was to go and see for herself.

‘I think we’d better pay a visit to Miss Spitforce’s,’ she said, nodding to Tilly to make a move.

Suddenly, their peace was shattered by a thunderous banging from Jessie’s shop. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ Jessie said, parting her beaded door curtain. ‘You’d think they’d want to go straight home after such a nightmare of an afternoon. Look at them clambering to get at the bric-a-brac! I’ll have to let them in or they’ll batter the door down. Stay as long as you like and let yourselves out the back when you’re ready. Let me know how things are later.’ Jessie made her way through to the shop and shot the bolt across, opening the floodgates on the hordes of Babylon – or, more especially, on the fallout from the Methodist Hall.

Whisker Terrace was in a very pleasant part of the town, far enough away from the High Street to afford its residents some peace and quiet, but close enough for shopping without the bus. The terrace also boasted its own convenience store, run by Rogan Dosh and his family and highly valued by the Whisker Terrace community, which was largely made up of reasonably well-off elderly cats. Rogan and his much younger wife, Balti, toiled day and night to provide necessities like tea, bread and milk long after the bigger stores had brought their shutters down for the day. They had also introduced a delicious array of Asian foods to the
communities they served, and cats travelled significant distances for one of Balti’s home-made chicken tikka masalas, cooked in huge vats and packaged in foil trays with lids for easy transportation. Balti’s teenage son, Bhaji, had even followed in the family’s tradition of hard work and enterprise by starting a delivery service on his bicycle.

Hettie, Tilly and Teezle rounded the corner into Whisker Terrace, nearly bumping into Balti, who had obviously decided against a raid on Jessie’s bric-a-brac and was sweeping the front of her shop in a frenetic sort of way.

‘Ah, Miss Bagshot, please let me say how very sorry I am to have upset you this afternoon. It’s not every day that one meets a real detective and I am most interested in all aspects of true crime, but I’m afraid I get a little carried away at times. I hope you will forgive me.’ Balti’s gaze fell on Teezle, who had been hiding behind Hettie, hoping not to be dragged into the conversation. ‘Oh my goodness! Has there been a real murder? I thought it was all a jolly joke at the club, you know – to liven things up.’ Hettie decided that further discussion with Balti could in no way improve the afternoon, and was about to make a polite excuse for moving on when Bhaji appeared from nowhere and crash-landed his bicycle into a tub of flowers outside the shop. His mother paused in her apology to box his ears, enabling Hettie to lead her
party onward to the grim business that awaited them next door at number 19.

Hettie had spent a number of pleasant afternoons in the company of Mavis Spitforce, having agreed to investigate a series of odd events in Mavis’s garden shortly after the traumas of the now famous Furcross case. The puzzle was an ideal distraction from the horror that Balti Dosh had alluded to at the Friendship Club, and Mavis Spitforce was an interesting and wise old cat who had unwittingly helped Hettie to get the darker memories of Furcross into perspective – so it was with great trepidation and sadness that she opened the door of Miss Spitforce’s porch.

‘I locked the back door so no one could see her,’ said Teezle, proffering a key. ‘She’s sitting at her kitchen table.’

Hettie put the key in the lock and looked back at her two companions. Tilly had said very little for some time, and Hettie could see that she was anxious and frightened at what they might find; Teezle, too, was shaking uncontrollably, but in her case the reaction came from knowledge rather than imagination.

‘Look you two, there’s no need for us all to have nightmares,’ Hettie said. ‘Tilly, why don’t you take Teezle back to ours and make sure she’s all right? I’ll see what’s to be done here and join you later.’

Tilly responded immediately, pleased to be given an important job and relieved not to have to come face
to face with ‘poor Miss Spitforce’, as Mavis would forever now be known. ‘We’ll go by the High Street,’ she said, taking Teezle’s arm. ‘That way we can pick up the paraffin from Hambone’s. It’s getting frosty already and Bruiser will be cold in that shed.’

Hettie waved them off with the tartan shopper and went back into the porch, this time turning the key in the lock. Pausing to take a deep breath, she opened the door. The scene was not immediately one of horror. In fact, the cat sitting at the kitchen table was almost comedic at first glance, appearing to have come straight from a rather good Halloween fancy dress party; on closer inspection, though, Hettie realised that whoever had done this to Mavis Spitforce had been very serious indeed.

Tearing her eyes away from the corpse for a moment, Hettie allowed herself to take in her surroundings. The bright, warm kitchen was the same as she remembered it, and nothing was out of place except the postbag which lay on the floor by the door where Teezle had abandoned it. There was no sign of a struggle, just the everyday trappings of an elderly cat’s kitchen. Turning back to the body, she noticed that it was sitting forward on the chair, with the table holding it in place. Mavis’s head wore a witch’s hat and an eye mask which Hettie carefully removed to reveal two very dead, staring eyes. She tried to close them to give Miss Spitforce some dignity, but numerous attempts only succeeded
in disturbing the body: the hat toppled to the floor and so did the corpse, dislodging itself from the table and falling flat on its face to reveal an elaborate dagger sunk squarely between Miss Spitforce’s shoulder blades. Most of the blood had been soaked up by an orange silk cloak. The cloak had been thrown around the body after death, Hettie noticed: the dagger had not pierced the material as it entered the victim. She tried to control the panic that was welling up inside her. Staring down at the pathetic heap of orange silk, she saw a stain gradually spreading across it, and it was a moment or two before she realised that the mark was caused by her own tears.

She backed away, wiping her eyes and blowing her nose on a tea towel by the sink. For a long time, she stared out of the kitchen window, searching in the gathering November gloom for some strength and composure. She thought back to her tea time chats with Mavis Spitforce: hadn’t she talked of a niece, of whom she was very fond? And a sister? Yes, there was definitely a sister. They would both have to be told. Mavis needed her family at this time, while Hettie got to the bottom of who was responsible and why the elderly cat had been killed in such a cruel way.

Feeling stronger, she turned back to the body and in one courageous movement retrieved the dagger from Miss Spitforce’s shoulder blades and placed it on the tear-stained tea towel. Quickly, she removed all the
Halloween trappings from the body to reveal the cat she had known: trim, respectable, and – even in death – neatly turned out in a heather mixture twin set.

Hettie had never been further than the kitchen on her previous visits, but knew that she would have to find a suitable place to leave the body. There was a small parlour next door, neat and tidy and full of books, with a desk in the corner by the window, a Chinese lamp on a side table, and an ornate but well-used chaise longue in front of the fireplace. Hettie was satisfied that Miss Spitforce could reside there until arrangements were made. She returned to the kitchen with that in mind just as the hammering began on the front door. Mavis was clearly in no fit state to receive visitors and Hettie decided to ignore the intrusion and carry on with her ‘tidying up’ when the kitchen door burst open and a whirlwind entered in an oversized great coat, yellow wellingtons and a Cossack hat jammed firmly on her head.

‘Stay where you are!’ she hissed, misunderstanding the situation. ‘You won’t get away with this.’

Hettie froze for a second, then relaxed as she recognised the considerable form of Irene Peggledrip, who fancied herself as the town’s practitioner of the darker arts.

‘Miss Peggledrip,’ she said, ‘I am Hettie Bagshot from the No. 2 Feline Detective Agency. I was called here by Teezle Makepeace, who discovered the body
of poor Miss Spitforce and asked for my help.’

‘No need to call me “Peggledrip” – it’s a ridiculous name. Irene will do. That’s
I-RE-NE
– three syllables and don’t forget it.’

Hettie was a little taken aback by Miss Peggledrip’s response and wondered why she wasn’t more shocked by the news of Mavis Spitforce’s death; there was, of course, an obvious explanation, and she was about to hear it.

‘I knew it! Crimola is never wrong about these things. I should have come this morning, but poor Mr Bunch wanted to speak with his wife. He’s been looking for the tin opener since she passed on, poor old cat. He’s lost without her, although I can tell you she’s having a high old time. Crimola says she’s the life and soul, if you’ll pardon the expression.’

Irene Peggledrip pulled a chair out from the kitchen table, divested herself of her Cossack hat and settled in as if waiting for the kettle to boil. As she clearly had some information with a bearing on the case, Hettie felt obliged to join her.

‘Miss Peggledr … er … Irene – are you telling me that someone called Crimola told you that Miss Spitforce was dead?’

‘Not someone exactly, just Crimola. She lives in my head and sends me messages. I don’t really think of her as a person, but she keeps me up to date with stuff going on – on the other side, if you see what I
mean.’ Hettie nodded, not wishing to interrupt and needing to get to the stage where she could find a small moment of sanity in which to remove Miss Spitforce from her kitchen floor. ‘I was enjoying a late supper last night,’ Irene Peggledrip continued. ‘Sardines on toast, actually. I’d just finished reading that stupid cat’s book on the goings-on in my house. Preposterous nonsense! She’s got a damned cheek, if you ask me. Anyway, Crimola comes through all agitated and says Mavis has just turned up. I thought that was a bit odd as she called round yesterday afternoon. In fact, it was she who brought me Marmite Sprat’s book. She was keen on the so called “Milky Myers” case and I think she was planning to write a proper account of it. She told me there were a few questions that she’d like me to put to Crimola when we had our next session.’

Hettie was hanging on but felt that she needed to clarify a few things before allowing Irene Peggledrip to continue. ‘You say that Miss Spitforce was also writing a book on the Myers case? Did she say what she thought to Marmite Sprat’s version of the story?’

‘Rubbish! That’s what she said, and after I’d read it I had to agree with her. I won’t deny that I’ve got an interesting lot of spirits floating about my old place, but Crimola sifts the good from the bad and none of them bother me too much. It’s best to leave the difficult ones alone, though. I like to think of them as being shut away in a freezer. Anyway, that’s why
Mavis wanted to book a session with Crimola – to check up on some facts.’

Hettie was a little confused. ‘But you said that Crimola lives in your head, so why did Miss Spitforce need to book a session with her? Why didn’t she just talk to you there and then?’

‘Ah, bless you! The conditions have to be right for Crimola to speak. She has to take me over for a bit, and that’s a full on session. She channels herself through me and I only tend to do that sort of work on Fridays.’

‘But you said you’d helped Mr Bunch find his tin opener this morning and it’s Tuesday, so how does that work?’ asked Hettie, her irritation made worse by the first pangs of hunger; the shared packet of crisps was just a distant memory.

‘Well, I didn’t find the tin opener actually. She’d thrown it away before she passed over as she didn’t want him living on that nasty tinned stuff. But I went straight to her and it was a simple job – no need to involve Crimola in that one.’

Hettie was keen to move things along: it was getting late and Mavis was still taking up most of her kitchen floor.

‘Would you help me to make Miss Spitforce a little more comfortable? I think she’d be better in the parlour.’

Irene Peggledrip smiled. ‘Of course I will, but
she’s not here any more. My guess is she left around midnight and she’s being processed as we speak. I’ll know more in a day or two. Why don’t you come and see me on Friday? Crimola may have some answers for you.’

For some unknown reason, Hettie agreed to the somewhat bizarre assignation with Crimola and the two cats bore Mavis Spitforce’s body into her parlour, leaving her in peaceful repose on the chaise longue. Having waved off her new friend, Cossack hat and all, Hettie picked up Teezle’s bag of abandoned letters, took one last look at the murder scene and locked the door, knowing that she would have to return in the morning to do some real detective work.

She made her way down the passageway and back onto Whisker Terrace, and then stopped dead; there was something she needed to check and it wouldn’t wait for the morning. Letting herself back in, she went straight to the parlour and to the corpse. She looked down on Miss Spitforce’s face and noticed a slight bulge in her cheeks. Taking great care not to break the jaw, Hettie gently prised the mouth open wide enough to see that there was more than teeth inside. She looked round for something to help and settled on a pair of tweezers that had been left on the desk, tweezers which Miss Spitforce had used to add to her butterfly collection, a hobby she was very keen on.

Returning to her grim task, she removed several
small bits of paper from the victim’s mouth; on closer inspection, it was clear that the fragments related to the Milky Myers story and – by the quality of the paper – had come from Marmite Sprat’s
Strange But True
version of events. She put the fragments in a convenient jar on the mantelpiece, secured the house once again and strode off home, hoping for a good dinner, a blazing fire and a pipe or two of catnip.

Those hopes were shattered when she arrived home to a less than blissful scene. Her arrival went unnoticed, mainly due to the volume of the TV, and only after she’d banged the door shut did Tilly react, shrugging her shoulders in a desperately apologetic way as if the chaos was none of her making. She got up from her blanket and bounded over the considerable bulk of Teezle Makepeace, who was lying stretched out in front of the fire, singing along with Bruiser, who was still in Hettie’s chair. They were glued to a rerun of
Top of the Cats,
and – to make things worse – a number of empty plates were dotted round as if a good time had been had by all.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Tilly said, seeing the look on Hettie’s face. ‘There was nothing I could do. Teezle said she needed to eat because her blood sugar was dropping with the shock, whatever that means, and Bruiser had already collected our dinner from the Butters when I got back and eaten most of it. I felt obliged to give the
rest of it to Teezle, and now they seem to have settled in for the evening.’