The Cat Next Door (3 page)

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Authors: Marian Babson

BOOK: The Cat Next Door
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‘What do you mean?'
‘Just that. Not a word. Not to the police, not to the legal beagles, not to the doctor, not to the psychiatrist and, especially, not to us. It isn't going to do her case any good. Now that the Right to Remain Silent has been abolished, it will probably do her harm. They can't force her to talk, of course, which is just as well. It's as though she's been stricken mute.'
‘But surely – ' Margot's throat constricted. She felt as though she had been stricken mute herself.
‘Not a word. She won't utter one syllable to explain – or to defend – herself. She's cut herself off completely, refused to see any of us. Parcels we've sent are returned unopened.' Henry shook his head. ‘I wonder sometimes if she's punishing herself … or us. And for what.'
‘I didn't realise …' Margot closed her eyes for a moment; immediately, the deep whine intensified in her ears, the chair seemed to vibrate. Even sitting down and leaning back, she felt dizzy and exhausted. Damn!
A homecoming to this situation was enough to cope with without jet lag as well. Yet, if it weren't for the situation, would she have come home at all? Would any of them?
Henry was saying something. She opened her eyes and caught a glimpse of something moving beyond him, on the other side of the french window leading out to
the garden. Something crawling along the ground through the shadows, something that looked shadowy itself and, perhaps, rusty. A breastplate, dragging along the ground, rusty – or stained with blood …
‘The Centurion!' she gasped, suddenly transported back to childhood.
‘What?' Henry whirled about, following the line of her vision. ‘Oh, you had me going for a moment there.' He laughed and opened the french window.
‘You want to come in, Tikki?'
The proud Abyssinian sauntered into the room as though he were doing them a favour. By his lights, he probably was.
‘Hello, Tikki.' Margot held out her hand and waggled her fingers. ‘Remember me?'
The cat strolled over and indulged in a good sniffing session. He seemed fascinated and Margot wondered how many unfamiliar and exotic scents were clinging to her. From her fingertips, Tikki moved on to the hem of her skirt and then to her shoes. Could he identify the smell of a foreign country, crowded airports, aviation fuel … loathing, misery and fear?
‘I hadn't thought of the Centurion in years,' Henry said with relish. ‘Zeus! How that takes me back!' His laughter invited her to join in.
Tikki gathered himself together and sprang into her lap. Whatever messages he had read from her skin and clothing, she had passed muster. He settled down in her lap.
Automatically, she stroked the soft sand-coloured fur. Not rusty, not bloodied, just sandy, evolved to act as natural camouflage in the sandy wastes of the deserts his ancestors had patrolled. He arched his neck under her soothing fingers and began purring.
‘I went back, too.' She smiled reminiscently. They had invented the Centurion between them, she and Henry. As children, it had seemed so unfair that, here in St Albans, with its long centuries of history and human
habitation, there had been so little trace of it all in their immediate area.
It had seemed only proper to redress this omission of history by inventing their own ghost: the Centurion from one of the Roman legions that had occupied St Albans or, as it was then known, Verulamium. He could have existed, their fertile imaginations insisted, and, from that, it was but a short step to having his ghost inhabit their garden on dark and moonless nights. What imaginations! And no wonder, surrounded as they were with Roman ruins, in an area where any garden spade might turn up ancient coins, shards of amphorae, mosaic tiles, statuettes of gods and goddesses, and who knew what buried treasure, still-undiscovered or, perhaps, discovered but unreported. Illegal, but these things happen.
It would have happened in reverse, if she and Henry had ever discovered anything in their garden. Uncle Wilfred had made no bones about that. ‘Dig as much as you like,' he'd said, a flash of humour lighting his lean sardonic face, ‘but, remember, if you find anything, we're covering it all up again and forgetting about it. I'll not have hordes of bloody archaeologists swarming in to excavate and ruining my peace and quiet.'
‘But there might be something wonderful down there,' Margot had protested. ‘There's so much of ancient Verulamium still to be discovered. We could find anything!'
‘You can find the Temple of Apollo and the temple of every other god they had, but if they're buried in my land, they're going to stay buried. I want a quiet life – and I intend to have it.'
Alas, poor Wilfred. His quiet life had been shattered irretrievably, in a way that could not be buried or covered up. His lean sardonic face had puffed out, buried in the rolls of fat from comfort eating that could bring no real comfort. His peaceful world had gone for ever –
along with his beloved twin daughters, his former pride and joy.
‘Ah, yes, the Centurion …' Henry chuckled reminiscently. ‘We really had them going with that one.'
‘Poor Uncle Wilfred.' Looking back with adult hindsight, Margot realised why Uncle Wilfred had been so upset about it. Uncovered ruins could be covered up again, but a ghost stalking the garden was beyond his control. One whisper of a haunting and both media and ghost-hunters would have been unleashed.
‘Mother wasn't very happy about it, either,' Henry said.
‘So she wasn't. You know, sometimes I have difficulty in remembering that Aunt Christa is your mother.'
‘I know.' Henry smiled ruefully ‘So do I. She isn't very maternal, is she?'
‘Whatever that is.' Margot had often wondered how she would have fared if Sylvia, her own mother, had lived to raise her. ‘I don't think any of the women in our family are very maternal – except for Milly, of course. Milly is maternal enough for all of them.' Or was. There was little sign of Milly's maternal nature at present.
‘Ah, well, mustn't grumble, eh?' Henry reached out and clasped her hand, renewing the old alliance.
Dear Henry, the brother she'd never had. And she knew that she was the sister of his heart, never mind Fenella and her twin, Justin – they had each other. The children of Christa's third marriage (there had been no issue from the second), they had appeared too late to be boon companions to their elder half-sibling. Apart from which, their father had wanted his children with him, so their early childhood had been spent abroad – until Christa had ended that marriage and, having been granted custody, had promptly ceded that custody to Milly and got on with her own career.
Tikki shifted position in Margot's lap and looked up at her impatiently – she had stopped stroking him.
‘Sorry, Tikki,' she apologised. ‘I didn't mean to neglect – '
‘Oh, no!' Nan swept into the library and took one appalled look at the scene before her.
‘No, no, no!' She bore down on Margot and snatched the cat from her lap. ‘No! Wilfred mustn't find you here, he has enough to contend with right now!' She opened the french window and lightly tossed the offended cat out into the garden. ‘And what are you thinking of, Henry? You know the curtains should be closed before Millicent comes in for her coffee.'
Margot caught a glimpse of baleful yellow eyes glaring into the room from outside before the heavy drapes swished across the window, closing out the night and everything in it.
‘It's all right in the daytime,' Nan half-apologised to Margot. ‘But night was when it happened and Milly can't bear – '
The doorbell chimed, more of an announcement that someone had arrived than a request for entry, for the chime was immediately followed by the scrape of a key in the lock and the babble of laughing voices.
‘They're here!' Nan said, with what seemed like disproportionate relief. ‘I wonder if they got anything to eat during the flight's delay, or whether …' Her voice trailed off as she bustled from the room.
‘They're here,' Henry echoed. His shoulders slumped with relief from tension, his face looked clearer, brighter. He went after Nan without a backward glance. ‘It was just an ordinary flight delay …'
Of course it was. His half-brother and sister were safe. What else had they expected?
Then Margot was sharply aware that they might have expected anything – from an accidental but fatal crash, to a bomb on board, to a hijacking and/or hostage situation. This was a family that had been so severely battered by Fate, or circumstances, or whatever you
wanted to call it, that they had no faith left, in airline, in goodness or mercy, or perhaps even in God.
And who could blame them?
A sudden wave of exhaustion engulfed her, reminding her that she had bruises and wounds of her own to contend with. She leaned back and closed her eyes, yielding for a moment to the swirling dizziness that threatened to carry her into unconsciousness.
‘You're tired.' She hadn't heard Aunt Milly come in, but she smiled at the sound of the gentle familiar voice. ‘Why don't you go up to bed now? No one will mind. You've had a long day.'
‘Perhaps I will.' She opened her eyes in time to see Milly steal a frightened glance towards the french window.
‘You won't miss anything,' Milly assured her, with growing confidence. ‘Justin and Fenella are just going to have a snack and then go up to their rooms themselves. You'll feel better in the morning and so will they. It's all that jet lag …'
It was a little more than that, but this was not the time to go into it. Margot smiled again and gathered herself to face the struggle to get to her feet, run the gauntlet of whirlwind hugs and kisses from the newly-arrived in the front hall and force herself up the stairs.
If she put a little extra energy into rising, Milly didn't notice. Her aunt, she saw, was glancing again at the french window and still held the book she had been reading clutched like a shield in front of her bosom.
 
 
Despite her misgivings, she fell asleep immediately. It was only later that the uneasy dreams began.
Claudia came to sit on the side of her bed, tossing back her long glossy hair and laughing.
‘Oh, how funny, how funny! Did you see the way he jumped? He actually thought I was going to run him down – '
Margot writhed unhappily and half-heard her own
protesting whimper, almost waking her, but not quite. One part of her mind recognised the moment being replayed from the past, realising that it was the past. Another part fought to keep a grasp on the present, the reality. Claudia was dead.
Dead … but the gurgling laugh still rang in Margot's ears, she could sense the hair brush her face as Claudia leaned closer to whisper something, feel the force of that larger-than-life personality vibrating in the atmosphere.
The Centurion had been a figment of active imaginations, but Claudia had been real – and now it was Claudia who was haunting her dreams. Perhaps everyone's dreams.
And not just Claudia. Chloe was there, too, drifting aimlessly on the fringe of the dreamscape. In Claudia's shadow, as she had always been in real life. The shadow twin, with Claudia's face, Claudia's form, Claudia's voice, but without Claudia's personality … without Claudia's husband …
Was that why Chloe had done it? Jealousy?
I'm dreaming,
the small sentient corner of her mind assured her.
This is all a dream. I wasn't even here when it happened, I wasn't even in this country.
But it was happening again now. Chloe crept out of the shadows, heading purposefully towards Claudia, whose laughter had taken on a mocking, taunting note. Claudia, who had everything –
Light flashed along the length of the sharp glittering blade as Chloe raised the knife and struck.
Claudia stopped laughing, her eyes widened in shock, she stumbled and fell, pitching forward, falling on to Margot, her hair pressing into Margot's face …
‘No!' Margot choked, wrenched out of her nightmare, dazed and disoriented. But the hair was still there, still pressing against her cheek like a warm living entity. She reached up to brush it away. It brushed back and began purring.
‘Tikki!' She sat up and gave a shaky laugh. ‘You frightened me.' The clinging shreds of the dream fell away and her mind cleared. ‘How did you get back in? Nan threw you out.'
Tikki pranced back and forth across her thighs, headbutted her fondly in the midriff and purred more loudly than ever, clearly delighted to have someone awake and ready to pat him.
‘But Nan had a point,' she said softly. ‘Uncle Wilfred has enough to contend with right now. From the way he was carrying on about you tonight, the sight of you might just be the last straw.'
She gathered the cat into her arms and slid out of bed, groping with her feet for her slippers. Tikki rubbed his head against the underside of her chin.
The hallway was dimly illuminated by the shaded nightlight bulb plugged into the skirting-board socket beside the bathroom door. Margot paused to get her bearings. Familiar though this house had once been, the reshuffling needed to accommodate the descent of far-flung family members meant that she no longer had any idea who occupied which room. The fact that Fred and Milly had ceded the master bedroom to Lynette was, alone, enough to destabilise all her memories.
Tikki stiffened abruptly in her arms and stared down the hallway at something she could not see. His ears pricked and seemed to turn in the same direction.
She heard it then. A faint erratic sound, muffled but persistent, strangely harrowing. She felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck, yet noticed that Tikki's fur was not bristling. Perhaps he knew something she didn't know.
As she listened, clutching Tikki as her aunt had clutched her book, as though he were a shield to hide behind, the sound became identifiable: someone was sobbing. Torn with anguish, trying to muffle the choking sobs, someone was crying her heart out. Or, possibly, his. Tears had no gender, heartbreak was universal.
Especially in this house. There was a lot to cry about here. An upper lip that had been suitably stiff and impassive during the day had quivered and given way in the depths of the night, when there was no one around to witness it.
Who was it?
What should she do? She shrank from tiptoeing down the hallway, listening at each door. Suppose someone came along and caught her? And if she did find out who was crying – what then? Burst in and offer a shoulder? Presumably, anyone who had given way to those heart-wrenching sobs had done so at this hour because it seemed safe with no one around to hear them.
But her own heart twisted. It seemed inhuman to listen to such pain and not try to do something to alleviate it. On the other hand, any attempt might seem an intrusion into the other person's privacy. Family or not, everyone had the right to their own space. Perhaps especially family.

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