The No. 2 Feline Detective Agency (8 page)

Tilly had not meant to fall asleep when she got back from the library van. All would have gone according to plan if she hadn’t treated herself to five minutes in Hettie’s armchair to drink her tea and eat the custard cream she had found at the back of the staff sideboard during her morning clean-up. An hour later, she awoke in a panic as several black plastic video boxes surrounded her and threatened to take her television away. Relieved that it had only been a nasty dream, but upset that she had no television to lose, Tilly got up and checked that the pies were still under the tea towel. Remembering Hettie’s best
mac, she fetched it in from the line along with the socks, pleased that the laundry was almost dry. She eyed the mac up, having felt the chill of the backyard, then slipped it on, expecting it to be several sizes too big for her. To her delight it fitted perfectly, but it was still slightly damp, and it occurred to her that the best way to finish drying it was to wear it herself; by the time she got home from seeing Jessie, her own body heat would have finished the job. Apart from anything else, she felt very important in it, and Hettie need never know.

Pulling on clean red socks and adding a bright green knitted scarf to the borrowed mac, Tilly made her way out into the High Street, waving to the Butters who were wedged in their shop window, removing the final crumbs of the lunchtime assault on their breads, pies and pastries. Oralia Claw’s van was taking up most of the pavement outside her nail bar and, as Tilly passed, Oralia staggered out of her shop under the weight of yet more boxes to be loaded inside. Tilly couldn’t quite remember why she didn’t like Oralia Claw, but decided that it must be because there was nothing about her
to
like; Hettie didn’t like her either, so the negative feelings were built on sound judgement. And besides, the nail bar seemed to attract a certain sort of silly female cat – painted, pinched and pretending to be posh, the sort that would wobble their stiletto heels through fire to attract the overpaid
brawn of the local football team with their fast cars and low intellect.

Oralia Claw’s place in the community had engaged Tilly’s thoughts in such an entertaining way that she almost missed the turning into Cheapcuts Lane, where her friend Jessie ran a charity shop from her front room. Exactly
which
charity had never been explained, but the outlet had become so well established that no one asked any more; the old adage of such things beginning at home seemed to fit Jessie’s philosophy of life, and she provided the less well-off in town with an Aladdin’s cave of clothes and bric-a-brac, as well as a popular channel for the better-heeled to get rid of unwanted good stuff. Strangely enough, it was the better-heeled who made the shop a success, as they also bought from its ‘posh but not quite new range’ – a rail of clothing that was pushed into the centre of the shop whenever Jessie saw a decent car pull up outside.

Tilly loved looking in the charity shop window: her friend prided herself on her window displays – always seasonal and colour-coordinated to catch the eye of any cat who had deviated from the High Street. Today, Jessie had gone for an ‘autumn in the rain’ look, with umbrellas, wellington boots and a rather fine mannequin posed in a bright yellow storm cape with matching sou’wester. The effect was enhanced by a scattering of leaves, some assorted nuts and a stuffed
squirrel, and Tilly purred with appreciation. She went inside, her arrival announced by a peal of bells which dangled on strings across the door.

Jessie sat behind a large kitchen table which doubled as shop counter. A cloche hat of red velvet was perched on her head, and her matching red and purple shawl seemed to have become a little too involved with the garment she was knitting. A pair of red-rimmed spectacles made its bid for freedom when she spotted Tilly, and was only saved from disaster by a cord that tethered it round a long-haired tabby neck. ‘Well, there’s a sight for sore eyes,’ Jessie said, abandoning her knitting to give Tilly a hug. ‘I was only thinking about you this morning. An old dear came in and offered me some really nice cardigans – lovely bright colours with easy buttons, right up your street! And wait for it – some of them had pockets and hoods! I bought them up for a song. In fact, I’m thinking of turning my whole window display over to knits next week. Why don’t you have a look through them while I stick the kettle on? It’s high time we had a catch-up, and I think there’s a chocolate biscuit with your name on it in the tin.’ Jessie slid a box across the floor and Tilly clapped in sheer delight at the rainbow of woollen cardigans, all flailing their arms to escape their incarceration. Picking and prodding at them, she selected the three that she was most taken by and divested herself
of Hettie’s mac, unbuttoning her old, well-loved cardigan ready to try the new ones.

‘Oh, come into the back to do that,’ said Jessie, heading for the shop door. ‘I’ll shut up for a bit while we have some tea.’ She turned the ‘back in a tick’ sign to face any hopeful customers and shot the bolt across, then picked up the box of cardigans and led Tilly – still clutching her favoured three – through to her private quarters.

Jessie’s back room had been her home for as long as she could remember. She had been taken in by a kind elderly cat when she was five weeks old, after being abandoned – along with her dead mother – at the gates of a hostel, tied up in a rubbish bag. Miss Lambert – a keen supporter of the hostel – had adopted Jessie and raised her as her own, leaving her small terraced house to her when she died. Jessie had loved Miss Lambert. For an elderly cat, she was a great deal of fun to be with and had taught Jessie the ways of the world, encouraging her in the appreciation of beautiful things – especially if they happened to be red. Jessie had nursed Miss Lambert in her final years and, when their money ran out, had enterprisingly turned their front room into a shop of all sorts. Although money was still often scarce, Jessie had hung on to her legacy, taking extra jobs here and there when the shop was going through one of its quiet periods. Tilly, too, had much to thank
Miss Lambert for: they had met at the old library and – seeing that Tilly was in great need of a decent dinner – the older cat had brought her home one cold October day. From that moment on, Tilly and Jessie had been firm friends; in fact, it was Jessie who had first encouraged Tilly’s passion for cardigans, and the rest – as they say – is history.

The room was swathed in red, with a Turkish carpet on the floor and a slightly beaten-up sofa, which displayed two rich-red carpet cushions and a soft chenille throw; the lampshades were hung with red tassels, and the scent of sandalwood and jasmine drifted from incense sticks by the fireplace. Tilly loved this room; it had hardly changed since Miss Lambert died and – looking now at her friend, pouring tea from a red pot – she realised for the first time that Jessie was indeed becoming Miss Lambert, a vision straight from the Marrakesh Express.

‘Come on, then – tell me your news,’ said Jessie, sinking into one of the large cushions on the sofa and patting the space beside her for Tilly to sit down. ‘How’s Hettie getting on with her new career? Any takers in the world of gumshoes and private eyes?’

Tilly dragged herself away from the cardigans and accepted a cup of what she called ‘perfumed tea’, guessing that Earl Grey must have always served his hot drinks with a chocolate biscuit, if only to take the taste away. ‘Well, it was a bit slow to start with. We
almost gave up,’ she spluttered through a mouthful of crumbs. ‘Then the phone rang on Wednesday with a proper case and Hettie’s been on it ever since. She even let me help yesterday. There were bodies everywhere! We had to collect them from Malkin and Sprinkle ’cos someone had dug them up, and the gardener’s been stealing things out of the coffins, and the nurse killed herself in front of the TV. We had to move her on a tea trolley.’

Throughout Tilly’s brief but thorough appraisal of the case, Jessie sat with her eyes wide and her mouth even wider in a silent scream of amazement. When Tilly paused for a moment to take another bite of her biscuit, she felt obliged to challenge the credibility of the story. ‘What? Bodies, gardeners, coffins, suicides and tea trolleys? Sounds like a bad crime fiction series. You are joking, aren’t you?’ Watching Tilly’s face and waiting for the burst of laughter that never came, she realised that her friend was serious. ‘Oh my God! Where did all this happen?’

Feeling very important, as the bearer of revelations always does, Tilly fleshed out her macabre bullet points, much to Jessie’s delight. By the time she had finished, Jessie’s tea was cold and her biscuit untouched, and Jessie was ready to sign up as a recruit to the No. 2 Feline Detective Agency – as a plant, or as anything else that would allow her to share in the excitement. ‘Wow!’ she said. ‘Fancy Furcross being
involved in all this! Marcia gets a lot of her designer stuff from me – always buys a size too small and takes all the lemon, beige and pink stuff, which is fab ’cos no one else would be seen d … er … out in it. Marilyn Repel swaps a lot of her more stagey stuff for everyday wear with me, too, and I know Cocoa quite well – she offers me work occasionally at her shows, dressing the models backstage. I’m helping her tomorrow night at Malkin and Sprinkle. But I’ll never understand why she’s taken up with that Claw creature – no talent, no brain, no dress sense, just hitching a ride on Cocoa’s fame and Marilyn’s fortune. She’s a nasty, thin piece of work if you ask me, but I think the show will be good. Cocoa has put a lot of work into her designs.’

‘Oh good!’ said Tilly, scrambling off the sofa and selecting the first cardigan to try. ‘We’re going to that. We got free tickets from Mr Sprinkle when we picked the bodies up. What about this one? It’s lovely and warm, but the sleeves are a bit long. The pockets and the hood are really nice, though, and it’s got lots of purple in it.’

Jessie admired Tilly’s choice. ‘The colour really suits you and you can always roll the sleeves up a bit. Try the red one – that’s got a zip and you could wear it over another cardigan to go out in.’

Tilly was having a lovely time, and soon discovered that all three cardigans had become firm favourites.
The final one – in blue with bright yellow and red buttons – made her look years younger, and she decided that it would be perfect for the fashion event; it even had a small silver fleck running through the wool, which made it the perfect choice for evening wear. But, as often happens when a good time is being had, reality struck the cruellest of blows.

‘I’m not sure any of them are quite right for me,’ she said reluctantly. ‘I think I’ll leave it for today. I should be going – Hettie will be back soon and I promised to do some typing for her.’

Jessie watched as Tilly carefully folded the cardigans and put them back in the box, remembering what Miss Lambert had said about her: ‘That cat will always want for something because she’s too proud to ask.’ Knowing that dignity and self-respect were priceless commodities, Jessie leant forward to help Tilly as she struggled back into her old cardigan. ‘I’ve got a bit of a problem tomorrow,’ she said. ‘I’m supposed to be at Malkin and Sprinkle by lunchtime, which means I’ll have to shut the shop for the afternoon, and Saturday is my busiest day. I don’t suppose you could look after things for me, could you? Most of the stuff is priced and the rest you can take offers on. I haven’t got any cash but I can pay you in cardigans if Hettie could spare you for the afternoon?’

Tilly beamed, skipped and finally jumped into
the box of cardigans, retrieving the blue, purple and red objects of her desire. Jessie smiled in a satisfied sort of way and gave a nod to Miss Lambert, whose ashes took centre stage on the mantelpiece in a beautiful red and gold Chinese urn. ‘That settles it then,’ said Jessie, rising from her sofa. ‘I’d better open up again for a couple of hours. I might catch the Methodists coming out of their Friday whisker drive. God knows what they do in that hall all afternoon, but it certainly puts them in the mood for my bric-a-brac section on their way home. Since that bloody woman from the post office had the library van moved up her end, trade has dropped off a bit for me on Fridays, so I’ll grab anything I can – even the Methodists!’

Tilly chuckled as she followed Jessie through to the shop, barely able to see over the three cardigans she was carrying. Jessie found a suitable bag while Tilly made herself at home once again in Hettie’s mac, hastily abandoned in the excitement of the new knits. ‘What time would you like me tomorrow? I’d rather be here early so you can show me the ropes. I’ve never worked for cardigans before, so I’ll need to do a good job for you.’

‘Come about twelve – we’ll have an hour to go through everything. I’ll make us a sandwich, so don’t bother with lunch – and I’m dying to find out how Hettie got on at Furcross. That’s worth three
cardigans of anyone’s money.’ The two cats laughed. Bidding farewell to her new recruit, Jessie returned to her knitting and braced herself for the Methodists, while Tilly skipped all the way home with her three new best cardigans.

Tea at Furcross was an unusually quiet affair for a Friday. Only a handful of residents had bothered to leave their rooms to partake of Marley Toke’s lemon drizzle triple-layer cake; most were busy squeezing themselves into their chosen finery as a trial run for Saturday’s night out, and an extra slice of cake could be the difference between a cocktail dress fitting or not. The situation didn’t seem to deter Marcia Woolcoat: as Hettie and Poppa stepped through the French windows, she was positioning the largest slice of cake on her plate – perhaps to compensate for the others’ lack of interest, but probably because she was just plain
greedy. Marcia nodded to Hettie, collected a cup of tea from Marley Toke’s serving hatch, and disappeared back down the corridor to her parlour.

‘Not exactly in mourning for her sister, is she?’ noted Poppa, attacking the drizzle cake with enthusiasm. ‘Do you think she should be on our list of suspects?’

Hettie stirred her tea thoughtfully. ‘Well, she’s a bit strange, but I can’t see her bringing all this trouble on herself and I think her heart’s in the right place. She didn’t have to set this place up with her windfall. She could have lived an easy life wherever she chose, and let’s face it – all this business isn’t going to do her much good. A lot of her guests have left already, she now has no nurse to keep them going or help them on their way out, and by the end of today the gardener will have cleared off. I’m not surprised she needs a big piece of cake.’

Poppa agreed as Marley emerged from her hatch and made her way over to their table. ‘Miss Hettie – what shall I do wid dat shoebox from Moggy’s room? I know I said I’d keep it safe for you, but Miss Marcie, she just been askin’ me if you found anythin’ in her room when you done the searchin’, and she asked if there was any letters or anythin’ like dat. I tink she knows me’s coverin’ up for Moggy, and I worryin’ meself sick about dat money in me tin. If she finds out I bin keepin’ tings from her, she’ll turn me out and den where will I be? Oh my days! Miss Hettie, I been so
happy here with me cookin’ and me nice room and a place to grow me magic plants.’

Marley was working herself up into a highly emotional state, and with every good reason; Hettie knew she would have to choose her words very carefully in her final interview of the day if she was to protect her friend. She looked across at Poppa for inspiration, and he didn’t disappoint: wiping the icing sugar from his whiskers, he stood up and attempted to put his arm round the sizeable shoulders of Marley Toke; his words of reassurance saved the day, at least for the moment. ‘No worries there, Marley. You can come and stay on my boat with me if Marcia Whatsit chucks you out. I’ll clear some of my junk out of the old spare cabin, and as long as you keep the cakes coming, you can stay until you get fixed up with something better.’

Hettie marvelled at Poppa’s kind offer. She knew how much he loved his independence. On the day his old uncle Ned had died – in his chair by the fire in the snug at the Tot and Towpath – Poppa had become the proud owner of
The Ned-Do-Well
, a forty-foot narrow boat which had given him a home of his own and a place from which to run his plumbing business. He lived happily there, enjoying his own company and pleasing himself, and his offer of a bolt-hole for Marley was generous in the extreme.

‘Poppa boy! You a very fine cat, savin’ me bacon,’
Marley said, cheering up instantly. ‘I’ll keep Moggy’s tings safe in me room for now, but de old mother cat needs to know dat Moggy is gone or she’ll just keep writin’ to the post office.’

Hettie could only imagine how Lavender Stamp would react to a mountain of uncollected mail, but agreed that something would have to be done. It was really Marcia Woolcoat’s problem; Hettie’s problem was deciding which bits of the sorry tale to report back to her. It was nearly five o’clock, and she couldn’t put it off any longer. She left Poppa to finish his third slice of cake, collected a careful selection of Digger Patch’s blackmail notes from the safety of Marley’s kitchen, and – with a deep breath – made her way down the hallway to Miss Woolcoat’s parlour. The door was closed. Hettie raised her paw to knock, then changed her mind and hurried back to Marley’s kitchen; it was not her job to cover up the sins of others, and it suddenly occurred to her that there was another way of dealing with the situation she found herself in. She snatched up Alma Mogadon’s shoebox of letters and retraced her footsteps, this time making her presence felt with a resounding thump on Marcia Woolcoat’s door.

Marcia Woolcoat tested the hinges by throwing the door open with such force that she all but fell into the corridor. ‘Ah, Miss Bagshot – I trust you have some news for me? I always like to enter a weekend with the
trials of the week dealt with and on the way to being forgotten. Do sit down.’

Hettie was more than a little taken aback by the matron’s words – she seemed to have forgotten that there was an unburied corpse on the premises – but she was getting used to her strange behaviour and decided to plough on regardless. ‘Miss Woolcoat, I have completed my search of your sis … er … Nurse Mogadon’s room, and have found a number of things that help to explain her decision to end her life. She was, as I suspected, being blackmailed by one of your residents, and I am now able to confirm that this was Mr Patch, your gardener.’ Hettie paused, waiting for a reaction; when none came, she continued. ‘Mr Patch had been sending some very unpleasant letters to Nurse Mogadon for some time, and these letters – which I have here – also contain a number of unkind rumours about your other guests. I think it best if you read them yourself.’ She pushed Digger Patch’s notes onto the table next to the empty lemon drizzle plate, but still Marcia Woolcoat showed no interest. ‘It would appear that Mr Patch has been stealing from your clients’ caskets before they were buried. Nurse Mogadon had discovered this and was going to inform you, but – as is now very clear – she had become involved in a deceit far worse than stealing trinkets, and had sold the bodies of your last three Dignicat clients to an outsider. Digger Patch knew this and threatened to expose her
to get his own back. Sadly, she could see no other way out, and chose to kill herself rather than admit to you what she had done.’

Hettie had no idea if her words had hit home. Marcia Woolcoat stared straight ahead, seemingly composed and unmoved, and her attitude was beginning to unnerve Hettie a little – but the shoebox was becoming heavier by the minute, and it was time to hand it over and run. ‘I found this under Nurse Mogadon’s bed,’ she said. ‘I have only glanced at the contents, but I’ve seen enough to know that these are family letters which are of no interest to anyone but you. They may provide some reasons for your sister’s behaviour.’ Feeling very brave at having used the word ‘sister’, and relieved that there had been no visible explosion from the cat sitting opposite her, Hettie gently rested the shoebox on Marcia Woolcoat’s knee and stood up to leave. ‘I will, of course, continue my investigations into who bought the bodies – if you would like me to. Perhaps you could phone my office on Monday after you’ve had a chance to look through the letters, and let me know how you would like me to proceed. I will obviously put all my other cases on hold until I hear from you.’

At last there was a response, but it was not what Hettie had expected. Marcia Woolcoat rose from her sofa, knocking the shoebox and its contents onto the floor. She shuffled through the letters as she moved
across the room to her desk, where she located her cheque book and proceeded to write out a money order, signing it with a flourish before handing it to Hettie. ‘Miss Bagshot,’ she said after a pause, ‘I am indebted to you and I hope this will cover your costs, and more especially your silence, in the matters you have just brought to my attention. I have no wish to continue this investigation any further, or to tie up more of your time. Please accept this cheque as final payment for your services. Now, you must excuse me – it’s nearly time for the six o’clock news.’

With that, Marcia Woolcoat strode out of her room and disappeared down the corridor, leaving Hettie to see herself out.

Too shell-shocked even to look at the cheque, Hettie made her way to the front door, collected her great coat from its hook and strode out into the car park, where Poppa was waiting patiently in his twin-wheel base transit van. She climbed into the cab beside him, still holding the cheque and still not daring to look at how much it was for, but hoping that Marcia Woolcoat had remembered the bonus that had been promised for a satisfactory outcome. Admittedly, Hettie was unable to pinpoint anyone in the Furcross case who could truly be described as satisfied by the service she had provided; in fact, since she had arrived on Wednesday, everything had got a whole lot worse. As she and Poppa drove away, narrowly missing Digger Patch
who sat on his suitcase at the bus stop, she wondered if she was entirely cut out for the work she had chosen. Her doubts vanished when she finally glanced down at Marcia Woolcoat’s cheque, and saw in disbelief that it had been made out for fifty pounds.

The rush hour traffic in the high street was heavier than usual. Oralia Claw’s van had obstructed the departure of Turner Page’s mobile library, which now seemed to be wedged across the road, forcing Lavender Stamp – who had been directing the traffic – up against the Butters’ shop window. Poppa took decisive action and jumped the queue of traffic by taking to the pavement on the post office side of the street. Seeing his success, the rest of the cars followed suit and it soon became clear that Oralia Claw, Turner Page and Lavender Stamp would be going nowhere for the time being. Hettie was grateful for Poppa’s swift response to the hold-up: she was long past her best on a day that had started at three o’clock in the morning with a hysterical Jamaican cook, and had expanded into a room search with a corpse for company, an unpleasant interrogation with a burnt-out celebrity gardener, and a surreal encounter with Marcia Woolcoat brandishing a cheque for fifty pounds. The cheque now shared a pocket with a squashed samosa, Hettie having hurriedly stowed it away in case Marcia Woolcoat ran after them and asked for it back. She was dead on her paws and, as she waved Poppa on his way, her only
thought was of a blazing fire and her comfortable old armchair. She had had no time to consider that – for the first time in her life – she was financially secure. In spite of her haphazard approach, it seemed that she was a successful detective after all.