Street Cat Blues, page 19
“I burnt the exercise book, just in case someone found it.” He pulled up sharply and turned to face Carlos. He laughed. “It was a good plan though. I tried it out later,” he added. “Some bloke who had a shop. I wanted to see what it felt like. It was good.”
Aubrey felt his heart jolt. Raj. So that was what it had all been about. Target practice for this mad bloke. And as a result Raj had died and his own life had changed forever.
“I never got caught for it. They never even questioned me. He was only some old paki anyway.”
Aubrey stared down at his paws. As it was in life, so it was in death. Raj hadn’t mattered to anyone then and he didn’t matter to anyone now. Except to Aubrey. He had mattered to Aubrey.
29
Aubrey and Vincent remained crouched, mesmerised by the scene unfolding below. Below them Rascal continued to snuffle around the bushes.
“We all got split up after Grandma died. First off we got sent to that children’s home, that Alderman Wenlock place, and then they put us into separate foster homes and tried to get us adopted. Well, not me, they said nobody would want me because I was too old but my brothers, they tried to get families for them. I tried to keep in touch with them afterwards, I tried to check and see if they were all right and that, but they kept moving them around so it was difficult to keep track of them. Leon, he got sent to Derby. I don’t know why.” The man stared mournfully at Carlos. “Maybe it was because he was a different colour to the rest of us.”
He paused and stared into the middle distance. Aubrey watched as Carlos surreptitiously dropped his hand down to scratch his leg. He was obviously trying as hard as he could not to break the man’s train of thought. As long as the man was talking, he wasn’t thinking about performing acts of violence.
“After I left school I used to go back in my lunch hours from work sometimes and wait outside the school gate to see if any of them came out. That’s how I found Jed again. That caretaker though, he used to come out and tell me to clear off. He threatened to get the police on me once. Like I was some kind of pervert or something.” The man looked affronted. “Anyway, he’s on my list.”
Aubrey watched as Carlos smiled slightly and nodded sympathetically. Clever lad. He was trying to make a relationship with the man. Under the circumstances it was about the only option he had but he was smart to have worked it out. The bloke was clearly crazy but then Carlos had some experience with lunatics. He’d lived with Maria for the first fourteen years of his life.
“My Grandma, she was a dear old lady. She used to get the tea and cakes out when the social workers came visiting. And then she used to beat us.”
Rick smiled suddenly, a wide split of a smile that showed the strange gaps in his teeth and lit up his eyes.
“She had this old school cane that used to hang over the arm of her chair and we all had to take our pyjamas off and line up for it every morning. All of us, even Jed. He wasn’t even old enough to be at school. She used to do it in the sitting room with all the curtains closed before we got dressed. And then we had to say, ‘Thank you, Grandma.’ She said it was to stop us being bad. She said that we’d be grateful later on.”
He laughed again, the same rough barking noise that Aubrey and Vincent had heard earlier, and dropped the end of his cigarette to the floor, grinding it hard under his trainer. He moved across the room towards Carlos and dropped down put beside him again. He put an arm around his shoulder.
“I like The Laurels. It’s good here.” He pulled the bottle from his pocket with his free hand and took another swig. “I don’t even have to do anything much, just open and close the place and generally keep an eye on things. See to some of the maintenance and that. You know what, Dan? It’s the first proper home I’ve had really.” He swayed slightly and put out a hand to steady himself. “After I left Alderman Wenlock and started working they got me a bed-sit. Just a room in this big house. It had a sink and a gas ring in it, and a bathroom along the corridor that I had to share with everyone else. At The Laurels I’ve got a proper flat with a kitchen and a shower and everything.” Aubrey heard the sudden note of pride in his voice. “I couldn’t believe it when they gave me the job. That was down to Dave really. I would never have got it if it hadn’t been for him. He’s got contacts on the Council.” He snorted. “He’s got contacts everywhere. Do you know Dave?” he added conversationally.
Carlos shook his head.
“I met him in the Coach and Horses one night. He remembered my mum. She’d done him a couple of favours in the past. So when I told him that I was fed up with where I was working at the factory, he got me the job here. There’s only one thing that I don’t like about The Laurels, only one thing that spoils it.” The man leaned closer to Carlos and lowered his voice slightly. Aubrey could see that Carlos was trying not to recoil from the whisky-laden breath. “It’s the old people. I don’t like them, Dan. If it wasn’t for them this place would be perfect.”
Had it ever occurred to him, Aubrey wondered, that he might be in the wrong job?
“One of them threatened me you know.” The tone of injured innocence was unmistakeable. “Honestly. Can you believe it?”
Aubrey watched Carlos’s expression as he opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again. The question had clearly been rhetorical. Rick pulled out his bottle of whisky again and took another huge gulp before continuing.
“She said that she knew I was up to something. She said that she’d come across the likes of me before. Which was quite rude really, when you think about it.” He paused and frowned down at Carlos, waiting for confirmation. Carlos nodded back at him. “Anyway,” he continued, “She’d been poking around in the attic rooms. Which she shouldn’t have been,” he added, the righteous tone back in his voice. “They know very well that some places are out of bounds so she didn’t have no business up there. No business at all. Well,” he shrugged his shoulders and spread his hands in front of him. “I had to do something, didn’t I?”
Carlos nodded in agreement again, his face passive.
“She came up to me one day when I was cleaning the ground floor windows and said that they knew all about what was going on, her and those old bitches Bradshaw and Lomax that she used to hang about with. She said that she’d actually spoken to one of them through the door. She knew Swahili or something.” He fell silent for a moment as though thinking. “She said that her Dad used to be some sort of vicar in one of those places. Trust her,” he added bitterly. “If we’d had giant pandas in there she would have spoken giant panda as well. She was that sort. Annoying, if you know what I mean. Anyway, I tried to explain it to her. I told her that what me and Dave were doing was actually a good thing. I said that it was their choice. Nobody was forcing them. They wanted to do it so that they could get a better life, better than the one that they had in their own country anyway. I said that what we were doing was helping them. We were bringing them over here and helping them to make a future for themselves. We were doing them a service. Obviously we couldn’t do it for free, could we? I mean, we had to cover our costs.”
Aubrey watched as Carlos started to shake his head and then changed his mind and nodded instead. It was obviously the right reaction. Rick smiled down at him.
“You know what she said, Dan? She said, ‘Tell that to the judge’. And then she stuck her hand out, literally, stuck it out right under my nose, and asked me for money. She said that they wanted it for a coach trip to Margate. I was shocked,” he added. “I mean, she used to be a school teacher.”
At last Carlos found his voice.
“Did you give it to her?”
“Oh yeah, I gave it to her all right.” Rick smiled his frightening wide smile again. “And the other two. I was going to leave them alone at first, I reckoned they’d be frightened enough but then when I thought about it later, well, I had to really, didn’t I?” Aubrey heard the chilling tone of reason in his tone. “The thing is, I didn’t really have much choice Dan. I couldn’t just leave them, could I? Not after they knew and everything. And it weren’t like they mattered or anything. They were practically dead anyway.”
And then suddenly the man laughed again but it was a different laugh this time, a terrifyingly high-pitched squealing noise that seemed to gurgle up in his throat and bounce out across the walls. It reminded Aubrey of some of the noises that he’d heard from the abattoir on the edge of town. He shivered and watched as a trickle of sweat slid down the side of Carlos’s forehead.
Rick suddenly dropped his arm from Carlos’s shoulder and straightened up again. He reached into his pocket for the bottle and stared at it. It was nearly empty.
“Did you tell Dave?”
Carlos was keeping his tone deliberately even, Aubrey realised. He was trying to keep the man talking. The man shook his head.
“No. He’s a funny bloke, Dave. He might not have liked it. Even though,” he added, “I was doing it for the business.” He rubbed at his eyes as though he was tired. “I waited a while to see what would happen about Jenkins. But you know what? Nothing. Nothing happened. I waited for the police to come calling but when they did, they just asked a few questions about when she used to come to The Laurels, what days she was here and what clubs she joined. They wanted to know who her friends were and stuff like that. Even when they found Lomax and Bradshaw they just came and asked the same questions and then they went away again.”
For a moment he was silent and then he continued, a slight note of regret in his voice.
“One thing that worried me though, one thing that I was a bit bothered about, was old Telling. I didn’t really mean to hurt him, it was just an accident. I felt a bit bad about that.”
Aubrey caught his breath.
“He wasn’t mates with that old cow Jenkins and her crew but he looked like he knew something. I could tell. It was the way he looked at me, sort of sideways. And then once I saw him standing near the bottom of the stairs and he had this sort of funny look on his face. And I thought, what if he’s just been up to the attics? I couldn’t take the chance so I went round to his place one day to see if I could reason with him. I thought I could get him to understand. The funny thing was,” he paused as though puzzled and then continued, “He kept acting like he didn’t know what I was talking about. I got a bit annoyed. But it wasn’t my fault that he hit his head. He shouldn’t have wound me up by pretending not to know what I was on about. I only sort of shoved him a bit, and he fell backwards…” He sighed and sniffed. “Actually, I’ve still got the key to his place. I keep meaning to go round and see if there’s anything worth having.”
Carlos nodded back at him, as if understanding his viewpoint entirely. The man stopped and looked at him closely, as if he was seeing him properly for the first time. He frowned.
“I need to go back up to the house for a couple of minutes and check that everything’s running ok this morning. I won’t be long. Stay here till I get back.”
Like Carlos had a choice, thought Aubrey.
Rick suddenly reached forward and gripped Carlos by the front of his parka with one hand while he felt into his inside pocket with the other. The air of companionship evaporated instantly and was replaced by a chill that descended into the atmosphere like the first fall of snow. Aubrey shuddered. This bloke’s moods came and went more quickly than Rupert’s. He watched, appalled, as he caught the glint of metal in Rick’s hand as he pulled out a long knife. Leaning over Carlos he ran the tip gently along his cheek.
“Missing you already.”
The two cats watched as the man let go of Carlos and strode over to the door. From outside came the sound of the padlock being locked back into place. Without hesitating, Aubrey dropped down noiselessly through the hole in the roof, followed immediately by Vincent. They had to think of a way to get Carlos out of there and they had to think quick. Carlos looked up startled at the two cats sitting silently in front of him.
“Aubrey. Oh, mate.”
Carlos reached forward and clutched Aubrey to his narrow chest. Aubrey waited for a moment and then gently pulled away. Carlos stared into Aubrey’s golden green eyes. Aubrey stared back. He watched as Carlos leaned over and stroked his fingertips across Aubrey’s warm head. He turned and stroked Vincent with his other hand, running his palm across the top of Vincent’s sleek head and down under his chin. He dipped his head slightly to read the name on Vincent’s collar and then stopped suddenly and reached into his pocket. With a trembling hand he pulled out the leaflet which he’d stuffed in there earlier and on which he’d written a message. Aubrey tensed slightly. He hoped that Carlos wasn’t having any silly ideas about trying to put it into one of their mouths to carry home. That sort of thing was dog’s work. You couldn’t ask a cat to do it.
Carlos stared around the barn, clearly looking for inspiration. The cats watched him unblinking as his hand strayed, as it always did in moments of uncertainty, to his earring. He twisted it slowly round, a glittering fake diamond stud that he’d bought for three pounds on the market. As they watched a slow small smile spread across his face. With fumbling fingers he pulled his earring from his ear and pushed the post through the leaflet. He stretched his hand towards Vincent.
“Vincent, Vincent. Come here.”
Vincent looked sideways at Aubrey who nodded back at him. Vincent moved an inch closer. Carlos reached across and pushed the post of the earring through one of the holes in Vincent’s collar, fastening it with the fake diamond on the other side.
Vincent opened his mouth to speak and then stiffened. From outside came the very faintest rustle of a tread on the grass.
“Quick, Aubs, move it. It sounds like he’s coming back.”
Together Vincent and Aubrey flew back up the wall and out through the hole in the roof. Aubrey paused for a moment to get his breath.
“That was close.”
Vincent nodded. The note attached to his collar fluttered in the cold wind. He lifted his face to the air and then turned to Aubrey.
“Notice something?”
Aubrey pricked his ears and grinned.
“Rascal’s gone.”
As soon as he’d said it he knew that they had spoken too soon. From below came the sudden sound of hysterical yapping. Leaping and snarling at the barn wall, trying to reach the cats that he had just spotted on the roof, was Rascal. And just behind him were Dave and Rick.
30
“What the merry bloody Ellen’s going on here, Rick?”
Dave’s voice soared upwards and crashed out through the hole in the roof as he strode across the barn floor towards Carlos.
Up on the roof Aubrey and Vincent looked at each other.
“That’s done it,” said Vincent. “We should have made a run for it while we had the chance.”
He stared down at Rascal who had re-doubled his efforts to fling himself on to the roof, his short wiry body leaping high into the air and twisting upwards in half-hoops. Aubrey nodded, his brow furrowed.
“Do you reckon we could chance it, take a risk? What do you think? As long as Dave’s here the lad will be safe. He wouldn’t dare do anything while he’s in there. If we jump down the other side and then just make a run for it we could be halfway home before Rascal’s worked out what’s happened.”
“Yeah, but if he catches up with us …”
They both turned back to the hole in the roof as Dave’s voice continued to crash through the morning air.
“What’s that boy doing in here? What’s going on?”
They watched as Dave reached suddenly into his jeans pocket and pulled out a grubby handkerchief.
“Christ, that smell.” He stuffed the handkerchief across his nose. “Who’s the kid?”
“It’s all right,” said Rick. “He’s my little brother.”
Carlos, Aubrey and Vincent looked at the man in astonishment.
“I didn’t know you had a little brother living round here,” said Dave suspiciously. “You’ve never mentioned him before.”
“I don’t have to tell you everything.” Rick’s tone was belligerent.
“Actually mate,” said Dave, “You do. Anyway, he’d better keep his mouth shut.”
“Course he will, won’t you, Dan? He’s family.”
Carlos swallowed and nodded. Dave looked doubtful.
“Have you been drinking again?”
Rick shook his head.
“Anyway, I’ve been thinking,” continued Dave. “The first thing we’ve got to do is sort out this mess in here.” He nodded towards the rolled up carpet. “And then I reckon we should wind up the business altogether and quit while we’re ahead. We’ve had a good run. We’ve only got a few left to sort out. I can make some phone calls and then we can get them moved on quick. That just leaves the greenhouse to sort out before the police come snouting around again.”
“I told you before. They’ve been round already asking their questions. Why should they come back?”
Dave snorted.
“Get real, mate. There’s a body count of five and rising. Think about it. The Laurels is one of the things that all those people had in common. At the very least the police are going to be back to ask more questions from the rest of the crumblies. Christ, it’s just our luck. We get the perfect set-up going here and then some crumbly-hating psycho starts running loose.” He wiped a large fat hand across his brow which had started to sweat. “Anyway, you know as well as I do what the Old Bill are like. They’re like damp. Once they’re in you can’t get rid of them. They could turn up again at any minute. We were just lucky the last time they came that we’d moved a set on the night before.”
“They didn’t all use The Laurels. That Brazilian woman that got herself killed over at The Meadows, she didn’t use The Laurels, did she? She didn’t have anything to do with this place.”
Aubrey tensed. He hoped that Carlos wasn’t about to hear something that he didn’t need to.
“No, mate. But there’s still a connection. She was old Telling’s cleaner. More to the point, she was one of my bloody tenants.” He pulled his jacket off and sat down heavily on a large oil drum which buckled dangerously beneath him. Aubrey stared with interest at the large wet patches that had started spreading across the underarms of his plaid shirt, turning the faded red into a deep crimson. “Christ, if the police pick up on The Meadows racket I’ve had it. But I tell you what.” Dave’s mouth set in a grim line. “If they do get on to it I’ll take the rest of them down with me, I swear. There’ll be a few less Councillors and Officers at the next housing committee meeting that’s for sure,” he added.
