Street Cat Blues, page 8
“Well, God certainly does move in mysterious ways,” said Jeremy.
“Well, obviously Jeremy, we’re all dreadfully upset about Clive’s aunt, such a dreadful thing to happen, but what with inheriting the house and the new job and everything, it does all seems to have fallen into place somehow.”
“Hasn’t it just,” said Jeremy, rather sourly Aubrey thought.
“Of course,” continued Rachel, “there’s an awful lot of work to do on the house, especially the garden. It’s an absolute jungle.” She sighed.
“You’re going to live there, are you?” asked Molly.
“Oh yes. It’s a lovely house, in spite of what has happened.”
Great, thought Aubrey. It was bad enough when old Jenkins lived there. He’d have to warn Vincent and the others. Rachel continued.
“Dear old aunt Louisa. She was over ninety, you know. And of course, there’s still the funeral and everything to arrange.”
“Will it take a lot of arranging?” asked Molly.
“Well, no, not really,” admitted Rachel. “The police have said that we can go ahead now but she didn’t have many friends left. Most of the people she knew are dead. The only friends she had were those that she knew at The Laurels. And Clive is her sole beneficiary so really everything should all be quite straightforward. And of course, the children think it’s terribly thrilling,” she added. She smiled mischievously at Molly.
“What is?” said Molly. She looked, Aubrey thought, puzzled.
“Well, you know, a real live murder! Caleb’s planning to charge some of his friends to look at the actual place where, you know, it happened!”
“He’s got some, has he?” said Jeremy.
“Some what?” Rachel looked confused.
“Friends,” said Jeremy flatly.
“What Jeremy means,” said Molly hurriedly, “Is what with you just having come back and everything, the children haven’t really had a chance to settle in yet. Anyway, poor Miss Jenkins. It was a terrible way to go.”
“Awful,” agreed Rachel. “We could hardly believe it. It was a dreadful shock to us.”
“Must have come as a bit of a surprise to her, too,” said Jeremy. “She had her head caved in, didn’t she?”
“No point dwelling on it,” said Clive.
For a moment they all fell silent and then Rachel turned to Molly and said eagerly,
“Did you hear about the woman that got herself murdered over at the Meadows?”
Aubrey stirred slightly and crept closer to where Molly was sitting. He tucked himself tightly around her feet. If Rachel noticed him she’d start making a fuss about all her allergies and then he’d have to go out.
“Apparently it was the son,” Rachel continued. “It seems that she wouldn’t give him money for drugs and so he shot her and then he strangled her.”
“Oh really?” said Jeremy. “Bit pointless, wasn’t it?”
“What?” Rachel looked puzzled.
“Bit pointless,” repeated Jeremy. “Bit of a waste of energy. I mean, if he shot her why bother to strangle her? Unless,” he added thoughtfully, “he just liked it.”
Rachel shuddered and drained her glass.
“How awful.”
“Doesn’t surprise me,” said Clive. “Only surprise is that it hasn’t happened before. All the same over at the Meadows. Heard all about it first hand from Bill, the Chief Super. Belongs to our church. Course, he was drugged up to the eyeballs, like they all are.”
“The Chief Superintendent?” asked Molly, startled.
“The boy,” said Clive impatiently. “Said to old Bill, best thing to do with kids like that is give ‘em a bit of harsh punishment. Give ‘em some of their own medicine. Short sharp shock. Not so short either, if I had my way.”
“How jolly Christian of you,” said Jeremy.
From beneath the kitchen table where he was watching a spider, Aubrey listened contentedly as Molly and Jeremy loaded the dishwasher.
“Thank God for that, I thought they’d never leave.”
“They’re not so bad,” said Molly.
“Yes,” said Jeremy flatly. “They are.”
He reached over to the table and picked up the two small pieces of paper that were lying there. He peered down at them.
“Honestly. I don’t know how they’ve got the nerve leaving these tickets. Fund-raising for Bishop Caulfield’s? Since when did Bishop’s need funds? All they have to do is pull a long face and say that they’re down to their last three laptops per pupil and the parents are stampeding the gates with open cheque books.”
“Well, they’ve gone now,” said Molly. She paused for a moment and then she said slowly, “ Why didn’t you tell them about Carlos?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, when they were talking about what happened over at the Meadows you didn’t mention that he was a pupil at Sir Frank’s. You never said that you even knew him, let alone that you’d been down at the police station with him.”
“Because,” said Jeremy, “I couldn’t stand any more of that hang ‘em high stuff. Or, even worse, they might have suddenly decided to get all concerned about him. Imagine that.”
He walked over to the window and looked out at the rain which was continuing to sheet down.
“You didn’t see the boy, Moll. When he was down at the police station he was absolutely terrified. He was all big eyes and badly cut hair. At one point he was shaking. I think that Carlos will have enough problems when they find him without Rachel and Clive trunking in and praying all over him.”
Aubrey emerged from under the table and padded over to Jeremy. He looked up and nudged Jeremy’s calf with his chin.
“See?” said Jeremy. “Even Aubrey agrees with me.”
12
From under the kitchen table Aubrey yawned. He stretched out a paw and pushed the radiator control slightly higher. It was one of a number of things that he could do that Molly and Jeremy didn’t know about. He rolled onto his side and pushed his stomach towards the heat. From the other room he could hear the faint clacking of the television. He needed to go to the toilet, he’d needed to go for ages, but he’d been waiting for the rain to stop. He heaved himself up and padded over to the window. It was still chucking it down. He shifted position slightly but it was no good, he was bursting. He’d have to go out there, he couldn’t hold it in much longer. In the past he’d always sneered at those cats whose owners kept a litter tray indoors for them but there were times, he had to admit, when they had a certain benefit. Now being one of them.
He jumped down and slipped out through the cat flap, hurrying down the garden to his special place. No fun being out on the streets tonight, he thought. On nights like this the romance of the road was thin to say the least. He shivered as he felt the rain hang in fat droplets on his fur and seep right into him. He felt chilled to the bone. After Raj had died it had been on nights like this that he had been most at risk. He had needed to be on constant alert against the danger of being kicked in the ribs by a passing stranger, or terrified into a heart-stopping immobility by the sudden rough barking and hot breath of a dog in his face. It had been on nights like this that his life had hung in the balance more than once.
He quickened his pace as the cold wind gusted down the garden and shook the leaves in the trees, flattening the tops of the plants and tinkling the wind chimes that hung in the branches of next door’s tree. He contemplated for a moment calling on Vincent and then changed his mind. No point, probably. If Vincent had any sense he’d be tucked up in front of the fire on a night like tonight. Just like he was going to be any minute now. No cat that had any viable alternative would be outside on a night like this.
He scrabbled the earth back over the hole that he had dug and began to shake the last of it free from his paws but then stopped and looked upwards as something caught his eye. If he wasn’t very much mistaken, there was a light showing in the garden shed. He sat perfectly still for a moment and watched it. There it was again. It was definitely a light. A small yellow light that leaped for a moment against the glass of the little square window and then went dark. He frowned. Somebody was in Molly and Jeremy’s shed. Somebody was in their shed and using what looked like a torch, or maybe it was a candle.
Aubrey thought for a second and then crept silently across the grass, lifting each paw in slow motion, a lithe grey shadow moving ghost-like against the silver light. He paused and listened. There was definitely somebody in there, he was close enough to hear them now. A tiny but distinct rustling noise and then something that sounded like sniffing filtered out into the night air. He sat back and thought about it. Whoever was in there had no right to be in there. That shed was his territory. The broken panel at the back made it easy to slip in and out and he liked the dim cobwebby light and the lovely peaty smell of damp earth and half-used bags of compost that lay stacked in the corner. The clump of old sacking piled up on the bottom shelf was also perfect for curling up on when he felt like being on his own. The other thing was, Jeremy kept his tools in that shed and some of them had cost quite a lot of money. All right, Jeremy didn’t use them very often and in fact only the other day he had said something to Molly about selling some of them to raise a bit of cash to help pay for the renovation work on the house that Dave was supposed to be doing, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that they were Jeremy’s and if someone was in there nicking them then he, Aubrey, ought to do something about it. The point was, what?
He flicked his paw across his left ear and had a quick wash while he thought about it. Of course, it might be an animal in there in which case he could ignore it. He didn’t feel much like a fight tonight. It probably wasn’t doing any harm and most animals didn’t have much use for power tools. On the other hand, it might not be an animal. He moved slightly closer and listened harder. It would have to be a bloody big animal to be making that much noise, he thought. And an animal wouldn’t be able to flick a torch on and off like that, far less light a candle. Not even the twins could do things like that, although they could probably make somebody do it for them. It must be a person. He stepped back and measured the leaping distance to the sloping roof. The window was set just underneath it, if he flattened himself across the slope and peered downwards he’d be able to see into it.
He sprang upwards and landed four square in one movement on the battered roofing felt. He crouched down and held his breath for a moment. Clearly whatever was in the shed was doing the same thing. For a moment there was absolute silence and then the rustling noise began again. He peered down.
“What is it, what’s the matter Aubrey?”
Molly bent down and scooped him up. Aubrey wriggled impatiently out of her arms and jumped down again.
“What is it? What’s the matter with him?” Jeremy looked up from the television.
“I don’t know. Shut up, Aubrey. Stop being so noisy.”
Aubrey continued to yowl, raising the pitch to the next level and twisting himself upwards in a half-hoop. Molly turned to Jeremy.
“I think that he wants something.”
Aubrey was momentarily stunned into silence. He’d spent the last two minutes jumping up and down on the arms of their chairs and it had finally dawned on them that he was trying to attract their attention. Give him strength.
“Perhaps he wants something to eat?” said Jeremy.
“He can’t be hungry,” said Molly. “I fed him only an hour ago.”
“I’ll give him some of his biscuits to shut him up,” said Jeremy.
Jeremy got up and strolled through to the kitchen. Aubrey followed. Jeremy reached down and tickled Aubrey’s ear.
“What’s up old boy? Are you still hungry? Do you want something else to eat?”
Jeremy reached towards the cupboard where Aubrey’s biscuits were kept, glancing towards the window as he did so. He reached up to pull down the blind and then stopped. Walking closer to the window he leaned over, hands on the sink, and peered out into the night.
“Moll,” he turned his head and called through to the other room, “Moll, I think that there’s someone in our shed.”
He spoke slowly and turned back to the window, peering out more intently and shading his eyes with one hand against the glare of the kitchen light. He twisted around as Molly came in. “I could swear I just saw a light down there. Look, there it is again.”
Hooray, thought Aubrey. At last.
Molly and Jeremy looked at each other.
“Call the police,” said Molly.
Jeremy looked doubtful.
“It’s probably nothing,” he said. “I expect it’s just one of next door’s security lights reflecting on the window or something. The bloody things are always going on and off for no reason. I’ll go down and check.”
“No.” Molly caught him by the sleeve of his jersey and held it. She turned and grabbed the phone from the shelf with her other hand. She held it out to Jeremy. Her hand shook. “Call the police.”
Her face, Aubrey noticed, had gone suddenly white and had a sort of pinched look.
“It’s gone now,” said Jeremy, “I told you, it’s probably just a reflection from next door’s lights.”
“Jeremy,” Molly spoke slowly, and took a deep breath. “There’s a killer on the loose out there. What if it’s him? He’s already killed four people. Five, if you count Carlos’s mother. What if he knows that it was you who found her? He might think that you witnessed something and he’s come to find you.” Aubrey gasped as she reached down and snatched him up, clutching him tightly to her. “For Goodness sake, we can’t take any chances…”
Her voice trailed off and her eyes widened in horror as all three of them turned to the window and watched as the shed door opened. A dark shape hesitated on the threshold and then began to creep slowly down the path towards the back door.
13
“Can I stay here?”
Aubrey stretched out along the arm of the sofa and ran his eye over the boy. Shivering and wet, the fake fur on the hood of his parka hung in sodden clumps around his sharp-featured face. He looked exactly like a drowned rat. Stick a tail on him and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. The poor kid looked like he hadn’t eaten in days. Thin to start with, he looked practically emaciated now.
“I don’t know, Carlos,” said Jeremy, running his fingers through his hair, the worry line between his brows suddenly deepening. “There are a lot of things to think about. It’s not that simple.”
It might not be up to you anyway, thought Aubrey. It might not be your decision. In fact, it almost certainly wouldn’t be. As Aubrey had quickly discovered at Sunny Banks, once authority got involved all concept of free will went straight out of the cat flap. But whatever Jeremy decided for now, whether he let the boy stay for tonight or whether he didn’t, surely he would have to let the police know that Carlos was with them? It would only make matters worse if he didn’t tell them. Aubrey felt suddenly anxious. He didn’t want Molly and Jeremy to go getting themselves into trouble, and certainly not for the sake of a kid of Maria’s. Apart from anything else, what would happen if the police took Molly and Jeremy away? There’d be nobody to feed him.
“How did you know where we lived, anyway?” asked Jeremy.
“All the kids know where the teachers live.”
Aubrey watched as Jeremy stared blankly for a moment, his mind clearly absorbing the implications of what Carlos had just said. Don’t worry, he thought. It was a compliment in a way. Jeremy had been at Sir Frank’s for over ten years so all the kids presumably knew where he had lived previously, too. But in spite of that nothing had ever happened. He and Molly hadn’t been firebombed or stoned to death or anything when they were putting out the milk bottles.
He looked up as Molly came in with a bacon sandwich and a mug of hot chocolate. They all fell silent as the boy wolfed the sandwich down and then Jeremy said,
“How long have you been in our shed?”
Carlos shrugged his shoulders evasively. Jeremy continued.
“Well, if you haven’t been in our shed, where have you been? You know everybody’s looking for you, don’t you?”
Carlos nodded and wrapped his thin fingers around the steaming mug of chocolate. Aubrey looked at him more closely. When exactly had Carlos run away? It might have been almost as soon as the police had let him return home, in which case he probably didn’t know that his mother was dead. The same thought had clearly just occurred to Jeremy. Aubrey watched as he glanced across at Molly who raised her eyebrows back at him. He listened as Jeremy cleared his throat, trying to feel his way forward.
“Er…” Jeremy paused.
Aubrey inched up closer to him in a show of solidarity. Poor Jeremy. It was bad enough trying to tell a kid that his mother was dead, without the added strain of adding that she’d been murdered and that he was currently occupying the number one spot of chief suspect. Jeremy cleared his throat and tried again.
“Er, Carlos… about your mother…”
Carlos wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and took another gulp of hot chocolate as he waited. Aubrey felt his heart suddenly constrict. Poor little sod. He had exactly nothing going for him. From a chaotic insecure background with an absent father and a dead mother, Carlos was just like some of the kittens that he had seen in Sunny Banks. Tiny little starving creatures, they had been found abandoned in bins and boxes and they had sat patiently where they had been left, waiting for their fate. Fear, hunger and cold had been the only things that they had ever known. One of them, he recalled, had been brought in with burnt feet. One of the screws had called it Sizzle. He had thought it was funny. Aubrey hadn’t. He felt a sudden spurt of anger. He turned his head and stared desperately at Molly.
“The thing is,” said Molly gently, leaning forward and reaching across to stroke the back of the boy’s hand, “Your mother is dead, Carlos.”
