The Cat Who Solved Three Murders, page 26
‘No, but I know how you think. And I know how much you love Julia. So your heart is trying to overrule your head. You want to ignore the evidence.’
Lulu didn’t answer.
‘I’m right, aren’t I?’ said Conrad. He butted her arm with his head.
Lulu sighed and reached for her handbag. She opened it and took out the envelope containing the printed sheets that Gary had given her in the insurance company’s office. Conrad moved closer to Lulu to get a better look as she slid out the sheets of paper. ‘The painting of Bamburgh Castle was supposedly burned in the fire, but of course it wasn’t and it ended up on the wall by Julia’s desk,’ said Lulu. She flicked through the sheets and showed him a photograph of a small watercolour painting, a view of Christ Church cathedral in Oxford. ‘I saw this in one of the guest bathrooms, near the kitchen.’
‘Oh, wow,’ said Conrad.
Lulu flicked through a few more sheets and stopped at a red and gold abstract painting based around black Chinese characters. ‘This is in their bedroom.’
She showed him another page, this one with a framed antique map of Oxford. ‘I’m pretty sure that this is in the library.’ She gathered the pages together and sighed. ‘There might be others, I don’t know. It’s a big house.’
‘So Bernard took more than the Bamburgh painting?’
Lulu nodded. ‘Yes. It could well have been a spur-of-the-moment thing. He was about to start the fire when he saw the painting and realized he didn’t want it destroyed. He decided to save it, but then maybe figured he could take some more. He grabbed what he could carry before he started the fire.’
‘And you think he told Julia?’
‘They talked about everything. Literally everything. And I don’t see how Julia couldn’t have noticed that some of the paintings that had supposedly been burned in the fire had turned up in the house. But then, she wasn’t especially interested in the shop. I suppose it’s possible she hadn’t seen them. But the Bamburgh painting was important to her, so she must have noticed that one, if nothing else.’ She shrugged. ‘I really don’t know.’
‘Are you going to tell Tracey?’
‘About what?’
‘About the paintings not being destroyed in the fire. That’s evidence, right? It’s evidence of fraud if nothing else.’
‘It is, yes.’
‘So are you going to tell the police?’
‘If I do, what then? Bernard’s dead – he can’t be punished now, can he? And if they do decide that she knew about the fraud, what will they do? Send her to prison for a few years? Her husband is dead, Conrad. She saw him die. Hasn’t she been punished enough already?’
‘But what about the lady who died in the fire? Doesn’t she deserve justice?’
‘Well, in a way Mrs McBride got justice, didn’t she? Her son killed Bernard.’
‘An eye for an eye?’
‘I’m not saying it’s right. I’m just saying that Bernard killed Mrs McBride, unintentionally, and her son killed Bernard, deliberately. Even if she knew that the fire was being set, does Julia deserve to be punished more than she already has been?’
‘So what are you going to do?’ asked Conrad.
‘I don’t know,’ said Lulu. ‘I really don’t know.’ She put the pages back into the envelope.
‘I think I know what you’re going to do.’
‘What?’
‘I think you’re going to let sleeping dogs lie.’
Lulu nodded. ‘You might be right.’
Conrad sighed and shook his head. ‘Dogs have got a lot to answer for, they really have.’
The Cat Who Caught a Killer
Read on to find out how Lulu and Conrad met in the first book in the series . . .
1
It was a gorgeous summer’s day when Conrad walked into the life of Lulu Lewis. The sky was a cloudless blue, birds were singing in the distance and the water of the canal was just starting to turn green from the warm-weather algal bloom.
Lulu was about to go out and cut some fresh mint from the small strip of land on the other side of the towpath. The mooring was hers, courtesy of the Canal and River Trust, but she had squatter’s rights on the narrow piece of land between the towpath and the hedge, where she grew a selection of herbs including mint, rosemary, chives and thyme. She had just started experimenting with garlic, but hadn’t been having much luck.
As she looked out of the galley window she saw a cat heading her way, walking in the middle of the towpath as if he owned it. Lulu could tell it was a tom, just from the way he strutted along with his tail in the air, but she knew right away that he was special because he was a calico – a mixture of black, white and orangey brown – and most calicos were female.
The cat stopped in his tracks and began sniffing the air, his ears up. The right side of his head was mainly black with a white patch around the nose and mouth, and the left side was brown and white. His eyes were a vibrant green. He seemed to be looking right at Lulu and she felt a slight shiver run down her spine. He started walking again.
Lulu leaned forward over the double gas hob to get a better view. His front legs and chest were white, his body and tail were thick stripes of black and brown, and his rear legs had white socks. He reached the prow of the boat. The Lark. She hadn’t named it; the boat had been ten years old when she had taken it on. The previous owner, a retired teacher, had owned it from new and had bought it as a lark, he’d said. Lulu had quite liked the name, and anyway it would have been bad luck to change it. It was a traditional narrowboat, painted dark green with black trim and with THE LARK in gold capital letters over a painting of the bird.
The cat walked slowly along the towpath. Past the double cabin, past the toilet, and then he drew level with the galley. He stopped and looked up at her, moving his head slightly and sniffing. His tail was upright like an antenna.
‘Well, good morning,’ whispered Lulu. ‘What a handsome boy you are.’
The cat’s ears flicked forward as if he had heard her, and he made a soft mewing sound. He wasn’t wearing a collar but he looked too well fed and clean to be a stray. He started walking once more and reached the rear of the boat. He stopped again, then jumped smoothly onto the back deck.
Lulu turned away from the window. The cat appeared at the doorway and sat down.
‘Welcome aboard,’ said Lulu. The cat stared at her for several seconds and then mewed. ‘You’re welcome to come in,’ said Lulu. ‘You’ll be my first visitor.’
The cat stayed where he was at the top of the four wooden steps that led down into the cabin.
‘Well now, Mr Calico Cat, I’ll get you something to drink – let’s see if that tempts you to come in.’ Lulu bent down and opened the small fridge that was barely big enough to hold a carton of milk and half a dozen bottles of wine and water. She took out the milk and picked up a white saucer from the tiny draining board.
She was just about to pour milk into it when the cat coughed politely. ‘Actually, I’m not much of a milk drinker.’
Lulu gaped at the cat in astonishment. ‘What?’
‘Most cats are lactose intolerant. They don’t have the enzyme that digests the lactose in milk. No enzyme, so no digestion, so the lactose just passes through our system. It can be messy. So best avoided.’
‘What?’ repeated Lulu.
‘So maybe pour me a nice, crisp Chardonnay instead.’
‘What?’
The saucer slipped between her fingers and seemed to fall in slow motion to the floor, where it shattered. She stared at the cat, her mind whirling as she tried to come to terms with what had just happened.
‘Well, that wasn’t the reaction I expected,’ said the cat.
‘What?’
The cat put his head on one side. There was an amused look in his piercing green eyes. ‘You do speak English, don’t you? You can say something other than “what”, or am I wasting my time?’
‘What? Yes. Of course. English. What?’
‘I think you should pick up the bits of the saucer before someone gets hurt,’ said the cat.
‘What? Right. Yes. Okay.’ Lulu shook her head in bewilderment. She put the milk carton back in the fridge and then went slowly down on one knee and carefully picked up the pieces, placing them in a pedal bin to the side of the fridge. Her knee cracked as she stood up again. ‘How did you know I had Chardonnay?’ she asked.
‘I won’t lie, that was a guess. I did see the wine bottles, but it could have just as easily been Pinot Grigio. I didn’t really want wine to drink, obviously. It was just a joke, I didn’t think you’d go all Greek on me.’
‘Greek? What?’
‘They smash plates, right? The Greeks. It’s what they do.’
‘Right, yes, okay. I’m sorry, I’m a bit confused here.’
‘I can see that. Could I have some water?’
‘Water?’
‘Water. H2O. Tap water is okay. Do these boats have tap water or do they have tanks?’
‘I have a mains water supply,’ said Lulu. ‘It’s a residential mooring. Electricity, too.’
‘Excellent,’ said the cat. He looked expectantly at Lulu.
‘So, water?’ Lulu said.
‘Perfect.’
‘I have Evian.’
‘Well, that will be a treat,’ said the cat.
Lulu opened the fridge again and took out a bottle of Evian. She opened an eye-level cupboard, took out a Wedgwood saucer and poured water into it. She put the saucer at the bottom of the steps, then replaced the bottle of water in the fridge. She went and sat on the sofa as the cat padded down the steps. He sniffed the water cautiously and then began to lap.
Lulu watched as the cat drank, then she sighed. ‘This is a dream, right?’
The cat looked up from the saucer. ‘Are you asking me, or telling me?’
Lulu pinched her own arm, so hard that she winced.
‘What are you doing?’ asked the cat.
Lulu shook her head. ‘If it’s a dream, why can’t I wake up?’
The cat finished drinking and jumped gracefully up onto the sofa and sat looking up at her. ‘You need to relax.’
‘What?’
‘Let’s not start that whole “what” thing again.’ He rubbed his head against her arm. ‘I’m real. This isn’t a dream. Deal with it.’
‘But cats can’t talk,’ sighed Lulu.
‘Says the lady who is talking to one.’ He gently headbutted her. ‘You can hear the lack of logic in your statement, right? If cats can’t talk, then we couldn’t be having this conversation, could we?’
‘Maybe I’m going crazy.’
‘Well, that’s a whole different conversation, isn’t it?’
‘If you can talk – and I’m not discounting that this is all a figment of my imagination – but if I’m not crazy and you are talking to me, then why?’
‘Why? I suppose that’s a step up from what.’
‘I mean, why me? Why are you talking to me?’
‘You mean of all the canal boats in Little Venice, why did I jump onto yours?’
‘If you like. Yes.’
The cat shrugged. ‘You seemed like a nice person. And you have a good aura. Lots of bright yellow and indigo.’
‘That’s good, is it?’
‘It’s perfect.’ The cat chuckled. ‘I suppose I should say purr-fect.’
‘So I suppose black is bad? For auras.’
The cat nodded. ‘It can mean there is anger that’s being held inside. Or it could be that the person is sick. Of course, sometimes it’s the anger that causes the sickness. Or the other way around. Dark blood red also points to a lot of anger. We tend to keep away from blood-red auras but with black auras we can sometimes help.’
‘We? Who’s we?’
‘Cats. We see auras. Cat auras and human auras. The auras of all living things, actually.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
The cat snorted softly. ‘Why would you? You’re a human.’
Lulu frowned. ‘You said you could help people whose auras are black.’
‘We can make it easier for them, when they pass.’
‘When they die, you mean?’
The cat gave the slightest twitch of its whiskers. ‘We prefer to say pass. But, yes, if we see someone with a black aura, we can sit with them and help calm them.’
‘That I have heard of,’ said Lulu. ‘There used to be a cat at a nursing home I visit. She was friendly enough but never got onto anyone’s bed. Unless they were dying. Then she would jump up and lie next to them.’ Her eyes widened and her hand flew up to cover her mouth. ‘Oh, my. Oh no. Is that why you’re here?’
The cat’s eyes narrowed. ‘What? No. Of course not. I told you already, your aura is fine. Better than fine.’ The cat purred. ‘What do I call you?’
‘My name? It’s Lulu. And you?’
‘Conrad.’
‘Conrad? Conrad the Cat? Conrad the Calico Cat?’
‘That’s my name, don’t wear it out.’
‘It’s unusual.’
Conrad snorted softly. ‘Says the lady called Lulu.’
Lulu chuckled. ‘My dad gave me the name Lulu. There was a singer, a little Scottish girl, who had the number one song when I was born – “Shout” – and Dad said I was shouting all the time from the moment I was born. Who gave you your name?’
‘I chose it myself.’
‘Good choice.’
‘That’s what I thought. It means brave counsel. It’s German. Originally.’
‘And are you brave?’
‘Fearless.’
‘And you give good advice?’
‘I try.’
Lulu turned to look at him. ‘Is that why you’re here? To give me advice?’
Conrad squinted at her quizzically. ‘You keep looking for a reason as to why I’m here,’ he said.
‘Because it’s strange. It’s not every day I get approached by a talking cat.’
‘Don’t overthink it, Lulu. Sometimes paths just cross, that’s all there is to it.’
‘But why me, Conrad? Why talk to me?’
‘You seem like a nice person.’
Lulu couldn’t help but smile. ‘Well, thank you,’ she said. ‘You seem like a nice cat, too.’ She sighed. ‘I need a drink.’
‘A nice crisp Chardonnay?’
Lulu chuckled. ‘I was about to make myself a glass of fresh mint tea.’
‘That does sound rather good.’
‘I think that’s what I’m going to do,’ she said. She stood up, filled the kettle at the sink and then used a match to light one of the hobs. She put the kettle on the flames and went up the steps to the back deck. Conrad followed her. Lulu stepped carefully off the boat and onto the towpath. She heard a whirring sound off to her right and turned to see a young man in a grey hoodie and tight jeans hurtling towards them on an electric scooter. She stood back, as the man clearly had no intention of slowing. ‘Idiot,’ she muttered under her breath as the man whizzed by. An increasing number of people were using electric scooters along the towpath and several people had been injured. The main problem was that they were practically silent so you couldn’t hear them coming. Lulu smiled. Actually the main problem was that they were driven by morons who cared nothing for their fellow man – or cats.
‘Aren’t you just so tempted to push them into the canal?’ said Conrad from the safety of the deck.
Lulu laughed. ‘Definitely,’ she said. She looked right and left again and walked over to her tiny vegetable plot. Conrad jumped off the boat and joined her. He sniffed the plants, one by one.
‘How long have you lived on the boat?’ he asked.
‘Just two months.’
‘I thought you’d been here for years, you seem so comfortable on her.’
‘I am, I love it.’ She pointed across the road. ‘I used to live down there, on Warrington Crescent.’
Conrad nodded. ‘Warrington Crescent is nice.’
‘It’s lovely, but . . .’ She shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ She bent down and ran her hand through the mint plants, then sniffed her fingers. The aroma took her back to her childhood, when she would pick fresh mint from the garden whenever her mother cooked roast lamb. Half a century vanished in a flash and she was a child again.
‘Smells always take you back, don’t they?’ said Conrad. ‘More than any of the other senses. Smell just goes straight to the olfactory cortex in the temporal lobe and triggers memories that you never thought you had.’
Lulu looked across at him. ‘Did you just read my mind?’
Conrad chuckled. ‘Mind-reading isn’t in my skill set,’ he said. ‘You smelt the mint and then you had a faraway look in your eyes as if you were remembering something.’ He tilted his head to one side and blinked. ‘Elementary, dear Lulu.’
Lulu picked four stems, one from each mint plant. She took them back to the boat. This time Conrad ran ahead of her and jumped onto the deck first. There was a grace to his movements that reminded her of a cheetah she’d once seen on safari in Botswana, many years ago. He turned to watch her walk to the boat. ‘Do you ever take her out, along the canal?’ he asked.
‘Not yet, but I will do,’ she said. She stepped onto the deck. ‘The engine has been serviced and there’s fuel on board. But so far I’m just enjoying living on her. But one day, I plan to go travelling.’ She went down the steps. The kettle was already boiling and Lulu turned off the gas. She washed the mint under the tap, placed it into a glass and poured on the hot water. The minty aroma filled the galley. Lulu took the glass over to the sofa and sat down. Conrad gracefully jumped up and sat next to her. She sniffed at the glass, then held it out for Conrad to smell. He nodded his appreciation. ‘Nice,’ he said. ‘But I prefer catnip.’
‘What is it about cats and catnip?’ asked Lulu.
‘We love it,’ said Conrad. ‘You know how you like Chardonnay? I guess it’s the same. The leaves contain an oil called nepetalactone and it stimulates the pheromone receptors.’
‘So you get high?’
‘We feel euphoric, yes. Happy.’
‘So probably more like cannabis than alcohol.’
