The moment she touched the door handle, Spooky launched himself off his perch and took refuge inside the cat basket. She crept into the box room and closed the door behind her.
“Here, Spooky. Here, boy. I’m not going to hurt you.” She made the kind of clucking noises that usually brought cats running.
Spooky replied with a warning growl.
Against her better judgment, Fay knelt in front of the basket and extended a hand towards the green eyes that gleamed at her from its depths. A set of claws shot out so fast that she would have been bleeding if she hadn’t moved her hand smartly out the way. The displaced air sizzled against her fingers as Spooky’s paw missed her by a micrometer.
Fay got to her feet and beat a strategic retreat.
“That’s not very friendly, my boy.”
This time Spooky’s reply was more of a yowl.
“We’re not done yet. I’ll be back with reinforcements.”
“So, how did that go?” asked Morwen as she reappeared in the kitchen.
“Not great. I missed being scratched by a hair.”
“Sounds like you need your grandmother’s special, patented, long-distance cat scratcher.”
“Sounds like I do. But what is it?”
Morwen opened a drawer and pulled out a wooden stick that Fay was only vaguely aware of having seen before. It had a long handle that widened and curved into a flat, spatula-like head. The head was serrated with blunt wooden teeth. It reminded Fay of the wooden backscratcher her father had bought at a market two Christmases ago.
“Okay, I get the general idea,” said Fay. “But that is still too close for comfort. You didn’t see what a lightning left-hook this guy has.”
“Watch this.” Morwen clicked the handle of the back scratcher onto a wooden pole that looked like a broom handle. “Now you can stand on the opposite side of the room while you get him used to having his head and back scratched. As he gets more used to you, you can remove the long attachment. But either way, I strongly suggest you wear these.”
She opened another drawer and pulled out a pair of thickly padded gauntlets. They looked like extra-long oven mitts.
“Right.” Fay stuck her hands into the mitts, which came up to her elbows. She grabbed the back scratcher in a well-padded grip. “Let’s try this again.”
She re-entered the box room to find Spooky still in his basket. This time she kept her distance, sitting down near the door and talking quietly to him. After a while he yawned and blinked his green eyes at her.
Taking this as a promising sign, Fay inserted the back scratcher quietly into the basket and caressed his head with it. Unsurprisingly, he immediately flipped onto his back and started attacking the wooden implement with all four paws. Fay let him get used to the smell and feel of it. Then she tried again to stroke his head.
This time he chewed on it for a while.
The third time she scratched his head he lifted his chin to allow her to tickle him on his neck too.
“You like that, don’t you? You and every other cat on earth.”
When she stopped, he rolled over to present her with his back. She took advantage of the opportunity to run the back scratcher gently up and down his spine. He was clearly enjoying it, even if he flipped around every few minutes to attack it fiercely. Fay began to suspect that the subterranean rumbling sound she was hearing was actually a purr. The louder it got, the more confident she became – it was definitely a purr.
Not wanting to over stimulate him on his first day, Fay spent only a few more minutes with him.
When she went back out into the kitchen, it was a shock to discover that nearly an hour had passed while she had been in the box room. Morwen and Pen had apparently eaten their dinner and retired to their respective quarters. It was now six-thirty.
Fay took her beef stew out of the oven and ate it at the kitchen table as the other cats wandered in and out on their way to the garden. They knew very well that there was an unauthorized visitor in the box room. Every now and then one of them would stop to have a good sniff under the door. But they were too used to having unknown cats as temporary boarders in their home to be overly concerned about the stranger.
When Morwen came downstairs later to make herself a cup of tea, Fay remembered what she had been wanting to ask her.
“Does this mean anything to you, Mor - a dark-colored sedan with a skeleton hanging from the rearview mirror?”
Morwen rested her chin in her hands as she sat at the table and waited for the kettle to boil. “I’ve seen plenty of dangling skeletons in cars lately – ever since the Halloween spirit took over. I can’t say I can connect one to a dark-colored sedan, in particular. Why do you ask?”
“Because that’s what Lolly Granger saw when she was driving back from the village on the morning that Edward Mayweather’s body was dumped in front of the Cracked Spine.”
“Couldn’t she tell you anything else about the car?”
“Just that it had none of the identifying marks that would single it out as coming from one of the commercial farms up Mountain View Road.”
“Probably a private citizen then. Although, the farming families tend to own SUVs rather than sedans because the roads are rough up there.”
“I’ll ask David. Maybe it will ring a bell with him.”
“Oh?” said Morwen. “When are you seeing him?”
“I’m due at the surgery at eight o’clock tonight to talk about the sword covered in fake blood that was planted in the High Street this afternoon.”
Morwen poured boiling water into her mug and raised her eyebrows. “David and Fay … burning the midnight oil.”
“Oh, stop. Eight o’clock is hardly midnight. And this is purely business. The one thing we’ve always had in common is that we enjoy unravelling mysteries together.”
Morwen clasped her hands in front of her chest. “That’s so romantic.”
“Oh, stop. He’ll be testing the sword for blood. You can’t get less romantic than that.”
She knocked on the surgery door just after eight, expecting Doc Dyer to answer it. As the more social of the two men, he was usually the first to answer the telephone and the front door.
But it was David. “Hello, Fay.”
“Oh, hey. I thought your dad would let me in.”
“He’s on a house call to one of our more elderly patients.”
Fay was drawn by the sight of a fish tank glowing palely next to Isobel’s computer. A goldfish hovered near the middle of the tank. His fins fluttered but otherwise he was still.
“Cheeto looks like he’s sleeping,” she said. “Fish don’t sleep, do they?”
“Actually, they kind of do. Cheeto responds to the diurnal and nocturnal rhythms of the day. He’s more active during the day and keeps quite still at night. I don’t think it would be wrong to call it sleeping.”
“Well, he looks fit and healthy in any case. You’re a good fish dad, David. Thanks for taking him in.” Fay knelt to greet Zorro and Tigger who wandered in from outside. “And a good cat dad too. These two seem very happy.”
David snorted. “They’re naughty, that’s what they are. This morning Tigger climbed all the way to the top of my bedroom curtains, which will never be the same again.”
“He didn’t mean it, did you, Tigger?” Fay stroked the ecstatic cat from nose to tail. She picked him up and held him against her cheek. “He says he’s sorry.”
David cracked a reluctant smile. “He knows I can’t stay mad at him.”
He held open the door to his laboratory. “Come on in.”
Fay was sure the cats would try to follow them into the lab, but they stopped at the threshold and turned away.
“You’ve got them well trained.”
“They don’t like the smell of the iodoform. They won’t set one paw in here. It’s the same with the consulting rooms, which is just as well because our patients would definitely not like it.” He picked up the gory-looking sword. “Now let’s see if there is any r
eal blood on this thing.”
Chapter 15
Fay winced as the tip of the épée missed a collection of test-tubes by half an inch.
“Careful with that thing. You’ll have someone’s eye out in a minute. Like, maybe mine.”
David gripped it by the handle with his Latex gloves and gave it a twirl like Errol Flynn. “En garde.”
She had to smile. It wasn’t often he let out his boyish side, but she found it endearing when he did.
“Watch it, D’Artagnan. That’s a murder weapon you’re swishing around.”
“Is it though?” David raised the blade in a salute and examined it closely. At some point he had done a superficial clean of the sword. It was no longer the bloody object it had been that afternoon. She was pleased to see that he hadn’t scrubbed it spotless. It still had a layer of redness against the blade. If there had ever been any real blood on the sword, it should still be detectable.
“So, tell me, Detective Penrose, what should our first step be?”
“Luminol, if you’ve got it,” she said.
“I do.” He held up a spray can. Then he shook it well and sprayed it all over both sides of the blade and handle. The fluorescent substance would bond with any blood molecules still clinging to the sword and show up as luminous. David and Fay watched the blade closely, waiting for any sign of luminosity to develop.
“Turn off the lights,” Fay suggested.
David flipped a switch and plunged them into darkness. They stared at the shadowy sword until their eyes ached, but no trace of fluorescence developed.
David flicked the lights back on, causing Fay to blink hard against the sudden brightness.
“Luminol has a high degree of accuracy,” she said when she could see again.
“It does, but I won’t feel happy until I’ve performed a Kastle-Meyer test to detect the presence of hemoglobin.”
“Oh, I remember that one. We used to leave it up to the lab techs to get on with.”
“They might also have used the Teichmann crystal test or the Takayama crystal test, but my lab isn’t set up for those. The Kastle-Meyer has been around since 1903 and is very reliable. Combined with the Luminol, I would consider it virtually conclusive.”
“Talk me through it,” said Fay. “I always wanted to know what was going on behind the scenes at the police lab. All we got was a typed report once it was over.”
“Sure. I’m going to run this swab up and down the blade, collecting as much of the red stuff as possible. Most of it will be the prop blood, but if there are any traces of hemoglobin, they will be lifted onto the swab with it.”
Fay watched intently. “Right. Yes.”
“Now I’ll add a drop of Phenolphthalein reagent to the sample.” He moved quickly. “And after a few seconds, I’ll add a drop of hydrogen peroxide to the swab.”
“How long do we have to wait for a reaction?”
“It’s a very short window of time. If any pinkness develops within thirty seconds, there is a presumption of the presence of hemoglobin. After thirty seconds, the swab will turn pink naturally, which means nothing.”
Fay set the timer on her phone as David added the drop of hydrogen peroxide.
“Will we even notice the change, considering that the swab is reddish anyway thanks to the fake blood?” she asked as the seconds ticked by.
“Oh, yes. It’s an unmistakable reaction. We’ll see it quite clearly.”
“Twenty-eight … twenty-nine … thirty. I didn’t notice a change, did you?”
“No,” he agreed.
“Then I think we can assume that this was not the murder weapon. The police lab in Truro will need to confirm it, but my working assumption is that this was a hoax of some kind.”
They stared at the swab - their heads close together. As they watched, the sample turned pinker and pinker, but it was a meaningless development.
“It seems someone has a grudge against Massimo Galliano,” said David, raising his head.
“Yes, this looks like an attempt to frame him.” Fay lifted her eyes, recoiling slightly when she saw how close their faces were.
They straightened up slowly. She found it hard to look away from David’s dark eyes. She had never noticed the tiny flecks of gold in their depths before.
Now they were even closer. Fay’s eyelids felt heavy. She closed her eyes and leaned in, knowing what was coming.
The door to the lab was flung open and Doc Dyer strolled in. “How’s it going in here? What have you found?”
David and Fay sprung apart as if they had been stung. Fay felt a tide of color surge into her cheeks. David’s face was also suspiciously red.
Doc Dyer’s attention was caught by the swabs and the bottle of peroxide. “You’ve been doing the Kastle-Meyer test? Was it positive?” A slight smirk on his face was the only indication that he had noticed their guilty leap.
David cleared his throat. “No, it was negative. The swab only turned pink after the thirty seconds were up. The Luminol was negative too. I think we can safely conclude that this sword was not used to kill Edward Mayweather.”
“And yet someone went to rather a lot of trouble to make us think that it was.”
“If Massimo Galliano is to be believed, this sword was stolen several days ago,” said Fay. “While Edward was still alive and well, in fact.”
“Are we sure of the timing of that?” asked Doc. “Just because he says it was stolen then, doesn’t mean it actually was.”
Fay nodded. “True. But in this case, it seems to be genuine. He reported it as stolen at the police station while Edward was still alive. Constable Chegwin has confirmed that.”
David began clearing up his lab, disposing of the swabs and putting the chemicals away. “So, either we are to believe that someone planned sufficiently far ahead to steal Galliano’s sword, use something else to kill Mayweather, and then plant the sword covered in fake blood in the middle of the village for all to see. Or the two events are unconnected.”
“The person who killed Mayweather is not the same as the person who planted the sword,” said Fay. “But the person who planted the sword either has a huge grudge against Galliano or genuinely believes that he killed Edward and wants to direct the police’s attention to him.”
“If that’s what they were trying to do, they certainly succeeded,” said David. “Sergeant Jones’s patrol car has been parked outside the fencing studio all day.” He gave his work surface a final wipe-down.
“How about I make us all some hot chocolate?” said Doc Dyer. “I have a new variety that I’ve been wanting to try. You melt chocolate chips into simmering milk on the hob. It’s supposed to be delicious.”
“Tempting,” said Fay. “But I should really get back to Penrose House. It’s been a long day and I’m exhausted. And I need to check on Spooky before I go to bed.”
“That’s a good name for him.” David held the door open for Fay to exit the lab. “How is he settling in?”
“He’s eating well and seems quite relaxed, as long as I don’t get too close.”
“Sounds like someone else I know,” said Doc Dyer with a broad wink.
This time, Spooky hardly flinched when Fay entered the box room. He gave her a wary look but held his position, stretched out on one of the lower tiers of the cat tree.
She used the back scratcher to tickle his head. He seemed to remember it, because he arched and purred as she rubbed it down his back.
The long broom handle was an awkward object. It was difficult to execute any precision chin tickling with such a clumsy thing.
“Let’s see if you’ll let me get closer.”
She unhooked the back scratcher from the broom handle and set the handle down on the floor. Then she pulled her padded mitts firmly back into place and grasped the wooden scratcher, approaching the cat slowly and carefully. He didn’t seem to tense up as she got closer.
“There. That’s not so bad, is it?”
She extended the back scratcher slowly,
talking to him all the while. He rolled and purred as she stroked him with it. He particularly enjoyed having his chin tickled - but attacked it with all four paws if it got too close to his tummy. Fay could only be grateful for the thick mitts.
When he seemed to be settling down to sleep again, she slipped out of the box room, closing the door behind her.
As she got ready for bed, a tiny part of Fay cringed at the possibility that she was the one who had been leaning in for a kiss while David had no such thought in his mind.
But, no. That was wrong. She knew what had happened. If anything, he had been the one leaning forward while she kept still – she was sure of it. But what if she was wrong?
She shook her head to dislodge these circular thoughts. As long as her mind kept churning, she wouldn’t sleep properly. She distracted herself by reading a mystery novel for twenty minutes before putting out her light and dropping straight off to sleep.
She was woken four hours later by a strange and persistent sound that seemed to climb right inside her skull.
Fay felt the cats stirring next to her as her eyes snapped open. “What on earth …?”
As she threw off the cobwebs of sleep, she recognized what she was hearing. It was the emergency siren of Bluebell Island. She had heard it once before in real life, when a small container ship had sailed too close to the island and run aground on a hidden bank of rocks.
The siren was used to warn islanders of shipwrecks, a possible tsunami (a rare event in this part of the Atlantic), a Category 4 storm, or an earthquake. She knew there was another emergency she was forgetting, but she couldn’t think what it was right now.
Fay hopped out of bed as the cats prowled restlessly. She went to her bedroom window – the one that allowed her to see all the way up to the north side of the island. As her eyes searched the darkness, they landed on a strange red glow halfway up Tintagel Mountain. And suddenly she remembered what that other potential emergency was – a fire.
The Cat That Got the Cream Page 9