The Cat That Was Bigger Than You

by Fiona Snyckers

  Sitting in the darkness, she could see the nurses’ station just ahead of her. Meredith Disick was filling out a form, while Rowan Court assembled the equipment they would need to take the patients’ vital signs later on. Matron Sale was there too, apologizing for the fifth time for making them work a nightshift during their time off.

  “I still can’t believe my nurses let me down at the last minute. I was absolutely desperate. I would have had to call a nursing agency on the mainland if you two hadn’t been kind enough to step in.”

  Meredith rolled her eyes behind Matron’s back. “It’s fine. We already said it’s fine. Crises happen. We’re always happy to help out.”

  “Of course,” said Rowan. “It’s no big deal.”

  “You can leave now, Matron.” Meredith glanced up from her paperwork. “We’ve got everything under control.”

  “I’ll leave in a minute. I just want to have a word with the doctor.”

  “Dr. Farlow is in Ward 2. He’ll be out shortly.”

  A trundling sound echoed through the unit as Mrs. Tribble pushed her trolley full of books between the wards.

  A rustling noise startled Fay. She had almost forgotten that she wasn’t alone in the dark room.

  “What’s that squeaky sound?” asked David in a whisper.

  “That’s Penny Sweet’s trolley. Look – there she goes.”

  The young candy-striper pushed her collection of potato chips, candy bars, and magazines past the nurses’ station.

  But David’s attention was fixed on the main entrance. “Look. Here he comes.”

  The door opened and Doc Dyer walked in, swinging his medical bag.

  Matron Sale frowned at him. “Evening, Doc. Are you here to see someone in particular? It’s not your regular night.”

  “Isn’t it? But Ben was here yesterday so that makes it my turn tonight.”

  “Dr. Farlow is already here, Doc. This is his night.”

  Doc Dyer’s shoulders sagged. “I must have got it wrong. I’m becoming so forgetful these days. Well, that does it! I’m now more convinced than ever that I’m doing the right thing by retiring at the end of the month. I’m just not making a useful contribution anymore.”

  Matron Sale and the nurses made protesting noises.

  “Oh no, Doc.”

  “You’re too young to retire.”

  “You’ll be missed.”

  “How will we manage without you?”

  Doc Dyer laughed. “My boy David will be here to pick up the slack. He’ll probably bring a new doctor into the practice with him – someone younger.”

  “What will you do when you’re retired?” asked Matron Sale.

  “I was planning to play golf, but I have such severe joint pain that I don’t know if I’ll even be able to manage it. That reminds me – I must speak to Ben Farlow before I leave this evening about administering another cortisone injection into my ankle. But while I’m here, I might as well look in on my patients.” He held up his medical bag. “If you don’t mind, I’ll leave this in your storeroom. That will remind me to take a pack of needles before I go. I forgot to re-order them at the practice.”

  Matron patted his arm. “You go right ahead, Doc. We’ll remind you about your bag when you’re about to leave.”

  Doc Dyer passed right in front of the matron’s office on his way to the storeroom. He didn’t even glance inside. The storeroom was situated diagonally opposite the office. He opened the door and popped his bag inside. Then he went to Ward 2 where one of his patients had just made a selection from Mrs. Tribble’s book trolley.

  There was a murmur of voices as Doc Dyer and Dr. Farlow greeted each other. Matron Sale said goodnight to everyone and left through the main entrance. Fay hoped she was the only one who noticed that the matron’s departure was not immediately followed by the sound of a car starting up.

  More than half an hour passed as the two doctors moved from ward to ward chatting with the patients and performing their examinations. They were in the last occupied ward when David whispered in Fay’s ear.

  “That’s the last patient – Mrs. Soames. There’s nothing wrong with her apart from migraines. They’ll be out in a minute. It looks like it’s not going to happen tonight.”

  Fay nodded, unable to hide her disappointment. She had been so sure that this set-up would work. Who knew when she would ever be able to reproduce it again?

  Then she noticed a shadow moving down the corridor towards them. She grabbed David’s arm. “Shh. It’s happening.”

  They pressed themselves back into the shadows, as a figure passed in front of them. It opened the storeroom door and bent down to open Doc Dyer’s medical bag. Out came the vial of cortisone Doc Dyer had been saving for his ankle, and in went a substitute vial.

  “That’s it,” said David. “Let’s get him.”

  They jumped out of their hiding place.

  “Stop,” said Fay.

  “That’s enough,” said David.

  Rowan Court whirled around with a snarl on his face. He reacted faster and more violently than either of them was expecting. He shoved Fay hard in the chest, sending her reeling backwards against David. As they struggled to disentangle themselves, he took off at a run down the corridor, past the nurses’ station, and out the main door into the night.

  “We have to stop him,” said Fay.

  “We can’t let him leave the island.” David took out his phone and started trying to call the ferry office.

  Everyone in the unit stared open-mouthed at the tableau.

  “What on earth …?”

  “Why did he …?”

  “I’m going after him,” said Fay.

  But as she reached the door, a screaming yowl seemed to pierce the night like a skewer.

  The main door crashed open again and Rowan Court almost fell inside, gasping for breath and white as a sheet.

  He was followed a moment later by Matron Sale, who also looked severely shaken.

  “What in heaven’s name was that?” she demanded.

  Fay and David flanked Rowan, waiting for him to start something. But all the fight had gone out of him. He had apparently decided that he was safer in here being placed under arrest, than out there with whatever had made that noise.

  “I’m calling Sergeant Jones,” said Fay. “This guy isn’t going anywhere.”

  Epilogue

  “Look,” said Fay. “This is the moment that they took the barrier down between Leo and Laurel.”

  She propped her iPad up on the kitchen table and pressed play. Morwen, Maggie, and David crowded around to look. Even Pen turned his head slightly to watch the video.

  “Is this live?” asked Maggie.

  “No. It’s from earlier this morning. This is the Noah’s Ark Facebook page. They uploaded it a couple of hours ago.”

  “So, they kept them apart at first?” asked Morwen.

  “Yes. They put Leo in a smaller enclosure when he arrived so he could get used to his new environment. There was a barred gate between them. They could see and sniff each other, but not hurt each other if they were inclined to be hostile. The keepers thought they would have to keep the barrier in place for at least a week. They ended up removing it after a day. Leo and Laurel were obsessed with each other, even though they’ve both been sterilized. The first day, they slept lying against each other with their fur touching through the bars. They’ve even been trying to groom each other through the gate.”

  Maggie clasped her hands in front of her chest. “That’s so sweet.”

  “I know,” said Fay. “Laurel is like a new woman, apparently. She’s already eating better and has much more energy. She was really pining for her old companion, Hardy.”

  David pointed at the screen. “Look at that. The barrier is going up.”

  Everyone stared at the screen. Pen shifted his chair closer to watch. The barrier was lifted out of the way with a creaking sound and suddenly there was nothing between the two lions. They sniffed each other thoroughly and
made chuffing and grumbling sounds at each other.

  “She likes him!” said Morwen, as the female lion rubbed her head against Leo’s flank.

  “He wants to explore his new habitat,” said David.

  Sure enough, Leo set off to explore his home. The habitat was so big – stretching across several acres - that the camera could only follow him for part of the way. They saw him walking down to the natural creek that bisected his habitat and having a drink from the running water. Then he disappeared into the long grass that was meant to simulate the natural savannah of his African home.

  When he emerged, it was to roll around in the large patch of sand next to his raised wooden shelter. Laurel trotted up the stairs into the shelter and gave a strange, high-pitched roar.

  “She’s calling him,” said Maggie. “She’s saying come up here and join me.”

  Maggie squealed as Leo followed her up the steps and stuck his head into the shelter.

  The video cut to an image of the two lions lying together in the grass. A strapline at the bottom thanked Lady Chadwick of Chadwick Manor, Bluebell Island, for her kind donation of Leo to Noah’s Ark Sanctuary. She was also thanked for agreeing to supply the lions with deer meat for the rest of their lives.

  “I guess the deer park at Chadwick Manor is going to be thinned out over the next few years,” said Morwen.

  “And a good thing too,” said David. “It’s already over-populated, and those deer breed fast. Besides, it serves her right for refusing to hand Leo over in the first place, and then managing to lose him a second time.”

  “And for not telling anyone that she had lost him,” said Fay. She switched off her iPad as the video came to an end.

  Everyone helped to load the dishwasher after lunch. Morwen and Pen returned to work, but Maggie lingered in the kitchen to talk to Fay.

  “My parents told me how it all went down - the trap you set for that nurse and the way he fell into it. It has given us such peace of mind to know that the person who did that to my grandmother is behind bars where he belongs. Thank you for that.”

  “You’re welcome. It was a genuine pleasure to put that maniac away. Besides, your parents already thanked me.”

  “Why did he do it?” asked Maggie. “Do you think his mother was the first person he did it to?”

  “It’s hard to say. It seems as though he either encouraged his mother to take the overdose or gave it to her without her knowledge. He was tired of caring for her and saw her life as a waste. He seems to have become fixated on the idea that once people are sick or old, they are no longer useful members of society and should be eliminated. He introduced adrenalin into the drips of four patients at Sunset Acres, causing them to go into cardiac arrest.”

  Maggie’s hands closed into fists. “I hate him for what he did to my grandmother. I don’t care if he is mentally disturbed. I hate him.”

  “He seems to be perfectly sane in the sense that he knows the difference between right and wrong,” said David. “He’s just a psychopath who became obsessed with seeing how many people he could kill and still get away with it.”

  “He attacked your father and Dr. Farlow too, didn’t he? That must have been so frightening for them.”

  “It was,” said David.

  “He was becoming increasingly daring,” added Fay. “The patients he attacked were younger and healthier, and then he started targeting the doctors just because they are both over sixty.”

  “How did you know it was him?” asked Maggie.

  “It was a couple of things. When I talked to him about the possibility that something had been introduced into the patient’s drips to induce cardiac arrest, he made it sound as though I was delusional. Like it wasn’t possible that any such substance could exist. Meredith, on the other hand, immediately mentioned the possibility of adrenalin. They are both nurses. It wasn’t likely that he wouldn’t have thought of adrenalin.”

  “There was also the ‘productive member of society’ thing,” David reminded her.

  “Yes, that’s right. He said something to me about how it’s difficult for the residents at Sunset Acres to feel as though they are not useful anymore. Then the next day I spoke to his late mother’s doctor and he used the same phrase. Mrs. Court had been worried about no longer being a useful member of society. It was obvious that her son had put that idea into her mind.”

  “That’s a terrible thing to do,” said Maggie.

  “Also, the story Rowan Court told everyone was that his mother had begged her doctor repeatedly for strong painkillers because she couldn’t bear her life anymore. Her doctor told me that she was coping well and in reasonably good spirits. She just wanted extra medication for pain. That made me question his version.”

  “I hope that will be enough to convict him,” said Maggie. “I hate to think of him getting away because of lack of proof.”

  David smiled. “You don’t have to worry about that. Once Leo the lion scared Rowan back into the frail-care center and he knew the game was up, he just started babbling in front of all those witnesses. He admitted what he had done – even boasted about it. He told us that he was the one who had been embezzling funds from the frail-care center. He tried to convince us that everyone who isn’t young and economically active is just a waste of space and that he was actually doing the island a favor with his actions.”

  Maggie tutted loudly. “Psycho! I’m glad he incriminated himself.”

  She thanked Fay again and went upstairs to carry on with her cleaning.

  David stood. “I should get back to the surgery too. Today is my last day of leave. Walk with me, Fay?”

  “Sure.”

  Fay snagged a jacket off the coat rack on her way out. Summer was leaving the island and fall would soon be here.

  She felt strangely shy of David as they walked down the driveway of Penrose House. This was the first time they had been alone together since the night that Rowan Court was arrested.

  “How is your father?” she asked, to fill the silence. “He played his part to perfection that night. I feel as though I can never thank him enough.”

  “You thanked him plenty and he was delighted to do it. That kind of ruse is right up his alley. His health is back to normal, thank goodness. It’s as though nothing was ever wrong with him. Dr. Farlow is the same. He’s leaving this evening, by the way. He has a new locum position in Hampstead.”

  Fay admired the view as the road bent to the right. It was good to see it looking clean again and to know that no large predators were wandering around.

  They were at the surgery when David stopped walking and turned to face Fay.

  “I spoke to Laetitia on Skype last night.”

  “Oh, yes? How is she doing? I hope she’s enjoying her oil painting.”

  “We were chatting about this and that when I suddenly found myself breaking up with her.”

  Fay couldn’t hide her surprise. “You broke up with her? Really?”

  “It was her lack of concern about my father that was the catalyst, but the truth is that it had been coming for a while. We want different things. She would never be happy on Bluebell Island and I would never be happy anywhere else. We have different goals, different priorities.”

  “Wow,” said Fay. “How did she take it? Was she very upset?”

  “She was upset that I was the one to do it. She told me she had been about to give me an ultimatum about moving to New York or ending our relationship. Laetitia is a sensible woman. She knows this was the best thing for both of us.”

  “Still - it must be hard. You were together a long time.”

  “It’s always sad when something doesn’t work out. I’m trying to be optimistic about the future.” He glanced at Fay. “Anyway. I just thought I would tell you. I’ll see you around, Fay.”

  He ran lightly up the stairs and went into the surgery. Fay stood still for a moment and watched him go. When she turned back to walk home, there was a slight smile on her lips.

  The Cat’s Paw Co
zy Mysteries Will Return

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  Look out for THE CAT THAT GOT THE CREAM, Book Six of The Cat’s Paw Cozy Mystery series, releasing in June 2019 on Amazon Kindle.

  About the Author

  Fiona Snyckers is the author of the Trinity series of young adult novels, the Eulalie Park Mysteries series, as well as the suspense novel Now Following You, the high-concept thriller Spire, and a literary novel Lacuna published in 2019 by Pan Macmillan. She has had various short stories published in magazines and collections. The Cat’s Paw Cozy Mysteries is her latest series of murder-mystery novels. Fiona has been nominated four times for the Sunday Times Fiction Prize. She lives in Johannesburg, South Africa, with her family.

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