Cat's Paw

by Nick Green

  Published by

  Strident Publishing Ltd

  22 Strathwhillan Drive

  The Orchard, Hairmyres

  East Kilbride G75 8GT

  Tel: +44 (0)1355 220588

  info@stridentpublishing.co.uk

  www.stridentpublishing.co.uk

  Text © Nick Green, 2011

  Illustrations © Lawrence Mann, 2011

  The author has asserted his moral right under the Design, Patents and copyright Act, 1988 to be identified as the Author of this Work.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978-1905537-29-7

  eISBN 978-1905537-75-4

  Typeset in Bembo by Lawrence Mann

  Illustrations & Cover by lawrencemann.co.uk

  Contents

  1 A PAW PRINT

  2 HERDING CATS

  3 THE GREY CAT

  4 SLEEPWALKING

  5 THE WHITE CAT

  6 THE COMPASS

  7 FERAL CHILD

  8 HUNTING HUMANS

  9 GOING UNDERGROUND

  10 THE WEASEL DANCE

  11 SECRET AGENTS

  12 ANIMAL MAGNETISM

  13 WAIFS AND STRAYS

  14 A WALK IN THE GARDEN

  15 THE SKELETON TOWER

  16 BEAST OF THE MOORS

  17 PEST CONTROL

  18 FORGIVE AND FORGET

  19 SHOCK TROOPS

  20 CAT VERSUS POLECAT

  21 PLAN B

  22 DON’T LET GO

  23 THE EYE OF RA

  24 PINS AND NEEDLES

  A teenage boy walks down a street as if he owns it. He’s already mugged a man in a public phone box and is feeling a foot taller than usual. He plants a stolen cigarette between his lips and snaps a flame from a steel lighter. Through the first bloom of smoke – aah – he spies a new victim. A stylish woman with short, straw-coloured hair, stopping to look in her handbag. The boy breaks into a trot and the bag is his before she can cry out. A shove to unbalance her and then he’s off, sprinting towards the next alley. It’s as practised as brushing his teeth.

  He turns the corner to find the woman standing there.

  ‘Mine, I think.’ She takes the bag. He tries to grab it back. The woman whips it out of his reach. She’s slender, about his height, might be thirty. Her features are sharp, her eyes green. The boy lunges and lunges for the handbag that’s always an inch from his grasp. As if she’s playing with him.

  It’s not a good idea to make this kid angry. He throws a punch. She catches it.

  ‘When did you last scrub your nails?’ She studies his fingers. ‘Today’s youth is going to the dogs, it really is. And that is a filthy habit.’

  Suddenly there’s only half a cigarette in his mouth. The smoking tip rolls into the gutter. The boy steps back. He has a flick knife in his pocket. Something tells him to leave it there. He makes one last attempt to save his pride.

  ‘Nearly got it that time!’ The woman twirls the handbag on her outstretched wrist. Then she swings it at his face. He has just enough wit left to duck.

  ‘Pretty fast.’ She nods, grudging. ‘You know I nearly didn’t hear you coming? Such a shame you’re flushing your life down the toilet.’

  ‘Let– let me go,’ stammers the boy.

  ‘I’m not touching you.’ A spark of humour lights her eyes. ‘You’re curious. Reckless. And – I’m guessing – alone. Like me. But I have friends in high places. You might like to meet them. Or you can carry on with what you’re doing. Falling.’

  ‘I don’t–’ His mouth has dried up. ‘Who are you?’

  The blonde woman smiles. ‘My name is Felicity.’

  A PAW PRINT

  At last Ben gave up and admitted he was lost. Here was the bus shelter with the cracked pane of glass that he had passed twice already. Here was the corner where he’d stood ten minutes ago, frowning at the road signs. He was lost. But he knew exactly where he was.

  A car splashed past and he dodged the sheet of spray instinctively. He had walked these streets ever since he could walk, and he knew every puddle. He knew where he was. How could he be lost?

  He was supposed to be strolling home from school. Now it dawned on him that he’d been wandering in circles. Whichever way he turned, he strayed back to this wretched crossroads. He had a good idea why. On his right lay Crusoe Crescent, which led to Riversmead Drive, which was where Tiffany lived.

  Ben sighed and took the turning. It was either this or traipse round Stoke Newington till it got dark. Some mischievous imp was steering him towards Tiffany’s door, no doubt to make him apologise for those stupid things he said yesterday. He needed a peace offering, fast. In his pocket he found the last of a tube of Rolos. That would do nicely.

  Miaow. The faint cry came from somewhere off to his left. He stopped, suddenly tense, as if a teacher had picked on him. It was silly but, in spite of everything, cats still made him uncomfortable.

  The few friends who knew Ben – really knew him, in the way that most did not – found this hilarious. He didn’t blame them. After all, when he concentrated in just such a way, Ben himself could see in dim light, like a cat. If he tried, he could hear high and faint sounds like a cat. Tricks he had learned in his pashki class could let him stalk like a cat, jump like a cat and climb like a cat. He could seem, fleetingly, to have whiskers like a cat. All this was true. Yet Ben Gallagher wondered if he would ever simply like a cat.

  The mew repeated. A cry of loneliness, or pain. He had an awkward thought. Tiffany’s cat, Rufus, surely roamed around here. What if the daft thing had got hurt or trapped? She’d never forgive him for ignoring it. Miaowwow. It was coming from Moll Walk, a gloomy alley.

  ‘Here, boy,’ he crooned. No, wait, that was dogs. How did you call a cat? Did it matter, since they ignored you anyway? ‘Cat! Hey, cat.’

  Cutting between houses and a high brick wall, the alley drew him into shadow. Broken glass crackled underfoot. He could see the light at the far end, crossed by cars. He listened but heard no more cries. Turning to leave, he happened to smell the air. Oh. . . wow.

  Only a year ago, it had been a bland weed he never would have noticed. Now it caressed his nostrils like the scent of chocolate mints. Something around here reeked of catnip. Delicious wafts of it were pouring over the wall. Was it growing in a garden on the other side?

  Curiosity plus catnip – talk about a fatal combination. He made sure he was alone in the alley and bent his knees, just a little. Then his hands were clinging to the top of a wall that was tall enough to keep burglars out. With a scrape of rubber soles he scrambled to the summit. The trouble with being able to jump ten feet straight up was that there were so many excuses to do it.

  Aha, what was this? On the far side wasn’t a garden but a yard. He could see the back of a pub, probably the White Lion. No plants, no flowerpots, only a gleaming Harley motorbike parked by a row of wheely-bins. He sniffed again. The aroma of catnip was dizzying. He moved his knee and saw a splash of white paint on the top of the wall. No, not a splash – a paw print. A white cat’s paw. The smell was rising off the bricks.

  He suddenly felt very exposed up here.

  ‘Oi!’

  Ben wobbled. A stocky man barged out through the pub’s kitchen door.

  ‘What you up to?’

  ‘Er,’ said Ben. ‘Have you seen a cat?’

  The man glared with bright blue eyes. Ben guessed he was the landlord. His messy, grey-flecked hair and stubble gave him the air of a faded rock star. ‘Have I seen a cat? Is that a trick question?’

  ‘No. I heard it –’

  ‘How did you get on my wall?’

  ‘Forget it,’ sighed Ben. ‘I’m going.’

  ‘Don’t tell me to forget it.’ The man drew himself
up to his full disappointing height. ‘I know your sort. Don’t let me catch you again or there’ll be hell to pay.’

  ‘Yeah, get a haircut,’ said Ben. He dropped back into the alley, in a pashki stance that cushioned the fall. There was no chance of the guy chasing after him, but he hurried out of Moll Walk all the same. The encounter had left him uneasy. The magic-mint smell lingered on his clothes and the sense of being watched was slow to lift. Giving Tiffany’s road a miss, Ben walked quickly, glancing behind him, all the way home.

  Home. That word was causing him problems. For three months, the place where he slept, ate and got ready for school had been Dad’s flat on the Hillcourt Estate. Ben tended to call it the flat rather than home. It was odd waking up each morning knowing Mum wasn’t in the next room.

  She was no longer in London. Various little things, such as watching her home being smashed by a crane, had ended her love of the city. Compensation, when it came, had let her move into a bungalow in a nearby town, where she’d found a new job managing a café. Hertford felt like the countryside after Hackney. Lucy Gallagher had been so thrilled that she assumed Ben would be too.

  ‘But it’s miles from my school,’ he had protested.

  ‘This may surprise you, Benjamin, but they have schools out there too. Along with electricity and flushing toilets.’ She laughed. Ben shifted farther up the sofa. They were in the cramped bed-sit that she had rented rather than stay at Dad’s place.

  ‘Change schools, you mean?’

  ‘Wait till you see your new one. No spray-paint on the gates. Playing fields with grass!’

  Ben listened glumly. His school might never top any league tables, but it was his. Some of his friends he had known since nursery. Yet, if it made Mum happy, he’d move schools tomorrow. That wasn’t the issue. The Cat Kin was the issue. He couldn’t risk losing touch with the only people who shared his secret. Least of all Tiffany.

  He tried to forget the weeks of arguments that followed. He told himself he had no choice. In the end, he’d won. His prize was a bed in Dad’s spare room, whole milk at breakfast instead of horrid skimmed, permission to play CDs at volume 10. Watching horror films, jousting with Dad on the home-made pinball machine. Home. And though it was arranged that he would go and stay with Mum for most of each long holiday, Ben was already missing her more than he would have dreamed possible.

  Things looked better on a Friday, though. Fridays ended with double art. Even if he didn’t have Mum’s gift for craft, the smell of paints or the squish of modrock between his fingers made it feel like she was standing nearby. Then, after school, he would meet up with the lads at Highbury arcade to eat kebabs and thrash everyone at pinball – just as Dad might have done. On Fridays his parents didn’t feel so far apart.

  Ben left the arcade and took the northbound Tube. The train was strewn with wasted free newspapers, their headlines shouting about the recent robberies that had been plaguing the Underground. Ben ate Pringles. Muggers were nothing compared to what he had to worry about. The pashki class was meeting in an hour and he still hadn’t made peace with Tiffany. When he thought about what he’d said to her, he wanted to shut his head in a door.

  He strolled out into the ticket hall at Finsbury Park station. All he had to do was say sorry, he decided, and they would make it up. That was what friends did. In relief he flicked his last crisp at his mouth. He missed. A shove knocked him hard against a photo booth and he heard a shout.

  ‘Hey! What the– Stop!’

  Rubbing his shoulder, Ben saw a tall woman with bobbed hair, her hands raised helplessly. Three boys were sprinting down the passage towards the platforms. Swinging from the arm of the middle boy was a brown handbag.

  No-one else in the packed ticket hall paid any attention. Ben went to the woman, who made a fist.

  ‘I’m warning you. . .’

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked. She seemed to twig that this hoodie was harmless.

  ‘Heck. That was a Christmas present.’ The tall woman bit her lip. She looked pale. Then she turned paler. ‘My pen! My pen was in that bag!’

  ‘Oh,’ said Ben. ‘Was it expensive?’

  She shook her head, exasperated. ‘No, no, my insulin pen!’

  ‘Insulin?’

  ‘It’s a needle.’ Her eyes were wide and scared.

  ‘I’m diabetic. And I need it, I need it now. . .’

  Now he understood – his geography teacher carried a similar syringe round his neck and had to use it after every meal. The bag-snatchers were already out of sight, racing for the trains. Luckily his inner cat never stopped to think. While he was still wondering what to do, he found himself halfway down the passage and still accelerating. At the northbound staircase a lightning hunch made him shoot out a hand to grab the banister, slinging his weight into the turn. He flew down twelve steps without touching one, skipped round a bunch of dawdling young men, and in one more leap cleared the second stair-block, plunging eight feet to the concrete.

  He had not set his Mau body loose like this for a while, and it felt good. The travellers he passed had scarcely time to gasp before he landed on the concourse between platforms. A Victoria line train stood waiting, the perfect escape route for any pickpocket. He sprang on board. Then a glimpse out of the window pulled him up short. Those three boys were running off down the platform. They hadn’t got on this train at all.

  He jumped out just as the doors closed. Following the bag-snatchers at a distance, he watched them chase alongside the departing train, slowing when they neared the end of the platform. Now what? They’d passed every exit and had nowhere to go except back past him. Warily he sized them up. The one with the stolen handbag was the smallest. The boy on his right was built well for basketball, all shins and elbows. The third was the sort of kid that Ben used to steer clear of. He moved with a dangerous swagger and his raw, muscled arms were heavily tatooed. As different as they were, they had one curious thing in common. All three wore black bandanas tied around their heads.

  The tunnel swallowed the train’s tail lights. The youths jumped down onto the tracks and ran into the darkness in its wake. They merged with the gloom and disappeared.

  Ben stopped dead. He rubbed his eyes. Those crazy kids had fled down a Tube tunnel. They might as well have climbed into a loaded cannon. The thought of going after them was blasted from his mind.

  But what about that sick woman?

  But nothing. Her bag was in a tunnel and that was that. The end. Someone else would have to help her. It was a busy enough station.

  There was nothing for it but to turn and walk away. He stayed where he was. Black headbands. They’d all worn black headbands and the same style of clothes. Hadn’t there been warnings about some gang raiding the Tube? He wished he had looked at those newspapers instead of just wiping his feet on them.

  A mouse pattered through the crawlspace below the rails. A line of verse pattered through his head. I heed no words nor walls. Why, exactly, couldn’t he follow them? What actually stood in his way? He looked back. The platform was mostly deserted. An indicator board announced the next train in four minutes. Call it five. Time enough to have a peek inside.

  He lowered his toes over the platform edge and onto the railway sleepers. Before anyone could notice him he slipped into the tunnel. On a black screen in his mind he imagined a blue cat’s eye: Ptep, the head catra, the source of a cat’s sense of balance. Ben stalked along the strip between the rails, placing each foot as a jeweller sets gems. Eth walking – the skill that cats used to cross shelves of china ornaments and leave nearly all of them unbroken. He had never needed it more. Two of these four rails could zap him with hundreds of volts.

  No, no, this was stupid, this was suicide, this was utterly crazy. His inner voice frantically protested and his inner cat pretended not to hear. He picked up speed, moving deeper in.

  Ahead the gloom thickened, studded by weak lamps. Dealing with darkness was second nature by now. Green Mandira, the face catra, blinked into life,
and Ben focused it until the cavern lengthened in washed-out colours, its rounded walls ribbed like the gullet of a great snake. Wind sighed in his face and he nearly panicked, thinking a train was coming. No, wrong direction. It must have been air overflow from the southbound line.

  Where had those kids gone? The tunnel stretched into darkness. To get out of sight they’d have to be running, and even Ben couldn’t do that without risking electrocution. Were there maintenance hatches, hidden side-passages? It struck him that, despite riding so often on the Tube, he had barely any notion of what was down here.

  The fearful voice inside him wouldn’t shut up. Rather, it grew louder. A train would soon be bearing down on this very spot. How long had it been? Two minutes, three? Turn back, the voice yelled, turn back right now. Still he hesitated. An odd shape lay on the track. It could almost be a person, slumped across the rails. He stepped closer and saw with a thumping heart that it was.

  The smallest of the boys lay on his front, one arm twisted under him. He looked younger than Ben, twelve at most. His bandana was pulled over his face like a bandit mask, the eye-holes showing lifeless eyelids. He was no longer touching the electric rail that had, presumably, struck him down. It looked as if his friends had simply grabbed the handbag and left him here, where the coming train would cut him in half. Ben knelt to listen at the boy’s mouth and caught a whisper of breath. He was still alive.

  ‘Can you hear me?’

  Pain exploded in Ben’s head. Something had hit him so hard that he saw stars, stars that dazzled every catra. Ben himself was all but knocked out, but the Mau body inside him reacted like a stung wildcat, planting both his hands on the ground and lashing out with both feet. Someone was pinned to the wall behind him, winded so instantly that they didn’t even grunt. Ben staggered upright just as a bare, tattooed arm hooked round his neck.

  Ben pulled at the arm in vain. As it tightened it squeezed the strength from his limbs. There had to be a pashki move to get him out of this. His head felt swollen with pressure and yet light, floaty. A roar filled his ears. The noise of a train. Oh no, the train. . .