Cat Flap

by Ian Jarvis

  ‘He owns the property.’ Fran laughed at his stunned expression. ‘He also heads the governing medical board and runs things here.’

  ‘Wow!’ Rex took the F50 up the drive to a marble porch. ‘There we go - a lift to the door. It was fun being your chauffeur, but it’s time I was heading back. Hey, there’s no need for tears.’

  ‘I’m not crying.’ Fran rubbed her eyes. ‘It’s dust.’

  ‘Oh.’ His disappointment was obvious. ‘Listen, you’d better give me your number if I’m to keep in touch.’

  She stroked his leg. ‘Why not stay the night?’

  ‘It’s tempting, but I told Quist I’d be back before dark.’

  ‘Okay, have a quick coffee and meet my brother before you go. You’ll only be ten minutes and I’ll give you my number and addresses where you can reach me.’

  ‘Oh alright.’ Rex kissed her cheek. ‘Ten minutes then.’

  He climbed from the car and noticed the gates had closed. Someone had anticipated his decision.

  ***

  Amy stabbed Rex’s number into her phone and passed it to Quist as he drove.

  ‘Damn it!’ He cancelled the digital apology. ‘Why is his phone still switched off?’ Keying in the number of his cottage, he waited until the answerphone kicked in, then deleted the message and recorded a new one. Amy and Watson listened, their eyes wide.

  ‘Doctor Stapleton?’ said Watson. ‘So you reckon this blonde he’s taken to Manchester, the one we met at Creeper’s, is the owner of Ebor Pharmaceuticals? More to the point, you think she’s one of the Ubasteri?’

  ‘From your description, it sounds like her,’ said Amy.

  ‘It’s Stapleton,’ snarled Quist. ‘Rex has to be warned. Let’s hope he rings me.’

  Watson shook his head in amazement. So that sexy girl was some supernatural creature who could change into a cat? He briefly pondered how she might look licking her own arse. ‘They’re supposed to be going to her brother’s,’ he said. ‘We haven’t a clue where that is. Why was the multi-millionaire owner of a dermatology lab living with those bikers? What’s going on?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Quist. ‘But I believe we’ll be finding out shortly.’

  ***

  The cat’s head knocker on the door of Sunnyvale scowled at Rex.

  ‘Smile,’ said Fran. ‘You’re being watched.’ Shielding her eyes from the afternoon light, she motioned to the cameras in the porch roof. ‘Security is tight. Some of the inmates are dangerous.’

  Electronic locks whirred and a bald character in a hospital coat opened the door. ‘Ah, Francesca,’ he said. ‘Your brother informed me you’d be calling.’

  ‘Hello, Don.’ She kissed his cheek. ‘Is Jordan about?’

  ‘Doctor Zucco is busy with the patients.’ Staying out of the daylight, he waved them into a hall with stairs sweeping up to the right and a modern reception desk. ‘I doubt he’ll be long.’

  Rex was surprised after seeing the eerie gothic exterior. Everything was as it should be in a mental hospital–clean and clinical, with antiseptic on the air, and ceiling cameras focused on the entrance, reception, and staircase. Having never visited one of these places before, he was frustrated to find no one dressed as Sitting Bull or Napoleon.

  ‘Rex Grant.’ Fran wiped her eyes. ‘Meet Donald Houghton, my brother’s chief of security here.’

  Rex noticed Houghton had the eyes of a ferret, a green-eyed ferret that would probably sell heroin outside schools.

  Houghton’s mouth wrinkled in a lousy imitation of a greeting. ‘Nice to meet you.’ The voice belonged to a refrigerator. ‘Francesca’s friends are always welcome.’

  ‘Er, right.’ Rex pushed the shades up his nose, unsure of how to feel over being welcome in an asylum.

  ‘We’ll be in Jordan’s quarters.’ Fran walked to a steel door by the staircase. ‘You’ll let him know?’

  ‘Are you a policeman?’ asked an elderly woman at the bottom of the stairs. Tousled white hair and a peculiar smile that belonged on a Jehovah’s Witness told Rex this wasn’t a doctor.

  He shook his head. ‘SAS, actually.’

  ‘Oh, I need a policeman. They’re monsters and the police have to be told.’

  ‘Come on, Maureen.’ Houghton hurried over with two orderlies. ‘Let’s get you back to your room.’

  ‘You’re one of them,’ she said. ‘I need a policeman.’

  ‘But you don’t like policemen, do you?’ Houghton turned to Rex. ‘Maureen has problems with authority. She strangled two police officers.’

  ‘No, I don’t like them.’ Maureen tittered. ‘Their faces turn black when you squeeze their necks.’

  ‘Er, yes.’ Rex’s own face turned a different colour. ‘Merry Christmas.’

  Fran punched keypad digits and the metal door slid open. ‘This keeps people like Maureen safely outside,’ she said. ‘Jordan’s quarters are completely sealed.’

  ‘Very wise!’ Rex hurried through into a separate hallway, with several rooms leading off and a barred window looking onto woodland. He patted his pockets. ‘Damn, I’m lost without a mobile. Can I try Quist again?’

  ‘Help yourself.’ Fran nodded to the phone on the hall table and headed for the kitchen. ‘I’ll make some coffee.’

  ‘Black, no sugar,’ shouted Rex, tapping a number he was now familiar with.

  The detective’s office machine clicked on with the usual apology. Where was he? Didn’t this private eye ever check the answerphones? He stabbed in the private number, but this time Quist’s message had changed.

  ‘Rex? If that’s you, I’m whispering in case she’s with you. Fran is Francesca Stapleton, the owner of Ebor Pharmaceuticals, and she is extremely dangerous. I know this must be hard to believe, but you must trust me. I’m certain she killed Lisa Mirren and others, including those bikers you found. I Know she looks human, but she’s one of those cat creatures you met last night. You must get away from her, Rex. Get away as soon as possible.’

  ‘Was that no sugar?’ said Fran, behind him.

  Chapter 53

  Lucius Silva stood with hands clasped behind his silk suit, gazing through one of the giant windows in his Salford Quays penthouse. The final rays of sunlight twinkled on the Manchester Ship Canal below.

  ‘Not a good report, is it?’ he said.

  ‘Er, not really.’ Galeen, the head of the Presidential security team, tried to prevent his voice quaking. Normally it would be difficult to imagine anything quaking on his muscular frame, except for the stitching where the suit jacket stretched over his huge shoulders. ‘Your computer expert Polanski has finally managed to access the police files. He called with this information a moment ago.’

  ‘I wonder if you’d run those main points by me again?’

  Galeen gulped. ‘Doctor Stapleton’s research director Will Gillette was found dead last night, and a fourth girl from Stapleton’s laboratory vanished this morning, along with the officer detailed to protect her. We’re ringing Strand’s mobile, but there’s no answer...’

  ‘The main points,’ Silva reminded him.

  ‘Stapleton appears to have been living with a group of motorcyclists in the York suburb of Clifton. Ten of them were killed there yesterday. The police have Stapleton’s fingerprints and photograph, along with feline hairs, presumably shed by her. They also have the Mirren girl’s powdered remains from the hospital. A fracas took place there and an employee gave a good description of Strand and his team.’

  ‘No, not a good report.’ The President studied the Salford docklands, the modern glass buildings reflecting the crimson sunset.

  ‘Carl Dreyer, one of Tayman’s people from Leeds, is also probably dead. The police found clothes and red dust in his car. Er, that’s more or less it.’

  ‘Not good at all.’
/>
  ‘Er, what would you like me to do, Sir?’

  Galeen regretted the question the moment it left his lips. This giant steroid advertisement was head of security, but the position afforded little protection from the President’s wrath. Silva once existed in an age where leaders killed the bearers of ill tidings, and the response here might easily be: ‘Throw yourself in the cellar furnace’.

  Silva nodded slowly. ‘Strand told me Mirren’s corpse had been destroyed along with all evidence. He lied to me; I never thought he could be so stupid.’

  Galeen snatched the trilling telephone. ‘It’s Tayman, Sir,’ he announced. ‘He needs to speak to you urgently before the meeting.’

  Silva took the phone and closed a hand over it. ‘I’m expecting a visitor,’ he said. ‘She should have arrived by now, so show her up.’ The President waited until the bodyguard exited before speaking to Tayman. ‘Frederick, I understand this is urgent?’ He listened, inspecting his nails. ‘How interesting! I’ll see you here at six-thirty.’

  A young woman was ushered into the penthouse, Galeen closing the door behind her.

  ‘There you are, my dear.’ Silva replaced the telephone, his lips curling back from sprouting cat fangs. ‘Come here and make an old man very happy.’

  ***

  Frederick Tayman poured a celebratory cognac and looked down onto the streets of Christmas bustle from the upper windows of the Brightshield Glazing office tower. The York problem had been a real worry. The Leeds branch manager’s disappearance had to be explained to Silva, but from what he’d discovered this afternoon, Strand was in the shit and things didn’t seem so bad after all.

  Chuckling, he turned to watch the sun sink beneath the Liverpool rooftops. Being Elite, Tayman wasn’t a fan of sunsets. Whilst most spectators found them breathtaking, he found them fatal. A beautiful sunset would take away more than his breath. It would take away his very existence.

  He sipped his drink and ran a finger down the dark office window. The new filtration process was complete and solar radiation would soon be blocked by transparent glass instead of this mirrored shielding. The Elite would drive vehicles with clear windows and wear eye protection resembling ordinary spectacles. Strand was as good as dead and Tayman had a revolutionary breakthrough for the society. If this didn’t bring about his promotion to Vice-President, nothing would. He twitched excitedly, spilling brandy.

  Ah, what a wonderful evening this would be.

  Chapter 54

  ‘Could I er, use the bathroom?’ stammered Rex.

  ‘Call me over-sensitive,’ said Fran. She reclined on the couch in Doctor Zucco’s private lounge, watching as Rex headed for the hall. ‘But you seem nervous. Did you get through to your friend?’

  ‘No, I got Quist’s answerphone again.’ He edged through the door. ‘Shan’t be long.’

  ‘Haven’t you forgotten something?’

  ‘Er, a goodbye kiss?’

  ‘Directions.’ Fran laughed. ‘Down the corridor. Third on the right.’

  Rex closed the door, raced across the hall to the security door and scowled at the coded keypad. Trying to leave through reception was stupid anyway. It would be locked and if Quist was right, the staff might be Stapleton’s people. Francesca Stapleton? Could Quist’s insane message actually be right? Could that lovely girl really be the laboratory owner, not to mention a fucking overgrown cat? Surely not–he’d seen her in daylight–but he’d no intention of waiting to find out. This wouldn’t be the first time he’d sneaked through a window to escape a woman, and if it all turned out to be some horrible mistake, he could turn on the Grant charm and apologise later.

  Bars covered the hall window, and sprinting down the passage, Rex groaned to see more in the bathroom. He glanced about desperately and eyed the ceiling CCTV cameras, praying that no one was watching. If he didn’t get out in the next few minutes, he’d be missed. How long did a toilet visit normally take? He’d never timed himself?

  A door stood ajar at the end of the passage, the steps behind leading down into darkness.

  ‘Yes,’ he whispered. ‘A cellar.’

  This was more like it. Maybe there would be a hatch, or a coal chute he could crawl up. Rex flicked on the light and ran down, halting on the last step. Eight prison cells lined one wall of the white-tiled basement, facing a surgical complex and laboratory. Steps led up to a delivery hatch in a recess at the far end. He noticed the shackles fixed below, as if someone had been chained there, and to his dismay, the padlock securing the hatch. Tiptoeing by three empty cages, Rex peered at the naked inmates in the next five–a young Chinese girl and four disfigured men sleeping on the floor. Wincing at their blackened burns, he made for what looked like an external door to the left of the hatch.

  ‘Help me.’ The girl was awake, her body pressed against the bars and arms reaching out. ‘You’re not one of them, are you?’

  ‘What’s going on?’ He tried the handle and found it locked. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘The keys,’ she whimpered. ‘Please! They keep them in the drawer there.’

  Rex ran to the desk. ‘I reckon that door leads outside,’ he said, snatching a key ring. ‘Do you know if any of these open it?’

  ‘Yes, the shiny key fits every cell.’

  ‘Okay, don’t worry.’ He unlocked her cage. ‘Everything is going to be...’ The Chinese girl slammed him to the floor. ‘What the fuck...’ he spluttered, then noticing her green eyes and fangs, decided not to bother.

  She straddled him, hissing and pinning his arms, as black fur covered her nakedness and a cat muzzle sprouted in a crackle of bone. Her strength was unreal, and struggling for Marika’s crucifix beneath his sweater was useless.

  ‘Listen,’ croaked Rex. ‘I’ve lots of money and I’m sure we could come to some arrangement without...’

  Fully transformed now, the huge panther chuckled, spraying his face with saliva. The feline grin descended to his throat and he moaned in horrified resignation to feel her tongue lapping the flesh as it sought a pulse. Rex knew the Chinese would eat practically anything, but he’d never envisaged himself on their menu. He closed his eyes, whimpering in petrified anticipation of the inevitable as the drooling lips fastened on the skin. And then she was gone. Another huge cat had slammed into her ribs, knocking her off Rex and rolling her against the wall. The Chinese panther sprang up and two men stepped forward, one half-emptying a silenced machine pistol into it.

  Rex watched in open-mouthed terror, as the tattered feline corpse slid down the tiles leaving a smear of scarlet slime. Guns had always been a turn-on for him, but he noticed the smoking weapon was now trained on his chest, and felt sure he could look at the Uzi from this angle all night without any stirring in his jeans. The panther that had freed Rex rose on its rear legs and shed its black fur, crackling as the bone structure changed. Golden hair sprouted on the head and the cat swiftly transformed into the naked form of Fran.

  ‘You have no sense of direction.’ She lifted Rex from the floor, her voice heavy with mock sympathy. ‘I told you the bathroom was third on the right. I assume you got through to Quist and he warned you? Is he on his way here?’

  ‘One...’ Rex found his voice and gestured to the two men. ‘One of these is your brother?’

  ‘I don’t have any brothers. Meet Doctor Jordan Zucco and Doctor Leo Atwill.’

  Roused by the skirmish, the disfigured prisoners hissed at Rex, their eyes fixed not on his face, but his throat. Part of his mind assured him this was a nightmare. The remainder joined forces with his bowels to outvote it. He turned back to the girl.

  ‘You’re Doctor Stapleton?’ he whispered.

  ‘Oh, I think you know me well enough to call me Fran.’ She strolled to a cell and stood out of reach as a claw shot through the bars. ‘They’re insane, but that’s why they’re here in the caring hands of Doctor Zucc
o.’

  Rex’s eyes darted from cell to cell. ‘Ca...’ he stuttered.

  ‘Cats?’ prompted Fran. ‘We’re known as Ubasteri, but we much prefer Elite. You’ll find that’s a more appropriate description. I’m Elite, as you’ve just seen. Jordan and Leo too, and Donald who you met upstairs.’

  He closed his eyes, guts lurching at the memory of their night together.

  I’ll ask again,’ said Fran. ‘Is Quist on his way here?’

  ‘I didn’t speak to him. It was an answerphone message.’

  ‘I see. After you phoned, it was obvious from your behaviour...’

  ‘Drop the gun!’ Rex pulled out Marika’s crucifix, gripped the cross in both hands and backed away from Zucco. ‘Drop it, you cat bastard. I’m not afraid to use this thing.’

  Fran shook her head. ‘Although your aunt has knowledge of the supernatural, she’s never met the Elite.’ She plucked the cross from Rex’s trembling hands. ‘If she had, she’d know this religious rubbish is useless. You wore this in bed, remember. I didn’t scream, did I?’

  He sagged against the wall. ‘You moaned quite a bit.’

  ‘Turn out your pockets,’ snapped Zucco. ‘Everything on the desk.’

  Rex emptied his jacket, glaring at the redundant garlic and holy water bottle he’d gathered before setting off.

  ‘I assume your gun’s in the car.’ Fran ran her hands over him, rubbing her nakedness against his leg. ‘The bullets aren’t silver like Jordan’s, but without a silencer it would be awfully loud. We’re remote here, but we wouldn’t want any walkers phoning the police, would we?’

  Rex pulled back. ‘Why don’t you put your fur coat back on?’

  ‘Ooh, and you told me you loved my body. Speaking of phones, sorry about your mobile, but I couldn’t let you keep it.’

  ‘You mean you broke it?’

  ‘I’m afraid I squeezed too hard. I don’t know my own strength, do I?’

  Rex recalled her intimate caresses, and his testicles shrivelled and vanished. ‘I don’t understand. You were living for weeks with those bikers and...’