Hellcats: Anthology

by Kate Pickford

  ‘He was sending them!’ snapped Albert. ‘He got arrested for it last week.’

  This was news to Randall, not that he expected to hear of every crime committed in his home county; he worked in London after all. Nevertheless, he narrowed his eyes and questioned his father. ‘Are you making that up, Dad?’

  ‘No! Patricia Fisher caught him. She’s got quite the nose for solving crime, that one. She should have gone into the police herself.’

  Dismissing that line of conversation, Randall said, ‘Who is Ophelia James and what is it that you think she might have done?’

  Albert thought about how to answer Randall’s question in such a way that his son would relent and use his computer to provide the information he wanted. He couldn’t think of anything though, so he just said, ‘She’s been looking through my windows and your mother’s engagement ring is missing. Also, Rex is alerting at her house so there might be drugs here. Or a body,’ Albert added quickly, thinking it might prompt his son to comply. ‘There’s definitely something going on and I just want you to check to see if she has a record.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Dad. I have an insurance scam case I need to crack. All my time has to be devoted to that.’

  ‘Insurance scam you say?’ Albert feigned interest, hoping to keep his son talking long enough to change his mind.

  Randall groaned. ‘Yes, Dad. A person gets a call from a firm who sounds real, has a website, and is offering a great introductory rate. They target older people a lot; it’s all very ugly and they can get away with people’s life savings. Anyway, there’s a new crew operating in this area and I’m getting a lot of pressure to catch them. If you don’t mind, Dad. I really need to get back to the investigation I am supposed to be leading.’

  Albert could sense that further persistence would lead to an argument and he remembered being under pressure to produce a result. To end the call, he said, ‘Very good, Randall. I’m sure you’ll get them.’

  Roy, who hadn’t heard the other half of the conversation, asked, ‘We are on our own?’

  ‘Very much,’ Albert grumbled. Skewing his lips to one side, he fished the rings from his pocket to show Roy. ‘My Petunia’s engagement ring is missing. Quite inexplicably missing,’ he added. ‘It was there the last time I looked, which might have been yesterday, but someone had disturbed the things on her dressing table, and they took her diamond engagement ring. I was planning to give it to my grandson if he wanted it.’

  Roy narrowed his eyes at Mrs. James’s front door. ‘And this woman has been snooping at your windows, old boy. I dare say there’s a connection.’

  Rex listened to the exchange, pointing out each time either human paused that it was the cat they needed to speak to. They just weren’t listening, a human trait which had always irked him. The cat was here somewhere, possibly inside the house if the back door was open or it had one of those cat flap thingies.

  He chose to investigate again since the humans were just standing around talking.

  Albert was faced with a dilemma. Law-abiding his entire life—he had to be, of course, but his wife’s ring was missing, and this woman had been looking through his windows. He reached a decision, stepping forward to rap his knuckles smartly on the doorframe.

  ‘You going to confront her, old boy?’ asked Roy, somewhat surprised by the escalation.

  Albert turned his head to the side and spoke over his shoulder, ‘I’m going to introduce myself and ask if there was something she wanted. I can make out like I saw her outside my house. I’ll be the friendly neighbour, and we shall see how she responds. You can tell if a person is lying by what their eyes do,’ he told Roy knowingly.

  He didn’t get to check out her eyes though because no one came to the door. He chose to try again, opting to use the heavy brass knocker on the door this time. However, when he lifted it, the door moved: it wasn’t closed, only pushed to. With the slightest tap of his index finger, the door moved two inches.

  Rex got no luck at the side of the house, the cat hadn’t returned to taunt him from behind the gate, but when he looked back at the two humans, he saw they had the front door open. Rex had never really understood the concept of property: if he peed on it, it was his. Wasn’t that a simpler solution? Humans had all manner of strange rules about who could go where. Rex chose to ignore them because they made no sense, saw the chance to get his own back on the cat by invading the cat’s place which he intended to mark as his own once inside, and ran for the widening gap.

  Albert never saw him coming, the dog streaking past his legs to fly inside the house. ‘Rex, no!’ he yelled, which had as much effect as throwing a spider web in front of a charging bull.

  ‘I know you’re in here, cat!’ barked Rex. ‘Let’s see how you like it! Where’s your favourite spot? I’ll be sure to mark that one!’

  His human was shouting something discouraging—he often did. Rex, however, knew it was his job to keep the cat out of his human’s house and that was what he was going to do.

  Dumbfounded on the doorstep, Albert grimaced at his friend the wing commander. ‘I’ve got to go after him. Heaven knows what damage he might do. The poor woman hasn’t even had a chance to settle in yet.’

  ‘It doesn’t look like she’s unpacked,’ observed Roy, peering through the now wide-open door at the boxes stacked against the walls.

  From inside, they could hear Rex barking. Then a thump as the dog knocked something over. Albert swore and went into the house. He knew that by law he wasn’t technically breaking and entering. He didn’t have the homeowner’s permission, but the door was unlocked, and he would be able to argue that he felt it necessary to retrieve his dog. Another crashing noise propelled him across the threshold just in time to hear the squeal of a cat as it screeched somewhere deeper in the house.

  ‘Should we be in here, old boy?’ asked Roy, joining Albert inside the house.

  Rex was barking insanely now, toward the back of the house and loud enough to alert people in the next village. The cat was spitting and hissing in return with just as much volume. Albert expected to find the cat backed into a space too small for his dumb, oversized German Shepherd to penetrate, but he didn’t get the chance to find out because the next thump was followed instantly by the sound of scrambling feet as the cat ran and the dog chased.

  Albert and Roy were in the narrow hallway that ran alongside the stairs when the cat rounded the corner ahead of them, leaning into the bend and running for all it was worth. Its much lower centre of gravity ensured it could turn quicker than the dog, which appeared about a heartbeat later, slamming into the wall opposite the room he was leaving because he was moving altogether too fast to change direction.

  Rex struck the wood panelling with a jarring blow to his right shoulder, but it wasn’t going to slow him down for long. The cat had said several unkind things about his mother and the local stray dogs—it was not the sort of thing he could forgive, not on top of the blatant home invasion. The cat had earned itself a chewed tail at the very least.

  Bouncing off the wall, Rex put his head down and powered on. The cat was going to go out of the front door, he could see the opening ahead of him, daylight streaming in enticingly. Once the cat was out in the open, he would be able to catch him.

  Albert’s eyes flared as the cat shot between his feet and the dog looked set to follow. Mercifully, Rex made himself thin, squeezing against the wall to pass by his human’s legs without touching them.

  ‘Don’t worry!’ barked Rex. ‘I’ll get him when he goes outside!’

  But the cat didn’t go outside, he banked hard at the bottom of the stairs and flew up them. Rex’s paws slipped and slid over the hallway carpet as he tried to follow. His butt slammed against the front door, banging it back against the wall as he finally got his legs under control.

  ‘Rex!’ Albert bellowed after the dog, but Rex was already powering up the stairs when Albert shouted, ‘Leave the cat alone!’

  Rex didn’t slow down but he did hear what his
human said. It mystified him. Why were they here if it wasn’t to deal with the cat? He got to the landing and had a choice of directions. The house smelled of the cat, enough so that he was finding it difficult to determine which way the cat went. Huffing in frustration, he put his nose to the carpet and started sniffing his way along.

  Albert called again, yelling the dog’s name to no avail. ‘I’d better go after him,’ he grumbled, placing his hand on the banister.

  Wondering what he ought to do and feeling like an unnecessary extra because he wasn’t adding any value, Roy volunteered, ‘I’ll come with you. Many hands and all that.’

  Both pensioners made their way up the stairs using the handrail to give them a bit of extra oomph, but just as they reached the landing and both turned right toward the front of the house, the cat shot out of a bedroom behind them and bolted back down the stairs.

  Rex was hot on the cat’s heels and, to Albert, it looked as if he’d managed to nip the cat’s backend or tail because he had bits of fur stuck to his jowls.

  Now sensing victory, Rex took the stairs in two bounds, his powerful legs driving him on at a pace the cat couldn’t match. The cat’s only chance was to climb, but there were no trees outside. Rex wasn’t going to hurt it, he just wanted to establish some ground rules. It was bad enough that he had to share his garden with the local squirrel mafia, but a cat that believed it could come into his house and sit on his human’s bed? Well, there were limits to what he would tolerate. It didn’t help that the cat looked like something the devil might have vomited.

  However, going as fast as possible proved to be a mistake. At the bottom of the stairs, he had altogether too much momentum to switch from a downward trajectory to a horizontal one. He crashed into the carpet, knocked into a coatrack, and slammed the door back against its stops. The cat was gone, haring across the front lawn by the time Rex looked up. Only a heartbeat had passed but the front door was swinging shut.

  Snarling at his choice of pace over planning, Rex bounced back onto his feet and shot through the gap before the door slammed shut behind him with a thump.

  At the top of the stairs, Albert swore yet again. The dog was finally out of the house, but the stupid beast didn’t have the sense to stay where he could be found. He might chase the cat to the next county before it occurred to him to question where he was.

  ‘Do you think we should look for Petunia’s ring?’ asked Roy. When Albert turned to look at him questioningly, he added, ‘Since we are already here.’

  It was a tempting proposition, but not a sensible one. ‘We should go. The lady was snooping through my windows, that doesn’t mean she came inside. It doesn’t mean she did anything wrong at all. This is her house, and we shouldn’t be in it.’

  Roy nodded, knowing his friend was right, and they made toward the stairs.

  With his foot poised to descend the first step, he heard the distinctive sound of a car pulling onto the driveway.

  Trapped/Ambush

  Rex leapt the fence that bordered the front of the garden, following the cat. ‘I’m gonna get you, cat!’ he barked as he chased after it, his tongue lolling from the right side of his mouth. He’d heard the shouts from his human—it wasn’t so much that he chose to ignore him, Rex simply knew what was best. If his human’s nose worked properly, he would know the cat had been in the bedroom and would be thanking Rex for his diligence.

  The cat shot under a car, evading Rex just when he was almost close enough to pounce. Forced to stop and go around, Rex lost sight of the cat and had to use his nose to continue the chase. Down a side alley between the houses, Rex plunged through brambles and gnarly undergrowth that pulled at his fur. He barely noticed any of it because the cat had somehow given him the slip. Had it found a bolthole in the mouth of the alley and slipped through it to escape?

  He would have to go back and check, but he pushed on another yard first because a leafy green bush obscured what was ahead and the whole area stunk of cat. Bursting through the bush, leaves exploding in every direction, Rex skidded to a stop. It was a blind alley and he’d reached the end. He spun around to go back but, confronted with an unexpected sight, he froze to the spot in shock. Now he understood why the alleyway smelled of cats.

  Back at the house, Albert and Roy were also frozen to the spot. Below them, the front door swung open—Ophelia was back from wherever she had gone, and they were intruders in her house. How could they possibly talk their way out of this one? It wasn’t as if the story about the dog would work any longer, Rex was goodness knows where by now, probably still chasing the cat.

  Albert felt a pang of concern for his big, dopey dog, but he had a bigger problem right now: what to do? The sensible thing would be to call out to Ophelia, give her a completely honest explanation and beg for her forgiveness. She could call the police, and if she did, he would wait patiently for their arrival. Embarrassment was the biggest issue.

  Roy whispered, ‘Any thoughts, old boy? We seem to have landed ourselves in a bit of a pickle.’

  Unwilling to speak because he could see Ophelia from his position at the top of the stairs. She was standing in the hallway, taking off her boots, bending over awkwardly to unzip them one at a time with her left hand. Her right hand was holding her phone to her ear. Employing a professional voice, she sounded like she was selling someone a life insurance policy or something similar. Too engrossed in her work, she didn’t see the two old men standing at the top of the stairs. While they gawped at her and wondered what to do, she padded out of sight through her house in stockinged feet.

  If they were quick (and lucky) they might be able to slip out undetected!

  ‘That’s our gold star, award-winning policy,’ Albert heard Ophelia say as he carefully placed his right foot on the next step down. ‘Yes, Mrs. Hatton, that will cover all your funeral expenses and leave a very worthwhile cash sum behind.’ There was a pause while the person at the other end spoke; Mrs. Hatton’s voice was impossible to hear, of course. ‘Yes, we can set that up right now, Mrs. Hatton. All it will take is an initial credit card payment of fifty pounds. That verifies the account and the money will be transferred to your investment pot so you’re not really paying anything, you’re just investing it.’

  Albert listened intently for just a few seconds. He was trying to work out how to announce his presence without causing the poor woman to wet herself with fright. But as the conversation went on, he began to wonder what he was listening to. Ophelia James sounded as if she were working for a big insurance firm, but Albert had never heard of Silver Linings Life Insurance and Bond. Not that his knowledge extended to encompass every firm on the planet, but to his detective’s brain, there was something fishy going on.

  Roy tapped Albert on the shoulder, startling him to the point that he almost had a south of the border accident. While his heart restarted, and Roy whispered an apology, the conversation downstairs shifted gear: Mrs Hatton was ready to make her initial deposit and Ophelia was coming their way!

  ‘Yes, Mrs. Hatton. Customers who deposit over two hundred pounds when they open their account do obtain access to a higher level of interest. The ladder system Silver Linings employs has a top tier of four percent net interest for those customers able to deposit an initial sum of a thousand pounds.’ She was coming back along the hall and there was nothing that way except the front door and the stairs.

  Albert backed into Roy, bumping into him where he frantically gesticulated that he should turn around and start moving. ‘Hide!’ Albert whispered, giving his friend a shove to get him moving. There were three bedrooms and a bathroom to pick from and no way of knowing which direction might be the safe one. They turned left, toward the back of the house, their shuffling tiptoe steps carrying them swiftly into a small bedroom filled with nothing but unopened boxes.

  They heard Ophelia jog up the stairs, her younger legs making a mockery of the effort it took them, but as they held their breath, uncertain where she might be heading, they heard her turn right toward th
e front of the house.

  Peeking through a gap between the door and its frame, Albert could see her swift movements. The phone was cradled between shoulder and ear to give her two free hands. Diagonally across the corridor, he could see her frantically moving items around to uncover what she wanted: a laptop computer.

  ‘Yes, Mrs. Hatton. I can take the deposit now. You wish to take advantage of our one-time-only joining bonus? I must congratulate you on your vision, Mrs. Hatton. You have invested wisely.’ There came a brief pause while Mrs. Hatton spoke, then Ophelia said, ‘I just need to take the long number from your credit card.’ Sixty seconds later, the call ended with a whoop as Ophelia celebrated her sale.

  Albert was already more than a little suspicious, but her next words left him with no doubt.

  ‘Another sucker,’ she cheered. ‘There’s one born every minute.’ Ophelia was scamming people, selling them a fake insurance policy, and taking their money. Her victims would never get anything for their investment and her number was most likely blocked so once the call ended, their money had already been paid into her account and there was no way to get it back. There would be layers of confusion hiding the money as it transferred from one account to another, but even if the victim were to report the fraud, they willingly paid the money and who is to say what conversation had taken place after the fact.

  This type of fraud was in its infancy when Albert retired from the police, and he worked murder investigations more regularly. Today he knew there were teams of boffins set up to track down criminals involved in internet and phone-based fraud. Computer forensics they called it. His kids talked about it sometimes.

  The question at the front of Albert’s brain now, was what to do about it?

  Across the street in the alleyway between the houses, Rex found himself surrounded.

  He’d run blindly into the alley, assured of his dominance and supremacy. However, the confident feeling, crashing through the undergrowth using sheer power and determination to force his way through, now seeped away as four dozen sets of eyes stared back at him.