by H. Y. Hanna
The air was suddenly pierced by a bloodcurdling yowl.
We both jumped.
“What on earth—?” Lincoln looked around.
I gasped. “Muesli!”
I fumbled with the lock for real and let myself into the house, dashing into the hallway and switching on the lights. “Muesli? Muesli? Where are you?”
Another yowl answered me. It seemed to be coming from the living room. I ran in, Lincoln at my heels. I looked frantically around. I couldn’t see the little tabby cat anywhere.
“Muesli? Where are you?”
A soft meow this time. Forlorn. Scared.
“Sounds like it’s coming from behind the wall, in that corner…” Lincoln pointed.
I ran to the corner and placed a hand on the wall. Then my eyes caught sight of the vent on the floor. My mother’s knitting basket had been shoved aside and the ornamental grille cover had been pushed out of its frame again, to reveal a gaping hole. Large enough for a very small cat to have squeezed through.
“Oh, bloody hell… she’s gone into the vent,” I said. I knelt down, removed the cover completely, and peered down into the black hole. “Muesli?”
“Meorrw!” came a faint reply. But it didn’t seem to be coming from below me—it seemed to be coming from the side.
“She sounds like she’s behind the walls?” I said in puzzlement.
“These old Victorian houses have a crawl space underneath and that’s probably connected to the wall cavities,” said Lincoln. “She might have somehow got into the walls that way, especially if she’s a very small cat…”
“How am I going to get her out?” I wailed.
“Maybe if you just leave the vent open, she’ll come back of her own accord?”
I looked at the black hole in front of me dubiously. “But what if she’s stuck somewhere? What if she’s hurt? I can’t just leave her…”
“Then you’ll have to call the fire brigade,” said Lincoln.
I sighed, thinking of all the times I’d made jokes about Britain’s Fire Brigade spending more time rescuing cats than putting out fires. Well, I guess this was poetic justice. I made the call and was relieved when the operator sounded more amused than annoyed.
“Don’t worry, we’re used to dealing with naughty kitties,” the woman laughed. “You’re not the first owner to have made this call this week.”
However, she told me that there were a few other incidents that had to take priority so the firemen might not be with me for several hours. I hung up and felt slightly sick at the thought of the delay. I imagined Muesli stuck somewhere, bleeding, in pain…
“You really love her, don’t you,” said Lincoln, observing my distress.
I gave a sheepish laugh. “It seems stupid, doesn’t it, to be so attached to a little cat? Do you know, I never thought I was a cat person? I always thought I preferred dogs. I mean, I do still love dogs but Muesli is just… special. I can’t imagine life without her now.”
I was surprised to feel tears starting to my eyes and blinked rapidly, looking away. Lincoln shifted from foot to foot, looking intensely uncomfortable and unsure what to say—the typical Englishman when faced with excessive displays of emotion.
He cleared his throat. “I’m sure she’ll be fine,” he said, giving my shoulder an awkward pat.
I sniffed and dashed a hand across my eyes. “Look, you might as well go home,” I said. “It’s silly, us both hanging around here waiting. And you’ve got work tomorrow morning, haven’t you?”
“Yes, I’ve got an early ward round,” he said regretfully.
“Go. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.” I dredged up a smile. “And I’m sure the firemen will be here soon.”
When he had left, I tried to sit in a chair and wait calmly but I just couldn’t keep still. After a while, I sprang up and paced the room. Every so often, Muesli would let out a pathetic meow but it seemed to be coming from a different place each time. I followed the sound around, splaying my hands on the walls, calling to her, trying to place her location. It was incredibly frustrating.
Then at last, the firemen arrived. I was surprised at how matter-of-factly they took my story. I guess rescuing cats from weird places was a weekly habit for them.
“We have to work out where she is first,” said the older firemen whose face was lined with experience and good humour. “Then we can decide whether we should drill through the walls or remove panelling to get access.”
“Drill? Remove panels?” I paled. I thought of my parents returning home and me having to explain why there was a gaping hole in their living room wall. “Um… Isn’t there any other way?”
“That’s if she is in the wall cavity,” said the fireman. “If she’s underneath the house, we might be able to access the crawl space through a vent on the outside. But that can take longer because we would have to go down there and then search for her. It would be a lot quicker and easier to pinpoint the location from within the house and go straight through.”
At that moment, Muesli let out an indignant yowl and we all rushed to the spot where the sound had come from.
“Looks like we might be in luck,” said the old firemen. “If we could pull out this panel here and go through…”
I watched apprehensively as he and his colleague began taking apart the panelling, revealing a huge hole in the wall. Another meorrw drifted out but this time from the other side of the room.
The fireman frowned. “I could have sworn it was here—”
“Meorrw!” This time it was close again, but behind me, by the windows.
“She seems to be all over the place!” I groaned.
“Not to worry, luv, we’ll find her,” said the old fireman cheerfully. “We rescued a cat once that had been stuck in a wall for a week. Took us three days to get him out and we had to drill holes everywhere and dismantle half the living room, but we got there in the end!”
Okay, if that particular piece of information was supposed to cheer me up, it wasn’t working. Still, I appreciated what he was trying to do.
“Have you tried enticing her with some food?” the younger fireman spoke up. “See if you can get something nice and smelly and put it near the first vent.”
“Great idea!” I scrambled to my feet and ran into the kitchen.
A few moments later, I was thrusting a small plate of tinned tuna into the gap in the floor. The strong fishy odour wafted up and I wrinkled my nose. I hoped I wasn’t attracting rats with this. Muesli had gone eerily quiet and I looked at the firemen uneasily.
“She hasn’t made a sound for a while—do you think something’s happened to her?”
“Maybe she’s just busy coming this way,” said the younger fireman hopefully.
We waited a few moments longer. Nothing.
“Try calling her,” said the older fireman.
“Muesli? Muesli? Muuuuuuesli!”
Nothing.
And then suddenly—
“Meorrw?”
We whirled around. A little tabby head had popped out on the other side of the room. I sprang up and ran over to her. She was climbing out of another floor vent, wriggling through the triangular gap at the side of the cover, which had been knocked askew. She must have come up underneath, butted it with her head, and shoved it aside. I pounced on her and scooped her up.
“Muesli! You little devil!” Now that she was safe and sound, I was furious at her. “I can’t believe you just popped back up like that—after you made us open up a huge hole in the wall!”
“Ah well, as long as the kitty’s fine,” said the older fireman with a grin as he came over to join us. “You can always patch up a wall but you can’t always patch up a cat.”
He was right but still, I wanted to throttle the little minx. She was lying in my arms, looking up at the fireman, her head tilted to one side, her green eyes enormous.
“Ah now… isn’t she a pretty little thing,” said the old fireman with a smile, reaching out a big hand to tickle her under the chi
n.
Muesli shut her eyes with pleasure and purred loudly, the picture of smug contentment. I scowled at her. I couldn’t believe the trouble she had caused and here she was, acting like some celebrity receiving her adoring fans.
“We’ll fix those grates for you,” said the old fireman. “It’s only temporary, mind—you’ll have to get someone to come out and sort them out properly. But at least it’ll stop this little one doing another escape act.”
“Thank you.”
I hugged my cat to me and watched as they checked every vent in the house, then with a last pat for Muesli and good-natured chuckle, they left. I stood on the doorstep watching the fire engine drive away, Muesli in my arms.
“Meorrw?” she said.
“What are you looking so smug about?” I said, giving her a sour look. “Do you realise how much trouble you’ve caused tonight?” I thought back to earlier in the evening and that almost-kiss. “And you ruined a romantic moment too,” I grumbled.
“Meorrw…” said Muesli with a glint in her green eyes.
I almost wondered if that had been her intention all along. And I didn’t want to admit it, but a part of me was almost glad that she had succeeded.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The next morning, I wasted no time as soon as the Old Biddies arrived in the tearoom. I marched over to them and demanded:
“What were you doing in Gees last night?”
They gave each other shifty looks, then Ethel leaned forwards and said excitedly:
“We were undercover again.”
Oh God.
“What does that mean exactly?” I asked nervously.
Glenda giggled. “I was the honey pan.”
I looked at her in puzzlement. “The what? Oh, you mean a honey pot!”
She gave me a coy smile. “Of course, he’s not my usual type. I like them a bit younger. But I suppose one has to do one’s duty for one’s country.”
“Uh… right,” I said, trying to imagine Glenda in the role of Mata Hari and not quite managing it.
“You probably weren’t his type,” grumbled Florence. “That’s why he wasn’t telling you much.”
“Nonsense!” cried Glenda indignantly. “It wasn’t easy, but I was working my charm on him and I would have found out more if Gemma hadn’t appeared!” She looked at me reproachfully.
“Me?” I gaped at them.
“Yes, you. You ruined our operation, Gemma,” said Mabel with a scowl. “Now we won’t get a second chance at Peters again.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was telling me all about the murder on Friday night,” said Glenda. “He—”
“Oh!” I clutched her arm eagerly. “Did he tell you what happened before he found Seth? Did he see anyone in the tunnel? I was thinking about this last night as I was going off to sleep: the tunnel is the only way in and out of the Cloisters so the murderer had to have escaped that way. And if Clyde Peters had been coming from the opposite direction, surely he would have passed the murderer on the way?”
Glenda frowned. “But he didn’t go through the tunnel until after he had found Seth with the body.”
“What…?” I stared at her in confusion. “What do you mean he didn’t go that way till after he found the body? Didn’t he come that way in the first place? He told the police he had been doing a round of the college and had just gone into the Cloisters when he saw Seth with the body.”
Glenda shook her head. “No, that can’t be right. He told me that he was already in the Cloisters—in fact, he was just on his way back out when he found Seth.”
I stared at her. “But… but that completely changes things! Are you saying that he hadn’t come from the Porter’s Lodge? That he was already in the Cloisters before Seth even arrived?”
“Yes, Clyde was in the college guest room. He told me he had just come out of the guest room, by the chapel, and was heading back to the Lodge when he found Seth and the body. Gave him such a fright, it did.”
“What was he doing in the guest room? And why didn’t he mention this to the police?”
“Ah… well, Clyde has been running this little scheme on the side, you see. The guest room is often empty and he’s in charge of all the bookings anyway. So he started quietly renting it out, if someone wanted somewhere to stay in Oxford for a night or two, as long as they gave him a little something to put in his pocket. He would smuggle them in and no one would be any wiser. The Cloisters are in such a secluded corner of the college, anyway, hardly anyone goes there much. It was a nice little side earner and it’s been going on for years. The college authorities don’t know about it, of course, and Clyde certainly doesn’t want them to find out, so that’s why he didn’t mention it to the police.”
I rocked back on my heels. “So… are you telling me that there was someone else in the Cloisters the night of the murder that nobody knew about? Not even the police? Who was this person staying in the guest room?”
“It was the murdered professor’s brother, Richard Barrow,” said Glenda. “It was actually Professor Barrow himself who asked Clyde to put his brother up. Apparently Richard appeared in Oxford on Friday morning, asking his brother for help. He didn’t have money and would have had to sleep on the streets, so the professor stepped in. But he didn’t want anyone to know about it, so it suited him to have Richard be one of Clyde’s ‘unofficial guests’.”
“I can’t believe Clyde Peters never mentioned this to the police!” I said savagely. “This changes everything! Richard Barrow stood to gain a great deal by his brother’s death—and it sounds like he needed money desperately. And now we know that he was actually on the spot the night of the murder!” I frowned. “Wait… the police checked all the rooms after they arrived and they didn’t find anyone in the college guest room.”
“Clyde said he managed to get Richard away before the police arrived.”
“How did he do that?”
“Well, he was just about to tell me and then you arrived,” said Glenda, a bit tartly. “And afterwards, he shut up like a clam and wouldn’t say another word. I think he had got a bit carried away while he was talking to me and hadn’t realised what he was saying. You know how men do love to boast and if you look admiring and pretend that you’re a silly little woman who can’t understand how clever they are, they will completely forget themselves and tell you anything.”
I looked at Glenda with new respect. Perhaps she had more in common with Mata Hari than I thought.
“So what do we do now?” said Mabel briskly.
“I’ve got to tell Devlin about this,” I said. “The police have to know that there was someone else in the Cloisters that night who had good reason for wanting Barrow dead.” I paused as another thought struck me. “Do you know, this means that Joan Barrow lied as well. She told the police that she had no idea where her youngest brother was…”
“Maybe she doesn’t?” said Florence.
I shook my head firmly. “No, I had the feeling that she was hiding something. I’m willing to bet that she knew her brother was here in Oxford on Friday night and in fact…” I added excitedly, my thoughts racing now. “I wonder if that was why she was so adamant that the police shouldn’t come to her place to interview her? Maybe it had nothing to do with her sick partner at all! Maybe it was because Richard was hiding at her house. After all, he had to go somewhere after he escaped from Wadsworth—if he didn’t catch the last train from Oxford to Reading, he probably passed the rest of the night on a University Park bench somewhere and then caught the first train the next morning. I think the first train from Oxford to Reading goes at 4 a.m. so that would only be a few of hours after the murder.”
“Do you think they might be involved in the murder together?” Ethel shivered. “It seems dreadfully ruthless to plan to murder their brother in cold blood.”
“I don’t know,” I mused. “I haven’t met Richard Barrow so I don’t know what he’s like. Reading between the lines of what his sister said, he sounds like
a small-time crook, so maybe… But Joan… well, she seemed like one of those mousy, suburban housewives. I wouldn’t have thought she would have the nerve for murder… but I guess you never know, do you?”
“I think it’s very possible,” said Mabel darkly. “Brothers and sisters have been murdering each other since the time of the Bible.”
I looked at her askance. Somehow, I didn’t remember Sunday school being so violent.
“There’s something I don’t understand, though…” I frowned. “How did Clyde Peters get Richard out without anyone seeing? I mean, I know Seth was in shock but I think he would have noticed if Clyde Peters was hustling a strange man past him—and he was standing right by the entrance to the tunnel, which is the only way out of the Cloister…”
Something nagged at me—something I had seen or heard—maybe that night of the Oxford Society of Medicine dinner? What was it? I felt instinctively that it was something important, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I furrowed my brow, thinking hard. It was hovering there, on the edge of my mind, but I just couldn’t grasp it.
I sighed and gave up. Anyway, the important thing now was to call Devlin and let him know about this new information. He would be able to ask the head porter all the details of Richard Barrow’s movements on Friday night. Devlin’s phone was busy so I tried his office at Oxfordshire CID, thinking I’d leave a message there. I was surprised when he answered it himself.
“O’Connor speaking.”
My heart gave its usual jolt at the sound of his deep baritone. The last time we had spoken was when we had that huge row about the note in Barrow’s pigeonhole. A part of me was still angry at him, but I knew I had to put aside my personal feelings for now.
“Devlin? It’s me, Gemma. I haven’t caught you at a bad time, have I?”
“There’s never really a good time,” he said, but I relaxed slightly as I heard the sardonic humour in his voice.
Quickly, I recounted my conversation with the Old Biddies. Devlin whistled under his breath.
“That old weasel! So Peters lied to us and withheld important evidence in a murder investigation.”