by Mandy Morton
The kitchen door was ajar and Sooty listened for any sound before pushing it open. The sight before him was one he would never forget, and he tried to save Tilly from it but was too slow. The scene was lit by the flames from the kitchen fire, throwing shadows around the walls that flickered on the carnage before them. Hevva Bunn sat slumped in a chair by the fire, surrounded by empty bottles; his paws and shirt were splattered with blood, which also decorated the wall and the floor by the kitchen table; there, on the tabletop, a number of blood-stained knives glistened in the light of a single candle.
Tilly recognised Christmas Paws before she noticed Hettie. The hag-like creature lay on the floor by the table in a pool of very un-ghostlike blood, her mop cap abandoned by her head, which was so badly beaten that no features remained. The rest of her body was punctuated with a series of deep stab wounds, all adding to the certainty that Christmas Paws had died for a second time.
Hettie sat in the corner of the room on a tall-backed kitchen chair, her head slumped onto her chest. She was bound to the chair by ropes, her legs tied together, and a filthy rag forced into her mouth. Her nose had bled all over her jumper, and Tilly stupidly found herself thinking how cross Hettie would have been to have made such a mess of one of her best business pullovers. Hettie’s eyes were closed and swollen; she, too, had been beaten before embracing the merciful oblivion that death offered. Hevva Bunn’s belt with its blood-stained buckle lay on the flagstone floor beside her, a brutal reminder of her last moments.
Tilly opened her mouth to scream but no sound would come. Sooty crossed the kitchen to comfort her as the noise of a door slamming came from somewhere in the house. Potsy and Dory had clearly got tired of waiting for Sooty’s signal and had entered the manor, but the whirlwind that blew down the kitchen corridor from the main house had very little to do with the vigilante army of Porthladlers.
‘’Evva Bunn!’ came the familiar voice as Tilly fought hard in her grief for recognition. ‘You’ll suffer for this night’s work, and for all the other days of your life.’ The figure – dressed from head to toe in a bright red cloak – stopped in her tracks to survey the carnage before lifting Hevva Bunn out of his chair and repeatedly banging his head against the stone fireplace. Pausing briefly to make sure he was conscious, she took a metal fish slice from the range and beat him with it until he cowered for mercy, his paws protecting his bleeding head.
Tilly was rooted to the spot and Sooty could only look on with admiration as Lamorna Tweek continued her assault on her brother. ‘You think you’re so clever, don’t you? Runnin’ Crabstock like you belong, blamin’ them terrible murders on a ghost. Well, your killin’ spree ends ’ere. You’ve brought shame to our family, an’ as for poor Lady Crabstock, I seen ’er just now bein’ unloaded down the ’arbour, an’ there’s more flesh on a bit of cod, you evil piece of nothin’.’
Lamorna allowed her brother to catch his breath, which was a mistake. He suddenly sprang at her, arming himself with one of the knives from the table. Holding her in a vice-like grip, he held the knife to her throat, daring Sooty or Tilly to intervene. ‘Just the three of you to finish off and my work is done ’ere,’ he said. ‘Now my dear little sister, shall I burn you alive in the fireplace or would you prefer a nice stabbin’ like my darlin’ Saffron ’ere?’ He kicked the lifeless form which lay on the floor and Tilly gasped in horror at the realisation that the unrecognisable corpse dressed as Christmas Paws was in fact Saffron Bunn.
Hevva Bunn shot a look at Tilly. ‘Yes, I see your penny ’as dropped. Not bad for a so-called detective, but not good enough to save your meddlin’ friend ’ere, are you? I made ’er squeal for mercy and enjoyed every minute of it. She took longer than the others to die, although removin’ Lord Wingate’s eyes while ’e was still breathin’ was one of my highlights. Come to think of it, bashin’ young Tamsyn’s brains out with that pineapple was good fun, too. Fact is, once I’d started I just couldn’t stop. Anyway, time is short and I ’ave a boat full of Crabstock valuables moored off the Lizard to attend to, so ’ose goin’ first?’
‘I think you’ll find that you are.’ The voice came from the kitchen corridor, distracting Hevva Bunn long enough for Sooty to grab the knife from Lamorna’s throat. In one swift movement, Absalom Tweek lifted Bunn off his feet and tossed him through the air like a rag doll. He landed on his head with a resounding crack and lay motionless next to Saffron’s body.
‘Well done, my luvver,’ said Lamorna, watching with satisfaction as a dark lake of blood grew on the flagstones around her brother’s head. ‘You done for ’im all right, an’ not a minute too soon.’ Lamorna looked up for the first time since her arrival in the kitchen, and took in the scene of carnage before her. Her eyes came to rest on Hettie’s lifeless form, then on the grief-stricken figure of Tilly. ‘Oh, my poor dear! I’m so very sorry for your loss, and ashamed that it was at the ’ands of my own brother. Let’s get you out of ’ere while Absalom and Sooty sort things out.’
Tilly found her voice and spoke slowly and deliberately. ‘I want to take Hettie home to our town, where she can have a proper funeral surrounded by the people who love and respect her. I won’t leave without her.’
Lamorna exchanged glances with Sooty and Absalom. ‘I’m sure we can ’elp with that. First thing is to make ’er a bit more comfortable for ’er journey.’ Lamorna nodded to her husband, who pulled his penknife from his pocket and proceeded to cut the ropes which bound Hettie’s body to the chair. He gently pulled the rag from her mouth and cradled her in his arms. One of her wellingtons fell off and Tilly pounced to retrieve it, following Absalom out of the kitchen and down the corridor into the main hall. Lamorna and Sooty joined the sad procession and, on reaching the front door, which was now wide open, they were met by what looked like the entire village of Porthladle, all standing silently in the snow, their flaming torches and lanterns held high. As one, they removed their woolly hats in respect as Absalom bore Hettie’s body to the horse and cart which stood waiting in the driveway. ‘You sit there a while. Me and Lamorna ’ave a couple of things to sort an’ then we’ll get you both ’ome.’
Tilly climbed into the back of the cart and sat next to Hettie. Absalom offered a blanket to cover her up, but she refused. She never wanted to be warm again. If Hettie would never feel the joy of a warm fire again, then neither would she. It had begun to snow again, and she watched as the flakes fell from the sky; some settled on Hettie’s face and whiskers, and she gently wiped them away. She realised that she’d never truly studied Hettie’s face before, and now she marvelled at how perfectly the tabby stripes matched on either side of her face; in spite of her swollen eyes, Hettie Bagshot was a handsome cat. Tilly’s tears fell onto her face, mingling with the snowflakes; she didn’t notice that the crowd outside the manor house had now moved inside, and only when she heard the crackle of the flames did she lift her head.
Lamorna was first to leave the manor and the smoke followed her out of the door. The rest of the villagers followed swiftly behind her and gathered outside. Tiffy Fluff moved among them, collecting vox pops on her tape recorder, certain that a story like this would give her radio career the boost it deserved. Absalom and Sooty were the last to leave the building; they carried a trunk full of the personal treasures which they had rescued for Lady Crabstock – jewellery, papers and a very saleable collection of gold coins, all gathered in the hope that Her Ladyship would be able to put them to good use in a new life.
All were safely assembled in front of Crabstock Manor, admiring their work as the flames engulfed the house, purifying the evil in which it had bathed for so long. Not even the snow could dampen the boiling inferno that swept through the building. Suddenly, all eyes looked up at the roof and there stood the defiant figure of Hevva Bunn, his clothes burning as his screams added to the cacophony of falling masonry and breaking glass. His body seemed to melt before their eyes like some demon returning to the pit of hell. A roar of approval went up from the villagers as justice was served
, and they turned away from the burning building to trudge back across the snow to their own firesides.
Sooty was pleased to see that for once Marlon Brandish and his van had braved the weather, and were well placed to take him and Lady Crabstock-Singe’s rescued treasure back to the hotel. On the strength of her best smile, Tiffy Fluff was invited to ride in the back and she clambered eagerly on board, hoping for an exclusive interview with Eloise Crabstock.
But for the body of her best friend lying next to her in Absalom Tweek’s cart, Tilly would have been happy to call their Cornish adventure ‘case solved’, but the No. 2 Feline Detective Agency couldn’t have been further from her thoughts as she watched Crabstock Manor burning slowly to the ground.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
For those who believe in the magic of Christmas, what happened next should come as no great surprise. Absalom Tweek swung himself up into his driver’s seat and offered his paw to Lamorna, who hauled herself up next to him. With a crack of the whip, his horse responded. Wheeling the cart round, they took off down the driveway, cutting through the newly fallen snow until they reached the cliff road. With a sudden pull on the reins, he turned the cart towards the cliff and drove them over the edge.
Caring little for what happened next, Tilly waited for the impact of the cart hitting the rocks below, but it didn’t happen. Instead, the Tweeks took flight and climbed high above the sea until the blazing sight of Crabstock Manor was a distant, dull red glow. All Tilly could remember later was the striking of the Porthladle clock as they passed over the village. It was midnight, and it was Christmas Eve.
‘“Good Spirit,” he pursued, as down upon the ground he fell before it. “Your nature intercedes for me, and pities me. Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me, by an altered life!”
‘The kind hand trembled.
‘“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!”’
Tilly sneezed and sat up. Hettie let her copy of A Christmas Carol slide to the floor, shocked to see her friend back in the land of the living. The feeling was mutual and the two cats stared at each other, hardly daring to speak in case the moment dissolved into nothing. Their joy was enough to make them both cry out, and they hugged each other tightly, confirming that they were both very much alive.
Hettie was the first to summon up some words. ‘You’ve been so ill. We’ve all been taking it in turns to sit with you. Look how many books we’ve got through!’ Hettie nodded towards a stack of Tilly’s favourite books. ‘Nurse Featherstone Clump said we should read to you, even though you were unconscious. She said it would keep you with us if you could hear our voices.’
Tilly – still not entirely ready to take in anything except the knowledge that Hettie was no longer dead, and that she was at home on her own cushion in front of a warm fire – tried to speak, only to discover that the flu had taken away her voice and replaced it with a high-pitched squeak.
Hettie sprang to the staff sideboard which was covered in various flu remedies, all brought in by their friends over the last few days. There was a home-made cough mixture from Irene Peggledrip; a jar of honey from Jessie at the charity shop; a large bag of wine gums for sucking from Meridian Hambone, who kept the hardware store; a basket of fruit from Malkin and Sprinkle; a small bottle of cod liver oil from Elsie Haddock; and a packet of throat lozenges from Lavender Stamp, who had given Tilly the flu in the first place. She grabbed the lozenges and unwrapped one of them, popping it into Tilly’s mouth. The lozenge, like Lavender Stamp herself, was only bearable in small doses and as soon as Tilly felt the full force of its healing qualities she spat it out into the fire. ‘Oh! That was disgusting!’ she squeaked. ‘Even worse than Saffron Bunn’s grey porridge.’
‘Saffron Bunn?’ repeated Hettie. ‘Isn’t that a Cornish cake?’
‘Don’t be silly,’ squeaked Tilly. ‘The Saffron Bunn who dressed up as Christmas Paws and haunted Crabstock Manor!’
‘Saffron Bunn? Christmas Paws? What on earth are you talking about?’ asked Hettie, beginning to fear that Tilly was slipping back into the delirious state in which she had been for days.
Tilly didn’t answer straight away. Instead, she looked around their room for the first time since waking up, taking in every tiny detail: the filing cabinet where they kept their clothes; Hettie’s desk, which doubled as their dining table; the staff sideboard, which contained everything that was useful to them, including the telephone – muffled in old cushions because Hettie hated it to ring and regarded it as a breach of her peace. There were other things in the room that were unfamiliar but no less comforting: a beautifully shaped real Christmas tree, half decorated and clearly a work in progress; a pile of small wrapped presents, stacked neatly in the corner by the TV; and there, in front of her, was Hettie’s armchair, with her hastily abandoned dressing gown draped across it.
Her eyes filled with tears as she looked up at Hettie from her cushion. ‘I thought you were dead. Hevva Bunn tied you to a chair and tortured you, and if it hadn’t been for Lamorna and Absalom Tweek we would never have got home. Don’t you remember? You saved Lady Crabstock by hiding her in a Welsh dresser like the one Jessie has in her back room at the charity shop. They all took their hats off to you when Absalom carried your body to the cart.’ Tilly’s squeaky voice subsided into a bout of uncontrollable sobbing, and all Hettie could do was wait until it had died down.
When the sobs had transformed themselves into the occasional hiccup, Hettie chose her moment to try and make sense of Tilly’s anguish. ‘I think we could both do with a nice cup of milky tea,’ she said brightly. ‘And how about something to eat? Anything you like in the whole world.’
Tilly responded with another loud sob. ‘I’ve just remembered! I’ve left my tartan shopper at Sooty’s hotel, and the suitcase with all our best clothes in it. There was no time to pick it up as we flew out of Porthladle in Absalom and Lamorna’s cart!’
During the days of illness, Hettie had been very aware that Tilly was as far away as possible from reality. The fever had flared and died as Tilly rambled, twisting and turning in her sleep. There had been waking moments when she sat up and held complete conversations with cats that Hettie had never heard of, and she had put this trance-like state down to the flu that had invaded Tilly’s mind and body – but the clarity with which Tilly was now able to recall some of those moments frightened her.
While the kettle boiled, Hettie left their room and returned seconds later, barging the door open with Tilly’s tartan shopper. ‘There you are,’ she said, wheeling it into the room. ‘Safe and sound and parked next to the Butters’ bread ovens. Now what would you like to eat? I’m starving, so let’s have something really nice.’
Tilly’s joy at being reunited with her tartan shopper, coupled with the obvious fact that Hettie wasn’t dead after all, suddenly perked up her appetite. ‘Scrumbled eggs!’ she squeaked, ‘and lots of buttery toast.’
Hettie was delighted at such a definite response. ‘Excellent choice, but don’t you mean scrambled?’
Tilly giggled for the first time for days. ‘No – scrumbled is the way I want them, with the white bits like Lamorna does them at Jam Makers Inn.’
Hettie ignored any further references to what had now become the secret world of Tilly and added more coal to the fire. ‘You drink your tea up and I’ll go and see if Betty or Beryl can rustle us up some breakfast. They’ll be so pleased you’re feeling better.’ Hettie left Tilly to her tea and made her way out of the back door and down the alleyway to the front of the Butters’ pie and pastry shop.
Tilly stared into the fire, her mind still full of the fantastical journey that she had been on. It was all so very real, and the characters who had glided in and out of what she was now beginning to accept as a very vivid nightma
re still seemed to lurk in the back of her mind. She looked at the pile of books that Hettie had pointed to and thought how kind it was of her friends to come and read to her. She had no recollection of their being there, nor any memory of the stories they had chosen, but looking at the titles it was easy to see that they had in a strange sort of way influenced the dream world she had recently inhabited. Mr Dickens’ A Christmas Carol lay abandoned on the floor by Hettie’s armchair; Jamaica Inn and The Hound of the Baskervilles were balanced precariously on top of the stack by the staff sideboard, along with Oliver Twist, Agatha Crispy’s Murder on the Orient Express and Ten Little Kittens; she smiled to see that there was a Poldark novel and several Catrine Cookpot paperbacks which the Butters had obviously brought in to read to her – tales of hardship and brutality, set against the backdrop of the Lancashire mill towns where the sisters had grown up, a world where Hevva Bunn would have felt very much at home, along with Loveday Whisk and even Evergreen Flinch.
As a devourer of books, Tilly understood what it was like to live with a good story long after a particular novel had been returned to Turner Page’s library. She was now beginning to understand the continuous theatre that had played out in her mind as she hovered between life and death on her cushion by the fire. But she had to agree with herself, it had been a very good story, a story that she might even write down one day – if she could remember it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The hot buttered toast and scrumbled eggs arrived with great ceremony as both Betty and Beryl bustled into the room, followed by Hettie and an array of assorted pies and pastries to ‘tempt the patient’, as Betty had put it.