Dreamer's Cat: a sci-fi murder mystery with a killer twist

by Stephen Leather

  The lift door opens with a hiss of steam and we walk in silence to the studio where I undress and slip on the smock and sit with my eyes closed as one of the technicians shaves the stubble off my head and rubs in the gel. Max is there but I don’t say anything to him and Herbie takes him by the arm and off into a corner where he talks quietly to him. They both look at me anxiously but there’s nothing I can say to them I have to keep my mind closed, everything blocked out except the steam engine hurtling down the tracks.

  A voice asks me if I’m okay and I nod and I walk alone to the cubicle and lie down with my eyes closed and wait for one of the technicians to fit the headset, then I hear Max call my name and I open them and see him standing over me, frowning.

  ‘What’s going on, Leif?’ he asks and the engine shrieks, loud and long, and I close my eyes hard and in the distance I hear myself say: ‘Just do it.’

  The train is moving at full speed, the wheels blurring and the clicks as they pass over the joins between the rails merge into one long whirring sound like the teeth of a comb being flicked with a thumb. I hear them leave the cubicle and then I sense the light go down and then I hear Max’s voice counting down, his voice shaking and uncertain. Ten ….. nine ….. eight ….. seven …… six……. five …… four …… three …. two …. one ….. It is……….

  ……..evening. Manila. I’m sitting in a ramshackle old cab being driven at breakneck speed through the crowded streets towards the Manila Hotel. The vinyl seats are worn and stained and there are holes in the carpet on the floor. The driver has the radio full on and it’s tuned to a local pop station that is playing a tune I vaguely recognise but with Filipina words.

  There’s a letter in my hand and it’s creased as if it has been read many times and refolded. I’m also holding an envelope and in crooked typewritten letters it’s addressed to Leif Ableman, Private Investigator, at an office in the Makati area.

  I concentrate on the interior of the cab, building on the smell of alcohol and sweat and astringent aftershave and the heat, the sweaty stickiness that precedes a tropical storm. Then I build on the exterior, the dirty streets crammed with new limousines and rust-encrusted jalopies, and everywhere the Jeepnies, the gaudy, chromed monstrosities based on the Second World War American jeeps and now used as cheap and cheerful public transport. Horns blaring, children shouting, and everywhere smiling faces. It looks as if I’m the only person in Manila not smiling.

  I read the letter. ‘Mr Ableman,’ it says. ‘I have information that may interest you about the Call Girl Killer. I would like to see you at the Presidential Suite at the Manila Hotel at 6.30.’ It is signed with a scrawl that I can’t read.

  The cab jerks to a halt at a set of traffic lights and a small girl with a heartbreakingly beautiful face and her two front teeth missing runs up to the passenger door and holds up small garlands of purple and white flowers. I wind down the window and am immediately hit by the smell of exhaust fumes. She pushes the garlands closer to my face and I breath in the sweet perfume, but it doesn’t mask the smell of the traffic. I hand her a pink banknote and she gives me one of the garlands and giggles. A boy, a head taller than the flower seller, sees the sale and runs up with armfuls of newspapers, most of them in Filipina but there are a couple in English. One of them has a huge headline in blood red letters which says ‘Call Girl Killer Slays Again’ and I buy it from him and wind the window up, shutting out the noise and the pollution.

  I read the story. The maniac has killed again, slashed a hooker to death and carved his trademark, the letter ‘E’, on her stomach. The police warn that he may kill again, and bearing in mind that today’s death is the ninth they’re probably right.

  We arrive at the hotel and as a boy in a white uniform and a pillbox hat opens the door for me I thrust a handful of notes into the driver’s hand. I stand on the steps of the hotel and slowly look around at the surrounding trees. In the distance I can hear small children splashing in a swimming pool, and there is the chirping of insects, millions of little clicking noises, and above my head swallows silently swoop and whirl as they feed on the wing.

  I step into the lobby, walking across a brown and white marble floor between dark wood furniture with plump red cushions. Three huge ornate chandeliers look as if they’re about to drag the wooden panelled ceiling down. Around the perimeter of the massive space are tall white archways except for one side where the reception desk and cashier are. I go up to the desk and am immediately greeted by three beautiful teenagers, two of them girls. One of the girls, long black hair and flashing eyes, asks me if she can help and I ask her the way to the Presidential Suite. She tells me and I turn around and head for the lift. Ruth is there, sitting by a round wooden table on which is standing a bowl full of yellow flowers, something like chrysanthemums. She looks worried.

  ‘Leif?’ she says quietly.

  I ignore her, concentrating hard on the atmosphere of the hotel, the attentive staff, the tourists booking in, the small boy bent almost double by the weight of a large suitcase, a chef walking between restaurants with a ludicrously tall white hat swaying on his head as he walks.

  ‘Leif, why am I here?’ Ruth says, walking at my side and looking up. We cross the lobby and head for the lifts. She doesn’t sit like she normally does, but walks in front of me and puts her paws on my stomach, digging her claws in, not hurting but insistent.

  ‘Why am I here?’ she says. ‘Did you bring me here?’

  The lift arrives and we get in. ‘Leif!’ hisses Ruth, but I ignore her. I get out first and as I walk along the corridor towards the suite I hear her follow me with slight rasps as her open claws catch on the plush carpet. There is a small private swimming pool surrounded by tall green plants before we get to the main doors which lead to the suite. There are two white wooden reclining chairs by the blue water. On one of them is a slightly damp pink towel.

  I knock on the double doors and walk up and down as I wait, but nobody answers. I bang again with my knuckles and this time the door swings open.

  ‘What’s happening, Leif?’ asks Ruth.

  I walk through the door into the room beyond, a room full of Filipina statues and paintings, of solid wood and leather furniture. There is a long, rectangular table with carved feet that look like a cat’s paws, and a sideboard with carved panels that depict jungle scenes. There are flowers everywhere, and on the table a rattan bowl filled with exotic fruit. There are two doors leading off the lounge area, both of them shut. As I walk into the centre of the room the door shuts behind us with a resounding thud. Ruth is startled, she whirls around, hissing, her right paw raised to strike, claws out and teeth bared before she sees we are alone. She relaxes a little, but only a little. I concentrate with all my mind, on the room, on its surroundings, on the view from the large picture window. Ruth moves into the centre of the room and stands by the table, sniffing at the fruit. She is pretending to be at ease but I can see that her claws are still out and the tendons are taut under her fur. There is a gun on the table, a revolver, black metal with wooden grips. It’s a big gun, heavy and menacing. I pick it up and it is an effort to lift. There are six brass cartridges in place and the gun is cocked, ready to fire. I slip my finger around the trigger and I can tell without pulling that it will require a lot of pressure before it will go off. It is a serious weapon and not one that will go off by accident.

  ‘Ruth,’ I say and she looks up. I hold her gaze, concentrating on her hazel eyes and then I bring the shutters in my mind down, four of them, each covering one of the walls, thick steel plates studded with rivets, like the sides of a battleship. Ruth jumps with fright, so much so that all four of her paws leave the ground. When she lands her feet are splayed out and her lips are curled back and she looks quickly around, looking for a way out but seeing that all the doors and windows are now covered by the metal sheets.

  I don’t need the furniture so I let that go, and the paintings, and the statues and I make the ceiling flat and featureless and metallic and I turn
the wooden floor into thick steel and then all that is left is me and Ruth.

  ‘And the gun,’ she says. She’s right. And the gun.

  She backs away, her eyes never leaving mine. She looks fearful, for the first time ever she looks threatened.

  ‘What’s happening, Leif?’ she says.

  ‘You know what’s happening,’ I tell her.

  She smiles and slowly sits down, her head on one side, nose twitching. I hold the gun down at my side, barrel pointing at the ground. I back off to the other side of the room and lean against the wall.

  ‘I trusted you,’ I say and her ears prick up. She doesn’t say anything. ‘I trusted you and you betrayed me.’

  ‘I saved your life,’ she says, frowning her cat frown.

  ‘Do you want to tell me what’s going on?’ I ask her.

  Ruth shrugs and she looks at the floor as if she’s suddenly seen something there that requires all her attention.

  ‘Ruth,’ I say. She ignores me, and slowly slides her front paws along the metal floor until she’s lying flat out, her legs extended towards me. She sighs deeply and rests her chin on her paws and blinks.

  ‘They were trying to kill you,’ she says.

  ‘Who were?’

  ‘The Corporation. Max. Aintrell. All of them. I was trying to protect you.’

  ‘When you brought me out of the third dream, maybe you were protecting me.’

  ‘That’s how you knew, isn’t it?’ she asks and I nod.

  ‘There was only one way you could have known when that psi-disc was supposed to have ended, and that’s if you’d been there in the first place. You must have been there when the Dreamers died.’

  ‘So I saved you,’ she says. ‘Why can’t you just leave it at that?’

  ‘Because there’s more to it than that. You know what I mean, Ruth.’

  My legs begin to shake, with tiredness or fear, I’m not sure which, so I create a chair, black wood with a purple cushion, and I sit on it.

  ‘What about a cushion for me?’ she asks. ‘This metal is cold.’

  ‘Sure,’ I say, and next to her is a big square cushion, made of thick green material and filled with down. She gets smoothly to her feet and plops down on it.

  ‘You planned this, didn’t you?’ she says. ‘That’s what the train was about, you were blocking me out, weren’t you? You were worried that I’d find out what you were up to.’

  ‘I wasn’t sure if I could keep you in one place. I had to make sure you’d be here.’

  ‘Where would I go without you?’ she says quietly.

  ‘That’s what I don’t know, Ruth. I thought I did, I thought you were part of me, but now I’m not so sure.’

  ‘I am part of you.’

  ‘Then what about the Dreamers you killed?’ She sits up on the cushion and looks at me, saying nothing. ‘Well?’ I press.

  ‘You wanted it,’ she says quietly. ‘You wanted it, so I did it. For you.’

  I shake my head fiercely. ‘That’s not true,’ I say. ‘That’s not what I wanted.’

  ‘You wanted them out of the way. They were the competition and you wanted them dead.’

  ‘No!’ I shout. ‘You’re lying. I just wanted to finish my contract and to hell with them.’ I see fear in her eyes and realise that I’m waving the gun at her so I rest it in my lap.

  ‘You don’t always know what you want, Leif. There are things that you keep from yourself, you know. Things that go on in your subconscious that you’re not aware of.’

  ‘And you are?’

  She nods, slowly, then gets up and carefully steps off the cushion and onto the steel floor. She walks around behind it as if using it as a barrier.

  ‘I know you,’ she says. ‘Sometimes I know you better than you know yourself.’

  Could she be right? The thought jumps into my head as if it was catapulted in but I know that it’s not true. Laying down the discs isn’t something I get a kick out of, not in the way that I used to take pride in the books I wrote. The discs mean just one thing to me. Money. I search my real feelings looking for any inkling that she might be right, but nowhere can I find any semblance of jealousy, no slight wish to hang onto the job of being a Dreamer, no reluctance to walk away.

  ‘You’re wrong,’ I say. ‘You’re wrong or you’re lying.’

  She walks up and down behind the cushion, growling softly.

  ‘Which is it, Ruth?’ She doesn’t answer. ‘You were always supposed to be honest with me,’ I say.

  ‘I was supposed to protect you,’ she answers quietly, avoiding my eyes. She knows what is coming and I can smell her guilt.

  ‘What about Helen Gwynne?’

  ‘You wanted her. Who was I to stop you?’

  ‘Was she real?’

  ‘You know the answer to that already.’

  ‘I want to hear you say it.’

  She sighs and stops pacing. Her shoulders sag and her nose twitches. ‘She wasn’t real.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  She shrugs and her silence angers me. I feel the barrel of the gun tapping against my leg and I force myself to stop.

  ‘Look Leif, she was a product of your imagination, you created her. You can’t blame me for what happened.’

  ‘You were supposed to warn me.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she answers and she looks it. I feel sorry for her and I want to hold her and stroke her but I have to find out what’s been going on. And I still have to get her to tell me why she killed the Dreamers, because I’m sure it was her. So sure I can taste it.

  ‘Can I have some milk?’ she asks in a plaintive voice that I’ve not heard her use before.

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘Later.’ I feel bad as soon as the words leave my mouth, as if I’ve just struck a crippled child. ‘First tell me why you allowed me to believe in Helen.’

  ‘I thought she’d make you happy.’

  ‘You’ve never made value judgments about my life before.’

  ‘You’ve never been under this pressure before.’

  ‘I can take it. One more disc and I’m home free.’

  ‘Yeah,’ she spits. ‘You are. And what about me?’ Her voice is loaded with bitterness and realisation begins to dawn. I think I’m beginning to understand.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I ask her.

  ‘Nothing,’ she growls.

  ‘Is that what you’re worried about? You’re worried about what happens to you when my contract is finished?’

  She doesn’t say yes and she doesn’t say no and she doesn’t have to because it’s written all over her face.

  ‘You’ll always be with me,’ I say.

  ‘No,’ she snaps. ‘Now you’re lying. When you walk away from CBS you won’t need me any more. You won’t need my protection or my help. You won’t need me, period.’

  ‘So that’s what all this has been about. You’re worried about your own existence. Your survival. Is that it?’

  She sniffs and shakes her head. ‘You just don’t understand,’ she says.

  ‘I think I do. You think that if I’m no longer a Dreamer I’ll have no use for you. That you’ll vanish.’

  ‘You wish, Jack,’ she says.

  ‘So what then?’

  She walks around the cushion and stands in front of me, her head tilted back. Her eyes look moist and her tail is rock solid.

  ‘You don’t understand, do you?’ she says.

  ‘No,’ I answer, and she sighs deeply.

  ‘I love you, Leif,’ she says, speaking softly. ‘I love you with all my being. I can’t bear the thought of you not wanting me or needing me. I don’t think I’ll vanish when you stop being a Dreamer, I think I’ve now got such a strong sense of my own identity, my own self, that I can stand alone. I don’t need you to tell me what to do, I don’t depend on you for my existence any more, but I do want to be around you. And I do want you to want me. And there was only one way to make sure that you stayed that way.’

  ‘By having me continue as a
Dreamer?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So you killed the other Dreamers?’

  She sits down and scratches behind her ear with one of her back paws as if using the time to think of an answer, working out what she should say and how I would react to it and what I planned to do with the big, black, loaded gun.

  ‘I wanted to make sure that you continued to work as a Dreamer. You’re an endangered species, it only needs a few to drop out and the Corporation would have to persuade you to carry on.’

  I sit in silence and watch her. ‘Can I have some milk now?’ she says.

  ‘Soon,’ I say. ‘You don’t feel guilty?’

  ‘They were nothing. You saw the sort of trash they were laying down. They were sick.’

  ‘So now you’re some sort of avenging censor,’ I say. ‘Make your mind up Ruth. First you say you were doing it for me, then you said you did it so that I’d stay with you, now you’re telling me you did it to make the world a better place. Make your mind up.’

  ‘I did it because I love you, but the fact they were like they were meant it was easier.’

  ‘But you’d have done it anyway?’

  ‘I wasn’t prepared to let you go,’ she says quietly. She hasn’t moved since she sat down in front of me, perfectly still like some sort of Egyptian cat statue. I reach down and stroke the fur between her ears but she doesn’t push her head against my hand and she doesn’t purr. ‘I’ve lost you, haven’t I?’ she says. ‘I’ve spoilt it.’

  I kneel down in front of her, the gun still in my hand. I’m careful to keep it pointed away from her but I keep my finger inside the trigger guard. I can smell her meaty cat breath rolling across my face in waves, her nostrils flaring ever so slightly as she exhales. Her lips are slightly apart and I can see her sharp white teeth. Her canines, if cats can be said to have canine teeth, are fractionally hooked over her black lips.