by James Barrie
THE FIRST OF NINE
The Case of the Clementhorpe Killer
by
James Barrie
‘A cat is more intelligent than people believe,
and can be taught any crime.’
Mark Twain
Contents
Title Page
Murder in Clementhorpe
The Significance of the Blue Cobblestone
The Strange Fish at No.19
The Missing Birman Cat
First Date
Tuna Supper
Bal and Belle
The Art of the Mundane
The Loneliness of the Undercover Cat
Fortune Monkey: No Good
A Rainy Day
Miniature Ottoman Houses and Black Furry Underpants
Carbolic Soap and Tuna Fish
Pillow Talk
Crispy Duck Hangover
Human Indiscretions
Le Morte d’Arthur
The Allotments
Surprise Pie
Fake Funeral
Turkey Drumsticks, Chinese Chips and Thrush
Yellow Fat Disease
Mikey’s Special Sausage
Wendy Makes a Confession
The Importance of Mrs Columbo
The Special Ingredient
The Naked Chippie
There Can Be Only One Willow
Cat Confessional
What the Cat Brought In
The Case Is Altered
Wendy Puts Out Her Rubbish
A Nice Mug of Tea
Greetings from Louisville
The Fine Art of Falling
They Will Know My Name
Bin Day
Poppycock!
Murder in Clementhorpe
Peter Morris was already dead when Theodore woke.
The dim hour before dawn was usually his favourite time of day. The birds are awake. Most cats are awake. Most people are asleep.
But this spring morning Theodore sensed something was not right. He blinked open his eyes and stretched.
His ears twitched.
The birds tweeted. The pigeons cooed. A young German shepherd whined. A car engine started up a few streets away. In the distance a train rumbled on its way to Leeds.
It sounded like any other morning. But why then did he feel something was not right?
He stirred from Emily’s side. In the grey light he padded downstairs. He glanced at his food bowls. It would be at least an hour before they were filled. He exited through the cat flap, out into the yard.
He arched his back. He stretched out his paws. The hairs along his spine bristled.
A light breeze blew from the south. He tasted the damp morning air.
His own scent dominated the yard; he made sure of that. The potted herbs at the bottom of the boundary wall he sprayed on a daily basis. He caught whiffs of other cats from adjoining ‘shared’ territories. He took in the fragrance from what flora grew in this urban environment, laced with the stench of human-generated waste that lay decomposing in rubbish bins and split bin liners. He made out the faint smell of cocoa hanging in the air.
He renewed his scent in a couple of locations before jumping up onto the boundary wall and making his way to the back wall.
He picked his way across the clematis, his ears twitching. He crossed the concrete plinth that spanned the back gate. He continued along the back walls, down the hill, until he was standing diagonally across from the house with the pigeon loft.
The house was on the corner of an access road to the back alley. The pigeon loft was fixed high up on the back gable wall. The yard was surrounded by a six foot high brick wall. On top of the wall was a wooden trellis, eighteen inches high. A single strand of rusted barbed wire was suspended two inches above the trellis.
Set into the wall was a wooden gate, coated black with thick creosote. The gate was never left open. Certainly not at this early hour, thought Theodore. But this morning the gate was open a few inches. Wide enough for a cat to slip through.
Theodore looked up and down the back alley, then jumped down from the wall. He padded over the grey hexagonal cobblestones. In front of the gate he paused and looked up and down the alley. He noticed a stocky black cat called Arthur at the crest of the hill. Arthur licked his paws in the long shadows, his back to Theodore.
Theodore turned back to the gate and, without further hesitation, padded into the yard.
The yard was all concrete, with leaves, feathers and other windblown debris gathered in the corners and against the bottom of the walls. Against the back wall lent a folded stepladder.
Theodore looked up at the pigeons perched on the eaves of the loft, cooing excitedly. He circled the yard. He looked up at the pigeons again. They cooed down at him: a provocation to Theodore. ‘You can’t get at us. You can’t get at us,’ they called, their napes glistening green and blue in the early morning sun.
Pea-brainers, Theodore thought, miaowing up at them with irritation.
Again he circled the yard, his tail straight up.
‘You can’t get at us,’ the pigeons cooed down. ‘You can’t get at us.’
Just you wait…, thought Theodore.
The pigeon loft was of three-storey construction, with a pitched, felted roof. It measured about three foot by two and a half, taller than it was wide, and stood a foot proud of the red brick wall. Before that morning it had housed half a dozen birds.
Theodore turned and noticed the door to an outbuilding; it too was ajar. He approached and, in the shadows, made out a tartan slipper, its black shiny sole facing him. He went closer, and that was when he discovered the body.
Peter Morris lay on his front. He wore brown corduroy trousers and a blue checked shirt, the upper part dyed maroon with blood. A dark pool extended from what had been his head, now a colourful mess of shattered bone, congealed blood and grey brain. Pigeon feed had spilled from an upturned sack. The little seeds coated the dead man’s head. It was more like some horrific dessert than a human head.
Theodore looked at the body with the same expression as he would a dead moth. He had never seen a dead human before. His instinct was to turn tail and head home.
◆◆◆
He was shortly back on the bed he had left just minutes before. He stood on Emily’s shoulder as she lay on her side. He pushed in his paws as hard as he could. He dabbed at her face with the pads of his paws.
She pushed him away with a heavy groan. ‘It’s too early,’ she complained, her voice hoarse. ‘I’m not feeding you yet.’
He pressed his paws into her shoulder again, this time applying his claws. She pushed him away again. But now she had her eyes open. She rolled onto her back and was met by Theodore’s wide green stare. He stood on her chest purring noisily. She turned and glanced at the digital figures on her radio alarm clock.
‘It’s not even six o’clock,’ she groaned. ‘It’s too early.’
She rolled back over, pulling the duvet around her shoulders so only her face was exposed. ‘There’s no way I’m going to start getting up this early just to feed you.’
Her voice was thick; she’d a bottle of Pinot Grigio to herself the night before.
Theodore jumped down and a minute later he was back in the Morris’s yard. He ran to a corner, collected several grey feathers in his mouth and returned to Emily’s side. He dropped the dirty grey feathers onto her face.
She spluttered, swiping the feathers away with her hand.
‘What the!’ she said, rubbing at her face before sitting up.
Her eyes opened wide as she examined the dirty feathers that lay on the bed sheet.
‘Fiddlesticks! You’ve only gone and eaten one of his pigeons.’
Theodore jumped down from the be
d. He made for the top of the stairs and paused, his tail held upright, making sure Emily was following before he went down. He didn’t have to wait long. He soon heard her feet on the bare boards of the bedroom floor. He dashed down the stairs and through the dining room. He paused in the kitchen until he was sure she had reached the bottom of the stairs, then exited into the yard, the cat flap snapping shut behind him.
Emily grabbed her black woollen coat from the coat stand and pulled on her slippers before unlocking the backdoor.
She spotted Theodore standing on the back wall of the yard. ‘Get back here now,’ she called.
Theodore padded across the clematis, crossed the concrete plinth and jumped down into the alley, disappearing from sight.
‘For heaven’s sake!’ Emily said, walking over to the back gate and doing up the two middle buttons of her coat as she went.
She unbolted the gate and entered the alley. In the grey light she saw Theodore approach the house with the pigeon loft.
‘Get out of there,’ she hissed.
But Theodore had already disappeared inside the yard.
She glanced up and down the back alley, did up another button on her coat, and then walked down the hill. She pushed the black gate open and entered the yard.
Theodore was standing in front of an outbuilding. A handful of pigeons took to the air and fluttered overhead, beating their grey wings.
She walked over and picked Theodore up with both hands and held him to her chest. Theodore let his body go limp. Then she saw the body. Theodore was dropped to the ground.
Her scream was heard by over a hundred people, many dragged from their dreams by the shrill screech.
At that moment the bells of St Clement’s at the bottom of the hill began to clang out six o’clock. They were shortly followed by the bells of York Minster, just over a mile away.
The next person to arrive at the murder scene was Michael Butler, whose house backed onto the Morris’s.
He entered the yard, dressed in tight running gear, saw Emily and approached the shed. At that moment the back door of the house swung open and the very recently widowed Wendy Morris marched out, tying the cord of her mauve towel dressing gown as she approached.
‘What’s going on out here?’ she demanded.
Emily opened her mouth to speak but no words came out.
‘It appears that Mr Morris has had an accident,’ Michael said, standing in front of the outbuilding.
‘An accident?’ Wendy said. ‘Let me see.’ She approached the outbuilding but Michael stood in her way.
‘You shouldn’t look in there,’ Michael said. ‘I think he’s dead.’
‘Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do in my own yard,’ Wendy said.
She pushed past him. ‘Peter!’ she cried, dropping to her knees. ‘Oh, Peter...
Emily started crying.
‘He’s dead,’ Wendy said, still stooping over the body of her husband.
‘I’d better go and call the police,’ Michael said.
He hurried out of the yard.
Wendy backed out of the outbuilding. She turned and faced Emily. ‘How did you get in?’
She pointed her forefinger at Emily’s chest.
‘Through the gate,’ Emily said, sniffing. She wiped her nose on the sleeve of her coat, leaving a silvery trail behind. ‘It was open…’
‘He never leaves the gate open.’
‘It was open this morning,’ she blubbered. ‘My cat…’
Emily began to cry in earnest.
‘Your cat?’ Wendy asked. ‘What’s your cat got to do with this?’
Emily looked around for Theodore to corroborate her story but he was nowhere to be seen.
‘My cat,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘He brought some feathers into my house. I thought…’
‘You thought what?’
Wendy marched to the back of the yard. Several pigeons had settled up on the eaves of the slate-tiled roof. A further two fluttered overhead. ‘One of his pigeons is missing,’ she said. ‘Ethel...’
Emily stared at her through red rimmed eyes. ‘Ethel?’
‘Yes, Ethel...’ Wendy said. ‘I bet your cat’s had it.’
She looked at the door of the outbuilding, where her dead husband lay. She looked at her hands, smudged red with blood. She looked at the open gate.
‘Peter would never have left that gate open,’ she went on. ‘Someone’s murdered him and your cat has made off with one of his birds.’
She put her hands on her hips.
Then Michael strode back into the yard. He was followed by his partner, Philip Sutcliffe, dressed in purple silk pyjamas.
‘The police are on their way,’ Michael said.
Then, as if on cue, they heard the siren of a police car as it made its way from Fulford, on the other side of the River Ouse.
‘What’s happened?’ Philip asked, wiping sleep from an eye.
He crossed the yard to the outbuilding and peered in. The police siren grew louder. ‘Ugh,’ he said, grimacing. ‘That’s not very nice.’
Wendy pushed her hands into the pockets of her dressing gown, her fists clenched. ‘Somebody’s killed him,’ she said. ‘And her cat has had Ethel.’
‘Ethel?’ Philip asked.
‘Yes, Ethel. She was one of his pigeons.’
Emily whimpered something incomprehensible and began crying again.
Then there was a loud knocking at the front door.
‘I’ll go and let them in,’ Michael said.
‘I can get it,’ Wendy said. She turned and marched back inside.
◆◆◆
From behind the wooden trellis that topped the back wall, Theodore noticed that she was wearing slippers, large fur-lined slippers.
He hadn’t eaten any pigeon. He didn’t even know what one tasted like. Now I’m accused of killing one, he thought, looking up at the remaining birds.
He would prove them wrong. He would find out who or what had taken the pigeon. He would clear his name and, in doing so, find out who had killed Peter Morris too.
In the distance he heard more sirens approaching. Two police officers were standing in front of the outbuilding. Wendy Morris, arms folded across her bosom, stood behind the police officers. Michael and Philip had retreated to the gate. Michael lifted his feet in turn and glanced at the soles of his running shoes. Probably checking he hasn’t stood in any blood, thought Theodore.
Emily was standing near the back wall, unaware that Theodore was only a few yards from her head.
Her eyes were red rimmed from crying. Her hair was a tangled mess of strawberry blonde. Her black woollen coat ended mid-thigh, below which her baggy pink pyjama bottoms showed. On her feet she wore her old Garfield slippers. The ridiculous orange lasagne-loving cats looking a little worse for wear.
Not quite the Watson I had in mind, Theodore thought, blinking in the early morning sun.
The Significance of the Blue Cobblestone
Theodore had been whimsically named after a chubby rodent from an animated film. He was more fortunate, however, than some of his feline contemporaries. Mr Bo Jangles, Prissy Paws and Fluffy McWuffy Pants were just a few of the embarrassing names that the more unfortunate Clementhorpe cats had to carry. It was hardly any wonder that they rarely answered their owners’ calls.
He had been bred by Jennifer, a spindly spinster living in a bungalow on the outskirts of Malton. Her cats numbered up to forty at a time, depending on how many she could part with. She fed her ‘children’ Royal Canin biscuits and raw chicken drumsticks, while she subsisted on a diet of porridge and toast.
Theodore had spent the first months of his life shut up in a cage along with his siblings in the spare bedroom. The other kittens were content to sleep, eat and play, but Theodore wanted out. And as he grew the feelings of needing to escape increased.
The day Jennifer brought the kittens out to show Emily, he could stand it no more. As soon as the cage door was opened, he pushed his siblings aside a
nd flung himself out. He forward rolled across the living room carpet and then circled the room frantically, looking for a way out.
Jennifer’s mouth dropped.
‘He’s adorable,’ Emily said, picking him up.
‘He’s certainly a lively one,’ Jennifer said.
‘Can I take him home today?’
◆◆◆
Theodore’s father was a Scottish Fold, his mother a Ragdoll. He hadn’t inherited the folded ears of his father, but like his father his long silvery grey fur was streaked with charcoal. His chest and underside were snow white, his emerald green eyes were underscored with white mascara, and his nose was the colour of cooked liver.
Around his neck he wore a purple velvet collar, and attached to the collar was a small silver disc bearing his name and Emily’s mobile phone number.
‘He’s too pretty to be a boy,’ said Michael.
Emily looked out of the window to see her cat sitting on the back wall staring across at her. ‘What are you doing there?’ she said.
Theodore widened his eyes, as if to say, ‘What are you doing there?’
‘Does he sit there often?’ Emily asked.
‘Sometimes,’ Michael replied. ‘He’s an inquisitive one.’
‘You can say that again,’ Emily said, thinking of the events of that morning.
‘He sometimes watches me while I’m working…’ Michael said.
‘He gets around, I guess,’ said Emily.
‘I don’t let him in,’ Michael went on. ‘I’m allergic to cats.’ He got up. ‘I’ll go and get the tea.’
Emily, Michael and Philip had been taken to Fulford Police Station that morning to make statements. Having made her way home, she’d decided to call on Michael. She hadn’t spoken to him much before, but she felt the need to talk about what had happened to someone, and not knowing anyone else on the street had called on Michael.
While he was in the kitchen making tea, Emily glanced around the room. There were several framed pencil drawings hanging on the wall, over a purple clad chaise longue. The pictures were all York street scenes – Stonegate, Goodramgate, Micklegate… But they were all curiously devoid of people.