by Mandy Morton
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Hettie awoke with a start as the Butters’ ovens heralded the beginning of another working week. She was pleased to be back in the land of the living. Her night’s sleep had been inhabited by ghouls and zombies, all rising up out of the burial ground at Furcross. Alma Mogadon’s admission to under-dosing herself in her failed suicide attempt had fuelled her imagination, and the theme of the undead engulfed her dreams: cats rose from their graves, demanding reparation for having been buried alive, and the thought of Alma’s bungled attempts spreading to her Dignicat clients stayed with Hettie long after the nightmare had faded. Only the smell of the Butters’ first batch of bread could convince her to open her eyes.
The room was neat and tidy, and Tilly was curled up in her blanket on the rug by the long-dead fire, snoring gently. Hettie looked at her friend’s sleeping face and remembered how thin and wasted she had been when she first moved in. She had brought nothing with her but a bag of cast-off rags, a bad dose of cat flu and a willingness to please in any way she could. Now, she had become central to Hettie’s life and they shared everything, including the joy of a close friendship which Hettie had found impossible to develop with any other cat. Lessons of trust and belief had been absent from Hettie’s education until Tilly’s optimism flooded her world with possibilities; in fact, it was Tilly’s love of detective fiction that had sparked her latest idea for making a living, and – through fair means or foul – it seemed to have become a success. She stared at the two best macs hanging on the back of the door and smiled, knowing that this friendship could withstand anything the weather of life threw at them as long as they stuck together. Content and satisfied with her lot, Hettie gathered her blanket around her and went back to sleep.
As the clock on the staff sideboard pointed its hands towards nine, the telephone began to ring. Tilly stumbled from her rug and clambered into the sideboard, hauling the phone off its hook, but too sleepy to run through the list of options which she had now practised to perfection. ‘Hello? Yes, but she’s not available at the moment – she’s on an undercover operation. Perhaps you’d like to call back in an hour.’ Tilly replaced the receiver and backed out of the cupboard, stretching and yawning as she made her way to the kettle. ‘That was Hacky Redtop. He wants to interview you. I think it’ll be a four-page spread this time.’ She giggled as she put the teabags in the mugs. ‘He might give you your own weekly column if you play your cards right.’
The telephone rang again, and this time Hettie was closest to it. She reached inside the sideboard and dragged it out onto the floor. ‘Hello? Yes, this is the No. 2 Feline Detective Agency. Stake-outs? Yes, I suppose so. What would we be looking for? You don’t know until we’ve seen it – ah. Big footprints in the garden, you say? And have these footprints done anything? Right, they’ve watered your tomatoes.’ Her patience was beginning to fail her but she hid it well. ‘If you would like to leave your name and address, I’ll put an operative onto it as soon as one becomes available. Nineteen Whisker Terrace? Yes, I know where that is. And your name? Miss Spitforce. Right.’ Tilly quickly scribbled down the details as Hettie brought the conversation to an end, but the phone rang again as soon as she replaced the receiver. This time, it was a voice that Hettie recognised. ‘Miss Woolcoat – what can I do for you? Saturday afternoon? Yes, I’m sure we can. Thank you – that would be lovely. We look forward to it. Goodbye.’ Tilly stood poised with her pencil and notepad, waiting for the details of the call. ‘Just write down “tea at Furcross”,’ said Hettie, looking puzzled. ‘We’ve been summoned on Saturday afternoon to a “thank you celebration”. That should be interesting, and Marley’s bound to put on a good spread.’ Tilly clapped her paws at the thought of a Furcross tea, and suddenly felt a pang of hunger as the smell of freshly baked pies filled their room.
The telephone rang constantly for the rest of the morning and, by lunchtime, the No. 2 Feline Detective Agency was buzzing with possible cases and crank calls. Hettie and Tilly were so overwhelmed by their newfound popularity that they were forced to put the telephone back in the sideboard with a cushion on it for ten minutes to eat in peace. Tilly nipped to the Butters’ shop to exchange their luncheon vouchers and received a hero’s welcome from the queue, returning with two ham baps and a couple of ‘not-quite-Cornish’ pasties for their dinner. She found Hettie distraught after a particularly awkward caller had suggested that they may wish to dress up as chickens to solve a spate of golf buggy thefts from the local country club. The caller was clearly the worse for drink and, in the end, Hettie had told him so.
‘So much for being on the front page of the Sunday Bloody Snout,’ said Hettie, biting into her bap. ‘The world’s gone mad. Oh, and Hacky Redtop phoned back. He wants to do a “cases I have solved” feature.’
Tilly thought for a moment before offering her opinion. ‘Well, that could prove a bit tricky. We could take on some of the easier cases, I suppose. The stake-outs could be fun as long as the weather’s nice, but I don’t suppose there will be many jobs as exciting as the Furcross case.’
When the ham baps had been dispatched, Tilly made some tea and Hettie glanced down the substantial list of possible cases that had come in that morning. ‘The thing is, we need to choose jobs that require the least amount of effort for the most amount of money. Furcross was a one-off. I don’t think anything like that will come along again. Most of the stuff here is just boring, and with the winter coming on we don’t want to be stuck out in the cold shivering under lamp posts.’
Tilly nodded in agreement, thinking of how much worse her arthritis was in cold weather. ‘What we need is a nice murder in a big house, with lots of servants who keep fires in every room and a big kitchen full of lovely food.’
Hettie scanned the list again. ‘Well, there’s nothing like that here. The most exciting prospect is Miss Spitforce’s mysterious footprint. Maybe that will turn into a murder eventually.’ The two cats laughed as a loud and urgent knock came at the door. Hettie sprang to answer it, having a very good idea of who it might be. ‘Blimey!’ said Poppa, struggling through the door with a huge box. ‘Remind me not to do any more favours for Lazarus Hambone. He said it was a little delivery! I’ll stick this here and go and fetch the other box from the van.’ Poppa disappeared, and Hettie tried to contain her grin.
Tilly made her way round the box, sniffing and patting it as if it had landed from Mars. ‘Whatever is it?’ she asked as she plucked up the courage to climb on top and remove the tape from the lid.
‘Let’s just call it a gift from a satisfied customer,’ Hettie said, watching Poppa put another, smaller box down next to his bright orange toolkit.
Tilly was more puzzled than ever. ‘But Marcia Woolcoat has already paid up. Why would she want to send anything else?’
‘Who said it’s from Marcia Woolcoat? This has come from another case altogether – a bit of spadework at Hambone’s on Saturday afternoon to be exact.’
Poppa and Hettie burst out laughing, but Tilly failed to see the joke and jumped down feeling hurt and a little left out. Poppa reached into his overall pocket and pulled out some coins. ‘I think this calls for cream horns all round while I unpack the boxes. Who’s going to fetch them?’ He looked straight at Tilly, who brightened and skipped off on her mission, leaving the contents of the two strange boxes to her friends.
The Butters’ queue was a long one and, as it moved briskly forward, Tilly watched while the tray of cream horns gradually diminished. When her turn finally came there were only two left, and she was faced with a choice of custard doughnut or cream slice to make up the shortfall. Beryl – on counter duty – could see that Tilly was in two minds over her choice and put all four cakes into a bag, taking money for just three. They were the last cakes of the day, and Beryl knew that if she and Betty were able to wipe down their surfaces with their usual efficiency, they could treat themselves to an hour at the local garden centre before it shut. Beryl grew vegetables and Betty flowers in the neat plot of lan
d at the back of the bakery, and there were major decisions to be made regarding autumn planting. Anyway, an hour at the garden centre drinking tea and eating other people’s cakes in the cafe was always a treat.
By the time Tilly returned with the cakes, the boxes had been unpacked and discarded in the yard. The cardboard flapped in the wind and threatened to take off as she came out of the passageway and headed for the back door. One of the boxes twisted round in a sudden gust to chase her, and Tilly dropped the cakes as she tried to fight off the attack. The giant wall of cardboard reared up in front of her and she grappled frantically with the door handle, and then – in an instant – the wind died. The cardboard collapsed and lay disinterested on the flagstones, and the cakes were rescued – no worse for being dropped in such an unceremonious fashion. Tilly progressed to the safety of their room, only to find Poppa and Hettie looking even more conspiratorial than they had when she left them.
She looked round and noticed that some of the furniture had been moved. The staff sideboard was shoved along the wall closer to the door, and Hettie’s armchair pointed in a slightly different direction, facing the corner of the room where a ghostly creature now stood, shrouded in Tilly’s bed blanket.
‘Just in time,’ said Hettie, relieving Tilly of the bag of cakes. ‘It’s your surprise, so you can unveil it.’
Tilly looked from Hettie to Poppa and back again, hoping for a clue to what her blanket was hiding. As nothing was forthcoming, she moved towards the ghost in the corner, her heart still beating in her mouth from the cardboard incident in the yard. It was just as well that the Butters had chosen to go out: her squeal of sheer delight could easily have been misinterpreted as a murder being done on their premises; in fact, it probably reached as far down the High Street as Meridian Hambone herself, but Tilly was conscious only of the large television set and the strange-looking box that sat underneath it. As Poppa and Hettie prepared afternoon tea, she sat on her blanket in the middle of the floor and stared at the blank screen in front of her, hardly daring to take her eyes off it in case someone took it away again.
‘Aren’t you going to switch it on?’ asked Hettie through a mouthful of cream cake. ‘It won’t bite.’
Tilly wasn’t so sure about that. She got up and moved slowly towards the array of push-in silver buttons, locating the one that offered a choice of on or off. Carefully, she pressed it and closed her eyes, too excited to see what would happen next. The TV set sprang into life to reveal an episode of Top Cat, one of her all-time favourite cartoons. She opened one eye and then the other, putting her paws in her mouth to try and contain her excitement.
Poppa and Hettie were looking on, pleased, when the telephone began to ring to its merry, muffled self. ‘That bloody phone hasn’t stopped all day!’ Hettie said, distracted. ‘I wouldn’t mind, but I’m a bit tired after all the Furcross and Malkin and Sprinkle stuff, not to mention fighting off Meridian Hambone’s thugs.’
Satisfied at last that her surprise was going nowhere, Tilly joined them at the table just in time to get her paws around the custard doughnut. ‘What exactly did happen in Hambone’s?’ she asked as Poppa put the kettle on for more tea. Hettie was about to recount the story when the TV switched itself off and the kettle died. ‘Oh bugger! It’s the electricity.’ The three cats scrabbled around in their pockets for some change and Poppa finally came up with the right coins to feed the meter. Tilly slipped them happily into the slot, turning the key each time as the money clinked into the box. She loved putting coins in the meter; it reminded her of rare days out at the seaside when she and Hettie allowed themselves a few pennies for the slot machines. Last time, Tilly had managed three milk churns in a row and they had spent their winnings on fish and chips. This particular slot machine was a little more self-obsessed and swallowed everything she had. When the electricity surged once more through the room, Hettie treated Poppa and Tilly to a brave and noble version of what she now called the ‘Hambone Case’, then the three cats discussed the resurrection of Alma Mogadon and its possible implications for Furcross. With Tilly taking notes, Poppa then demonstrated the delights of video recording while Hettie eyed up the remaining cream slice. An uncharacteristic bout of self-control saved her waistline from any further damage, and by the time Poppa got up to leave, it had been decided that he should drop the cake off at Jessie’s on his way home.
He gathered his tools together as the six o’clock news started and Oralia Claw’s face flashed onto the screen. There was an interview with Mr Malkin and Mr Sprinkle, who both talked of Hettie’s bravery and Jessie’s ‘have a go’ spirit, and there were various comments from some of the fashion show models. Cocoa Repel was captured on film leaving her flat, but raised her paw in front of the cameras to stop them getting a close-up as she was driven off at high speed in a taxi. It seemed that it was going to take some time for the Furcross Case to die a natural death, and Hettie was beginning to understand the burden of celebrity; surprisingly, it didn’t sit too well with her.
She walked Poppa to his long twin-wheel base transit, which was parked outside Oralia Claw’s nail bar. ‘I forgot to tell you,’ he said, searching his pockets for the keys, ‘those two villains you sorted in Hambone’s – guess who they were?’
Hettie thought for a moment. ‘I’ve no idea, although they did look familiar. Nasty pieces of work, both of them.’
‘You’re right there. They come from a whole family of crooks and murderers, and you had a narrow escape taking them on – even the gypsies will have nothing to do with them. Threw them out of the camp years ago along with their sister.’
‘What’s their sister got to do with it?’
‘Everything,’ replied Poppa with satisfaction. ‘Their sister was Oralia Claw, and I’d put money on the Claw brothers being involved in taking the bodies from Furcross to help their little sister out.’ He sped off down the High Street, leaving Hettie standing open-mouthed on the pavement.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
For a whole week, the High Street buzzed with talk of Oralia Claw’s downfall and the scandal surrounding it. A ‘To Let’ sign went up outside the nail bar, and the occasional group of sightseers stopped to take photographs of the shopfront as a trophy of its notoriety. Tilly was mobbed by High Street gossips, out in full force for any extra tit-bits that could be spread further afield, and Jessie wore her cuts and bruises with pride as her little shop boomed with customers, all wanting to get a good look at her. She agreed with Tilly that her wrestling match with Oralia Claw had proved extremely lucrative in the scheme of things and, as an act of reparation, Cocoa Repel had donated several rails of her now-doomed collection to be sold in the designer section. Hettie had only to venture across the road to collect her savings book to receive an impromptu round of applause from Lavender Stamp’s queue, which grew and grew like Topsy once word got out that Hettie had taken her place in it.
Mr Malkin and Mr Sprinkle sent a large hamper of food to the No. 2 Feline Detective Agency, with a ‘thank you’ note signed by both of them. It took Hettie and Tilly the best part of Friday to unpack it all, as they indulged themselves in the delights of daytime TV. Tilly had popped out to choose a video from Turner Page’s library van, only to be driven back by an inquisition that wouldn’t die down, and the telephone that never used to ring had been put out next to the Butters’ ovens in disgrace – or, in Hettie’s words, ‘because it didn’t know when to shut up’. Life was clearly not going to be the same, and Hettie and Tilly were doing their best to adjust to the fall-out of the Furcross Case, which had brought them riches as well as unlooked-for responsibilities. They had possible cases coming out of their ears, but neither of them had the heart or the inclination to follow them up. What had begun as an exciting foray into the art of detection had, in reality, turned out to be an insight into a world of obsessed, damaged, greedy cats, and – as far as Hettie could see – no real happy endings.
Saturday welcomed in a new month and, as if on cue, the October wind gathered in strengt
h throughout the morning. Hettie grappled with the coal scuttle as Tilly – instinctively preparing for winter – washed and pegged out all their blankets, taking advantage of the drying weather. The Butters’ small backyard opened out into a substantial plot with a path that ran its length, separating the vegetable garden from what Betty liked to call their ‘sitting out patch’; this area was laid to lawn, with a host of plants and shrubs dotted about the borders. Having delivered the coal to its place by the fire, Hettie returned to the yard and made her way up the garden to the small shed which had been offered as her personal storage area; there, she kept the trappings of her many lives, all gathered together in haste when her shed-with-a-bed was taken in the great storm. She rarely visited her shed these days. There was very little she could identify with now that her life had taken on a normality which came with age and a greater need for comfort. But today she unlocked the padlock and gently pulled the door open, experiencing some resistance from hinges that had – like Hettie – become set in their ways.
Her time capsule was piled high with what on first inspection might seem of very little value to anyone seeking treasure. But treasure there was. The musician she had been sang loud and clear from the endless mounted posters, piled high on top of each other and showing a younger self. There were boxes of albums, all with her name stamped above the titles and offering various incarnations of her musical progression. Some had sold well; others had disappeared without a trace; but all were very much part of her journey through life. Hettie picked her way across the floor, catching the cobwebs with her paws as she went, searching in the gloom for something precious. Suddenly there it was, propped up on her old red bean bag, admittedly looking a little worse for wear but just as inviting as it had ever been: the twelve-string guitar had lain in wait for this moment and, in spite of its only possessing nine strings, Hettie embraced it. Slumping down on the bean bag, she began to tune the remaining rusty strings and tease a few random chord progressions from her old friend. She lost all track of time, and had revisited a number of her big numbers before noticing her audience. Tilly had slipped into the shed and was silently clapping her paws in appreciation of a rather lurid murder ballad. By the end of the sorry tale, she could no longer contain her delight at the impromptu performance and began to cheer, causing Hettie to break yet another string; it twanged across the shed, finally coming to rest on a full set of reindeer antlers that had been bestowed on her during her triumphant ‘Arctic Circle’ tour.