by Mandy Morton
Bruiser, hearing their voices, joined them in the backstage area. ‘Just started spittin’ with rain out there. Do yer want us to shift the body before the downpour comes? It’s really hot and muggy. I reckon we’re in fer a mighty big storm any minute.’
As if on cue, the marquee was suddenly lit up by a streak of lightning and rolls of distant thunder rumbled around them. ‘That’s all we need,’ said Hettie, as the three cats dashed out into the stalls area. ‘Let’s wrap the body in the sheet. It’ll be easier to carry and I don’t want anyone noticing that the head’s missing.’
Bruiser and Poppa pulled the sheet away from Downton Tabby’s body and laid it on the ground. Hettie stared down at the check-suited corpse, thinking how very ridiculous it looked without its head. It occurred to her that if Muddy Fryer’s broadsword had been used, the murder had the feel of an execution, almost medieval in its nature. How very different from the pathetic vision of Ann Brontë’s squashed pelt in the camper van. For the first time, it struck Hettie that she might be looking for two murderers, not one.
The rain had begun to fall steadily in large droplets. Bruiser took the body by the shoulders, Poppa by the feet, and they lifted it gently onto the sheet, folding the sheet over the corpse and knotting the makeshift shroud at both ends. Hettie led the way back to the refreshment tent.
‘Let’s take it in round the back – there’s a flap in the canvas there.’ Bruiser and Poppa followed her, managing to complete their task seconds before the heavens opened to subject Furcross House and its grounds to the worst summer storm in the town’s memory. The rain lashed down on the tent and water rushed off the roof, creating an avalanche of gushing torrents as the lightning circled overhead, selecting points of interest to touch with its deadly fingers. The cats huddled together in the main part of the tent, where there was nothing left to do but eat pies and wait for the storm to pass.
The accommodation block was in darkness when Tilly reached it. The night air was oppressive, and she was pleased to let herself into the corridor, which was a little cooler than the temperature outside. She reached for the light switch and felt instantly better when she could see the doors that peppered the hallway. Scratching her head, she tried to remember who was staying where. The Brontës had made it clear that Emmeline and her poetry were an unwelcome combination, but who had drawn the short straw? And had they stuck to their domestic arrangements? Both the rooms allocated to the sisters would have to be searched, and they stood opposite each other. Tilly decided on the single room first and unlocked the door.
A suitcase lay on the floor, open but not unpacked, and the room was tidy. The first thing she needed to establish was whose room it was, and the stack of books on the bedside table left her in no doubt: four identical copies of The Brontës of Teethly, Ann’s autobiography. Tilly flipped through some of the pages, turning to the black-and-white photo section in the middle of the book. There they all were, surrounded by relatives: kitten pictures; family outings; a stark and rather dramatic picture of the parsonage they all lived in; and a striking picture of an elderly cat, poised with a catapult especially for the camera.
Tilly put a copy of the book to one side to look at in more detail over a pie and a cup of tea, then turned to Ann Brontë’s suitcase. She sifted carefully through the clothes, finding nothing to interest her, but a couple of newspapers at the bottom showed more promise. One of them, the Teethly Gazette, announced that Downton Tabby would be filming his latest TV series at Teethly Grange, a substantial house and parkland which he owned on the edge of the moor. Tilly noted that the front-page photo of the TV celebrity had been defaced and now looked more like a goat than a cat, with horns and a short, pointed beard. She could see no reason for keeping the second newspaper until she turned to the inside pages: circled in red was a review of Ann’s biography, heralding it as a breath of fresh Porkshire air and comparing it favourably to both Emmeline and Charlene Brontë’s efforts; the review went even further, suggesting that completing old manuscripts did not a novelist make, and that Ann Brontë was the real talent of the three authors. Looking to the bottom of the column, Tilly wasn’t surprised to learn that the reviewer was Downton Tabby himself. It interested her to see that he had obviously liked Ann’s book – unless, of course, he’d been playing the sisters off against each other – and, as Ann had no further need of them, Tilly added the newspapers to the book, ready to take away with her. She gave the room a final inspection, including a quick look under the bed, and found nothing more than a half-eaten pork pie which Ann had clearly discarded earlier.
Gathering up her reading material, she left the room and crossed the hallway to unlock the door opposite, but there was no need; the door wasn’t locked. She paused for a moment before going inside, and a note of caution ran through her mind: what if Charlene had been in the room all the time? Emmeline had answered the door earlier, but she might have lied about Charlene’s absence. Slowly, she pushed the door open wider, letting the light in from the hallway; to her relief, the room appeared to be empty, but no sooner had her heart regained its normal rhythm than a crack of thunder sent her nerves jangling. The room was filled fleetingly with an arcing streak of lightning, then all was black. Fighting to gain control, Tilly reached for the light switch but nothing happened. The corridor, too, was now in darkness. Logic should have told her that the raging storm had knocked out the electricity supply, but there is rarely room for logic when fear comes knocking.
Tilly moved forward to the window, hoping for another flash of light, and it came again, this time blinding her for several seconds. She stumbled against one of the beds, catching her foot in something dangling from it. The lightning obliged her once more, long enough to guide her to a small torch on one of the bedside tables. She lunged for it as the returning darkness engulfed her, but it rolled off the table and onto the floor. Tilly crawled after it, feeling her way across the carpet, but she froze as her paw connected with another cat’s foot. She looked up as the room filled with light again, and there, staring down at her, was Charlene Brontë, her face contorted, her eyes bulging and her mouth open wide.
Instinctively, Tilly rolled away as the point of the broadsword missed her by an inch and buried itself deep into the floor. She gathered herself and made blindly for the door, crashing into the post as she fought her way back out into the corridor, then ran the length of the hallway and out into the storm without looking back.
It would be true to say that Tilly hardly noticed the rain. She stumbled and splashed her way across the memorial garden, colliding with gravestones and willing the lightning to come again and show her a path to safety. At last, the hospitality tent rose like a giant, white mother ship out of the violence of the storm, a safe refuge and an end to the terror which pursued her.
Hettie was finishing off her third festival doughnut when Tilly made her dramatic entrance into the tent. She was unrecognisable at first, a ball of wet, muddy fur which burst through the tent flap and came to an ungainly halt by Delirium Treemints’ beverage table. Hilary and Cherry Fudge reacted immediately, going into their checklist of first-aid procedures, and Tilly was too traumatised to resist as they wrestled her to the ground, putting her into the recovery position and feeling for abrasions and broken bones. Eventually, she struggled free of the Florence Nightingale routine; she might well resemble something from the war-torn fields of the Crimea, but bandages and ointments would have to wait.
Hettie wiped the sugar from her whiskers and ran over to her friend, flanked by Bruiser and Poppa. The rest of the cats gathered round expectantly, and Delirium Treemints offered one of her starched white tablecloths to Tilly, who had begun to shake uncontrollably. She pulled the cloth around her, grateful for its warmth, and did her best to stop her teeth from chattering.
‘What happened to you?’ Hettie asked, alarmed and concerned.
Staring out at the sea of faces, all waiting for a response, and expecting her attacker to burst into the tent at any moment wielding Muddy Fr
yer’s broadsword, Tilly pulled Hettie closer and whispered: ‘Charlene Brontë’s gone mad! She’s out there now, and she tried to kill me with the sword. She’s hiding in her and Emmeline’s room. I must have disturbed her. I was so frightened, I just ran and ran.’
There was no time to lose, and Hettie beckoned Bugs Anderton out of the crowd. ‘Take Tilly to the authors’ area and sit with her until I get back. Make sure she has a cup of hot, sweet tea, and don’t let anyone bother her.’
Before she had even finished the sentence, Delirium was spooning six sugars into a cup. Tilly was helped to her feet by Bugs and steered away from prying eyes.
As Hettie, Bruiser and Poppa prepared to leave the tent, Polly Hodge spoke up. ‘Miss Bagshot, would you be kind enough to explain to us what is happening?’
Hettie turned to the author, conceding that the question wasn’t unreasonable. ‘If I knew what was happening, I would be more than happy to let you know. All I can tell you is that there’s a killer out there who needs to be caught.’ With that, she swept out of the tent followed by Bruiser and Poppa, leaving the other cats in stunned silence. So shocked were they by her parting comment that no one noticed Emmeline Brontë slipping out of the back entrance and into the storm.
CHAPTER NINE
Regardless of her mission, Hettie was pleased to leave the tent behind; it had become hot and claustrophobic, and she welcomed the rain beating down on her face. Within minutes, all three cats were soaked to the skin. The storm was relentless, flooding the ground beneath their paws and making visibility almost impossible. They made slow progress across the memorial garden, and dark shapes loomed up before them as Poppa swept their path with his torch, a tool of the trade which always hung from his belt.
‘I think we should take a look in the accommodation block,’ Hettie cried before another roll of thunder swallowed the rest of her sentence. The door to the block was wide open and Poppa led the way down the corridor. Tilly’s shoulder bag lay outside the rooms allocated to the Brontës, together with a book and some newspapers which she’d abandoned in her flight to safety. The door to one of the rooms was slightly ajar, and it was Bruiser who – moving Hettie to one side – kicked it open and crouched ready to spring at anything that came for him. Apparently the room was empty and Poppa went ahead, shining the torch into every corner. Hettie noticed that the floor was wet. ‘Looks like our murderer gave chase to Tilly and came back here afterwards,’ she said. ‘I wonder why? Did anyone notice if the camper was still parked outside?’
Bruiser responded immediately by going to check, and returned seconds later. ‘It’s still there, next to the Roller.’
‘In that case, Charlene Brontë is here somewhere and the sooner we find her, the better. According to Tilly, she’s behaving like a homicidal maniac. I think we need to split up – we’ve got a lot of ground to cover and this storm makes everything much more difficult. Bruiser, you take the marquee and stalls area. I think the library’s locked, so she won’t be able to get into the main building, but, for God’s sake, be careful. I’ll have a look round here, and Poppa – you check out the camper and the Rolls-Royce. They’re both good places to hide.’
Bruiser took off like a rocket, but Poppa lingered. ‘Are you sure you’ll be all right? No point in being brave when you don’t have to. Why don’t we check this out together?’
Resisting the urge to hug him, Hettie agreed and the two cats set about the room search that Tilly had been forced to abandon. ‘This bed’s seen some action,’ said Poppa, shining his torch up and down its length. ‘Looks like someone’s been tied to it and then chewed their way out.’
Hettie stared down at the frayed bits of cord. ‘Shine that torch on the bedside cabinet. Look – what’s that?’
Poppa moved forward and picked up a large wad of cotton wool. ‘Blimey, it’s chloroform,’ he said, giving it a good sniff. ‘That’s all a bit Victorian – what with that and the mad cat in the attic.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Hettie, looking confused.
‘Well, it’s all a bit Jane Hair, isn’t it? The mad cat in the attic roams about at night setting fire to everyone’s bed curtains, so they have to keep her sedated and locked up. She even has a minder who chains her to the wall when she’s having one of her outbursts.’
Hettie was quite taken aback by Poppa’s knowledge of Charlene Brontë’s novel. ‘I didn’t have you down as the bonnet drama type.’
‘Must be all those long, wet Sundays on me houseboat. It was Withering Sights that got me started on the Brontës. I’ve had a couple of holidays on the Porkshire Moors – good ale and bad weather, and that book’s got it all. There’s not a decent cat in the whole thing. Nasty pieces of work, the lot of them.’
It had occurred to Hettie that she was obviously at a disadvantage when it came to the Brontës. She rarely picked up a story book, preferring fact to fiction but, as Poppa had pointed out, the two were clearly entwined as far as the Porkshire sisters were concerned. The big question was who had tied whom to the bed? And, if this situation had been going on, why hadn’t Emmeline Brontë mentioned it when she was questioned? Hettie could feel one of her headaches coming on. She needed some space to process the information which was filling her mind with possibilities; instead, she found herself in the middle of a thunderstorm with a maniac on the loose, a tent full of fidgeting cats to pacify, and a body count which threatened to rise at any minute.
Poppa shone his torch on the other bed in the room. There was an untidy pile of clothes strewn across it, and Hettie walked over to take a closer look. ‘They were wearing stuff like this when they arrived,’ she said. She sifted through the bundle and found a bunch of keys at the bottom of the pile. ‘I suppose these must be for the camper van. They’re sticky.’
The beam of the torch fell onto the keys in Hettie’s paw. ‘Blimey, its blood!’ Poppa said. ‘And look – it’s all over the clothes and the bedcover.’
Hettie threw the keys back onto the bed as if they’d burnt her. ‘It’s like a nest of bloody vipers in here! Or perhaps a chamber of horrors would be closer to the mark. There was no visible blood on Ann Brontë, so I think we have to assume that this belongs to Downton Tabby. I imagine there was quite a fountain of it when his head left his shoulders. We need to speak to Emmeline Brontë again. I think you should fetch her and bring her here – she’s the only one that can explain what’s been going on in this room. She obviously knows a lot more than she’s saying, and I think we should take her to visit the corpse in the camper. That might stir her memory.’
Poppa grabbed Tilly’s shoulder bag, newspapers and book, then left Hettie with the torch and struck out across the memorial gardens to fetch Emmeline. His head was down against the driving rain, and the figure standing by the potting shed under the trees went unnoticed.
Hettie continued her search of the room. There were more clothes in an unruly pile on a chair, two suitcases bulging with identical outfits, and a journal on the table by the window. Hettie flicked through some of the pages. The writing looked like a spider had crawled across the paper, dragging the ink behind it. It wasn’t a conventional diary of dates and appointments, but appeared to be page after page of disconnected thoughts and tiny drawings. The thoughts were probably interesting, but there was no time for Hettie to indulge herself in them: there was still the small matter of Downton Tabby’s head to find, and Charlene Brontë could burst through the door at any minute, wielding Muddy’s Excalibur. Hettie put the journal to one side as a job for Tilly and continued to shine the torch around the room. She swept the flashlight across the two beds again, knowing that she would have to look under them before the room search was complete. She chose the one with the bloodied clothes first and lifted the sheet, fully expecting to come face-to-face with matted fur and a disembodied stare; to her relief, there was nothing there at all. Moving swiftly to the other bed, she crouched low and shone the light underneath; again, there was nothing horrific to greet her – only a small hand torch which
she picked up as Poppa came back into the room, even more soaked than when he had left.
‘Bad news, I’m afraid. The bird has flown, which is a bit of a sod, and they’re getting a bit uptight in the hospitality tent. Muddy Fryer is flapping about her next gig and how she can’t afford to miss it, and Turner Page has gone to pieces and is crying his eyes out.’
‘They’re welcome to sort this bloody mess out themselves if they’d prefer,’ said Hettie. ‘I’m not exactly thrilled at having to deal with a headless corpse, a flat-packed author, and what now appears to be two mad sisters on the loose in the middle of a thunderstorm.’
‘Good points, well made,’ said Poppa, as another streak of lightning lit up the room. ‘I wonder how Bruiser’s getting on? He’s been gone for a while.’
‘Maybe we should go and see if we can find him. With two Brontës out there, we need strength in numbers. Why would Emmeline want to put herself in danger, do you think? Or is she in league with Charlene?’
Poppa shrugged his shoulders. ‘Maybe we should leave them to it. With a bit of luck, they’ll kill each other.’
‘Don’t tempt me,’ Hettie said, snatching Emmeline’s journal from the table and marching towards the door. ‘Let’s find Bruiser and sort this out once and for all. We should be able to corner them. My guess is that they’ll find some shelter and lay low till morning, so we need to flush them out. I’ll drop this off in the tent first and see how Tilly is.’
Hettie and Poppa, now armed with two torches, splashed their way across to the hospitality tent. The rain was still sheeting down but the thunder had become more distant, and Hettie was relieved that the worst of the storm was over. In fact, she could hardly have been more wrong: the worst part of this particular nightmare was only just beginning.
There was a reception committee waiting at the entrance to the hospitality tent. Mr Pushkin was doing his best to remain calm and speak as the voice of reason amid a sea of cats who were tired, irritable and more than a little frightened. Emmeline Brontë’s departure from the tent had encouraged those left behind to think that they, too, should be heading home – or, in Muddy’s case, to the next gig. And in spite of Hettie’s request, Downton Tabby’s headless body had been viewed out of natural inquisitiveness by all of the cats except Delirium Treemints, whose nerves required no further stimulation.