by Mandy Morton
Bugs nodded to them as she walked back to the hospitality tent, too distraught to speak. She hated goodbyes, and needed a cup of Delirium’s hot, sweet tea to comfort her. Hettie and Tilly made their way down the corridor to Emmeline’s room, where Tilly knocked discreetly in case the author was asleep. But the cat who flung the door open was very wide awake. She pulled the two friends into her room and shut the door firmly behind them. ‘How nice of you both to drop in,’ she said, circling around them. ‘Please take a seat.’
She pushed Tilly roughly onto the bed and Hettie froze, long enough for their adversary to pick up the knife. ‘Ah, I see you’re a little surprised by your welcome. Sit next to your friend and we’ll have a little chat.’ The cat pointed the knife at Hettie’s chest, gently pushing her towards the bed. ‘Before we begin, I think it best if we make you both a little more comfortable. We don’t want you making a dash for the door, do we?’ She picked up the ropes and threw them at Hettie and Tilly. ‘I want you to tie your legs up nice and tight, leaving a good bit of rope for me to finish the job.’
Hettie glared back at her. ‘Why are you doing this? We saved your life! We stopped your sister from murdering you.’
The demented Brontë threw her head back and cackled. ‘You must be so stupid to think you could outsmart me! You don’t even know who you’re talking to. Just get those ropes on and I’ll introduce myself.’
Tilly responded first by tying the rope around her legs; Hettie followed more slowly, keeping a watchful eye on the knife-waving cat in front of them. When their legs were secured, their new-found enemy put the knife down long enough to bind their paws, making escape impossible. ‘Now then,’ she said, retrieving the knife and teasing Tilly’s whiskers with it, ‘I am Charlene Brontë. She is not the blackened creature you’ve paraded in front of the hordes of cats who have passed through the library. That was my pathetic little sister, Emmeline, who has got in my way since the day she was born. And as for my dear sister Ann, her existence was pointless. She couldn’t stomach Downton Tabby’s death. After I’d sliced his head off, she ran to Emmeline telling tales, so I did her a favour and silenced her – but not before I’d made her put up that nice little display on the bookstall.’
Charlene Brontë shifted the knife towards Hettie and then back to Tilly, as if conducting an orchestra. ‘It will come as no surprise to you that I am going to kill you both. I shall slit your throats, I think – that would be a most pleasing way to end the day. You must decide between you who goes first and who watches, but before I get to work you must have so many questions to ask. Isn’t that why you are here?’
Tilly tried very hard to suppress the sob which rose in her throat. Hettie stared straight ahead, struck dumb by the sudden realisation of her own stupidity. The swapping of the lanyards, the marked resemblance between the three sisters – it had all been an elaborate game, played out with masterly precision. Charlene Brontë had been magnificent and was still in total control. She tried to think back to when the deception started and voiced her thoughts. ‘If Emmeline was the one struck down by lightning, why was she trying to kill our friend Bruiser?’
Charlene smiled, showing a row of perfectly sharp white teeth. ‘Because I told her he was going to kill her. She was only defending herself. He arrived just in time, actually. I thought I was going to have to get rid of her myself, but fate intervened and you swallowed the lie, hook, line, and sinker. It was so easy to become Emmeline after that, lapping up all the sympathy and being the only survivor of her wicked, murderous sister Charlene.’
‘And what about Penny Stone-Cragg? Did she recognise you?’
‘Of course she did,’ admitted Charlene, warming to her subject. ‘She arrived at my door wheezing, and all I had to do was make things worse for her. I confessed my sins and then sat on her inhaler. It was great fun watching her gasp for breath. How she found the strength to escape, I’ll never know, but the puddle finished her, much to my relief – and hers, no doubt. I never liked her. She always preferred Emmeline and Ann, and she didn’t like the way I ran things. She was always interfering. Once she even suggested that I rewrote Jane Hair to make it more like Withering Sights because Emmeline’s book was much more believable. I laughed in her face – lacy mittens, tortured landscapes and ghosts! What sort of book is that?’
Tilly, who’d recovered herself, was tempted to say ‘a very good one’ but she kept silent.
‘It’s amusing to think that you accepted me as Emmeline so easily,’ Charlene continued, pointing the knife back at Tilly. ‘When you came to my door, I had only just changed out of my bloody clothes and finished sedating dear Emmeline and tying her to the bed. I have to admit, I was quite shocked later to find that she’d escaped. It was then that the storm played into my paws. I went to find her, and she was cowering under the bookstall with the sword. I convinced her that we were being hunted and she lashed out at anyone who came near. The bolt of lightning was a stroke of luck for me as well as for your injured friend – it meant that I could become Emmeline, leaving you all to assume that that blackened piece of toast was me, Charlene Brontë, the murderer. I suppose in the end you were right about that.’
The knife moved back to Hettie, who responded by asking a question. ‘Why did you bother holding Emmeline captive? Surely it would have been easier to kill her as well.’
‘I was going to kill her. In fact, I was going to slit her wrists with this knife to make it look as if she’d killed herself out of remorse – it’s the sort of thing she would have done. But thanks to your interference, events overtook me. Your little friend here disturbed her in our room and threw me into a bit of a panic, but it all turned out quite nicely in the end.’
‘So the cat who frightened me in your room was Emmeline?’ asked Tilly, feeling braver.
Charlene laughed again. ‘I think she would have been much more frightened of you at that point. She must have been climbing the walls with fear, because she hated storms. She always hid under the stairs at the slightest puff of Porkshire wind.’
Hettie watched as Charlene forced the knife into Tilly’s face, trying to come up with another question that might delay the inevitable. ‘What do you plan to do next? I mean after you’ve killed us. Surely returning to Porkshire will be a bit difficult after everything that’s happened here?’
‘Oh, I shall not stay long in that godforsaken place. Once I have disposed of the bodies on the moor, I shall put my father out of his misery, lock up the house and walk away. As Emmeline Brontë, I shall be a very rich cat indeed, and I shall buy a house where the sun always shines and leave those dark, forbidding winters behind me. I will even publish her awful poems as my own and enjoy every penny that comes from them. I have lived a pitiful life, perched above the black mills of Teethly, sharing all I have with my sisters in that claustrophobic house on the edge of the moor, and with only the latest burial in the graveyard to brighten my day. My father has served his time on this earth. He mourns my mother in the twilight world in which he now exists, and he will be pleased to join her in the heaven he has spent his life promoting.’
The knock on the door made Charlene jump and she inadvertently stabbed Tilly in the cheek with the knife. Hettie swung her legs high into the air, knocking Charlene Brontë to the ground. The knife spun out of her paw and shot across the floor as Hettie hauled herself off the bed and landed with all her weight on top of the angry cat. Tilly, half blinded by the blood that spurted from her face, bounced across the room to the door and turned the key in the lock with her teeth, allowing Poppa to burst into the room.
‘Blimey!’ was all he could say as he took in the scene. He wasted no time in retrieving the knife from the floor and sliced through the rope that bound Tilly, allowing her to mop her cheek with her bandana. Then he moved to free Hettie as Charlene Brontë rolled away from her, hissing and spitting, her claws arched like talons, daring any of them to come near her. With one mighty leap, she vaulted through the open door, down the hallway and out into the nigh
t. Seconds later, Poppa gave chase with Hettie and Tilly limping along behind – but they were all too late.
The camper’s engine sprang into life as Charlene pushed her foot down hard on the accelerator. The van lurched and resisted until she released the handbrake, then shot forward suddenly, missing the gates entirely and hurling itself at the wall with an almighty bang. Hettie, Tilly and Poppa stared in silence at what remained of the vehicle as it hissed and poured its lifeblood all over the driveway. A mixture of petrol, oil and water gushed from the mangled wreck, filling the air with an acrid smoke. The three cats waited at a safe distance to see if the van would catch fire. Hettie, shocked by the spectacle before her, gradually began to take in the carnage: the bodies that had been so carefully placed in the back of the camper lay strewn across the wreckage: Penny Stone-Cragg had come to rest on a burning tyre; Emmeline’s charred remains had fragmented and popped up at various locations within the crash site; and flat-packed Ann had been catapulted into Mr Pushkin’s prized tea roses. But there was no sign of Charlene.
Suddenly, the whole scene ignited into a giant wall of flames. A series of small explosions followed, and the friends stood back from the heat as the flames – fuelled by petrol – became a raging inferno. Hettie shielded her eyes from the intensity of light as a small fireball detached itself from the main event, rolling along the ground towards the gates and screaming with such intensity that Tilly was forced to put her paws over her ears.
‘Oh my God!’ shouted Hettie. ‘It’s Charlene – she’s survived the crash, only to be burnt alive.’
‘Just like the mad cat in the attic,’ Poppa said as the fireball burnt itself out, leaving a pile of blackened ashes at the gates to Furcross House.
The town’s part-time fire brigade was swift in its response to Mr Pushkin’s emergency phone call, and within minutes of its arrival, the driveway and car park were covered with fluffy white foam as a precaution against any further explosions. As a reward for their labours, the firecats were served with a Deadly Dinner each, which they ate on the steps of Furcross House, keeping a keen eye on the crash site – now a surreal, snowy landscape, as Tilly excitedly pointed out.
Furcross Convention had been encouraged to keep the festivalgoers entertained until the emergency was over, and now – an hour later than planned – a mass exodus of cats flooded through the gates and out into Sheba Gardens, having no real idea of the carnage that lay beneath the blanket of foam through which they paddled. The intensity of the fire had consumed everything, including Mr Pushkin’s rose garden, Penny Stone-Cragg’s Morris convertible, and Lavender Stamp’s ticket kiosk. Days later, when the clear-up began, only the mangled wreck of the camper van was left to bear witness to Charlene Brontë’s reign of terror, although the black scars of the cremations remained until Turner Page ordered several tons of gravel from Agricat and Co.
After a heartfelt vote of thanks from Turner Page for what he called ‘the outstanding service provided by the No. 2 Feline Detective Agency’, Hettie and Tilly bade farewell to the bedraggled company and left Furcross House. They fell wearily into Mr Tiddles’ taxi, accompanied by the Butter sisters and Bruiser, all bound for the same address. Hettie reflected on how she’d almost forgotten what their small but very comfortable room looked like, although her comments fell on deaf ears: all but Sterling Tiddles himself had fallen asleep for the short journey home. No dreams or nightmares visited the occupants of the high street bakery that night; just a long, deep sleep which endured well into the middle of Sunday morning, when the house awoke to the sound of the newspaper clattering through the letter box.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Betty and Beryl Butter had decided over their late morning tea that they would put on a ‘survivors’ tea party’ in their back garden that afternoon. All the helpers from the festival were to be invited, and no expense spared. By the time the glad tidings reached Hettie and Tilly’s room, nearly all the guests had been asked. Beryl had spent a considerable amount of time on the phone, while her sister invaded the ovens with tin upon tin of cake mixture, followed by row upon row of sausage rolls and cheese straws.
‘I’m not being difficult,’ said Hettie, being difficult, ‘but I’ve just spent two bloody days of my life with that lot, and now we’ve got to spend the whole of Sunday afternoon with them as well.’ Tilly giggled and braced herself for the rant that was about to follow. ‘To say it’s been a nightmare just doesn’t do the event justice. I mean, let’s start with the Brontës,’ Hettie continued, getting into her stride. ‘They turn up in that ridiculous camper van, assault Lavender Stamp – although for me that was a highlight – throw their weight around, reorganise the bookstall until they’ve created a riot, heckle the star turn, then chop his head off – and all that before they turn on each other. Add in a serious injury here and there, at least two death threats, a deadly asthma attack and an explosion to rival a low-budget Bond film, and what do we have?’ Tilly held her breath, waiting for the punchline. ‘We have a perfect snapshot of the publishing industry – competitive, greedy, unpleasant and spiteful.’
Tilly felt she should interrupt, if only for the sake of balance. ‘Well, all those things certainly apply to Charlene Brontë, but I think you’re being a bit harsh on the other two sisters. And Polly Hodge and Nicolette Upstart were nice.’
‘That’s not the point,’ said Hettie. ‘We could have had a couple of days by the sea in this heatwave, instead of chasing murderers across the memorial gardens at Furcross House.’
‘But that is what we do,’ said Tilly. ‘We’re the No. 2 Feline Detective Agency. We fix things when they go wrong.’
Tilly’s words silenced Hettie. As always, her friend had given her a different perspective from the cross, bad-tempered world she inhabited, and – looking on the bright side, which Hettie rarely did – they had all survived to fight another day.
The knock on their door made both cats jump. Tilly answered, to find Betty Butter waving the Sunday Snout in the doorway. ‘Seems you two are heroes again! Front page, then full story on pages three to eight. They’ve even dropped the gardening and style pages to make way for it all, although we’ve still got the crossword, thank goodness – Beryl would be beside herself if she couldn’t sit down with her six across later. There’s a few sausage rolls here for you to chew on while you read it.’ Betty passed a plateful of hot pastries to Tilly along with the newspaper and returned to the bread ovens to rescue more treats for the afternoon survivors’ tea.
Hettie pounced on the sausage rolls while Tilly filled the kettle. The two cats sat at the table, pawing over the weekend’s drama through the eyes and words of Hacky Redtop, aided and abetted by pictorial backup from Prunella Snap and her Olympus Trip. Page after page unfolded the sorry tale of a literary festival derailed by Charlene Brontë’s murderous deeds. The tableau took pride of place on the front page with the simple headline ‘THE DEATH OF DOWNTON TABBY’; the inside pages carried pictures of Downton Tabby’s arrival at the festival, the three Brontë sisters landing what seemed to be a collective punch on Lavender Stamp’s nose, and a number of rather fine shots of Muddy Fryer in full flight during her Arthurian cycle.
‘Oooh look! There you are, interviewing Downton Tabby on stage,’ said Tilly, trying to contain her excitement. ‘You look like one of those arty types who come on the telly late at night. And there’s Polly and Nicolette eating a cream tea, and look – there’s Betty and Beryl in the background. I think that’s Delirium’s paw you can see holding a cup and saucer. There’s a lovely one of me with one of the Brontës. I’m not sure which one. It’s a bit chilling to think it might have been Charlene. She seems to be smiling at my T-shirt.’
‘Prunella Snap has excelled herself,’ agreed Hettie, staring with interest at the coverage. ‘It’s hard to believe we were there at all except for these pictures. What a contrast – before and after the murders.’
‘Yes, and before and after the stains on our T-shirts,’ said Tilly, studying her picture a lit
tle closer.
‘It’s a shame they weren’t around to capture the explosion at the end. The editorial’s a bit out of date, but look, we’ve got a good mention on page three.’ Hettie pulled the page towards her to read out loud. ‘“Once again, the town owes a great deed of gratitude to Hettie Bagshot and her intrepid staff at the No. 2 Feline Detective Agency, whose dogged determination and selfless bravery in such extreme and dangerous circumstances have won the day.”’
Tilly clapped her paws with delight. ‘See! That’s just what I was saying earlier. It’s what we do – fix things when they go wrong.’
Hettie conceded that Tilly was probably right, and posted another sausage roll into her mouth while her friend turned out the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet to look for a suitably clean T-shirt for the survivors’ party.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
On the understanding that they would help lay out the afternoon tea, Hettie and Tilly were invited upstairs to the Butters’ kitchen to share in a ‘bite to eat’, as Beryl had put it. The reality was the biggest steak and kidney pie that Hettie had ever seen, accompanied by what Betty liked to call her Lancashire mash – a mountain of fluffy potatoes, drenched in butter and cream. The four cats tucked in with very little conversation, leaving enough pie and mash for a substantial extra portion which Hettie staggered down the garden to Bruiser’s shed with.