The Michaelmas Murders

by Mandy Morton

  Tilly tried to look grateful as Hettie forced the subject away from the chutneys and back onto the murder case. ‘How do you get on with the other residents up here?’ she asked, eyeing up the coiled barbed wire that crawled along the boundary fence.

  ‘They’re a nice bunch of cats, really,’ Apple replied. ‘I get on well with Blackberry. I grow pumpkins for her scarecrow heads, and that works well. I scoop the flesh for me creamed pumpkin puree and she has the outside skin to stuff for the heads. Come up like leather, they do. Last all winter.’

  Hettie was beginning to wonder whether Apple had ever had a conversation that didn’t include preserves, but pushed on with her interview, rephrasing the question. ‘How do you get on with Jeremiah Corbit?’

  The sunny disposition disappeared from Apple Chutney’s face. Her whiskers drooped and she stared down at her boots. ‘He’s the worst thing about this place. Sometimes I wish one of his horrible compost heaps would swallow him up. He’s a bully, and plain nasty with it. He thinks he’s in charge up here, and he watches me when he thinks I’m not looking. It’s creepy, really, and he hasn’t got a good word to say for the others, either, especially the older cats like the Mulch sisters and Miss Jingle. Oh dear! I can’t believe she’s dead. Blackberry said she was stabbed hundreds of times. Why would anyone want to do that? She was an old cat who loved her flowers and kept herself to herself, although she was very partial to my seasonal piccalilli. She liked it with one of Mash Wither-Spoon’s pork pies. Her cold water pastry’s a triumph. Wins first prize at the show every year.’

  Hettie was more than a little surprised to discover that Mash Wither-Spoon’s talents ran to pork pies as well as very amateur dramatics, but she said nothing. It was time to move on. The very mention of pork pies reminded her that she and Tilly were invited to lunch at Wither-Fork Hall, and there were still cats to question on the allotments; the morning was slipping away from them. Saying their goodbyes and offering a polite thank you for the onion chutney, they left Apple to her shallots and returned to the path.

  ‘Who’s next?’ asked Tilly, trying to cram the jars of onion chutney into her cardigan pockets without much success.

  ‘I think we’d better pay a call on Blackberry Tibbs to see how she is. The shock might be wearing off, in which case she may be able to shed some more light on Gertrude Jingle’s death.’

  Not wishing to cause further upset, Hettie left the sack containing the bloodied knife at Blackberry’s gate. Tilly followed suit and divested herself of the chutneys, and the two cats entered the strange world of Blackberry Tibbs.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Hettie had been struck by the individuality of the allotments that she and Tilly had visited so far. The stark contrast of the Chits’ homely existence with Jeremiah Corbit’s bleak and colourless patch of land were perhaps the extremes, but the vision of what rose up before them on entering Blackberry Tibbs’ plot could never have been predicted. ‘Ooh look!’ said Tilly, catching her breath. ‘It’s just like those Chinese cats made of pottery. Row after row of them, all different. How lovely!’

  Hettie had to agree that the legion of scarecrows did indeed resemble a rather dishevelled version of the terracotta army, which they had recently seen on TV. Unlike Tilly, she found the scale of Blackberry’s endeavours rather alarming. ‘I wouldn’t want to be up here after dark with this lot,’ she said, coming face-to-face with a figure that stared back at her through a bright-orange pumpkin mask.

  The scarecrows were all of cat height and proportions, each secured to the ground on a single stake, which allowed the limbs to move freely. On closer inspection, it was clear that each scarecrow was as individual as any cat, and the clothes seemed to have been drawn from every century and every way of life. Tilly danced among them, marvelling at each new discovery. ‘Look at this one,’ she said, eyeing up a flamboyant cavalier who stood a head taller than she was. ‘And here’s an old-fashioned chimney sweep. Look over there at that shiny one – it’s wearing a spacesuit, and this one looks like Top Cat.’

  Not wanting to crush Tilly’s enthusiasm, Hettie allowed her to wander among the scarecrows as she made her way towards an old railway carriage, set back from the assembled company. The maroon and black carriage was left over from the age of steam and boasted a platform at the front, complete with a number of scarecrows dressed as railway workers who could easily have stepped out of Brief Encounter, one of Tilly’s favourite films. The face of Blackberry Tibbs stared from one of the many carriage windows as Hettie approached. She knocked on the central door and let herself in, not waiting for an invitation. Blackberry’s swollen eyes and tear-stained face made it instantly clear that she had taken the discovery of Gertrude Jingle’s body very hard indeed. She nodded to Hettie to sit on the bench seat opposite her own as she blew her nose and added the used tissue to a mountain of others on the floor by her feet. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, looking across at Hettie. ‘I expect you see nasty things like this every day in your work, but I just can’t get the sight of poor Miss Jingle out of my head. I should try and pull myself together. I’m supposed to be up at the Hall cooking lunch, and Miss Wither-Fork needs to know what’s happened.’

  Hettie took in the interior of the carriage, noticing a neatly laid out galley kitchen at one end. ‘Why don’t we have a cup of tea, and then we’ll all go up to the Hall and speak to Miss Wither-Fork,’ she said, as Tilly made a perfectly timed entrance, bustling towards the small cooker in the galley to take up tea duties. Blackberry responded by blowing her nose again and pointing out that there were some chocolate finger biscuits in a tin by the tea caddy. Tilly filled the kettle from the small sink, located three mugs from one of the cupboards, and spooned tea into a brown, well-used teapot. The kettle, sensing the urgency, wasted no time in coming to the boil and sang its heart out briefly as Tilly prepared the mugs with milk and sugar.

  When all three cats were settled with tea and biscuits, Hettie felt that this was a good moment to ask a few questions; it was some time since Blackberry had blown her nose, and Hettie took this as a signal to open her enquiries, nodding to Tilly to jot down any important responses in her notebook. ‘I know this must be difficult for you,’ she began, ‘but could you run through the sequence of events that led you to the discovery of Miss Jingle’s body?’

  ‘I’ll try,’ said Blackberry, dipping a chocolate finger into her tea. ‘When I collected the lilies from Miss Jingle yesterday, she told me to call in again this morning to pick up some more for the harvest festival arrangements in the church.’

  ‘When is the harvest festival?’

  ‘On Friday, Michaelmas Eve – the anniversary of Lettuce Wither-Fork’s accident in the church. We all send some produce to decorate the altar on that day in celebration of her gift to us.’

  ‘And what do you send?’ asked Hettie, out of interest.

  ‘I’ve got the best job,’ said Blackberry, warming to her subject. ‘I’ve recreated the whole of the Wither-Fork family from that time, including Lettuce. Miss Wither-Fork is letting me display them in the family pew.’

  ‘As scarecrows!’ exclaimed Tilly, still fascinated by the whole subject.

  ‘Well, not exactly. The cats round here call my figures scarecrows, but I like to think they’re more than that. Very few of them end up scaring crows in fields. We have a scarecrow competition at the Michaelmas Show, and I make them to order for most of the residents up here. They come up with the ideas and I do the rest. It’s fun to see whose idea wins.’

  ‘What about all those lovely ones on your allotment?’ asked Tilly. ‘Are they for the show?’

  ‘Not really. They’re sort of in stock. I make a lot of them for theatres, or as extras in films when budgets won’t run to paid actors – crowd scenes, mostly. I’ve done several zombie films and lots of dead bodies in battle scenes, too.’

  At the mention of dead bodies, Blackberry was suddenly pulled back to the vision of Gertrude Jingle’s corpse and felt the need to blow her nose again. Het
tie seized the moment to ask another question. ‘When I spoke to Miss Jingle yesterday, she said some very odd things about Micks Wither-Spoon – were they friends?’

  ‘She had time for him,’ said Blackberry, adding another sodden tissue to the pile. ‘She loved the theatre, so she encouraged him and Mash with their plays. I think they made her laugh a lot. She used to say that watching one was a real tonic. She rarely left her lilies unless there was an event up at the Hall, and then she’d turn out in all her finery.’

  ‘So what time did you go to Miss Jingle’s allotment this morning?’

  ‘It must have been about ten, because I saw the bus at the top of the hill. I looked for her in the garden at first, as her door was open and it was such a lovely sunny morning. I called out to her several times because she could be a bit deaf when she wanted to be, but there was no reply so I went towards the door. That’s when I saw her.’ Blackberry crumpled into a bout of sobs. Hettie waited patiently for the current wave of distress to subside while she caught up with two chocolate fingers, which were waiting to be dunked in her tea. Pulling herself together, and adding another tissue to the pile on the floor, Blackberry continued, ‘It seems strange to think of it now, but it was the lilies that upset me. Miss Jingle loved her flowers, and to see them scattered all over the floor in such a violent way – and the blood, so much blood. I couldn’t bear it. I just shut her door and ran down the allotment path, colliding with Jeremiah, who was coming out of his gate. I can’t remember what I said to him, but he told me he’d seen you going into the gatehouse and said I should tell you what I’d found. He offered to stand guard at Miss Jingle’s until I got back.’

  Hettie drained her mug and Tilly collected them up and put them in the small sink, sliding open what she hoped would be the cutlery drawer. Glancing at the array of matching knives, forks and spoons, she could find nothing that resembled the weapon used to kill Miss Jingle; in fact, there was nothing with a wooden handle of any sort. Closing the drawer quietly, she passed down the carriage as Blackberry gathered herself to set out for Wither-Fork Hall. Hettie retrieved the sack and the chutneys which she’d left at Blackberry’s gate, and the three cats adopted a brisk pace up the allotment path. They passed the gatehouse where Mash Wither-Spoon was grappling in the back garden with an unruly line of washing. She chased after them with her clothes prop in one paw and a bunch of letters in the other. ‘If you’re going up to the Hall you could save me a trip,’ she said, catching up with them. ‘These came for Fluff this morning – bills, mostly, by the look of them.’ Blackberry took the letters and Mash returned to her laundry, behaving quite normally. Hettie made a mental note that the sooner she could pin the Wither-Spoons down to a proper interview, the better.

  The grounds of Wither-Fork Hall were buzzing with excitement as tents were erected, car parks laid out, and a constant procession of tables, chairs and catering items unloaded from several vans. Hettie looked around at the scale of preparations for the Michaelmas Show, which was still three days away; already it seemed to be taking over most of the grounds in front of the Hall. As they drew closer to the industrious hubbub, the figure of Fluff Wither-Fork loomed large in the centre of the proceedings, directing and redirecting the army of cats who’d been enlisted to make her annual event a success.

  Seeing Hettie, Tilly and Blackberry approaching, Fluff broke away from the workers to greet them. ‘Good morning,’ she said, every bit the baronial matriarch, but stopped dead at the look on Blackberry’s face. ‘Whatever’s happened now? Please don’t tell me there’s more trouble.’

  Hettie decided to save Blackberry from another painful explanation by bearing the bad news herself. ‘I’m afraid it’s Miss Jingle,’ she said. ‘She’s been murdered during the night, and poor Blackberry here found her.’ The air of authority dropped from Fluff Wither-Fork’s face, and she visibly crumpled before them. Tilly stepped forward to prop her up. ‘Shall we go back to the Hall?’ Hettie suggested, wanting to shield Fluff’s distress from a legion of onlookers.

  ‘No, let’s go to the church,’ said Fluff, trying desperately to regain her composure. ‘I’ve got to meet the vicar there in half an hour, and she’s supposed to be coming to lunch.’

  ‘Shall I go and get it ready?’ offered Blackberry, not wishing to go through the discovery of Gertrude Jingle’s body again and happy to leave that discussion to Hettie and Tilly.

  ‘Yes please, Blackberry – that would be most helpful. The Reverend Stitch is a stickler for timekeeping, and she has a funeral at three back in the town.’ At the mention of funerals, the landowner crumpled again, and this time both Hettie and Tilly came to the rescue, steering her towards the small church, which stood to the right of Wither-Fork Hall. Blackberry Tibbs, pleased to be off the hook, scampered back in the direction of the house to create a cheese and potato pie for which Fluff Wither-Fork would have no appetite.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  St Wither-Fork’s Church had stood for centuries, serving the family’s religious and community needs. It was surrounded by a graveyard full of retainers and descendants, and the principal members of the family were laid to rest in an elaborate vault below the church floor. Hettie loved graveyards and was fascinated by the decorative architecture offered by most churches, but she had no time for what she regarded as the pomp and ceremony attached to the Gospels, which still seemed to dictate the lives of cats who chose to follow out-of-date doctrines. Loving your neighbour if you didn’t like them seemed to Hettie a pointless exercise, and coveting their ox was even more ludicrous. It was the hypocrisy she hated most, the so-called divine right to set one cat above another in pursuit of a better place in the next life, and the ability of those who had given themselves that divine right to sit in judgement on others who refused to embrace their beliefs. The thought of sitting down to lunch with the Reverend Stitch had brought on a mild bout of indigestion – although one too many chocolate fingers from Blackberry’s tin might also have been to blame.

  The church was cold and gave off a strong smell of damp as the three cats entered; only the sunshine streaming through the stained-glass windows at the altar gave any colour to the place. The patterns of long-dead saints played out across the giant stone slab that marked the entrance to the Wither-Fork tomb in the centre of the floor. The rest of the church was laid out in neat rows of pews, with an elaborately carved stone font at the back, which had no doubt welcomed many a Wither-Fork kitten.

  Hettie was about to offer the details of Gertrude Jingle’s death to Fluff Wither-Fork when she noticed that they weren’t alone. The front pew to the left of the altar was taken up with four cats, their heads slightly bowed in prayer or contemplation. Following her gaze, Fluff gave a nervous laugh. ‘You can speak freely in front of them. They’re all long dead and below the floor where we stand. What you see there is Blackberry’s interpretation of Lettuce Wither-Fork and her kin. She’s made them up especially for the harvest festival service and put them in the family pew.’

  Tilly wasted no time in exploring Blackberry’s models. They were frighteningly realistic – three male cats in medieval dress, and Lettuce herself in a sea-green gown with jewelled bodice and tiny silver slippers peeping out from the hem of her dress. The cat’s face had a kind, noble air, and although Tilly wouldn’t say it out loud, the model bore a definite resemblance to Fluff herself.

  Hettie chose a pew at the back of the church and sat down to recount the morning’s events. Fluff sat quietly, listening to the gory details and staring at the altar, lost in a grief that had more to do with herself than the death of one of her residents. Her response, when it finally came, weighed up the practicalities of the situation. ‘Everything must be destroyed,’ she said, taking Hettie by surprise. ‘It was her wish to be cremated on her plot, along with all her flowers. She told me when she first came here that when she died that’s how she wanted it to be. She said that fire purifies, and that she couldn’t bear to leave her flowers behind as no one would love and care for them as mu
ch as she did.’

  Gertrude Jingle’s final wishes made perfect sense to Hettie. Her brief encounter with the dead cat had made it clear that she and her garden were one. Spiritually, it seemed rather a fine way to go, but she had been horribly snatched from her contented life and her killer was still out there somewhere, perhaps planning to strike again.

  Hettie decided to address the issues of the case with Fluff before the imminent arrival of the Reverend Stitch. ‘We’ve been slightly derailed by Miss Jingle’s murder,’ she said, as Tilly joined them in the pew. ‘The dead stranger may or may not be connected to the latest murder, but my concern is that other cats could be at risk. It might be best for all concerned if you cancelled the Michaelmas Show, or at least postponed it until the killer’s caught.’

  ‘That’s impossible,’ said Fluff. ‘I’ll be bankrupt if I cancel, and what about all the cats who depend on me? Wither-Fork Hall is finished, and all of us who live here if we don’t get the revenue from the show.’

  ‘Maybe that’s the point,’ said Tilly, in a rare outspoken moment. Hettie and Fluff shot a look at her.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Hettie asked.

  ‘Well, if the killer killed the stranger, thinking that the show would be cancelled and it wasn’t, then if they thought by killing again it would be cancelled, that would be a good reason for doing it twice. If they still haven’t managed to stop the show, they may kill again, or they may think that by killing again the show still won’t be cancelled so they won’t bother. So there doesn’t seem much point in cancelling the show, otherwise cats have been killed for nothing and everyone loses, not just the cats who’ve been killed already.’

  Fluff Wither-Fork and Hettie continued to stare at Tilly, both trying hard to follow her logic. They were mercifully interrupted by the thick oak door of the church being barged open. A portly, wheezing, long-haired ginger cat stood in the doorway, instantly recognisable from the white collar that wrapped itself tightly around her neck, making every attempt to confine the cleric’s triple chins. Seeing that she had a congregation of seven, including the effigies of the long-dead Wither-Forks, she instantly kicked into vicar mode, using the acoustics of the church to enhance her sing-song voice. ‘Good morning to all, and such a glorious one, too. God has seen fit to bless us with this joyful day that we may go about His work with an open heart in thankful praise of the life He has given us. Or, as I said to the young cat during my weekly broadcast on our local radio station, God moves in mysterious waves!’