Cat Among the Pumpkins

by Mandy Morton

Hettie tried a new tactic. ‘Do you know who killed Mavis Spitforce?’

  Jacob put his head on one side as if thinking up an answer. ‘It is not for me to say. These things are beyond my time. I am the messenger. I bring you no wisdom, just the knowledge that Thaddeus weeps for the souls of his kin. He hides in the church until it is safe to leave. He knows they will hunt him down and kill him.’ Jacob pointed his stick across at the church. ‘Sanctuary, that is all. He watched as the coffins displayed their dead. He hid behind the stones as they buried them in the earth. He looked upon the deceiver who swore false vengeance.’

  ‘Are you telling me that Thaddeus Myers didn’t kill his family and hid in the church to escape his accusers?’ asked Hettie, getting a little short on patience. ‘How can you know that? Is it written down somewhere?’

  Jacob smiled again. ‘Perhaps it will come to pass. It is in the hands of the avenging angel. And now I must bid you farewell. My time is short and there is much to do.’ Jacob turned from the ring of stones and began to walk slowly towards the church.

  Hettie watched him go, then called after him. ‘Wait! Who is the avenging angel?’

  Jacob did not turn round, but his reply was borne clearly on the wind. ‘You are.’

  Hettie shivered. The cold of the churchyard was getting into her bones and her head was full of Jacob Surplus’s riddles. She made her way back towards the main road, delighted to see that Bruiser, Tilly and Scarlet were waiting for her in the lay-by. Tilly was obviously bursting to tell her what she had discovered in the villages, but they decided to postpone an exchange of news until they were in front of a roaring fire.

  On arriving home, Hettie made a beeline for her chair and remained there in silence while Tilly busied herself laying the table for supper and coaxing the fire back to life. Bruiser accepted a warming mug of tea and took himself off down the shed with his sausage pie and cream horn. Tilly could see that her friend was troubled. Hettie had shown no interest in the supper that sat untouched on the table, and Tilly sat quietly on her blanket by the fire, waiting for her to speak. It was some time before she was able to transfer her thoughts to words.

  ‘It seems like someone’s playing a huge game with us,’ she began. ‘I think this Milky Myers stuff is a smokescreen for what’s really happening.’ Hettie struggled from her chair and pulled Mavis’s note from her mac pocket. ‘Look at this. Mavis was obviously convinced that Lavinia was in some sort of danger, and then there’s the will – she decided not to leave her house to Lavinia, yet she leaves enough money for Lavinia to buy a house anyway. And why leave the house in Whisker Terrace to Irene Peggledrip when she has a substantial home of her own? And what did Mavis Spitforce have against Bhaji Dosh? He seems a good, genuine sort, and he obviously loves Lavinia.’

  Tilly listened carefully, jotting down the odd word here and there in her notebook and waiting for the right moment to offer the fruits of her own labours. ‘What about the vicar at St Biscuit’s?’ she asked. ‘Did he shed some light on anything?’

  Hettie shivered at the memory. ‘Well, it was all a bit weird. He appeared in the middle of that snowstorm, standing in front of the Myers’ graves.’

  ‘What snowstorm?’ Tilly looked puzzled.

  ‘The one this afternoon, almost on the dot of three o’clock. Anyway, he showed me the graves of all the Myers who were murdered in the original story and he seemed to know a lot about the case, but he’s not one for a straight answer and I’m still trying to work out exactly what it was that he told me. I think the gist of it is that Thaddeus Myers was innocent and hid in the church to avoid being captured. I suspect from what Jacob said that Thaddeus knew who had killed his family; he probably witnessed the murder of his father and escaped before the same thing could happen to him. But none of that leads us to the present and the cat who killed Mavis and Teezle. My guess is that it’s all to do with family secrets.’

  It was time for Tilly to add her story, although she was rather disappointed not to able to include a snowstorm in the telling; there had been nothing more than a raw wind where she and Bruiser had ventured. She flicked through her notebook until she came to the right page, wanting to be as accurate with the details as possible.

  ‘We started in Much-Purring-on-the-Cushion. Lily Slipper is buried there in St Savouries’. According to the old gravedigger, she was the village hairdresser and electrocuted herself by mistake under one of her hairdryers. Burnt to a crisp, by all accounts. Next came Osbert Tubbs. He had a very successful dairy in the High Street in Much-Purring-on-the-Step. He even had his own small herd of cows, which turned out to be unfortunate.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Hettie, having a very good idea of what was coming next.

  ‘He was trampled to death by them early one morning after he’d finished milking. Not much left to bury, according to the vicar at St Whiskers’.’ Tilly’s account of the death toll around the villages – although tragic for those involved – was beginning to lift Hettie’s spirits; in fact, she found herself stifling a snigger here and there as the list of catastrophes continued.

  ‘Next came Hermione Bundle. She’s got a lovely plot in St Bristles’ in Much-Purring-on-the-Blanket. She was over a hundred when she died. She choked on a gobstopper and was found covered in sherbet behind her sweet counter. The whole village went into mourning for her. Now, Augustus Pump was a nasty one. He ran the local pub in Much-Purring-on-the-Mat.’

  ‘Why was he nasty?’ Hettie asked, beginning to get her appetite back.

  ‘He wasn’t nasty as far as I know; it’s what happened to him. He was in his yard directing the drays towards the beer cellar doors and …’

  ‘He was trampled by the horses?’

  ‘No. He was run over by the cart wheels and squashed into the cobbles. It took them ages to gather up the bits. Most of him is buried in St Mat’s.’ Even Tilly supressed a giggle at this point, and moved on to the final death on Mavis Spitforce’s list. ‘It was hard to find out much about Horace Winkle. He died some time ago, but it appears that he sold seafood from his front room when he could get hold of it. Much-Purring-on-the-Chair is the closest village to the sea besides Southwool, and Horace had connections with cats that fished along the coast. I spoke to an old cat who was sweeping up leaves in her garden, and she said Horace had a big fish tank in his front room – you could choose the fish you wanted while it was still swimming around. She said he’d been attacked by a shoal of jellyfish that were delivered by mistake. He turned bright orange and tripled in size, evidently. That’s probably why he has such a big plot in the churchyard.’

  Both Tilly and Hettie burst out into fits of uncontrollable laughter and it was some time before a certain amount of decorum was restored. Hettie rose from her chair, collected their sausage pies from the table, and carried them back to the fireside. ‘Well, after all that, I’m suddenly starving.’ They made short work of the pies and went straight back to the nuts and bolts of the case. There had been a number of breakthroughs, it seemed; it was just a matter of identifying them.

  ‘Did you work out what the blue boxes were on the map?’ asked Hettie, loading her pipe.

  ‘They seem to mark the places where all those dead cats had shops or businesses. It’s hard to tell exactly, as there are other shops there now. Osbert Tubbs’ dairy is now a huge Dosh Store, and Augustus Pump’s pub is an Indian takeaway with a Dosh shop next door.’

  ‘There seems to be a Dosh Store round every corner of this case,’ said Hettie, settling to her catnip. ‘I wonder when the first branch of the family arrived from India? That family tree Mavis was working on didn’t go back very far. I suppose it was a work in progress.’

  ‘Maybe we should talk to Pakora, like Balti suggested. She’s quite old, and she might know a bit more about her family’s history.’

  The thought of having to interview Pakora Dosh didn’t fill Hettie with any warmth, but Tilly was right and a longer conversation with Rogan could also prove helpful. ‘I think we’ll leave the Doshes until Saturd
ay, it being the perfect day for gunpowder, treason and plot,’ she said, eyeing up the cream horns that sat unmolested on the table. ‘I don’t know why, but I think it’s more important to get our meeting with Irene Peggledrip out of the way first. I’m interested in why she seems to know so much about the times of death for Mavis and Teezle. I wonder if she knows that Mavis left her the house?’

  ‘She should have seen it coming if she’s a real psychic.’

  ‘Mm. And we mustn’t forget that she actually lives in the house where this whole sorry mess began. I think tomorrow will be a very interesting day. And now I suggest we relieve the table of those cream horns and put the milk on for the cocoa.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Friday dawned with a ringing in Hettie’s ears. It persisted until Tilly had successfully negotiated the contents of the staff sideboard to locate the telephone, which rang rarely and only at the least convenient times. During business hours, it was Tilly’s job as office junior to field any outside communications and to give the impression that the No. 2 Feline Detective Agency was a busy and efficient organisation. Today, with Hettie still swathed in her bed covers and Tilly in her winter pyjamas, the impression was a little far from the mark.

  ‘Oh bugger!’ exclaimed Tilly as she backed out of the sideboard, bringing the telephone with her. ‘That’s just typical – it’s stopped. You’d think it would have the decency to wait until I could answer it. It’s plain bad manners to disturb us and then ring off.’ She slammed the offending creature down next to her blanket and put the kettle on. The clock said five past eight and an early morning cup of milky tea might help to repair the jangling nerves of such a rude awakening.

  Hettie, now fully awake, sat up. ‘Why anyone would want to call at this time defeats me. Nobody decent would be awake enough to pick up the phone in the first place.’

  ‘I suppose most cats are up by now if they have jobs to go to,’ Tilly said reasonably, adding an extra sugar lump to her tea.

  ‘Well, they should keep their early rising habits to themselves and not bother the rest of us with them.’ Hettie was about to launch into one of her rants when the telephone rang again.

  Tilly responded immediately, pulling the receiver off the hook. ‘Good morning, the No. 2 Feline Detective Agency, Tilly Jenkins speaking – how may I help?’ Hettie was impressed, and marvelled at what Tilly liked to call her ‘posh voice’. The measured decorum was soon shattered and the caller was clearly in a hurry. ‘Oh, just a minute Miss Anderton – I’ll see if Miss Bagshot is able to take your call.’ Tilly covered the mouthpiece with her paw. ‘It’s Bugs Anderton. She sounds very upset. I think you’ll have to speak to her.’

  Grudgingly, Hettie took the proffered phone. ‘Miss Anderton, what can I do for you?’ It was several moments before she was able to get another word in, but eventually she gained control of the conversation. ‘We have arranged a meeting with Miss Peggledrip today, but we could come and see you tomorrow to discuss this properly if that would help? We have other business in Much-Purring, so shall we say two o’clock?’

  Having finalised the appointment, Hettie passed the phone back to Tilly, who in turn pushed it back into the staff sideboard. ‘Whatever’s the matter with her? I thought there’d been another murder by the way she was shrieking down the phone.’

  ‘Not yet,’ Hettie said wryly, giving the fire a good poke. ‘She’s had a nasty threatening note saying that if she doesn’t clear off back to Scotland she’ll be sharing a plot with her friend Mavis. Evidently there have been some odd things happening in her garden recently, as well – broken panes in her greenhouse, paint sprayed on her rose garden, and bags of rubbish appearing from nowhere. On the face of it, it doesn’t seem very serious, but coupled with the threatening note and the fact that it all sounds very similar to the problems Mavis was having a few weeks ago, I think we should look into it. We have to pay a call on Pakora Dosh tomorrow anyway, so we’ll kill two birds with one stone. Today we enter the weird and wonderful world of Irene Peggledrip and her friend Crimola.’

  Tilly clapped her paws in excitement. She had been looking forward to visiting the town’s medium all week, and sprang to the filing cabinet to select the garment that she thought would be most suitable for the day’s adventure. After much pondering over which colour would best suit her first foray into the spirit world, and a complete fashion parade in front of a disinterested Hettie, she decided on the purple cardigan with hood and bright yellow buttons – the one she had picked out right from the start. Several rounds of toast and cheese triangles later, she tidied their room whilst Hettie strode off down the garden to wake Bruiser, only to find him in deep conversation with Beryl Butter about her plans for the bonfire night celebrations the next day. Hettie had already stepped forward as chief firework warden and would be giving her display, assisted by Tilly as torch bearer and carrier of matches. Bruiser, it would appear, was being coerced into taking charge of the bonfire in exchange for as many sausage rolls as he could eat.

  Satisfied that her new recruit was on board, Beryl bustled back up the garden to help her sister with the breakfast rush in the shop. Hettie helped Bruiser throw some more wood onto the bonfire, which was beginning to look impressive.

  ‘This’ll go up a treat tomorrow, as long as we don’t have any rain,’ he said, pleased to be part of the party. ‘What yer got in store fer us today?’

  Hettie took a moment to respond as she picked a splinter out of her paw. ‘Nice things this morning, odd stuff this afternoon. We have to go to Hambone’s to pick up the fireworks for tomorrow, that’s the first job; then lunch and off to the Peggledrip house for God knows what this afternoon. If you don’t fancy staying, you can drop us off and pick us up later.’

  Bruiser appreciated Hettie’s diplomacy but was quite enjoying his role as bodyguard. ‘No, I’ll wait fer yer. Yer might need a quick getaway from there.’ Strangely, Bruiser was right.

  Tilly was waiting excitedly when Hettie got back to their room. ‘Look – Betty’s dropped off the money for the fireworks. She said they’ve raised twice as much as last year by putting an extra penny on their Halloween novelties.’

  ‘We’d better get a move on, then, if you’re going to choose them this year. It’s a big responsibility.’

  She waited for the words to register with her friend, and wasn’t disappointed. ‘Me? Do you mean me to choose the fireworks?’ Tilly squealed, forgetting her arthritis and dancing round the room. She swung the bag of money about so vigorously that she collapsed in a fluffy heap on Hettie’s giant red bean bag, unseating the twelve-string guitar which Hettie only just caught before it crashed to the floor.

  Hettie laughed at the sheer joy on Tilly’s face. ‘Come on. Bruiser will be waiting for us. We’ll let Meridian Hambone count the money while you pick out your display.’

  Bruiser was posting the end of one of the Butters’ finest sausage rolls into his mouth when Hettie and Tilly joined him in the High Street. It occurred to Hettie that he was becoming quite a hit with the sisters, who were obviously enjoying having a strong pair of male paws about the place. He had certainly settled into his position at the No. 2 Feline Detective Agency, and Hettie’s fear of having to drive the motorbike quite slipped away from her as she and Tilly settled into Scarlet’s sidecar to be chauffeured to Hambone’s in the style to which they had both become accustomed.

  Meridian Hambone squawked with delight as Tilly swung the firework money onto her counter. ‘Gawd love us! This’ll buy yer plenty of whoops and bangs, and I got ’em on specials today – four fireworks gets yer a free pack o’ me sparklers.’

  Tilly clapped her paws in delight. She loved watching the fireworks as they exploded into showers of gold and silver in the bonfire night sky, but sparklers were her ultimate joy and the anticipation of writing her name with a fizzing stick of magical sparks was almost too much to look forward to. Hettie collected a wire shopping basket and stood patiently whilst she debated over how to strike the perfect balance b
etween spectacular, pretty and just plain noisy. ‘I think I’ll do the ones on the floor first,’ she said, to no one in particular. ‘Golden Rain, that’s a nice one, and Roman Candles – four of those. The pyramiddy things look exciting – I think four of those as well.’

  Hettie loaded the basket as Tilly worked her way through the ‘pretty’ part of her choices, moving on to what she liked to call ‘the tricky ones’. ‘I suppose we’d better have some Jumping Jacks, although I got chased by one last year and it made me drop my toffee apple. Then there was the Catherine Wheel incident.’ Hettie nodded sagely, remembering the moment when the spinning firework had detached itself from the fence to which she had nailed it and completed its colourful swirling in Lavender Stamp’s newly knitted cloche hat, much to Lavender’s surprise and the delight of those who had been made to stand a little too long in one of her queues. Thinking aloud, Tilly continued. ‘But it wouldn’t be the same without the Catherine Wheels, so I think eight of those and four Jumping Jacks and four of those Aeroplanes.’

  The basket was now full of colourful tubes of gunpowder of every shape and size, and Tilly reached the ‘spectacular’ section of her display – the rockets. Much to the annoyance of Creamy Float the milk-cat, Tilly had been hoarding empty bottles for several weeks to ensure that the Butters’ rocket display would be a magnificent spectacle; it was traditionally saved until the end of the firework display, just before the lighting of the bonfire. Now, the rockets stood on their sticks like soldiers across the back of the display cabinet, starting with the smaller ones and building to the giant spaceship shapes with cardboard fins and wings. Remembering the deal on the sparklers, Tilly selected four of each size, giving her twenty-four rockets in total.

  Hettie staggered to the counter under the weight of Tilly’s choices, just as Meridian had finished counting the firework money. ‘Near as damn it, twenty pounds there. Old Guy Fawkes’d be pleased to ’ave that much gunpowder!’ she squawked as she began adding up the contents of Hettie’s basket. Eventually, after several recounts and much crossing out on the notepad she kept by the till, Meridian was able to give the financial statement that Hettie and Tilly had been waiting for. ‘I makes that nineteen pound and threepence, with twelve free packs of sparklers.’ Hettie was pleased that Tilly’s extravagance hadn’t broken the bank, and Tilly was ecstatic at having achieved so many packets of free sparklers. It was going to be a very fine display.