The Lonely Hearts Dog Walkers

by Sheila Norton

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ I laughed. ‘It’s probably more difficult not to get to know everyone in a small place like this, isn’t it? Especially as I work at the school.’

  It was true. The barbecue wasn’t a public event, but my friends seemed to have managed to invite everyone I knew, including the staff at the school.

  ‘You’re looking very pleased with yourself about it,’ I said to Amber. ‘What are you plotting?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she laughed. ‘It’s just that I’m bringing a Plus One to the party.’

  ‘Oh, are you! That’s good.’ I gave her a hug, and she pushed me away, laughing back.

  ‘All right, Nic, calm down.’ She smiled, and added. ‘I don’t want a big fuss made about it.’

  ‘Fair enough. But at least tell me who he is.’

  ‘No! Wait till Saturday.’

  I was intrigued, obviously. Amber hadn’t mentioned that she was seeing anyone at any time during the seven months or so that I’d now been back in Furzewell. In fact, she always seemed so determined to turn the conversation away from dating and boyfriends that I’d given up. Why was she being so secretive about it? I wondered if this guy was married. Or someone we knew.

  ‘It’s not Craig, is it?’ I teased her – and she thumped me and shouted an obscenity in response. So not him, at least!

  Ah well. I’d find out on Saturday night. Something else to look forward to.

  On the Thursday, though, we had a different concern. Gran had apparently turned up at Eagle House at lunchtime, when Mum was home from the shop, looking flustered and anxious.

  ‘She said she’d finally plucked up courage to invite this Sidney round last night to watch a rom com or whatever you call it,’ Mum told me when I got in from school.

  ‘Oh, good,’ I smiled. But Mum was shaking her head.

  ‘No, it wasn’t good. Well, I don’t know, it might have been good as far as Sidney goes, or the film, but she’s now more scared than she was when she was watching the bloody zombie films, for God’s sake.’

  ‘How come?’ I stared at Mum. ‘Was it something Sidney said? Or did?’

  ‘No, no, no. I said, it wasn’t Sidney. It was the screams, Nicky.’

  ‘Screams, in a rom com? What the hell film were they watching?’

  Mum sighed, as if I was being deliberately thick.

  ‘That’s the whole point. They weren’t watching films with screaming in, but they could still hear screams. Well,’ she amended, ‘your gran heard them. Sidney, apparently, is too deaf. He normally turns the zombie films right up loud, but she forgot, and had this Love in Paris or whatever it was, playing at a more normal level, and he didn’t like to ask for it to be turned up.’ Mum raised her eyebrows as if in exasperation. ‘She says he’s shy.’

  I smiled again, but Mum was apparently taking it all more seriously than I’d realised, so I tried to keep a straight face.

  ‘And is she absolutely sure the screams weren’t on the love-story film?’ I said. ‘They could have been,’ I added, trying not to smirk, ‘screams of passion.’

  ‘Nicky, this isn’t funny. Your gran is worried all over again now. Whenever she’s heard the screams since we found out about Sidney’s viewing habits, she’s assumed it’s just him watching more films, morning, noon and night. But apparently he denies it now. If the man can even be believed – he sounds such an oddball – she’s hearing screams when he’s not watching anything.’

  ‘Sorry, Mum. But I don’t understand. If the screams aren’t coming from his sci-fi films, why don’t other residents on the complex hear them?’

  ‘Because they’re all too deaf, obviously,’ Mum said, getting impatient now. ‘Your gran’s got unusually good hearing for someone in her eighties. I’m beginning to wish she didn’t. But I really do need to find out what’s going on, once and for all. So that’s where I’m going.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘To her bungalow, of course. To sit with her all evening with no TV or music on, and listen. And sleep there all night, if necessary. I should have done it in the first place. It would have avoided all this worry. All this … zombie and Sidney nonsense.’

  ‘I think she likes Sidney, actually,’ I pointed out. ‘He’s company for her.’

  ‘Company? She could have stayed living here, if company’s all she wanted,’ she retorted.

  I knew I wasn’t going to get anywhere if we started going down that particular road again.

  ‘Well, if you’re going round there, I’ll come too,’ I said instead.

  ‘Don’t be silly, you can’t. Mia will be in bed.’

  ‘We can all sleep there tonight. We can take Smartie.’

  She hesitated. ‘Actually, the dog is a good idea. He’ll bark if there’s anything spooky going on. But you stay here with Mia. I don’t want her being disturbed and upset.’

  ‘You stay here with her then,’ I insisted. ‘Seriously, Mum, I think it’s best if I go. Yes, I’ll take Smartie. If there’s anything going on – which I seriously doubt – Smartie and I will find out. Agreed?’

  ‘Well, OK, then,’ she said, looking at me doubtfully as if she wasn’t sure I’d be up to it. ‘If you insist. But don’t tell Mia you’re going out on some kind of ghost hunt, will you. She’ll be frightened.’

  ‘Of course I won’t. And anyway, it isn’t a ghost hunt, for heaven’s sake. I bet it’s just one of the old boys there, snoring like a steam train, with all his windows open. Something perfectly innocuous like that.’

  I waited until Mia was tucked up in bed, telling her a little white lie about going out with one of my friends.

  ‘I’ll set the alarm on my phone, so that I’ll be back early in the morning, before she’s awake, whatever happens,’ I whispered to Mum.

  ‘Be careful, love,’ she warned me, looking worried. ‘You don’t think we should just talk to Lizzie Barnes again? Or the police?’

  ‘No, Mum. As Gran says, Lizzie’s useless, she won’t do anything. Nor will the police – unless I find someone murdered!’

  ‘That’s not funny,’ Mum protested, shuddering.

  I was smiling to myself as I set off with Smartie to walk round the corner to Nightingale Court. I just couldn’t believe there was really anything to worry about. But it was a breezy night, the clouds scudding across the darkened sky, hiding the moon, and the shapes of trees looming up out of the blackness, branches waving, dry leaves rustling and jumping along the ground. When a frog hopped out of the hedgerow onto the road just in front of us, Smartie and I both nearly jumped out of our skins, and I began to wish I hadn’t joked with Mum about ghosts and murderers. To be fair, it wasn’t funny for Gran, sitting on her own in her little bungalow, hearing these noises – even if she was imagining them. Mum was right, it needed sorting out. And if we didn’t get anywhere with it tonight, I’d have to get Lazy Lizzie on the case again, or come round here myself every night until we’d solved the mystery.

  Gran was pleased to see me.

  ‘I’d rather it was you than your mum, she makes such a fuss,’ she said, pouring me a sherry from the bottle she’d evidently bought for her previous evening with Sidney. ‘And I’m glad you’ve brought Smartie. He’s got more sense than all of us put together. If there’s anything out there, he’ll hear it, right enough, won’t he.’

  ‘Yes, he will. Smartie, lie down, there’s a good boy. Have you heard any noises tonight yet, Gran?’

  ‘Tonight? I’ve heard them on and off all day, Nicky. It’s like I keep saying, I hear them every day, and every night, especially when it’s quiet like this. I stopped worrying about it when we all thought it was Sidney watching his damned silly films – although, truth to tell, the zombie screams weren’t really the same as the screams I hear.’ She gave me a worried look. ‘You don’t think I’m imagining it, do you, love? You don’t think I’ve gone completely gaga?’

  ‘No, Gran, of course I don’t—’ I began, but the conversation never got any further. Because at that moment, Smartie jumped
to his feet, running to the door, barking his head off. ‘What is it, boy?’ I said, putting my sherry glass down. ‘Come on, there’s nothing there. Come and lie back down, that’s right.’

  He’d started to pad back towards us, looking around at the door, giving a suspicious growl deep in his throat. But just as he was going to lie down, we heard it – both Gran and I – a horrible, wailing crescendo that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

  ‘What the—?’ I began, jumping up, as Smartie, barking fit to burst again, ran over to the door and pawed at it, growling and barking and looking back at us, as if to say we needed to let him go out and investigate, right away.

  ‘That’s it,’ Gran said, surprisingly calmly. I suppose she’d got used to it. ‘That’s the screaming I keep hearing. I’m not imagining it, am I?’

  ‘No, you’re not.’ The bloodcurdling sound came again, and without another word I pulled my coat back on and fastened Smartie’s lead. ‘Right. Let’s see what’s going on.’

  ‘Let me come with you,’ Gran said, getting out of her armchair. ‘It might be dangerous.’

  ‘Absolutely not. And it can’t be anything dangerous, not if it’s been going on for as long as you’ve been saying. It’s probably just some teenagers, playing around.’ I hesitated, checking my pocket for my phone, taking it out and turning on the torch. ‘We’ll be fine. OK, Smartie, yes, I know you can still hear it, let’s go.’

  I didn’t have to worry about following the sounds. Smartie’s hearing was obviously so much better than mine, and he was pulling me hard, still growling, so that I had to run to keep up with him. Two bungalows from Gran’s, he stopped dead, his head low, looking up at one of the windows. They were all closed, with the curtains drawn, but I thought I noticed movement, a slight twitching of one of the curtains at the window Smartie was staring at. Despite myself, despite all my no-nonsense talk about it being nothing – teenagers screaming, somebody’s TV, some perfectly rational explanation – my heart was pounding, and not just from running to keep up with Smartie. And then the bloodcurdling noise came again. Smartie let out the loudest and longest series of excited barks he’d ever made, and at the same time, I knew exactly what was in that bungalow, exactly why it was making so much noise, and why Smartie was so desperate to get at it. And two mysteries were solved at once.

  ‘Cats,’ I muttered. ‘Yes, Smartie – it’s cats, isn’t it.’

  Cats – it sounded like lots of them – screaming, squealing and howling, presumably all desperate to get out of there. When one started, they all joined in, which was why the noise rose in such a fearsome crescendo – like someone being murdered. No wonder Gran could hear them at all times of day and night. The other residents must have been even deafer than they thought, or had their TVs turned on twenty-four hours a day, at a deafening volume, if they couldn’t hear this. The sound was going right through me. It was a terrible chorus of anguished wailing, like nothing I’d ever heard. Poor Smartie was beside himself.

  ‘OK, boy. It’s all right. Calm down now.’ I bent to stroke him. ‘Good dog, Smartie. I’m pretty sure you’ve just found the Furzewell Cat Napper.’

  CHAPTER 36

  ‘So have all the cats been returned to their owners now?’ Mum asked.

  We were sitting in the lounge the following afternoon after school, Monty curled up on Mum’s lap. I’d asked Mia to take Smartie out into the garden to run off his excitement. He’d scared the life out of the poor cat when he first arrived home, but to my surprise, his tail had been wagging and he seemed to instinctively recognise that Monty wasn’t just any cat, one that needed a good telling-off and chasing off our territory, but a rather sad-looking, undernourished and nervous member of our own family. I was fairly confident he was going to accept him.

  ‘Yes.’

  I smiled, remembering the excitement in the voices of the various cat owners when I’d worked my way down the list, calling them, telling them to collect their missing cats from the vet’s, where the RSPCA had taken them that morning. Mr Brent had been so moved by the whole thing, he’d promised to check over all the cats free of charge, to make sure their health hadn’t been compromised during their captivity, and to confirm those who had identity chips were being returned to the correct owners. They were mostly, he said, going to be absolutely fine once they’d been well fed and groomed and given lots of TLC.

  ‘And that poor woman’s been taken into care,’ I added to Mum now.

  ‘Poor woman?’ Mum scoffed. ‘She sounds like a complete nutcase. Stealing all those cats and hiding them in that tiny bungalow? No wonder the poor things were howling. If the residents of the complex weren’t all so deaf, playing their TVs at top volume—’

  ‘I know, Mum. But at least Gran heard them. I just wish one of us had gone round there at night-time before – with Smartie! And anyway, I do feel sorry for that Maggie – the cat napper – she’s got dementia. She honestly believed she was rescuing stray cats. Any that came near her bungalow, she took them in, and kept them in, thinking she was saving them from “straying” again.’

  ‘She might have at least looked after them properly.’

  ‘She thought she did. She just got muddled.’

  I’d called the police, the night before, as soon as I’d realised the cats were in her bungalow. Maggie looked at us all in complete confusion when we tried to explain that the cats were other people’s pets. She’d had them all shut in one room, ‘for their own safety’. It was horrendous – I won’t begin to describe it. The RSPCA were called out as a matter of emergency, but as we knew the cats were all local, Mr Brent intervened and took over their care.

  ‘So wasn’t anyone looking after her – Maggie?’ Mum said. ‘Did her family not realise what was going on, for God’s sake?’

  ‘She only has one son, who lives in America,’ I said. I did feel really sad for her, despite the horror of the previous evening. ‘The police managed to rouse Lazy Lizzie to get the son’s phone number – Lizzie’s being replaced, by the way, with immediate effect.’

  ‘Good. About time too.’

  ‘Yes. So they spoke to the son, who was absolutely mortified, had no idea his mum had deteriorated to that extent, and had believed she was being looked after. He obviously hadn’t paid much attention to her situation, sadly – he thought she was in a care home, not in a sheltered complex, looking after herself. He’s flying over as a matter of urgency to sort out a decent home for her.’

  Mum sighed. ‘I suppose she couldn’t help it. It’s that Lizzie’s fault. If she’d ever stepped foot inside that woman’s bungalow to check on her, she’d have known straight away—’

  ‘Exactly.’

  We sat in companionable silence for a while. Monty began to purr, and we both smiled. Mia had been even more excited than Smartie when she heard he was coming home. I remembered how upset she’d been, the first day we arrived back in Furzewell, to find out he’d disappeared – it had seemed as if all her anxiety became bound up in the loss of the cat. She didn’t need him as a comfort blanket anymore, but of course, she was still pleased to bits that he was back. She even shouted out the news to Josh when he came to pick her up that evening.

  ‘Guess what, Daddy!’ She ran out to greet him as he got out of the car. ‘Monty’s back! Mummy and Smartie found him last night.’

  ‘Oh, that is good news,’ he said, giving me a smile as I watched from the doorway. ‘I’m pleased to hear that. So you’re all back together now, then.’

  There was something about the way he said that, the way he looked at me as he waved goodbye after he’d strapped Mia into her car seat that made me wonder if he was lonely. But I gave myself a little shake. He’d never be lonely while he had his work – his only real love in life. And to be honest, if he was, it was his own fault. But despite myself I felt a strange little ache of sympathy and sadness for him after he’d driven off. He seemed … a bit different these days, with his recent talk of regrets, remembering my birthday and being more …
thoughtful. What a shame he hadn’t been more like that when we were still together.

  On the Saturday evening, Mum and I walked round to the park together. We’d asked Gran to come along, but she said she’d see me for my birthday the next day and anyway, ‘after all the fuss’ and now she knew she wouldn’t be disturbed by spooky noises, she just wanted to enjoy the peace and quiet on her own. I suspected Sidney might be keeping her company!

  ‘I’m glad she’s found someone to spend some time with,’ I said to Mum.

  ‘Huh!’ was the response. ‘Why does she want to bother with men, at her age?’

  ‘You do!’ I laughed.

  ‘Well, yes, but only for – occasional entertainment,’ she blustered. ‘Just for fun.’

  ‘And Gran probably just thinks of Sidney as a friend. A companion. What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Nothing, as long as she doesn’t get carried away. Men are useless as friends, and even worse at relationships. As we both know,’ she added pointedly. ‘That’s why it’s much better to have fun with our girlfriends.’

  I sighed. Mum was still so determined to blame every man on the planet for the way Dad had treated her.

  ‘It was twenty-five years ago, Mum,’ I said gently.

  ‘Yes, I do know that, Nicky. And it’s never stopped hurting.’

  I couldn’t really blame her. My father’s betrayal had been so cruel, so without any hint of remorse or care, at the time or ever since. I linked my arm through hers.

  ‘OK. I do get it. But come on, let’s have a good time tonight and not worry about men at all.’

  ‘Too right.’ She smiled back at me. ‘I’m always up for having a good time, Nicky, you know me.’

  It was a dry, clear evening, and by the time we arrived in the park, Simon and Sara already had the barbecues fired up and were cooking what looked like a mountain of sausages, kebabs and corn-on-the-cob. There were fairy lights hung in the trees and it all looked so pretty and welcoming.

  ‘Here’s the birthday girl!’ Louise called out, and everyone cheered. ‘Great work with the cats, Nic,’ she added, and they all cheered again.