Under Suspicion

by The Mulgray Twins

  When she showed considerable interest in the planter of orchids, I could sense Gerry’s tension. An investigative paw created havoc among the fragile white blooms, but there was no follow-up crooning purr.

  ‘She’s not signalling a find,’ I said quickly, not wanting to build up hope. ‘I think Ambrose’s floral display must be harbouring some kind of wildlife.’

  Proving me right, a large brown moth fluttered up, dislodged by a forehand swipe of her paw.

  ‘Over there, G. Search.’ I pointed at the long white couches, the sofa-equivalent of stretch-limos. It wasn’t likely that the dogs would have missed hollowed-out cushions or anything stuffed down between them, but on the off chance… We watched her scamper over the white leather, then head once more for Black Prince’s empty bowl.

  ‘That’s the only thing she’s interested in.’ Gerry’s voice was flat with disappointment.

  A snuffle, a petulant nudge of bowl with nose, a hopeful scour with the tongue for any missed morsel and she stared up at us, Gorgonzola transmogrified into Oliver Twist.

  ‘Work, G,’ I said sharply, much mortified. Distraction from the search is ranked as a major shortcoming even in a trainee sniffer.

  A tentative tap on the doorframe was followed by a hesitant cough. We turned to see a blue-uniformed, tubby policía officer holding up an expensive leather cat-carrier.

  ‘Problema, señor. Que vamos hacer con este gato?’

  Through the carrier’s gold-gridded window, framed by a black halo of fur, glared the Brute of Samarkand’s baleful orange eyes.

  ‘Do with the cat?’ Gerry was momentarily puzzled.

  ‘Your first audience with Black Prince, Gerry.’ I hadn’t realised the animal was on the yacht.

  Cats can recognise their own bowls. The orange eyes narrowed, targeting G who was holding down the bowl with a paw, while her nose energetically hoovered the interior.

  Behind me I heard a gasp and a grunt of, ‘Hostia! Estáte quieto, cabrón!’ The Spanish equivalent of ‘Shit! Keep still, you bugger!’

  I swung round. The sergeant’s short fat arms were struggling to encircle a cat-carrier that seemed to have developed a life of its own. I saw Gorgonzola look up, then unhurriedly sit back on her haunches ostentatiously licking her paw, a calculated pouring of oil on the flames, a deliberate goading beyond endurance of the owner of the bowl.

  Gerry moved forward. ‘Cuidado, hombre!’

  Too late. A snarling tsssh erupted from the carrier. It juddered and bounced. Tearing itself free from the policía’s arms, it thudded to the floor, the door-catch burst open and a spitting whirlwind of black fur rampaged out and rocketed towards the usurper.

  I screamed. Gerry swore. The policeman’s fingers instinctively clasped the butt of his gun. Only Gorgonzola remained unfazed. Macho neighbourhood moggies, uppity trainee sniffer-dogs, hi-tech Robocat, all in their turn had been flattened by a lightening uppercut from her ginger paw. One second that paw was peacefully performing her postprandial ablutions, the next it had metamorphosed into a razor-sharp Edward Scissorhands-cum-Joe Louis weapon of war.

  THWACK. Ill-prepared by a pampered life of caviar and cushions for this Shock-and-Awe-style attack, Black Prince staggered back, murderous hellcat rampage abruptly terminated.

  THWACK. Hit the enemy before he can recover. Hit the enemy while he’s down. In the light breeze from the door, tufts of fine black fur wafted up like giant fluffy seeds from a freak dandelion.

  ‘Do something, somebody!’ I shrieked.

  The sergeant shifted indecisively from foot to foot.

  I grabbed the nearest thing to hand, one of the expensive orchids from the planter, and flung it at Black Prince. What I hadn’t realised was that the roots were encased in a plastic pot full of bark chips. Halfway through the trajectory, pot and plant parted company. The orchid nosedived to the deck, dirty wet fragments of bark showered down on pristine white leather, and the empty pot hurtled onward with increased velocity to torpedo Gorgonzola who was crouched to deliver the coup de grâce.

  Miaooow. She cast a reproachful look in my direction.

  ‘Not too clever, Deborah. Whose side are you on?’ In two strides, Gerry was at the bar and reaching for the water jug.

  Ptshhh. Taking advantage of G’s momentary lapse of attention, Black Prince pounced. Sharp teeth clamped down viciously on a moth-eaten ear.

  With the fluid technique of a ten-pin bowler going for a strike, Gerry swung the litre jug with the full force of his arm. A mini curtain of water arced across the room.

  Splattt.

  In a trice, the menacing black puffball deflated to bedraggled black floor mop. For a couple of seconds Black Prince crouched dazed and dripping. Gorgonzola seized her chance. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.

  Gerry flourished the jug in a victory salute. ‘Atta girl!’

  Hchwaaa-a-a. Ambrose’s Treasure streaked for the open door.

  ‘Hostia!’ One second too late, the sergeant stuck out a boot to block Black Prince’s exit.

  ‘Shit!’ One second too late, I made a grab for Gorgonzola.

  In a blur of black and ginger, they’d skedaddled, vamoosed, hopped it, done a bunk. Gone.

  I beat both men out into the corridor. The oiled teak floor and whisper-grey walls lit by a double row of runway-style lights stretched ahead with no sign of cats.

  ‘That’s all we need,’ said Gerry at my shoulder. ‘Vanheusen’s prize moggie minus an eye, or panicked into jumping ship, “missing, believed drowned”. The lawyers will certainly have a field day.’ He took off his glasses and polished them. ‘Well, you’re the cat guru. How are we going to calm them down?’

  ‘They went that way.’ I pointed at the spatter of drips on the teak floor. ‘Wherever they are, they won’t be sitting quietly purring to each other, there’ll be one hell of a racket. We’ll track them down easily enough.’ I snatched up the cat-carrier and set off at a run. ‘If there’s any of that caviar left in the fridge, bring a couple of plates.’ Given the choice – caviar, or murder and mayhem – there’d be no contest.

  As I hesitated at a T-junction, I heard behind me the heavy pounding of police-issue boots and the laboured breathing of the decidedly unfit policía.

  I pointed to the open glass doors leading to the sundeck. ‘You go that way, but get some help. It is muy importante that these cats are recovered safely.’

  He lumbered past, wafting the sharp tang of sweaty armpit.

  To the left stretched a clone of the corridor where I was standing, the same teak floor, grey walls, runway-style double row of lights. As I ran past more doors, some ajar, I listened out for catty shouts and screams from within. No luck. I hesitated at the top of stairs with the arrowed notice Boat Launch and Sea Bathing. Had I heard a faint mew?

  ‘Gorgonzola?’ I called tentatively.

  Only the low hum of air-conditioning, a muffled shout from out on deck, the slap of water on the hull.

  But I was sure I hadn’t been mistaken. I’d heard something. Time to show who was boss. ‘Here, G. That’s an order.’

  Air-conditioning hum, water slapping…

  I said, louder, ‘An order, G.’

  A mew, definitely a mew. Not the mew of a petulant, aggressive Black Prince. Not the mia-oow of G on the make, winsomely pleading I’m-a-poor-little-deserving-cat. But I’d heard something like it before…I couldn’t quite place it…

  The sound must have come from one of the open doors I’d just passed. I glanced back. Gerry was half-running towards me from the T-junction, balancing two heaped plates of caviar with the exaggerated care of a competitor in an egg-and-spoon race.

  ‘Along here. I heard something, Gerry.’

  In two strides I was peering in the nearest door. An engraved brass plate read Ambrose Vanheusen. The salon-cum-office area was fitted out with maple wood panelling, a gentleman’s-club-style desk, and green leather chairs and sofa – all very masculine. Across the room, through the half-open door, I could see more maple wood panel
ling and the foot of an oversized bed.

  ‘Gorgonzola?’

  From the bedroom issued a loud, rumbling purrrrrr. Long, smug and self-satisfied. It was the victory cry of a cat triumphant, signifying an enemy dealt with. Dealt with to the victor’s satisfaction. Purrrrrr.

  Again, just audible, I caught that weak mew. Sound triggers memories. Into my mind flashed the picture of four drowned kittens washed up against a riverbank, and a half-drowned Gorgonzola clinging desperately to the half-submerged log, a tiny mewing ball of ginger fur…

  Through the hum of the air-conditioning, I heard a watery splosh, splattsplosh, followed a second later by that triumphant purrrrrr. Throat dry, heart pounding, I ran across to the open bedroom door. One glance took in ceiling spotlights blazing down on a rockery of small square pillows piled up on the oversized bed. Vanheusen seemed to be obsessed with brass. It was everywhere, gleaming against dark wood panelling: brass handles on drawers and side tables, brass covers on light switches, brass swivel arms on reading lights, more brass round the full-length mirror and on the picture-light over a portrait of Samarkand Black Prince sporting a flamboyant Champion of Champions rosette. Apart from a huge vase of flowers on a brass-bound chest, the whole ambience was, like the salon-cum-office, overpoweringly masculine.

  No sign of either cat here, but from the en suite bathroom came an ominous splash splash mia-ow. Purrrrrr.

  Behind me Gerry’s shoes brush-scuffed on the salon carpet. ‘Got ’em cornered have you, Deborah?’

  I flung myself across the bedroom and into the bathroom, all dark wood cabinets, gold-plated taps, green marble. And more lights. Lights in the ceiling, lights above the mirrors, lights trained on the huge teak bath with the upward swooping ends of a Viking longship. Under the lights its silky sides glowed in shades of cinnamon, mocha and peat-brown, the bath of a confirmed sybarite. Last night’s raid must have rudely interrupted Vanheusen’s relaxing soak, for the heavy spicy scent from half-burnt aromatherapy candles hung heavy in the air, and the bath was still half full of water. On its broad rim crouched a triumphant Gorgonzola, couchant.

  She was safe and sound. I drew a long breath and sagged against the doorpost, legs weak with relief.

  ‘What’s—?’ Gerry appeared at my shoulder in a whiff of fish.

  From the depths of the bath came Mwwww shptt glupp. A sodden black blob was struggling to keep its nose and mouth above the surface, paws scrabbling ineffectually at the polished wooden sides. My God, Black Prince was drowning!

  ‘No-o-o-o-o!’ My shriek, magnified and distorted by all that marble, echoed round the room, feeding on itself as it bounced from wall to wall, an aural version of mirror-in-mirror reflections.

  I hurled myself at the bath. Startled out of her schadenfreude spectator-role, Gorgonzola sprang down to the cream marble floor in perfect time to home in on the scatter of caviar jostled by my elbow from one of Gerry’s plates as I pushed myself off the doorpost.

  I made a grab for the scruff of Black Prince’s neck as he sank and, in the role of deus ex machina, hoisted Ambrose’s moggy from his watery grave. I heard the clink of porcelain on marble top as Gerry hastily deposited Ambrose’s best china, and then he was swaddling Black Prince in a fluffy-towel straitjacket. He thrust the bundle into my arms. Two terrified orange eyes gazed into mine, a little black face enshawled in the expanse of white whimpered a mew. I rocked him gently and felt strangely maternal…

  Gerry was studying the electronic touch-pad at the side of the bath. ‘Better get rid of all this water before the bugger dives in again. Let’s see…Spa jets, Whirlpool, Combination, Fill, Drain, Stop.’ He punched the Drain button. With a musical chord the bath waste-cover rose and the water flowed silently away to expose three rows of brass-mounted jets, at least thirty of them. With that lot powering away, the effect must be more of a maelstrom than whirlpool, not my idea of a relaxing soak.

  He glanced at his watch and frowned. ‘All this has held us back. Time’s—’

  ‘I’m really sorry, Gerry. G knows when she’s wearing her collar that she’s on duty and focuses on the task. She’s not easily distracted…’

  Both of us eyed Gorgonzola, now crouched on the marble-topped unit, nose in one of the plates.

  ‘I see what you mean.’ His tone was dry.

  Miaow. My cradled bundle whined querulously.

  ‘There, there, there,’ I crooned, ‘you’re not such a big, bad cat after all.’

  Gerry glowered at me. ‘I don’t have to remind you, do I, Deborah, that we’ve one hell of a crisis here? What we don’t need is another lawsuit, and over an effing pedigree cat at that. Quit buggering around, playing the bloody nursemaid. What I need is you and that moth-eaten shock-trooper of yours to start work. Right now.’

  I wasn’t expecting him to lose his cool. That really got to me. Ignoring the slur on G, I looked round for somewhere to deposit my burden, somewhere secure. I made a rapid scan of the room…candelabra-stand of burnt-out aromatherapy candles…wicker towel basket. That would do. I turfed out most of the contents, replaced them with Black Prince, and fastened down the lid.

  ‘I need results.’ The crack in Gerry’s composure was opening into a fissure. His finger stabbed down on the bath’s electronic touch-pad, ‘And.’ Stab. ‘I need them.’ Stab. ‘Right now.’ Stab.

  With a warning musical ping and a hum of motorised valves, the caps on the centre row of jets slid smoothly open. Gorgonzola paused in mid-munch, head raised enquiringly.

  ‘There’s no water in the bath, Gerry. You’ll ruin—’ I stopped. Tail high, G was stalking along the marble top, homing in on the quivering towel basket. ‘Gorgonzola! No!’

  She really was trying to show me up. All office cred gone, I made a grab. Too slow and too late. With a soft thump she landed on the floor, sashayed nonchalantly round me, and sprang onto the edge of the bath. For a moment she balanced there, extending her claws experimentally, then leapt lightly down onto the rows of brass jets set in the bottom of the bath.

  ‘Can’t you keep her under control, Deborah? My God, she’s treating the bath as a £20k teak scratch-post!’

  In spite of her alley-cat appearance, G was a creature of taste and sensitivity – except in the face of extreme provocation, of course. No way would she commit such an act of vandalism. She was padding along the middle row of jets, claws carefully sheathed.

  I sprang to her defence. ‘Well really, that’s a bit—’

  From her throat was coming a low crooning purr, the low crooning purr of the drug-detecting cat that has nosed out the Pot of Gold.

  ‘Got’im, Gorgonzo-laaa!’ I yelled.

  Aaaaaaaaaa moaned back Ambrose’s marble fittings.

  Aooooooooo mourned the wicker towel basket.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The rays of the setting sun sidled through the curved glass cupola of the Café Bar Oasis bronzing the feathery tops of the palm trees, the signal for the songbirds in their gilded cage to jostle vociferously for position on the roosting perches. In the adjacent Marrakesh courtyard a white-kaftaned figure was lighting the pierced and fretted pottery oil lamps. The stuff of holiday brochures. I swirled the cava bubbles round my glass and for the first time in two months really relaxed.

  This morning’s drug find on Samarkand Princess had wrapped everything up nicely. Following Vanheusen’s arrest, a vanload of papers had been seized from Exclusive’s offices and after several hours of questioning, Monique and Cousin Ashley had been ordered to report daily to the nearest police office. Passports confiscated, of course.

  Charlie refilled her glass from the bottle of inexpensive cava nestling in an ice bucket before us. ‘So…’ She took a long swig that opened the sluice gates to a stream of clichés. ‘…when the chips were down, Gorgonzola came up trumps. Close run thing, though. Came within a whisker of—’

  ‘Talking of whiskers, we should be toasting Black Prince,’ I said. ‘With all that scented bathwater and the aromatherapy fug, even G would have misse
d Vanheusen’s little stash. Clever, you know. There’s nothing suspicious about the smell of candles and bath oils in a bathroom.’

  ‘Anywhere else, and you’d have smelt a rat, eh?’ Her ha, ha was followed by ptschchchchh as the cava bubbles took an unexpected re-route to her lungs.

  ‘You sound like Black Prince going down for the last time, Charlie,’ I said. ‘Yes, we’ve got to hand it to Vanheusen. It was a masterstroke to fill the bath and make it look as if our raid had interrupted a long soak in that marvellous wooden tub.’

  ‘Jayne told me that the Ministerio del Interior’s phone was red hot with calls from Vanheusen’s friends in high places. If it hadn’t been for you and Gorgonzola,’ she reached forward to clink her glass with mine, ‘London would have put Gerry through the office shredder.’

  I leant forward lowering my voice. ‘I’ll tell you this in confidence, Charlie. When he thought the drugs were too well hidden and it was all up for him, he quite lost his cool. He actually called G,’ I lowered my voice still more, ‘a moth-eaten shock-trooper.’

  I’m afraid this calumny was not treated with the horror it merited. Her hahahahaha ricocheted off the green glass cupola, momentarily silencing the songbirds and turning a few heads. Over her shoulder I saw the lamplighter light the last lamp and glide off towards the Casablanca courtyard.

  ‘That levity’s quite uncalled for,’ I growled. ‘You can go off people, you know. Anyway, Gerry made amends. He sent a messenger round with an icebox full of caviar, beluga, of course.’

  ‘Gosh, that must have cost him.’ I could tell that she was impressed.

  I smiled. ‘I suspect he liberated it from the fridge of Samarkand Princess. Still, it’s the thought that counts, isn’t it?’

  ‘Certainly is.’ Charlie swirled a finger round the inner circumference of her giant hoop earring. ‘Seriously though, DJ, I’m really going to miss Gorgonzola – and you, of course. I’m off tomorrow. Already packed. What about you?’