Cat's Paw

by Nick Green

  ‘Geoff?’ said Tiffany.

  He swivelled to face them.

  ‘The night after tomorrow, Martin Fisher’s going back to that tower block. So am I. And one way or another it will end there.’

  An early owl trilled in the silence.

  ‘And, um,’ said Olly, ‘where are we at this point?’

  ‘That’s not for me to say,’ said Geoff. ‘Though I expect Ben will be there. He hasn’t a choice, you see. Fisher’s sure to bring him. Along with twenty-odd polecats.’

  ‘If Ben has no alternative,’ said Tiffany, ‘then neither do we. We’ll be there too, Olly. Does that answer your question?’

  ‘Ri-ight. So, is that a you “we”, or a we “we”?’

  ‘You look like you need one,’ Daniel sniggered.

  ‘It means all six of us.’

  ‘Plus Geoff and Ben, makes eight,’ said Yusuf. ‘Facing what, twenty? Twenty-five? Full marks for ambition.’

  ‘Are you saying we have to fight this gang?’ asked Cecile.

  Susie shrieked with laughter. ‘Yeah right, we’re fighters.’

  ‘I’m a graphic designer,’ said Olly.

  The chattering grew. She was losing them. Tiffany moved into the doorway, blocking the shaft of light, so that they all had to turn to look at her in the sudden gloom.

  ‘I’m not a fighter either,’ she said. ‘But if I have to, I’ll fight. Everyone find a mat and get into pairs. Cecile, you’re with me. It’s time for some pashki practice.’

  The first noises came to him in dawn dreams: the roar of the sea in a conch shell, rising in waves, receding. Then a hush before the singing of the rails, ushering in the rush and the roar again. All morning it repeated, every three, four, five minutes, as it would all afternoon and deep into the night. Ben had grown used to the trains that howled through Platform 1, but he could no longer ignore them. He heard them as he knew Martin Fisher must hear them, feeling every wave of noise tighten Fisher’s madness another notch.

  ‘A house on Mayfair, please,’ said Thomas.

  Ben passed him a green block. Hannah rolled the dice and drew a Chance card: Get out of jail free. At least his two friends seemed to have forgiven him. Terrified of upsetting them again, even by accident, he was careful not to ask any more questions or mention anything unusual. So careful, in fact, that he had managed to buy up the full set of red streets before he noticed that their game of Monopoly was being played with real banknotes. Thomas, who played like the devil, was kneeling on about two grand of cash, and had just snapped up the last of the Utilities when Kevin called them all for mustel-id training.

  ‘Don’t we get a day off today?’ whined Dean, at the games console.

  ‘Why? There’s nothing special about today. Routine is important.’

  After the workout Kevin, who seemed restless, went to knock on Fisher’s door. While the weary polecats sprawled on the floor of the escalator hall, Ben sneaked upstairs to a corner where he had found a pocket of mobile phone reception. Tonight was the night. He had to be ready for the worst. Maybe he had enough credit left to hear two voices first.

  He dialled Dad’s number and tried to sound light-hearted. ‘Hi Dad, it’s only me, just thought I’d–’

  ‘Ben!’

  He hated that falling feeling.

  ‘Ben, are you there? Is that you? Ben, where the hell–?’

  Though he knew deep down that it was pointless now, he started to say, ‘But I’m at Mum’s.’

  ‘Your mum rang me, she rang me, Ben, to ask when I would kindly let her see you again. And I was set to ask her the same thing. She thought you were staying at my place! What have you been telling her? She’s called police, social services, the works… Two weeks, Ben! Two whole weeks! Where, where…?’

  A hopeless silence.

  ‘Sorry. It’s hard to explain,’ Ben mumbled.

  ‘She thinks you’re missing. You – you are missing! Ben, you haven’t run away or anything daft?’

  ‘One minute remaining,’ said a robotic woman’s voice.

  ‘Tell me, son. You haven’t run away from home?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ben. It seemed easiest. He turned the phone off.

  ‘Mouse purrs?’ Olly frowned.

  ‘Mau spurs,’ corrected Geoff. ‘The short auxiliary whiskers on the back of a cat’s forelegs. Useful in combat. They let you feel the attacks you can’t see coming, and help you block and strike. It’s like having extra eyes in your hands.’

  Tiffany practised, invoking the usual alloy of Ptep and Mandira for whiskers, trying to channel the sensation to her wrists instead. Geoff moved on to watch Yusuf and Daniel sparring. Susie mediated in the Sphinx crouch and Cecile was curled up in a corner.

  They’re never going to want to do a pashki routine again, thought Tiffany. Her own limbs ached in agreement, trembly with fatigue. They had spent all Friday at this, going through the rudiments inside the chapel before running assault courses through the cemetery woods. Now it was nearing Saturday lunchtime and the only sign of sustenance was the carrier bag of hot cross buns that Olly had thoughtfully brought.

  Between each draining bout of exercise they rested, using the Omu meditation as Cecile was doing now. In this state, which was like an ultra-deep sleep, the Mau body could recoup its strength. Cecile’s hands jerked and her face twitched as the lessons she had learned replayed in her mind, were perfected and set in stone. She looked dead to the world, yet if anyone were to call her name she could be instantly wide awake.

  Most of all they worked on Ten Hooks, pashki’s fighting system. Under Geoff’s tuition they saw how the stylish kicks and slashes could become more than mere display.

  ‘You never said you’d learned jafri zafri,’ Geoff exclaimed, as Tiffany tried one of the hardest attacks, a flying, flailing spin.

  ‘I got it off the internet,’ she confessed. ‘Still not sure if I’m doing it right.’

  ‘You’re not, but I’m the one to show you. This thing is my baby.’

  ‘You invented it?’ said Daniel.

  ‘I did. And Felicity Powell named it. Jafri zafri. Geoffrey’s Affray.’

  ‘Geoffrey’s Affray!’ cried Yusuf. ‘See, I told you it wasn’t Arabic.’

  Geoff demonstrated, seeming to hang in the air before exploding in a flash of hands and feet.

  ‘I created that after watching my cat Claudius fight three rats at once. Felicity told me that no-one had designed a new Ten Hooks strike since Kati Singh in 1953.’ He went quiet. Then: ‘Tiffany, how hard did you try? Really? To make her come back?’

  ‘Hard!’ she protested. ‘I was practically on my knees.’

  ‘Then I’ll go myself,’ said Geoff. ‘You can tell me how to get to her place.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Tiffany. ‘It’s funny. Her house felt like it was lost on the moors. I’m not sure I could find it again.’ A thought struck her. ‘Anyway, that’s silly. Fisher’s going to the tower tonight, right? We’d never get to Devon and back in time.’

  Geoff looked dumbstruck, as if this simple fact hadn’t occurred to him.

  ‘Particularly with the trains the way they are,’

  somebody said.

  Tiffany whirled. That had not been Susie’s voice, nor Cecile’s. And that wasn’t the shadow of a tree trunk in the doorway.

  ‘Hello, Geoffrey,’ said Mrs Powell.

  Geoff stood like a man squirted with a trick flower,

  the expression on his face ready to go either way. Then he chuckled. He laughed aloud as Mrs Powell stepped out of silhouette and came inside.

  ‘I never hear you coming!’ he said.

  ‘Interesting choice of studio,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘Most gothic. Chilly in winter, I should imagine.’

  Tiffany felt dizzy, full of white light. She clenched her fists in triumph. Cecile boggled, then gave a dazzling, crescent moon of a smile.

  ‘Geoff looks as if he’s seen a ghost,’ said Daniel.

  ‘Hello, Geoffrey,’ Mrs Powell said again. �
�You are going to say hello?’

  ‘Felicity,’ said Geoff. ‘Stone me. Felicity Powell. How long is it? Where have you been wandering?’

  ‘No more wandering,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘I found a home. Stillness is nice. You should try it.’

  ‘No doubt I will.’

  There came a lull, the sort of pause that Tiffany recognised as awkward.

  ‘I heard you weren’t coming,’ said Geoff.

  ‘Did you.’

  ‘Why change your mind?’

  ‘Curiosity.’ Mrs Powell shrugged. ‘So. I gather you’re looking for an extra set of claws. Something about impending doom. Prevention of.’

  ‘I could use some help, yeah.’

  ‘But otherwise it’s been quiet?’ Geoff gave a puzzled frown.

  ‘All these years, I hear nothing,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘This is the first time you’ve asked for my help.’

  Geoff shook his head. ‘I tried to find you, lots of times. But I couldn’t. It was–’ He broke off. ‘It was tough.’

  ‘You wanted to see me again?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Friends once more? Forgive and forget, is that it?’

  Tiffany saw the other Cat Kin looking on, with puzzled frowns, wondering what these two were talking about. Later she would have to try and explain it to them. Geoff’s fingers combed his messy hair. A sunbeam through a high window disappeared as the angle of the Earth minutely moved.

  ‘I can never forget,’ he said. ‘It hurt, you know. For a bloke like me, growing up without family… you were the first person who gave a damn. I can’t forget that. And I can’t forget how great it felt when I thought I was going to have a son. I knew he’d be a son, don’t ask me how. And you his mother.’

  ‘Geoffrey–’

  ‘I heard the world telling me I mattered. For the first time, I really mattered. I would be, like, so important to this kid. And to you. No-one could tell me I was worthless.’ Geoff stared at the floor. ‘And then, when I realised that you’d, well, that you’d done what you’d done, and that there wasn’t any child to be born, not anymore, well… I can’t forget that either.’

  He lifted his eyes as if they weighed too much and looked at Mrs Powell.

  ‘But I can forgive,’ he said. ‘I’ve learned a lot since. Both good and bad. And I understand now what I didn’t then.’

  He crossed the gap between them.

  ‘I can never forget, but I can forgive. And we went through so much together, didn’t we?’

  ‘So very much,’ said Felicity Powell.

  They’re going to hug, Tiffany thought. But no. Geoff leaned as if to kiss Mrs Powell, and then, instead of kissing, they rubbed their heads together, lightly, hair against cheek, cheek against hair. It struck Tiffany as utterly un-human and at the same time entirely natural.

  ‘Geoffrey,’ Mrs Powell mumbled into his shoulder, ‘Geoff, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘No. Sshh. It’s all right.’

  They pulled apart. Mrs Powell was smiling, blinking tears away.

  ‘Well then.’ She cleared her throat, businesslike. ‘You’d best get me up to speed.’

  Tiffany crouched amid the uppermost leaves of the cemetery’s tallest poplar tree, pitching in the breeze. The chapel reared below her from its gloomy glade, the steeple’s sharp finger pointed at the evening star. Beneath her the lower treetops reached all the way to the bus-clogged High Street of Stoke Newington, trickling with slow lights. The city grew into the pink sky. Officially she was sleeping over at Susie’s, while her parents moaned that they saw nothing of her these days.

  After a strategy meeting with Mrs Powell, Geoff set off for Tottenham alone. He wanted to study the layout of the derelict tower block and get a feel for the territory around it. He would then find the best place to watch and wait until the others joined him later. That way, he said, they could get a few hours’ rest.

  By the cemetery gates stood a street lamp, blood red, as if a drop of the draining sunset had been left behind in a slender metal chalice. Paler streetlights gleamed in the dusk like endless chains of cats’ eyes.

  Tiffany’s eyes closed. The rocking of the branches

  soothed her spiky nerves and she napped.

  SHOCK TROOPS

  It had the air of a school trip. The escalator hall was full of hyped-up kids, dressed alike and carrying bags, clumped into groups that jostled, joked and goofed around to ease the tension. Any minute now, Ben felt, they’d board a coach that would whisk them off to the Chiltern hills or the Eden Project, and he’d join the scramble for the back row of seats. No coach came. Even the last tube train of the night had long since whispered into oblivion.

  ‘You’re in Team One,’ Kevin told him. Team One turned their bandanas into polecat bandit masks. Their leader issued from his lair beneath the escalators, killing the holiday mood stone dead.

  Fisher led them to the surface exit and out across the rooftops. Jeep, Antonia and Ben retraced their journey of Tuesday night, joined this time by Alec, Gary, Dean and two others whose names Ben had never learned. Everyone else was in Team Two, led by Kevin on a longer, easier route through the deserted back streets.

  Standing at the end of Griffin Road, the doomed tower block took a slice out of the night. Tall wire fences around it skimmed the edge of communal gardens belonging to neighbouring blocks. There in the thickets of trees and potted shrubs the two teams of polecats regrouped, whispering together while the half Moon toppled slowly across the sky.

  What were they waiting for? Ben’s watch crawled towards 3am. The lurking polecats yawned and nervously relieved themselves behind bushes. Ben shivered, glad of the extra layer he had put on beneath his combat gear. He heard a whine of impatience.

  ‘Off we go!’ hissed Martin Fisher.

  Kevin shook his head. ‘That police car’s still there. Checking up on the place. Last night he left at three o’clock.’

  Ben peered and saw the vehicle, aglow beneath a streetlight on the tower’s south side. He could make out the two officers inside, a man and a woman. Fisher grizzled like a hungry child.

  ‘Off we go.’

  ‘Wait. They’ll be gone in a minute.’

  ‘Sick of waiting. I will kill them.’

  ‘No,’ said Kevin. ‘If they don’t report back–’

  Fisher seized Kevin’s neck and shook him like a rattle.

  ‘No? No?’ Spittle flew from Fisher’s teeth. ‘NO?’

  Kevin’s eyes bulged and he plucked at the throttling hand. He might as well have tried to bend an iron bar. Giving up, he groped at Fisher’s tunic, feeling inside it, as his fellow polecats shrank back in fright. Ben, the last one standing his ground, caught Kevin’s frantic stare. Then he was catching something else. A scrap of cloth.

  Not just a scrap, though. It had shape. A ragged shirt-shape. With sudden, bottomless horror Ben knew exactly what he was holding, and what Kevin wanted him to do with it.

  ‘Martin!’ he called. ‘Here.’

  Ben waved the rag in his face. Kevin fell coughing onto the grass as Fisher released him. In a change so sudden that it was almost more frightening than his rage, Fisher took the scrap of rag tenderly in both hands and cuddled it to his cheek. He whined softly. Things stayed that way for a while.

  The comfort rag. The rag that had belonged to the boy in the shed. Of all the hideous details in Geoff’s tale, that had been the hardest to forget. Ben watched Fisher cuddle it to his whiskery chin. And he knew that, if he were to peek inside that frayed fold which had once been a shirt collar, he might see a label that read 2–3 years.

  Kevin climbed to his feet.

  ‘Thanks–’ His voice, in shreds, honked strangely. Mistaking Ben’s stunned look, he explained, ‘That thing, it’s just something he likes. Worth–’ he coughed, ‘worth remembering.’

  Ben’s mind was at snapping point. Something he likes. All his terrible life Fisher had kept it, this moth-eaten scrap. Did he even know why? Ben couldn’t guess, he was terrified to try, but an
idea haunted him anyway. Perhaps Fisher kept it because, as threadbare as it was, it was a thread, a thread that led back, through the mazes of cruelty and loneliness, to some other place and time where even memory failed, a place of warmth perhaps, of light, of childish laughter.

  Fisher’s whines dwindled into silence. He folded the rag, stowed it back inside the breast of his mink-fur tunic and snuffled at the wind.

  ‘There is no police now.’ Moonlight turned his eyes metal. ‘Off we go.’

  The tower block had been refitted with doors, bolted ones plated with Danger signs. The polecats swarmed in through ground floor windows, Fisher ripping away the covering boards.

  The lobby was unrecognisable. Ben crept after Kevin through an eerie grotto, wreathed with what looked like giant cobwebs. Not fond of spiders, he flinched. Then he got a better look and his mild heebie-jeebies turned to dread. The webby strands were cables, sprouting in clusters from every wall, twining round the pillars, rooting into tumours of polythene and black tape. He didn’t need to understand any of this stuff to know it was bad.

  ‘What are these wires?’ Antonia whispered.

  ‘Not wires,’ said Jeep. ‘It’s shock tube. Detonating cord. Sort of like a fuse, only it works–’ he snapped his fingers, ‘that quick.’

  ‘Why so many of them?’ asked Ben. Jeep’s contempt showed through his mask.

  ‘The explosive isn’t in one place, is it? It’s distributed around the whole building. There’s shock tubes running to hundreds of charges on each of the blast floors. They all link back to the main detonator.’

  Ben trod very carefully.

  ‘Chicken! Look, he’s afraid of setting it off.’ Jeep sneered. ‘Only the detonator can do that. Even a flame won’t – see?’

  He raised his cigarette lighter towards one of the cables. Kevin caught his wrist. ‘Jeep! We believe you.’

  ‘Polecats.’ Fisher’s whisper brought silence. He stood in the hollow where the lift should have been, tall as a spectre, arms half-aloft as if he was reading an invisible newspaper.