Cat Flap

by Ian Jarvis

  CAT FLAP

  by

  Ian Jarvis

  First edition published in 2017 by MX Publishing

  335 Princess Park Manor, Royal Drive,

  London, N11 3GX

  www.mxpublishing.co.uk

  Digital edition converted and distributed by

  Andrews UK Limited

  www.andrewsuk.com

  © Copyright 2017 Ian Jarvis

  The right of Ian Jarvis to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998.

  All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without express prior written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted except with express prior written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damage.

  Although every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information contained in this book, as of the date of publication, nothing herein should be construed as giving advice. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and not of MX Publishing.

  Cover design by Brian Belanger

  Chapter 1

  The Yorkshire Wolds must have hired the wrong publicist. That was Lisa Mirren’s private theory. Compared to the Yorkshire Dales and the North York Moors, few tourists have heard of these chalk hills to the east of the county. Unlike the other two celebrated regions, they were never awarded National Park status or classed as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. If landscapes were in any way sentient, Lisa decided, the Wolds would definitely feel like the poor relation. The forlorn member of the trio, reminiscent of that other Kennedy brother - JFK, Bobby, and the Chappaquiddick one who never shone politically or got to sleep with Marilyn Monroe. Since her medical career brought her to York, Lisa had fallen in love with the Dales and moors, but she found this gentler terrain almost as beautiful.

  The bright sun had little effect upon the temperature - a glacial cold, more suited to a Siberian night than a Saturday afternoon in the English countryside. Standing on a footpath beside a stream, Lisa peered into the hawthorn thicket on the opposite side of the shallow water. Deep inside, one of the five roosting owls blinked drowsily as it watched the girl.

  ‘That’s right.’ Lisa’s excited whisper clouded on the frigid air as she adjusted her camera tripod. ‘Just keep looking this way.’

  Long-eared owls gather at traditional sites during the winter and she’d discovered this secluded roost on an Internet birdwatching forum. Birdwatching and wildlife photography are mistakenly regarded as masculine pursuits, television and old movies collaborating to typecast any female who strays into the domain as a tweed-clad eccentric. Lisa’s striking looks instantly demolished the frumpy stereotype.

  ‘Now don’t move.’ She brushed a lock of fair hair from the camera viewfinder and fired off two shots. ‘Good boy.’

  With only seven shopping days remaining before Christmas, most people would be spending their weekend buying gifts in city stores. Lugging camera equipment around the frozen Wolds wasn’t on the festive priority list of the average thirty-year-old girl, but Lisa was far from average. Tugging up the collar of her combat jacket against the chill, she turned from the bushes and raised her binoculars to scan the meadows and clumps of woodland beyond the water.

  Rippled and undulating like an unmade bed, the landscape rolled away towards the east coast, crisscrossed with drystone walls and the dark skeletons of hedgerows. This was the last place to need a makeover, but the midday sun transformed the frosted panorama into a glitter-dusted Christmas card. Lisa remembered the James Herriot books she’d loved as a child, and the tales of the country vet visiting such places to tend to livestock.

  Why hadn’t she studied veterinary medicine instead of biochemistry? How wonderful it must be to work somewhere like this instead of her York dermatology lab.

  Completing her binocular sweep, the young doctor returned her gaze to the hawthorns and smiled wistfully at a sudden recollection of last Christmas. The candlelit dinner where her ex-fiancé gave the binoculars as a gift didn’t seem like a year ago, yet their summer break-up felt so distant. Time screws with the memory, she contemplated sadly, and all things come to an end.

  Lisa sighed and focussed on the roosting owls again as crows exploded raucously from the tops of nearby ash trees. They sat erect, eyes wide and ear tufts raised in alarm. Excellent! This was better than the dazed expression owls normally wore during the day. She stooped to the camera, but it didn’t show much–just a tail as the last bird bolted, and darkness as someone blocked the lens.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Well, Lisa, I can certainly see the attraction of ornithology. Fresh air and beautiful, isolated spots such as this.’ Her visitor stepped around the tripod, squinting up at the sun. ‘Ah, this amazing sunshine. I honestly can’t remember it looking and feeling so good.’

  ‘But I never heard...’ A breeze wafted Lisa’s face and, despite the warm jacket, her spine frosted over in gooseflesh. ‘What are you doing here?’ She laughed nervously. ‘You sneaked up like a cat. Where did you come from?’

  ‘I always liked you, Lisa. I realise how clichéd it must sound, but this really is nothing personal.’

  ‘What the hell...’ A hand shot out, tearing open Lisa’s collar and snapping the binocular strap. They fell to the ground as the girl pulled back. ‘Those cost a fortune.’

  Arterial blood splattered the camera and sprayed the frozen grass. As last words went, Lisa Mirren’s killer had heard better examples.

  Chapter 2

  The small city of York was named Eboracum by the Romans, but the Vikings christened it Jorvik, if indeed Pagans could christen anything. The Norse longships were an everyday sight on York’s River Ouse before 1066 and little has changed topographically since their reign. The principal thoroughfares of Fossgate, Coppergate, Ousegate, Spurriergate and Gillygate still follow the same winding routes and bear the same Viking names. Elizabethan city walls encircle the centre with fortified barbican towers punctuating their two-mile run like miniature castles, Bootham, Micklegate, Walmgate, and Monk being the largest of these thirteenth-century gateways. John Watson knew quite a bit about this. Not because the boring history of his birthplace interested the teenager in any way, but because his new employer was constantly rambling on about how wonderful and fascinating it all was.

  ‘Oh, come on.’ The words were whispered through chattering teeth. Watson peered through a dripping camera, his numb hands protecting the lens as he focused on a van by a garage. ‘Turn this way again.’

  The teenager stood a short way south of the Micklegate barbican, at the end of Saxon Street. A row of honey-coloured houses, the Victorian terrace was built just below the city wall and its grassy embankment. Watson had found a hiding place with a good view of the rear garages, and sleet pelted the ramparts above him, soaking into his jeans and jacket as he sheltered behind shrubbery. Thrills, diversity, adventure - he recalled the various expectations when he answered the jobcentre advert for Bernard Quist’s consultant detective agency, but he never anticipated this.

  A lean, black youth of nineteen, friends often mentioned Watson’s cheeky smile–an insolent smirk, his schoolteachers used to say–but there was no sign of it this Monday morning. The teachers also said: extremely clever but doesn’t try, intelligent and quick-witted but lacks discipline, and quite frequently in his final year: I see the smart-mouthed bastard is absent again.

  ‘Jus
t a couple more shots,’ he muttered, zooming in on an overweight man by the van. ‘Let’s finish this so I can get to a nice warm office.’

  With his beer-belly and broken nose, Ronnie Garbutt was hardly photogenic, but Watson’s picture of him loading the vehicle with plaster was the tenth taken in the past few minutes. Garbutt wasn’t a plasterer; he was a council cleaner. None of his colleagues had actually seen his work-related accident, but it must have been a bad slip. He was supposedly incapable of any manual labour, yet he’d tossed five weighty sacks into the van and never shown a flicker of pain.

  Wind whisked an accumulation of sleet from the wall above Watson, half of which landed on the back of his head.

  ‘Brilliant,’ he hissed. ‘How wonderful.’

  Yes, his employer loved these historic fortifications, but Watson guessed Bernard Quist had never had to stand beneath them in this kind of weather. The private investigator, or consultant detective, as Quist insisted upon being called, had a huge admiration for the ancient city of York, often referring to it as a splendid medieval jewel. Watson lived in an area that wasn’t too splendid and was never mentioned by the Yorkshire tourist board - the Grimpen housing estate. He’d worked as Quist’s assistant for the past three weeks and for the most part he’d enjoyed it. The detective work was varied, but hardly exciting, the assignments revolving around gathering divorce evidence, serving papers and tedious surveillance. Watson had grown up on a diet of private eye movies and television shows where the detectives had thrilling adventures that never seemed to involve being bored or piss-wet through.

  ‘That’ll do it,’ he murmured to himself, lowering his camera as Garbutt vanished inside the garage. Stepping back behind the bushes, he ran a hand through his short black hair and shook off the icy drips. ‘Those pictures should be enough.’

  Hearing footsteps on the wet pavement to his rear, Watson moved aside, but instead of passing by, the approaching man marched straight up to him. The glowering face and overalls looked familiar and the youth stiffened, his stomach lurching as realisation dawned–he’d been helping Garbutt yesterday when the first batch of pictures were taken. Watson was five-feet-ten, but the furious character looming above him was six inches taller.

  ‘Nice camera.’ The man’s growl was reminiscent of a bear with laryngitis. ‘What’s the idea of photographing my brother? Are you snooping for the council?’

  Watson’s eyes flickered over the psychotic glare and pumped-up physique. He’d always hated confrontation and aggression. I’m a lover, not a fighter was his cheery claim, although past girlfriends would dispute this.

  ‘Your brother?’ He cleared his throat. ‘No, mate, I was photographing the house with the blue door.’ His shaking finger pointed away from Garbutt’s. ‘I’m an estate agent and we’re selling number...’

  ‘What kind of idiot do you think I am?’ The man grabbed his canvas jacket and yanked the teenager up onto tiptoes. ‘Taking photos of our Ron working on the side when he’s supposed to be sick, are you? Give me that camera, you little twat.’

  Quickly handing it over, Watson watched fearfully as the casing was opened.

  ‘I’m keeping this.’ Garbutt’s brother held up the memory chip. ‘If I see you again, I’m going to ram this camera up your arse. Do you understand?’

  ‘I understand.’ Watson eyed the zoom lens. ‘Yeah, absolutely.’

  In retrospect, the tedious aspects of his job didn’t seem so bad after all. They didn’t leave you with rearranged features, your teeth on the floor, or the local hospital being faced with an embarrassing extraction operation.

  Chapter 3

  Revving cars crawled by Patel’s newsagent on Fishergate, a morning fanfare of York Minster bells joining with dashboard radio jingles to rouse the yawning commuters. Watson jumped down from a bus outside the shop, called in to buy a newspaper, and watched for a gap in the traffic as he sheltered from the sleet beneath Patel’s awning. The twenty-fifth was only a week away and tinsel twinkled with Christmas lights in the window.

  ‘Horrible, isn’t it?’ squawked a texting girl to his right. Sucking on a cigarette, she stooped to a pushchair, showering her ugly infant in ash as she wiped its dribbling nose. ‘Bleedin’ horrible.’

  Watson sought a diplomatic response, before realising she didn’t mean the child, but the Yorkshire Post headlines on the shopkeeper’s advertising board.

  LEEDS UNITED GOAL DISALLOWED, and MURDERED GIRL NAMED.

  ‘Oh, I see.’ He turned back to the traffic. ‘Yeah, it’s certainly horrible.’

  ‘They should hang the bastards.’

  Hoping she wasn’t referring to the footballers, he spotted a path through the slow-moving vehicles and darted across the road.

  Devoid of medieval architecture, this end of Fishergate wasn’t the most picturesque part of the city, but office rental was cheaper than the historical centre within the walls. Baker Avenue ran off this main street, with the Brightshield Glazing showroom on the corner and two separate firms above: Bernard Quist’s detective agency and Ted Duggan’s debt collection company. Watson ducked in from the weather and snatched a letter and postcard from the mail basket.

  ‘Well, look who we have here.’

  The teenager knew the gruff voice and cringed to see the biggest of Duggan’s collectors descending the stairs. Kevin Selden appeared to have been quarried rather than born. Most people saw the swastika tattoo on the shaven skull and formed an instant dislike, but if they only took the trouble to get to know the man, they’d really loathe him. Moving aside, the teenager dropped his head to avoid eye-contact, meeting instead the baleful gaze of something equally terrifying on the end of Selden’s leash. Rottweilers often have macho names - Rambo, Tyson, Conan - and this monster answered to Klansman.

  ‘They say it’s bad luck to pass people on stairs,’ snarled Selden.

  ‘Er, right.’ Watson tried squeezing by, but a tattooed arm blocked the way.

  ‘Very bad luck if Klansman’s hungry.’ The skinhead relished these chance meetings. ‘What’s wrong? In a hurry?’

  ‘Actually, I am a bit late.’ Watson stiffened as a rumble sounded in the dog’s throat.

  ‘Listen, he can smell black meat.’ Selden’s smile widened, his piggy eyes twinkling. ‘When those jaws lock on, you need a crowbar to get him off. Do you want to find out how it feels?’

  ‘Thanks, but no.’ Watson had read somewhere that bullies acted this way due to being abused as children. He really hoped this was true here.

  ‘So how’s the detective business going? Private detectives? Hah! Some oddball and a wimpy little darkie. Who the hell would hire you two losers?’ Selden laughed, his sloping forehead wrinkling. Shaven heads suit some people, but this resembled a medical school cadaver. ‘Well, you probably have murders to solve, so I’d better not keep you, eh? See you later.’

  Bolting up the stairs as the sniggering thug moved aside, Watson flung open Bernard Quist’s door and vanished inside with a relieved sigh.

  The agency was small. The only furniture here in the outer office was a desk, vacant due to Quist using an answerphone instead of a receptionist. The machine never demanded a rise, arrived late, or rang in sick; the advantages were numerous, but Watson would have preferred a sexy blonde seated there. He went through into the main office, his mouth falling open to see Quist sitting on his desk with legs tightly folded beneath him.

  ‘There you are at last.’ The consultant detective spoke in a clipped English accent. Glancing over the file he was reading, he drew on a cigarette. ‘Do we have the photographs?’

  ‘Er, what are you doing, Guv?’

  ‘Yoga.’ Quist turned a page. ‘I practise every day before you arrive. Don’t worry; I’m fully aware that you find me eccentric. Do we have the photographs?’

  ‘Eccentric?’ The teenager grinned. ‘You’re a total weirdo.�
��

  Bernard Quist’s own teenage years were a distant memory; a slender man, he stood six-feet tall and looked to be late-forties. Thick, dark hair, tawny eyes and arched eyebrows provided an aristocratic appearance, but his most prominent feature sat in the middle of his face. An academic might have described the nose as aquiline, but Watson–with a more limited vocabulary and far less tact–called it huge and often pictured his employer perched beside marabou storks.

  The youth dumped the camera on the desk. He didn’t think Quist would find nose jokes amusing but, in their three weeks together, he’d never seen the detective laugh at anything; the closest he came to smiling being a lopsided mouth-corner movement. The dourness was reflected in his dress, the cord jacket, brown trousers and fawn shirt looking pretty drab next to his assistant’s bright trainers, yellow sweatshirt and blue jeans.

  ‘I’m soaked.’ Watson draped his blouson over a chair. ‘How long are you going to be sitting like that? It’s putting me on edge.’

  ‘Deal with it.’ Quist winced as the teenager rubbed his curly hair dry on the office curtains. ‘Photographs?’ he repeated, puffing cigarette smoke. ‘Do we have the evidence?’

  ‘Don’t ask.’

  ‘I am asking.’

  ‘I nearly got beat up by Garbutt’s brother.’ Watson leant his wiry frame against a radiator. ‘He stole the memory chip out of your camera.’

  ‘I must say, you’ve taken to this work like a duck to pole-vaulting. Let’s try something simpler, shall we? There’s a hi-fi on the windowsill by the kettle. If you switch them both on, we can have music with the coffee you’re about to make.’

  ‘Talking of getting threatened...’ Watson checked the CD and tutted. It was Peer Gynt by Greg someone or other. ‘I bumped into Ted Duggan’s pet psychopath out there again.’

  ‘Kevin Selden? That must have been pleasant.’

  ‘It’s impossible to look at the twat without thinking of burning crosses and nutters wearing bedsheets. He doesn’t exactly get on with good-looking black guys like me.’ Watson clicked on the tiny hi-fi and pulled a sour face. ‘Don’t you have anything apart from this classical crap?’