The Cat That Wasn't There

by Fiona Snyckers

  The Cat That Wasn’t There

  The Cat’s Paw Cozy Mysteries - Book 4

  Fiona Snyckers

  Fiona Snyckers

  Copyright © 2019 Fiona Snyckers

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without prior written permission of the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Produced in South Africa

  Contents

  Untitled

  A note on the text

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Epilogue

  The Cat’s Paw Cozy Mysteries Will Return

  About the Author

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  A note on the text

  This novel uses American spelling and idiom, conforming to Standard American English.

  Chapter 1

  Fay downshifted to second gear with a grinding noise that made her wince.

  “Sorry about that.” She sent an apologetic smile over her shoulder to her passengers. “These gears can be a little tricky.”

  She felt bad for blaming the car. The Land Rover was a trusty vehicle that did not deserve to have aspersions cast on its gears. The fault lay with the driver, not with the car, as Fay was well aware. She wasn’t about to tell her passengers that – not when they were enjoying their sunset tour of Bluebell Island.

  It wasn’t that she was a bad driver, she told herself. It was just that she hadn’t quite mastered the art of driving a stick-shift. She had muddled through her driver’s test well enough when she had relocated to Bluebell Island from her native USA, but it didn’t come easily to her.

  It was time to distract the passengers.

  “And here we come to one of the most famous and historic landmarks of the island.” Fay brought the car to a smooth halt, pulling right off the road so her passengers could dismount. “The Bluff Lighthouse was built four hundred years ago to guide ships attempting to navigate around the northern point of the island. There are several reefs of hidden rocks under the water, extending quite far out to sea. This area was notorious for shipwrecks until the lighthouse was built. It still works according to an old-fashioned clockwork mechanism.”

  Fay looked at her watch. It was almost time.

  “The lighthouse is due to be illuminated in exactly two minutes,” she said. “If you like, you can take videos when the big light at the top starts to revolve. In the meantime, you are welcome to get out and stretch your legs. You can take photographs and there is a spectacular look-out point just over there. There are bathroom facilities around the back of the lighthouse.”

  Fay hopped out of the Land Rover and stretched her arms above her head. She always felt a sense of achievement when she managed to reach the lighthouse in time for her guests to see it switch on. In the winter, that could be as early as four o’clock, but at this time of year it was eight o’clock.

  “Does anyone live here?”

  Fay looked down and smiled at the little girl who had asked the question.

  “No,” she said. “But they used to. For hundreds of years, a lighthouse-keeper and his family would live here all year round. It was his solemn duty to keep the light burning in all weathers three hundred and sixty-five days of the year so that no ships would run aground on the rocks. Would you be interested in seeing the inside of the lighthouse, Maeve?”

  The little girl nodded shyly.

  “Then ask your mom to bring you here between ten am and two pm tomorrow. There’s a museum inside that shows you exactly how the lighthouse-keeper and his family lived hundreds of years ago. It was a lonely life, filled with great responsibility. Luckily, they weren’t as isolated as some lighthouse-keepers. Bluebell Village was never too far away.”

  “Between ten and two, you say?” said Maeve’s mother, making a note on her phone. “That sounds fun and educational. We might do that tomorrow.”

  They were a family of four from Wales. They were staying in the Boscastle Suite at the Cat’s Paw B&B, owned and run by Fay. Also on the tour was a teenage boy and his father from Monterey, California. They were on a boys’ bonding trip to the island while the mom and sister were in St Ives.

  “Look!” Fay pointed to the lighthouse. “It’s starting.”

  There was a deep humming noise as the lighthouse came to life. The electric light began to revolve and soon a long white spear was cutting its way through the approaching twilight to guide ships to safety.

  Fay wandered over to the lookout platform to make sure that everyone was observing the safety rules. She was constantly amazed by how many parents thought it was a good idea to hang their babies or toddlers over the safety rail.

  The view was spectacular. The south side of the island, where Bluebell Village was located, was pretty and gentle, with several natural bays and harbors. There was even a small sandy beach. The northern and western parts of the island, on the other hand, were marked by dramatic cliffs and rock formations that were beautiful to look at, but dangerous to negotiate, either on foot or by sea.

  A safe and level road had been built all the way around the island, increasing access for the people who lived there. This was the road that the Cat’s Paw used for their sunset tours. There were still parts that could only be negotiated in an off-road vehicle, hence the Land Rover.

  The fifteen minutes Fay had allotted were up and people were drifting back to the vehicle. A quick head count told her that someone was missing.

  “Luke!” called the father of the teenage boy. “Luke, where are you?”

  “When last did you see him?” Fay scanned the area.

  “He was at the viewing platform.”

  “You go and look over there and I’ll check the restrooms.”

  Fay circled the lighthouse. The base was always much broader when you were circling it on foot than it appeared from a distance. The restrooms had been built on the far side where they were invisible from the road. She checked the ladies and the gents without success, before spotting the boy standing about a hundred yards away near a low bush. He was holding his phone in the air and waving it around. She knew immediately what he was up to.

  “Hi, Luke. I see you found the one beam of signal on this part of the island.”

  “Yes, sorry about that. I wanted to check the football scores. I suppose my dad is looking for me. I’ll come now.”

  He set off at a ground-eating lope on his long legs, leaving Fay following more slowly.

  A flash of red caught her eye.

  “You go on ahead, Luke. I just want to see what’s lying in the grass here.”

  The object was about twenty feet from the base of the lighthouse. As she got closer, Fay’s
heart began to beat a little faster. Was that someone’s sweater, or …?

  When she was about ten feet away, she could see that it was not just a sweater lying there in the long grass. There was someone inside the sweater. Someone who was far beyond the reach of human aid.

  Fay froze in her tracks. She had found the one thing you never expected in a gentle place like Bluebell Island – a human body. The body was female, and, unless she was much mistaken, elderly. Fay had worked as a homicide detective in New York City for eight years, and as a patrol officer for four years before that, before resigning to take over her late grandmother’s B&B on Bluebell Island. Her experienced eye told her that the woman had fallen from a height. She glanced upwards. There was a walkway at the top of the lighthouse, guarded by a safety rail.

  Her mind raced.

  She needed to report this immediately. The only question was whether to let her carload of guests know about it too. Any minute now, one of them would come to look for her. She imagined them trampling all over the scene, destroying potential evidence and delaying her with dozens of questions.

  No. Whether accidental or otherwise, this death would remain on a need-to-know basis. And her sunset-tour guests did not need to know about it. They could read all about it in the newspaper tomorrow morning like everyone else.

  Walking quickly back to the Land Rover, Fay pulled out her phone and considered her options. She could phone it in. The advantage of that was that it was quick. The disadvantage was that she would probably get Sergeant Jones’ mother on the line.

  Mrs. Jones was the receptionist, dispatcher and secretary of the Bluebell Village police station. She was entirely too liable to keep Fay gossiping on the phone for twenty-five minutes before forgetting to deliver the message.

  It would be quicker to text Sergeant Jones directly.

  Fay: There’s a body of an elderly woman wearing a red sweater next to Bluff Lighthouse. Looks like she fell from the top. Please investigate immediately.

  He would think it was a hoax, Fay realized. He wouldn’t take her seriously. She had to do something to make him act quickly. She would send another text to Dr. David Dyer – the island’s acting public health inspector, medical examiner, forensic scientist, surgeon, and medical practitioner. If Sergeant Jones was going to take anyone seriously, it would be David.

  Fay: I just texted Sergeant Jones about a body I found at Bluff Lighthouse. An elderly woman. Looks like she may have fallen from the top. I’m taking my sunset tour guests home now. Please make sure he comes out to investigate immediately.

  The reply came quickly.

  David: On it.

  “Now that we’re all here, we can get back to the Cat’s Paw.” Fay put a cheerful note into her voice as she rounded the lighthouse and approached the Land Rover. Everyone hopped in and she pulled off onto the dirt road with a little spurt of gravel. The shadows were lengthening as twilight fell fast. They had spent much longer at the lighthouse than usual.

  “Look out for that cat!” cried Luke’s father.

  “I see it.” Fay touched the brakes. She wasn’t going fast, and the cat was way ahead of her, but she wasn’t taking any chances.

  “That is one strange looking animal,” said Maeve’s father.

  “It almost seems to be … glowing,” commented Luke.

  “Cats don’t glow. It must be the reflection from my headlights.” Fay slowed down further. The yellowish cat stopped in the middle of the road and turned to face the oncoming car. Its eyes glowed like lamps as it regarded them steadily.

  And then, suddenly, it was gone.

  “Hey, where did it go?”

  “Mummy, it disappeared. Did you see that, mummy? Did you?”

  “What on earth …?”

  “That’s impossible. How could that have happened?”

  “It must have run into the grass at the side of the road.” Fay tried to inject a note of calm into the rapidly rising hysteria in the car.

  “It didn’t run. It just disappeared.” Maeve’s mother sounded shaken.

  “You know how fast cats can move,” said Fay. “It darted out of the beam of my headlights, which made it seem as if it were disappearing. I just hope there isn’t a feral cat living around here. If there is, we’ll have to do a trap and release to get it neutered.”

  This had the intended effect of distracting everyone from the disappearing cat. The rest of the way back to the Cat’s Paw was occupied by Fay answering questions about the feral cat program on the island. It was only when they were back at the B&B that they seemed to remember what they had seen.

  “I’m sure you are right that it just ran into the bushes,” said Luke’s father. “But it was rather creepy all the same.”

  “That reminds me of one detail about the history of the lighthouse that I forgot to tell you,” said Fay.

  “What was that?”

  “It’s supposed to be haunted.”

  Chapter 2

  “You’re back! Thanks for taking the sunset tour for me. I got all my meal prep done for tomorrow.” Morwen Hammett – Fay’s innkeeper, housekeeper, and friend – greeted her at reception. “Bit late to be getting back, isn’t it? I hope you didn’t have car trouble.”

  Fay gave a hollow laugh. “More like corpse trouble.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “An elderly lady. Lying right there at the base of Bluff Lighthouse. All I can think is that she fell from the viewing platform at the top. It seems to have happened quite recently. You can tell from the …”

  Morwen held up a hand. “No, thanks. I don’t want to hear how you can tell how recently she fell. It probably involves something gross, like maggots or bodily fluids. An elderly lady, you say? The Bluff Lighthouse museum is run by a rotation of volunteers. Most of them are seventy years old or more. Do you think she could have been one of them?”

  “That’s my current theory.” Fay bounded up the stairs two at a time. “I’m going straight back out again. I need to make sure that Sergeant Jones turns up to investigate. You know what he’s like. Can you hold the fort while I’m gone?”

  “No problem,” called Morwen. “By the way, I got the plumbing problem sorted out in the Penzance Room. Dave Liddle says he’ll email his invoice in the morning. The guests didn’t see the body, did they?”

  “No. I was alone when I spotted it.”

  Morwen was grateful for this small mercy. She wouldn’t have to deal with a lot of questions. She could wave the guests off to their dinner reservations and go to bed soon herself.

  In her bedroom, Fay was engaged in a life and death struggle of her own.

  The moment she laid her jacket on the bed and turned away to change her shoes, three kittens pounced on it and refused to get off. However deftly she tried to scoop them up, their little claws came out and grabbed the jacket like grappling hooks.

  “Zorro!” She unhooked the tiny claws one by one from her jacket and heaved the kitten onto her duvet. “No, Freddy! Not you too.”

  She picked him up and walked to the window where she could see lights coming on in the village spread out below.

  “Look – it’s getting dark. That means it’s getting chilly. Because apparently even June isn’t really summer in this crazy country. It might be warm during the day, but it’s jacket weather at night. That means I need my jacket more than you do.”

  She kissed his head and deposited him on a scratching post. When she looked around, she saw that the three other kittens had fallen asleep in a heap on her jacket.

  Sighing deeply, Fay pulled on a pair of boots and chose a different jacket from her closet. It was hard to believe that just three months ago the kittens had been tiny, helpless little creatures. They had resembled nothing so much as furry, blind worms. They were barely a day old when she had rescued them after they had been rejected by their mother who seemed to have no milk for them.

  “I can’t decide whether you were more trouble back then when I had to bottle-feed you every two hours, or now that you
’re getting into everything.”

  Freddy bounded across the bed to join his siblings on her jacket.

  Any day now, Fay would take them to the vet down in the village for their vaccinations. Then she would start doing background checks and home visits on anyone who had applied to adopt them. She would be sad to see them go, but the five adult cats who lived at the B&B full-time would probably be pleased to have the house to themselves again.

  Fay closed her bedroom door behind her and went downstairs to hop into the Land Rover she had left parked in the driveway. It took her only ten minutes to get to the lighthouse because she took the most direct route, instead of circling the island as she had on the sunset tour. The presence of a large, silver Range Rover told her that David had arrived. Up until that moment, Fay had been proud to be driving a car that wasn’t liable to break down every hundred yards, but it looked sadly shabby next to its big silver cousin.

  There was no sign of a police vehicle. She glanced at her phone. It was fully forty minutes since she had reported the body. Where was Sergeant Jones?

  As she rounded the lighthouse, Fay saw two men standing over the body. David had brought his father with him. They were partners in the village surgery. The villagers distinguished between the two Dr. Dyers by referring to the elder as old Doc Dyer and the younger as young Dr. Dyer. Doc Dyer waved his corncob pipe around as he gestured to the body and up at the lighthouse.