The Cat Next Door

by Marian Babson

  ‘Because we’re Claudia’s family. And Claudia had what she could never have and never will have. Jealous little cow!’

  Kingsley …

  ‘That’s why she’s here now, not just because Kingsley is here. It’s because she’s gloating over us. She’s glorying in watching us laid low, brought down a peg, the mighty fallen, or however she describes it to herself in her grubby little mind. She’s enjoying our pain – and she wouldn’t miss it for the world!’ Christa tore the page off her pad and tucked it behind the other completed sketches at the back of the pad.

  ‘That’s that!’ Emmeline swept into the room and slammed a textbook and notebook down on the table. ‘There’ll be no more work out of her today. She’s too excited at seeing her father and, after he’s left, she’ll be too upset.’ Emmeline went over to the sideboard and looked at the empty coffeepot. ‘No coffee?’

  ‘Kingsley finished it,’ Christa told her.

  ‘Typical! And he couldn’t be bothered to refill it … or ask Verity to.’

  ‘I don’t think Verity would consider that one of her duties.’ Christa exchanged a long meaningful look with Emmeline before returning her attention to her pad and beginning a new sketch.

  ‘I’m glad they had the decency not to stay here,’ Emmeline sniffed and took the coffee pot off to the kitchen to start a fresh pot.

  Margot found, to her surprise, that she had eaten almost all of her kedgeree and was actually looking forward to a second cup of coffee. Perhaps this was truly going to be one of her better days.

  ‘What are your plans for the day?’ Emmeline, returning, had her own little ways of letting someone know that they weren’t expected to mope around the house all day.

  ‘I thought I might go downtown and stroll around, revisit some of my favourite places, see what changes there’ve been since I’ve been gone …’

  ‘Wallowing in nostalgia,’ Emmeline summed up. ‘You might just as well. Once the trial starts, we won’t be able to call our lives our own. There’ll always be some grubby little journo lurking around, hoping to catch us off-guard.’

  That would be some hope, with Emmeline. Generations of schoolgirls had tried their best to do that. Without success, of course. Emmeline had enlivened countless holiday breaks at home with stories of their attempts. From garter snakes slipped into her bed, to the more serious misdemeanours, such as placing an overloaded waste basket outside her room and setting fire to it, every disrupting trick an overexcited juvenile mind could dream up had been played to try to shatter her equanimity. Emmeline had coped with it all in her time and her methods of swift and strict retaliation had ensured that no one tried the same trick twice – or any tricks at all, once she had achieved the post of headmistress.

  What a pity that the media could not be so easily dealt with and brought to heel.

  Even more of a pity that this family tragedy was such a high-profile case with such sensational aspects. The murder of the beautiful and popular wife of a prominent Member of Parliament by her own twin sister was guaranteed to have the media slavering. Especially as the rest of the family was also well known, each in their own particular field. Only Chloe had not been any kind of high-flyer, content to remain at home, helping out around the house, filling in when another member of the family needed help with some project, working two or three days a week at a local charity shop. In general, living the traditional, if now rather outdated, life of the unmarried daughter of a well-to-do county family.

  Chloe, the quiet one. Chloe, who had seemed to be following in Emmeline’s wake as a rock for the rest of the family to cling to when life grew stormy. Chloe, who had suddenly turned from a rock to a raging volcano and erupted, unleashing a torrent of horror, scandal and pain upon the family. Chloe, the dependable one. Chloe …

  ‘On the other hand,’ Margot said thoughtfully, ‘I might go up to London and try to visit Chloe.’ If it was going to be one of her good days, why not utilise it to the utmost? Who knew when she might have another.

  ‘Oh, no!’ Christa raised her head and regarded Margot with consternation. ‘No, you can’t. Don’t even try.’

  ‘Don’t even think it!’ Emmeline weighed in. ‘In any case, the system doesn’t work that way. It’s Holloway Prison, you know, not the Holloway Hotel. You can’t just walk in and ask to see one of the guests.’

  ‘One of the inmates,’ Christa corrected bitterly.

  ‘One of the inmates.’ Emmeline sighed deeply. ‘One of our family … one of the inmates.’

  ‘Cave …’ Christa whispered the schoolgirl warning, looking over Emmeline’s shoulder to the doorway behind her.

  Margot turned. Aunt Milly was standing there, smiling vaguely, clutching her book. ‘I thought I heard Kingsley,’ she said.

  ‘You did. He’s upstairs with Lynette.’ Emmeline took her by the arm, drawing her towards a chair. ‘Sit down. Have you had anything to eat this morning?’

  ‘Eat …? Oh, yes. Yes … I’m sure I have.’ Her voice firmed and strengthened. ‘I’m absolutely sure.’

  She was the only one who was. Christa and Emmeline exchanged disbelieving glances. Emmeline poured a cup of coffee and set it down in front of Milly, then lifted the lid of one of the serving dishes and reached for a plate.

  ‘Have another little bite,’ she coaxed. ‘Just to keep us company.’ Margot saw that she had cleverly put the serving of scrambled eggs in the centre of a large plate so that it looked like a smaller portion.

  ‘I don’t really want …’ Milly’s voice trailed off, it was clearly too much effort to argue. She ate a couple of mouthfuls, then settled for pushing the rest of it around her plate.

  Emmeline nodded in satisfaction, obviously feeling that every extra morsel they could get Milly to eat helped.

  ‘Margot – ’ She turned her attention to her niece. ‘Have you tried the mini-Danish? Apricot, raspberry, apple, or how about a doughnut?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Margot said. ‘I couldn’t eat any more.’

  ‘Did you sleep well, dear?’ Milly seemed to recall her duties as hostess. ‘Always so unsettling, the first night or two in a strange bed, I always think. And you so jet-lagged, too.’

  ‘I think I still am.’ Margot decided it was the best explanation for any peculiarities in her behaviour, at least, for next few days. After that …

  ‘And I slept very well, thank you. It’s not really a strange bed to me, you know. It’s my own, my childhood – ’ She broke off as Milly’s eyes filled with tears.

  ‘Of course, you’ve come home,’ Milly quavered. ‘You’re sleeping in your own bed again, unlike – ’

  ‘Have another cup of coffee?’

  ‘Finish your eggs!’

  Christa and Emmeline spoke simultaneously. Margot sat aghast at the unexpected effect of her innocent words. She had not realised how careful it was necessary to be. How could she have been so tactless?

  ‘No, no … thank you.’ Milly got to her feet unsteadily, leaning for a moment on the table before straightening up. ‘I must get back to my – I want to see what happens next. I’m so worried about Lady Amabel. I’m sure Sir Jasper intends her no good …’ She left the room still talking, her words trailing off as she moved away.

  ‘Lady Amabel?’ Margot looked after her aunt. ‘Sir Jasper?’ She turned to her other aunts.

  ‘Those bloody books!’ Christa’s bracelet jangled, her hands were shaking. ‘It’s all she does these days: read one damned Regency romance after another!’

  ‘They’re not all Regency romances,’ Emmeline protested. ‘She reads straight historical novels, too. It’s her way of escaping the present. Don’t begrudge it to her, she needs it.’

  ‘But, if she’s like this now …’ Margot felt a cold chill envelop her. ‘How on earth is she going to get through the trial?’

  ‘She’ll cope,’ Emmeline said. ‘We all will. We have no choice.’

  Chapter Five

  They all jumped when the bell rang again upstairs, an urgent, un
controlled, almost hysterical summons.

  ‘That sodding bell!’ Christa threw down her chalk. ‘You’ll have to take it away from her! You never should have given it to her, in the first place. She’d have come downstairs soon enough if no one paid any attention to her tantrums.’

  ‘That’s easy enough to say now,’ Emmeline snapped. ‘You weren’t here to see her at the beginning …’ She trailed off, obviously struck by a new thought. ‘But why is she ringing for us? Her father and Verity are up there with her. Surely, they can get her anything she wants.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Kingsley spoke from the doorway behind them, making them all jump again. ‘There’s nothing we can do. She’s too … upset.’ He looked older, harassed and frustrated at his own inability to handle the situation.

  ‘Please, can you go up, Emmeline? She … she’s slipped back. She was rude, terribly rude, to Verity. And then she began calling out … for Claudia. She wants her mother. She wants her Aunt Chloe. We can’t reason with her. We can’t calm her. She wants Claudia … and Chloe.’

  ‘I’ll get her pills.’ Emmeline left the room swiftly.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Kingsley spread his hands helplessly. ‘I didn’t realise – I mean, she knows the situation. She … she found them. How can she still want … Chloe?’ He turned abruptly and went after Emmeline.

  ‘That’s it!’ Christa said into the silence that followed. ‘I’m barricading myself in the study for the rest of the day. And you’d be well advised to start off on your nostalgia trail as soon as possible. When Little Madam goes off on one of her turns, there’s no peace around here.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Margot felt oddly disinclined to move and it must have shown in her face.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Christa looked at her with sudden piercing concern. ‘Did you really not bring a camera with you? Nothing at all? That isn’t like you.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve brought a little one. Nothing serious, hardly better than an old box Brownie.’ Her toy, Sven had called it. Sven …

  ‘I thought – ’ She pulled herself together. ‘I thought I might take a few shots around town for a travel article - Quaint Old St Albans and all that. Nothing to do with the family.’

  ‘That’s good.’ Reassured, Christa’s face cleared. Like the rest of the family, she could not imagine someone without a current project to keep them busy, a goal to be striving for. Except Chloe, of course.

  Perhaps it was at that moment that Margot changed her plans for the day. Not that she mentioned it to Christa.

  ‘I might be a bit late getting back,’ was all she said. ‘Don’t let them delay dinner for me. If I’m running late, I’ll get a bite in town.’ She did not specify which town.

  Except for a momentary sighting of Tikki on the way to the bus stop (he lifted his tail in greeting and seemed to nod, then turned away upon some business of his own), the trip to town was uneventful.

  At the King’s Cross Thameslink station, she let the rush of exiting passengers go ahead of her, waiting at the foot of the long flight of stairs until they were out of the way. Until there was no one to observe her dismay and reluctance as she grasped the handrail and slowly pulled herself up to the top, where another flight of stairs awaited her. She paused at the foot of them, gathering her remaining strength and courage, telling herself that they weren’t so bad, really, and that she could see the street level beyond the top of them. She was nearly there. Just one more effort …

  A sudden rush of passengers from the train which had just arrived from the opposite direction carried her up the last few steps and she moved to one side at the top, allowing everyone to go ahead of her. Most of them, carrying heavy luggage, seemed to be heading for the main line station across the street to continue their journeys, either off on holidays or homeward bound. Briefly, she envied them their happy destinations.

  She had to cross the street, too, then wait at the bus stop at the side of the great looming station. When the Number 17 bus arrived, she boarded it, waving the pass included in her ticket at the driver. She was grateful for the pass, it saved her from having to name her destination. Not that the driver would care, or even notice, he would have seen it all before.

  ‘The Number 17 is the scenic route,’ Nan had written ironically, in one of the few letters she had written to Margot in the immediate aftermath of the horror. ‘First, it passes Pentonville, the men’s prison, continuing along its way until it reaches Holloway, the women’s prison. imagine – two of Her Majesty’s major prisons on one and the same bus route! What does that say about urban planning? The mind boggles.’

  Margot sat on the shady side of the bus and watched the Caledonian Road roll past, lined on both sides with little shops, many of them spreading their second-hand wares out across the pavement. People swarmed along the street, browsing, shopping, laughing, talking … so much vitality.

  She closed her eyes for a moment, surrendering to the overpowering weariness, feeling the ache in the muscles she had forced into action climbing the stairs. What had given her the idea that this was going to be one of her good days? Or had it started out to be and she had ruined it herself with her own impulsive decision to come to London? She had yet to take the full measure of the beast that was mauling her.

  ‘Not a life-threatening condition,’ the doctor had said. But definitely a life-diminishing one.

  A change in the quality of light made her open her eyes again to find they were passing under a railway bridge. Beyond it loomed a creamy-white Victorian building which made her catch her breath. Could that be it? One of the great penal institutions of England, sprawling alongside the main thoroughfare as though it were just another block of flats?

  No, not quite on the street, she saw, as the bus drew abreast of HMP Pentonville. There was a wall along the pavement, painted black about one-third of the way up and a vast expanse of creamy-white above. Behind the wall was an inner driveway and then the prison buildings. Even the bars on the windows were painted that creamy-white. Did that make them seem less like bars from the inside?

  On one side of the prison was, cheek-by-jowl, a block of Victorian tenement flats, one of the early examples of public housing for the worthy poor. Which had come first, the prison or the charity housing? Had it been intended: the carrot and the stick? Enjoy the clean, up-to-date, affordable housing – but make sure you remain worthy and hard-working to deserve it. Stray from the straight and narrow – and you might be housed next door, where you will not find the accommodation so greatly to your liking. The Victorians had their own little ways of ensuring that everyone kept to what was considered their proper station in life.

  The bus rolled on and she thought she was prepared for the next prison, but it took her by surprise. A vast red-brick expanse appeared to wall off the end of the street but, as the bus drew closer, she saw that it was on the opposite side of the street. It stretched back endlessly, the length of a long city block, blank and windowless.

  Somewhere on the other side was Chloe. Chloe incarcerated. Chloe alone. Chloe, from the sound of it, in deep shock and denial.

  The bus turned and went past a circular entrance drive with a bar lowered across it and some sort of administration building on one side. Two or three women were strolling out, appearing quite cheerful, accompanied by several small children. Children? Visiting a prison? But this was a women’s prison and the children had probably been taken in to see Mummy, or Auntie, or even Granny. Margot remembered reading somewhere that most females were prisoners because they had been convicted of misdemeanours such as shoplifting or prostitution or not paying their television licence.

  She got off at the stop just beyond the prison and walked back, grimly forcing herself to walk all the way along the brick wall to the very end. Thirties architecture, probably. Newer, certainly, than Pentonville, but the lack of outward-facing windows gave it a bleaker aspect. At least, in Pentonville, cream-painted bars or not, the prisoners could look out on to the street and get a glimpse of normal life.

/>   The prisoners … Chloe. Margot began to realise that she was in something of a state of shock herself. Seeing Holloway suddenly made the whole horrible nightmare real.

  That article she had read had also stated that a good proportion of the women had no place being in prison, but should have been in one of the mental facilities that had been emptied and sold to property developers with the excuse that the patients would do better as Care in the Community outpatients. They wouldn’t – and they hadn’t. Now HM Prisons were taking the strain that the community had rejected.

  The mad, the bad, the pathetic and the downright dangerous. And Chloe was cooped up amongst them.

  Margot’s steps faltered. Heaviness dragged at her heart as it had dragged at every fibre of her being for the past few months. Chloe … it didn’t bear thinking about. The entire world had gone mad and nothing would ever be right again.

  She had retraced her steps as far as the entrance driveway; now something at the edge of her peripheral vision caught her attention. There was something familiar about the figure walking past the lowered bar and towards her. It couldn’t be …

  ‘Nan!’ It was. ‘What are you doing here? Have you seen Chloe? How is she?’

  ‘Margot!’ Nan seemed equally disbelieving. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I asked you first.’ The childish rejoinder made them both smile ruefully. ‘How is Chloe? What did she say?’

  ‘Nothing. I didn’t see her. I just brought her some clothes – they’re allowed to wear their own, you know. No prison uniform for women. And I thought she might want her navy blue suit to wear at … at the trial.’

  ‘And did she?’

  ‘I hope so. I sent it in and waited. She didn’t send it back.’ Nan dabbed with a fingertip at the corner of her eyes and blinked hard.

  ‘We thought you’d gone shopping.’ Margot hadn’t meant to sound accusing, but Nan gave her an old-fashioned look.

  ‘I’ll do my shopping now. Here.’ She took Margot’s arm and walked her down towards the shopping centre on the main road. ‘Where nobody knows me. It will be easier. I can get more done without people stopping me to talk … or having to watch them avoiding me.’