Rear Garden: The Cat Who Knew Too Much ( A York Cat Crime Mystery Book 2)

by James Barrie

  From the windowsill he took in the garden below.

  His previous house had just a concrete yard with one raised bed against the boundary wall. He now looked out across the lawn, to the islands of daffodils and the overgrown rockery beyond. There were long grasses and euphorbia, a rhododendron and other small shrubs. Behind the plants and shrubs, there was a hedge: part privet, part hawthorn. Through a gap at the bottom of the hedge, a ginger head appeared.

  The head looked from side to side, and then a ginger cat emerged. Theodore miaowed at the glass but the ginger cat did not hear, or chose to ignore him.

  Hamish strutted between the shrubs. He had got used to the garden being part of his territory, the previous occupant having moved out some months before. He looked up at Theodore. He widened his green eyes, as if to say: ‘What are you going to do about it?’

  Then he raised his rear end and sprayed the rhododendron, before making his way through a cluster of daffodils and padding across Theodore’s lawn.

  Once Hamish had returned through the gap in the hedge, Theodore turned his attention to the house next door.

  He spied the greenhouse, where he assumed the tomatoes had come from, though there was little sign of anything green inside. Beside the greenhouse, there was a shed, which backed onto a hedge that formed the boundary with the house behind. On top of the shed was a little pole with a little flag. A white rose on a pastel blue background: the flag of Yorkshire.

  On the other side of the hedge, there was another shed. This one had the blue and white cross of St Andrew. Theodore understood that the humans were showing their territorial affiliations, as cats marked their territory by spraying.

  Theodore’s father was a Scottish Fold and his mother a Ragdoll, born and bred in Yorkshire. He had no qualms about his heritage. He was where he was now. Humans were a different kettle of fish, he realised, though wondered what kettles and fish had to do with questions of national identity. He blinked his eyes. He was thinking too much, too much into human nature. Perhaps a bit more interbreeding is what’s required, he concluded.

  Then, from down below, he heard a woman call: ‘Wally! Time for tea…’

  There was no response from the shed.

  The woman walked to the edge of the lawn, before shouting across, ‘Wally! Wally!’

  Wally finally emerged from his shed, walked across the lawn, along a well-trodden path.

  To the rear of the house, there was a conservatory. The conservatory was roofed in opaque plastic sheeting. Theodore made out a table and chairs, the table set for two.

  ‘What are we having, Marje?’ Wally said.

  ‘Quiche,’ Marjorie said. ‘And salad.’

  ‘What kind of quiche?’ said Wally.

  ‘Hamon.’

  ‘Ah, ham and salmon,’ Wally said. ‘You know that’s one of my favourites.’

  ‘I know,’ said Marjorie with a smile.

  They sat down at the table, and Wally poured them both mugs of tea from the pot. He added salad to his plate.

  ‘That reminds me,’ he said with a grin. ‘I went round and met our new neighbours today. Introduced myself, you know.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Marjorie said. ‘How are they?’

  ‘They seem nice enough. A young couple… I only met her. Well, I gave her some of those tomatoes…’

  Wally began to laugh. He threw back his head, showing his gappy grin.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ Marjorie said.

  Wally stopped laughing for long enough to tell Marjorie that he had told the young woman next door that he made his own bone meal.

  ‘Made your own bone meal?’ Marjorie said. ‘Whatever must they be thinking? You great Wally!’

  Wally spluttered on a piece of celery. He coughed, and then swallowed loudly. He took a drink of tea.

  Marjorie tutted. ‘Why, they probably think you’re here now, grinding up bones in your shed…’

  Wally grinned, his cheeks red.

  Marjorie shook her head. ‘You silly old thing…’

  ‘I was only joking.’

  ‘That big mouth of yours,’ Marjorie said, ‘is going to get you into trouble one of these days!’ She wagged a knowing finger at her husband. ‘Mark my words.’

  The Watcher & the Watched

  The next day Jonathan fell down a sinkhole in Derbyshire and fractured the navicular bone in his left foot. He was provided with an aircast boot (a large grey, plastic moon boot), and painkillers, Naproyn and Tylenol, and told that he would have to keep the boot on for at least four weeks. If he didn’t, he might walk with a limp for the rest of his life, he’d been warned.

  ‘I’m going to be laid up for weeks,’ he complained from the sofa, his booted foot propped up on a little coffee table.

  ‘I did warn you,’ Emily pointed out, ‘about those sinkholes.’

  ‘I’m not going to be able to drive or anything.’

  Emily was removing DVDs from a cardboard box and stacking them on a shelf below the television. ‘How convenient,’ she said under her breath.

  ‘I won’t be able to do anything but sit here,’ Jonathan went on.

  ‘You’re not going to be much use to anyone,’ Emily said irritably. ‘Just let me do everything…’

  ‘What am I going to do for four weeks? We don’t even have Sky installed.’

  Emily turned and said, ‘You could watch some of these DVDs.’

  She removed from the shelf a box set of Alfred Hitchcock films that she had just put there. ‘You could start with these,’ she said.

  ‘Hitchcock?’

  ‘Why not? They’re classics.’

  ‘I could give them a go,’ Jonathan said. ‘I’m going to be stuck here for weeks. If I put pressure on my foot, I could end up with a limp for the rest of my life.’

  ‘Well, at least you’ve got Theodore. You can keep each other company and watch Hitchcock together. He always used to sit and watch Columbo with me. I think he liked Columbo…’

  Jonathan stroked Theodore, who was sitting on the sofa beside him.

  Theodore eyed Jonathan. I’m going to be out of here before you, he thought, and jumped down onto the floor and approached the French windows. He spotted ginger Hamish squatting down beside the rhododendron. He miaowed out at the garden.

  Hamish finished his business. The ginger cat made a cursory inspection and then sauntered back to his own home, without bothering to cover.

  Jonathan was wearing a dressing gown over an old t-shirt. On his right foot he wore an old rugby sock, dark blue and light blue hoops. On his left foot he wore the grey plastic boot.

  He looked out of the French windows.

  The house directly behind was at a higher level, so that from Jonathan’s position on the sofa he could see over the top of the back hedge and into the two first-floor bedroom windows that faced him.

  He saw a middle-aged woman in one window, the one on the right. Her face was heavily made up, large rimmed glasses on her face and a blond wig on her head, slightly dishevelled. The curtains were partly drawn and the light from a television flickered against the yellow and brown floral pattern.

  The woman looked out from the window, and Jonathan watched as she raised a bottle and took a swig from it.

  In the next window a younger woman in her twenties, probably the daughter, Jonathan guessed, was smoking a cigarette. She was sucking on the cigarette and then blowing the smoke up and out of the window. Jonathan realised she must be kneeling up on her bed. The room was lit up from a lamp so her figure was outlined from behind. As his eyes focussed on the woman, he realised that she was wearing only a black bra that contrasted against the pinkish white of her skin.

  Jonathan noted that she was generously proportioned. If he were in the field, he would have described them in geological terms as ‘Off white/cream, well-rounded cobbles of alabaster…’

  He glanced back at the other window. The older woman took another swig from her bottle and then adjusted her wig.

  On the other sofa, perpe
ndicular to the one Jonathan was sitting on, and facing the television, Emily sat, absorbed in some US crime drama. She was wearing a onesie she had got for Christmas, a giant pink rabbit, though she didn’t have the hood over her head.

  Jonathan looked at the television but soon his attention was drawn again to the French windows and the house behind. He watched as the younger woman, the daughter, dropped her cigarette from the top of the window and then pulled the curtains slowly together. Her body was perfectly outlined against the pink and blue of the curtains.

  Then the curtains parted an inch in the middle and Jonathan knew that she was peering out. Peering back at him.

  He adjusted his dressing gown, pulling it down below his knees.

  He was no longer the watcher but the watched.

  He looked over at Emily, still staring at the television and nibbling on minty Matchmakers.

  He looked back at the window behind; the curtains were closed. ‘We really need to get some curtains to go over the French windows,’ he said.

  ‘Full height curtains,’ Emily said, ‘are going to cost a fortune.’

  ‘Maybe some sheets,’ Jonathan said. ‘Just for the time being.’

  ‘There is no way we are putting sheets up.’

  ‘It’s just that,’ Jonathan said, ‘we are a bit overlooked.’

  Emily glared across at Jonathan; then said, ‘Where’s Theo got to?’

  Theodore was in the upstairs bedroom.

  He looked out from the windowsill. He had watched the young woman smoke her cigarette through the window. He had seen her drop the lit cigarette onto the paving stones below the window. He had watched as the red glow from the cigarette end had grown smaller and smaller and finally gone out.

  He heard a rat-a-tat from the garden to his right.

  This garden was bigger and belonged to a long, low-slung bungalow. An extension took up the entire rear.

  A grey-haired man in a dressing gown and mirrored glasses was standing in the doorway of the conservatory, shaking a box of dog biscuits. ‘Lucy! Lucy!’ he called. ‘Are you there, Lucy?’

  Theodore noticed some movement in the bungalow’s garden and then a Labrador appeared in the yellow light cast by the conservatory, the reflective bands on its harness catching the light.

  Lucy approached the man, wagging her tail, and the man in dark glasses attached a lead to the dog’s harness. After the dog had led its owner back inside, the blind man locked the doors and retreated inside his house for the night, turning on the lights out of habit rather than need.

  Theodore looked over the top of the bungalow. He made out the steeple of a church, St Stephen’s, surrounded by beeches, oaks and elms. Theodore blinked as the dying light disappeared behind the church and then jumped down from the windowsill.

  Downstairs Jonathan was still sitting on the sofa. His booted broken foot was propped up on the coffee table in front of him; his head was sunk back into a cushion. His mouth was open and he was snoring.

  Theodore looked over at the French windows and the garden beyond, now in darkness.

  The television had been left on. There was a 1980s’ film on called Body Double.

  Theodore watched as Holly Body, played by Melanie Griffith, gets drilled to death on the floor of her apartment, while Jake Scully, played by Craig Wasson, looks on helplessly from his own apartment window.

  The Morning Rush

  The next morning Emily left for work at quarter past seven. Before she left, she reminded Jonathan that her mother was going to pop round with some lunch for him.

  ‘Don’t get into mischief while I’m gone,’ Emily called from the hallway, putting on her coat.

  ‘That’s not very likely, is it?’ Jonathan called back from the sofa.

  ‘And make sure Theo doesn’t get out,’ Emily called, opening the front door.

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ Jonathan shouted, only to be answered by the front door shutting behind her.

  Emily almost tripped over her neighbour Sam, who was bent down picking up a small dog turd from the footpath.

  Sam held the turd in a little blue bag at arm’s length. In her other hand she gripped a lead that was attached to a fat Chihuahua, its body the size and shape of a melon.

  ‘I’m Sam. I’d shake your hand but, as you can see, they are both fully occupied.’

  ‘I don’t know how you can do that,’ Emily said, staring at the little blue bag. ‘First thing in the morning.’

  ‘You can’t leave it there,’ Sam said. ‘Not with the neighbourhood gestapo looking on… I’d be reported to the Council. Then firing squad at dawn.’

  ‘I couldn’t do it,’ Emily said. ‘I’m a cat person. Cat people don’t have to pick up poo.’

  ‘Well, I’m a dog person,’ Sam said, ‘and it’s the price we have to pay… And this is Charlie.’

  Emily looked down at the little dog. It was whipping its tail from side to side, and showing its little teeth in a fierce grin.

  ‘Hello Charlie… I’m Emily. My cat is bigger than you.’

  She bent down and was about to pat the dog on the head but Charlie, perhaps in his excitement, squatted down again and let out a sliver of diarrhoea.

  Sam grimaced. ‘He’s got such a sensitive tummy.’

  ‘I need to get going,’ Emily said, making her way past Sam and the still squatting Chihuahua to her car. ‘I’m running late…’

  ‘I’ll wash it away later,’ Sam called after her, squinting down at the brown streak on the pavement.

  Theodore watched from the bay window of the front room. He looked at the little blue bag and then the mess on the footpath. He watched as Emily’s car made its way down the street, still in second gear.

  Cat People and Dog People? He closed his eyes and imagined a world populated by humanoid cats and humanoid dogs.

  When he opened his eyes again, he saw people dashing by on their way to work. Mums and dads pushed prams and pushchairs with one hand, clasping handbags or briefcases in the other. Children were bundled or ordered into cars, depending on their age, only to join the queue of traffic on York Road. Cyclists with determined faces and crust in the corner of their eyes sped past. Fashionable men strode past in brown shoes and tight trousers, their faces adorned with trimmed bushy beards. Young children were dragged along by parents who feared they would be late for work. A man who had had a stroke walked lopsidedly past, on his way for the newspaper.

  Then a woman in purple emerged from the house opposite. ‘What a lovely morning!’ she called over to Sam and Charlie, who were returning along the street.

  ‘Yes, isn’t it, Linda?’ Sam called back. Charlie the Chihuahua strained at his lead, desperate to be let off.

  ‘Such a shame he can’t be let off his lead,’ Linda said, crossing the road towards Sam and Charlie.

  ‘He’d run away,’ Sam said. ‘I couldn’t bear to lose my Charlie.’

  ‘I’m on my way to yoga with laughter,’ Linda said. ‘It’s very therapeutic… You should try it. Don’t want to be late!’ She hurried on down the street.

  Charlie strained at his lead, flicking his little tail from side to side, not wanting his walk to end. He knew that the rest of the day he would be shut in by himself.

  Then a man in a suit appeared and said, ‘Hurry up, Sam. You know I have a breakfast meeting. I really need to get going.’

  He didn’t really. He was meeting his personal assistant for some pre-office personal assistance.

  ‘I know, Steve,’ Sam said. ‘I’ll just be a minute… Tidying up after Charlie, you know.’ She held the little blue bag in the air.

  ‘Just hurry up,’ Steve said. ‘I really don’t have the time.’

  ‘Just give me a minute.’ Sam yanked the Chihuahua around and began dragging him back towards her house.

  Ten minutes later Steve was sitting in his car, a white Audi, blowing his horn. Steve enjoyed blowing his horn.

  He blew his horn until several minutes later his wife, who had been a hairdresser in Harro
gate before she met Steve in a bar in York, came out of the house.

  She opened the car door. ‘What’s the big hurry anyway?’ she said.

  ‘I told you… I have a breakfast meeting,’ Steve almost shouted. ‘And now I am already late.’

  He knew that if he missed his pre-office appointment he would be frustrated and bad-tempered the rest of the day.

  ‘Well, Charlie had to go to the loo, didn’t he? Wouldn’t want him having an accident in the house while we were out, would we?’

  ‘No, we wouldn’t,’ Steve said. ‘That carpet cost two thousand quid.’

  ‘You don’t always have to bring up what things cost all the time,’ Sam said, still not getting into the car. ‘Have a little decorum.’

  ‘I’m going to be late,’ Steve shouted. ‘Because I have to drive you to your spa. Why can’t you learn to drive for heaven’s sake.’

  ‘You know I don’t drive, darling,’ Sam said and then slid into the Audi.

  As soon as the passenger door closed, Steve sped off down the street, within seconds exceeding the twenty mile an hour limit.

  All this rushing about, thought Theodore. You need to set the pace for the long haul. No point rushing towards death; it’ll only come looking for you.

  He stretched his body, arched his back, and then settled onto his haunches. It was definitely time for a nap.

  Soup Selection

  Theodore woke midmorning.

  A coach had pulled up further along the street and scores of Chinese tourists were getting out. Most of the tourists were clutching phones and cameras. They wandered up and down the suburban street, stopping in front of houses and taking photos of each other. Some had selfie sticks and took photos of themselves standing in the street. Others entered people’s gardens and took more photos. Curtains up and down the street twitched.

  I supposed you have to come from a country with a population of over a billion to appreciate the mundanity of suburbia, thought Theodore.

  Twenty minutes later, the Chinese tourists got back on their coach and departed for a discount retail unit on the outskirts of York. The street was quiet once more, as though they had never been.