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

by James Barrie

  Theodore wandered into the lounge.

  Jonathan was sitting on the sofa, his foot still propped on the little coffee table. He had spent most of the morning playing random strangers at Scrabble. He was now waiting for fifteen people to take their turns.

  The remote controls were laid in a row on the arm of the sofa. ‘Shall we watch Rear Window?’ he asked Theodore, patting the empty seat next to him.

  Theodore jumped up onto the sofa next to Jonathan.

  ‘I take it that’s a yes,’ Jonathan said, turning the DVD player on.

  Theodore settled down against Jonathan’s side, and together they stared at the Greenwich Village scene.

  Jonathan had not attempted to go to bed the night before. Instead, aided by a bottle of wine, he had fallen asleep where he was sitting while watching Body Double.

  He’d woken at four in the morning and couldn’t get back to sleep. He retrieved a book, The Glacial Geology of Holderness and The Vale of York by Sidney Melmore, coincidentally a former resident of Acomb, thinking it would help him to get back to sleep, but twenty pages later, he noticed the sky begin to lighten and the birds in full song.

  On the screen James Stewart said into the telephone: ‘He killed a dog last night because the dog was scratching around in the garden. You know why? Because he had something buried in that garden…’

  Theodore looked over at Jonathan; the human looked deep in thought. He continued to watch the Hitchcock film, and when it had finished and the DVD returned to the start menu, he got down from the sofa. Jonathan had fallen asleep.

  Theodore wandered into the kitchen and inspected his bowls. He went to the corner where the litter box was but then remembered that Jonathan had bought the wrong type of litter.

  He went back into the lounge and approached the French windows. He peered out into the garden.

  Hamish, the ginger tom, was sitting in the middle of the lawn. The hairs along Theodore’s spine stood on end. Hamish caught his stare and held it.

  Had there not been a pane of glass between them, Theodore would have seen off the intruder.

  Soon as I’m out of here, he growled to himself, we’ll see whose garden it is…

  He was sitting on a Turkish rug that Jonathan had contributed to the house.

  Jonathan had had the rug since his teenage years. It had been under his feet in his bedroom in Market Weighton, where he had lived with his parents. It had accompanied him to university in Leeds, where it had adorned his room at Bodington Hall, and then two attic rooms in Headingley. Before he had moved in with Emily, it had been in his front room in the little terraced house he had rented in South Bank, York.

  Theodore had noticed a fine fuzz of black hairs coating the carpet. He sniffed the rug and smelled another cat: Jonathan’s former cat, Edward. Theodore had had enough of other cats. He squatted down on the rug.

  Once he’d finished, he made his way upstairs and settled on the windowsill in the back bedroom. The window was open a couple of inches, but not wide enough for Theodore to fit through.

  Apart from the birds’ tweeting, there were no other noises. Most grown-ups were at work, children at school, cats napping the day away. This was as it should be. Jonathan had no right to be at home, disturbing his daytime peace. There was a limit to the hours Theodore could spend in the company of humans.

  Then, in the house behind, Theodore noticed the younger woman warming soup in the kitchen.

  Ellen was making soup for lunch. She lived with and cared for her mum Tessa. It was just the two of them; her father Colin had died ten years ago, and her sister Penny had moved away, to university in Bristol, and then stayed on and got a job in that city.

  Ellen brought the soup to a gentle simmer. She poured some into a bowl, which she placed onto an orange plastic tray and carried it upstairs.

  A minute later, Theodore saw Ellen enter the back bedroom. Her mother was sitting up in bed. A television in the corner of the bedroom was turned on to a shopping channel.

  A Shih Tzu, Sandy, yapped, jumped down from the bed and ran through the open door and down the stairs.

  ‘It’s lunchtime, mum,’ Ellen said.

  ‘Is it?’ Tessa said, sitting up. ‘Already?’

  Ellen sniffed the air. ‘Have you been drinking already?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ Tessa said. ‘It’s only just lunchtime… Now, where’s Sandy?’

  ‘He went downstairs,’ Ellen said. ‘He might need to go out.’

  Theodore could hear the dog yapping, out of sight.

  Ellen placed the tray in front of her mother.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Curried parsnip.’

  ‘Curried parsnip? But I don’t like curried parsnip.’

  ‘But mum,’ Ellen said, ‘it’s your favourite.’

  ‘Now I’m sure I would remember if it were my favourite, wouldn’t I?’

  She pushed back her glasses with her forefinger.

  ‘Well, yes, mum,’ Ellen said. ‘You would remember.’

  ‘I don’t like curried parsnip,’ Tessa said, her voice raised. ‘In fact I hate curried parsnip soup. Whoever heard of such a thing? Curried parsnips!’

  ‘But you haven’t tried it.’

  ‘I’m not going to eat that muck,’ she said. ‘It stinks.’

  Ellen reached over and lifted the tray from the duvet, before her mother could overturn it. ‘I can get you something else,’ Ellen offered. ‘How about chicken? Chicken soup. You like chicken soup.’

  ‘Yes, I like chicken soup.’

  Ellen carried the tray to the door. ‘I won’t be long,’ she said. ‘I’ll make you some nice chicken soup.’

  ‘Where’s Sandy,’ Tessa asked.

  ‘He just went downstairs. He probably needed to go out.’

  ‘Well, go and let him out if he needs to go,’ Tessa said.

  Ellen went downstairs and Tessa turned and faced the window. She looked down into the garden to see if she could see Sandy.

  Her lips were painted red, smudged across her lower face. Her blonde wig was again at an angle. She peered down into the garden. She glanced back at her bedroom door and then retrieved a bottle of Lambrini from the gap between her bed and the wall. Theodore watched as she took a swig of sparkling perry. He noticed her wedding ring, set with diamonds, sparkling in the light.

  Ellen was back downstairs in the kitchen. She opened the back door and let Sandy out into the overgrown garden, where the dog defecated on the lawn. The small heap joined the hundreds of others.

  Ellen poured the bowl of curried parsnip soup down the sink. She opened a cupboard and took out another can of soup, checked the flavour and then put it in a clean saucepan. While the soup was warming, she poured the remainder of the curried parsnip soup into a bowl, and sat down at the kitchen table and ate it, her face bent over the bowl.

  From downstairs in his own home, Theodore heard Jonathan shouting his name. He remembered what he had done to his rug and thought it best to stay put in the back bedroom. There was no way Jonathan could make it upstairs. He closed his ears to the shouts and curses coming from downstairs. The sun had come out and he felt it warming his fur.

  Later, he heard a familiar voice, now a little slurred. ‘But I don’t like chicken soup.’

  He opened his eyes, and in the house opposite he saw that Tessa had a new bowl of soup in front of her.

  ‘Well, what soup do you like?’ Ellen’s voice now had an edge of desperation.

  ‘Mushroom,’ Tessa said. ‘I like mushroom soup. Mushroom soup is my favourite.’

  ‘All right,’ Ellen said, picking the tray back up from the bed. ‘I’ll be back in a few minutes… With a bowl of mushroom soup.’ She left the room but didn’t return to the kitchen.

  A minute later she re-entered her mother’s bedroom. ‘Here mum,’ she said, ‘I’ve brought you some lovely mushroom soup.’

  She placed the tray back down on the bed covers in front of her mother.

  ‘Mushroom soup,’ Tess
a said. ‘Yes, I do like a bowl of mushroom soup.’

  ‘I know you do,’ Ellen said. ‘Now I’d better be getting on.’

  ‘Where’s Sandy?’

  ‘He’s outside.’

  ‘Well, let him in.’

  Ellen left the room and a minute later was back downstairs. She let Sandy back in and then sat at the dining table and lit a cigarette.

  Theodore wondered about the conversation he had overheard regarding Tessa’s preference for soups. He was still wondering when there was a knocking at his own front door.

  He heard Jonathan call out, ‘Come in… I’m in the lounge.’

  Theodore jumped down from the windowsill and went to the top of the stairs.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Emily’s mother, Trish, said. ‘Whatever is that smell? Have you had an accident, Jonathan?’

  ‘I haven’t had an accident,’ Jonathan said. ‘Theodore has done something on the rug.’

  Trish went into the lounge, her hand across her mouth and nose. ‘Well, I’d better get some detergent and some gloves on,’ she said and coughed into her palm. ‘I don’t know how you can bear it in here. You don’t even have a window open.’ She crossed the lounge and opened a window. ‘There. That’s a bit better,’ she said, coughing once more.

  ‘Thank you,’ Jonathan said.

  ‘Now let me find some rubber gloves,’ Trish said. ‘We’ll soon have this cleaned up.’

  Once Trish had gone into the kitchen, Theodore wandered in.

  He took up position under the dining table, behind Jonathan. He stared up at the open window. The window was over another two-seater sofa, placed perpendicular to the one on which Jonathan was sitting. From the back of the sofa, it was a simple step up onto the window sill. Then there was a three foot jump up to the wide open window. Then a drop of no more than six feet on the other side, down to the ground below… To the Outside World. This was his opportunity.

  He dashed forward, past Jonathan, towards the open window.

  Going to the Dogs

  ‘Trish!’ Jonathan shouted.

  Trish hurried into the lounge, yellow, suddy rubber gloves on her hands. ‘Whatever is it now?’

  ‘It’s Theodore,’ Jonathan said. ‘He’s got out of the window. He’s not supposed to be let out…’

  Trish crossed to the French windows and saw her daughter’s large fluffy grey cat dart across the lawn and head towards the hedge at the back of the garden.

  ‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘These windows could really do with a clean.’

  She wiped her forefinger across the glass.

  ‘Both inside and out…’ she said and shook her head.

  Theodore made for the gap in the hedge. Seconds later he was through it and into the garden behind. There was a yapping from the house and clashing of paws against a door. He was in Shih Tzu territory.

  He stood rigid in the middle of the lawn, among a minefield of dog shit. At least he’s locked in, he thought. He can’t get at me.

  Then the kitchen door swung open and the little dog came rushing out, yapping. Straight at him.

  Theodore just managed to make it to the boundary hedge, find a gap and dive through to the next garden.

  Sandy the Shih Tzu yapped from behind, unable to squeeze through the hawthorn hedge.

  Theodore took in his new surroundings. He was standing in a patch of soil dotted with young plants. The vegetable patch occupied most of the back garden apart from a large shed to his left. There was a narrow strip of lawn, and then a patio that went up to the back of the house. A man with a power spray was jetting down the flagstones.

  It is said that many people resemble their dogs, or their dogs resemble them. Well, Stuart resembled his cat Hamish. He had ginger hair cropped short; the ginger hair continued across most of his face as stubble, and his eyes were green and bright.

  Stuart turned and noticed the large grey fluffy cat in his vegetable patch. He raised his power spray and aimed the jet at Theodore.

  ‘We come here with no peaceful intent, but ready for battle,’ Stuart cried, quoting William Wallace, ‘determined to avenge our wrongs and set our country free. Let your masters come and attack us: we are ready to meet them beard to beard!’

  From behind Theodore, Sandy yapped. From in front a jet of water hit him. He turned to the side, and headed for another hedge. He was through it and up the vertical face of a shed, Wally’s shed. For a moment he was relieved to feel the warm felt of the shed roof beneath his paws. Then water lashed the wooden wall of the shed below him.

  ‘I have brought you to the ring, now see if you can dance,’ Stuart cried, aiming the jet at him once more, arching it over the shed roof.

  ‘What’s going on here?’ Wally shouted across the top of the hedge.

  ‘That cat was in my tattie patch,’ Stuart said, red in the face. ‘I was defending my territory.’

  ‘Well, he’s not in your territory now,’ Wally said, burring his r’s to mimic Stuart’s pronounced roll. ‘He’s on my shed, and I say he can stay up there.’

  ‘We’ll see about that,’ Stuart said, sending another arc of water over the shed roof.

  ‘Don’t you get your bagpipes in a twist, you silly Scottish haggis!’

  Stuart turned redder in the face.

  ‘You think you can tell me what to do on my own land? Take that, English pig!’

  He pointed his jet spray at Wally, catching him in the face.

  ‘Put that spray down,’ Trish shouted from over the hedge. ‘That’s my daughter’s cat up there.’

  Stuart lowered his power spray and released his grip. ‘He was in my tattie patch,’ he shouted across at her.

  ‘That’s no reason to soak him. He’s absolutely sodden,’ Trish called back. ‘If he comes down with cat flu, you’ll be paying the vet’s bills.’

  ‘I won’t be paying anything of the sort.’

  ‘We’ll see about that!’

  From the felt roof of the shed, Theodore took in the scene. There was Stuart, jet washer in hand, standing in the middle of his potato patch. Wally standing by his shed, wiping water from his face. Then there was Trish, still in rubber gloves, pointing an accusing yellow finger at Stuart from the corner of his garden. He looked over at the house behind his own. Sandy the Shih Tzu was yapping from behind the hedge, out of sight.

  There was a dull crack and Theodore looked up at Tessa’s bedroom window.

  While the two men and Trish bickered over the hedges, Theodore saw Ellen in Tessa’s bedroom. Chicken soup slid slowly down the bedroom wall across daisy-patterned wallpaper. Ellen was on her knees, picking up pieces of broken porcelain. He couldn’t see Tessa but he could hear her.

  ‘It was chicken,’ Tessa was saying. ‘You gave me chicken soup. You know I don’t like chicken soup. It’s carcass scrapings.’

  ‘It was mushroom, mum,’ Ellen said.

  ‘Don’t you mum me. I know your game,’ Tessa said. ‘You can’t wait for me to pop my clogs; then you’ll get the house. That’s why you’re hanging around, isn’t it? Well, just you wait. You’ve got another thing coming. If only your dad was around to see it!’

  ‘I never thought anything of the sort,’ Ellen said.

  ‘Well, I’ve been to see Mr Philby,’ Tessa said. ‘If anything happens to me, everything will go to the dogs’ home, do you hear? The house! His stamps! Everything! Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, mum,’ Ellen said, a stammer in her voice. ‘I understand.’

  ‘Going to the dogs! Tessa screamed. ‘Going to the DOGS!’

  ‘Please calm down,’ Ellen said.

  ‘Don’t tell me to calm down,’ Tessa shrieked. ‘GOING TO THE DOGS!’

  From below him Theodore heard Trish shout, ‘You don’t go near my daughter’s cat ever again!’

  He looked down at the people squabbling over the hedge. He looked back at his own house. Jonathan was standing in the French windows, holding himself up with his crutches.

  Then he looked back over at Tessa’s bedroom
window.

  Ellen was now standing in front of the window, looking down at the scene below. They maintained eye contact for a few seconds. Then Ellen snapped the curtains closed. They had sunflowers on them, yellow and brown.

  A moment later Theodore jumped down from the shed roof, scrabbled through the bottom of the hedge, into his own garden and let himself be grabbed up by Trish.

  A Nation of Peeping Toms

  When Emily got back from work, her mother had gone, leaving a tin-foiled dish of lasagne in the fridge for their dinner.

  ‘How’s your day been?’ she asked Jonathan, before noticing that Theodore was sitting in front of the open French windows, his legs crossed in front of him, looking out at the garden.

  The lounge had a sickening smell of Febreeze that failed to mask the underlying smell of cat shit, despite Jonathan’s Turkish rug having been removed to the garage, from where it would never return to domestic duty.

  Emily walked over to the French windows and closed them. ‘You know Theodore isn’t allowed outside,’ she said. ‘We’ve only just moved in…’

  ‘Well, he managed to get out earlier,’ Jonathan said. ‘It was your mum’s fault.’

  ‘My mum?’ Emily said. ‘How was it her fault?’

  Jonathan explained that Theodore had defecated on his rug; her mother Trish had opened the window and Theodore had escaped into the garden. He had been chased by a Shih Tzu and then jet-sprayed by an angry Scot. He had taken refuge on Wally’s shed roof; then rescued by Trish.

  ‘But what’s happened to his paws?’ Emily said. ‘They’re all greasy.’

  ‘Your mum buttered them.’

  ‘But we don’t have any butter.’

  ‘She used the goose fat left over from Christmas... She said it would do the same job.’

  Emily walked over to Theodore and picked him up.

  ‘I think it’s worked,’ Jonathan said. ‘He hasn’t been out of my sight since your mum greased him up.’

  ‘No wonder. What with Shih Zhus and angry Scots about,’ Emily said. ‘You stay home where it’s safe.’ She hugged him to her chest.