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

by James Barrie

  Theodore wriggled from her embrace, and gaining the floor again approached the French windows. He miaowed.

  ‘You’re not going anywhere,’ Emily said. ‘You see what you’ve done. Now that he’s tasted freedom, he wants to be out again. Make sure he doesn’t get out again. He might try to make his way back to Clementhorpe… Acomb is his home now.’

  Theodore had spent most of the afternoon trying to lick the goose fat from his paws. The taste now coated his mouth. He drank lots of water but the taste would not go away. Everywhere he went the smell followed him.

  As they were eating their dinner in front of the television, Jonathan commented that the lasagne had peas in it.

  ‘My mum always does it with peas,’ Emily said. ‘It was the only way she could get me to eat greens when I was younger….’

  ‘I don’t think it’s how the Italians do it,’ Jonathan said.

  They ate the lasagne while watching television. Jonathan picked the peas out of his dinner. When Emily placed her half-eaten meal on the little table by her side, Theodore had a sniff but turned his tail up at it.

  Dairy spelled poison to a cat. The smell of cheese was bad enough, but then there were the garlic and onions, and to top it off – the little green balls stirred into the sauce. What sort of cat would like lasagne? wondered Theodore. Especially lasagne with peas in it.

  Emily asked Jonathan, with a touch of irony, if he had managed to find time in his busy day to watch Rear Window. Jonathan told her that he had.

  ‘James Stewart has a more interesting set of neighbours than we do,’ Jonathan said.

  Theodore’s eyes widened: If only he knew.

  ‘I can’t see anything much happening around here,’ Jonathan went on.

  He gestured towards the back garden and the houses that backed onto theirs. ‘This is just plain old York,’ he said. ‘Not New York.’

  ‘Well, what do you expect? This is suburbia after all,’ Emily said, picking at her food with her fork. ‘You’re the one who wanted to move here.’

  ‘There was one thing that happened today that was a bit odd.’

  ‘And what was that?’

  ‘It’s probably nothing,’ Jonathan said.

  Then he explained to Emily that before Theodore got out and in the ensuing commotion, the curtains in the bedroom window of the house behind had been open. Then afterwards they had been closed.

  ‘What’s so strange about that?’

  ‘Well, there’s this woman in there. Probably in her fifties or sixties. Spends all day in bed, watching television and swigging Lambrini… Looks like her daughter cares for her.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I saw her looking out of the window earlier. She was scary looking. Bright red glasses and make up all over her face. And she’s got this little toy dog stuck in there with her.’

  ‘How sad…’

  ‘If I ever get like that,’ Jonathan said, ‘just put me out of my misery.’

  Not a problem, Theodore thought, still licking his paws in front of the French windows.’

  ‘Well, at least she’s got her daughter to look after her.’

  ‘Well, that’s the thing. Before Theo got out, her bedroom curtains were open. Then there was a big commotion outside with Theo on top of the shed. And above all the noise, I heard the old woman shout: “Going to the dogs!”’

  ‘So what? A lot of older people say stuff like that,’ Emily said. ‘This country’s going to the dogs, you know. They’re just moaning that things are different to when they were young.’

  ‘It’s the way that she said it,’ Jonathan said. ‘Then the curtains were closed and the window was shut... Why close the curtains in the middle of the afternoon?’

  ‘Maybe it was all the noise outside,’ Emily said. ‘Her daughter probably shut the window and closed the curtains so that her mother could get some peace.’

  Theodore looked at Jonathan, his brow creased, his eyes narrowed to slits.

  ‘Could be,’ Jonathan said. ‘It just seems strange. And that was hours ago… They’re still closed now. I hope nothing has happened to her.’

  Emily walked over to the French doors and looked out at the house behind. The curtains were closed even though it was daylight.

  ‘Oh, come on. This is Acomb. People don’t just going killing people in the middle of the afternoon.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right,’ Jonathan said. ‘It just seems strange.’

  ‘She may have a headache from all the noise outside. Maybe a migraine. I get them from time to time.’

  ‘You’re probably right,’ Jonathan said. ‘It’s probably nothing.’

  They sat for some minutes, tapping at their mobile phone screens and occasionally glancing at the television screen.

  After a few minutes Jonathan said, ‘I think Rear Window is flawed.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, the dog is killed because it’s been digging in the garden. But then when Thorwald’s arrested, he admits that he threw the wife’s body in the East River. But the head he buried in the garden and then later packed it away in a hat box.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Well, why would he bury her head separately? He would have dumped it in the river with the rest of her… Why would he treat the head differently? And why would you bury it in the focal point of the entire neighbourhood. It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘You’re thinking too much into it,’ Emily said. ‘You have to over-analyse things all the time. It’s just a film.’

  Theodore twitched back his ears and looked out of the French windows, across at the house behind. From inside the house, he heard the muffled barking of Sandy the Shih Tsu.

  Emily flicked on the television. The programme comprised people being filmed while watching television programmes. The people were watching the latest James Bond film.

  ‘It was Martini that killed my father,’ a man in mustard trousers said, nodding at the screen.

  ‘I thought it was Noilly Prat,’ his wife, wearing a flowery dress, said.

  Jonathan laughed at this last comment, and the end titles came on.

  ‘I can’t believe we are watching a programme about people watching television,’ Emily said and sighed. ‘What have we become? Next there’ll be a programme about people watching people watching television.’

  ‘I suppose it’s in our nature,’ Jonathan said. ‘You know what they say about passing open windows.’

  ‘We are becoming a nation of peeping toms,’ Emily said, picking up her mobile phone again.

  She tapped at the screen, catching up on what her friends were up to on social media.

  Theodore observed the two of them, both staring at screens. He furrowed his brow. For the love of Bastet, he murmured. Peeping toms, we are nothing compared to you guys…

  He could foresee the end of the human race. Their downfall would be an obsession with staring at screens. All cats had to do was wait. They would take over… one living room at a time. One day, the world would be theirs.

  And people would just look on from their screens.

  When Emily went upstairs to bed, Theodore followed. He settled by her side as she lay in bed reading. She soon put the book aside and stared at the ceiling.

  He rubbed himself against her cheek and Emily turned on her side. She began to stroke him. Theodore stared into her green-grey eyes and purred.

  But while Theodore was content with being in the moment, Emily was in a different place entirely.

  The sun is shining brightly; the skies are bright blue, cloudless. There is a light breeze blowing from the sea.

  Emily is standing behind a well-worn wooden bar, a glass of pina colada in front of her. She is wearing a denim skirt from Zara, t-shirt from All Saints and Kirk Geiger sandals. She takes a suck of the plastic straw and then grins at the two tanned, dark-haired men in front of her.

  ‘But I haven’t finished this one,’ she says, shaking her head and laughing. ‘And besides, I’m supposed to be working, a
ren’t I?’

  ‘This is Spain,’ one of the young men says. ‘Here we have an expression: mańana.’

  ‘Mańana,’ says his friend, taking a sip of beer. ‘Why don’t you close up now and come dancing with us? We are the only customers anyway.’

  Emily laughs. ‘Well, maybe a little later. I’ll need to change into something different.’

  Emily blinked her eyes. Theodore was staring at her, his green eyes wide, still purring.

  ‘We are allowed to dream, you know,’ she said to Theodore.

  Theodore continued to stare into her face.

  ‘I know I should be happy with all this,’ Emily said. ‘I have a house, a job, a boyfriend. And you of course… I should be happy.’

  Theodore agreed.

  Cats didn’t have much choice when it came to houses or even owners. They made the most of what they had and got on with it. Dreaming of what life may have been like if another human had taken them in or if they lived in that house and not this house was completely futile. You just got on with what you had.

  When Emily turned off her bedside light, Theodore snuggled into her side but found he couldn’t sleep.

  He jumped down from the bed, crossed the landing and went into one of the back bedrooms. He jumped up onto the windowsill.

  The kitchen light was on in Ellen’s house. The light in Tessa’s bedroom was also on, lighting up the sunflowers on the curtains.

  He watched as Ellen appeared in the kitchen. She had her arms under her mother’s shoulders, as she dragged her body across the kitchen floor. Tessa was without her wig. Tufts of grey white hair stuck out from her scalp.

  Ellen lay her mother down on the linoleum. Then she removed her necklace, ear rings and wedding ring. She placed the items in a little wicker basket on the kitchen side.

  She opened the back door and then pulled her mother out into the night. She pulled her across the overgrown lawn, her mother’s two feet making two long furrows, two feet part, across the lawn.

  They stopped in front of the shed. Ellen went inside and began making room. Five minutes later, she shut the shed door and returned inside the house. A minute later the light went off in her mother’s room and the light went on in the next window.

  Theodore watched as Ellen approached her bedroom window and looked outside into the night. She was wearing a grey t-shirt that was too small for her, her chest pressing against the soft cotton. Her brown wavy hair was tied back. She looked across at Theodore and smiled. Then she drew her curtains.

  Theodore looked across at the pink and blue curtains. He made out princesses riding unicorns.

  And then the window went black as Ellen turned off the light.

  Suburban Psycho

  The sunflower curtains in Tessa Black’s bedroom remained closed all the next day. From the back bedroom window Theodore observed the house. Mid-morning, he spied Ellen in the kitchen making herself a mug of tea. She was dressed in baggy grey jogging bottoms and a blue shirt that had belonged to her father, three buttons undone.

  At lunchtime she heated soup on the hob and poured it into a bowl. She carried it along with half a loaf of bread into the dining room and ate bent over the dining table.

  Theodore noted several large brown envelopes on the table, an iPad, as well as a large album with a black shiny cover.

  He heard Sandy yapping but there was no sign of the Shih Tzu. She must be locked in the bedroom, thought Theodore, licking his paws; the taste of goose fat still strong on his tongue.

  He watched as the blind man next door to Ellen let his guide dog Lucy out in the garden for her fifteen minutes of freedom. Later he watched as the man located Lucy’s morning turd, by sense of smell he presumed, and popped it in a little black bag which he popped into his black wheelie bin.

  Downstairs Jonathan was watching Psycho, another Hitchcock film. Theodore settled down on the cushion beside him; he preferred black and white films to colour ones, like most cats.

  ‘It’s strange,’ Jonathan said, ‘but the curtains of the house behind haven’t been opened today.’

  I know, purred Theodore in agreement, rubbing against Jonathan’s side.

  ‘I wonder if she has done something to her,’ Jonathan went on, rubbing Theodore behind the ears. ‘The dog hasn’t been let out today either. It’s been yapping all morning.’

  Theodore purred in agreement. Dogs should learn to keep quiet. Yapping and barking all the time… Disturbing the peace. There ought to be a law against it. Then they settled back and watched Psycho.

  About halfway through the film, a man wearing a black beanie and carrying a yellow bucket appeared in front of the French windows. Jonathan’s reaction was to take hold of one of his metal walking sticks and wave it at the intruder.

  ‘I’m here to clean the windows,’ the man shouted through the glass. He waved a window cleaning blade in the air.

  Jonathan managed to get to his feet with his crutches and hobble over to the French windows being careful not to put any weight on his booted foot.

  He opened the doors and said, ‘I didn’t think we had a window cleaner. We’ve only just moved in…’

  There was a blur of grey by his feet and then he watched as Theodore raced across the lawn and disappeared into the hedge at the back of the garden.

  ‘The cat,’ Jonathan said, ‘he’s not supposed to go outside.’

  ‘Well, it’s out now,’ the window cleaner said. ‘I’m Norman. I had a call this morning,’ he went on. ‘A lady… She said the windows needed cleaning as a matter of urgency, and I was to come straight round. She told me to let myself in through the side gate and that you’d be sitting on the sofa watching telly.’

  Trish, thought Jonathan. She must have phoned a window cleaner.

  ‘Don’t you have a colour telly?’ Norman said, looking at the frozen picture on the television screen.

  ‘The film is in black and white,’ Jonathan said.

  ‘I didn’t think they made them in black and white anymore.’

  ‘It’s an old film. Psycho.’

  ‘Never heard of it,’ Norman said. ‘Well, I don’t have time to be sitting watching telly when there’s windows to clean… Do you want me to do inside as well as outside?’

  ‘How much does it cost for both?’

  ‘Twice as much. It’s twice the work, isn’t it?’

  ‘I think both,’ Jonathan said. ‘I don’t know when they were last cleaned, but they do look a bit grimy. Inside and out.’

  ‘It’ll be twenty quid.’

  Jonathan nodded, hoping that he had twenty pounds in his wallet.’

  ‘I used to clean the windows of that house over there,’ Norman said, nodding at the house behind. ‘But then they stopped. After what happened… Terrible business that.’

  ‘What happened?’ Jonathan said.

  ‘Terrible business,’ Norman said. ‘I’d better be getting on.’

  He then went into the kitchen to fill his bucket up.

  Stuart was in his garden, clipping his hedge though it did not look like it needed clipping.

  Theodore watched him from the top of Wally’s shed. He looked at the next garden and the shed in the corner. A grey hand jutted out from below the bottom of the door.

  Ellen opened the kitchen door and lit a cigarette. She looked over at Theodore and then turned and followed his gaze. She spotted the hand sticking out from the bottom of the shed door and began to cross the garden towards it.

  ‘Got a spare ciggie?’ Stuart shouted over the hedge at her.

  Ellen stopped and turned to face her neighbour. She was standing directly between Stuart and the shed. She walked towards Stuart taking her cigarettes from her shirt pocket as she went.

  ‘You ever going to buy any?’

  ‘I’ve got some baccie but it’s not the same.’

  He took the cigarette. ‘You got a light?’

  Ellen passed her lighter over the hedge, and Theodore noticed Stuart glancing at her chest that pushed against her s
hirt.

  ‘So, how’s Tessa today?’ Stuart asked and took a drag on his cigarette.

  Ellen glanced up at Theodore. ‘Same as ever,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t know how you do it,’ Stuart said. ‘You must have the patience of a saint putting up with her.’

  Ellen looked at her neighbour. ‘Someone has to do it, haven’t they?’

  ‘Aye. I suppose so. Well, I’d better get back it.’

  Theodore watched as Stuart finished his cigarette, took one last appreciative glance at Ellen’s chest; then went back inside his shed.

  Ellen walked over to the small shed in the corner of her garden. She opened the door.

  Her mother fell out onto the lawn.

  ‘Let’s get you back inside,’ Ellen said. ‘We can’t have you waving at people, can we now?’

  She picked her mother up and pushed her as far back as she would go. She then shut the shed door and inspected it to make sure nothing was on display.

  ‘That’ll have to do,’ she said to herself. ‘For now…’

  Before she went back inside, she glanced up at Theodore.

  ‘Thanks for letting me know,’ she murmured over at him.

  Theodore closed his eyes, believing that that would make him invisible.

  He opened them again when he heard footsteps approaching.

  ‘I’ve brought you a mug of tea,’ Marjorie said. ‘And a slice of quiche.’

  ‘What type of quiche is it today, Madge?’ Wally said from inside the shed.

  ‘Bork,’ Marjorie said.

  ‘Ah! Beef and pork,’ Wally said. ‘That’s my favourite.’

  ‘I put a bit of crackling in it too.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have,’ Wally said. ‘You’ll be fattening me up…’ He laughed.

  ‘Get away with you,’ Marjorie said. ‘There’s not an ounce of fat on you!’

  ‘Theo!’ Jonathan called.

  Theodore turned.

  Jonathan was standing in front of the French windows.

  ‘The window cleaner’s gone now,’ he said. ‘You can come back inside.’