The small triumph of outwitting Leif sustained Robin on his trek across town to a section where the rubbish had not yet been attended to. The wheelie bins were ranged in front of hedges awaiting collection.
Robin looked up and down the street. There was no one in sight. He turned his attention to the wheelie bins, inspecting them more closely. Some of them were so crammed full that their lids perched precariously atop a rounded heap of rubble. Others – and these he regarded more carefully – had their lids snugly fitting, with no gap apparent. He sidled up to the nearest, lifted the lid and peered inside.
No … it was filled to the brim with no room for any additions. He moved along to the next one.
That was better. Only three-quarters full. After another swift look around, he stuffed his bulging parcel into it and replaced the lid.
He began to whistle as he strolled away, a sense of freedom lifting his spirits. One big problem solved. There would be other problems – responsibilities – but he was beginning to feel that he could cope with them. Take one thing at a time. The next task was to collect some cat litter – and something to hold it. No, not litter, he remembered that he had decided on dirt from the garden – easily disposed of and replaced – and to half-inch one of Mags’s baking trays to hold it. That would leave him more money to buy some proper catfood so that he didn’t have to keep raiding the fridge.
Yes, things were looking up. He was smiling as he turned the corner and moved forward curiously to read the poster affixed to the lamp post.
‘LOST …’ He stopped smiling abruptly as he stared at the picture of Leif Eriksson. The words in smaller print blurred until he reached the big black letters proclaiming: ‘REWARD’.
His knees suddenly went wobbly and he put out his hand to steady himself against the lamp post. Instinctively, he looked over his shoulder to make sure no one was watching. His hand was right beside the poster and, without thinking, he ripped it off the lamp post, crumpled it up and thrust it into his pocket.
But, where there was one, there must be more. More. And, with a reward offered, they would set everyone looking for poor Leif.
Too bad it was such a good likeness: Leif showed up sharply and clearly. That handsome white shirt front and proud ruff would be unmistakable. The darker markings on head and body were also distinctive, making him instantly identifiable.
The bracelet on the wrist of the woman holding him was also clear and identifiable – but he didn’t want to think about that. One problem at a time was enough.
Or, if you had a whole town hunting for the cat, for the reward, did that count as a whole set of problems? He knew the reward Leif would get if Mr Nordling found him. And he wouldn’t fare any better himself.
The memory he kept trying to repress resurfaced and threatened to overwhelm him. Mr Nordling: naked and vicious, splashed with his wife’s blood, howling hatred and revenge at both of them as they fled from his house. He’d meant it … he would do it … he would kill them both.
Robin reeled back from the lamp post and stumbled away from the unfamiliar, but dangerous, neighbourhood.
What was he going to do?
20
‘Good evening. No, I’ll correct that. This is not a good evening, this is a terrible evening. This is a night straight out of a nightmare. A nightmare that has engulfed our peaceful happy little town without warning … and without mercy.’
Mags sighed deeply and considered snapping off the radio. But Josh would expect a response from her. ‘How did it sound to the proles?’ he would demand, cheerfully oblivious of the fact that the very question was lumping her among them. She took a deep breath and braced herself to keep listening, only thankful that Mummy had not yet arrived to hear his worst effusions.
‘We thought we were safe here. Happily cushioned in our little seaside community. We prided ourselves that we were protected from the terrors that stalked the inner cities of our unhappy country. We believed it couldn’t happen here.
‘But it has happened here. Now. A woman, a decent, respectable middle-aged woman, quietly preparing to go to bed in her own home, looking forward to a peaceful night’s sleep … was brutally slaughtered by an intruder. Someone who had callously breached the ramparts of what used to be every Englishman’s – and Englishwoman’s – castle: their home.
‘Their castle – invaded. The lady of the castle – viciously murdered. The lord of the castle – stunned, shattered and bereft. The law of our land – ignored, flouted, broken. Broken as surely and thoroughly as the body of Ingrid Nordling, pillar of the community, loving wife, a woman in her prime of life …’
Was that the door? Mags started, realising that her nerves were less steady than she had thought them. It wasn’t just the emotive language Josh was using, it was the underlying truth: if it could happen to Ingrid Nordling, protected by wealth and privilege, it could happen to anyone.
‘Who’s there?’ she called out nervously.
‘It’s only me, Auntie Mags.’ Robin appeared in the doorway, looking as nervous as she felt.
‘Oh …’ She drew a deep sigh of relief. For a little while, she had forgotten that he existed, much less that he was here living with them.
‘Our thoughts … our sympathies … go out to Nils Nordling. An honest, upright citizen. A businessman who had been working late in the City and who came home and walked into his own home to discover the battered body of his beloved wife, murdered when he was not there to protect her. A man who is now so shocked, so traumatised …’
Robin made an odd strangulated sound. Mags looked at him quickly. He had gone a peculiar colour – or had he looked like that all along?
‘Are you all right?’ she asked.
‘Yes. No.’ Robin swallowed and his pallor looked even worse. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Does it hurt anywhere?’ This wasn’t the first time he had looked as though he were coming down with something. ‘What did you eat?’
‘ … locked away with his grief … with his pain … with his disbelief, Nils Nordling is unwilling, or unable, to give interviews, to speak of the nightmare that has befallen him. He cannot speak. But we must. Speak for him, speak out for justice. Speak out for all the victims …’
Josh was using his most portentous Voice Of Doom delivery. Mags cast an irritated glance at the radio, as though Josh could see her. When she looked back at Robin, he was paler than ever.
‘You’d better go up to bed,’ she said. ‘I’ll bring you up some soup, or some tea and toast …’
‘No!’ Robin almost screamed. ‘No, I’m all right. Honest, I am. I can eat down here – but I’m not hungry.’
‘You’re not?’ That sounded like a sure sign of something nasty brewing. Who ever heard of a boy who wasn’t ready to eat anything, at any time?
‘And I know all of you agree with me out there …’ A gloating triumph had come into Josh’s voice. ‘The switchboard has been lighting up … approaching meltdown. We have to talk. So, let’s go to Elsie. Elsie, hello, what do you have to say about – ?’
‘It’s a disgrace! We can all be murdered in our beds! And what are the police doing about it? What are we paying them for? Where – ?’
‘Actually, I believe – ’
‘Disgrace! Murdered in our beds! All of us! No one is safe! A living disgrace! They all ought to be – ’
‘Thank you, Elsie. Well, Elsie has expressed her views very forcibly. Let’s go to Tony. And see what he thinks. What do you have to say about it, Tony?’
‘Hello, Joshua. How are you? Keeping well, are you?’
‘You didn’t ring up to discuss my health, did you, Tony?’ Josh was not one to suffer fools gladly. ‘The last time I looked, you weren’t my doctor. And, if you’d ever bothered to listen to this programme before, you’d know I never answer stupid questions like that.’
‘Oh, here now. I was only being polite. What’s the matter with you? You don’t have to carry on like – ’
‘Goodbye, Tony … Hello, Samant
ha. I hope you’ve got something more constructive to say.’
‘Indeed, I have. I think – ’
‘I’ll eat a sandwich, if you want,’ Robin said.
‘What?’ Mags was losing track of the two men in her life. Too busy holding her breath and hoping that Josh was not antagonising anyone important enough to do something about it, she had almost forgotten her possibly ailing nephew. She swung to face Robin distractedly. ‘What did you say?’
‘Can I have a tuna fish sandwich and a glass of milk?’ Sensing he had gained the upper hand, Robin’s voice firmed.
‘May I?’ The correction came automatically, half of her attention still centred on Josh’s performance. ‘Yes, you may. Just wait a minute and I’ll get it for you.’
‘Thank you, Samantha, for your incisive comments.’ Josh’s tone was still on the right side of civility. ‘I must confess though that I’m a little bit disappointed. Dearly as I love you all and breathless as I am to hear your opinions …’
Careful, Josh, careful … Mags sent out a silent plea. Don’t get yourself thrown out of another job. Not with Mummy arriving at any minute. And, never mind Mummy, I don’t think I have it in me to move again. Not for a long, long while. Awful though this place is, it’s better than house-hunting again. And Robin is getting settled in nicely at school and I can’t, I can’t, I can’t …
‘Auntie Mags?’ It was Robin’s turn to be concerned. ‘Are you all right? ’
‘Not one of you is the one person I would most like to speak with tonight. The person who can really tell us all about it. Who can tell us in his own words of how it felt to face the horror waiting unbeknownst to him inside his own home when he arrived back after a normal busy day. The man who had his world pulled out from under him by a vicious housebreaker – ’
‘Oh, God!’ Turning to reassure Robin, Mags saw him sway and caught him by the shoulders. ‘Don’t listen! It’s just bloody Josh showing off, frightening children – ’
‘I’m not a child!’ Robin pulled away from her and forced himself upright.
‘Nils Nordling, are you out there? Are you listening? Ring me, Nils,’ Josh challenged. ‘Ring me now. Or later. Here at the studio or at home. Any time, anywhere you like. It will help you to talk about it, Nils. Tell us what you saw, what happened. It may help to capture the monster who destroyed your life. We want to help you, Nils, we’re on your side. Trust us, contact us … it’s for your own good – ’
And your ratings! Mags swung Robin around and hurried him into the kitchen. She pushed him into a chair and took a tin of tuna from the shelf.
‘Are you sure this will be enough?’ When she turned with the loaf of bread and the opened tin, Robin was no longer at the table. He had moved over to the counter beside the sink and was rummaging in the cutlery drawer.
‘What are you looking for?’
‘The scissors.’ He found them and lifted them out, then noticed the uneasy look on her face.
‘I’ve got to cut some things out. It’s a school project,’ he said quickly.
‘Oh.’ She accepted the explanation and nearly warned him not to ruin good scissors by blunting them cutting paper, then she remembered that it didn’t matter. They weren’t her scissors and they weren’t very good to begin with. They couldn’t get much blunter. She settled for: ‘Well, be careful with them.’
‘I will.’ He slid them out of sight and went back to stand by the table while she spread mayonnaise on the bread and forked the tuna out of the tin, spreading it thick and lumpy across the slice.
‘Perhaps I should make two sandwiches – this is going to be very thick.’ She regarded it dubiously, half her attention still in the other room, caught by the rising note of excitement in Josh’s voice. He was on to something.
‘I like it that way.’ Robin moved across to the fridge. ‘I’ll get a glass of milk and then I’ve got to go upstairs and work on my project, all right?’
‘Yes, fine,’ she said abstractedly. He didn’t want to stay down here listening to Josh trying to terrify the punters and she couldn’t blame him. But she had to keep listening so that she could discuss how it had sounded when he got home.
‘You don’t have to – ’ But she had cut the sandwich into neat teatime triangles before Robin could stop her. He shrugged, picked up the plate and started from the room.
Mags began to follow him, but stopped as Josh brayed out the next name, loud and triumphant.
‘Edith, welcome! I understand you’re a first-time caller, now don’t be shy. They tell me you have some truly confidential information for me, so just hang on. I don’t usually do this but this is very important. I’ll go to a station break on air and we can talk privately. I’ll be right with you, Edith.’
21
‘You what?’ The red blur was obscuring everything again, the corners of the room wavered and threatened to dissolve. Those stupid cow eyes in that vapid sanctimonious face seemed to glow through the mist at him. A man couldn’t turn his back for two minutes in this house without getting a knife in it! He’d come back from his evening run to find –
‘You bloody what?’
‘Oh, now, see here, old man.’ Edward moved forward, stolid and protective, to stand in front of his wife. ‘There’s no need to carry on like that. Edith is only trying to do her best for you.’
Her best! What would she do if she were trying to do her worst? Nils retained just enough control not to say the words aloud. An inarticulate growl was the only way he could begin to release his feelings.
‘Easy, old man.’ Edward took a step backwards, but the sound seemed to put Edith into a combative mood.
‘I did it for Ingrid!’ she said. ‘And I think you should do it, too.’
‘Ingrid is dead.’ He reached for the role of grieving husband, wrapped it around himself again and repeated brokenly, ‘Dead …’
‘She’s beyond our help,’ Edith agreed. ‘That’s why we’ve got to do everything in our power to bring her killer to justice.’
‘She’s right, you know.’ Edward put an arm around his wife’s shoulders. ‘Can’t let the bleeder get away with it.’
‘And there’s the rest of the community to consider.’ Edith raised her chin and came close to glaring at the sorrowing widower. ‘A killer is loose in our midst. Someone who has killed before will kill again. We must think of the common good.’
Edward nodded agreement. Nils wondered if he had noticed that his wife had stopped talking normally and begun declaiming everything she said. Did Edward really love and agree with that dreadful creature, or was he just so used to her that he never really listened to her drivel?
‘It was a casual – ’ He stopped and decided the word was too cold as it stood. ‘A casual crime – that was what the police called it – ’ He got a successful choke in his voice. ‘Committed in the course of a burglary. That sort of killer isn’t likely to do it again.’ Neither was the traditional domestic killer, but Nils was not about to point that out.
‘There’s that.’ Edward was ready to agree with anyone. Edith sent him an annoyed glance. ‘The blighter is probably hundreds of miles away from here by now. Might even be in another country, the way transportation goes these days.’
‘And he might not!’ Edith snapped. ‘We’ve got to do everything we possibly can to stop him.’
‘Making a public exhibition of myself won’t bring Ingrid back,’ Nils said stubbornly. And worse, much worse, it would draw attention to himself. It might even start people remembering just how many tearful next-of-kin had appeared in public, broken-heartedly pleading for information, for help, only to be subsequently revealed as the perpetrators of the crime themselves.
‘She’s dead,’ he said flatly.
‘All the more reason to get your burglar-killer!’ Edith’s eyes flashed.
‘Revenge …?’
‘If you want to put it that way. For God’s sake, Nils, snap out of it!’
She wouldn’t dare to talk to him that way if Edwa
rd weren’t standing there protecting her. Nils lowered his eyelids to hide the answering flash of fury. By God, if there really had been a burglar, there was no justice in this world that Ingrid had been killed and this woman was still standing on her feet ordering everyone around.
‘Revenge …’ There had been other next-of-kin splashing themselves across the front pages of tabloids and the TV screens braying out variations on that theme, but not so many in recent years. Revenge had become an outmoded concept in countries concerned about political correctness. More-in-sorrow-than-in-anger was the ticket these days. Give-yourself-up-and-let-us-find-help-and-counselling-for-you.
‘Don’t just dismiss the idea of an interview out-of-hand, old chap,’ Edward urged. ‘I quite see your point of view, but look at it the other way. It would start people thinking, remembering. Someone might have noticed something that didn’t mean anything to them at the time but, in the light of what happened, makes sense now. The police use the technique all the time in their reconstructions.’
‘She was murdered in her own – our own – bedroom.’ Nils ground his teeth soundlessly and forced a wan smile. ‘That’s as private as you can get. There wouldn’t be any witnesses to come forward to that.’ He said it without a tremor in his voice, but the vision suddenly replayed across his mind: that glimpse of a huddled form rising up to shoot a blinding light into his eyes, the sound of running footsteps and, finally, when he had recovered enough to give chase as far as the front door, the sinister elongated lumpy shadow lurching down the path. How much had the young tearaway seen and heard? Enough to put everything together and come up with the right answer? Or had he been as startled and taken by surprise as Nils? Perhaps the burglar had been too intent on his own task to realise what had happened. Would an appeal for assistance bring him out? A housebreaker? A thief? He had as much to lose as Nils had.
To Catch a Cat Page 10
