‘I’ll have my meals with you, apart from breakfast, of course.’ Mummy gave her a knowing look. ‘I’ll do the cooking myself.’ She had never trusted Mags’s culinary expertise. ‘But tonight you’ll all be my guests at the hotel. Unless you know of a better place?’
‘No,’ Mags said quickly. ‘No, the hotel will be fine.’
‘That’s settled then.’ The brilliant smile did not quite mask Mummy’s satisfaction at getting her own way. She turned it on Robin, who stepped back uneasily.
‘Now, my darling, let’s get reacquainted. I haven’t seen you in ages. How are you doing at school? How do you like living here? What have you been up to lately?’
The doorbell saved him. There wasn’t one question in that whole lot he wanted to answer. He gave a weak grin and looked towards the door.
‘Josh must have forgotten his key.’ Mags started forward. He’d be furious with himself – and with her. But that would be nothing compared to his reaction when he discovered that Mummy had arrived and he was committed to dinner with her.
Mags opened the door, holding up her hand in warning. It would be all Mummy needed to hear if Josh burst into a profane tirade.
But … She looked around. Josh wasn’t there. No one was there, but someone had rung the bell –
‘Excuse me,’ a small voice said at about the level of her waist, ‘but I am wishing to speak to Robin, please.’
24
Robin recognised the voice and his heart sank. He had a terrible feeling that he knew why Jamie Patel had come here. Another one with questions he didn’t want to answer.
‘It’s for me.’ He slipped past his grandmother and into the hall. Just in time.
‘Come in,’ Mags was saying.
‘I’ll talk to him out here.’ Robin grabbed Jamie’s arm and pulled him down the path. ‘The house is full of people.’
Jamie nodded politely to Mags and went with him willingly. Mags stood irresolute for a moment before stepping back inside and closing the door.
‘All right,’ Robin said. ‘What is it?’
‘I am sorry. Perhaps this is a bad time. I thought it would be best to come here. I did not mean to upset you … but we cannot talk at school.’
‘Talk about what?’ The sky had grown darker. Robin tried to ignore the first light splatterings of rain.
‘About … you know.’ Jamie waved a hand vaguely. ‘The gang. I thought – I hoped – you might help me … again.’
‘Help you?’ Robin tried to look forbidding. ‘How?’
‘Well … you know.’ Jamie brushed a hand across his forehead, wiping away what might have been rain, or perspiration. ‘When you helped me before with … with the cigarettes …’
‘Yes?’
‘And then … when you could not deliver the cat and … and you gave Kerry the extra cigarettes instead … and he let you off.’
‘Yes?’
‘I have been thinking. If I, too, could give them another … six cigarettes …’
‘Forget it!’ He had known deep in his heart that that was what Jamie was going to ask of him. But he couldn’t, he couldn’t. If he took any more, Josh would notice. Perhaps Josh had already noticed and was planning retribution. ‘There’s no way I can do that.’
‘No.’ Jamie nodded glumly, accepting the refusal. ‘No … I only hoped …’ Heavier raindrops hit his upturned face, running down it like tears. At least, Robin hoped they were raindrops.
‘Look,’ he said desperately, ‘I’m sorry. I’d like to help, but I can’t. I really can’t. I can’t raid Josh’s stash again. He’ll find out and kill me … kill me … kill me …’ To his horror, his voice stalled on the words and kept repeating them.
‘I understand,’ Jamie said, proving that he didn’t. Not at all. Luckily, the real import of Robin’s words escaped him, he was too intent on his own problems. ‘And I do not think I can do what they want me to do. That is why I hoped … hoped …’
‘Why?’ Worried about his own terrifying challenge, he had given no thought to whatever nightmare task they had given Jamie to perform. For the first time, he was curious. ‘What do they want you to do?’
‘They …’ Jamie faltered, then raised his head to stare Robin in the eye. ‘They want me to fail my maths test.’
‘That’s rotten!’ Stealing a cat, which would be given back almost immediately, was one thing. Making someone fail an exam which could affect the rest of his life was something else. ‘Really rotten!’
‘I know.’ Jamie shrugged.
‘You can’t do that. It’s stupid. Anyway, no one would believe it. You? You’re good with numbers. The best in the school.’
‘I know. Numbers talk to me, they … they sing to me.’ His flashing eyes defied Robin to laugh. ‘It is the family business. I will be an accountant like my father and my uncle. But, if I fail the exam, they will think I am too stupid to join the business. I will let down the family. They will be ashamed of me.’
In the silence, the rain suddenly intensified; a small pool rapidly formed in the dip in the path between them. There was a faint sound of someone calling in the distance.
‘I’d like to help but – ’ Robin fought against weakening.
‘It’s all right.’ Jamie shrugged again. ‘If you can’t, you can’t.’
‘What are you going to do?’ But he already knew the answer to that question: Jamie was going to become an accountant, even though he never joined the gang and was bullied all term.
Robin was swept by a wave of envy. Whatever happened, Jamie was one of the lucky ones who had a goal and were working their way towards it. What did he want to do with his life? He wished he knew. The old baby ambitions – becoming a fire fighter, a train driver, even an engineer like his father – had all been swept away as he grew older and wiser. But nothing had arisen to take their place. Would it ever? Or would he just fall into some job because it was there and be trapped in it?
‘I am not sure, but – ’
‘You silly boys!’ Suddenly, Granna was upon them, holding Josh’s old raincoat over her head. ‘Come inside at once! I’ve been calling and calling. It’s pouring and you’ll get soaked.’
She herded them towards the door where Mags stood waiting.
‘We’re all right,’ Robin protested. ‘We were under the tree. We weren’t getting wet.’
‘Nonsense!’ Granna laughed, sliding out from under the raincoat and shaking it. ‘Look at you! Of course you were. You’ll be much more comfortable inside. Now take your little friend up to your room. You can talk all you want there.’
‘My room?’ An abyss opened up in front of Robin. ‘But – ’
‘Up you go!’ Granna waved her arms, shooing them like chickens. ‘Up, up, up!’
‘You can show him your school project,’ Mags suggested, blocking his way as he tried to get around her into the living-room.
Jamie had already started up the stairs. If he got there first and opened the door incautiously – ! Robin bolted ahead, brushing past Jamie without apology.
‘Robin, manners!’ Granna chided. ‘Now, be good boys and I’ll put the kettle on and bring you some tea – ’
‘No!’ Robin shouted. ‘I – I mean, we’ll come down for it.’ He reached his bedroom door and gave it a noisy kick before turning to Jamie.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘it’s pretty messy in there.’
‘I don’t care.’ Jamie’s fatalistic shrug said that he had far more to worry about than the state of Robin’s room.
‘Maybe – ’ Robin gave the door another vicious kick. ‘Maybe you ought to shut your eyes for a minute.’
‘You think so?’ Jamie was frankly puzzled and becoming more than a little uneasy.
‘Sure.’ Robin gave the door a final frantic kick and realised, as Jamie flinched, that he had overplayed his hand. With any luck, Leif had been frightened enough to go and hide, but Jamie was now so nervous that nothing would persuade him to close his eyes and miss whatever might be going to happen
next.
‘Wait a minute.’ Robin edged the door open, foot ready to block any escape attempt on Leif’s part. There was no sign of the cat, however.
‘Get in, quick!’ He held the door open just wide enough for Jamie to slip through and slammed it behind him. He was aware that Jamie was watching him closely and seemed relieved when he did not lock it.
He was relieved himself when he saw that there was no sign of Leif – if you didn’t count the bits of fur, that is. He’d tried to clear up some, but maybe the dust would hide the worst of it. He saw with relief that the newspaper doing temporary duty as a cat litter substitute until he could raid the garden was unsullied. Good old Leif.
‘Well, I warned you it was a mess,’ he said to Jamie, who was very carefully not looking around, although his eyelids flickered with every sideways glance.
‘I have seen worse.’ Jamie seemed to feel that this statement gave him the right to look around openly. ‘Much worse,’ he confirmed.
‘Sit down,’ Robin said. ‘You can have the chair.’ He perched on the edge of the bed himself, close to the top where he could rearrange the pillows hastily if Leif showed any sign of popping out.
Jamie hesitated. The seat of the chair was covered with bits of white fluff. He had the air of someone debating whether it would be insulting to brush the seat before sitting down.
‘Just blow that stuff away,’ Robin said. ‘I’ve been working on my project. I … I had to cut up some feathers.’ That sounded a plausible excuse for the mess, but he hoped Jamie wouldn’t ask questions about the project.
With obvious relief, Jamie cleared the chair. He couldn’t escape noticing that there was a lot more fluff on the carpet. Robin wondered whether he should try any more explanations, but it was hard to think what more he could say. Somehow, part of his mind seemed to have gone blank when Granna hustled them up the stairs.
‘We’ll go downstairs in a minute,’ Robin said. ‘I don’t want Granna carrying a heavy tray up – up – ’ He broke off in dismay as he identified the strange sensation at his feet.
A cold wet nose was exploring the back of his sockless ankles. Leif wasn’t under the pillows, he was under the bed.
He shuffled his feet desperately, hoping to drive Leif farther back under the bed. It was a mistake. Leif dodged around the feet to advance into sight and cross the room to investigate Jamie.
‘It isn’t Leif Eriksson!’ Robin blurted out.
Jamie blinked. ‘I did not think it was.’ But now he took a closer look at the ragged cat. ‘Anyone can see that this one is a short-haired cat.’ He absently brushed a few stray hairs from his trousers and avoided looking at the little piles of fur littering the carpet.
‘Look …’ Robin said desperately. ‘Look, it will be all right, I promise. I – I’ll get you those cigarettes.’
‘But … it is not safe for you. You said that if you raided Josh’s stash again, he would kill you.’
‘That’s right,’ Robin said. ‘And, if he finds out I’ve got his cat, Mr Nordling will kill me, really kill me … . Just like he killed his wife.’
25
Blackmail! He’d been blackmailed. A hot towering rage built up in him, leaving just enough self-protection to make him slow down and pull over to the kerb until the thin red mist stopped blurring his vision, until he stopped shaking.
A precarious control was returning when something fluttering from the tree beside him caught his attention. He turned his head and recognised it as part of one of the posters he had torn down. He might not know where he was, but he had been here before. And so had Edith.
Edith! The red mist thickened into a heavy fog. His hand shook so violently that he had trouble closing it around the ignition key. He snapped off the motor and leaned back in his seat, closing his eyes.
It was all Edith’s fault! She had betrayed him to the blackmailer, the oily-voiced, smoothly insinuating bastard who had backed him into a corner. Trapped him.
‘Naturally, I’ll understand if you don’t feel you can give me an interview,’ the voice had said. ‘But don’t you feel that you owe it to your wife’s memory to do everything you can to bring her killer to justice? ’
His excuses had been brushed aside. The voice was implacable, relentless, determined to have its own way.
‘That’s the beauty of radio, you can break down and not have to feel embarrassed – because no one can see you. They’ll just hear you and be sympathetic.’
Rudeness didn’t work, either, the voice only grew subtly menacing.
‘I’m sorry you feel that way. Believe me, a quiet radio interview would have been the best solution – for both of us. If you won’t talk to me … well, I’m afraid I’m not the only person at the station who knows where to contact you now. If someone passes the information along to any of the other media types … Ever been door-stepped? It’s an experience – not a very pleasant one. Especially not for a man who’s just lost his wife. They shove those cameras straight up your nostrils, you know. Every hint of expression is magnified …’
He recognised blackmail when he heard it. He had seen the outside broadcast TV vans and the reporters, the paparazzi, all hovering like vultures outside his house – one of the reasons he could not go back there.
He knew when he was beaten. Better the devil you know - or almost know …
‘I’m glad you feel that way. I knew you’d see the sense of it, once you’d thought it through. Look, I’ll make it as painless for you as I can. You won’t even have to go near the studio. I’ll tape the interview from my place. And I’ll edit the tape myself. That way, if you get a bit … emotional, it won’t matter. I can always cut it out. Don’t worry about a thing. Just put your trust in good old Joshua, I’ll see you right.’
Well, what else could he do? He was committed to the interview – at least he’d managed to postpone it until tomorrow. The address, in a grotty run-down district on the other side of town, was in his pocket. Tomorrow … was there any way he could avoid it? Or play for more time? Time for the case to grow cold and the public to begin to lose interest.
He had the rest of today to think about it, to try to make plans. If only he didn’t have to go back to Edward and Edith. Edith … another blackmailer, in her own way. Bloody Edith!
At least, a faint smile curved his lips, he had got the better of her this time. How annoyed she had been when he’d taken the telephone call last night only to tell Joshua that he’d call him back in the morning. Spoiled all her fun, no juicy eavesdropping on his call. She’d known that meant he intended to find a public telephone where he could have some privacy. She’d known that he was snubbing her, the ugly flush on her face told him that.
Unfortunately, he still had to return to that house, although he’d put it off as long as he could, driving around slowly up and down unfamiliar streets, hoping to catch a glimpse of the burglar. Or the cat. He had even remembered to stop off at an off-licence and pick up two bottles of Macallan – that would mollify Edward, even if it left Edith cold. Edith would never like him, no matter what he did – and the antipathy was mutual.
Now the rain was belting down and he could see almost nothing beyond a few feet ahead. There was no point in continuing with the search, the streets were deserted. Also, he had regained control of himself, the spasmodic fury that had engulfed him had ebbed away. He was in as fit a state as he would ever be to go back and spend some time with Edward and Edith with a sporting chance of not erupting in their faces.
How soon could he leave there? Not until after the funeral, probably. Surely, he could stand it until then. After that, he would go away, take a holiday, go on a cruise, do any of those things the bereaved were traditionally advised to do. It would be accepted, even expected, of him.
Although he drove as slowly as he could, he reached the house all too soon. As he sat in the car, calculating his chances of making a quick dash through the hallway and up the stairs to his room without being intercepted, he saw the curtains twitch and
knew that it was a lost cause. Edith was lying in wait for him.
He was half-way across the hall when she appeared. There was an Atmosphere around her. Ingrid had been very good at providing an Atmosphere-with-a-capital-A, too. It seemed to be a gift certain women had.
‘Oh, there you are.’ He forced a smile. ‘It’s all arranged.’ Better to let her have some information, it might placate her. ‘He’s taping the interview tomorrow — at his house. He thought … it would be better that way, in case …’ He let his voice falter. ‘I break down.’
‘Oh, really?’ The Atmosphere intensified. He was in the wrong, but what had he done? Was she that affronted because he hadn’t let her listen in on his call? …
‘I …’ He took a tentative step towards the safety of the staircase. ‘I think I’ll go straight up to my room, if you don’t mind. I – I’m feeling quite exhausted …’ He let his voice waver again, although it hadn’t worked the first time. ‘I – I think it’s all overpowering me. It … it comes and goes in waves, you know.’
‘Oh, really?’ It wasn’t working now. If she had any human sympathy, it wasn’t for him. She was a cold-hearted bitch – but that was Edward’s problem.
He gained the stairs and took the first steps. He thought he was going to get away, then she spoke.
‘You had a telephone call.’
‘Another one?’ He stopped and frowned down at her. ‘Here?’ He could feel the blood suffusing his face. ‘How did they get the number? Who else have you told?’
‘Not here,’ she said. ‘At your house.’
‘My house? How did you know, then?’ The answer came to him. ‘What were you doing at my house?’
‘Watering the plants, collecting the post …’ She watched him advance without flinching, wrapped as she was in righteousness. ‘Checking to see if poor Leif had returned, hungry and looking for his mother.’
‘How did you get in?’ He was choking and not just with fury. Ingrid had always referred to herself as the damned cat’s mother, too. It made him sick.
To Catch a Cat Page 12
