The Cat That Played The Tombola

by Fiona Snyckers

  Fay stood up and brushed kitten fur off her jeans. She really wasn’t looking forward to her conversation with Martin, but she was determined to get it over with.

  It felt odd to be sitting in a vet’s waiting room without an animal by her side. She probably looked like a rep from a pet food company.

  After a fifteen-minute wait, Martin came out of his consulting room to call her through.

  “Hi, Fay. I thought you’d be accompanied by a herd of kittens. Come through and let’s chat.”

  At least he had given up pretending that he didn’t remember who she was. He slid the door to the consulting room shut behind her and smiled expectantly.

  Fay launched into her rehearsed speech. “The kittens are two months old now. I’m going to find homes for them at three months because that’s what my grandmother always did. When should they have their last vaccinations, and should I have them sterilized before I home them?”

  Martin sat at his computer and called up previous records for Penrose House.

  “You can bring them for their vaccinations at three months, just a few days before they are going to their new homes. We want to make sure they don’t have any upset tummies or allergic reactions. Those are rare, but not unheard of.”

  Fay nodded and pretended to take notes on her phone.

  “And the sterilizing?”

  “It’s possible to do it at three months, and I know some vets who do, but it’s not ideal. The females in particular are too young for such a big operation. The ideal time is just before they reach six months. If you want to make sure it gets done, you could pay for it in advance and give the new owners a voucher to come here and have them fixed. I will then get my receptionist to phone and remind them at the appropriate time. If I remember correctly, that’s the way your grandmother always did it.”

  “Perfect. Thank you. I just want there to be zero possibility of these kittens adding to the cat population one day.”

  “Absolutely. None of us wants that.”

  With that cleared up, Fay found it difficult to move on to the subject of Mrs. Saville. Luckily, he gave her an opening.

  “How’s business? It must be picking up now that the weather is getting warmer.” He cast an ironic look out the window where rain was still lashing the island. “Warming up in general, I mean. Not today, apparently.”

  “Yes, it’s definitely picking up. I was worried that the shooting on Sunday was going to put people off. It was in all the newspapers and on TV. I thought people might cancel their bookings.”

  “And did they?”

  “Actually, not. I had a new booking from Mrs. Saville’s daughter, the poor thing. She’s here to sort out her mother’s affairs.”

  “I suppose she’s meeting with lawyers and so forth?”

  “I suppose so.” Now was as good a time as any. “You must have known Mrs. Saville quite well.”

  “What?” he said. “No, I didn’t. Why would you say that?”

  “She joined the Rotary Club recently. And you’re a member. I heard you went to a lot of trouble to make her feel welcome.”

  Martin’s eyes flicked away from Fay’s. “Oh, of course. Yes, she did join the club. She hadn’t been a member for long, though.”

  “You got to know her well after that first meeting, didn’t you? The two of you spent time together.”

  Martin laughed. It was an uneasy sound. “What is this? An interrogation? I met her once at the Rotary Club. Apart from that, I didn’t know her at all.”

  “That’s odd because her housekeeper saw you visiting Mrs. Saville at home and even spending the night on several occasions.”

  This wasn’t true. Bertha had never seen the face of the person who visited her employer, but Fay wanted to see his reaction.

  “Are you telling me she actually saw …” He caught himself. “She must have been mistaken. It was someone else.”

  “Really? Because Joe who delivers the pizzas for Pappa’s also said he saw you at Mrs. Saville’s house one night when he was dropping off two orders.”

  Martin’s face was suffused with blood from jaw to hairline. He was blushing so vividly he looked like a stoplight. But his gaze didn’t waver.

  “He’s mistaken. I’ve never been to her house.”

  “It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. For a man to date an older woman should be as routine as for a woman to date an older man.”

  “I know that. But in this case, it just isn’t true. I met Mrs. Saville once and we had no contact after that.”

  The color faded from his face, leaving it blotchy.

  Fay forced herself to smile. As uncomfortable as he had made her over the last few months, she wasn’t enjoying making him feel the same way. She decided to take pity on him.

  “I guess it’s a case of mistaken identity. Mrs. Saville’s daughter probably knows the name of the man her mother was seeing. That will clear it up.”

  “I imagine she won’t be staying on the island much longer?”

  “I really couldn’t say. Her booking is open-ended. She could leave tomorrow or still be here next week. It all depends on what kind of state Mrs. Saville’s affairs were in.”

  “She struck me as a meticulous woman. I’m sure Candice will find that her finances are in good order. The lawyer will too.”

  Fay picked up her purse and slung it over her shoulder. “I’ll bring the kittens in a few weeks then. I’ll be sad to see them go, but they deserve happy, loving homes of their own.”

  “Definitely.” He slid open the door and stood back to let Fay through.

  The waiting room was now occupied by a small boy with a budgie in a cage, a man with a corgi on a leash, and a woman with an annoyed-looking cat in a cage on her lap.

  “No charge for this consultation,” Martin told his receptionist. “Miss Penrose was just asking my advice for a future consultation. Goodbye then, Fay.”

  He was about to turn away and usher in the man with the corgi when Fay called him back.

  “Oh, Martin?”

  “Yes?”

  “How did you know that Mrs. Saville’s daughter is called Candice?”

  He froze for a second but recovered quickly. “I … you must have mentioned it. Yes, I think you mentioned it when you said she was staying at the Cat’s Paw.”

  “Oh, that’s right. I did.”

  But that was the thing, Fay thought as she stepped out onto the rain-swept street. She hadn’t mentioned it at all.

  Chapter 15

  Fay arrived home to find her house in chaos.

  Someone was having an epic fight in the residents’ lounge. Fay could hear raised and angry voices. There was one woman who sounded particularly enraged.

  Guests peeked out of their rooms to locate the source of the noise and Morwen stood at reception, wringing her hands and looking helpless.

  “What’s going on?” asked Fay. “Who’s making that noise?”

  “It’s Mrs. Saville-Wareham and her lawyers. They asked if they could use the residents’ lounge for a meeting. Of course, I said yes. Tea was over, and the lounge was empty. Next thing I know, they all start yelling at each other. It’s upsetting the guests. I don’t know what to do about it. This is awful.”

  A resounding crash emanated from the residents’ lounge.

  “Now they’ve started breaking things! What are we going to do?”

  This was the part of running a B&B that Morwen didn’t enjoy. She was excellent at charming the guests and smoothing their ruffled feathers, but she found it almost impossible to get stern with them. Sometimes the guests got out of hand. Sometimes they let their kids run wild through the house or came in drunk at night and woke everyone up. These incidents were rare, but when they happened, Morwen always called on Fay to deal with it.

  It wasn’t Fay’s favorite part of the job either, but she could manage it. Once you had worked crowd control at Times Square on New Year’s Eve, you could tell a bunch of rowdy guests to calm down.

  “I’ll sort it
out, don’t worry.”

  “Would you? Oh, thank you! It’s just that she lost her mother so recently - I don’t feel right about going in there and telling her to keep it down. She must be terribly upset.”

  “She didn’t look particularly upset. I know everyone processes grief differently, but she did not seem heartbroken about the departure of her mother.”

  “Good luck,” called Morwen as Fay headed to the lounge.

  The shouting got louder as Fay approached. She could make out what they were saying now.

  “… exploitation of an old woman …”

  “Your mother wasn’t old, Mrs. Saville-Wareham.” The other voice was male and sounded calmer, although he was having to shout to make himself heard.

  “Old and senile! Senile, I tell you. Unfit to run her own affairs …”

  Fay knocked once and walked into the lounge.

  Candice Saville-Wareham was on her feet, screaming at a man and a woman who were sitting on a couch. From the briefcases they had next to them and the pile of papers on the coffee table, Fay gathered that these were the lawyers.

  “What do you want?” yelled Candice, turning to Fay.

  “I want you to keep the noise level down, please. There are other guests here at the Cat’s Paw and you’re disturbing them. I realize this is an emotional time for you, but I have to think about my guests.”

  “How do you expect me to keep my voice down when this man is telling me I’ve been robbed? How am I supposed to …?”

  Fay held up a hand. “Like I said, I know this is an emotional time for you. If you can’t moderate your tone, it might be more appropriate for you to move this meeting to your lawyer’s office.”

  The woman behind the coffee table gave an eager nod. “That’s an excellent idea. Mrs. Saville-Wareham, I’m sure we could make you comfortable at our offices. We could explain the whole situation to you without disturbing this lady’s guests.”

  “Thank you for understanding,” said Fay, turning back to the door. “I’ll leave you in peace now.”

  “Wait!” Candice’s voice stopped Fay like a bullet. “I need you to hear this. I need a reasonable human being to hear this just to assure me that I’m not going crazy.”

  “It’s really none of my business.”

  “You knew my mother. She was killed right here on your property. That makes it your business.”

  Fay turned back. The truth was, she had never been very good at minding her own business anyway.

  “I’m Fay Penrose, by the way.”

  “Mia Blackburn.” The woman shook hands. “And this is my assistant, James Poe. We are solicitors. Mrs. Saville hired our firm to be her executors.”

  “Solicitors? That’s like attorneys, right?”

  “Exactly. We were just reading Mrs. Saville’s last will and testament to her daughter. We wanted to have a meeting of all interested parties, but Mrs. Saville-Wareham insisted on first meeting with us here alone.”

  “Of course, I did. I am my mother’s only living relative. Apart from my children.”

  “That’s another point we were about to raise,” said James. “Your mother has left legacies to your children too.”

  He smiled, as though this was news that was sure to please Candice.

  “What?” She shrieked so loudly that Fay winced. “What kind of woman disinherits her own daughter in favor of the grandchildren she couldn’t even be bothered to visit?”

  Neither lawyer had an answer for her.

  “How much did she leave them?” she demanded. “How much?”

  Mia consulted her notes. “Five hundred thousand pounds each.”

  “Five hundred thousand pounds? Are you telling me she left them a million pounds of my father’s money? She had no right! That money was supposed to come to me. It was my mine. It should have been mine from the beginning. My mother was supposed to hold it in trust for me. She was supposed to live off the interest and keep the capital intact to be handed down to me.”

  Mia cleared her throat. “Actually, Mrs. Saville-Wareham, there was no such condition in your father’s will. He left the money to your mother free and clear to do with as she wished. She could have spent every penny if she so chose. Instead, she took very good care of it.”

  “I’m not talking about the legal position, but the moral one. That money was morally mine. I was his daughter. He should have given my mother just enough to live on and left the rest to me. If he had only done that, we wouldn’t be having this problem now.” She swung around to glare at Fay. “You agree with me, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know what I’m agreeing with. When I came in here, you were upset about something that had nothing to do with your children. You asked me to stay and listen to what that was.”

  Candice paced the room, her angry energy crackling around her.

  “That’s even more ridiculous. You won’t believe me when I tell you. You!” She waved at Mia. “Miss Blackberry, or whatever your name is. Read out that part in the will.”

  “The part about the housekeeper, or the other part?”

  “Both. They’re equally ridiculous.”

  “Paragraph 3.2.1,” read Mia. “To my housekeeper, Bertha Maidstone, I leave the sum of a hundred thousand pounds in grateful acknowledgement for the faithful service she has rendered me since I moved to Bluebell Island. I hope that this money will give her some independence and perhaps go some way towards repaying the bond on her cottage.”

  “You see?” Candice jabbed her finger at the document. “That woman influenced her. She probably kept going on and on about how she couldn’t afford to meet her bond repayments until my poor, soft-in-the-head mother left her a cool hundred thousand pounds. It’s undue influence. Isn’t that what you lawyers call it?”

  “As we were saying earlier, there is no evidence that …” James broke off when Candice hushed him with a sound like a spitting cobra.

  “Enough. You! Blackberry! Read the other part.”

  “Paragraph 3.2.2. To Martin Trenowyth, Esquire, of 32 Puddle Lane, Bluebell Island, I leave three million pounds in memory of what we shared together. I make this bequest in full possession of my faculties and of sound mind and body. It is my express wish and my final will and testament. Shall I go on?”

  Candice shrugged, so Mia continued.

  “Paragraph 3.3.3. To my daughter, Candice Elizabeth Saville-Wareham, I leave the remainder of my estate. She will be pleased to get her hands on it at last.”

  Mia looked up apologetically as a tide of scarlet fury swept across Candice’s face. With a great show of control, Candice forced her anger down. When she spoke again, her voice was icily calm.

  “And how much would that be, by your estimation? The remainder of the estate?”

  “It depends on exactly what your mother’s estate will be liquidated at, but we estimate just under a million pounds.”

  “Just under a million pounds. So, I, the daughter of a man who was worth at least five million pounds when he died, am now set to inherit less than a million pounds. Who is this Trenowyth person anyway? That’s what I want to know.”

  “Our information is that he is the local vet.”

  Candice’s laugh was bitter. “To think I was joking just the other day that I hoped my mother hadn’t left her money to the local cats’ home. Now she’s gone one better and left it to the vet. She was senile. It’s the only possible explanation.”

  “We have no explanation for why your mother might have left her money to this man,” said Mia. “But we also have no reason to believe that she was senile.”

  “I might be able to help with that,” said Fay. “There’s an unconfirmed rumor that Martin Trenowyth and Mrs. Saville were in a relationship. It seems they met a few weeks ago at the Rotary Club.”

  Candice’s eyes lit up. “He took advantage of her! We’ll be able to get the will overturned. It will be just like that actress – what was her name? – Anna Nicole Smith. Her husband left all his money to her, but the family managed
to get it overturned. Or they’re still fighting about it. Who knows? The point is that there’s hope.”

  “That was a very different case, Mrs. Saville-Wareham. The gentleman was in his nineties, I believe. Your mother was fifty-seven and in good health. It would be difficult to prove that she didn’t know what she was doing.”

  “You don’t understand. I need that money. I’ve been counting on it. My business will fail without it. I told my creditors last month that there would be money coming in soon. What am I supposed to tell them now? That it’s not coming in after all? What am I going to do?”

  Her voice rose to a hysterical pitch and she began to cry.

  The lawyers led the sobbing woman out of the lounge and downstairs to their car, saying that they would discuss the matter further at their office.

  As Fay watched them crunching down the gravel driveway, she wondered how Candice Saville-Wareham could have promised inheritance money to her creditors weeks before her mother had actually died.

  Chapter 16

  Was there anything better than a slice of hot chicken pie on a cold, wet evening?

  Fragrant steam rose up as Fay cut through the feather-light pastry to the filling beneath. The chicken had been roasted by Morwen with bay leaves and fresh lemon. Then it was taken off the bone and stirred into a creamy sauce. Fay had made the pastry herself from scratch, rolling and rerolling it so that it became light and flaky in the oven.

  The wind continued to howl around the old stone house. Fay was grateful for the wood-burning oven that kept the kitchen snug in even the coldest weather. Through the window she could see Ivan stalking around the kitchen courtyard, apparently on the trail of a rat. The fact that a freezing rain was lashing down on him didn’t seem to trouble him at all.

  The other four cats were stretched out in front of the oven, belly up to absorb the warmth.

  Fay scooped a portion of peas and carrots onto her plate. She felt as though she had caught a chill from sitting in her wet clothes earlier that day, and some extra vitamins were called for.