A Leap of Faith

by Trisha Ashley

  ‘That’s because he’s much richer. How is he? Doesn’t he mind you popping down here again?’

  ‘No, he thinks it’s doing me good, and you know he likes you – he considers you a fountain of wisdom and good sense.’

  ‘He isn’t very bright, is he? But lovable. What about you – have you finished the next Corduroy Cat picture book?’

  ‘Yes, it’s done and gone. They want yet another one after that, too, so it seems to be going on and on – but they get someone else to write what story line there is, so I don’t get all the proceeds. I’m doing illustrations for Miranda’s Party Animal book, too.’

  ‘You should write something of your own – something longer, for an older age group.’

  ‘Me? I’m an illustrator, not a writer. What sort of book could I write?’

  I thought about it seriously. ‘It would have to be a cat book . . . about an adventurous cat . . . a bit like Ambler! A sort of Indiana Cat, always off on expeditions to far-flung corners of the earth . . .’

  Her green eyes glinted. ‘It sounds wonderful . . . but I don’t think it’s in me to write that sort of thing.’

  ‘Yes, it is. By the time you’ve finished editing Ambler’s adventures they sound really gripping, even though I know his Sherpas have just carried him to the top of the peak and put him down in front of the camera!’

  ‘Really, Sappho, he isn’t that bad! The Sherpas in Nepal insisted on carrying him the last little bit of the way after he fell over his rucksack and bust his ankle. They liked him.’

  ‘Whatever. Look, what if I give you a brief outline of each story and you can fill it in and do the pics? How about that? If there’s one thing I have an excess of, it’s stories.’

  I could see I’d given her thoughts a whole new direction and when I returned from the kitchen (where I’d come under heavy scrutiny from my uninvited lodger) bearing coffee, she was scribbling away on some scrap paper she’d found next to my chair.

  ‘Hope you don’t mind me taking this,’ she muttered, looking up. ‘Just wanted to get the idea down while it was still there.’

  ‘Take all you want,’ I said, setting the tray down. ‘Who was it who said she couldn’t write her own stories?’

  After a few more minutes of scribbling her eyes focused again and she commented, ‘Nice coffee pot.’

  ‘It was sent by a fan – she made it herself. I get all kinds of little gifts from fans these days, they’re so kind, but this is the best so far. Just look at poor Raarg under that dragon!’

  Mu studied it closely. ‘Yes, but if Raarg were really like Dave he’d have leaped on it and rogered it to death by now.’

  ‘I think that would be a bit over-ambitious even for Dave, let alone Raarg, and my readers would be a little surprised.’

  ‘Not half as surprised as the dragon.’

  I regarded Mu with affection: she might look as snooty and remote as the snottiest of her cats, but her staunch loyalty and friendship has never wavered – and I hope I’ve always been there for her, too, when she needed me.

  ‘I like your fingernails,’ I said. ‘Weren’t they nautical scenes last time?’

  Mu has been painting pictures on her nails for years, long before it became fashionable. She can do both hands, though the left is always neater than the right.

  ‘Yes, and Ambler liked the nautical stuff, but he’s not keen on my star clusters theme and says it looks like I’ve caught my fingers in a door. Look – I’m pleased with this one – it’s the Trifid Nebula.’

  ‘I’d never have guessed,’ I said truthfully, but I thought the dark blue backgrounds and silvery-white specks very attractive. ‘Ambler’s just got no artistic sensibility.’

  ‘No, but at least he’s never been a jealous monster, like Chris. How’s the revolution progressing?’

  ‘Very well. It was a revolution waiting to happen. Miranda’s so busy trotting round here to do the flowers, and off to the craft centre trying to organize that, and revamping The Stuffed Student, and trying out recipes for Feeding the Party Animal, that she hardly has time to eat – she must have lost a couple of stone since I got here, without trying.’

  ‘Any sign of poor old Spike?’

  ‘No, none, though we’ve been out searching every day. Miranda’s put posters up everywhere with a very attractive reward, and there were a few false sightings, but no Spike. I’m suspecting more and more strongly that Chris has done something horrible to him, like stuff him in the car when he set off to London and dump him by the roadside halfway there.’

  ‘He’d be capable of that,’ Mu said, ‘and where else could he be? Unless he’s gone to join that missing woman – what was she called?’

  ‘Dorinda. There’s no sign of her either, but I’ve now met her husband, so I may be able to ask him some leading questions soon about where she’s got to. There must be some hint that’s been missed somewhere.’

  The cat was reclining in the kitchen, having been shut out of the living room on my insistence, but as we carried the tray back in she sidled over, leaped up and twined like a fur stole around my neck.

  ‘There, she likes you already,’ Mu said, pleased. ‘What are you going to call her?’

  ‘Temporary Infliction?’

  The brindled cat muffler rolled down the length of my hair and vanished under the table where she began to play with my bare toes.

  Can you file cat’s teeth?

  ‘Tomorrow we’ll have to get a few little things for her,’ Mu said pensively.

  ‘Like?’

  ‘A litter tray, collar, bowls . . .’

  ‘Is it worth it for one weekend?’ I enquired pointedly, but she gave me a big smile.

  ‘I knew you’d like her.’

  The leopard gave me a centuries-steeped-in-sin look and I said nastily, ‘Shouldn’t she be snipped, or whatever they do to them?’

  ‘Up to you. Ankaret was terribly fussy until Coochie came along – must have been the American accent.’

  ‘I think I’ll call her Tut, or Mut,’ I said, struck by inspiration.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Mu said severely, and the little stinker under the table took a none-too-gentle bite at my big toe.

  Chapter 16

  Suspicious Circumstances

  I left Mu to sleep next morning and, after my Vengeane stint, drove to Rhossili and walked along the cliffs for the first time since the possible suicide.

  It wasn’t much after seven. The sky was clear enough to show me the great sweep of dark honey-coloured beach below, and there was no one else about.

  It was great for thinking: thinking nasty thoughts, that is.

  Standing right at the end, around where I must have fallen over the raincoat (though it’s hard to tell exactly in the light of day), my suspicions coalesced into more of a certainty.

  Later, when Miranda came round to the cottage to check for flower orders (one, relayed by Ambler; Miranda’s new phone line is scheduled to be put in this coming week), it was clear by her blue-ringed eyes and pallor that Spike still hadn’t turned up.

  But then, I hadn’t really expected he would have.

  ‘And Chris phoned last night to say he’s coming d-down this evening, and he’s invited an old friend to stay with us – and he’s already spread the word that we’re having a really b-big party on Saturday night, and I d-don’t feel remotely in the mood.’

  ‘Tell him,’ Mu suggested, buttering toast lazily at the kitchen table. She was wearing the oversized T-shirt she’d slept in, and her pale hair stood up in spikes, but she still looked better than most people who’ve only just fallen out of bed.

  When I got up that morning I wasn’t just having a bad hair day, but a Coco the Clown day, and it took lots of cold water and brushing to get one hank at the back to lie flat. Funny, you’d think the sheer weight of my hair would keep it down, wouldn’t you?

  ‘It was too late to tell him when he phoned me,’ Miranda pointed out. ‘He’d already invited lots of people and he gave me a list
of everyone else he wants, as well. I only hope they all fit in. B-but I need b-both of you to come, too, for support.’

  ‘But Chris hates us, Miranda,’ I said. ‘He isn’t going to be very pleased if we turn up.’

  ‘I’m not very pleased about the party, b-but it’s my house and if I want to invite my friends I will.’

  ‘That’s the spirit,’ applauded Mu. ‘Do you want any of this toast?’

  ‘Oh, no, thanks,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to go to the craft centre. I’m moving everything d-down today.’

  ‘We’ll help you – it will all fit in the two cars – and then we can leave you to sort it all out while we go and get some essentials for this creature.’ I gave the Feline Fiend a dirty look and it stopped edging nearer the milk jug and sauntered off as if it had never even thought of such a thing.

  ‘Oh, is she staying? I thought Mu had just b-brought her for company.’

  ‘She’s a house-warming present,’ Mu explained.

  ‘A rejected house-warming present,’ I said firmly.

  ‘You’ve lost weight, Miranda,’ Mu observed, swiftly changing the subject.

  ‘D-do you know, I hadn’t weighed myself for ages, and then this morning I d-did and I was on the scale again!’

  ‘On the scale?’ echoed Mu.

  ‘It only goes up to twenty stone and last time I was more than that. Now, I’m only a teeny bit over seventeen stone! I d-don’t know how that happened. And I keep noticing things, like it’s easier to b-bend d-down and I can walk to Llyn’s shop without pausing halfway for a b-breather.’

  ‘It’s all this running about, what with the flowers and books and everything,’ I said.

  ‘I seem to have lost my appetite, too, since Spike vanished. It’s strange, I usually eat when I’m sad, and eat when I’m happy, and eat – well, all the time.’

  ‘You look good,’ Mu said. ‘And I love all these floaty tunics you wear, too.’

  ‘They’re out of a catalogue, b-but if I lost a b-bit more I’d fit into a size twenty and then I could buy clothes from ordinary shops like Marks and Spencer.’

  Well, I can’t say it’s my idea of bliss, but it obviously gave Miranda something to aim for.

  ‘And suddenly I feel that I want to b-be thinner so I can d-do all kinds of things,’ she added.

  ‘If it’s bungee jumping I’d lose a bit more first,’ Mu advised.

  Miranda smiled. ‘Not that sort of thing! B-but I’ve never b-been further abroad than Europe, and that was with Chris, so I only saw hotels really, and they all look the same whichever country you’re in. I’ve always envied you and Sappho being able to go to all those exciting places and visit the sights.’

  ‘But I kept inviting you to come abroad with me,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Yes, well, Chris always managed to stop me somehow, and later I was afraid I wouldn’t fit in a plane seat, and they’d charge me for excess b-baggage, or something.’

  She sighed. ‘You will b-both come to the party, won’t you? I feel Chris has only organized this to get b-back at me for standing up to him before he went to London, and he d-doesn’t care about poor old Spike in the least – he just told me to go and get another dog!’

  Her eyes filled. ‘I know he must be d-dead, b-but if only I knew for certain what happened . . . that he d-didn’t suffer.’

  The nasty thoughts I’d had on the cliffs at Rhossili, which had been fermenting gently in the recesses of my mind like primeval slime, oozed back up into my consciousness. What if Chris didn’t care because he knew?

  There was only one way to find out so, after helping Miranda to transport Fantasy Flowers to her new workshop (with no sign of the mad potter in his bat cave, this time), I told Mu we were off to Rhossili for a bracing cliff walk.

  ‘You went there this morning, and I’m not one for bracing walks. Besides, I want to look at the craftspeople here, and the shop.’

  ‘We can do that another time: today I want you to see the spot where the suicide was supposed to have jumped off. I’ve got a nasty idea, and I very much want to have it proved wrong.’

  It was still quite a bright day and lots of people were about, so it didn’t look remotely sinister, the way it had in the mist. I showed Mu the spot marked X, and then we walked right along the huge beach below, but found nothing except fresh air, tourists and the soft-bellied underparts of (clothed) hang-gliders.

  It was quite a hike back up from the beach, so I rewarded Mu with a second huge all-day breakfast in the Seaspray Café.

  It was the same Hair Attack waitress, who, surprisingly, remembered me and brought coffee straight away without being asked.

  I’ve maligned the girl: she will go to the top of her profession (whatever it is) with a memory like that.

  We’d almost finished, and I was studying my coastline map, when Supergrass came in and sat down at the other end of the room. He gave his order, then sat fiddling with his binoculars as if the instructions were written on the inside in Japanese, which perhaps they were, until he suddenly looked up and spotted us.

  He shot over eagerly, bringing his tea with him: a bad sign.

  ‘Ah – Miss Jones! Or may I call you Sappho?’ he exclaimed with dreadful mateyness. Clearly our entente is unfortunately now cordiale. ‘May I join you? What an unexpected pleasure to see you again so soon. I only hope the police didn’t come round annoying you in the midst of a tricky chapter? I’m sorry I had to tell them about you, but I felt it was my duty . . . though they have been very unpleasant to me, very!’

  He looked pointedly at Mu.

  ‘My friend, Mu Graythorpe,’ I said.

  ‘Mu, this is Gilbert Ace.’ Mu had been slowly submerging white sugar cubes into her coffee, but she looked up with her black-ringed green eyes, and said, ‘Hi!’

  A gleam of eager interest lit his simian eyes. ‘Not – surely not – the Mu Graythorpe, who illustrated Ambler Graythorpe’s Travels with My Yak in Tashkent and—’

  ‘Yes,’ sighed Mu.

  ‘And you illustrated that best-selling children’s book – what was it? Calico Cat . . .’

  ‘Corduroy.’

  ‘How wonderful to meet you!’ He began to lower his bottom on to the nearest seat without taking his eyes off her.

  ‘Do join us,’ I said heartily, beating his behind to touchdown by a millisecond. But irony was wasted on him – his antennae were too busy twitching.

  ‘I’m an author too, you know,’ he said modestly. ‘I write books on ornithology.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ she said politely. I removed the almost empty sugar bowl from within reach. When I was a little girl, Aunt Pops always told me eating too much sugar would give me worms, though she never specified what kind.

  ‘Gil is the man I met here after that possible cliff suicide – the one who snitched on me to the police,’ I explained.

  ‘Oh, not snitched, dear Sappho – it’s just that it was my duty and I’m sure they weren’t suspicious that you’d done anything, though it was such an insalubrious morning for a cliff-top walk.’

  ‘Yes, wasn’t it? And you’d walked even further along it than I had, too, since you live on the other side.’

  ‘My constitutional – I walk along the cliffs regularly in all weathers!’

  ‘A creature of habit,’ I observed.

  ‘Habits are usually either dirty or boring,’ Mu murmured languidly, having recaptured the sugar bowl and emptied it.

  Gil went pink. ‘Not at all, my dear Mrs Graythorpe, not at all. Nature’s infinite variety never renders the walk the same twice. There’s always something new to observe.’

  ‘In a thick sea-mist?’ I enquired.

  ‘I found you, did I not?’ he said gallantly.

  ‘Only in the café – and actually, I found you, since there was no other table with space free.’

  He laughed as if I’d said something funny and fondled his brown beard. ‘Miranda says she hopes you’ll both be at the party tomorrow. I can’t tell you how excited our little l
iterary and artistic community will be to meet you – quite ecstatic.’

  ‘Oh, really? They must be hard up for thrills – and I don’t like ecstatic parties,’ I said. ‘I’m past the age for that sort of thing.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Mu said, striking a pose. ‘Naked adoration never really palls on one, don’t you find, Sappho?’

  ‘Oh, one tires of everything eventually, Mu,’ I replied in world-weary tones.

  A worried expression crept into the glossy brown eyes: do people without a sense of humour realize they haven’t got one?

  Of course Mu and I aren’t that well known – we’re certainly not on the lips of the general public, and though I occasionally get recognized in the street, especially after that TV appearance (though I suspect that’s notoriety rather than fame), it’s only because I’m so tall and have very, very long hair: it makes me a bit easy to spot.

  That chat show was a mistake – the host obviously had never read a book in her life, so my sarcastic ripostes to her insulting questions fell on deaf ears. And I looked strange, since I wouldn’t let the make-up girl near me in case I was allergic to whatever she wanted to daub me with. Everyone else looked like a walking Pollock on set, but I’m told the effect appears natural on screen, while I looked as if I’d been dead for a week.

  Gilbert had regrouped while my mind wandered. ‘And have you – may I call you Mu? – come to visit and admire our wonderful scenery?’

  ‘I came to see Sappho, so the scenery’s a bonus,’ Mu replied demurely, even though she was probably having the same mental vision of teenagers and turkey basters as I was.

  ‘I thought I’d show Mu the site of the mysterious raincoat, and then we walked along the beach in search of the missing owner, though I suppose the police have already done all that.’

  Gil preened a little. ‘If only you’d asked my advice first, or the police had! From my years of observation I could have told them that anything going off the cliff at that exact point would not wash up down there’ – he indicated the great curved beach – ‘but in a spot on the other side of the headland, if at all.’