by Nick Green
She placed a hand on Tiffany’s shoulder. Tiffany thought she could feel a faint tingling, like the webs of static on a television screen.
‘But not well enough, I’m afraid. Not yet. One day.’
‘One day what?’
‘You. Ben. And the other Cat Kin. You don’t think I was teaching you as a hobby, do you? I knew Philip Cobb was out there. And others like him.’ She closed her eyes and Tiffany wondered at how aged she looked, with her iron grey hair and crow’s feet wrinkles criss-crossing her tabby makeup. ‘If Philip does not meet with an accident, he’ll be around long after I’m too old to do anything about him. Sometimes I feel I’m waging a private war. I need soldiers. I hoped some of you might be ready to join me when my son reappeared. But his scheme is already in full flood, and my army is still nothing more than—no offence, my dear—nothing more than a sack of kittens.’
Mrs Powell pulled on grey suede boots. She took a carton of milk from the fridge and drank straight from it like a teenager.
‘Pop round tomorrow and I’ll tell you how it went. You can let yourself out.’
She faded down the hall on velvet feet. Tiffany hesitated, then followed just as stealthily to peer round the studio door. Mrs Powell stood by the open window.
‘I know you’re there.’ She didn’t turn. ‘I mean what I say. It’s too early to expose you to such danger.’
Tiffany said nothing.
‘I’m not being held responsible.’ Mrs Powell faced her at last.
Tiffany put on her most determined expression. Mrs Powell sighed.
‘The problem is, I can’t stop you following me. And I really don’t need to be distracted by your elephant feet clumping along behind. So, as long as I’m stuck with you…’ She jerked her head towards the window.
Tiffany climbed a ladder of rusted couplings where a drainpipe had once been fixed. Standing on the very edge of the guttering, Mrs Powell peered over the rooftops.
‘Under my very nose. As if he were mocking me.’
Like a beached oil tanker the factory blackened out the Hackney skyline. Tiffany’s mouth was too dry to speak. Already she was having second thoughts.
‘His glorious new laboratory is under way, I see,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘There’s a crane. And a lorry. Good. A building site on his doorstep should give us extra cover.’
She was off, bounding along the slates as if they were springy turf. Tiffany settled into the effortless grace of Eth and tried to keep up. The roofscape felt like an alien desert, all angular mountains and eerie flat plains.
Apartments even seedier than Theobald Mansions led like a thread into the distance, tangling in the knitting of old and new buildings that made up Stoke Newington. The rooftops were roads that led everywhere.
Mrs Powell slowed. ‘Big gap. Are you up to it?’
Four floors down, in an alley that looked like a chasm, a pair of young men were noisily arguing. Tiffany nodded. Mrs Powell sprang across, stopped as neatly as a dart in a bullseye, and beckoned. Taking a moment to focus, Tiffany cleared the jump.
‘Well done,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘Next time, try and stop more cleanly.’
As the roofs slanted more steeply, Tiffany lagged behind. Around them, like steam, rose the mutter of evening traffic, mixed with the thump-thump-thump of drivers who felt their musical tastes had to be shared. Bats twirled over the street glow like ashes from a bonfire, pricking her ears with machine-gun squeaks.
Mrs Powell let her catch up.
‘We are close. Think before you take your next step.’
The factory loomed beyond a wire fence. Tiffany leant on someone’s satellite dish to rest, and then found, to her alarm, that she was alone. Unexpectedly Mrs Powell sprang from a nearby tree, somersaulted the wire and landed softly on the other side.
‘Tiffany?’
Balanced on the tree’s overhanging bough, Tiffany understood that she had one last chance to turn back. It was a nasty drop to the concrete. Nastier things waited beyond. But her biggest fear was disappointing her teacher.
‘Ugh.’ She hit the ground awkwardly. Rubbing her ankle eased the pain.
‘Brave girl.’ Mrs Powell hustled Tiffany behind a lorry, sniffing the air. The factory towered over them, a silent tomb.
‘There was something—’ Mrs Powell’s voice came out of the darkness, ‘something I said to you. When I told you and Ben off for running amok in the woods.’
Tiffany waited.
‘I said I couldn’t care less if you broke your necks,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘I just want to clear that up. It wasn’t the truth. I do care. I care very much indeed.’
‘I know,’ said Tiffany.
Mrs Powell’s eyes mirrored the moon. As if on some invisible signal, she shimmered across dunes of building sand to flatten herself against the black wall. Tiffany followed, becoming her shadow.
‘At least you had the good sense not to drag Ben along,’ said Mrs Powell.
‘Actually I begged him to help. But he doesn’t care.’
‘Oh?’ Mrs Powell frowned. ‘Perhaps it’s for the best. He’s not ready for this kind of thing. Neither are you, of course.’
‘At least I’m trying.’
‘Sshh.’ Mrs Powell listened, then whispered, ‘Don’t blame Ben. It’s harder for him.’
‘So he used to keep saying.’
‘Few are so lucky as you,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘Your Mau body is strong, like mine, yet willing to be tamed. But Ben’s…’
‘Yes?’
‘I felt that Ben’s Mau was different. Volatile, violent, like a Scottish wildcat. Ready to squirm from your grasp if it’s not handled right. It can be a frightening thing to live with.’
‘Oh. Does he know?’
‘I didn’t tell him. I didn’t want to scare off such a promising pupil. But I think he knows by now.’ Mrs Powell bit her lip. ‘I may have made a mistake. I should have spent more time on him. I always put it off.’
Tiffany grew aware of the crane leaning over them, a gangling skeleton, and shivered.
‘But he didn’t even seem to want to help me.’
‘As long as you’re here,’ said Mrs Powell, ‘you can help me. How did you get into this place?’
‘There’s an old fire exit. On the other side. But I think they lock it.’
‘Ground floor?’
‘Yes.’
‘No good,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘One should always look down on danger.’
She studied the factory windows. The lowest were a bus’s height above the ground and were boarded up with chipboard planks. A band of bricks divided them from the upper storey, and one of these panes had already been smashed by a thoughtful hooligan.
‘That’s our way in.’
Mrs Powell sprang onto the nearest boarded window and climbed it. Reaching the band of bricks she drove herself upwards with a double kick and seized the sill of the window above.
Tiffany crawled up the flaking planks behind her, fearing she could never copy that leap to cross the unscaleable few feet of brickwork. To her relief, a gloved hand stretched down. She marvelled at her teacher’s strength as she was hauled bodily onto the sill. Mrs Powell tugged the last jagged fragments from the window frame while Tiffany huddled out of the wind, which was blowing colder and harsher by the minute. Feebly she tried to joke.
‘I suppose it’s too late to change our minds.’
‘For me, thirty years too late.’ Glass tinkled as Mrs Powell slipped through the hole.
‘Curiosity killed the cat, they say.’ Mrs Powell’s voice was quieter than the draughts that stroked the rusty metal walkway. Far below burned harsh white light, casting peculiar shadows on the girders of the roof that hemmed them in on either side. ‘But curiosity saved the cat many more times than it killed her.’
The smell was dust and rotten plaster. Tiffany wondered if anyone had walked this gallery in her lifetime.
‘I expect you’ve seen it in your cinema films,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘Professional assassins l
earn a place inside out before striking. They check for blind spots, escape routes, potential cover. They do it without even thinking.’
Tiffany grasped her meaning. When Rufus had arrived at her house, joyfully freed from a perspex box at Battersea, he had investigated every inch of their house and garden, sniffing, poking, peering. Only when the last door had been opened and the last cupboard sat inside did he finally turn into the laid-back puss she knew now.
‘As I explained, it’s called Laying Claim,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘That makes you useful now, Tiffany. You’ve been here before. Start telling me things I need to know.’
Tiffany felt a stab of exam-panic.
‘I wasn’t really paying attention last time,’ she stammered. ‘It was all too much of a shock. I don’t remember anything important.’
‘You may not think so,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘But the cat in you has seen, heard and smelt everything. You will have the memories.’
Did she? Reluctantly (since this building could not have spooked her more if it had been built from human skulls) Tiffany let her mind dwell on the factory. It was a surprise to find a crude mental map of its interior.
‘There are two main halls,’ she whispered. ‘With a heavy curtain-thing dividing them. The cats are caged in the second hall.’ The picture grew clearer. ‘The next floor up is a sort of balcony that runs round the building. Like the spectator gallery at a swimming pool. And there’s another one above that, a maintenance walkway or something. Which is where we are.’
She leaned over the rail and got a shock. The factory floor was empty no longer. The vast space was filled with yellow plastic crates, piled in blocks and pyramids, some as high as the fork-lift truck parked among them. It made the first hall into a maze of lanes that converged upon Cobb’s makeshift office.
‘Mrs Powell!’ she burst out. ‘That’s it! Over there, in his desk!’
‘What about his desk? Don’t babble.’
‘That’s where Doctor Cobb keeps the key. To the cages. I watched him put it in the drawer!’ In her excitement Tiffany almost forgot how afraid she was.
Mrs Powell fixed her with a look. ‘Do you know that the key will be in there now?’
‘N-no,’ she admitted. ‘He had it in his pocket at first. But he put it in there like…’ She clutched her head, remembering, ‘like it was something he did all the time.’
Mrs Powell was still, as if struggling with a decision. At last she said, ‘Follow me.’
A stairwell took them down to the lower gallery. Beams of dust-filled light rose like walls at the gallery’s edge, boiling from the powerful arc lamps slung beneath. Mrs Powell twitched her head to catch sounds.
‘We’re not alone,’ she whispered. ‘Cobb is here. And others. No doubt he’s taken measures against being disturbed.’
Along the gallery antique machines crouched under ghostly dust-blankets. Junk was strewn underfoot, chains, ropes, old sacks. Nothing moved.
‘You must be my eyes,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘You can cover the whole floor from this balcony. I want to know if anyone comes within fifty feet of me.’
‘How will I warn you?’
‘With this.’ Mrs Powell held a whistle.
‘Won’t they hear—?’ Tiffany smiled suddenly. ‘Of course! A dog whistle.’
‘Must you call it that? Cats can hear octaves higher than dogs. Give it one blast if you spot danger.’ Mrs Powell bit her knuckle. ‘Some of those cats might hear it too. The smaller ones, like the ocelots. I don’t know how they’d react. Still, it’s a risk we’ll take.’
She paused, one boot on the gallery rail.
‘And you,’ she said, ‘listen for my signal.’ A shrill note wailed at the back of her throat. ‘That means get out of here. Don’t wait.’
‘But—’
‘Don’t wait. If trouble happens, there’s nothing you can do that I can’t do better. It’s bad enough that I’ve brought you here at all. Now, not another sound.’
She dropped off the balcony. Rather than fall, she seized the cable that ran to the lighting array. In two seconds she had slid to the floor, through the lamplight that would dazzle any watching eyes.
She’s done this stuff before, Tiffany reminded herself.
Mrs Powell crept between the yellow crates, like a laboratory animal running a maze. As she neared Cobb’s office Tiffany scouted round the gallery for a better view. She bit her tongue when a gaunt figure in a brown coat pushed through the central curtain. She blew the cat whistle. Mrs Powell crouched by the wheel of the fork-lift.
Doctor Cobb made for his office. For the first time Tiffany could see his left arm properly. It was as if someone had stuck a child’s limb on an adult’s body. He used the shrivelled fingers to scratch his nose and the arm seemed to dangle, like the wing of a featherless chick. She felt a strange mix of revulsion and pity. Then dread. Cobb was in the very place Mrs Powell was trying to reach.
He slumped in the swivel chair and chafed his eyes with his fingertips. Leaning back, he yawned. Almost at once he sat up and angrily shook himself. Tiffany couldn’t breathe. If he turned to his right and took five paces, he would see Mrs Powell. Dismally cheery came a jingle.
‘Doctor Cobb,’ said Cobb into his mobile phone. ‘Ah. A real thrill to hear from you. What can I…’ A pause. ‘What, tonight?’ He grimaced. ‘That’s not necessary…I’ve already got guards in place…No, you’re right, but…’ Cobb stared towards the roof. ‘Sometimes, John, I worry that you don’t have complete confidence in me. I mean, I’ve shown every faith in you…Surely you can take my word on some things, without sending goons to check for yourself?’ Another pause. ‘I do beg your pardon. Employees, then. What? I’m sorry, you’re breaking up. The reception in here is terrible. I think the pillars diffract the signal. I’ll call you back.’
Now, Tiffany thought desperately, watching Cobb pace off into the shadows, mouthing soft obscenities at the dead phone. She heard a door squeak open. Luckily there was nothing wrong with Mrs Powell’s hearing either. In a dozen fleet strides she had reached the office. The first thing she did was angle the desk lamp so that it shone upon the filing cabinet—to make it the brightest object, Tiffany guessed, and herself harder to notice.
The desk had three drawers. Mrs Powell’s hands plunged into the first. Tiffany watched and hoped. Then—
‘Fool,’ she hissed at herself. Mrs Powell was depending on her. Where was Cobb? She had to find a spot where she could watch for his return. She hurried from pillar to pillar. A little further and she would have the perfect angle, letting her see clear across the first hall to the factory’s main doors.
‘…these ropes look older than you, Dave. Better tell the Prof they need replacing.’
The gruff voice made her skid to a halt. She had almost tripped over two workmen whose heads and shoulders poked up through the floor of the walkway. Clad in grey overalls, they stood inside the shaft of the goods lift, busying themselves with a tangled winch mechanism. Tiffany froze on one leg. After an eternity of thirty seconds the men tramped down the service ladder, happily grouching to each other about having to come here on a Sunday evening. She breezed over their heads.
Past the next pillar was a sinister-looking machine, like a giant mincer, shrouded in sheets. Squeezing in beside it she pulled the sheets over her and peeped through the balcony railings.
She was just in time to see that she was too late. Mrs Powell was shutting the last of the desk drawers in frustration—the key wasn’t in any of them—and Doctor Cobb was on his way back. Tiffany raised her whistle. But, but…Mrs Powell had to be able to hear those crisp footsteps. Yet she wasn’t trying to hide.
‘Don’t,’ Tiffany whispered, hopelessly.
Even as Cobb turned the corner and stopped dead, shading his eyes from the anglepoise lamp, Mrs Powell turned to face him. The air clenched, like the straining heat before a thunderstorm. Cobb hugged his withered arm to his chest.
‘Hello, James,’ said Mrs Powell.
Cob
b twitched, like an arachnophobe who finds his clothes crawling with tarantulas. He recoiled from her and yanked open the filing cabinet, pulled out a black object and pointed it at Mrs Powell.
‘I warned you!’ he gasped.
Tiffany focused on the object that he held, and a faintness came over her. It was a gun.
FIGHT OR FLIGHT
A mosquito whine hit Tiffany’s eardrums. Mrs Powell’s emergency call. The one that meant Get out of here. Cobb showed no sign of having noticed. In dismay Tiffany shrank deeper into the dust sheet. She couldn’t run. Not yet.
Mrs Powell shook her head sadly.
‘Is this any way to greet your mother?’
Cobb held the gun steady. He seemed to have mastered his shock.
‘So we share fifty per cent of our genetic makeup,’ he replied. ‘Sorry if that doesn’t make me go all gooey. Why do you persist in following me around?’
‘Because I have no choice,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘As long as you persecute my fellow creatures, James, you will look over your shoulder and you will see me.’
‘My name is Philip.’ He cocked the pistol expertly with one hand. ‘Still obsessed with the pussycats, I see. Have you looked at yourself in a mirror?’ He chuckled. ‘You old witch. You think I do this out of spite? For your information, I’m easing the suffering of thousands.’
Tiffany detected a restless mewling from the other end of the factory. The cats too had heard the cry.
‘You’re not easing any suffering,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘You are simply shifting it onto creatures you hate even more than you hate human beings.’
‘It’s a mark of greatness,’ said Cobb, ‘to loathe cats. Elizabeth the First detested them. So did Napoleon. And Mussolini.’
‘Tyrants,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘Interesting, isn’t it? So many tyrants fear cats. Because cats refuse to fear them. They fight, or they flee. But they never cower.’
‘Some of us have better reasons than that.’
‘I know it, Philip.’ Mrs Powell took a step towards him, holding up her hands. ‘And I’m sorry. You’ll never know how sorry. That was my fault. And I have paid for it.’
