by Nick Green
‘I hardly think so.’
‘Will you never accept that it was an accident?’ Mrs Powell moved closer. ‘James, Philip, whether or not it means anything to you, you are my son, and I did love you.’
‘Stand still.’
‘What your father told you simply isn’t true. How did we become enemies, Philip? I was going to bring you up, take care of you, teach you so many things—’
‘Don’t touch me!’ He pulled away, for she had laid a hand upon his shoulder. He stuck the muzzle of the gun in her face and she withdrew.
‘I’m sorry.’ Mrs Powell hung her head. ‘You’re right. I shouldn’t have come.’ She fidgeted with her belt.
Tiffany caught her breath. She knew what Mrs Powell had done. When she’d touched Cobb, her other hand had brushed across his coat. Had she picked his pocket? Had she just put something away in her belt? It could only be the key to the cages. Light shone through Tiffany’s despair. She hadn’t dreamed Mrs Powell could be so cunning.
‘No, I’m glad you came,’ said Cobb. ‘You were the last person in the world who might have upset my enterprise. Now I can put you where all dangerous animals should be kept.’ He gestured with the gun. ‘Move.’
‘Why? What’s over there?’
‘Spare cages, Mummy. You’re joining your friends in captivity. You’ll enjoy that. No doubt you eat the same food.’
‘Your jokes used to be better than this.’
‘I am really tired,’ said Cobb, ‘of talking to you. Start walking. Slowly.’
Mrs Powell obeyed. Cobb steered her towards the curtain. Tiffany crossed her fingers. Was this the plan? To get put in a cage and let herself out later? It had to be. Tiffany could have cheered at such courage and cleverness.
‘Through the partition,’ Cobb ordered. Mrs Powell pushed the curtain aside and stepped through. The drape swung shut before Cobb could follow. For a moment it blocked his view.
‘Stop!’ he shouted. ‘Stay where you are!’ He forced his way through the curtain, waving the gun. ‘Stop right—’
The gun boomed.
Mrs Powell, a few steps ahead of him, staggered as if she had been hit with a cricket bat and fell to the floor. A red stain spread on the concrete like an inkblot.
Tiffany choked. A howl of anguish had caught in her chest. Mrs Powell lay still. Tiffany gripped the balcony railings. Please get up. Please move. Please don’t be dead.
Cobb stood like a statue, staring at his hand as if it did not belong to him. The gun had clattered to the ground beside the body. The spreading blood touched it and began to mold itself around the barrel. Shouts and running feet echoed across the hall.
‘Doctor Cobb! Sir? Are you all right? What’s happened?’
‘Er—’ Cobb snapped out of his trance. For the moment, he was hidden by the curtain on one side and by crates on the other. ‘It’s nothing. I’m fine, Frank. I…I was testing my emergency firearm. I do it once a week. Sorry if I alarmed you.’
‘Right you are, sir.’ Tiffany caught a glimpse of a bearded security man and his green-suited partner, strolling back to their posts and lighting fresh cigarettes.
Cobb couldn’t take his eyes off the body. Neither could Tiffany. She mopped at her tears and face-paint smeared her fingers. A voice in her head was moaning Get out, get out of here. But what did anything matter now? She knelt on the gallery sobbing. The sound of voices gradually roused her. Someone else had come into the factory.
‘They’re only doing it ’cos it’s you, Mr S,’ said a gravelly voice.
‘And I appreciate it,’ said a smooth, faintly accented one. ‘But we can’t leave our scientist friend unsupervised for too long, can we? Not with so much at stake. Insurance, Toby, insurance.’
‘Right.’
John Stanford walked into the light. Behind him strode an enormous man, taller than Tiffany’s dad and built like a moose across the shoulders. His shaven skull was crossed with white scars. Following this giant at a respectful distance were three other brutes, almost as big. Their stony faces made it plain that by rights they should be in the pub.
‘John!’ Cobb called from behind the curtain. ‘Good evening. Can I have a word?’
‘A pleasure.’ Stanford turned to his bodyguard. ‘Toby, take the lads to the loading bay to get settled.’
‘The loading bay?’
‘That’s correct. I’ve laid on some perks to make up for calling them out tonight. You’ll find lager and pizzas in my car.’
Toby grinned like a pumpkin. ‘You’re one of the good ’uns, Mr S. Come on, boys.’
He led the trio off. Stanford whistled as he picked his way through the crates.
‘Doctor Cobb,’ he called. ‘Start spreading the news. The site is cleared, the deeds have been signed, the champagne is on ice,’ he drew the drape aside with a hiss of steel curtain rings, ‘and the builder says who…the hell…is that?’
The fidgeting of caged cats prevented it from going totally silent.
‘No-one to worry about,’ said Cobb at last.
‘No-one to—?’ Stanford lowered his voice so that even Tiffany had to strain to hear. ‘I have sacrificed my Sunday evening to come over here, to find what appears to be an aging circus performer who has fallen from her trapeze. Cobb, you can consider me worried. Who is that?’
‘Her name was Felicity Powell, and at one time she was my mother.’
Stanford loosened his collar.
‘She’s dead?’
Cobb said nothing. Stanford saw the gun on the floor. He drew himself up.
‘Goodbye, Doctor Cobb.’
‘John, wait…’
‘I’m sorry.’ Stanford was striding away. ‘You’re on your own. I never invested at this level of risk.’
‘Wait!’ Cobb shouted. ‘Let me explain, John. It’s not really murder.’
‘Self-defence? You shot an old lady? Not even my lawyers will touch that one.’
‘It’s not murder,’ said Cobb, ‘if no-one notices. And no-one will.’
Stanford hesitated. ‘This had better be good.’
‘This woman,’ Cobb said, ‘was alone. Pathologically so. You follow? No friends, no family. No job. Not even a bank account. All her life she was like that. Alone. She was the cat who walked by herself.’
‘Say again?’
‘Kipling,’ Cobb elaborated. ‘Never mind. My point is, no-one will miss her. Not a single human being will care that she’s gone.’
High in the gallery, Tiffany hung on the railings as if they were prison bars. Not true, she wanted to cry out. That’s not true. Her tears rained silently to the floor far below.
‘This is a minor upset,’ Cobb smiled. ‘Our plans are unaffected. We get rid of the body and it’s as if she never existed.’
Stanford’s forehead knotted with doubt.
‘So much money, effort and time you’ve put in,’ wheedled Cobb. ‘For the opportunity of a lifetime. Don’t throw it all away.’
Stanford looked ready to explode with rage. Finally he muttered, ‘Has anyone else seen the body?’
‘Not a soul.’
‘Let’s keep it that way.’ Stanford swept out his phone. Tiffany couldn’t catch what he murmured into it, but when he hung up he looked a fraction more cheerful. ‘My man will see that we’re not disturbed. Right, Cobb. Get rid of her.’
Philip Cobb eyed the body.
‘I can’t.’
‘Can’t what?’
‘I can’t touch it. You’ll have to do it.’
‘I am not hearing this!’ cried Stanford. ‘It’s your mess. You clear it up!’
‘No, John, listen.’ Cobb’s eyes had gone very wide and white. ‘You don’t understand. I physically cannot touch that…that thing.’
‘Then you go to jail.’
‘John, please! I’ll make it up to you.’
‘Twenty per cent more,’ said Stanford immediately. ‘On top of the original deal.’
‘Ten per cent.’
‘Twenty.�
�
‘Fine,’ sighed Cobb.
‘Nice doing business with you. Give me your coat.’
‘What?’
‘I’m not getting blood on this suit. Give it to me.’
Cobb tore off his coat and threw it at him. Stanford wrapped it around Mrs Powell and picked her up.
‘Not in my car,’ he said. ‘It’s too risky. Those construction machines outside…We could bury her deep. Concrete it over. She might be found one day, but not in our lifetimes.’
‘Put it in the meat locker,’ said Cobb. ‘It’s refrigerated. Stop it rotting.’
‘Your people use that. She can’t stay there.’
‘She won’t,’ Cobb replied. ‘I just thought. It’s about time the big cats had a change of diet.’
Suddenly he laughed in such an unnerving manner that Stanford backed away from him.
‘By the time they’re finished with her,’ Cobb giggled, ‘there’ll be nothing left for anyone to find.’
So great was Tiffany’s horror when she heard Cobb’s plan that she may even have passed out for a minute or two. Her next clear memory was of shivering in the shadows, hugging her knees, as if she had woken at the dead of night in a bath of cold water. Then it hit her with full force that she was in a place of death, of unspeakable evil, and that she was utterly alone. She longed for Mum and Dad to come and take her home. Why wouldn’t they come? What was keeping them? A jolt. She sat up. No use dozing off and dreaming here.
A quick scan of the gallery revealed that little stood between her and escape. These upper levels were not patrolled. All she had to do was find the way she had come in and trust that her pashki wouldn’t fail her. She was gathering herself to run when she hesitated. The thought of simply slinking away was more than she could bear. Somehow it felt worse than staying put. To come here, watch Mrs Powell get shot, and leave again, defeated…it would be too pathetic for words.
An idea, though she fought to beat it down, grew stronger. Maybe there was something she could do. It was too late to save Mrs Powell…but there was the key. Felicity had risked her life to get the key to the cages—the key that was now hidden somewhere on her. Tiffany could retrieve it, return another time, finish the task they had set out to do.
Now it was too late to un-think that thought. Though it terrified her, she knew she’d have to follow it through. Whatever else happened on this dreadful night, she couldn’t let Mrs Powell’s death be in vain.
John Stanford had disappeared. Cobb, on his hands and knees, was scrubbing the bloodstained floor with soapy water. Returning to the goods lift shaft, Tiffany climbed down the service ladder. Finding the meat locker would be easy—her nose was already steering her. She tried not to dwell upon what she would do once inside. She would have to search Mrs Powell’s body for the key. What if her eyes were still open?
Crawling on all fours, she slipped under the partition into the second hall. Rows of cages made grim lanes in all directions. She remembered the workers pushing their trolleys of meat. They had come from over there. A few sniffs confirmed it, though the stench from the cages made her gag. Even through the odour of filth she could smell the cats’ hopelessness in the air.
‘We will save you, one day,’ she whispered, as she passed a large cat too matted and scabrous to identify. ‘Me and my friends. We will come back and save you.’
A lynx’s long ears twitched and it turned in her direction. She hurried by, willing her feet to be feathers. It would be terrible if the cats themselves were to give her away. Hiding behind a gurgling coil of black plastic, she caught the gleam of a metal door against the brickwork of the far wall. She despaired when she saw who stood by it.
‘…no-one goes in, is that clear?’ Stanford was saying. ‘Not even you.’
Toby nodded, unquestioning as a guard dog. Why oh why did Stanford have to bring even more security men with him? Maybe he didn’t trust Doctor Cobb himself. It was guards guarding guards guarding…Tiffany retreated amongst the cages. How to get past that brute…Without knowing precisely what she was trying to achieve, she took out Mrs Powell’s whistle and blew four blasts.
Eeeeeeeep Eeeeeeeep Eeeeeeeep Eeeeeeeep
Bars rattled as the smaller cats reacted. Their immediate neighbours began to growl. A wave of alarm swept through the cages, until every cat that still had the strength was snarling and spitting, convinced there was some threat they couldn’t see.
‘Doctor Cobb!’ A security officer spoke into his walkie-talkie. ‘Something’s up with the animals.’
The noise rose to a rumble. It was as if the factory’s ancient machinery was grinding into life. John Stanford edged along the wall.
‘Cobb?’ he called. ‘What’s happening? Why are they doing that?’
He scurried back to the metal door.
‘Change of plan, Toby,’ he said. ‘You’re coming with me. We’ll wait in the other hall until our professor sorts out his livestock.’
Tiffany clenched her fist in triumph. The meat locker was unguarded. As soon as Stanford and Toby were gone she ran to the door and tugged at the bolt, too frantic to heed the sudden, blood-red throbbing of Oshtis in her stomach: she still wasn’t alone.
A hand clamped her left arm. She stared into the bearded face of Cobb’s chief of security.
‘You! How did you gain access?’
Panic gripped her. She struggled but he held her fast.
‘Doctor Cobb! We’ve found our intruder. That’s what set them off.’
That name yelled in her ear drove her wild. She writhed and kicked. The security man twisted her arm behind her back. Crying in pain, she cursed her stupidity. Rufus would never let himself be manhandled like this. Rufus would—
‘Arrgh!’
The man yelped as she jabbed Mau claws into his leg. He let go of her arm and she spun, sweeping it across his chest. He gaped at the rip that split his green jacket open in flaps, holding his thigh like a child who has just discovered bees. Tiffany was already running. A radio crackled and the security man yelled blue murder.
‘Prowler! Prowler in the cat pound. Secure the exits. She’s got a knife!’
Tiffany wove between the cages, driven by a force beyond fear. It cried only Get out, get away, survive. She burst through the curtain to find two green-suited guards standing in that very spot. If these men were surprised that the intruder was a schoolgirl in fancy dress, they didn’t show it—they grabbed. They were too close to sidestep. Like a gymnast Tiffany bent double at the waist and cartwheeled out of reach. She righted herself in time to see one of Stanford’s terrifying thugs bearing down on her. There was only time to curl into a ball and roll at his running feet. It felt like being hit by a truck, but the roar as the man went flying told her that she had come off best.
Bouncing back up, bruised but in one piece, she ran through a labyrinth of yellow crates. Her courage wilted as yells and running feet converged on her. The ankle she had twisted was beginning to ache.
I’m not going to escape, she thought. Almost immediately another voice retorted, clipped and businesslike. No, you will escape. Because you have to.
And then she knew how. Somewhere nearby was the electric cable that Mrs Powell had slid down. She could climb it in seconds. By the time anyone could follow her to the upper levels, she’d be long gone. She raced between the crates, left, right, straight on. Her cat senses pinpointed her pursuers, almost as if she had a radar screen in her head. Not that way. Turn left. Go up here. Wait for him to pass.
Then a broad alley turned into a blind one. Crates hemmed her in on three sides. She doubled back to find Philip Cobb standing there, holding a rifle.
‘I’m guessing you’re a friend of my mother’s,’ he said dryly. ‘What a very stupid decision.’
Steadying the barrel with his shrunken left arm, Cobb hoisted the gun to his shoulder. Tiffany screamed. And leaped. Twice her own height straight up, back-flipping onto the top of the crates. The pile shifted and she fell off it backwards, flipping again i
n mid-air to land on her feet, a tottering yellow wall now between her and Cobb. It was all over before the echo of her own cry had faded. Then she was sprinting across the open floor, wringing from her Mau body every last atom of speed, and only a cheetah could have caught her now.
The cable drooped from the lighting array. One of Stanford’s brutes was barreling towards her but he was too slow. She grabbed hold of the wire, closing her eyes against the blazing lights, and had a ridiculous flashback: trying to climb ropes in Miss Fuller’s PE class. But that was a whole life away. Swinging like a sailor in a storm she powered up hand over hand.
Then she heard a bang. And felt as if someone had kicked her in the side. Her hands slipped on the cable and she looked down. Her hip was a burning lump of pain. Had she been shot? Had he actually shot her?
All at once she was deadly tired. A mist darkened the pillars that leered over her. Before her vision clouded completely, she glimpsed a dart with red nylon feathers dangling from her side. A tranquilliser.
The cable slithered through her fingers and she fell to the concrete.
LOST
‘Ben tapped the right-hand button. The flipper juggled the ball on its snout like a dolphin. One lightning-fast stab and the dolphin became a tennis pro, volleying the ball up the multiplier chute into the Rats’ Nest. Red trails of light poured down the board and his score went rocketing up.
‘Not fair!’ Raymond Gallagher cried. ‘You can’t beat me on my own machine.’
‘Watch me,’ grinned Ben. He seized the corner of the table and lifted, tilting the board to stop the ball on the very lip of the dropoff.
‘Mu-u-um!’ Dad’s voice became like a small child’s. ‘He’s cheating! Tell him he can’t do that!’
Lucy Gallagher turned the television up another notch.
‘Of course you can, it’s in the rules,’ Ben replied. He hammered away at the flipper switches until his fingers were sore. His final score went straight to the number-one slot.
‘All right, sonny.’ Dad cracked his knuckles and barged him aside. ‘If that’s the way you want it. This is war.’
