by Nick Green
‘Yeah, bring it on!’
‘I will. Go to your room!’
‘What?’
‘You heard me, Ben. Go to your room. Ha! That means I win automatically.’
‘No way!’ Ben laughed, digging his fingers into Dad’s ribcage and tickling. ‘You can’t use Dad powers! Dad powers aren’t allowed.’
‘Show me where it says that in the rules of Rat-catcher. I wrote them, and I can rewrite them, so there. Now go to your room.’
‘No!’
‘Go to your room times a million and no returns!’
The game deteriorated into all-in wrestling. Ben was picked up and dumped on the sofa next to Mum. She made a big show of moving to the arm chair.
‘Boys with their toys.’ Yet there was a smile she couldn’t quite hide. Ben saw Dad’s twinkling glance and his heart gave a sudden, unexpected kick.
‘I don’t know what you delinquents are expecting for your dinner,’ Mum said. ‘Unless you want me to hack ice out of the freezer. Which is all you seem to keep in there, Ray.’
Dad consulted his watch.
‘Ray? Did you hear?’
The entry phone buzzed and Dad hurried to answer the door. A minute later he re-appeared with a large, fragrant carrier bag.
‘Chicken tikka massala for you, Ben? Dhansak, yes…and a rogan josh with lemon rice. Your favourite, Lucy?’
‘Ray!’ Mum protested. ‘Takeaways? Can I remind you we’re on the bread line?’
‘Bread, yep, couple of nan, we got them. What’s the problem?’
‘But we can’t afford to…I mean, I can’t afford… You shouldn’t expect me to…’ Mum shook her head more and more weakly as the paper bag scented the room. ‘Ah, forget it. Let’s have curry.’
It was months since Ben had enjoyed a meal this much. He used popadoms as shovels, guzzled lime pickle until his eyes streamed, stopped eating only when he could no longer sit up straight. But the food wasn’t the reason he enjoyed it. It was because Mum and Dad were talking. Their chat was nothing special (an old friend who’d moved to New Zealand, tonight’s TV) yet it felt like the most important thing he’d ever heard.
Afterwards Mum fetched her purse to pay her share of the meal. Dad waved it away. So Mum insisted on doing the washing-up. And Ben, to his own amazement and everyone else’s, offered to help.
‘You’d better change that dishtowel,’ said Mum after a while. ‘I’m not sure Dad ever has.’
Ben got a clean one from the sink cupboard.
‘Thanks for this.’ Mum smiled, tentatively.
Ben realised he’d been wiping one spoon for over a minute.
‘Mum, I’m—’ ‘Ben, you know I—’ they began together. He decided to plunge ahead.
‘I’m sorry for…for the other night.’
Mum relaxed so much her elbows sank into the soap suds.
‘I know you are. You didn’t mean it. And neither did I. Oh, Ben…’ She hugged him, dripping dishwater down his back. ‘No-one should have to suffer what you have. I said such horrible things. However bad it’s been for me…’
‘I know, but,’ Ben swallowed. ‘I am sorry. I am. That wasn’t me. And I won’t…ever again…’
He hugged her back. It was going to be all right. They’d come out of this together. And if Mum could forgive him, she could forgive Dad. She was probably about to say that now. That she forgave Dad. And everything would be back to normal. The normal of four years ago. He held on and waited. He found himself listening to the buzz of the refrigerator.
‘Ben,’ she said.
She knew what he was waiting for. And she wasn’t going to say it. Not tonight, anyway. They disentangled their arms.
‘I promised a friend I’d call,’ said Ben, edging away. ‘Mind if I—?’
‘No. Go ahead.’
He left her to wipe down the draining board. Sitting on the sofa he stared at the phone. The notepad was covered with crossings-out. All day he’d been trying to remember Tiffany’s number. He’d only ever programmed it into his mobile—much more convenient, unless you were stupid enough to throw your phone into a junkyard and lose it. It began 07939…
He had let her down, and it galled him. Maybe there really was no way for them to help those poor cats, but they could at least have talked about it. Tiffany had needed someone and he had shut her out. Even if he did remember her number, he wouldn’t blame her if she never picked up.
On the other hand, she might have tried to call on his lost mobile, or gone to look for him at the home that was no longer there. It was a shock to realise that she had no way of contacting him. He had to remember that number. It went 07939…583…no, 538. Then a four…
‘Hey, Ben. Shift. I need the sofa.’
Dad held an armful of blankets and a pillow.
If she was dreaming, it was a dream without pictures or light. Voices swam through the black depths.
‘…not getting it into your head. This finishes us. We are sunk.’
‘I don’t know, John. Others might see it differently.’
‘Maybe you’re right about the old woman. That no-one will miss her. But this girl…People will be looking for her!’
‘I’ve been checking the news all day. There’s nothing about any lost child.’
‘Yet. It’s only been twenty-four hours.’
The voices dissolved into a noise like pounding waves. With each wave came throbs of pain. The roar ebbed.
‘…need another shot soon, I think.’
‘This is kidnapping. We’re in over our heads.’
‘Not over mine. It’s an opportunity, John. What we have here is nothing less than a human cat.’
‘Congratulations. You have lost me.’
‘A felimorph, like my dear departed mother. If you thought Panthacea was an exciting discovery, wait till I’ve studied this little specimen.’
‘But she’s a schoolgirl, for heaven’s sake…’
‘To you, John, she could be worth millions. Ah, there we are.’
The rushing noise was coming back.
‘Cobb. She cannot stay here.’
What kind of dream was this?
It had taken Ben over an hour searching in Hamish’s Car Dump to find both pieces of his broken phone, and it took Dad even longer to coax the thing back to life with a soldering iron and much cursing. Tiffany’s number at last flickered weakly on the screen and Ben, playing safe, wrote it down before dialling it on the land line.
It went straight into voicemail. She must have her phone turned off. He left some clumsy message about being sorry, said that he hoped they could speak sometime soon, and hung up. She’d probably never ring back.
A background burble of television reminded him it was almost time for Eastenders. He was pleased to find Mum and Dad sitting side by side on the sofa. Taking the easy chair he browsed through the TV guide while the local news burbled in the background.
‘There’s a James Bond double-bill on later,’ he hinted.
‘Huh. In cases like this it’s nearly always the father whodunnit,’ Dad remarked, frowning at the sombre-faced newsreader on the screen.
‘That’s a mean thing to say.’ Mum shifted in her seat.
‘Well, it is. Guy goes on TV acting all anxious, while all the time he knows the body’s at the bottom of a canal somewhere. Mind you,’ Dad added hastily, ‘it is usually the step-fathers. Not the real ones.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Ben scanned the satellite listings.
Mum shushed him and turned up the volume on the news.
‘…her parents believe that a family argument may have caused her to walk out,’ a reporter was saying to the camera. ‘The chief hope is that she will get in touch either by calling home or by ringing the confidential helpline at the foot of your screens.’
A freephone number flashed up.
‘Earlier today Peter Maine made an emotional appeal for her safe return.’
A tall man came on screen, wearing an ill-matching open-neck s
hirt and trousers, as if he had dressed without noticing. Beside him stood a woman whose face might have been beautiful had it not been lined with lost sleep. The man spoke into a microphone.
‘Truffle, we’re not angry at you, sweetheart.’ His voice was steady, as if he were concentrating on keeping it that way. ‘We just want to know you’re okay.’
Ben put down the TV guide.
‘If you’re out there and listening to this, please call. You don’t have to speak to us, ring the other number if you want. Just say you’re safe. We both love you, Tiffany. Please come home.’
Ben’s fingers sank into the arms of his chair. He couldn’t move. The television filled with a photograph. Tiffany, a year or two younger, smiling in school uniform.
‘Police are appealing for witnesses who may have seen Tiffany on Sunday afternoon.’
‘S’cuse me.’ Ben stumbled over Dad’s feet on his way out of the lounge and dived into his new bedroom, slamming the door shut. A crippling weakness overtook him and he sank to his knees at the foot of the bed, shaking as if from a fever.
A PURER SOURCE
At first there was nothingness, blacker than sleep. Then she was a bubble rising sluggishly through syrup. Shapes above her bulbed and stretched like freshly blown glass and the drowsy syrup smothered her, she was trapped, a fly in amber—
Tiffany retched and coughed herself conscious. She gulped foul-smelling air. Her throat felt as if she had been eating thistles. It was thirst, she realised, a thirst so fierce she hardly knew it as such. She groaned and heard a dry rattle.
Where was she? Her memory was smashed. Out of the wreckage came one terrible thought: she was in hospital. She’d had an accident, or she’d been struck down by some disease even worse than Stuart’s. She wished hospital beds weren’t so hard. Her back was cobbled with bruises and her hip was a knifing pain. The grey haze around her sharpened into bars. She lay in a cage, the size of a coffin, at the edge of an office made of cardboard boxes.
The truth landed on her like lead. Only her thirst, the most terrible thing of all, kept it from crushing her.
‘…so much for your theory that no-one cares.’
‘Have you conclusive proof that it’s the same girl?’
‘Come on, Cobb. A kid shows up here, you stick her in a cage, and thirty-six hours later parents are appealing on the lunchtime news about their missing daughter. Is that scientific enough for you?’
Cold clutched at Tiffany’s heart. Parents. Oh God. Mum and Dad. How long had she been missing? Thirty-six hours…? They’d been on the news? What would they…? Water. She had to have water.
‘As you wish. Your theory stands for now.’ Cobb, restlessly circling his desk, passed into Tiffany’s line of sight. ‘Even so, I wager you her parents know nothing about her. They don’t know what she can do. And they can’t link her with us.’
‘The police will try to find her.’
‘The police couldn’t find their own gluteus maximus with both hands.’ Chuckling, Cobb glanced at the cage. ‘Hush now. She’s waking up.’
He came nearer, peering in at Tiffany as if she were a rare, possibly hazardous insect.
‘Good afternoon,’ he said. ‘How do you feel?’
‘W…’ Tiffany tried to speak. Her mouth was like rubber. ‘Ter.’
‘I’m sorry?’
She tried again, with all her strength. ‘Water.’
‘Pardon? Ah, of course. John, fetch me that bottle, will you?’ Cobb took it, ignoring the other man’s muttering, and poked it through the bars. Tiffany drank in a frenzy, choking and coughing, until she was swallowing only air. The dreadful dryness had hardly shifted, but at least she could now move her tongue.
‘You’ll feel poorly at first,’ said Cobb. ‘You’ve been sedated.’
Tiffany tried to get up and bumped her head on the cage. A wave of dizziness forced her down again.
‘How about food?’ Cobb enquired.
As her thirst ebbed, the hunger pangs came. She had read about these but had never thought they would really be pains. Being this hungry was like bleeding inside. She managed a nod.
‘Good-good.’
Something smacked wetly on the floor of her cage. Tiffany stared at it. It was a lump of meat. Raw meat. Nausea overcame her and she shut her eyes.
‘It’s fresh,’ she heard him say.
‘You imbecile.’ That was Stanford. ‘Stop playing games.’
‘In a spirit of experimentation…’
‘I don’t care what you call it. You’ll make her puke everywhere and then someone will have to clean it up, and I tell you in advance that it won’t be me.’
Cobb smiled thinly. ‘You know best, John, I’m sure. Give her whatever food you feel is appropriate.’
‘Me?’ Stanford boggled. Cobb was already walking back to his desk. Stanford scowled at Tiffany as if she were a dent in his new car. She gazed up at him.
‘Please,’ she whispered. ‘Help me.’
‘Shut up.’
‘He’s mad,’ she pleaded. ‘You know he’s mad. You’ve got to help me get out of here.’
Stanford turned away. ‘Toby?’
‘Mr S?’
‘Nip to the loading bay for me, will you? Get a pack of those sandwiches from the security men’s van.’
‘Right-o.’ Toby seemed miffed at the task. ‘What d’you want in ’em?’
‘Anything. I don’t care. Use your imagination!’
Toby mooched off.
‘And a carton of juice or something!’ Stanford called after him.
‘Yes sir. Three bags full.’
Tiffany waited, fighting with faintness, until a triangular plastic pack was crushed through the bars. She ripped it open and crammed the limp white bread with fish paste and watery lettuce into her mouth. Twenty seconds later, when she had finished, she sucked at the carton of Ribena until it crumpled. Only then, in disgust, did she flick the lump of meat out of her cage.
She looked around for John Stanford. It was absurd, but she almost longed for his return. Anyone was better than Philip Cobb.
Could she shout for help? There were many others in the factory, security men, technicians, mysterious operatives. Surely they weren’t all heartless beasts. Then she thought of the cats in their cages. No-one working here could be unaware of them. Yet their suffering went on. Maybe they were all as evil as Cobb. At any rate, they did nothing to stop him, and wasn’t that the same thing?
Cobb was paying more attention to his computer than to her. She had to escape. Oh, but how? She felt so weak. Hungry, thirsty, bruised and dizzy, and on top of all that she was dying for the loo…
‘Hey,’ she called. ‘Hey! Doctor Cobb! I need to go.’
‘I can’t let you go,’ Cobb murmured.
‘To the toilet,’ she insisted. ‘Please.’
‘You should have gone before you left.’
‘I’ve been here two days, you said!’
Cobb stopped clicking the mouse.
‘You there, Terry, no, Toby. Take her to the lavatory. And stand guard.’
‘What am I today?’ Toby groused, as Cobb unlocked the cage and pulled Tiffany out. ‘Sandwiches, toilets. Why don’t you hire a bleedin’—’
‘—person with their tongue cut out?’ Cobb spat, so violently that Toby stepped back in alarm. ‘Listen to me, you lobotomised Yeti. If you ever question again one syllable of what I say, I will let Shiva feed on your face. Have I made myself clear?’
‘Yes sir. Sorry sir,’ mumbled Toby, swallowing. He gripped Tiffany’s upper arm, the huge fingers and thumb meeting. His shaven head had gone shiny with sweat. He couldn’t be so afraid of Cobb, could he?
A blue Portaloo occupied one of the wings that branched off the main hall. The moment she was shoved inside, the door slamming behind her, Tiffany broke down in tears. She had never felt so wretched, so poisoned with fear. But she used the loo and dried her eyes. She had bought herself one chance. Now to use it.
Clever plans we
re a waste of time. Speed was her weapon. First bracing against the plastic sink for leverage, she hurtled out of the door and ducked Toby’s flailing arms. Swerving sharply left then right, she ran. Her Mau body roused itself reluctantly. I’m a cat, it seemed to complain, you’ve got to let me sleep. She focused on Parda, the golden catra and the source of strength. Energy flooded her weary limbs. Toby’s shouts echoed like thunderclaps.
She skidded round a corner into a wall of snapping jaws. Two black-and-brown demons reared over her, baying and snarling. Crying out, she shielded her face, tried to roll away and hit bricks. There was no escape. Curled in a ball she waited to be shredded.
‘Fred! Ginger! Stand down.’
A tall shape stood over her, eclipsing the upper windows. Stanford whistled and the two huge Doberman dogs sat on their haunches, grinning like gin-traps. Limp with fright, Tiffany was dragged to her feet.
‘Come on, you,’ growled Toby. ‘Just dare try that again.’
Avoiding Stanford’s icy stare he carried her back to her cage.
‘Next time, you use a bucket,’ Toby sneered. ‘I coulda lost my job.’
Tiffany lay motionless inside the bars, dimly aware of the argument that had broken out amongst the men, Cobb saying things about Toby and Stanford making counter-accusations. Crushed with despair she ignored them. She’d wasted her only opportunity. She was too tired, too weak. And now her ankle was throbbing. Even if she got out again, she wouldn’t be able to run.
An hour passed, perhaps two. Eventually she lost the will to weep. She heaved a sigh and felt a rumble in her throat. With it came a glimmer of warmth. That was Pur, of course—the cat’s calming meditation. Often just a sound of contentment, cats could use it deliberately to handle pain and distress. Some people believed it could even speed up healing.
She shifted into the Sphynx crouch and let the rumble rise from her larynx. Soon it became automatic. Breathe in, breathe out. The purr sank into her like a padded drill, soothing her nerves and letting clearer thoughts through. Perhaps there would be more chances to escape. If and when they came, she would be prepared.
