by Mandy Morton
‘What a nightmare!’ Hettie spluttered to Tilly, having had the best part of an alcoholic ginger beer tipped over her by Digger Patch as he swayed to the dying moments of ‘Diamonds are a Cat’s Best Friend’. ‘There doesn’t seem to be any point in trying to talk to anyone here today: Marcia Woolcoat isn’t up for your plant, and is currently being devoured by a beer-battered fish; Marley Toke has laced the rest of the residents with catnip, and God knows what state they’ll be in by the time they’ve eaten their tea. I doubt that any of them could remember what happened on Monday when Vita, Virginia and Pansy were buried. Speaking of burials, has anyone been to fill them in yet? Now they’re back, the least someone could do is chuck some soil on them.’
Tilly could see that her friend had ‘lost it’, as Poppa would say, and led Hettie by the paw into the Furcross lounge. It was much quieter there, with only one resident fast asleep in front of the TV set that dominated the room. The cat was small and petite, with a very attractive pink and grey stripe running through her fur, and her uniform marked her out as Alma Mogadon, the Furcross nurse. Tilly had become a little overexcited at the scale and size of the TV, and in her enthusiasm to take a closer look, she tripped over Alma’s legs – but Nurse Alma Mogadon did not wake up. In fact, Nurse Alma Mogadon was never going to wake up, because Nurse Alma Mogadon was dead.
‘Well, that’s all we need,’ said Hettie, slumping into the chair next to the late nurse as Tilly fiddled with the TV remote. ‘Four corpses in one day, and still no closer to the truth of it. You’d think – being a nurse – she could look after herself instead of adding to the body count.’
‘I don’t suppose she’s done it on purpose,’ offered Tilly, trying to work out how to bring the TV screen to life. ‘Look – there’s a letter sticking out of her apron pocket. That might be important.’
Feeling irritated and more than a little waspish because of her indigestion, Hettie snatched the letter from the body. ‘“Marcie.” That’s what it says. Probably a note for Miss Woolcoat. Nothing to do with us, anyway. I’ll stick it back in her pocket. We’ve got enough on without running an after-death postal delivery service, and it’s getting late – time we were heading off for the day. Where’s Poppa?’
‘He’s gone to sort his blocked sink out, and he’s picking us up on the way back. Shouldn’t we tell someone about the nurse? Miss Woolcoat will have to deal with it. That body can’t just stay there while they all watch TV later. It doesn’t seem right, and it’s bound to take the edge of their enjoyment of the six o’clock news.’
‘Judging by the state they’re in, I doubt they would even notice,’ grumbled Hettie as she looked at the corpse more intently. ‘I’d say it was a peaceful death. Nothing suspicious, no signs of violence, and – looking on the bright side – one less for us to interview before we wrap the case up.’
Tilly had given up with the remote control. Defeated by technology, she turned her attention to the letter that Hettie had seen fit to ignore. Opening the envelope, she read the enclosed note out loud:
My dear Marcie,
Please forgive me for taking a coward’s way out, but I cannot live with what I have done, and I hope that Pansy, Vita and Virginia can forgive me for allowing it to happen to them.
Goodbye, with love.
Alma x
‘See – I told you it might be important. It’s a confession,’ said Tilly, looking like the cat who had most certainly got the cream. ‘She’s killed herself before anyone could find out what she did. Bit sad, really, but I don’t see how she did it all on her own. I don’t think we’ve quite got to the bottom of it yet.’
Just as Hettie was about to launch herself into an appraisal of the facts so far, the lounge door crashed open to reveal a laden tea trolley, propelled by Marley Toke. The shock afforded to the trolley by the sheer speed as it hit the skirting board en route dislodged a plateful of Chelsea buns, sending one spinning towards Tilly’s head. As she ducked, the offending item hit the TV screen and slid down towards the standby button, which responded by coming to life to reveal a full colour image of the folk singer Ralph McTail in concert – much to Tilly’s delight and Marley’s embarrassment. The only person unmoved by the sudden arrival of afternoon tea was Nurse Alma Mogadon, who sat passively with one of the stray teatime treats lodged firmly in her crisp, white nurse’s cap.
‘Me thought you’d like yer tea in ’ere, away from de stampede, Miss Hettie – but me trolley wheels don’t seem to go de same way as me these days. The Lord be praised that me samovar kept its place on de top deck, or we’d be paddlin’ around in Jamaican Darjeeling and …’ The sentence came to an abrupt halt, unlike the tea trolley which continued its journey across the floor, finally settling against a rattan bookshelf. ‘Nurse Moggy! Whatever is you doin’ sat dere like a statue with one of me sticky buns on yer head?’
With no response forthcoming, Hettie gently intervened. ‘I’m afraid she’s dead, Marley. She appears to have killed herself.’
‘Dead! What is you sayin’? How can she be dead? She was alive this mornin’, so how can she be dead now? She’s a nurse – that don’t make any sense! She always come to cash and carry wid me on Friday, so she wouldn’t just die and not tell me, and we got tickets for Miss Repel’s fashion show on Saturday, and we booked us a week at the Signet Hotel in Southwool for de Festival in November. Me and Moggy always has a week at the seaside before Christmas.’ Running out of calendar dates, Marley sank into the chair on the other side of the deceased nurse and began to rock backwards and forwards. As she lapsed into a trance-like state, a low and tuneful hum escaped from her reverberating lips and her large, hooped earrings swung in time to the rhythmic rocking of her substantial body.
The scene was one of those tableaux that could only have been created by a seriously deranged experimental theatre director, and Tilly realised that it was time to bring the curtain down before any of the Furcross residents added to the confusion. Finding the off button on the TV remote, she took control. ‘Right – we have to remove the body before anyone turns up.’ Looking across at Marley and remembering a scene from Voodoo Cats, she knew that trance-like states should not be tampered with, but Hettie would need spurring into action if the dead nurse’s dignity was not to suffer any further humiliation. ‘Fetch the trolley. We’ll load her up and take her to Marcia Woolcoat’s parlour. She can deal with it after that.’
Hettie responded immediately, grateful to her friend for making some attempt to extricate them from yet another off-colour moment at Furcross. As if Marley’s humming – which now evolved into a chant – had summoned the cavalry over the sand dunes, Poppa made a Lawrence of Arabia entrance just when they needed him most. Surveying the scene, but showing no real surprise, he sprang to Hettie’s aid and they lifted Nurse Mogadon out of her chair, squeezing her onto the bottom layer of the tea trolley. Tilly collected the scattered buns, remembering to conceal three in her now bulging cardigan pockets for later. Scanning the room, she located a tartan blanket nestling in one of the armchairs and tucked it as best she could around the body on the trolley, preparing it for departure. Satisfied that the lounge was back to normal except for the wailing Jamaican cook, and with a lingering look at the oversized TV, Tilly led the way, opening doors as Hettie and Poppa attempted to steer the tea trolley into the hallway and down the corridor to Marcia Woolcoat’s parlour.
Marley Toke’s Jamaican beer-battered fish and chips had proved a real tonic, and Marcia Woolcoat responded brightly to the polite knock at her door. As the funeral cortège rattled into her parlour, complete with samovar and Chelsea buns, she fidgeted nervously, eyeing up the tartan blanket and wondering why her Jamaican cook – whom she paid far too well – had not delivered her afternoon tea personally. ‘Miss Bagshot and … er … your associates – this is a surprise. What news do you bring? Are you any closer to getting to the bottom of this dreadful business? I must apologise for my state of mind earlier, but it’s not every day that you are called upon to identify
three bodies and subsequently find yourself prostrate in a grave, especially when you are very much alive. I fear my nerves got the better of me. Shall we have some tea and discuss your progress?’
Tilly moved first and put the suicide note into Hettie’s paw, giving her a meaningful stare and nudging her towards Marcia Woolcoat. Adjusting her mac and raising herself to her full height, Hettie assumed the stance of someone in authority who had everything under control – much to the admiration of her two friends, who had put the tea trolley between themselves and the matron of Furcross. ‘Miss Woolcoat, I’m afraid the news continues to be bad. In spite of our endeavours to find the perpetrator behind your … er … problems here at Furcross, it would appear that the … er … plot thickens. There has been a death which – although it appears to be voluntary – is not part of your Dignicat scheme.’
Hettie could not resist turning her head towards the bottom layer of the trolley as the word ‘scheme’ died in her throat. Marcia followed her gaze and mentally converted the tartan bundle into her worst fears. She let out a piercing scream and fell back on her sofa, her ginger fur becoming spiked and greasy in seconds. ‘Please! Not Marley!’ she cried as the sobs got louder. ‘Who’s going to cook for us? No one could make the housekeeping money go as far as Marley Toke – she has friends in low places. We are done for! I am done for!’
Hettie allowed the performance to reach a crescendo before shaking the queen of melodrama out of her ‘in the moment’ approach, and handing her the cup of sweet tea that Tilly had coaxed from the samovar. Amid sobs and loud slurps, Marcia Woolcoat gradually regained a grain of composure and Hettie grasped the moment to slip the letter into her tear-soaked paws. Retreating behind the tea trolley to join her friends, she watched as Marcia Woolcoat unfolded Alma Mogadon’s final words.
As the contents began to sink in, Marcia visibly became a very old cat. Her haughty demeanour melted away, and was replaced by a sad, dejected picture of her original self. There were no more tears and no sign of any earth-shattering sobs, just a silent resignation. She rose from her sofa and slowly approached the tartan bundle, pulling back the cover to reveal a familiar face, now still and frozen in time. It was as if the onlookers had no physical presence in the room as she pulled the nurse’s body to her, releasing it from the trolley. Kneeling down, she cradled Alma’s head in her lap and began to speak softly, her words clearly an intimate, one-sided conversation.
Out of respect for Marcia’s grief, Hettie allowed her gaze to wander round the room, only to appreciate for the first time how many elaborately framed photographs captured the image of Alma Mogadon – arm in arm with Marcia on a beach, curled up on a picnic rug, or posed in front of some well-known monument, but always smiling: two cats delighting in each other’s company. Offering a conspiratorial nod to Poppa and a quick tug of Tilly’s cardigan, Hettie led the way towards the door, leaving the room with as little ceremony as she could.
No sooner were they back in the corridor than the full impact of Marley Toke’s continuous wailing made Hettie’s mind up: there was nothing more to be done today. The thought of a roaring fire, a pipe or two of catnip and one of the Butters’ finest lamb and leek pasties suddenly lifted her spirits, and with a spring in her step she led her party to the safety of Poppa’s van. In his haste, he had abandoned the vehicle across the driveway entrance to Furcross, much to the annoyance of Oralia Claw, who was jamming her paw down on the horn of her mobile nail bar, obviously desperate to gain admittance. Much shoving and shunting eventually resolved the situation, and Poppa steered the transit out into Sheba Gardens. By way of celebration at having escaped the mausoleum that Furcross was fast becoming, Tilly dug out the Chelsea buns from her cardigan and shared them out, and all three offered backing vocals to Steponcat’s ‘Born to be Mild’, featured as the regular thrash metal spot on their local radio’s Drive-time Show.
‘I’m not sure where any of this leaves us,’ observed Hettie, picking a stray currant off Poppa’s windscreen. ‘Four dead cats, three of them half-skinned and one of them confessing to God knows what in connection with the other three; a home full of barking mad elderly cats; a cook in some sort of Voodoo trance; and Marcia Woolcoat in no condition to settle up for as much as a paper clip.’
‘It’s a bit of a bugger,’ agreed Tilly. ‘We might have bitten off more than we can chew. Maybe we should quit while we’re losing and go on to the next case.’
‘Yes, but that’s the point – we don’t have another case to go on to. I don’t see what choice we have but to push on and try and make sense of it all. We obviously need a plan.’
‘Well, for a start we need teabags,’ piped up Tilly, doing her best to be positive.
‘My shout.’ Poppa shot through a set of red lights, bringing the transit to a shuddering halt outside the entrance to Malkin and Sprinkle’s food hall. ‘I’ve got to get a pie for tea anyway, and the Butters will have shut by now. Keep an eye on the van. I’ll be back in a tick.’
He forced the driver’s door open into a crowd of unsuspecting shoppers and headed for the grocery department. Hettie noticed that a ham sandwich had made its bid for freedom from one of his overall pockets, and she was about to retrieve it from the pavement when Oralia Claw’s nail van loomed out of nowhere, mounting the pavement and squashing the sandwich under one of its front wheels. The destruction of the sandwich was eclipsed by Cocoa Repel’s ungainly exit from Oralia’s passenger seat, at which point a small crowd gathered, proffering bits of paper and anything else they could find to carry off the designer’s signature. Hettie instantly adopted her surveillance position, glancing into the rear-view mirror until Tilly gently pointed out that all the action was taking place in front of them, and they watched, transfixed, as the sleek, beautiful chocolate cat draped herself across the bonnet of the van, chatting to her public and giving out leaflets for her big event. Under the weight of boxes and rails full of Cocoa Repel’s latest collection, Oralia Claw staggered from the back of her van to the trade entrance of Malkin and Sprinkle. Unlike her companion, Oralia had to work at being beautiful: her pinched, black-and-white striped face and thin, under-developed body gave her a snake-like appearance, but her nails were immaculate and her fur shone like glass.
Oralia Claw had fallen on her paws the day she met Cocoa Repel at Furcross. Cocoa had dropped in on the off chance that her retired movie star mother would smile financially on her latest scheme, and had that afternoon walked away with a merger that suited all concerned. Oralia had taken care of Marilyn Repel’s fur and nails for some time, and her weekly visits to Furcross were much looked forward to, especially since she had branched out into the world of accessories and was now able to tempt her clients with leg warmers, hats, gloves and handbags, as well as established beauty treatments. She had converted an old garage at the rear of her premises in the High Street and, on quiet days, would close her shop and take herself off to what she liked to call her ‘back place’ to ‘knock up a bit of stock’.
Cocoa Repel had built up a very successful fashion emporium on the east coast, mostly due to the constant flow of her mother’s fortune. On the day she met Oralia, she had been looking to expand her options into ‘off-the-peg, one-size-fits-all’ couture, and the two had swapped visions over a pot of Marley Toke’s Jamaican coffee. In the end, Oralia agreed to extend her ‘back place’ to accommodate Cocoa’s new design studio and perfumery, and was offered in exchange the chance to feature her own handiwork at some exclusive fashion events.
It was obvious to any onlooker that Cocoa wore the leg warmers in this particular venture, and that Oralia – still staggering under the burden of Saturday evening’s extravaganza – was not so much the silent partner as the put-up and shut-up end of the business. The Malkin and Sprinkle event was the pinnacle of Oralia Claw’s achievements so far and, as a gust of wind picked her and the large box she was carrying up into the air, dashing them both against the department store’s electrical and homeware window, she had no choice but to accept
that there was no gain without pain.
Hettie and Tilly did their best to suppress peals of laughter as the comedy unfolded in front of them, along with an assortment of chiffon scarves that had escaped from the crumpled box and wrapped themselves around lamp posts and passers-by. Cocoa managed to disengage herself from her fan base and totter on overambitious heels to where Oralia lay sprawled on the pavement; she made encouraging noises but offered no physical support, and Poppa emerged from the food hall just in time to pick up the pieces. Abandoning his shopping, he hauled the nail bar hostess to her feet while a large gathering of shoppers danced round the box, trying to catch what was left of its contents.
‘It’s just like watching one of those contemporary dance things,’ observed Tilly, wiping tears from her eyes. ‘You know the sort of thing – lots of leaping about in coloured tights and floaty things with no one in the audience knowing when to clap.’
