by Mandy Morton
Recovering herself, Dahlia followed her sister’s example. ‘We were both in our shed all evening and retired early to bed to listen to a classical concert on the radio. We’d been looking forward to it all week.’
‘And what was the concert?’ pressed Hettie, determined to keep the heat turned up.
‘Depussy’s Concerto for Recorder and Triangle in four movements,’ responded Gladys, as if she were training to be a continuity announcer. ‘It was one of father’s favourites. We used to perform it for him on Sundays at the rectory after he’d delivered his sermon. He said he found it calming after the rigours of his week.’
Tilly stifled a giggle as a vision of the Mulch sisters’ Sunday recital on recorder and triangle came into her head. ‘When was the last time you saw or spoke to Miss Jingle?’ asked Hettie, pushing on with her questions.
The two sisters looked at each other as if deciding what to say next. This time, Dahlia spoke. ‘Yesterday afternoon. She called to us over the hedge, which was strange as we hadn’t spoken to her since last Michaelmas on account of the earwig situation. She was a bit upset. She said she’d had a detective asking questions. I suppose that must have been you.’
Hettie nodded, and Gladys continued, ‘She told us she thought we should all be careful of what we said in these strange times. She was worried about Micks and how the murder might affect him, and said that no good could come of strangers visiting the plots.’
‘Why do you think she was so worried about Micks?’ Hettie asked.
‘Those two were as thick as thieves,’ said Dahlia, with a slight hint of contempt. ‘He was always round there, and she encouraged him with his silly plays and helped him learn his lines. One day last week they were practising a sword fight on her veranda. She looked ridiculous in her long dressing gown, and he was done up like something from Robin Hood. He’s a child, really, and Gertrude mothered him.’
‘And what about strangers visiting the plots? What did she mean by that?’
‘I suppose she meant the body on Bonny Grubb’s patch, but I’m not sure. You could never have an ordinary chat with Gertrude. She was a bit like a bumblebee, just flitting from one subject to another. Not that I want to speak ill of the dead, but she was definitely out with the fairies most of the time. I think that’s why she spent so much time with Micks. Cats of a feather flock together.’
Hettie smiled, recalling her encounter with Gertrude Jingle. ‘Is that all she had to say to you?’
‘Yes,’ said Gladys. ‘Blackberry arrived to collect some lilies for Malkin and Sprinkle, so she went off to deal with her.’
‘And did Miss Jingle have any other visitors yesterday?’
‘I think I heard Apple talking to her shortly after Blackberry left,’ said Dahlia. ‘I was in and out because of the rain, but I did see Desiree Chit later on the path. She’d taken Gertrude a slice of cake for her supper, and Micks was there around teatime.’
‘What about later?’ asked Hettie. ‘Or even very early this morning? Any noises or disturbance?’
The Mulch sisters shook their heads in unison. It seemed that there were a number of comings and goings on Gertrude Jingle’s allotment the day before, but nothing in any way significant to the carnage that Hettie had encountered that morning. The attack had been vicious and violent, and as Hettie studied the two sisters, she found it hard to believe that either of them was capable of anything more than a fatal poisoning or a nice pillow smothering while the victim was asleep. In her book, they weren’t quite off the hook, but they had certainly slid down the suspect list.
Her assessment of the Mulches was rudely interrupted by a bout of expletives coming from Gertrude Jingle’s plot. As all four cats moved to the boundary hedge, the substantial figure of Morbid Balm, the town’s mortician, loomed up at them from the other side of the hedge.
The attractive black and white Goth cat was renowned for her artistic qualities regarding the dead. It was with great pride and job satisfaction that she went about her work, sending deceased cats on their final journeys looking the very best that they could under the circumstances. Morbid had performed several miracles at the town’s literary festival earlier that summer, and Hettie and Tilly would be for ever grateful to her; at the time, they had been up to their tabby necks in a rather gruesome set of murders.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ said Morbid, looking at Hettie and Tilly. ‘Miss Wither-Fork said she’d called some detectives in. Bit of a mess this one, I gather. Wants an outdoor cremation – makes a nice change, but I can’t get into the summer house. The key I picked up from the gatehouse doesn’t seem to work. Miss Wither-Fork said she’d leave it there with her sister.’
At that moment, Mash Wither-Spoon appeared at Gertrude’s gate. ‘I’m so sorry, Miss Balm – I’ve given you the key to our shed by mistake. This is the one you need.’ Mash made her way onto Gertrude Jingle’s plot, swiftly followed by Hettie and Tilly. They left the Mulch sisters staring over the hedge, fascinated by the prospect of an outdoor funeral and keen to watch the preparations.
Exchanging keys with Mash, Morbid returned to the summer house and unlocked the door. Hettie was already aware of what lay behind it, and Tilly stood back, preferring to view the crime scene from a respectful distance. Mash Wither-Spoon moved forward, her curiosity getting the better of her. A blood-curdling scream of anguish came from somewhere very deep inside as she saw the true horror of the scene through the open door. She stared for a moment, taking in every gory detail, then threw her paws up to her eyes to block out the vision, staggering backwards and collapsing in a sobbing heap on the herringbone brick path. Tilly attempted to console her, but the sobs became louder and more frequent, punctuated by the occasional ‘Why?’ and ‘How could this happen?’ – both questions that Hettie and Tilly would have loved to know the answers to.
Morbid was seemingly unmoved by the body and its surrounding chaos, but she took several minutes to process what was in front of her. Eventually, she turned to Hettie, having sized up the task before her. ‘I could do with a bit of help on this one,’ she said, raising her voice above the continuous wailing. Hettie signalled to Tilly to coax Mash back to the gatehouse, and she and Morbid moved into the summer house to prepare Gertrude Jingle for her ongoing journey.
Morbid cleared a space on the table and set down her small suitcase, which contained all the tools of her trade. She opened the catches and the lid popped up to reveal a set of drawers, all neatly labelled and containing eyes, ears, whiskers and even tails. The rest of the suitcase was laid out with brushes, combs, shampoo, cotton wool and a parcel of sandwiches, which Morbid removed first and put to one side. ‘Got the call as I was about to eat my lunch,’ she said, unwrapping the parcel and taking a healthy bite. ‘We need to get her cleaned up first. A pan of hot water would be good for starters.’
While Morbid worked her way through the tuna sandwiches, Hettie scrambled some sticks together and lit the small stove. Filling the kettle from one of the clean water butts in the garden, she set it to boil on the stove as Morbid turned to the body. ‘We’ll need something to dress her in. Maybe you could find a clean nightdress or something?’
Hettie looked round the small hut. There was nothing to suggest a clothes store of any kind, but she noticed that the bed itself had drawers below the mattress. The first was full of papers, letters and an assortment of old photographs, but the second contained what she was looking for: on top of a pile of fresh laundry was a white nightdress, a far cry from the bloodied garment in which Gertrude Jingle was currently displayed. She watched as Morbid gently removed first the bed sheet and then the nightdress from the body. The fur was matted with congealed blood around the entry wounds, where the killer’s knife had done its work. Undaunted, Morbid filled a bowl with warm water and bathed the injuries as if Gertrude were still alive. The care and attention she gave to the body as she went about her work left Hettie in tears, bathing away the horror and brushing the fur back over the wounds to restore some dignity to the cat
who – in life – had been a proud and genteel member of the allotment community.
Not wishing to get in the way, Hettie busied herself by gathering the lilies that had littered the floor and the bed. Remembering that they were to be consumed in the funeral fire, she piled them up outside the hut. There was a click of the gate and she looked up to see Rooster Chit coming up the path, carrying a fork and spade in his paws. ‘Miss Wither-Fork wants me to lift Miss Jingle’s bulbs,’ he said. ‘It’s a sad day, that it is. I can’t believe she’s gone. My Desiree brought ’er a nice bit of cake up for ’er tea only yesterday. Said she was singing to ’er flowers in the rain, ’appy as a seagull on an open fish box.’
Hettie admired Rooster Chit’s analogy, but blocked his way as he attempted to peer into the summer house. ‘Miss Jingle is being prepared for her funeral,’ she said, diverting his attention from the hut to the spade and fork in his paws. ‘It’s going to be an outdoor cremation and all the lilies are to be burnt with her.’
‘Right-o,’ he said. ‘I’d better get on, then.’ Rooster retraced his footsteps and began the sad task of lifting the lily bulbs one by one. Hettie looked on as Gertrude Jingle’s beautiful family was uprooted and piled up in a mountain of snowy-white flowers, still clinging to their bulbs, so recently wrenched from the earth. Their scent filled the air, and the bees swarmed in anger as their pollen supply was disturbed with such finality.
When she returned to the summer house, she was amazed by the transformation that Morbid had achieved in such a short time. A pile of bloodied sheets lay in a heap on the floor, replaced by the fresh, clean ones that Morbid had mined from the drawer. Miss Jingle was at peace in her bed, with no sign of the violence that had befallen her only a few hours ago. ‘You’ve worked a miracle,’ said Hettie in admiration.
‘All part of the service.’ Morbid snapped the catches shut on her case. ‘Although the sooner you get your paws on the killer, the better we’ll like it. Nasty business. She’s been treated like a pincushion, and with some force – a lot of anger there. I reckon she was alive for most of it, judging by the amount of blood. I found this by her pillow – she’d been gagged to keep her quiet, but obviously the killer removed it when he’d finished his work.’
Hettie stared down at the handkerchief, still knotted and – like everything else – stained with Miss Jingle’s blood. ‘So she was tortured?’
‘Yep, looks like it,’ said Morbid. ‘Not at all like the one we picked up from here yesterday. One good blow to the head did for him, and a couple more to make sure of the job – that’s when the teeth came out. Nothing like this, though.’
Hettie thought for a moment, grateful for Morbid’s observations. ‘Do you think there could be two murderers, then?’ she asked, considering a breakthrough that she really didn’t need.
Morbid put her head on one side and thought about it. ‘Well, professionally I’d have to say that the deaths couldn’t be further apart. This one has been set up to look as staged as possible. It’s almost artistic with the lilies and all that. The other one was a hit-and-run sort of thing, with none of the violence we’ve seen here.’
Hettie stared at the body laid out on the bed and marvelled at how peaceful Miss Jingle looked in the surrounding bloody chaos of the hut. She picked the broken glasses up from the floor, together with the book that lay by them; the blood had soaked through the pages and was now dry enough for her to take a closer look, and she saw that it was a copy of Macbeth.
‘That’s it for now,’ said Morbid, picking up her case. ‘I’ll be back here nice and early tomorrow, as the hut will have to come down. We’ll have to use it to build a pyre, so it’s all paws on deck for that. I’ve only seen it done once, when I was visiting an Indian cat friend of mine who lived at the foot of the Himalayas. He saw his mother off in an outdoor cremation. Lovely, it was, all very colourful and much nicer than the ovens up the crem – a chance to say a proper goodbye. It’s all about the spirit leaving the body so it can be reincarnated. According to custom, the old worn-out body has to be burnt to be reborn. I thought at the time that it was a really cool thing to do, but I never thought I’d be organising one. Can’t see it catching on at Shroud and Trestle.’
Hettie liked Morbid Balm. Dressed in her short black tunic and tights, finished off with a pair of black Doc Martens boots and adorned with silver jewellery, pierced ears, a ring through her nose, and a giant cross of black ebony round her neck, she looked as far away from her chosen profession as she could be. No sombre understated suit and fixed expression of sympathy for her; just a smile that lit up even the worst of feline catastrophes, and a willingness to restore order and beauty for the dead as well as the living.
‘Are you going to burn everything at the funeral?’ asked Hettie, getting back to practicalities.
‘Yep. Miss Wither-Fork says the whole lot’s got to go up in flames in accordance with the deceased’s wishes – a sort of purification, I suppose. Those lilies will make a great decoration for the body, and I’ll try to get all her stuff underneath her. Should go up a treat.’
Hettie looked across at the bed and the open drawer of papers. ‘It would really help if I could borrow those papers overnight,’ she said, looking slightly shifty. ‘There may be some clues as to why she was murdered.’
‘Gotcha thinking,’ responded Morbid with a wink. ‘If you have them back here by mid morning tomorrow, I don’t think anyone would notice. And who’s going to argue, anyway?’
Hettie gave a conspiratorial nod as Tilly arrived at the hut door, relieved to see that Gertrude Jingle was now at rest.
‘Perfect timing,’ said Hettie. ‘Help me gather up these papers. We’re borrowing them for a little light reading after supper.’
Tilly, while slightly reticent about approaching the body, noticed that there was a battered old suitcase at the bottom of the bed. She dragged it across the floor and discovered that there were more papers inside it. The two cats added the contents of the drawer and dragged the suitcase out into the sunshine, leaving Morbid to lock up. She gave them a cheery goodbye and set off down the allotment path, while they contemplated their next move.
‘How was Mash when you left her?’ Hettie asked, as they sat on Gertrude’s veranda and watched Rooster Chit demolish the garden.
‘Sobbing and wringing her paws. There was no consoling her, and she was almost hysterical. She just kept asking how this could have happened. I suppose she was quite close to Miss Jingle, what with the plays and all that stuff.’
‘Was there any sign of Micks while you were there?’
‘No, but I assumed he was still upstairs in his turret room. He must have heard the noise Mash was making, but maybe he thought she was practising her Lady Macbeth – the bit where she’s trying to get the blood off her paws.’
‘This whole business gets more like a bloody Shakespearian tragedy by the minute,’ said Hettie, rubbing her eyes and wishing she’d brought her sunglasses; the headache that had been threatening was starting to become a reality. ‘Let’s check out the knife with Bonny and have a quick word with Apple Chutney, then I think we’d better head for home and sift through this lot.’
Tilly picked up the sack containing the knife and the chutneys, and Hettie took charge of Miss Jingle’s suitcase. The two friends nodded a goodbye to Rooster and made their way up the path to Bonny Grubb’s allotment.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Bonny Grubb awoke with a start at the sound of her gate being opened. She yawned and stretched, then licked one of her paws and gave her face and ears a cursory wash, noticing that she had visitors. ‘What’s up now?’ she asked. ‘No more of them murders, I hope. Mind you, at least old Gertrude kept to ’er own patch ta pop ’er clogs. I don’t reckon me onions will ever recover.’
Hettie put the suitcase down and took the sack from Tilly, drawing out the knife. Bonny’s eyes grew large as she stared at the murder weapon. ‘Is that what done fer ’er?’
‘I’m afraid it is, Bonny, and we n
eed your help. Have you seen this knife before?’ Hettie handed it over, and Bonny turned it in her paw before giving her answer.
‘It’s one of me sharpenings,’ she said. ‘See, I always pushes away from the blade with me stone. Look – you can see me marks, nice an’ sharp still. Cut through leather, that would.’
‘And can you remember who it belongs to?’ asked Hettie, holding her breath.
Bonny looked from Hettie to Tilly, then down at her gardening boots. ‘I don’t think I can say. I don’t need no trouble. I’ve set me roots down ’ere an’ I stay out of any business that might bring me harm. I only tell me own tales. I don’t tell on others. Too dangerous.’
Hettie stared at the dejected and frightened Gypsy cat. She was beginning to tire of the lack of straight answers in the case, so adopted the same tactics that she’d used on the Mulch sisters earlier. ‘Right, Bonny, you’re obviously hiding something. Let me remind you that the body of the stranger was found on your patch, which puts you right up there with the main suspects. You also rifled through his pockets and stole things from him. If you don’t tell me who owns this knife, I will have to assume that you’re involved in the murders and are attempting to cover something up. So let’s have it – who does this knife belong to?’
Bonny made a failed attempt to block out Hettie’s words by putting her paws up to her ears, visibly rattled by the accusations that had been flung at her. ‘Stop!’ she cried. ‘You don’t understand. ’E’ll run me off me patch if I tell. ’E did for them cats in Southwool. Set fire to ’em, ’e did. I shan’t sleep for ’im burnin’ me caravan down while I’m in it.’
Hettie had the answer she needed. ‘That’s fine, Bonny. No need to give me a name, and don’t worry – I won’t betray you. Before we leave, are you sure there’s nothing else you can tell us about Miss Jingle or the dead stranger?’
