Cat Among the Pumpkins

by Mandy Morton

  Bruiser appeared on the lawn. Taking in the situation, he crossed over to the seemingly passive cause of all the destruction. He bent down to lift the orange silk away from the creature’s face as it lunged at him like a coiled spring. He sidestepped his attacker and it fled out of the gate and down the path which led to the back door of the Dosh Stores. Bruiser and the company of walking wounded gave chase in time to see Pakora Dosh leap into the now bubbling cauldron of her famous lamb and tomato curry. Her screams were over quickly and, within seconds, the curry had swallowed her, leaving no trace except the tiniest corner of orange silk which stubbornly floated on top. The five cats stared in silence and the cauldron bubbled contentedly on the stove, as if nothing had occurred. It was Irene Peggledrip who eventually broke the silence. ‘Well, there’s one for the freezer, that’s for sure.’

  Hettie was warming to Irene and her strange concept of the afterlife. The idea of a giant freezer containing the souls of murderers locked in ice appealed to her, and although the theory was uncertain, there was no doubt that curries would be off the menu for some time to come. She switched off the gas under the cauldron, leaving Pakora to stew in her own juice, and took in her surroundings for the first time. The kitchen was large and obviously doubled as a dayroom where Pakora spent her time. Its walls were adorned with exotic accoutrements – silk pictures of faraway temples, a collection of ivory tusks and a set of daggers with jewels that shone from the ornately carved handles. There were, of course, two missing.

  ‘Come on,’ said Hettie, rallying her bedraggled army. ‘There’s cleaning up to do next door and someone needs to get in touch with Lavinia Spitforce. She’s in for a bit of a shock when she gets home.’

  The shock had already descended. Lavinia had just arrived home and stood shaking in the doorway of Bugs Anderton’s house as Hettie and co approached down the garden path. She looked small and vulnerable, not at all the haughty harridan that Hettie had so recently shared a spat with. ‘Miss Spitforce,’ Hettie said. ‘I’m so very sorry.’

  Lavinia took in the assembled company and burst into tears. ‘It’s all my fault. I should have believed her – she said she didn’t feel safe here any more and I laughed at her. She’d been getting these nasty letters, you see, then Pakora came to see her last night and I heard them arguing. Pakora said some really vile things to her because she wouldn’t sell the house to her.’

  Irene Peggledrip moved to comfort Lavinia as Hettie and Tilly pushed past them and made their way down the hall to start the clean-up.

  ‘Miss Bagshot! You are so very welcome.’

  Hettie froze as Tilly cannoned into her. ‘It can’t be another bloody ghost!’

  The lurid vision of Bugs Anderton rose up before them in all her gory glory. ‘Miss Bagshot – as you are here and I am still in the land of the living, I must owe you a great debt of gratitude. But I doubt that my carpets will recover. Curry is one of the most stubborn of stains.’ With that, Bugs Anderton fainted clean away and Hettie and Tilly dragged her into her armchair, placing her in the recovery position before informing the rest of the ensemble that Bugs Anderton had unseasonably arisen from the dead.

  Hettie’s heroes – as they would be known in future conversations – scurried round doing their best to clean up the trail of lamb and tomato curry that had been understandably mistaken for blood. Lavinia sat with Bugs; Delirium was naturally on beverages, assisted by Bruiser and Tilly, who had discovered a tin of freshly baked shortbread; Irene Peggledrip set to with the scrubbing brush, giving the beige and cream carpets a blush pink effect which wasn’t unattractive; and Hettie phoned Balti Dosh to inform her that her Aunt Pakora was simmering in a vat of curry. She’d hoped to speak with Rogan, but surprisingly he wasn’t available.

  When a relative peace had descended on the house, everyone assembled in Bugs’s sitting room to drink tea and eat shortbread, knowing that there was a story to come. Bugs – curry-stained and slightly scratched after her ordeal – didn’t disappoint. ‘As some of you know, I’d had these unpleasant letters and odd things happening in my garden. I told Pakora and she was very sympathetic; in fact, she suggested that I sell my house to her and move into the town or even back to Scotland to get away from the problems. I didn’t realise until last night that it was her. She came round and asked if I’d made up my mind to sell. I told her that I was happy here and was engaging Miss Bagshot to investigate the problems. She got very angry, and if Lavinia hadn’t been in her room I think she might have attacked me there and then. She left and I spent a restless night wondering what to do next. I phoned Miss Bagshot first thing.’ Hettie fidgeted slightly as all eyes turned to her and then back to Bugs. ‘I suppose I was a bit stupid, really, but I spent the morning considering Pakora’s offer on the house, weighing up the pros and cons. I eventually decided to go round and tell her that my decision stood and I would not be selling up. We were in the shop, and suddenly she flew at me like a cat possessed, screeching and screaming. She took hold of me and dragged me through to her kitchen. I felt so helpless, and she tied me to one of the kitchen chairs and forced a potato into my mouth. I could hardly breathe, and the more I struggled the more she screamed at me. I gave up and tried to sit still, hoping she would calm down, and she did.’

  Bugs had a captivated audience now. Even Bruiser was hanging on her every word and Tilly and Delirium both nibbled nervously on their shortbread. Lavinia reached across and held one of Bugs’s paws as she continued with her harrowing account. ‘Pakora pulled up a chair beside me. It was terrifying. I’ll never forget that face so close to mine, but nothing could have prepared me for what she had to say. She told me that she always got what she wanted and was very happy to kill for it. She said she was very clever at organising little accidents for cats who wouldn’t sell their houses and businesses to her. She told me that she was descended from the great Jalfrezi Dosh, who had wiped out the Myers family to extend his empire, only to be thwarted by Thaddeus, who survived the massacre. She said that Thaddeus had followed Jalfrezi to India to avenge his family and had killed him in a duel, winning from him a box of gold coins as blood money. She said she didn’t make mistakes like that and would succeed where Jalfrezi had failed.’

  Hettie was getting impatient. It was good to know that justice had been done and that the puzzle over the box of gold sovereigns had been explained, but as fascinating as the back story of Milky Myers was, she felt she had to move things on. ‘Did she confess to killing Mavis Spitforce?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh yes. She said it was her master plan to get Bhaji involved with Lavinia so that they would inherit Mavis’s house and Rogan’s store could be extended. Mavis realised what was happening and tried to protect Lavinia by sending her to me and leaving her house elsewhere.’ Irene glanced down at her ridiculous Persian slippers, Lavinia allowed a tear to trickle unchallenged down her face, and Bugs Anderton continued. ‘She said that Mavis had been poking her nose into the past and had to suffer for it. She said she enjoyed killing her and dressing her up. She told me she’d choked her first by forcing her to eat some pages from Marmite Sprat’s little book. I didn’t really understand what she said next, but it was all about a fat girl squealing like a pig and being strung up as a warning to anyone who told tales.’

  Hettie clarified the situation, explaining to those who didn’t know that Pakora Dosh was obviously referring to the murder of Teezle Makepeace. Teezle, by discovering Mavis Spitforce’s body, had set her own death in motion by helping Hettie with her initial enquiries. But there was a question regarding her death which Hettie felt sure Rogan Dosh would be able to answer; it hadn’t escaped her notice that he may have killed Teezle under Pakora’s instructions, as well as disposing of her body.

  Bugs drained her tea. Encouraged by Lavinia, she carried on with her account. ‘I think I could laugh about it now, but in the middle of telling me about her killing spree the shop door went and she actually went through to serve a customer, leaving me tied up. She came back five minutes later an
d said it was time for some fun. She excused herself to lift a huge cooking pot onto the stove, and I could see it was full of curry. Then she pulled one of her daggers off the wall and held it above my head. I really thought that was it, but she sliced through the rope she’d tied me up with and held the dagger to the back of my head. She told me to stand up and walk forward towards the kitchen range. Then she flew at me, lifting me off my feet and forcing my head into the cooking pot on the stove. She kept pushing my head into the curry as I fought for breath. The potato she had wedged in my mouth came free and I began to scream. There was curry everywhere and she slipped on it, loosening her grip on me. Finding the strength from somewhere, I literally ran for my life through the shop and back to my house. She caught up with me at the front door, forced her way into the hallway and started wielding her dagger at me. We were both screaming, then everything went black. When I managed to open my eyes, she was gone.’

  Lavinia gave Bugs’s paw a reassuring squeeze. ‘I thought you were dead,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t wake up, and everywhere was such a mess. I thought it was blood.’

  Hettie felt that it was time to leave Lavinia and Bugs to their own devices. Delirium and Bruiser collected up the tea things and stacked them in the kitchen, and after a genuine vote of thanks from Lavinia on behalf of Bugs, Hettie and her merry band said their farewells and were waved off, hoping to meet up at the Butters’ bonfire party the following night. Irene Peggledrip decided to accept Delirium’s kind offer of a lift home on her pink scooter and they set off at a sedate pace in the direction of the town, narrowly missing a Dosh Stores van which appeared to be driven by a maniac.

  The van screeched to a halt outside the shop as Hettie and Tilly were clambering wearily into their sidecar. Bruiser stiffened, ready for trouble, but it was Bhaji Dosh who emerged. Leaping over the gate that Tilly had just shut behind her, Bhaji ran the full length of the concrete path into Lavinia’s arms. ‘I’d say that may well be a happy ending,’ Hettie predicted, settling down and pulling the rug up to her chin. ‘Home for supper, Bruiser, and a pipe or two of catnip.’

  Tilly giggled. ‘I just thought of a joke.’

  ‘Go on then, let’s have it.’

  ‘Well, I suppose you could say that Pakora Dosh has just committed Hurry Curry!’ The friends laughed all the way home.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  November 5th dawned bright and frosty. Tilly had been up for some time, working off the excitement and anticipation of the Butters’ bonfire party; she’d put fresh batteries in her torch and counted the extra-long matches several times to make sure that there were enough for Hettie’s firework display that evening. Bruiser had popped in for an early morning cup of tea, filling the coal scuttle in return, and he was now indulging in a tremendous amount of banging and hammering in the back garden, under the careful instruction of Beryl Butter.

  Exhausted from her investigations, Hettie had slumped in her chair the night before, inhaled a pie for supper and fallen into a deep sleep, allowing the world to move happily on without her. Only now, as Tilly divided a cheese triangle between two slices of toast, did she make any attempt to open her eyes. Sensing a slight movement from the armchair, Tilly seized the moment and put two more slices of bread in the toaster, then prepared Hettie’s mug for her morning tea – even though the clock on the staff sideboard was heading rapidly for midday.

  The final nail in the coffin of Hettie’s lie-in came when the telephone burst into life. Tilly abandoned the toaster and scrambled into the sideboard, snatching the receiver from its hook. ‘Hello? Tilly speaking. Oh, Miss Spitforce – how can we help? A meeting? Yes, I think we could manage that. Two o’clock at Whisker Terrace. Thank you. Goodbye.’

  ‘What was all that about?’ asked Hettie, as Tilly backed out of the sideboard. ‘Not more trouble, I hope.’

  ‘I’m not sure if it’s trouble,’ Tilly said, returning to the toaster. ‘That was Lavinia Spitforce. She’s having a meeting round at Mavis’s house, and she wants us to be there.’

  ‘Probably selling off the fixtures and fittings,’ Hettie mumbled, struggling into an upright position to receive her tea and toast. ‘And whatever is going on in the Butters’ garden? What’s all that banging?’

  ‘It’s Bruiser. He’s doing a little job for Beryl.’

  ‘Well it’s a bloody noisy little job, that’s for sure. And at this time of day, when any cat with an ounce of self-respect would be fast asleep.’

  Tilly chose not to point out that it was now after midday. Sensing that one of Hettie’s rants was about to gain momentum, she placed two rounds of cheese triangle on toast on Hettie’s armchair and retreated to a safe distance to choose a suitable assortment of clothes from the filing cabinet for their meeting.

  They decided to walk to Whisker Terrace, as Bruiser was obviously not available to take them in Scarlet: he seemed to be fighting some sort of battle at the bottom of the garden with the assorted planks of wood that had been delivered by Prunes and Pots. The bonfire for the party stood tall and proud in the November sky, and a pale, wintry sun brought the garden to life as the night’s frost sparkled and melted away. Tilly could hardly contain her excitement, and even Hettie was looking forward to her role as artistic director of fireworks. ‘We can’t be long at Whisker Terrace,’ she said, as they strode off down the High Street in their business macs. ‘There’s a lot of planning still to do for tonight. We need to get the bottles in place for the Rockets and the Catherine Wheels nailed to the fence before anyone turns up.’

  ‘Then there’s the toffee,’ said Tilly, clapping her paws together. ‘Betty says I can dip the apples for her.’ Hettie laughed at her friend’s enthusiasm, wondering at the same time if the combination of Tilly and toffee was destined to come to a sticky end.

  Thoughts of the bonfire party were quickly eradicated from their minds as they rounded the corner into Whisker Terrace. The Dosh Store was closed and they were met by a stream of parked vehicles: Irene Peggledrip’s Austin Seven; the Dosh Store’s van, thrown half-on, half-off the pavement; and Delirium Treemints’s pink scooter, which seemed to have come to an ungainly halt on the path leading to the late Mavis Spitforce’s front door. Bugs Anderton’s cream Morris convertible was newly arrived and was shunting up and down, tucking itself in as close to the pavement as possible in front of the Austin.

  Hettie was beginning to wonder whether the Friendship Club had found a new venue when Bugs Anderton fell out of her driver’s seat wearing a rather risqué bright red winter cape. ‘Oh Miss Bagshot! Welcome indeed to you and Miss Tilly. I’m so pleased you could join our little gathering.’ Bugs lurched round to the passenger side of her car and hauled Mildred Spitforce out onto the pavement, looking resplendent in a caramel fun-fur and mock suede cowboy boots.

  ‘I’m beginning to feel slightly underdressed,’ said Hettie, following Bugs and Mildred round to the back of the house and into the kitchen, where the rest of the company was assembled.

  The prime positions round the table had already been taken by Irene Peggledrip, Balti Dosh and Lavinia, but Lavinia offered her seat to Mildred, who gratefully settled herself down and kicked off the cowboy boots which had clearly been pinching since she bought them. Delirium had stationed herself by the kettle and was now taking orders for beverages, and Bhaji stood behind his mother, beaming a handsome, boyish grin at anyone who looked in his direction. Hettie and Tilly settled themselves against the kitchen cabinet by the door, hoping for a quick exit, and Tilly smiled with satisfaction as she looked at the assembled company: it was just like the final chapter from one of Miss Agatha Crispy’s novels, where all the loose threads were tied up and the leading characters melted away into obscurity. Hettie, on the other hand, was wondering why she had had to give up more of her time when the weight of chief firework officer was bearing down on her and there had been no visible signs of lunch. A cat couldn’t exist on cheese triangles alone.

  It was Lavinia Spitforce who called the meeting to order. ‘Friends �
�� and I think after what we have all been through I can call you that – I have brought you together today because a number of decisions have been made which will go a long way to making life better for us all. I am aware of the trust my late aunt put in Miss Hettie Bagshot and her detective agency, and I thought it only right to include her today in the hope that we should gain her approval of the plans we wish to put into motion. In fact, without the help of those at the No. 2 Feline Detective Agency, at least one of us wouldn’t be here today.’ Hettie and Tilly fidgeted as all eyes turned to them, then, as one, swung in the other direction to where Bugs Anderton was picking threads out of the late Mavis Spitforce’s tea towels. ‘For my own part,’ Lavinia continued, ‘there are those I have hurt out of anger, but I understand now that you were all just looking out for me.’ Bhaji gave an extra special beaming smile around the kitchen and squeezed Lavinia’s paw. ‘There is much healing to do,’ she said, wiping a tear away, ‘and Bhaji and I have decided to go to India. He wishes to explore his music, and I am looking for an inner peace which I know I will find with him. I am, however, aware that he must assume responsibility for his family and their business in the absence of his father, who has run away in shame at his association with Pakora and her terrible crimes. It is family that will save the day, and we have spoken this morning of a plan which will allow Bhaji his freedom and bring our families closer together.’

  By now, Hettie was hoping for a decent punchline or at least a tray of Balti’s samosas, but it was not to be. Sensing her distress, Tilly grubbed around in her mac pocket and produced a catnip biscuit covered in fluff, which Hettie received gratefully and sucked on quietly while Lavinia revealed her master plan. ‘We have spoken with Balti, and she is happy to continue to run the Dosh Stores here in the town with some part-time help, which leaves the business out at Much-Purring-on-the-Rug. Bhaji and I were hoping to keep it in the family, and we wondered if my mother Mildred might be interested in running it for us while we’re away on our travels?’