3 A Reformed Character

by Cecilia Peartree

  I am the Chosen One, thought Amaryllis with a distinct feeling of panic as Maisie Sue came slightly too close to her and stood there like a golden retriever with a stick.

  Her hair had rearranged itself in its normal style: all was right in her world once more.

  'How are you?' sad Amaryllis.

  'Just fine! Thank you very much for asking.'

  'I'd better head off -' said Christopher, starting to sidle away.

  'No, you'd better not,' said Amaryllis firmly. 'We've still got - things - to do.'

  'Everybody's so busy in this world,' said Maisie Sue. 'If only we all took more time to appreciate what we've got.'

  From this Amaryllis deduced that Pearson McPherson had returned to the fold and that he and Maisie Sue were appreciating each other every day in every way.

  'Good,' said Amaryllis.

  The Petrelli twins walked past again. You would almost think they were stalking us, thought Amaryllis uneasily. Only they wouldn't be quite so obvious if they were.

  'Poor Old Mrs Petrelli,' murmured Maisie Sue. 'You can't help wondering -'

  She broke off to say a beaming 'Hello' to Jan from the wool-shop, who had come to the door to arrange a spring display of wools named after bulbs: Harmonious Hyacinth, Stunning Snowdrop and the like.

  'What can't you help wondering, Maisie Sue?' said Amaryllis.

  The woman usually talked nonsense, but sometimes there was just a tiny grain of sense in it. This might be one of the times, although it was unlikely.

  'I can't help wondering - no, it's silly.'

  'No, go on, please.'

  'Well, this seemed to me like one of those Chicago gang fight things. You know, with one gang taking their revenge on the other. But there, I told you it was silly.'

  It was silly.

  'I don't think gangs usually pick on grandmothers, even in Chicago,' said Amaryllis. 'But it isn't really my area of expertise. You probably know better than I do.'

  'I guess so... Well, must get to the store! Pearson needs his tomatoes.'

  'I'm sure he does,' said Amaryllis conjuring up fake warmth.

  'I think she's madder than ever,' said Christopher in an undertone as they watched Maisie Sue go into the supermarket.

  'I wouldn't say that,' said Amaryllis. 'She seems about the same to me.'

  'There's only one thing to do at the end of a day like today,' said Christopher.

  She waited with bated breath.

  'Let's go down to the Queen of Scots for a pint.'

  'Agreed,' said Amaryllis.

  Chapter 16 Cat Rustling

  Jock was surprised at how hard the work was. All that bending to fill up cats’ dishes and empty their litter trays, and the dodging in and out of gates really quickly so that Burke and Hare, Daisy and Violet, Fluffy and Screech didn’t escape. After a first traumatic encounter with Burke and Hare, he left them to Darren.

  An even bigger surprise was how Darren had taken to the work. One evening as they were going round with the final meal of the day and checking all the cats had enough water and that their enclosures were secure, Jock straightened up from seeing to Fluffy’s litter tray and heard a strange noise. It turned out to be Darren singing to himself as he worked. The two cats he was with were evidently enjoying the serenade, for they were both weaving their bodies around his legs, and had stopped miaowing for once. They could even have been purring, only Jock was too far away to hear them. Darren was smiling as he closed the gates behind him. He stopped smiling when he saw Jock looking at him.

  ‘What?’ he said gruffly.

  ‘You’re getting on better than me with all this cat stuff,’ said Jock, waving a hand to indicate the feline empire around them. Burke and Hare, lined up on the roof of their little chalet style house, hissed at him.

  ‘We used to have a cat,’ said Darren.

  Jock waited for further information. Sometimes it took a while for Darren to process the next sentence.

  ‘It got run over outside our house – Mum wouldn’t have another one after that… Don’t blame her, really. It wasn’t very nice.’

  They went into the shed where the food and cat litter were kept.

  ‘I wish I lived here all the time,’ said Darren wistfully. ‘It’s a nice place.’

  ‘It’ll be grim up here in the winter,’ said Jock, thinking how awful it would be to live so far from the Queen of Scots, and the paper shop, and his small group of friends.

  ‘Nice and quiet though,’ said Darren.

  ‘What about the security, though? Doesn’t it make you feel as if you were in prison?’

  Jock immediately wished he hadn’t made such a tactless comment, but Darren didn’t seem too bothered.

  ‘No!’ he said in surprise. ‘No way is it like being inside.’

  Rosie was on the phone in the office when they went into the house for their tea.

  ‘Yes, absolutely secure,’ she was saying. ‘There’s no chance of them escaping… So, the first week in June. I’ve written that into my calendar now. Just give me a ring nearer the time to arrange to bring them in.’

  ‘Another booking?’ said Jock. He had been surprised that people were already making reservations for their cats’ holidays, but she had assured him that she was already fully booked for July and August and almost full for May, June and September.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, making a note. ‘Not much more room now, unless we extend again. That would mean moving the fence further out to make space, so it’s a major operation.’

  They all moved into the kitchen and sat at the table, which groaned with food as usual.

  ‘Do you really need all this security?’ said Jock. ‘I mean – it’s like Fort Knox here. But you’re miles from anywhere.’

  ‘Yes, but you’d be amazed by how much cat rustling goes on though. Some of the cats we have here are very valuable.’

  ‘Cat rustling?’ said Jock faintly.

  ‘Don’t you worry, Mrs Viewforth,’ said Darren. ‘Anybody comes up here cat rustling I’ll see them off for you.’

  ‘It’s all right, Darren, but thanks anyway. I’ve got the outer and inner fences, and the alarm and lights and cctv. That should be enough to put off most people.’

  ‘Do people really steal cats around here?’ said Jock, still fascinated by this idea.

  ‘Yes – there have been cases of cats being ransomed. The Rolling Plains Cat Hotel over at Rumbling Well was broken into last summer and they took a Russian Blue and sent in a demand for thousands of pounds…. The owner paid up, of course. But the Rolling Plains owners were traumatised and never wanted to board another cat. I think the place has been turned into a nursery school or something.’

  From her tone Rosie evidently thought a nursery school was a complete waste of space compared to a cattery.

  ‘Did they get the cat back?’ said Darren, worried.

  ‘Yes. He was left in a box on the beach at Burntisland. They were lucky to get to him before the tide came in. They said they would never go away on holiday again – but of course with jet-setters like that they couldn’t resist it. They went away to South America the following year and left a house-sitter in charge. He went off with the cat and the woman's diamond bracelet and they never saw either of them again.’

  ‘This cat care business has more to it than I would have thought,’ said Jock, wondering if he could take up a second career as a house-sitter or a cat-minder. Of course they probably wouldn’t like him smoking his pipe in the house, whereas Rosie didn’t mind him popping out for a smoke by the cat runs in the evening as long as he didn’t actually blow smoke on the holidaying cats.

  While Darren was watching television later that evening and Rosie and Jock were washing up, Rosie said quietly, ‘That boy isn't a hardened criminal, whatever the police are trying to pin on him. He’s a natural for looking after animals. I wish I could keep him on.’

  ‘We never thought he was a real criminal,’ said Jock. ‘He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. The pol
ice couldn’t see past him in the Alan Donaldson case. And then they don’t know yet he has an alibi for Old Mrs Petrelli.’

  ‘It sounds to me as if he was framed,’ said Rosie, drying a cup.

  ‘But why?’ said Jock. ‘There’s no motive for anybody to have done that - or to have killed either of the victims, for that matter.’

  They had talked this over before when Darren wasn't listening, so Rosie was aware of the situation.

  ‘There must be,’ said Rosie. 'Isn't your friend Amaryllis working on that anyway?'

  'I expect so,' said Jock. 'She's usually working on something or other.'

  That night, he lay in bed feeling thankful to be there, in a safe peaceful place miles from anywhere, helping Darren to do something useful and helping Dave's niece out at the same time - for the first time since he had retired, Jock felt a sense of well-being and self-worth. He could see why Darren wanted to stay there. It was a good life.

  His alarm clock was ringing as he woke up in the morning: it brought with it a familiar sense of dread as he contemplated the day ahead. Then he remembered he had ceremonially thrown the clock in the bin the day he retired, and had never bothered to buy a new one. The feeling of dread intensified as he realised it wasn't a clock at all, but Rosie's cat-rustling alarm. He felt completely swamped by dread as he saw through the gap in the curtains that it was still dark outside.

  Someone was shaking him.

  'Mr McLean. Get up. We've got to help. It's the cat thieves.' Darren sounded as if he was on the verge of tears. 'I never thought they'd really come.'

  'It's all right, Darren. Maybe it's just a false alarm.'

  He flung on his clothes while Darren waited, pacing to and fro as if he were a caged cat himself, and they went through to the office. The screen for the cctv was on, but it was so dark that they could only just make out vague movements in the picture.

  'Where's Mrs Viewforth?' said Darren.

  'She'll have gone out to check the lights,' said Jock. He grabbed a torch from the shelf and took it out with him, although he imagined Rosie would have thought of that herself.

  They went through the old farmyard, past the barns and round towards the gates. As they turned the corner, they heard shouting and the blast of a car horn above the sound of the jangling alarm bell that Jock had imagined was a clock. One of the voices was higher, screaming rather than shouting. Darren started to run and Jock followed as best he could, getting breathless after ten paces. Maybe it was the smoking - one day he might have to give up smoking his pipe - but he pushed that idea firmly away. It was too difficult to think about at the moment.

  As they approached all the noise, things became clearer. There were car lights breaking up the darkness. Several people seemed to be struggling to hold something down - as they got even closer they found the thing was Rosie, wriggling and screaming, fighting against three men wearing balaclavas. Darren plunged into the fray, punching and kicking. Jock took a moment to get his breath back and to survey the scene.

  The car had been driven right through the outer perimeter fence, knocking down panels and supports, but it had come to rest against the inner fence near the gate. He trained his torch on the gate and saw that it had been knocked down flat, either by the impact of the car or afterwards by its occupants. The lights weren't working, but the alarm still rang on. He glanced towards the field where the cat cabins were, and didn't see anything untoward going on there. Rosie must have intercepted the men before they got that far.

  One of the men broke away from the rest and started to run back towards the gate. HIs balaclava had come off - perhaps Rosie or Darren had grabbed at it - and he was shielding his face.

  'Get the shotgun, Jock!' shrieked Rosie from the tangle of bodies.

  He didn't think she owned a shotgun, and even if she did it would be under lock and key at this moment. He hesitated.

  The first intruder had got back through the ruined gate and was getting into the car. The engine revved. Someone else had been sitting in the driving seat all along, waiting.

  Another man peeled away from the group and raced to the gate, and then another. They all got in the car and after one failed attempt, the driver reversed it back out through the gap in the outer fence, and they hurtled back across the field at a speed that would have been hazardous in broad daylight, never mind in the darkness. As the sound of the engine faded into the distance, Jock, ashamed of his failure to do anything useful, ran over to Rosie and Darren.

  Darren was sitting on the ground swearing. Rosie had collapsed in a heap, slumped on the ground, head bent, shoulders hunched. Jock was relieved when she lifted her head and said, ‘Bastards.’ At least she was alive, conscious and in her right mind.

  ‘Who were they?’ said Jock.

  There was a pause. He wondered if she knew more than she was saying when she finally replied. ‘Cat thieves. Why else would they do this? There’s nothing else for anybody here.’

  She managed to sit up, and then stand with help from Jock.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he said, feeling even more stupid, old and useless than usual.

  ‘Nothing broken,’ she said. She reached a hand down to Darren to bring him to his feet.

  ‘All right, Darren?’ said Jock.

  Darren nodded, but didn’t speak.

  ‘Do you want to give me a hand with the fence?’ Jock asked him. ‘We can maybe get it propped up until the morning. And we could put the gate together with a bit of wire or rope. Just for now.’

  ‘Will you two be all right out here?’ said Rosie. ‘I’d better go and switch that alarm off and check on the cats. I thought I heard Burke and Hare starting up.

  She marched off back towards the house. Jock ran the beam of his torch over the inner fence that surrounded the cat enclosures. It was intact as far as he could tell. It seemed that Rosie had intercepted the men before they got that far.

  ‘That was nasty,’ said Jock as he and Darren pushed their way past the damaged gate and went to have a look at the outer fence. Two whole panels of the wire mesh fence were lying flat on the ground. There was assorted debris around, perhaps from the lights as well as the fence posts. They lifted the panels and wondered what to do with them. At least two of the posts were down. Jock realised almost at once that they would have to wait until daylight to try and fix anything properly. In the end they concocted a temporary barricade using panels propped up against fence posts, reinforced with some odd planks of wood they found lying about nearby. Jock got some wire and rope, and they cobbled together the damaged gate from the inside. It wouldn’t deter serious intruders, but it might stop casual vandals from taking advantage of the situation. Though Jock doubted whether casual vandals would actually find their way up here: they would undoubtedly prefer to spray-paint the harbour walls down in Pitkirtly, or steal shopping trolleys and use them as go-carts on the slope leading down to the railway line.

  The alarm at last stopped ringing, although it seemed to echo in Jock’s ears for some time longer.

  Darren still hadn’t said anything. It would be annoying if this had set him back in some way – for Jock realised he was thinking of the boy as a convalescent invalid. Which he was, in a way.

  They made their way back indoors. Rosie stood in the office waiting for them.

  Jock told her what they had done with the fence and the gate, and she seemed to approve, although she didn’t say much. It was as if she was plucking up the courage to speak to them about something important. What could it be? Had she recognised the intruders, or their modus operandi? Had something happened to one of the cats?

  ‘Are Burke and Hare all right?’ asked Jock. He had become quite fond of them – or at least, he had grown to admire their spirit. Being fond of them wasn’t a concept either of the cats would have recognised.

  ‘Yes, all the cats are fine,’ said Rosie. She paused. Now for the hammer-blow, thought Jock. He wanted to step in front of Darren to shield him from it.

  They waited.


  ‘I’m going to have to call the police,’ said Rosie at last.

  Chapter 17 Cops and robbers

  They sat round the kitchen table with cups of cocoa. Nobody wanted to go back to bed, so they had decided to have an early breakfast, and because it was still cold and dark, Rosie had insisted on making them a warming, comforting drink. Jock thought Darren didn’t seem to have drunk cocoa before; he tasted it in tiny sips, with a puzzled look on his face as if he was trying to compare it with something else but didn’t know what.

  Rosie was going to wait until daylight to call the police, so they had a few hours’ grace to make their plans. Jock was terribly disappointed that this idyll had been cut short. He was more upset on Darren’s behalf than on his own. He knew there was no realistic possibility that he himself would ever get a job in a cattery, and indeed he had known he would miss his friends and his life in Pitkirtly before long, but Darren hadn’t really had any life there, or at least not a life he would want to return to, and Rosie might have found a way of keeping him at the cattery. It might have been an insane dream, but at least it was a dream.

  Darren walked round the room once, and put his cocoa mug down on the table.

  ‘Going to give myself up,’ he muttered.

  ‘What?’ said Jock.

  ‘To the police.’

  'The police?' said Jock, feeling stupid.

  'I've put you and Mrs Viewforth in danger!' Darren shouted at him. 'Just by being here. And the cats. It's not fair.'

  For once, Jock deduced, the lack of fairness wasn't a complaint against an unjust world treating Darren badly, but a clumsy expression of Darren's feeling that he had treated the others badly. It must be some kind of progress.

  'Don't worry about me,' said Jock. 'I'll be fine.'

  'I'm fed up with all this running away, and being chased about,' said Darren. 'I never wanted to escape in the first place - it was -'

  'It was what?'

  'It was somebody else who made me do it,' said Darren sullenly.

  'Somebody else?' said Jock, not sure if this was progress or not. They were entering deep waters. 'Who was it then? And why?'