Nine Lives to Murder

by Marian Babson

  The bedside cabinet. It was not strictly at the bedside, it had been pushed aside to allow room for the equipment. Nor was there any need for the carafe of water, paper tissues, pills and usual accoutrements cluttering the top. The patient was beyond wanting or needing anything at this stage; if the situation improved, the cabinet would be replaced. Meanwhile, it stood inconspicuously against the wall, the little locker door below the shelves just slightly ajar.

  In an instant he had pried it open and slid inside. Cursing his clumsy claw and paw, he was not able to pull the door completely shut. Perhaps that was just as well, he wanted to be able to see out.

  Not that there was much to see. Life at floor level inclined towards the boring. No wonder cats had these extra senses in compensation, or that they preferred to spend so much time on chairs and table-tops. Ankles were not the most expressive portions of the human anatomy.

  ‘OOoooh …’ He heard Tottie’s soft intake of breath as she entered the room.

  ‘He’s not as bad as he looks,’ Miranda said fiercely. ‘He’ll come out of this. Look, Burt, his colour is better already.’

  ‘That’s right.’ There was a false note in their agent’s voice, he sounded as though he were deciding how quickly he could make his excuses and leave. ‘You’re looking fine, Win, old chap. Ha-ha, you had us worried for a bit there. Ought to be ashamed of yourself, upsetting everyone like that.’

  ‘Win, love—’ he sensed that Tottie had taken one of his hands. ‘You’re going to be all right. Your friends are here. We’re going to take care of you.’

  ‘Win …’ Miranda had taken his other hand. ‘Win, the doctors say they can’t be sure whether you can hear us or not. I know you can. Don’t worry. We’re here; we’re going to stay here. I’m setting up a roster—all your friends are going to come and visit you and talk to you. You’re not alone, you’re not forgotten …’

  ‘That’s right, old chap,’ Burt said. ‘You’re not going to get a moment’s peace. Miranda has rounded up everyone you’ve ever met. They’re going to come round and bore you until you bounce out of that coma in sheer self-defence.’ His voice was too hearty, he didn’t believe a word he was saying. But Miranda was still a fee-paying client, even if Win had to be written off.

  ‘We’ll pull you through, Win,’ Tottie said. ‘You can depend on us. We won’t let them—’ She broke off abruptly.

  ‘We’re here, Win,’ Miranda said firmly. ‘We’re staying here. You don’t have to worry about a thing. Just concentrate on getting better. We’ll take care of everything else.’

  Dear Miranda, she was a fighter. He felt a purr of approval well up in his throat. It was not always easy living with a fighter but, when you were down and out, that was just what you needed on your side. Dear Miranda, bless her.

  ‘What’s happened to Antoinette?’ Burt looked around. ‘I thought she was coming over here with Geoffrey and Jennet. I expected to find them here ahead of us.’

  ‘Been and gone,’ Tottie said. ‘I had a word with Reception downstairs. Her Ladyship came in, took one look, and treated herself to fine fit of hysterics. Well, it’s one way to make sure the kids concentrate on her and not on Win, isn’t it? She never could stand not being the centre of attention. They had to take her away and calm her down. She said she might be back later—but not if that nurse knows it.’

  Bless dear Tottie, too. She was a smart woman. Lovely woman … warm… friendly … understanding … and always with some tasty nibbles cached away for her friend, Monty …

  Damn! He caught himself inching forward and stopped. Monty’s instincts had caught him off guard and were taking over again.

  The disquieting question occurred to him again: what was happening to his own instincts inside that motionless body?

  ‘Win, darling—’ Miranda’s voice broke. ‘Come back to me!’

  This time his own reaction had him half way out of the locker before he could stop himself. That would never do. She wouldn’t understand. Worse, she would only see a cat whose hairs might pollute the antiseptic atmosphere of a sickroom. They would take him away, back to the house or the theatre.

  He would not be able to keep watch over his property—his Instrument.

  Miranda was quietly sobbing now. Tottie was making vague little noises of distress. The machinery pinged, hummed and blipped, quietly getting on with its business of sustaining life.

  ‘Come along,’ Burt said. ‘I’ll take you home. You need to rest. This has been a great strain on you.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Tottie said. ‘You go along. I’ll take the first shift here. I’ve brought along the script of Safe Harbour, his first big success. I’ll sit here and read it to him. That ought to get through to him, if anything can. I wouldn’t be surprised if he sat up in bed and began speaking the dialogue along with me.’

  ‘Thank you, Tottie.’ There were kiss-kiss sounds. ‘You’re a darling. Geoffrey should be along about midnight to take over from you.’

  ‘No problem if he isn’t. I’ve sat up often enough with sick children in my time. It won’t worry me to lose my beauty sleep.’

  She walked to the door with them and came back alone. There was the scrape of a chair.

  ‘Now then,’ she said. ‘Act one, Scene One, the curtain rises on you sitting on a quay in your white Aran sweater. Remember? The audience was silent. That was the last time they didn’t applaud when they saw you. And that white Aran sweater became all the rage that season—and the next. Everyone took to wearing them, but they didn’t look the way you did in one. A young god, that was you …’

  Yes, yes, he remembered. Lulled by the soft rhythm of her voice, soothed by the memories of triumph past, he found himself relaxing. His eyes closed. Just for a moment, he promised himself. Just for a moment …

  ‘I was in that play, you know. Sometimes I wonder if you remember that …’ Something in Tottie’s tone jerked him back to full, wary consciousness.

  ‘Do you remember, Win—or would you rather forget?’ There was a long pause and he knew that she was staring at The Instrument.

  ‘I played your little sister. The one who died in Act Two and you went on to avenge in Act Three. It was my first major role … the only one, as it turned out. Remember, Win?

  ‘Ah, would you remember, even if you could? I’ll never forget it, of course. I thought it was the beginning of great things. Silly of me, wasn’t it? How we deceive ourselves …’

  Did she still remember that? They had never mentioned it when they met again years later. He thought she hadn’t minded … not too much. After all, she’d been happily married and starting a family. Whereas he had only recently begun going with Antoinette and the temptation to have her acting in the same play …

  ‘I was still a bride … well, practically. I’d no idea I was going to fall pregnant so fast. We wanted the baby, but I also wanted my career. How many girls have been shipwrecked on that reef?

  ‘I stayed with the show right up into the fifth month—but you weren’t very happy about it, I could tell. It frightened you, I think. That scene where you had to pick me up and swing me around—it wasn’t just that I was getting heavier. You were afraid you might do some damage, or that you might drop me.

  ‘The Management dropped me, in the end. Oh, they told me I could come back into the part after the baby arrived. And you promised it, too; even though I knew you wanted the part for your new girlfriend, I believed you. But it never happened. Antoinette was a big hit in the part and they weren’t going to take it away from her and give it back to me, no matter what they’d said.

  ‘Oh, perhaps it was just as well,’ Tottie sighed. ‘Pat didn’t really want me to go on working; he was earning plenty. And it seemed as though the next baby arrived right on the heels of the first. So I didn’t mind all that much … not then.

  ‘But after Pat died so suddenly, I needed the money. I’d have liked to go back on stage, too. Oh, it’s been all right working as Wardrobe Mistress and doing some dressmaking on
the side … but sometimes, Win, just sometimes, I wonder what my life could have been if you and Antoinette hadn’t blocked my comeback …’

  12

  Danger! The sudden jolting awareness of imminent peril brought him wide awake a split-second before Tottie screamed.

  Darkness! He started up, hitting his head on the shelf above him before he remembered where he was, who he was.

  In that case, what had happened to his cat’s-eye vision? He could not see a thing. Had he got locked inside the cabinet?

  No … he pushed at the door and it gave easily, opening into further darkness. With increasing disquiet, he slid out into the room. It was completely dark … and silent.

  Silent! Silent! That was the source of the danger: the life-support machine had stopped functioning.

  ‘Power cut …’ Tottie was half-sobbing. He heard her stumbling towards the door, towards the also completely dark corridor outside. ‘Where’s the emergency power? Nurse! Nurse! What’s going on here? Why doesn’t the stand-by generator kick in?’

  Silence … Except, in the distance far below, he could hear what Tottie couldn’t: the footsteps rushing about madly, the faint cries of panic, even a curse or two as what remained of the staff struggled to cope with the sudden emergency.

  ‘Win! Oh God—Win!’ Tottie fumbled her way back to the bed. ‘Win, are you all right?’ she called frantically. ‘Where’s your pulse? Oh God! I can’t find it!’

  No pulse? His fur bristled and rose. No pulse? What would happen to him? Would he be trapped for ever in Monty’s body? No, not for ever—for the limited lifespan allotted to this small, furry, vulnerable body. A few more months … a few more years …

  ‘Matches …’ He heard Tottie muttering to herself. ‘Matches … I picked up a booklet at that restaurant the other night.’ He heard objects hitting the floor as she scrabbled through her handbag.

  ‘Aaaah!’ She had found them. There was the scrape of a match against the rough striking strip. A light flared.

  ‘Win?’ She bent over the recumbent form, lowering the flame towards his face. ‘Win …?’

  The match went out.

  ‘No! Oh no!’ She struck another match, shielding it with her hand this time. As it neared his face, it went out again.

  What was happening? He could no longer bear the suspense. He leaped for the pillow, disregarding the consequences.

  He misjudged the leap. His claws sprang out automatically and dug deep, seeking to steady himself. They sank into soft vulnerable flesh.

  ‘Aaarrgh!’ He recognized the voice as his own, strong and vibrant, pitched to reach the back of the gods. He retracted the claws quickly and, with Monty’s reflexes, licked apologetically at the wounds.

  ‘Win? Win?’ Another match flared. He crouched low, trying to hide behind the raised, indignant shoulder.

  ‘Win—say it again! Speak to Tottie!’ She bent closer, the tiny flame wavering above The Instrument’s nose and mouth. It flared up briefly, then vanished abruptly.

  ‘DAD! DAD!’ The shout resounded through the building. There was the thump of stairs being taken three at a time—and damn the danger of a broken leg—or neck. ‘DAD!’

  The electricity began an erratic humming … the lights flickered … the machines hiccoughed …

  ‘DAD!’ Geoffrey burst into the room. ‘Dad—are you all right?’

  They all saw the raised head, heard the indignant ‘Gurrr …’ as the lights flickered one final time, then steadied into a constant glow.

  The head sank back against the pillow, the eyes closed … but the chest continued to heave with more vehemence than had been in evidence before.

  ‘Gurrr …’ came the last protest before Monty retreated back into silence and immobility.

  ‘Oh, Geoff—’ Tottie turned to greet Geoffrey and the cat took advantage of her distraction to leap to the floor and streak back into the shelter of the cabinet.

  ‘Geoff, Geoff—’ Tottie fell into his arms, laughing and sobbing. ‘Win’s going to be all right! He blew out the matches by himself. He doesn’t need those awful machines any more. He can breathe without them!’

  13

  He felt safe with Geoffrey there watching over The Instrument. Good lad, Geoffrey. Another fighter. Right now he was giving Matron a well-deserved hard time.

  ‘I want a full explanation of this.’ Geoffrey’s voice was cold enough to raise goose pimples on a polar bear.

  ‘The power failed, you say. But there was no sign of power failure anywhere outside. The lights were on in houses along the way and the street lamps were all lit. It appears that the only power failure was within this building—a hospital! And what happened to your reserve supply? It was always my understanding that hospitals kept an emergency generator for such a situation.’

  ‘We do, but—’ Matron was flustered—and at bay. She was trying to hide something; he could hear it in her voice.

  ‘But what?’

  ‘We’re investigating now. Something went wrong.’

  ‘It certainly did!’ Geoffrey was relentless. ‘This is my father’s life we’re talking about. It’s no thanks to St Monica’s that he’s still alive. If he’d been utterly dependent on that machine, he’d have been finished.’

  That’s right! If good old Monty hadn’t kept the old bellows going, they’d have been booking the Memorial Service at St Paul’s, Covent Garden, by the morning.

  ‘Finished,’ Geoffrey emphasized. ‘Like that old boy across the hall.’

  ‘Oh!’ Matron took an involuntary step backwards.

  ‘Did you think I didn’t notice? It was pretty obvious when you just glanced in here, saw that my father was all right—and then disappeared. I could hear all the commotion across the hall—and then the silence.’

  ‘I really cannot discuss the condition of other patients with you,’ Matron said icily.

  ‘You mean you don’t dare. The patient is dead.’

  ‘You can’t—’ Matron hesitated, obviously trying to choose which line to take—‘be sure.’

  ‘If he’s still alive,’ Geoffrey pointed out, ‘then you’ve left him alone in a darkened room. With his life-support machine turned off.’

  That was it! That was the source of the disquiet he still felt. There was no sound of the machine from the other room and, as Geoffrey had said, it was dark over there. The old boy had shuffled off this mortal coil when the power failed. As he had been intended to do?

  Someone had tried to kill him at the theatre—had they followed him here to finish the job?

  He felt again the blow to his back that had knocked him off the ladder and sent him crashing to the floor. Jilly didn’t think it was an accident. She had procured pictures of his injury to prove it. A bitch, perhaps, but a clever bitch. That evidence would be invaluable when he was able to utilize it. Not if. When.

  Mmm, Jilly … For an instant, he recalled the calculating note in her voice when she spoke of how much better her exclusive story would be if Winstanley Fortescue were to die … And the photographer had wistfully remarked that the ‘last pictures’ would fetch a far higher price …

  No! No! That was paranoid! That was no reason to kill a man. Besides, Jilly had not been at the theatre when the first attempt was made. No, someone had to have a more personal reason. But what?

  ‘And speaking of those infernal machines—’ Geoffrey continued to give no quarter—‘it’s time you disconnected my father. He’s proved he doesn’t need it; he can manage on his own.’

  ‘You’ll have to speak to Doctor about that.’ Matron fell back with relief on a Higher Authority. ‘I can’t do anything like that without his permission. He’ll be doing his rounds in the morning, about ten. You can talk to him then.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ Geoffrey came close to sneering. ‘And what if something else happens before then? You’ve had a power failure, suppose there’s a power surge? The machine could actively harm him then.’

  ‘That isn’t likely—’

  ‘Nei
ther was a power failure, so you tell me.’

  ‘We have precautions built into the machine against such an eventuality.’

  ‘The same way you had an emergency generator ready to take over?’

  Good lad! The boy really cared about his dad; he wasn’t going to let these medical morons get away with a thing. Keep fighting, boyo! Oh, I’m really getting to know you now. We’ll have some great times together … when all this is over.

  ‘There was a loose connection—’ In her apologetic confusion, Matron let too much slip. ‘It’s been fixed now.’

  ‘In good time for your next power failure?’

  ‘Our power didn’t fail! The master switch in the fuse box slipped—’ She stopped abruptly.

  Slipped—or was thrown? So that was how it had been done. Murder by remote control. A coward’s way. The method of someone who wanted to do the vile deed without seeing the effect it had, without watching the victim die.

  So, a coward—and an opportunist. Someone who saw the chance and acted on impulse. Also someone who was criminally stupid—a killer who had killed the wrong victim … Absently, he licked a paw and dabbed at his face with it; strange, how soothing it was to wash himself like this. Also, it seemed to help his concentration. There was a lot to think about; no wonder cats were so clean.

  ‘You’ll have to speak with Doctor in the morning.’ The voice rose as high as a professionally soothing voice could decently rise in exceptional circumstances. The heels clicked across the floor with a sound of finality. The subject was closed.

  ‘Don’t worry, Dad.’ There was the scrape of a chair being pulled up beside the bed. ‘We’ll get to the bottom of this. I’ll stay right here until morning and nab the doctor as soon as he arrives.