Cat Kin (22 page)

A mosquito whine hit Tiffany’s eardrums. Mrs Powell’s emergency call. The one that meant
Get out of here
. Cobb showed no sign of having noticed. In dismay
Tiffany shrank deeper into the dust sheet. She couldn’t run. Not yet.

Mrs Powell shook her head sadly.

‘Is this any way to greet your mother?’

Cobb held the gun steady. He seemed to have mastered his shock.

‘So we share fifty per cent of our genetic makeup,’ he replied. ‘Sorry if that doesn’t make me go all gooey. Why do you persist in
following me
around?
’

‘Because I have no choice,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘As long as you persecute my fellow creatures, James, you will look over your shoulder and you will see me.’

‘My name is Philip.’ He cocked the pistol expertly with one hand. ‘Still obsessed with the pussycats, I see. Have you looked at yourself in a mirror?’ He chuckled.
‘You old witch. You think I do this out of spite? For your information, I’m easing the suffering of thousands.’

Tiffany detected a restless mewling from the other end of the factory. The cats too had heard the cry.

‘You’re not easing any suffering,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘You are simply shifting it onto creatures you hate even more than you hate human beings.’

‘It’s a mark of greatness,’ said Cobb, ‘to loathe cats. Elizabeth the First detested them. So did Napoleon. And Mussolini.’

‘Tyrants,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘Interesting, isn’t it? So many tyrants fear cats. Because cats refuse to fear them. They fight, or they flee. But they never
cower.’

‘Some of us have better reasons than that.’

‘I know it, Philip.’ Mrs Powell took a step towards him, holding up her hands. ‘And I’m sorry. You’ll never know how sorry. That was my fault. And I have paid for
it.’

‘I hardly think so.’

‘Will you never accept that it was an accident?’ Mrs Powell moved closer. ‘James, Philip, whether or not it means anything to you, you are my son, and I did love
you.’

‘Stand still.’

‘What your father told you simply isn’t true. How did we become enemies, Philip? I was going to bring you up, take care of you, teach you so many things—’

‘Don’t touch me!’ He pulled away, for she had laid a hand upon his shoulder. He stuck the muzzle of the gun in her face and she withdrew.

‘I’m sorry.’ Mrs Powell hung her head. ‘You’re right. I shouldn’t have come.’ She fidgeted with her belt.

Tiffany caught her breath. She knew what Mrs Powell had done. When she’d touched Cobb, her other hand had brushed across his coat. Had she picked his pocket? Had she just put something
away in her belt? It could only be the key to the cages. Light shone through Tiffany’s despair. She hadn’t dreamed Mrs Powell could be so cunning.

‘No, I’m glad you came,’ said Cobb. ‘You were the last person in the world who might have upset my enterprise. Now I can put you where all dangerous animals should be
kept.’ He gestured with the gun. ‘Move.’

‘Why? What’s over there?’

‘Spare cages, Mummy. You’re joining your friends in captivity. You’ll enjoy that. No doubt you eat the same food.’

‘Your jokes used to be better than this.’

‘I am really tired,’ said Cobb, ‘of talking to you. Start walking.
Slowly
.’

Mrs Powell obeyed. Cobb steered her towards the curtain. Tiffany crossed her fingers. Was this the plan? To get put in a cage and let herself out later? It had to be. Tiffany could have cheered
at such courage and cleverness.

‘Through the partition,’ Cobb ordered. Mrs Powell pushed the curtain aside and stepped through. The drape swung shut before Cobb could follow. For a moment it blocked his view.

‘Stop!’ he shouted. ‘Stay where you are!’ He forced his way through the curtain, waving the gun. ‘Stop right—’

The gun boomed.

Mrs Powell, a few steps ahead of him, staggered as if she had been hit with a cricket bat and fell to the floor. A red stain spread on the concrete like an inkblot.

Tiffany choked. A howl of anguish had caught in her chest. Mrs Powell lay still. Tiffany gripped the balcony railings.
Please get up. Please move. Please don’t be dead
.

Cobb stood like a statue, staring at his hand as if it did not belong to him. The gun had clattered to the ground beside the body. The spreading blood touched it and began to mold itself around
the barrel. Shouts and running feet echoed across the hall.

‘Doctor Cobb! Sir? Are you all right? What’s happened?’

‘Er—’ Cobb snapped out of his trance. For the moment, he was hidden by the curtain on one side and by crates on the other. ‘It’s nothing. I’m fine, Frank.
I…I was testing my emergency firearm. I do it once a week. Sorry if I alarmed you.’

‘Right you are, sir.’ Tiffany caught a glimpse of a bearded security man and his green-suited partner, strolling back to their posts and lighting fresh cigarettes.

Cobb couldn’t take his eyes off the body. Neither could Tiffany. She mopped at her tears and face-paint smeared her fingers. A voice in her head was moaning
Get out, get out of
here
. But what did anything matter now? She knelt on the gallery sobbing. The sound of voices gradually roused her. Someone else had come into the factory.

‘They’re only doing it ’cos it’s you, Mr S,’ said a gravelly voice.

‘And I appreciate it,’ said a smooth, faintly accented one. ‘But we can’t leave our scientist friend unsupervised for too long, can we? Not with so much at stake.
Insurance, Toby, insurance.’

‘Right.’

John Stanford walked into the light. Behind him strode an enormous man, taller than Tiffany’s dad and built like a moose across the shoulders. His shaven skull was crossed with white
scars. Following this giant at a respectful distance were three other brutes, almost as big. Their stony faces made it plain that by rights they should be in the pub.

‘John!’ Cobb called from behind the curtain. ‘Good evening. Can I have a word?’

‘A pleasure.’ Stanford turned to his bodyguard. ‘Toby, take the lads to the loading bay to get settled.’

‘The loading bay?’

‘That’s correct. I’ve laid on some perks to make up for calling them out tonight. You’ll find lager and pizzas in my car.’

Toby grinned like a pumpkin. ‘You’re one of the good ’uns, Mr S. Come on, boys.’

He led the trio off. Stanford whistled as he picked his way through the crates.

‘Doctor Cobb,’ he called. ‘Start spreading the news. The site is cleared, the deeds have been signed, the champagne is on ice,’ he drew the drape aside with a hiss of
steel curtain rings, ‘and the builder says
who…the hell…is that?
’

The fidgeting of caged cats prevented it from going totally silent.

‘No-one to worry about,’ said Cobb at last.

‘No-one to—?’ Stanford lowered his voice so that even Tiffany had to strain to hear. ‘I have sacrificed my Sunday evening to come over here, to find what appears to be an
aging circus performer who has fallen from her trapeze. Cobb, you can consider me worried.
Who is that?
’

‘Her name was Felicity Powell, and at one time she was my mother.’

Stanford loosened his collar.

‘She’s dead?’

Cobb said nothing. Stanford saw the gun on the floor. He drew himself up.

‘Goodbye, Doctor Cobb.’

‘John, wait…’

‘I’m sorry.’ Stanford was striding away. ‘You’re on your own. I never invested at this level of risk.’

‘Wait!’ Cobb shouted. ‘Let me explain, John. It’s not really murder.’

‘Self-defence? You shot an old lady? Not even my lawyers will touch that one.’

‘It’s not murder,’ said Cobb, ‘if no-one notices. And no-one will.’

Stanford hesitated. ‘This had better be good.’

‘This woman,’ Cobb said, ‘was alone. Pathologically so. You follow? No friends, no family. No job. Not even a bank account. All her life she was like that. Alone. She was the
cat who walked by herself.’

‘Say again?’

‘Kipling,’ Cobb elaborated. ‘Never mind. My point is, no-one will miss her. Not a single human being will care that she’s gone.’

High in the gallery, Tiffany hung on the railings as if they were prison bars.
Not true
, she wanted to cry out.
That’s not true.
Her tears rained silently to the floor
far below.

‘This is a minor upset,’ Cobb smiled. ‘Our plans are unaffected. We get rid of the body and it’s as if she never existed.’

Stanford’s forehead knotted with doubt.

‘So much money, effort and time you’ve put in,’ wheedled Cobb. ‘For the opportunity of a lifetime. Don’t throw it all away.’

Stanford looked ready to explode with rage. Finally he muttered, ‘Has anyone else seen the body?’

‘Not a soul.’

‘Let’s keep it that way.’ Stanford swept out his phone. Tiffany couldn’t catch what he murmured into it, but when he hung up he looked a fraction more cheerful. ‘My
man will see that we’re not disturbed. Right, Cobb. Get rid of her.’

Philip Cobb eyed the body.

‘I can’t.’

‘Can’t what?’

‘I can’t touch it. You’ll have to do it.’

‘I am not hearing this!’ cried Stanford. ‘It’s your mess. You clear it up!’

‘No, John, listen.’ Cobb’s eyes had gone very wide and white. ‘You don’t understand. I physically cannot touch that…that
thing
.’

‘Then you go to jail.’

‘John, please! I’ll make it up to you.’

‘Twenty per cent more,’ said Stanford immediately. ‘On top of the original deal.’

‘Ten per cent.’

‘
Twenty
.’

‘Fine,’ sighed Cobb.

‘Nice doing business with you. Give me your coat.’

‘What?’

‘I’m not getting blood on this suit. Give it to me.’

Cobb tore off his coat and threw it at him. Stanford wrapped it around Mrs Powell and picked her up.

‘Not in my car,’ he said. ‘It’s too risky. Those construction machines outside…We could bury her deep. Concrete it over. She might be found one day, but not in our
lifetimes.’

‘Put it in the meat locker,’ said Cobb. ‘It’s refrigerated. Stop it rotting.’

‘Your people use that. She can’t stay there.’

‘She won’t,’ Cobb replied. ‘I just thought. It’s about time the big cats had a change of diet.’

Suddenly he laughed in such an unnerving manner that Stanford backed away from him.

‘By the time they’re finished with her,’ Cobb giggled, ‘there’ll be nothing left for anyone to find.’

So great was Tiffany’s horror when she heard Cobb’s plan that she may even have passed out for a minute or two. Her next clear memory was of shivering in the
shadows, hugging her knees, as if she had woken at the dead of night in a bath of cold water. Then it hit her with full force that she was in a place of death, of unspeakable evil, and that she was
utterly alone. She longed for Mum and Dad to come and take her home. Why wouldn’t they come? What was keeping them? A jolt. She sat up. No use dozing off and dreaming here.

A quick scan of the gallery revealed that little stood between her and escape. These upper levels were not patrolled. All she had to do was find the way she had come in and trust that her pashki
wouldn’t fail her. She was gathering herself to run when she hesitated. The thought of simply slinking away was more than she could bear. Somehow it felt worse than staying put. To come here,
watch Mrs Powell get shot, and leave again, defeated…it would be too pathetic for words.

An idea, though she fought to beat it down, grew stronger. Maybe there was something she could do. It was too late to save Mrs Powell…but there was the key. Felicity had risked her life
to get the key to the cages—the key that was now hidden somewhere on her. Tiffany could retrieve it, return another time, finish the task they had set out to do.

Now it was too late to un-think that thought. Though it terrified her, she knew she’d have to follow it through. Whatever else happened on this dreadful night, she couldn’t let Mrs
Powell’s death be in vain.

John Stanford had disappeared. Cobb, on his hands and knees, was scrubbing the bloodstained floor with soapy water. Returning to the goods lift shaft, Tiffany climbed down the service ladder.
Finding the meat locker would be easy—her nose was already steering her. She tried not to dwell upon what she would do once inside. She would have to search Mrs Powell’s body for the
key. What if her eyes were still open?

Crawling on all fours, she slipped under the partition into the second hall. Rows of cages made grim lanes in all directions. She remembered the workers pushing their trolleys of meat. They had
come from over there. A few sniffs confirmed it, though the stench from the cages made her gag. Even through the odour of filth she could smell the cats’ hopelessness in the air.

‘We will save you, one day,’ she whispered, as she passed a large cat too matted and scabrous to identify. ‘Me and my friends. We will come back and save you.’

A lynx’s long ears twitched and it turned in her direction. She hurried by, willing her feet to be feathers. It would be terrible if the cats themselves were to give her away. Hiding
behind a gurgling coil of black plastic, she caught the gleam of a metal door against the brickwork of the far wall. She despaired when she saw who stood by it.