Cat's Paw (20 page)

Yusuf gallantly took the cramped attic with its camp bed, and Susie won the toss of a coin for the single mattress in the guest room. Tiffany, tired out, found a pile of coats comfy enough and
slept like a fossil. She stirred once in the small hours to see through a window the Moon setting behind the trees, and felt the tickly rumblings of a curled cat by her head.

‘Jim,’ she murmured. A whiskered snout caught the moonlight. So Mrs Powell’s silver friend had followed her out here. Tiffany slipped into comforting dreams.

Jim was gone when the sun prodded her awake. The house seemed afloat on a sea of birdsong. Without disturbing Susie she rose, performed a few cat stretches and crept downstairs. From the kitchen
came the burble of a radio show, the clink of spoons and crockery. Entering she saw Mrs Powell, wrapped in a lilac dressing gown. On the sideboard sat Jim, scrubbing his whiskers. Mrs Powell
swirled hot water in a teapot.

‘Morning!’ chirped Tiffany. ‘Can I help with anything?’

‘Ssh.’ Mrs Powell fiddled with the radio on the table. A gentle pop song grew louder. Tiffany eased the door shut behind her. Mrs Powell stood very still as a fluting, celestial
voice sang of finding its way home. Tiffany, though she never listened to old stuff like this, felt a lump in her throat, and even the cat’s ears were pricked. The tune swelled, lonely yet
triumphant, only to vanish in a cloud of static.

‘Oh blast, wretched thing.’ Mrs Powell pounced on the radio, prised off the back and stuck a dinner fork into its innards. She waggled the fork and the static cleared, but the song
was over and a DJ was prattling about the cost of late-night taxis.

‘Nuisance,’ sighed Mrs Powell. ‘I rather like that one.’

Tiffany considered the radio. It had certainly been made later than the 1960s, though perhaps not very much later. Its aerial was a bit of coat hanger, its casing was as scuffed as a
builder’s boot, and three of four knobs had fallen off.

‘New radios are quite cheap,’ she ventured.

‘Oh, I know I could replace it.’ Mrs Powell shrugged. A bell rang in Tiffany’s mind. Something Geoff had said to prove he was a friend of Mrs Powell’s. It had meant
nothing to her at the time.

‘Why the smirk?’ Mrs Powell set down teacups and saucers.

‘Geoff told us about it,’ said Tiffany. ‘He said you had this battered old radio that you kept repairing.’

‘Really?’ Mrs Powell looked shocked. ‘But I haven’t seen him for at least fifteen years. It can’t have been so old then. Oh dear, perhaps it was. A new wireless it
may have to be. Pity. I’ve rebuilt every bit of this one. It’s my baby.’

Felicity Powell with a soldering iron. It was hard to picture.

‘You’re smirking again,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘I’m allowed to have a hobby, aren’t I? Besides, I class cats as electrical animals. For one thing, they can feel
electric fields. And I have a devil of a time stopping Jim from chewing the television cable.’

‘And there’s Ben,’ said Tiffany. ‘Cats give him electric shocks. Funny – his dad’s an electrician.’

‘There you go. Must run in families too.’

Tiffany finished her tea and toast. Yusuf and Susie still weren’t up, so Mrs Powell offered her a guided tour of her domain. Stepping out of the front door, their feet struck mists from
the dewy turf and clouds of vapour rolled before their mouths. A steep trail climbed away from the cottage and into the wood’s grey light.

A gravel track ran across their path, an aged Land Rover parked on the verge. Mrs Powell took an umbrella from its back seat and walked on into the trees.

‘And then there’s Geoffrey,’ she said. ‘It was he who showed me how to change my first fuse. In the days when we shared a basement flat in Dalston…’

‘Mrs Powell. You just laughed.’

‘I was remembering something else he did. You see, we were penniless. I’d spent all my inheritance and had to work at a supermarket checkout. Geoffrey didn’t fancy getting a
job, so he dreamed up a plan for saving money. Right outside our window was a street light. He rigged a wire from it to our mains electricity. Abracadabra, free heat and light! It worked perfectly.
That is, until we got the bill.’

‘What bill?’

‘The bill for the entire road of street lamps. We’d made a mistake in the wiring. We got free power during the day all right, when the street lights were off. But when it got dark,
and the lamps came on, the whole lot of them ran off our electricity meter. Geoffrey’s language when he opened that envelope…’ Mrs Powell watched blackbirds purl and knit through
the highest twigs. ‘We moved out of there pretty quick. But that’s Geoff White. Infuriating, yet somehow –’

In silence they followed the twists of a new and narrow path.

‘One misses him,’ she concluded.

Tiffany hid a pang of jealousy. Time to change the subject.

‘The jaguar that chased us. Is he yours?’

‘She. No. She’s a cat. Frieda belongs to Frieda.’

‘But is she–?’

‘Yes. One of those we saved from Dr Cobb’s factory.’

Tiffany loved the way she said
we
.

‘I care for a few of them still,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘Most, thankfully, are off my hands.’

‘In the wild?’

‘Afraid not. They’ll never be up to that, after the life they had. But they’re comfortable. And the tiger, Shiva, is in India. Home at last.’

‘I’ve been longing to ask.’

‘Oh yes?’

‘How did you do it? Round them all up and disappear like that?’

‘With great difficulty. Ah, now here’s a view for you.’

They stepped out of the trees and Tiffany felt herself shrink to a speck. From this ridge the moor flung itself below her, almost frightening in its wild size. Distant lumpy rocks bit through
the shadowed land, the low sun turning them to crooked yellow teeth. In the cold wind she shivered. Yet gazing farther she felt a homely warmth, for the hills on the horizon seemed to sit within
her grasp, their flanks creased as though kneaded from dough, baking in the glow of the dawn’s oven.

Mrs Powell smiled. ‘Ra is rising.’

Tiffany looked at her. Ra was the Egyptian sun god, she knew that. The rays of the golden disc bathed Mrs Powell’s face, so that fleetingly she looked like a much younger woman with blonde
hair.

‘Pasht the cat goddess serves the sun,’ she said. ‘For I am called the Eye of Ra. Watcher and protector.’

It was hard to know what to say to that.

‘Mrs Powell. Are you…?’

‘Do I follow those lost religions? Pray to Isis? Shun the evil Set? Bury my friends in pyramids?’ Mrs Powell turned her back on the sun and in the turn she aged again. Her face was
lined and tired. ‘There are the things we hold onto. And the things it is best to let go of. The great test is to tell them apart. Come on.’ She took Tiffany’s hand.
‘Busy-busy. Chores to do. Cats to feed.’

A new path led them back among the trees. Tiffany drank in the pure peace of the wood. For the first time in a long while she felt herself safe. Ben’s plight back in London seemed far
away, now that she no longer feared for him. She had found her teacher. Mrs Powell would sort their problems out. Everything was going to be all right.

It’s only a nightmare
. The head of Martin Fisher bent over his bed. The plughole eyes glinted in their tattooed mask and Ben got ready to scream himself awake.
Then he found he already was.

It was over. His cover was blown, the polecats had sniffed out the spy in their midst and Lucy and Ray Gallagher would spend the rest of their sad lives wondering what had become of their son.
Screwing his eyes shut he called on his Mau body to save him. If he could only strike out before Fisher tore him apart…

‘Hello,’ said Martin Fisher. ‘Get up.’

It was no use. Fear was jamming his pashki skills. He clutched his motley bedclothes tight around him. Then he saw Kevin, Jeep and Antonia lingering nearby. Although they looked impatient, they
weren’t exactly baying for his blood.

‘Good morning. It is night time. Nice and quiet. Goodnight.’ Fisher cocked his head and frowned. ‘A good night for work. You come with me.’

Kevin signalled urgently.
Get up. Get dressed
. Heavy with sleep and a horrible case of the shakes, Ben forced his limbs into their grey combat gear. He pulled on a pair of trainers that
his parents could never have afforded and fumbled his bandana-mask around his neck. Why had they come for him? Not to unmask him, that much had sunk in by now. What, then? It had to be the Night
Shift. The thing that Thomas and Hannah had been so cagey about. His fright gave way to a glint of hope. This was the chance he’d been waiting for.

Kevin followed Fisher down the platform at a respectful distance, with Jeep bringing up the rear behind Ben and Antonia. The long line of bodies slept, for a change, in silence, as if they dared
not whimper while Fisher passed over them. Ben was sure he would be led down the tunnel, and got a shock when instead they headed into the escalator hall and up the steps.

‘Aren’t we going to–?’

‘What?’ hissed Kevin.

‘Nothing.’

Now he was afraid again. Was this the Night Shift or wasn’t it? But Hannah had said they’d gone down the Northern Line, the Embankment, which was miles from here. What reason could
there be for marching him upstairs, unless it was to do something ghastly to him? They trooped through the dining and games areas. Then, in a concealed corner, he saw a ladder. Martin Fisher scaled
it and unbolted a trapdoor. The team climbed after him, up into darkness, and wind chilled the sweat on Ben’s face. Shapes crowded round him, barns made of brick, glass and steel. The five of
them emerged from what appeared to be a manhole and Ben got his bearings at last. This was the industrial estate on Hermitage Road. That secret glint of hope became a ray. The Hermitage had another
way out.

‘Off we go,’ said Fisher.

He broke into a loping run and Kevin sprang after him, leading the team in his wake. Clearing the shadows of the business park they crossed the deserted street, where Fisher scrambled up
builders’ scaffolding. Then he was off across the terraced roofs and his followers were struggling to keep up. That is, the polecats struggled. Ben found that up here, on the tiles, he was
faster and more sure-footed than any of them, perhaps even Fisher himself. Not that he wanted them to know that. Not yet.

Fisher’s erratic path lurched from terrace to terrace, his footsteps on the eaves no doubt waking many a light sleeper and filling deeper slumbers with grisly dreams. Ben tried in vain to
work out where Fisher was heading, until he wondered if this was a mere training routine, a midnight assault course. Only when he kept noticing bus stops on routes towards Tottenham did it dawn on
him that Fisher did have a goal, and that his twisty rooftop trajectory was being guided by these very signs. But where was he leading them?

Apartment blocks propped up the sky. A gasworks glowed in the distance. At last, running after Fisher across a bare square of paving stones, they almost tripped over him, crouched there
motionless. Ben noticed his team mates were panting hard. He pretended to have a stitch.

The night winds blew through a blustery space. Where were they? He scanned the darkness for buildings, before realising that the darkness
was
a building. They stood at the foot of a giant
tower block. He hadn’t noticed it at first because every other tower in the sky was pinpricked with lights, while this one was black as a hole.

Calling on Mandira he squeezed out more details. The windows weren’t just dark – they were hollow, empty of glass. A vast tarpaulin hung down the tower’s nearside wall. Upon
it, in pale letters taller than a man, Ben read:
McLeod Demolitions
. Below this:
Sund
ay 6 April
. He tried to remember what today was. All he knew was that in less than a week
the Easter holidays would be over. As if he didn’t have enough to worry about.

‘Hey,’ Kevin nudged him. ‘Look sharp.’

Ben glanced around.

‘Where’s–?’ His heart stuttered. Fisher was nowhere to be seen. Yet Ben had only looked away for a moment. His Mau whiskers should have jangled like tripwires if any foot
had taken a step. But… nothing.

Kevin shushed him. ‘He’s around, okay? Watching and listening. Here.’ He handed out folded sheets of paper. ‘Martin drew these for us. One each. I’ll explain the
job inside.’

They crossed the square of flagstones to a fence topped with barbed wire and signs saying
DANGER. KEEP OUT.
Over they went. The tower’s main doors had been removed. The lobby wall
bore two ragged holes where the lifts should have been. It looked as if everything had been ripped out: radiators, light fittings, even the banister of the stairwell that they climbed in single
file. Ben saw doorways with no doors, empty window frames, scars in the walls where the plumbing had once been. Up they tramped, floor after floor, pausing for breath on the fourteenth landing. He
gazed down the stairwell, into the darkness that rose below them. Was Fisher lurking in that gloom, following just out of sight, or did he wait for them somewhere higher up? The air smelled
musty.