Cat's Paw (23 page)

Tiffany watched her unravel an endless wire coil. Where was this leading?

‘We were colleagues,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘From Asia and the Far East to London’s East End. Comrades. Friends.’ She paused. ‘Just friends. But when you are alone
in a wide, wide world, with only one constant companion, well. Things happen. Like they happened with Frieda.’

Jim rustled between the chairlegs, playing with a curl of cut wire.

‘We were travelling through China when I realised I was pregnant. I didn’t tell Geoffrey. I had decided what to do. I’d messed up motherhood once before, as you know. I saw no
sense in trying again.’

‘But–’ said Tiffany.

‘I invented an excuse to hurry back to England, where I had a termination.’

‘You got rid of the baby?’

‘It wasn’t a baby at that stage,’ Mrs Powell snapped. ‘I don’t have to justify my decision. It would have been unfair on any child to have us two as
parents.’

‘Why?’

‘And it would have tied me to Geoffrey too much. Besides, I was a lot older than him. In my mid-forties, though I dare say I didn’t look it.’

‘That’s not too old to have a baby.’

‘It was for me.’ Mrs Powell held her gaze but blinked first. ‘And I had more reasons.’

So much for not justifying her decision, thought Tiffany.

‘You might not think it,’ said Mrs Powell, ‘but Geoff, he’s got a temper on him. He was always too hot-headed, too much ruled by his feelings. On two occasions I had to
intervene to stop him killing the poachers we had apprehended. He’d beat the daylights out of them, and all the time he’d be yelling that they deserved it for what they’d done.
I’m not sure I’d have wanted that man to be the father of my child.’

It didn’t sound much like the Geoff that Tiffany knew. ‘So you just…?’

Mrs Powell nodded. She started to wind up the wire coil. ‘I never said a word to Geoffrey. Unfortunately, his Mau was sharper than I realised. He’d sensed that I was carrying
his… that I was pregnant. And when I had it sorted out, he knew that too.’

‘What happened?’

‘Not much.’ Mrs Powell shrugged. ‘Nothing was said openly. But the frost set in. He and I saw less of each other. We met only occasionally, and then… then we
didn’t.’

She pushed aside Jim, who was sitting on the radio’s detached rear casing.

‘So that’s why Geoff didn’t want me to look for you.’

‘Whatever ties I had with him, they withered long ago,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘We couldn’t work together now. It was Geoffrey’s decision to take on this Martin Fisher.
He must deal with the consequences.’

‘But what about–’

‘It’s up to him,’ Mrs Powell repeated. ‘And you, of course. There’s always you, Tiffany.’

Tiffany drew breath to protest. Then the radio crackled and began to sing a Take That song. Mrs Powell tapped it. ‘A-ha. Good as new.’

Ten hours’ sleep out of forty-eight was too little for a teenager and nothing like enough for a cat. Ben was knackered. He could almost feel grumpy claws scratching in
his head as something tried to curl up in there. Another broken night. He only hoped he could get upstairs without waking anyone else.

The sleepers were quiet tonight, the moans of their night-terrors just a background gurgle. He Eth-walked down the line of them, still in his pyjamas, the platform chilling his bare toes. In the
escalator hall he eyed the door to Fisher’s private lair beneath the stairs, before placing his feet on the steps one at a time, five seconds apart, all the way to the top. Up in the ticket
hall he dared to reread the scrap of paper in his fist.

Last night, as they parted, Geoff must have slipped this note into his back pocket.
Tomorrow. Surface
. That was all. No time, no explanation of ‘surface’ – Ben guessed
he meant the industrial estate built on top of the Hermitage. Ben found the ladder and climbed to the trapdoor. Undoing the slide-bolts he eased it open. The night air ruffled his hair.

After the blacked-out passages below, the streetlights made it seem bright as day. Even so, it was hard to see far. Mist wrapped the ground in a smooth white sheet. The boxy edges of buildings
blurred into more mysterious shapes, like canyons or ravines. A glow tinted the fog and he heard a car swish along Hermitage Road. He was straining for other sounds when he caught a scent:
something between dried herbs and after-dinner mints.

He roved about and the smell grew stronger. Catnip. He’d guessed right. It led him through the misty maze until, on a wall of ribbed steel, he saw a mark. A white paw print. He sniffed the
scented paint and his catras dreamily sparkled.

A shape dropped to the ground. He glimpsed half a face, blanched like a naked skull, and believed for an instant that it was a demon come to slay him. But it was only Geoff, wearing his usual
white cat face-print.

‘Better late than never.’

‘G- Geoff.’ A cold sweat seeped into Ben’s pyjama top, already clammy from the mist.

‘Crikey, this is a dull place to wait. Next time I’m bringing my Sudoku.’ Geoff touched his shoulder. ‘Hey. You’re shivering. I’ve got some tea.’ He
produced a Thermos and poured out a few dribbles. It was lukewarm but Ben gulped it gratefully.

‘Thanks, Ben,’ said Geoff. ‘For last night. Never imagined in a million years that you’d do that. I appreciate it.’

He finished the tea. ‘That’s okay.’

‘You were telling me something, weren’t you? Before Fisher came along. You mentioned Embankment station.’

‘It was the only thing I found out,’ said Ben. ‘These two kids, Thomas and Hannah. They had to do some work for Fisher. It was near Embankment and they used a drill.
That’s all I know.’

Geoff unfolded a map of the London Underground.

‘See here. See where Embankment is.’

Ben knew the map like the lines of his palm. He saw nothing odd.

‘On the bank of the Thames.’ Geoff spoke in urgent whispers. ‘The tunnel from there to Waterloo runs right under the river.’

‘I don’t get you.’

‘Yes you do. You just don’t want to know it. Because it’s too horrible.’ Geoff stopped whispering. In a casual voice he said,‘Those kids were drilling holes in the
tunnel roof. Fisher will steal the explosives from the tower block and pack them into those holes.’

‘But–’

‘If he succeeds, the blast will rip the tunnel open, right up to the riverbed.’

‘
Why?
’

‘Because.’ Geoff shrugged. ‘It’s how he is. Fisher can’t bear to be with human beings. Perhaps they remind him that he is one himself. It’s a pattern. He
endures other people for a time, then he snaps. Now he lives in a seething nest of them. For him it’s like sitting on an ant hill. And what do you do with an ant hill? You pour a kettle of
water on it until all the little ants are washed away.’

Ben couldn’t speak. He was trying to imagine what kind of mind could see people as no more than ants.

‘That’s the thing about Martin. He’s not evil. He’s criminally insane.’ Geoff sighed. ‘Give me evil any day.’

‘What would happen ? The tunnel would flood?’

‘Every tunnel would. For miles and miles.’

Ben shook his head. ‘No. You’re wrong. Fisher lives underground. He’d flood the Hermitage too.’

‘Good point. So I did some homework.’

‘Homework?’

‘Research. See, I thought to myself: aren’t there safeguards against this kind of thing? Turns out there are. In World War Two, they feared a bomb might do this very thing: breach
the Thames and flood the Tube system. So they built sets of floodgates, centrally controlled.’

Ben noticed that Geoff hadn’t relaxed.

‘Then I dug up the history of the Hermitage station. There’s a reason it never got finished. They built that line during the Cold War, when the big threat was a nuclear attack. In
those circumstances, the floodgate controls at Leicester Square might be destroyed. So they needed a backup. More than a backup – an override.’

Ben saw it now: the row of mysterious doors in the escalator hall.
Danger. High Voltage. Private.

‘They installed it at Hermitage,’ said Geoff.

‘Far enough from the centre to be safe. From there, you can order any of the floodgates on the Underground to close. Or, if you so wish, to open.’

Ben sucked the empty plastic cup.

‘If the tunnel between Waterloo and Embankment is broken,’ said Geoff, ‘the water’s got nowhere to go but up. The surge would reach Tottenham Court Road in four minutes.
Because of all the interchanges, the river in those first minutes is already pouring down six other lines, filling every station along the way. In twenty minutes Zone One is under water. Thirty
thousand people there at rush hour. How would you get them out? You couldn’t.’

Ben’s head was full of freezing grey floods. Why did he have to be the one to know all this? What had it to do with him? Mum and Dad paid their taxes so that other people could do the
worrying.

‘But,’ Ben clutched at a hope, ‘we’ve found out in time. Haven’t we?’

‘Yeah. Thanks to you.’

‘You’ve told the police?’

‘It’s not a job for them.’

‘MI5?’

Geoff shook his head.

‘You haven’t told
anyone
?’

‘Who could I convince quickly enough?’ asked Geoff. ‘And if I did, do you think even the SAS could be sure to capture Fisher? They’d storm into the Hermitage and find an
empty cave. The only people who can stop this happening–’

‘Is not us!’ Ben couldn’t help shouting. ‘It’s too much. I’m not taking the blame when we mess this up!’

‘Ben, calm down. You’re right about one thing. We have the advantage now. So we can’t waste it. We know what Fisher’s planning. We have a chance.’

‘Yeah. We get the police to close the Tube.’

‘What then? Fisher disappears. Ben, it took me eight years to hunt him down. Who’s to say what he’ll do next time, when we’re not there to stop him?’

Ben bit his lip. Not being there sounded fine to him.

‘But now,’ said Geoff, ‘we can stop him once and for all. Before he gets anywhere near that tunnel.’

‘How?’

‘Simple. Fisher has to work to a timetable. His first task is getting hold of that dynamite. The demolition is scheduled for Sunday morning, so the crew won’t finish installing it
until Saturday. That gives Fisher one opportunity.’

‘Saturday night?’

‘Right. He’ll be at the tower. And so will I.’ Geoff flexed his fingers. ‘It’s what I’ve been waiting for. I need to catch him out of his comfort zone.
Underground, he’d slaughter me. He’d be on home turf and I’d be off my game – you know how drained you feel down there? That’s your Mau body, it hates being cooped up.
But if I can confront him in that tower, a high place…’

‘You could beat him?’

‘We’ll see.’ Geoff set his jaw.

Ben’s insides felt funny, worse than they did before exams. Geoff would be facing Fisher one-on-one. That was bad enough, and it wasn’t even true.

‘But Fisher won’t be alone, will he?’

‘You see my problem,’ said Geoff. ‘Counting you – that’s if you remember to switch sides, Ben – there’s still only four of us Cat Kin. Everyone else is
off on holiday.’

‘I think Olly’s back from Paris tomorrow.’

‘Hurrah, we’re saved.’ Geoff rolled his eyes. ‘The polecats, Ben, count ’em. We’re outnumbered four to one, now that Tiffany and co. have done a
runner.’

‘Try calling her in the morning,’ said Ben. ‘Wherever she is, she could get home by Saturday.’

‘You do it. She’ll listen to you.’

‘Okay. I’ll try.’

‘Don’t try. Do it. Now go, quickly. And Ben–’

Ben turned back, already struggling to distinguish Geoff from the foggy shadows.

‘We never know our luck. So if by some miracle Tiffany has managed to track down Felicity Powell, then…’

‘Yes?’

‘Then tell her, for Isis’s sake, to bring her back here. We need all the help we can get.’

Tiffany picked at a half-hearted cheese sandwich. No proper lunch had materialised today. She guessed Mrs Powell was avoiding her. Maybe one of these kitchen cupboards would surrender some
biscuits… Her phone buzzed: unknown caller.

‘Hello?’

‘Tiffany? It’s Ben. Where are you?’