Lord God Made Them All (36 page)

A lot of people said Walt Barnett was the richest man in Darrowby—rolling in brass which he made from his many and diverse enterprises. He was mainly a scrap merchant, but he had a haulage business, too, and he was a dealer in second-hand cars, furniture, anything, in fact, that came his way. I knew he kept some livestock and horses around his big house outside the town, but there was money in these things, and money was the ruling passion of his life. There was no profit in cat keeping.

Another thing that puzzled me as I drove to his office was that owning a pet indicated some warmth of character, a vein of sentiment, however small. It just didn’t fit into his nature.

I picked my way through the litter of the scrap yard to the wooden shed in the corner from which the empire was run. Walt Barnett was sitting behind a cheap desk and he was exactly as I remembered him, the massive body stretching the seams of the shiny, navy-blue suit, the cigarette dangling from his lips, even the brown trilby hat perched on the back of his head. Unchanged, too, was the beefy red face with its arrogant expression and hostile eyes.

“Over there,” he said, glowering at me and poking a finger at a black and white cat sitting among the papers on the desk.

It was a typical greeting. I hadn’t expected him to say, “Good morning,” or anything like that, and he never smiled. I reached across the desk and tickled the animal’s cheek, rewarded by a rich purring and an arching of the back against my hand. He was a big tom, long-haired and attractively marked, with a white breast and white paws, and though I have always had a predilection for tabbies, I took an immediate liking to this cat. He exuded friendliness.

“Nice cat,” I said. “What’s the trouble?”

“It’s ‘is leg. There’s summat wrong with that ’un there. Must’ve cut ’isself.”

I felt among the fluffy hair, and the little creature flinched as I reached a point halfway up the limb. I took out my scissors and clipped a clear area. I could see a transverse wound, quite deep, and discharging a thin, serous fluid. “Yes … this could be a cut. But there’s something unusual about it. I can’t see how he’s done it. Does he go out in the yard much?”

The big man nodded. “Aye, wanders around a bit.”

“Ah, well, he may have caught it on some sharp object. I’ll give him a penicillin injection and leave you a tube of ointment to squeeze into the wound night and morning.”

Some cats object strongly to hypodermics, and since their armoury includes claws as well as teeth, they can be difficult, but this one never moved. In fact, the purring increased in volume as I inserted the needle.

“He really is good-natured,” I said. “What do you call him?”

“Fred.” Walt Barnett looked at me expressionlessly. There didn’t appear to be anything particularly apposite about the name, but the man’s face discouraged further comment.

I produced the ointment from my bag and placed it on the desk. “Right, let me know if he doesn’t improve.”

I received no reply, neither acknowledgment nor goodbye, and I took my leave reeling the same prickle of resentment as when I had first encountered his boorishness.

But as I walked across the yard, I forgot my annoyance in my preoccupation with the case. There was something very peculiar about that wound. It didn’t look like an accidental laceration. It was neat and deep, as though somebody had drawn a razor blade across the flesh. I listened as I had listened so often before to that little inner voice—the voice that said things were not as they seemed.

A touch on my arm brought me out of my musings. One of the men who had been working among the scrap was looking at me conspiratorially. “You’ve been in to see t’big boss?”

“Yes.”

“Funny thing, t’awd bugger botherin’ about a cat, eh?”

“I suppose so. How long has he had it?”

“Oh, about two years now. It was a stray. Ran into ‘is office one day, and, knowin’ him, I thought he’d ‘ave booted it straight out, but ‘e didn’t. Adopted it, instead. Ah can’t reckon it up. It sits there all day on ‘is desk.”

“He must like it,” I said.

“Him? He doesn’t like anythin’ or anybody. He’s a …”

A bellow from the office doorway cut him short.

“Hey, you! Get on with your bloody work!” Walt Barnett, huge and menacing, brandished a fist, and the man, after one terrified glance, scuttled away.

As I got into my car, the thought stayed with me that this was how Walt Barnett lived—surrounded by fear and hate. His ruth-lessness was a byword in the town, and though no doubt it had made him rich, I didn’t envy him.

I heard his voice on the phone two days later. “Get out ’ere sharpish and see that cat.”

“Isn’t the wound any better?”

“Naw, it’s wuss, so don’t be long.”

Fred was in his usual place on the desk, and he purred as I went up and stroked him, but the leg was certainly more painful. It was disappointing, but what really baffled me was that the wound was bigger instead of smaller. It was still the same narrow slit in the skin, but it had undoubtedly lengthened. It was as though it was trying to creep its way round the leg.

I had brought some extra instruments with me, and I passed a metal probe gently into the depths of the cut. I could feel something down there, something which caught the end of the probe and sprang away. I followed with long forceps and gripped the unknown object before it could escape. When I brought it to the surface and saw the narrow brown strand, all became suddenly clear.

“He’s got an elastic band round his leg,” I said. I snipped the thing through, withdrew it and dropped it on the desk. “There it is. He’ll be all right now.”

Walt Barnett jerked himself upright in his chair. “Elastic band! Why the ‘ell didn’t you find it fust time?”

He had me there. Why the hell hadn’t I? In those days my eyesight was perfect, but on that first visit all I had seen was a little break in the skin.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Barnett,” I said. “The elastic was embedded in the flesh, out of sight.” It was true, but I didn’t feel proud.

He puffed rapidly at the ever-present cigarette. “And ‘ow did it get there?”

“Somebody put it on his leg, without a doubt.”

“Put it on … wot for?”

“Oh, people do that to cats. I’ve heard of cases like this but never actually seen one. There are some cruel folk around.”

“One o’ them fellers in the yard, ah’ll wager.”

“Not necessarily. Fred goes out in the street, doesn’t he?”

“Oh, aye, often.”

“Well, it could have been anybody.”

There was a long silence as the big man sat scowling, his eyes half-closed. I wondered if he was going over the list of his enemies. That would take some time.

“Anyway,” I said. “The leg will heal very quickly now. That’s the main thing.”

Walt Barnett reached across the desk and slowly rubbed the cat’s side with a sausagelike forefinger. I had seen him do this several times during my previous visit. It was an odd, unsmiling gesture, but probably the nearest he could get to a caress.

On my way back to the surgery I slumped low in the car seat, hardly daring to think of what would have happened if I hadn’t found that elastic. Arrest of circulation, gangrene, loss of the foot or even death. I broke into a sweat at the thought.

Walt Barnett was on the phone three weeks later, and I feli a twinge of apprehension at the sound of the familiar voice. Maybe I wasn’t out of the wood yet.

“Is his leg still troubling him?” I asked.

“Naw, that’s ‘ealed up. There’s summat matter with ‘is head.”

“His head?”

“Aye, keeps cockin’ it from side to side. Come and see ’im.”

This sounded to me like canker, and, in fact, when I saw the cat sitting on the desk twisting his head around uneasily, I was sure that was it, but the ears were clean and painless.

This amiable cat seemed to like being examined, and the purring rose to a crescendo as I made a close inspection of his teeth, mouth, eyes and nostrils. Nothing. Yet something up there was causing a lot of discomfort.

I began to work my way through the black hair, and suddenly the purring was interrupted by a sharp “miaow” as my fingers came upon a painful spot on his neck.

“Something here,” I murmured. I took out my scissors and began to clip. And as the hair fell away and the skin showed through, a wave of disbelief swept through me. I was looking down at a neat little transverse slit, the identical twin of the one I had seen before.

My God, surely not on the neck. I went into the wound with probe and forceps, and within seconds I had brought the familiar brown band to the surface. A quick snip and I pulled it clear.

“More elastic,” I said dully.

“Round ‘is neck!”

“Afraid so. Somebody really meant business this time.”

He drew his enormous forefinger along the furry flank, and the cat rubbed delightedly against him. “Who’s doin’ this?”

I shrugged. “No way of telling. The police are always on the lookout for cruelty, but they would have to catch a person actually in the act.”

I knew he was wondering when the next attempt would come, and so was I, but there were no more elastic bands for Fred. The neck healed rapidly, and I didn’t see the cat for nearly a year till one morning Helen met me as I was coming in from my round.

“Mr. Barnett’s just been on the phone, Jim. Would you please go at once? He thinks his cat has been poisoned.”

Another attack on this nice little animal, and after all this time. It didn’t make sense, and my mind was a jumble as I hurried into Walt Barnett’s office.

I found a vastly different Fred this time. The cat was not in his old place on the desk but was crouched on the floor among a litter of newspapers. He did not look up, but as I went over to him, he retched and vomited a yellow fluid onto the paper. More vomit lay around among pools of diarrhea which had the same yellowish hue.

Walt Barnett, overflowing the chair behind the desk, spoke past the dangling cigarette. “He’s poisoned, isn’t ‘e? Somebody’s given ’im summat.”

“It’s possible. ” I watched the cat move slowly to a saucer of milk and sit over it in the same crouching attitude. He did not drink but sat looking down with a curious immobility. There was a sad familiarity in the little animal’s appearance. This could be something worse even than poison.

“Well, it is, isn’t it?” the big man went on. “Somebody’s tried to kill ’im again.”

“I’m not sure.” As I took the cat’s temperature, there was none of the purring or outgoing friendliness I had known before. He was sunk in a profound lethargy.

The temperature was 105°F. I palpated the abdomen, feeling the doughy consistency of the bowels, the lack of muscular tone.

“Well, if it’s not that, what is it?”

“It’s feline enteritis. I’m nearly certain.”

He looked at me blankly.

“Some people call it cat distemper,” I said. “There’s an outbreak in Darrowby just now. I’ve seen several cases lately, and Fred’s symptoms are typical.”

The big man heaved his bulk from behind the desk, went over to the cat and rubbed his forefinger along the unheeding back. “Well, if it’s that, can you cure ’im?”

“I’ll do my best, Mr. Barnett, but the mortality rate is very high.”

“You mean, most of ’em die?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“How can that be? I thought you fellers had all them wonderful new medicines now.”

“Yes, but this is a virus, and viruses are resistant to antibiotics.”

“Awright, then.” Wheezing, he drew himself upright and returned to his chair. “What are you goin’ to do?”

“I’m going to start right now,” I said. I injected electrolytic fluid to combat the dehydration. I gave antibiotics against the secondary bacteria and finished with a sedative to control the vomiting. But I knew that everything I had done was merely supportive. I had never had much luck with feline enteritis.

I visited Fred each morning, and the very sight of him made me unhappy. He was either hunched over the saucer or he was curled up on the desk in a little basket. He had no interest in the world around him.

He never moved when I gave him his injections. It was like pushing a needle into a lifeless animal, and on the fourth morning I could see that he was sinking rapidly.

“I’ll call in tomorrow,” I said, and Walt Barnett nodded without speaking. He had shown no emotion throughout the cat’s illness.

Next day, when I entered the office, I found the usual scene —the huge figure in his chair, brown trilby on the back of his head and cigarette hanging from his lips, the cat in the basket on the desk.

Fred was very still and as I approached, I saw with a dull feeling of inevitability that he was not breathing. I put my stethoscope over his heart for a few moments, then looked up.

“I’m afraid he’s dead, Mr. Barnett.”

The big man did not change expression. He reached slowly across and rubbed his forefinger against the dark fur in that familiar gesture. Then he put his elbows on the desk and covered his face with his hands.

I did not know what to say; I watched helplessly as his shoulders began to shake and tears welled between the thick fingers. He stayed like that for some time, then he spoke.

“He was my friend,” he said.

I still could find no words, and the silence was heavy in the room until he suddenly pulled his hands from his face.

He glared at me defiantly. “Aye, ah know what you’re thinkin’. This is that big, tough bugger, Walt Barnett, cryin’ his eyes out over a cat. What a joke! I reckon you’ll have a bloody good laugh later on.”

Evidently he was sure that what he considered a display of weakness would lower my opinion of him, and yet he was so wrong. I have liked him better ever since.

August 9, 1963

T
HERE WAS A GENERAL
chattering and lightening of spirits when we landed safely and taxied to a halt. With everybody else, I climbed out and looked around. We were standing on a wide, concreted airfield. Nearby there was a hangar; away on the other side a long stretch of coarse grass ran down to the sea, and over everything the beautiful hot sunshine washed in a comforting flood. The airport buildings were about a quarter of a mile away and far beyond in the shimmering heat haze I could make out the . high buildings of the city. It was just eight o’clock. We would unload the cattle, and then there would be most of the day to explore Istanbul. I felt a tinge of excitement at the prospect.