Peter Helton - Rainstone Fall

‘Huge,’ Deeks completed. ‘A cat is exactly what you need. Thank you, constable.’ He relieved her of the cat and shoved him at me, where he clawed his way up my leather jacket so he could stare at me with enormous eyes.

‘Hang on. . I’m not sure I can afford to take on a cat, you know? Vet bills, worming collars, flea tablets — ’

‘Rubbish, the moggy’s yours. Now beat it.’

‘Hey, just wait a second — ’

‘You’ve run out of seconds.’ He grabbed me by the arm and dragged me along to the Landy. ‘You’re getting out of here and I don’t want to see you again near here or Gem Stone’s or anywhere, actually.’ He opened the door for me. ‘Get in there before Needham turns up and hauls your arse down the station again.’

I deposited the cat beside me. The first constable supplied my keys. I backed the Landy up as fast as I could. I knew when I wasn’t wanted and despite my curiosity the mention of Needham had convinced me I’d better figure this one out from a distance. When I glanced back towards the bungalow I saw Deeks talking intensely to the constable while keeping an avuncular arm around her shoulder, the constable nodding, nodding, nodding. The cat jumped into the footwell. He looked panicked by the sudden turn of events. I’d have to get rid of the animal at the first opportunity or I’d end up like one of those private eyes who discuss their cases with their moggy and take them down the pub for a beer. At least we’d achieved a stay of execution for the thing. At the moment I had plenty of other worries. We needed to get Jill’s son back and for that we would break into Telfer’s house and rob his safe. But I now had new stuff to worry about: for a start, Deeks obviously knew Gemma Stone. He didn’t seem at all surprised to see her there, nor did he object to her presence. Me however he couldn’t wait to get rid of. And since in the past few years he’d never missed an opportunity to drag me into Manvers Street under the flimsiest of pretexts this new attitude of wanting to keep me out of the interview room worried me not a little. Now I had an animal to look after, at least until I could find someone to foist it on. While rattling back towards Mill House through a fresh offering of drizzle from the man upstairs I couldn’t help marvelling at how, since answering that dreaded phone call from Griffin’s on that stormy morning, when I had nothing more hectic planned than squeezing a tube of cobalt blue, my life had suddenly become rather crowded. Sometimes though you just couldn’t back out or delegate. Serenity lay at the other end of burglary and — I was getting to know myself — a certain amount of mayhem.

I parked the Landy in the puddle-pocked yard close to the door and got out, walked round to the other side and opened the door for the cat to jump out. He looked at me with almond-shaped eyes of palest green, then looked past me left and right, sniffed, meowed and didn’t budge. ‘It’s just a bit of rain,’ I chided, ‘don’t be pathetic.’ He retreated into the furthest corner. I grabbed him. He scrabbled and clawed up my jacket and meowed. I carried him like a squirming baby indoors and set him down on the stone-flagged floor of the hall. He began sniffing around at once and cautiously inspected every nook and cranny. If he was going to give the whole of Mill House this kind of treatment he’d be a very busy cat for a few days. Annis appeared from the direction of the kitchen, having heard me suggest to the cat he may go ahead and spray my carpets if he was tired of life, and then started making exactly the same noises Gem and the constable had made. It had to be a genetic thing.

‘What’s his name? Kittykittykitty.’

‘He hasn’t got one and he won’t need one since he’s not staying. He’s just a refugee. He used to belong to the dead guy.’

‘Poor thing, lost your daddy.’

I rolled my eyes. ‘Look at this as a transit camp,’ I told the cat as I squeezed past the mutual admiration society. ‘ A clearing house .’

‘How can you be so cruel? You could call him Tiddles.’

‘No chance!’ Last thing I saw when I slipped round the corner was Annis hugging him to her chest and examining his bits. As if I didn’t have enough competition already. I had nearly made it to the kitchen when she called me back.

‘Did you bring any cat food?’

I walked back warily. ‘ Cat food?’

‘Cat — meow — hunger — food. Cat food.’

‘Can’t he eat what we’re having?’

‘Pumpkin, sweet potato and banana curry?’

‘Ah.’

‘So then you’d better go and get some. I think he’s hungry.’ The cat looked at me from the safety of her arms and meowed his agreement.

It had started.

‘If it’s Thursday then it must be burglary,’ Annis murmured, wrapping her warm limbs tighter around me and snuggling her face deeper into my shoulder. It was still early, judging by the thin quality of the light, and I was wondering whether it was time for breakfast yet when I heard a scrabbling noise at the door. I saw the brass door handle move a little, then stop, then silence. Interesting. Not interesting enough to let go of the woman in my arms — not many things were — but still noteworthy that the nameless cat could stretch that high. More scrabbling. The door handle dipped, the door opened a few inches. I briefly saw the cat hang from his front paws on the handle, then drop out of sight. The door closed. Seconds later the thing had jumped on the bed and was walking confidently all over us.

‘Annis, the cat can open doors,’ I said in alarm.

‘Great. We could call him Paws.’

‘No chance.’

‘Let’s try and teach him to warm croissants then. .’

It was over a breakfast of said croissants, heated in the oven without feline help, that I sought once more to simplify my life. I called Giles Haarbottle at Griffin’s and told him again that I was now convinced Lane was kosher.

‘All right, if you say so, but I don’t believe a word of it. Ah well, you can’t win them all. Sometimes that’s just how the cookie crumbles, you win some, you lose some.’

‘Mr Haarbottle, there are only so many clichés I can handle at breakfast time. .’

‘Breakfast time? I’ve been at work for hours,’ he complained. ‘It’s the early bird that catches the worm, you know?’

‘But it’s the early worm that gets caught. And remember, it’s the second mouse that gets the cheese: I’ll send you my invoice.’

As soon as I cut the connection the phone rang. It was Sergeant Hayes. ‘Good news, Honeysett. They released what’s left of your car. What’s more they delivered it back here, which was kind of them, but we want you to pick it up pronto. Before traffic decide it’s not roadworthy, which I’m sure it isn’t.’

‘I’m on my way,’ I promised, not entirely truthfully, since it suddenly dawned on me that the keys hadn’t been in the ignition when it was found and I didn’t have the foggiest where the spare set might be.

It took nearly an hour and several upended drawers to locate them. They were hiding in a little wooden box along with a book of matches from a Turkish seaside restaurant, a champagne cork with lipstick marks and a dead beetle. If there was a story behind this then I didn’t remember it. By the time I got back downstairs, triumphantly waving the keys and expecting a lift to the station, Annis had gone out.

Another expensive taxi ride later and I was reunited with the DS. The bonnet was crinkled and one headlight smashed, the driver side was scratched and dented, and there was a star-shaped crack in the windscreen but I greeted the poor thing like an old friend. Miraculously the CD player was still there and not a single disc was missing. The rest of my possessions, Dictaphone, camcorder, my lightweight binoculars, were handed to me in a clear plastic bag. Nothing had been stolen. Nothing had even been touched. The car had been cleaned by the technicians, on the inside only, with some stuff that possibly smelled worse than death but faint stains still remained on the upholstery. I drove home with all windows open, with Radiohead at a satisfying volume level, wondering if anyone might deign to let me know who Albert really was and how he ended up in my car. I would go and ask Gemma Stone again, who obviously knew more about it then she let on, but not today. Needham and Deeks seemed to have decided I had nothing to do with it and anyway I had to cook supper for three, then commit burglary. Now, what was appropriate food for a break-in? Something light — you won’t feel much like climbing through windows after a three course meal that includes treacle tart — but at the same time sustaining — you don’t want your stomach to start growling halfway through. Raiding Telfer’s fridge really wasn’t part of the deal. It would be bad enough to come home and find your safe had been cleaned out.