Ken McClure - Resurrection

Dewar digested the social comment without response and ignored the itch in his right foot. He watched as a huge lorry, laden with beer, according to the markings on its side, came labouring past, heading for the docks. The noise it made drowned out the first part of Mary Martin’s reply. ‘Sorry, can you say again?’

‘I said, I’ve spoken to the team leader. He doesn’t actually remember a cat being in the flat. He certainly didn’t have one put down. If there was one there, of course …’

‘Quite so,’ said Dewar, filling in the details for himself. The gas used in the fumigation procedure would have killed it.

‘Thanks, Mary. I’m obliged.’

Dewar looked at the keys in his hand again and decided to take a look at the flat anyway. He’d better know the worst. It could have been hiding. Cats did have a habit of finding obscure hiding places for themselves, under beds, in cupboards, on top of high shelves, so it was quite possible that the decontamination team had overlooked its presence if they’d had no prior warning.

The flat felt cold and damp and still smelt strongly of the disinfecting gas. Dewar examined the windows and saw that the seals applied during the sterilising procedure had been broken so the team had returned after the fumigation to air the flat. Nevertheless, the smell remained. He suspected it might for a very long time. He imagined some future tenants wondering what it was.

He put the plastic bag containing the cat food on the kitchen table and took off his coat, hanging it on the back of a chair. Starting with the kitchen itself, he walked slowly round each room, expecting, at every turn, to find the corpse of a poisoned cat lying there. The bathroom door was difficult to open and he feared the worst but it was a scrunched up bath mat rather than a feline corpse causing the trouble. He completed a tour of the premises without finding a body.

He then started on the airing cupboard, patting the lagging on the hot water tank to make sure the cat had not slipped inside. He continued his search in the bedroom wardrobe, which was empty but for a few cardboard boxes containing photographs and memorabilia of Sharon and Tommy’s life together He searched through the boxes briefly, sadly contemplating a framed wedding portrait showing the couple smiling at each other.

Now the marriage was over, one way or the other. If Sharon survived she would be a widow, badly scarred and maybe even blind. If she didn’t, the Hannans would just be two more people who’d briefly passed through the tenement in its long life. Dewar put the boxes back and stepped down from the chair to stand there, wondering where to look next.

As he shivered slightly in the cold of the bedroom, he became aware of a scratching sound. His eyes darted to the skirting board where he thought the sound had come from. He waited for movement. Had mice or worse still, rats, moved in to replace the Hannans as tenants? The noise came again but still he saw nothing move despite being sure that the sound was coming from inside this room. Another scratch and his gaze finally settled on the fireplace in an unblinking stare.

Before the decontamination team had set off the gas ‘bomb’ to fumigate the flat they would have sealed up all the doors and windows to make sure that the gas could not escape before it had done its job. The bedroom fireplace would have been seen as a route to the outside; they had sealed it up with plywood secured by adhesive tape. The scratching was coming from behind the seal that the team had obviously forgotten to remove when they returned to air the flat.

Could it be that the cat was behind it? Had it been hiding in the chimney when the team arrived? Maybe it had fled there out of fear when strangers had walked in?

Dewar stood in front of the fireplace, regarding it with a mixture of hope and apprehension. It could still be a mouse or a rat, and angry rats came pretty high up the list of things Dewar would rather not have fly at his face when he removed the plywood seal. He looked around for some kind of protection, quickly deciding that the black-wire fire-guard standing beside the fireplace should suffice.

Before he did anything else he went back to the kitchen and opened one of the tins of the cat food he’d brought and tipped it out into a plastic dish, filling a second dish with water. He brought them both back to the bedroom and placed them under the window. This might be tempting fate, he thought but he needed a positive thought to work on. He really wanted it to be the cat but common sense demanded that he make another trip to the kitchen and return with a heavy soup ladle just in case.

He closed the bedroom door and positioned the fire-guard in front of him with one hand while he started to strip away the adhesive tape with the other. The scratching noise stopped instantly. He couldn’t help but imagine the animal preparing its next move, crouching, tensing its limbs, preparing to spring, ready to fight for its freedom. A frightened cat or an angry rat?

He paused for a moment then repositioned the fire-guard for maximum protection before taking a deep breath and pulling away the last piece of tape holding the seal.

Cautiously, he slid the board away and recoiled slightly in anticipation before looking into the maw of the grate. There was nothing to be seen. He was looking at an empty black grate that hadn’t been used in years. Once again silence reigned supreme in the room. Dewar shivered with the cold and a sense of anticlimax. He waited for what seemed an eternity for the scratching noise to come again but instead, he saw something appear at the top of the fireplace. It was a furry nose, a cat’s nose. He watched, fascinated, as more of it appeared until finally a cat’s head emerged to look him in the eye. It was a ginger cat but covered in soot.

‘Hello Puss,’ said Dewar, suddenly filled with relief. ‘Fancy something to eat?’ He lowered the protective fire-guard and stepped back to let the cat make its exit in its own time. The smell of food ensured this did not take long. Dewar watched the cat pad quickly over to the dish and tear into the meat.

As he watched it, he started to wonder where exactly it had been hiding. Still curious, he knelt down in front of the fireplace to look up the chimney. He could see nothing but blackness then he remembered that chimneys in countries where it rained a lot did not rise up in a straight line. They had to have a kink in them to stop rain water dowsing the fire.

He rolled up his sleeve and reached up inside the fireplace to find a narrow shelf leading off to the left. This was where the cat had been sitting. He smiled. ‘Now that was one smart place to hide, Puss,’ he said, reflecting that it was the only place in the flat where she could have survived the gas. The decontamination team had unknowingly protected her by installing an airtight seal in front of her and of course, she’d had a supply of fresh air from above.

‘One down, eight to go, Puss,’ he muttered.

As he investigated just how far the shelf stretched before the chimney turned upwards again, Dewar’s fingers touched something else lying there. It felt like some kind of smooth plastic container. Carefully, he coaxed it round into a position where he could grip it firmly between his fingers then he brought it slowly down. It was a small plastic box about eight inches by four. He wiped the dirt off the top and removed the lid. Inside were a number of sealed glass vials but it was a syringe that took Dewar’s attention and in particular, the long needle still mounted on the end. He’d just stumbled on Tommy Hannan’s drug stash and fixing gear.

His blood ran cold as he realised he should have known better than to reach into blind corners in a drug addict’s flat. He’d been careful enough when looking into the boxes on top of the wardrobe, appraising what was there before touching anything but the excitement of finding the cat and then the box on the ledge had made him careless. If the syringe hadn’t been in a box but inside a plastic bag, for instance, he might have stuck himself on the needle and given himself hepatitis or even AIDS for his trouble. Many addicts were HIV positive through needle sharing. He’d got away with it this time with nothing more than a dry mouth and a hollow feeling in his stomach.