Freya North - Cat

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by

William Heinemann 1999

Copyright © Freya North 1999

Afterword © Freya North 2012

Freya North asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Source ISBN: 9780007462230

Ebook Edition © June 2012 ISBN: 9780007462247

Version: 2017-11-28

FIRST EDITION

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

For Emma O’Reilly

Honest and true.

And a great friend.

Table of Contents

Title Page FREYA NORTH Cat

Copyright Copyright This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher. Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk First published in Great Britain by William Heinemann 1999 Copyright © Freya North 1999 Afterword © Freya North 2012 Freya North asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Source ISBN: 9780007462230 Ebook Edition © June 2012 ISBN: 9780007462247 Version: 2017-11-28 FIRST EDITION All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Dedication For Emma O’Reilly Honest and true. And a great friend.

Map

Cat McCabe and the Tour De France

Jules Le Grand and Team Systeme Vipere

Rachel McEwen and Team Zucca Mv

Ben York and Team Megapac

Setting the Wheels in Motion

Prologue Time Trial: Delaunay Le Beau, Saturday 3 July

Stage 1: Delaunay Le Beau-Rouen. 195 kilometres

Stage 2: Rouen-Vuillard. 260 kilometres

Stage 3: Vuillard-Plumelec. 225 kilometres

Stage 4: Plouay-Chardin. 248 kilometres

Stage 5: Nantes-Pradier. 210 kilometres

Stage 6: Pradier-Bordeaux. 215 kilometres

Stage 7: Computaparc - Individual Time Trial. 54.5 kilometres

Stage 8: Sauternes-Pau. 162 kilometres

Stage 9: Pau-Luchon. 196.5 kilometres

Stage 10: Luchon-Plateau de Boudin. 170 kilometres

Stage 11: Tarascon sur Ariège-Le Cap D’Arp. 221 kilometres

Repos

Stage 12: Frontignan La Peyrade-Daumier. 196 kilometres

Stage 13: Valadon-Grenoble. 186.5 kilometres

Stage 14: Grenoble-L’Alpe D’Huez. 189 kilometres

Stage 15: Vizille-Gilbertville. 204 kilometres

Stage 16: Gilbertville-Aix-les-Bains. 149 kilometres

Stage 17: Aix-les-Bains-Neuchâtel. 218.5 kilometres

Stage 18: La Chaux de Fonds-Lautrec. 242 kilometres

Repos: Transfer by road and rail. Lautrec-Disneyland-Paris

Stage 19: Disneyland Paris, Individual Time Trial: 63 kilometres

Stage 20: Disneyland-Paris. 149.5 kilometres

Day 27. Monday

October: Paris. The launch of next year’s Tour de France

Acknowledgements

Afterword

About the Author

Acclaim for Freya

Also by Freya North

About the Publisher

‘I know that your mother ran off with a cowboy from Denver,’ Django McCabe reasoned with his niece, ‘but you chasing through France after a bunch of boys on bikes – well, isn’t that taking the family tradition to new extremes?’

Cat McCabe, sunbathing, eyes closed, in her uncle’s Derbyshire garden, smiled.

It feels funny smiling with closed eyes; like you can’t really do both.

So she opened her eyes, stretched leisurely, sat up cross-legged, and picked blades of grass from her body, fingering the satisfying striations they had left on her skin.

‘Lashings of lycra!’ her elder sister Fen offered from her position under the pear tree.

‘Oily limbs a-plenty,’ connived her eldest sister Pip, suddenly cartwheeling into view.

Cat tried to look indignant but then grinned. ‘The Tour de France is the world’s most gruelling sporting event,’ she said defensively, hands on hips, to her audience. ‘It demands that its participants cycle 4,000 k in three weeks. At full speed. Up and over mountains most normal folk ski down. Day after day after day.’

‘And?’ said Django, rubbing his knees, bemoaning that the sun wasn’t doing for his arthritis what it did last year.

‘And?’ said Fen, an art historian who was much more turned on by bronze or marble renditions of Adonis than their pedal-turning doppelgangers her sister seemed so to admire.

‘And?’ said Pip courteously, more interested in perfecting her flikflaks across the lawn for her new act.

Cat McCabe regarded them sternly.

‘A Tour de France cyclist can have a lung capacity of around eight litres, a heart that can beat almost 200 times a minute at full pelt and then rest at a rate at which most people ought to be dead. They can climb five mountains in a row, descending them at up to 100 k per hour.’

‘Wow,’ said Fen with sisterly sarcasm, ‘I bet they’re really interesting people.’

‘Greg LeMond,’ countered Cat, ‘won the Tour de France in 1989 by eight seconds on the final day.’

‘Bully for him,’ Pip laughed, doing a handstand and wanting to practise her routine right the way through.

‘And that was two years after coming back from the brink of death when he was accidentally shot by his brother-in-law in a hunting accident.’

Now you’re impressed!

Fen nodded and looked impressed.

Pip executed a single-handed cartwheel and said, ‘Mister LeMond, I salute you.’

Django said, ‘Bet the bugger’s American.’

Cat confirmed that indeed he was.

‘In what other sport would you have participants called Eros? Or Bo? Or teams called BigMat or OilMe or Chicky World?’