Thomas Perry: The Butcher's Boy

Elizabeth was out of it now. She looked around her at the other passengers in the cabin. There were the usual tourists, an elderly couple seeing the world outside Iowa before it was too late, a pair of college girls in bluejeans, and three businessmen staring at papers resting on their trays. The only passenger within the limited range of Elizabeth’s vision who wasn’t immediately identifiable was the man across the aisle from her. She pretended to read one of her magazines while she studied him. He was wearing a comfortable sort of sport coat that she decided was too informal for a businessman trying to impress people in London. He was traveling alone and she couldn’t see any carry-on luggage. He was just a quiet, solitary man with nothing special about him. He was probably a professor. He was a professor of English or history making one of those professorial pilgrimages to England, hoping perhaps that if he could stand where William the Conqueror stood or walk where Chaucer walked he would have insights unavailable to mere reason.

As Elizabeth watched the man leaned his head back on the seat and closed his eyes. She felt proud of herself for her perception. He was a professor. And right now he’s thinking about the fun he’s going to have prowling around in castles and cathedrals and libraries where musty old books have sat on the shelves for centuries. The man shifted slightly in his seat. Elizabeth thought she caught just the slightest suspicion of a smile on the corners of his mouth. She felt an involuntary instant of affection for him.

The man’s smile faded and the skin at the corners of his eyes tightened in concentration. He was trying to remember. It was ridiculous, he knew, but once the problem had occurred to him, it had bothered him for days. What was the name of Eddie Mastrewski’s cat?