Nine Lives to Murder Page 3

  Then it came. The tiniest of rustles. Over there! Mice—in his garden. He inched forward silently, planning his pounce. He’d show them!

  Wait a minute! Wait a minute! Shaken, he called his wayward body back to order. There was more of Monty left in it than he had realized. Never mind the mice, we’re going to the hospital.

  Hospital … Firmly, he disciplined the protesting muscles, turning the reluctant body towards the right direction. The sudden mutiny of his borrowed frame had shaken him more than he was prepared to think about right now. He would have to be careful. Very careful. Who knew in what way this furry body might betray him next? He could not allow his concentration to slip for a moment; when it did, strange instincts stood ready to take over.

  They would have sent Winstanley Fortescue to St Monica’s Hospital. Miranda would have insisted on that. Not that she had any fond feelings for it, poor girl. It was where she had suffered out her two miscarriages. But it was also the nearest and the best. A discreet, private clinic where the social and economic status of the patients and the surrounding community precluded ambulances screaming through the night. St Monica’s did not have a Casualty Department, but the standard of treatment available equalled—and sometimes surpassed—that of the best teaching hospitals.

  Purposefully, he crossed the garden and squeezed through the iron bars fencing in the box hedge at the bottom. He was momentarily distracted by a familiar shape: so that was where the Terry child’s guinea pig had got to. Perhaps he’d be able to tell the child … some day.

  Sternly recalling himself to duty, he forced himself to continue on course. But, oh! the scent of the earth warming into spring, the soft ripple of the breeze through his fur, the faint fascinating sounds all around him. Could he really be hearing the buds pushing themselves up out of the softened earth? And insects skittering along subterranean passages? No wonder March hares danced in the giddiness of it all.

  He breathed deeply, absorbing everything, storing it away in his conscious memory. When he got back into his own form, these new instincts and insights would add immeasurably to future performances. Many actors were able to walk catlike through a few scenes; he would be able to bring the whole living animal into his portrayal.

  Crossing the street presented little problem at this hour, but the inbuilt instincts took over again and he found himself racing across at top speed. Again there was the exhilaration of the speed he reached—with no shortness of breath and plenty of speed in reserve should it be needed. How long had it been since he had felt power like that? Middle age was all very well, but intellectual achievements did not always make up for the sheer physical prowess of youth—at least, not all the time.

  In his exuberance, he cantered along for several blocks, sailed effortlessly across another street, and then was brought up short by the realization that he was at the entrance to St Monica’s.

  What did he do now? The doors were firmly closed—with no conveniently faulty latch to allow entry. Now he missed the height, the strength, the authority that would let him stride in and demand to see Winstanley Fortescue.

  He withdrew into the shadows of the bushes along the drive to consider his position.

  St Monica’s was housed in an imposing Victorian mansion, completely reconstructed inside to meet rigorous standards of hygiene and efficiency. Outside, the mullioned windows surrounded by luxuriant ivy gave no hint of the present purpose of the building. In fact, St Monica’s was more of a private sanatorium than hospital. There was no question of treatment on the National Health; it was exclusive and expensive—and worth it because it kept its secrets well.

  As he contemplated the ivy-covered façade (could he climb it? and would he find an open window if he did?) a long black limousine turned into the drive and rolled slowly up to the entrance. No sirens blaring or garish lights flashing for the advent of any of St Monica’s patrons; total discretion was the watchword.

  The limousine halted at the front door and a uniformed attendant leaped out and went round to lift a wheelchair out of the boot. Another man, un-uniformed and obviously a concerned relative, got out first and began making coaxing noises to someone still settled in the back seat.

  ‘Come along, Auntie Thea, we’re here. It will be nice to see your old friends again. You like this place, you know you do.’

  Something sailed past his head and crashed into the gravel of the drive. An overpowering smell of liquor drifted through the air. A ringing voice declaimed what she considered suitable for an interfering nephew to do with this place—and with himself.

  Well, well, well, so Dame Theodora McCarran was heading for another drying-out session, was she? He remembered reading recently that she had been signed for a feature role in a major American film to be made in this country soon. Yes, they’d have to get her into shape for that. Good luck to them!

  Meanwhile, it might be a bit of luck for him. He watched as the uniformed attendant went round to the other door while Dame Theodora’s attention was centred on her nephew, who was now jiggling the wheelchair invitingly and making a few more hopeful noises.

  ‘Come along, madam.’ The attendant was in the back seat, pushing Dame Theodora towards the open door.

  ‘Take your hands off me, you miserable cretin!’ the fluting, melodious voice commanded. Or I’ll scream “RAPE”!’

  ‘Easy does it, Auntie Thea.’ With an expertise obviously born of long practice, her nephew tilted the wheelchair to receive her as she spilled out of the car.

  ‘That goes for you, too, you baying jackal!’ His aunt rounded on him. ‘Not enough guts to tread the boards yourself, like an honest cur, you bay at the heels of your betters, trying to bring them down to your level! You’re a disgrace to the family, Oliver Crump!’

  ‘If you say so, Auntie Thea.’ Oliver Crump might not be an actor, but he was giving a pretty fair performance as Uriah Heep at the moment. It was easy to see who had the money in that family. ‘Here now, just let me put this car rug over you to keep out the night chill.’

  ‘Fool! Nuisance! Traitor!’ Dame Theodora berated him as he tried to arrange the rug. It wound up hanging down sloppily on both sides, in danger of being entangled in the wheels. ‘Take me home!’

  ‘All in due course, Auntie Thea.’ Oliver Crump turned away briefly to shut the car door. The attendant moved ahead to open the front door for them.

  That was his chance! Gathering himself together, he sprang forward and raced for shelter beneath the wheel-chair, where the rug drooping down on both sides would conceal his presence as they all entered St Monica’s.

  For once in his life, Oliver Crump was being useful.

  The sensitive pads of his paws registered the changes in texture from gravel path to cement ramp and on to smooth cool linoleum smelling of floor polish and disinfectant.

  There was no need to pause at the reception desk. In this sort of establishment, all arrangements were taken care of beforehand. Dame Theodora had settled into an aloof and dignified silence; Oliver Crump propelled the wheelchair straight to the lift, where he was joined by one of the nurses who introduced herself as Sister Dale, who would be Dame Theodora’s personal nurse during her residence at St Monica’s. Sister Dale sportingly began a one-sided conversation with Dame Theodora, ignoring the silence that answered her.

  Together they all entered the lift and travelled upwards. When the lift doors opened again it was to a carpeted corridor. In these upper reaches, the clinical was less important than the soothing and opulent. Patients allotted to these rooms were not in any immediately life-threatening situations; they were here to be cossetted, cared for and gently reprieved from their particular addictions.

  As the wheelchair halted before one of the guest suites, he tensed again. If he bolted now, chances were that he’d be seen; but if he entered the suite with the others, it might not be so easy to get out again. What he needed was a distraction. But what?

  ‘My dear Sister Dale—’ Dame Theodora roused herself and swayed towards her
nurse. ‘Have you met my nephew? The black sheep of an otherwise respectable and honoured family.’

  ‘Auntie Thea!’ Oliver Crump protested.

  ‘Oh, Dame Theodora,’ the nurse bleated. ‘You don’t mean that!’

  The door swung open, the wheelchair lurched forward, everyone talking volubly. He dived away and into the shadows of the far corner of the corridor as they entered the suite, each still engrossed with their own grievance. The door swung closed behind them.

  So far, so good. The Intensive Care Unit was two floors down. He knew because Miranda had spent twenty-eight hours there after her last miscarriage. Who would have thought that any good might have come out of those terrible hours?

  No point in even thinking of the lift; the buttons were too high for him to reach, even stretched to his uttermost. Heavy fire doors shut off the emergency stairs. The main staircase, a carved mahogany extravaganza, was exposed to view from both above and below. If there was anyone to see who was using it.

  Slinking from shadow to shadow, he hugged the wall going downstairs, freezing frequently as strange sounds assailed his quivering ears. The world was fraught with danger for a defenceless feline prowling where obtuse humans would consider he had no business to be.

  One flight … two flights … then the reek of anæsthetics, medicines and nameless horrors—half-noticed when he had encountered them while in human form—almost overpowered him. He halted, panting, his lips curled back, his tongue protruding slightly between his teeth, waiting until the nausea receded and he could force himself forward again. The Intensive Care Unit was on this floor.

  A current of air moved sluggishly along the corridor and the clear plastic flaps closing off the Unit quivered in the draught. There would be no difficulty getting through them; they were designed to assist entry to the Unit, not hinder it. From somewhere in the past came the memory of a medical team bursting through those flaps, pushing their life-saving trolley of supplementary emergency equipment before them.

  The long flaps brushed against both flanks as he pushed through them and into the section occupied by the Intensive Care Unit, more of a cul-de-sac than a wing. There were three fully-equipped rooms for patients and a small office just inside the flaps, containing a desk, chair, lamp and telephone, where a nurse could keep vigil when the rooms were occupied.

  He lowered his belly to the ground and slunk past the cubbyhole office, then realized he needn’t have bothered. No one on duty there. Perhaps the nurse was attending to one of the patients, or perhaps she had left her post temporarily to look after some concern of her own.

  The room directly ahead, at the end of the Unit, was empty and dark. There were patients in the other two rooms on either side of the short passageway.

  He paused, listening, his fur rippling uneasily at the unsettling, unfamiliar noises emanating from both rooms. Science might be wonderful, but there were times when it seemed that Life was imitating, not Art, but a horror film. Such sound effects would not be out of place in the laboratory where the Frankenstein monster stirred slowly and creaked to life.

  He slithered through the doorway on the left and came to an appalled halt.

  What had they done to him?

  The shrivelled body lay curled on the bed, a dried-out husk of a man. His eyes were closed, there was no colour to his skin; no breath in his lungs. He looked to be a thousand years old. Only the coldly functioning machine was keeping the semblance of life in him.

  What enemy has done this to me? The cat crept forward, his fur bristling and rising, a low growl gathering in his throat.

  His nose twitched. Even the scent was wrong. It wasn’t just the overlay of hospital smells, ghastly though they were, there was a basic odour of … decay? Death?

  How could that fine body of his have descended into this state so rapidly? Now that the initial shock had subsided, he moved closer and took a long cool look at the body.

  It wasn’t his! This was some ancient fighting his last battle, armoured by the machines. Someone else’s battle. It wasn’t his.

  He was in the wrong room. He turned purposefully and crossed the corridor to the other room.

  And there he was. Himself. His true body—from which he had been so incomprehensibly dispossessed. Lying there motionless on the stark white hospital bed. Wired up to strange machines whose display panels showed bilious green lines broken by occasional jagged peaks. Worse, there were tubes ending in sagging plastic bags that seemed to be attached to every available surface. He watched in horror as the level of amber fluid rose suddenly in the plastic bag beneath the bed.

  Poor Monty must think he’d fallen into the hands of the vivisectionists … if it was Monty in there.

  Could he be having one of those out-of-the-body experiences so often chronicled in the less reputable tabloids?

  But in those cases the spirit self was invariably portrayed as floating around just below the ceiling and looking down on the body in the bed below. It was definitely not supposed to be firmly grounded in the body of another species strolling around at floor level. What had gone wrong?

  He found the darkest shadow in the room and crouched in it, staring mournfully at the inert form on the bed. If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.

  Unlike crocodiles, cats have no tears. The dark brooding sadness quivered through him with no outlet. A soft low dirge pulsed in his throat and he clenched his teeth against it. A race memory that was not from his own race, nor even his own species abruptly flashed through his mind: he must make no sound or they would discover him, chase him … harry him from the familiar hearth, from the person he loved …

  The Instrument, they were taught to call it in the acting academies. The body, the voice, the movements—all one had to work with, but enough when properly trained and used.

  The Instrument: lying there mute and still. The Instrument: could it ever be played again? Or was it destroyed for ever?

  Was it lost to him—or did he still inhabit it? Was he really trapped somewhere in the depths of its coma, dreaming all that seemed to be happening to him?

  He crept closer, his gaze fixed on the shuttered face. That was where he belonged—behind that blank mask, restoring it to animation, vitality … life.

  Suppose The Instrument died? Would he be trapped here in Monty’s body for the rest of his life … of Monty’s life? And how old was Monty? No kitten, by any means. In his rackety days as a stray, he had probably used up a few of his nine lives before finding a welcome at the Stage Door and a permanent home at the Chesterton.

  The Instrument had confidently assumed that another thirty-odd years stretched ahead of him. At least. There were still the great parts to be played: Falstaff, Lear, Prospero … And, with the life-expectancy of the current generations increasing constantly, it could not be long until the modern playwrights addressed the situation. There were many great parts waiting to be written in which ageing actors and actresses would mirror the problems and complexities facing their audience. He didn’t want to miss that.

  And there had been the confidence, too, that a Knighthood was in the offing. Sir Winstanley and Lady Fortescue had a magnificent ring to it; it sounded right—and was well-deserved. To think that the Powers-That-Be went through the farce of an exploratory inquiry—as though anyone in his right mind would decline the honour.

  But he wasn’t in his right mind. Not now. Rather, he was in his right mind, but wrong body.

  As he watched, the familiar face twitched. Was that returning consciousness? Were those eyes about to open?

  He advanced to the foot of the bed and crouched to spring.

  Then he heard the footsteps in the corridor outside. Soft, furtive footsteps, coming closer. He changed his mind about leaping on to the bed and retreated to a corner, watching the doorway.

  He was just in time. She appeared in the open doorway. Jilly! He shrank in on himself, trying to make himself smaller, but he need not have bothered. She had eyes for nothing except the inert form on the hospi
tal bed.

  ‘I knew it!’ she breathed. ‘I knew they were trying to keep something from me!’ The gleam in her eye was disquieting as she moved swiftly to the side of the bed.

  ‘Win,’ she called urgently, but softly. ‘Win, are you awake? Can you hear me?’ She touched his face gently. ‘Win, it’s Jilly. What happened?’

  There was no response. But … had the pattern of breathing changed slightly?

  ‘Win—?’ Her voice sharpened. She looked anxiously towards the door. ‘Win, can you hear me? Can you speak?’

  She’d sneaked in! Everything in her attitude betrayed that fact. Well, so had he. And she was afraid of getting caught, too. This was where it was an advantage to be a cat; they’d simply sweep him out the door if they caught him. Jilly would have some tricky explaining to do.

  Very tricky. Even as he watched, she backed away from the bed, then circled it slowly, noting every tube and wire.

  ‘Win—?’ She was testing this time, before she went further. And this time she seemed satisfied at receiving no response. She nodded and approached the bedside again.

  After a final searching glance at the still face, she pulled back the sheet and folded it away from the unconscious body.

  Had a man no privacy at all? He quivered with outrage as she then lifted the hospital gown and brazenly peered underneath it.

  How right Miranda had been to refuse to talk to Jilly! How wise. Dear Miranda … a melancholy swept over him. He had never appreciated her enough. How could he make it up to her?

  There was an explosive hiss of exultation from Jilly. She had found something that meant something to her. But nothing meant anything to Jilly except a story. He knew that now.

  What had she found? He crept forward; he had to know. But her body blocked his view. She was leaning forward, inspecting some portion of The Instrument normally kept decently covered.