The Cat Next Door Read online

Chapter Eight

  The encounter with Verity had left her even more exhausted and she lost the little appetite she had had. Ignoring the curious glances from those around her, she picked at her food just long enough to give Verity time to get clear of the building, then left it herself.

  Still fighting the debilitating tiredness, she explored a few more stalls and shops, making some desultory purchases, before giving up and hailing a taxi.

  The house still seemed deserted when the taxi dropped her at the end of the drive, so that she could make an inconspicuous return. She cut through the little rose arbour to take the path to the back door.

  There was a delicious smell wafting through the kitchen, signalling that Nan had been busy, even though there was no sign of her. Apple crumble, perhaps, it was one of Uncle Wilfred’s favourites. In the distance, a telephone began ringing and went unanswered, with not even the click of an answering machine cutting in to take a message. She briefly contemplated answering it herself, but it seemed too much effort. She was going to need all her strength to get up the stairs to her room and lie down.

  ‘The telephone’s ringing,’ Lynette called out plaintively as she reached the top of the stairs. Had that creak from the third step from the top betrayed her? She hesitated, still hoping to slip past unnoticed.

  ‘Isn’t anyone going to answer it?’ Lynette called again, in a tone that suggested that she might begin ringing her own bell again. ‘It might be for me.’

  ‘Hello, Lynnie, what’s the matter?’ Margot paused in the doorway.

  ‘The telephone – ’ Lynette indicated the instrument on the far side of room, still ringing insistently. ‘Get it for me … please.’

  With a nod, Margot obediently crossed the room, wondering why Lynette did not have her own mobile, which would surely be the best thing for an invalid. Or perhaps, she realised, that would merely point up the fact that Lynette was losing contact with her own generation and had no close school friends to ring up and gossip with.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ The crisp barrage of questions shot at her after she said, ‘Hello?’ momentarily stunned her.

  ‘I’ll take it.’ Lynette held out her hand imperiously.

  ‘Just a moment – ’ Margot disentangled the extra-long cord and carried the telephone over to her.

  ‘Yes?’ Lynette spoke cautiously into the mouthpiece and then listened. Her face shuttered and hardened into an expression no child should be able to register.

  ‘No comment,’ she said clearly and slammed down the receiver. ‘Quick,’ she instructed Margot, ‘pull out the plug. Over by the window.’ She pointed at a socket next to a floor lamp.

  Margot snatched the jack out just as the telephone began to ring again. Obviously, there was more than one reason why Lynette did not have her own number. Media harassment would give no quarter because of age.

  ‘Was it fun at the market?’ Lynette asked wistfully, pushing the telephone away from her.

  ‘Fascinating.’ Margot returned the phone to its place on the other side of the room. ‘And I found a few bits I thought you might like.’ She held the bag out enticingly.

  ‘Really?’ Lynette sat up higher, flecks of excitement brightening her eyes. She took the bag eagerly.

  ‘Oh … thank you.’ The puzzle book was glanced at and tossed aside. Not a good choice.

  ‘Sorry, I expect you already have lots of puzzle books,’ Margot said. ‘Perhaps the rest might suit you better.’

  ‘The rest?’ Her interest renewed, Lynette delved into the bag again, coming up with the small cosmetics case. She opened it and shook out the lipstick, mascara, eyeshadow and a small mirror into her lap. She picked up each item and inspected it, a little smile curving her lips.

  ‘Ooooh, yes. Thank you, Margot.’ Definitely a success. Lynette checked and approved the pale pink lipstick and applied it carefully, using her new mirror. She eyed the mascara thoughtfully and the eyeshadow even more thoughtfully.

  Were they too adult for her? But that was the point of the little gift: to lift her mind and thoughts beyond her present situation. A promise that she was going to grow up, become old enough to use them, step out into the world and find her place in it. Whatever happened during the next few weeks, Lynette would eventually grow out of this childish role and into an inevitable maturity.

  Wouldn’t she?

  Lynette gave a slight shudder, as though she had caught the thought. Or perhaps because the shadow of adulthood had suddenly loomed menacingly behind her and was more than she could cope with. She was already in retreat, in her own way. It was probably due to Emmeline’s experience in dealing with teenaged girls that she had not retreated into the more dangerous byways of anorexia or bulimia.

  ‘I’m tired,’ Lynette announced abruptly. She replaced the make-up in its case and let it all slide to the floor on top of the puzzle book.

  ‘So am I,’ Margot said truthfully, deciding to leave everything on the floor. ‘Why don’t we take a nap now?’

  ‘I’m too old for naps,’ Lynette pouted.

  ‘Well, I’m not.’ Margot turned towards the door. ‘I’ll see you later.’

  She was aware of movement behind her as she left. She looked back to see Lynette leaning over the edge of the bed to retrieve one of her presents. Was she reaching for the safety of the childish puzzle book or the dangerous promise of the make-up?

  We all have our problems, Lynette, but some of us have more than others. Sorry, but my own are enough for me right now.

  It was dark when she awoke. Very dark. Too dark … and the house was too quiet. What time was it?

  The luminous face of the digital clock on the bedside table was partially obscured. It had been perfectly clear the last time she had looked at it. She switched on the table lamp.

  A tray containing film-shrouded sandwiches and a thermos flask sat in front of the clock. A short note from Nan informed her that she had been sleeping so peacefully it seemed a shame to disturb her. If she awoke in time to join the family later, she would be welcome; if not, her midnight snack was here.

  Midnight? The clock said 1.35 a.m. No wonder the house was silent. She had slept solidly from late afternoon until this frightening hour. And she was still tired.

  Even more disturbing was the realisation that Nan had been able to come into her room, check on her slumber, rearrange her bedside table and leave provisions and a note without her having been aware of it.

  In fact, there had been two invasions of her privacy. Once when Nan had looked in and decided not to wake her for dinner and, again, when Nan had brought the tray and left it for her.

  The food was welcome, however. Whatever the clock said, her stomach told her it was high time to put something in it. It had been a long time since lunch and she hadn’t had much of that.

  The thermos held Nan’s home-made chicken soup, rich with onions and barley. The six dainty triangles under the clingfilm were equally tempting: thin-sliced crustless bread, half white and half brown, generously filled with chicken. She lifted one of the top triangles cautiously, Nan had been known to get overly creative with splashes of chutney, pesto or tomato purée, but the chicken was pristine, only a grinding of fresh pepper flecking it lightly. Perfect. Nothing too adventurous for a jet-lagged turn whose owner would want to get back to sleep after her light repast. Bless Nan, even if she sometimes was too intrusive for comfort.

  Margot finished the soup, but left two well-filled triangles, draping the clingfilm lightly over them, yawned and stretched, ready to go back to bed.

  This time she changed into her nightgown and removed her make-up. She turned off the lamp and paused by the window, looking down at the long expanse of garden lit by the nearly-full moon. About to turn away, she tensed suddenly.

  Someone was prowling about down there. As she watched, a hunched figure flickered in the shadows: too large to be the cat this time, too indeterminate to tell whether it was a man or a woman, too furtive to be there on legitimate business.

  A
nd what business could anyone have in the garden at this hour? Was it part of the media circus moving into place for some secret filming? Or, given the swelling moon, some disturbed mentality drawn to the scene of a crime?

  Not the murderer returning. Chloe was safely locked up in Holloway. Unless …

  Chloe had denied the murder. Denied it and then lapsed into an unbreakable silence. But … if Chloe hadn’t done it, then who had? Lynette had discovered her standing over Claudia’s body with the bloodied knife in her hands …

  Lynette?

  Suddenly Margot knew the reason for the tension that jangled through the house like the sound of the invalid’s bell.

  Lynnie …? Did any of them – or all of them – secretly wonder whether the situation had actually been reversed? That it had been Chloe who had stumbled upon the scene and found Lynette with the knife in her hand standing over her mother’s dead body? Little Lynnie …

  No! Margot shook her head, trying to clear her mind of the images that were forming. But, once having slipped into her mind, the thoughts were not so easily dislodged.

  It would explain so much. Chloe’s silence, for one thing. She would, instinctively protective, have snatched the knife away from Lynette. Faced with the unthinkable, the unimaginable, she would have gone into deep shock herself.

  And then what? Had Chloe made a conscious decision to take the blame herself? Or had Lynette, abruptly snapped back into her senses and denying, even to herself, what she had done, screamed out her horror and revulsion and brought the others running to discover the scene so damning to Chloe?

  ‘No!’ Chloe had reportedly said. ‘No!’ And then had not spoken again.

  But what had the others said? To her and about her? Someone, Emmeline, or possibly Nan, would have rushed Lynette into the house, soothed her and probably sedated her.

  What a family conference there must have been before the ambulance – and the police – arrived. How quickly had they cobbled together a decision as to what must be done? And then did it.

  Had they removed Lynette’s fingerprints from the knife and then reimposed Chloe’s? Or had they decided that so many people had access to a kitchen knife that blurred prints didn’t matter?

  And what of Chloe during this time? Numb with grief at the death of her twin, stunned with horror at the thought that Lynette was responsible – and dazed with disbelief at the way the family was so ready to sacrifice her to save Lynette.

  Or had Chloe been a willing victim? Knowing what could happen to a sensitive young girl hurled into the juvenile penal system and willing to protect Lynette from the consequences of her action. Feeling that she herself was older and stronger and better able to cope with the nightmare. Or perhaps feeling that she had nothing else to lose now that she had lost her twin.

  Why then the deep and utter silence? If such had been the case, surely Chloe would have been willing to see members of the family, enter into discussions with her barrister, work towards some way of evading the worst of a prison sentence without implicating her young niece?

  Unfortunately, the first hypothesis was the probable one. Dazed and acquiescent, numbed by her realisation that the family was willing to railroad her in order to save Lynette, there must surely have been a growing bitterness that prevented her from speaking to them – any of them.

  This family wasn’t just dysfunctional – it was monstrous! Was it necessary to destroy Chloe in order to save Lynette?

  No, they were trying to rescue Chloe, too, despite herself. Guilt-ridden and grief-stricken, poor Wilfred was trying to do his best for both his remaining daughter and his granddaughter. The QC he had retained was going to cost a fortune – how much was Kingsley contributing towards it?

  And no wonder Kingsley was so anxious to avoid a trial at all. The clever and aggressive Comfrey QC might not just plant seeds of doubt in the jury’s mind, but actively point the way to the real culprit. Or, at least, start people wondering: if Chloe were truly innocent, then who had killed Claudia?

  Or had she watched too many courtroom TV dramas?

  It was understandable that, having lost his beloved wife, Kingsley would do anything not to also lose his dear daughter. All emotional considerations aside, it would be the sort of scandal that could ruin his political career. A cruelly murdered wife had brought a large sympathy vote, but if the woman had been killed by her own child, the electorate – and the media – might begin to wonder what had been going on for that family to come to such a pass. And, without his wife and daughter, his career was all that Kingsley had left.

  But it was unforgivable of him to be so willing to sacrifice his sister-in-law on the altar of political expediency.

  What had been going on? Why should Lynette have killed her mother? Perhaps Claudia hadn’t been the best mother in the world, more devoted to her husband than to her daughter, more interested in her own pleasures and preoccupations than in her child, but Lynette had never been neglected. Even before she had been sent to boarding school, she had been happy to spend most of her time in St Albans under Milly’s caring wing rather than in the bleak modern block in Westminster’s division bell territory.

  There was movement again in the shadowy garden below. Margot leaned forward, resting her forehead against the window pane, trying to see more clearly. She had to remind herself that the Centurion had never existed, that he was the mischievous invention of two bored children. On a night like this, it was very easy to believe in him.

  Who was down there? She resisted the temptation to go down and find out. She had not the energy to get dressed again and she was not going to go prowling around in nightgown and slippers. Apart from which, there was no guarantee that the intruder would still be there by the time she had gone downstairs and out into the garden.

  Could it be Lynette? Everyone had assured her that there was nothing wrong with Lynette’s legs. Her invalidism was entirely self-imposed, a neurotic retreat from reality that would have to be dealt with after the trial was safely over. In the meantime, did she secretly slip out of the house in the small hours to take a bit of exercise?

  That was one question that could be answered without going outside. Margot walked silently down the hallway and pushed open the door that stood permanently ajar. In the faint glow of the nightlight, she could see the silhouette of a figure in the bed. Of course, a rolled-up blanket placed under the coverlet was one of the oldest tricks in the boarding school lexicon.

  Margot advanced into the room, then halted as the dark shape on the bed sighed and turned over, flinging one arm up over its head.

  Margot retreated hastily on tiptoes. So much for that idea. Lynette was not out prowling about the garden in the darkness. The thought now seemed highly unlikely. If Lynette would not leave her room, why on earth would she want to go there, of all places? She would want to avoid the garden: where her mother had died, at her hand or not.

  And that wild idea now seemed unlikely, too. Just one of the waking nightmares that come in the small hours, to be dispelled by the light of day, or the reawakening of common sense.

  Weariness dragged at Margot as she regained her own room and slumped on her bed with barely enough energy to kick off her slippers. Whatever was going on, it was beyond her. She could not think about it, she could not face it. She could not face anything except sleep – and even then she was afraid that she might dream.

  Chapter Nine

  She had forgotten to close the curtains, so the growing brightness of the morning wakened her gently. There were sounds of life stirring through the house, unlike yesterday. This morning, it seemed, everyone was at home and ready to start the day. She might as well join them.

  She sat up and groped with her feet for her slippers. Her toes encountered something cold and faintly slimy and recoiled. She looked down to find the clingfilm that had covered her sandwiches was now draped across her slippers. She pulled it aside and slid her feet into the slippers, looking around.

  The four triangles of crustless bread, in
varying stages of destruction, were scattered across the carpet. Not a shred of chicken was to be seen and the triangles that had fallen butter side up had been thoroughly licked. It appeared that Tikki had enjoyed a very successful foray sometime in the early hours of the morning.

  Margot gathered up the bread and crumbs as best she could and decided that flushing them down the loo would be the most tactful way to dispose of them. To toss them in the waste basket might be to betray that Tikki had been on the prowl or, worse, might make Nan think that her efforts had been unappreciated.

  To reveal that Tikki had been in the house again and in her room, despite the fact that he had been uninvited, would be to reignite the smouldering feud Uncle Wilfred seemed to have with the cat. Kingsley had been right: anything for a quiet life.

  Sunday was ordinarily more than quiet enough, deadly dull and boring, actually. This Sunday, however, was different. There was a sense of urgency in the air as she descended the stairs.

  ‘You’ll have to hurry,’ Nan said, as she bustled about adjusting her hat, ‘if you’re coming to church.’

  ‘I don’t think I am,’ Margot said. ‘Not today.’

  ‘Suit yourself but, if you don’t come today, it may be some time before you do. The siege will start any minute now and we won’t be free to move about.’

  ‘I’m too jet-lagged to do any rushing,’ Margot said, ‘and I was thinking of having breakfast.’

  ‘You know where to find it.’ Nan shrugged and turned as Milly appeared. ‘Coming to church, Milly?’

  ‘Church?’ Milly said the word as though it were in a foreign language. ‘Church …?’ She drifted past, shaking her head in vague bewilderment at such an extraordinary concept.

  From upstairs, Lynette’s bell pealed out sharply.

  ‘Oh, I can’t!’ Nan glanced at her watch and hurried towards the door. ‘Tell her I’ve gone.’

  Milly continued on her way, giving no indication that she had heard a thing, and disappeared into the morning room. The house suddenly seemed empty again – or as though everyone were lying low.