Cat Out of Hell (17 page)

And then we both heard and felt it together – something softly landing on the roof of the car. Watson barked, and I told
him to shoosh. If I had been sensible, I’d have started the engine and used the windscreen wipers – and driven off smartly, as well. But it wasn’t as simple as that; for one thing, I couldn’t bear to disturb our feeble, snowy cocoon. Also, it wasn’t just that I didn’t want to see what was out there: I absolutely didn’t want
it
to see
me
.

“Perhaps it will go away,” I whispered to Watson.

But from the roof of the car, it jumped down and landed on the bonnet – the car bouncing a little, but not enough (thank goodness) to shift the snow on the windscreen. Paralysed, with one hand on the ignition key, and the other across Watson’s shoulders, I could make out the merest dark shape beyond the layers of glass and snow – moving from side to side, as if sniffing at the snow, less than fifteen inches from my face. Watson growled, and I couldn’t blame him. I felt like growling myself. Ten seconds must have passed like this, and then another ten. And then, just as I was withdrawing my hand from Watson, to take the steering wheel, and whispering, “It’ll be all right,” a huge cat’s paw struck violently at the windscreen, and we both jumped in the air. The first strike was followed by a rapid volley of blows –
Bam! Bam! Bam, bam, bam!
– that shattered the caked snow and sent it flying in shards – and revealed the terrifying sight of the Captain on the Volvo’s bonnet, huge and black and yowling, and at extremely close range.

“Get off my car!” I shouted (I wish I could say I thought of something better than that, but I didn’t).

“Wuff, wuff, wuff! Wuff, wuff, wuff, wuff!” said Watson.

“Get off, get off!” I repeated.

“Wuff, wuff, wuff!” repeated Watson.

I started the engine and the windscreen wipers. Undeterred, the cat continued to beat at the glass, his claws making bright white dents and pits. What were those claws
made of
, for goodness’ sake? And what could I do? I couldn’t help
remembering the mess he’d made of that carrel in the library. What if the next thing he tore to pieces and left a claw stuck in (by way of gory calling-card) was
me
? My only option was to put the car in gear and gingerly move off. Surely the Captain would jump clear once we were in motion? But he didn’t. In fact, he seemed to think nothing of balancing on the snowy, slippery bonnet of a slow-moving Volvo driven without much conviction by a recently retired periodicals librarian who hadn’t had a proper meal for days.

“Get off my car!” I yelled again.

But he clung on easily, and kept chopping and bashing at the windscreen, which was – oh God! – beginning to crack and fracture. Again, I blame my foolish decision to pass up the chance of a quick sausage sandwich at a Little Chef; it might have made all the difference. Because, contrary to my normal
Hamlet-
y disposition, I failed to think things through. Rightly it occurred to me that braking to throw the Captain off was out of the question because Watson was unharnessed and might be hurt. But beyond that, I just couldn’t think, so I did a ridiculous thing: I accelerated. On the slippery road, I revved the engine and drove fast towards the gateway to Harville Manor, all the while shouting at the cat (absurdly) to
get off the car
; and then made an abrupt turn, hoping the Captain would be thrown clear simply by the sudden change in direction. But I lost control of the turn. And when the car slid to the right (as it was bound to), it hit the right-hand gate post broadside with considerable momentum. “Watson!” I said. The bang as we hit the post was terrific. The Captain shot off and hit a brick wall. The back door on my side caved in, and poor Watson was thrown sideways against the passenger door (and I have to admit, he screamed).

The good thing was, when the dust settled, the Captain had disappeared from view. The bad thing was, I had probably
now written off the car, and the snow was falling more heavily than ever.

But the engine was miraculously still running, so I risked attempting to drive off. With a scrunch and rasp of metal, I edged the Volvo forward, unable to make out anything much about the way ahead – what with the snow and the damaged wipers and the buggered glass. Where was the Captain? There was no sign. Had he run away? Was he lying in front of the car? Was he possibly … dead? Well, I will never forget the strange satisfaction of feeling the car mount a tell-tale bump on the road, and drop down again. “Oops,” I said aloud. I couldn’t be sure it was him, because I couldn’t see. But if that was the Captain being run over by my battered car – well, hooray. Halfway up the drive, I stopped and gave Watson a reassuring hug – but it was more for my own reassurance than for his. Had the dear dog been hurt? He had hit the door with force, but he appeared to be all in one piece – and, for the first time since we had set out that day, I saw his tail wag a little, as if he were enjoying himself. One never knows how much of a situation a dog is taking in. I mean, I couldn’t swear to it, because I was a bit traumatised at the time – but I
think
, when we ran over the Captain (or possibly it was when I quickly reversed and drove over the bump for a second time, just to be sure), I heard a Daniel Craig voice beside me make the laconic remark, “Nice one.”

I need hardly say that running over the Captain had not been part of my plan. But let’s face it, I had no plan. So if the Captain was dead, did it matter that it wasn’t a big dramatic end – involving crucifixes and exposure to daylight and a stake through the heart? As I carried on driving at a snail’s pace towards the house – the car hardly gripping at all on the snowy driveway – I was reminded of a something Mary’s father used to say about playing golf, when he’d shot a quite poor round
technically but had nevertheless emerged with a decent score. “There are no pictures on the scorecard, Alec!” Well, I suddenly saw the truth of this peculiar statement of the obvious – because, narratively satisfying or not, the score at present was:

Alec 1            Cats 0

– and that was surely good enough, even if the Great Cat of Cat Evil had just been vanquished, sort-of unintentionally, under the wheels of a classic Swedish saloon car of legendarily robust construction.

But I soon forgot the Captain in any case, because, arriving at the house, I had my first sight of Roger. Yes, Roger was here! And when I first spotted him – sitting high up on one of those curly-wurly Elizabethan chimneys, solemnly swinging his grey tabby tail, and watching us proceed up the drive – I’m ashamed to say my heart leapt. Despite his proven wickedness, there was something in Roger that simply captivated me. How unlike the Captain he was in every regard! Of course, I shouldn’t forget that the two cats had a lot in common. Both Roger and the Captain were Nine Lifers – with all the concomitant Nietzschean overtones. They had both travelled romantically through the remains of ancient civilisations, often by moonlight, reading and reciting poetry; they had hob-nobbed with the Durrells; most impressive of all, they had mastered the complexity of Greek ferry timetables. According to the photograph in the “Roger” file, they had also both lazed happily in the grass beneath the swinging corpse of a man who had been their nominal Master in this world. But now they were poles apart. Whereas the Captain now seemed to represent only the worst things in cats (murderous instinct, territorial violence, shattering toughened windscreens with bare claws), Roger stood for all that was best – elegance, beauty, fine whiskers, and supreme intellectual poise.

I got out of the car and sank an inch or two into the thick snow.

“Roger?” I called. With three or four neat bounding motions, Roger descended to the ground to meet me. It was like a dream.

“Alec,” he said.

He knew me. How on earth did he know me? I didn’t care. He held out a paw; I bent down and shook it. His eyes were so green. No one had mentioned before the sheer beauty of Roger’s piercing green eyes.

“Welcome to hell,” he said, and laughed. I laughed too. Good grief, I couldn’t believe it. It was the Vincent Price voice – in person!

“We ought to get inside. We don’t have long to get organised. Did you bring the dog?”

I said yes, I had brought him. Again, how did he know about the dog? What was it that needed to get organised? From inside the car, Watson barked.

“Ah, Watson,” said Roger. “Come at once if convenient. If inconvenient, come all the same.”

Five minutes later, we were inside the manor, which was no improvement, temperature-wise; it was considerably colder, in fact. Stamping my feet, I stood at a leaded window overlooking the darkening orchards while Roger sat on the wooden sill and indicated features of interest near to the house. Watson I had tied up in a far corner, and he had finally stopped barking – which was a relief, because everything echoed spookily in this shell of a house. To whom did Harville Manor now belong, I wondered. To Prideaux? Was this where he had always been when his cardigan was so artfully hung on the back of that chair in Special Collections, and the rest of us had covered
for him? If so, he certainly hadn’t bothered to make it comfortable for himself here. No power was switched on; a few old office chairs had been herded into a dark corner; a few stubs of candles had been left around on the naked oak floorboards. Any vague and far-fetched hopes I might have entertained concerning a nice welcome-to-Dorset afternoon tea in front of a big manorial log fire were now in ruins. To someone who had insanely passed up his every chance for an infusion of sausage sandwich on the road, this was very hard.

“There’s the old well over there,” said Roger. I looked, obediently. My stomach made a little growling noise.

“There’s a story attached to it, of course, about witches, but it takes 48 minutes so I shan’t start.”

I laughed. “That’s a shame,” I said.

“I know, but there you are. There’s the tree where Seeward hanged himself. I expect you want to know all about Seeward?”

“Yes, please. I’ll get a chair.”

“Oh, but that would take at least an hour.”

I located a chair and pulled it over to the window. I needed not to be standing.

“There,” I said, with a puff as I sat down. “It was a long drive.”

“Of course, yes,” said Roger, understandingly. “And what time did you run over the Captain?”

He said it as if he were inquiring what time I’d come through Dorchester.

“I’m sorry?” I said. “What time did I do
what
?”

“You ran him over, Alec. It’s OK. I just need to know roughly when you did it.”

“Well, it was just now.”

“Good. So we’ve got about an hour before he comes back.”

“You mean – ?”

“Of course.”

“He’ll come back?”

“Of course he will. That’s why we’re here, Alec.”

“Right, yes.”

Deep down, I had known this. But it was sad to see that my scorecard was as undependable as the sat nav. It had just reverted to:

Alec 0                   Cats 0

“Pay attention, Alec,” said Roger. “This is no time for one of your mental digressions. The Captain must be stopped, and the book you stole will help us. Seeward wrote it all down, you see. How to dispose of Nine Life cats – and their master – for good and all. That’s why Seeward left instructions for it to be burned. That’s why the Captain has been so desperate to get it back. Now, there are two stages to defeating the Captain, the method for both of which is specified in Seeward’s book –”

I interrupted him. I couldn’t help it. I was nearly in tears. Someone was actually telling me something! “Roger,” I gushed, “thank you, thank you for telling me all this.”

“You’re welcome. But –”

“It’s been really hard!”

“Yes, I’m sorry. It must have been.”

“So thank you. That’s all I wanted to say. Thank you.”

“Right.”

“That’s all. Sorry.”

“That’s fine. Now where was I?”

“You were saying there were two stages to destroying the Captain.”

“Oh yes. The point is, we must deprive him of both his powers and his immortality. The first requires us to employ the Great Debaser – which we might not have access to. But the second is by far the more important in any case.”

“Roger?” I said.

“Yes?”

I hesitated. I wanted to say that I loved the way he had said “more important” rather than “most important” in that sentence. But perhaps it would be inappropriate to comment on matters of correct English at such a critical moment, so I just said, “Nothing. Go on.”

“I happen to know,” he said, “that all Nine Lifers lose their immortality if the Great Cat Master is killed by one of his own cat minions.”

“Yes?”

Roger took a deep breath and then said quietly, “I have vowed to kill Prideaux and I will do it this day.”

My mind raced. This was quite a big development. Didn’t it mean that now Roger would be mortal himself?

I didn’t know what to say. What I
wanted
to say was, “Roger, I can’t even remember why I’m here any more; I’m losing my grip.” Instead, I said weakly, “Roger, have you got a plan, then? I thought I had a plan, but you know what it’s like when you wake up from a dream and the plan isn’t a plan after all; it turns to water in your brain? It’s like that! But it sounds like you’ve got a good one. Have you? Have you got a plan?”

He laughed.

“You know about Prideaux?” he said, jumping down from the windowsill. “Of course you don’t know
everything
about Prideaux, but if I told you
everything
about him it would take 106 minutes and that’s no good because he’ll be here in half an hour. My plan concerns Prideaux first, and then the Captain, and then … me.”

He paused. It was fascinating watching his great cat-brain at work. I felt totally useless – and it must have showed, because Roger evidently felt the need to console me.

“Your running over the Captain gives my plan much more chance of success, though, Alec.”

“Really?”

“Yes. And actually, by the time Prideaux gets here, the snow on top of the Captain’s body will be quite deep, so with any luck Prideaux will run him over again, giving us yet another hour of breathing space.”