Murder on Show (5 page)

‘There's a spare room going begging there.' He pointed towards the door opening into the corridor of Committee bedrooms. ‘Rose Chesne-Malvern won't be using it. Catch
her
spending the night with a lonely, frightened cat. She's another one with better things to do. She won't mind if you use Room 121 – she won't even notice.'

He sounded pretty sure. And he had a reputation in The Street of knowing his facts, even if he did present them in a particularly bitchy way. I wondered if it had been Rose Chesne-Malvern I had surprised in the Press Gallery – and who was with her? Hugo Verrier, perhaps, they had seemed quite friendly.

Kellington was looking at me expectantly. But, again, it was something I was too tired to rise to. This Exhibition was going on for two more bloody days. Somewhere, during that length of time, I was undoubtedly going to be backed off into a corner for a long cosy chat. But, not tonight, Kellington!

‘Thanks,' I said, ‘that's a very good idea. I think I will. Good night.'

As I entered the room, I saw twin pinpoints of light reflected in the pair of eyes watching me. Pandora, nose up against the bars of a carrying case on the bedside table, wasn't sleeping, either. I was too tired to wonder what she was doing there. Possibly Rose Chesne-Malvern had been intending to stay the night and had brought her in here before changing her mind.

‘Don't let me disturb you.' I felt foolish, talking to a cat, but she was watching me so intently it seemed churlish to ignore her. ‘I'm just going to get into this bed and snatch a few hours' sleep. Is that all right with you?'

She blinked indifferently and watched between half-closed eyelids as I took off my shoes and tie, loosened my collar and belt, and got into bed. I was quite unprepared for an overnight stay, but reminded myself that these few hours of discomfort might pay dividends. I was on the spot and would surely wake if anyone went cat-comforting in the night. Also, I would be first on deck in the morning when the photographers arrived to begin shooting the Purr-fect Year.

I had settled down and begun to feel that sleep might be around the corner. I was just relaxing into a doze when the bed swayed slightly. I opened my eyes in alarm, and found myself gazing into a pair of slanted blue eyes.

‘What the hell are
you
doing here?' I muttered.

She widened her eyes and glared at me – as affronted as if
I
had crawled into
her
bed, instead of the other way round.

‘How did you get –?' I broke off. The cage door had been fastened by a simple latch device, not really proof against the manoeuvring of a clever paw. It dawned on me why she had been named Pandora.

She was still standing at my shoulder, with the air of an affronted dowager. I could get up and return her to her cage, but that was no guarantee that she would stay there. Besides, I was too close to sleep to care.

‘Oh, hell.' I surrendered. ‘All right. Just as long as you don't snore.'

She settled into the hollow of my neck and shoulder, her small silky head snaked beneath my chin. I lifted my head and wriggled about a bit, readjusting the blanket, until we were both fairly comfortable.

After a few moments, I felt the tiny muscles relax. As I drifted off to sleep, I noticed one point.

She didn't snore. She purred.

I dreamt there was a bridge party in the next room. For some reason, I was half asleep on the bed and the ladies had all piled their fur coats on top of me. The party was getting noisier by the minute, and I seemed to have a mouthful of someone's mink.

I spat out the mink coat and pushed it away. It promptly snuggled back. I pushed it again and it seemed to take exception to this. It grew sharp-pointed teeth and sunk them in the lobe of my ear. This brought me sitting upright, and the mink grew claws and climbed my chest as I sat up. It perched on my shoulders, snarling softly at me for having disturbed it.

‘Why, Mr Perkins,' a female voice said pleasantly, ‘I didn't realize you were fond of cats.'

My eyes were open and beginning to focus. Helena Keswick was standing in the doorway, smiling down at me. There seemed to be something about the nightmare I couldn't shake off – something on my shoulder. I swam a little farther back to reality and realized I was sitting up in a strange bed, with Pandora clinging to a precarious hold on my shoulder. I began to regret that suits no longer had the heavy shoulder pads that were once fashionable.

‘I'm so pleased to know that,' Helena Keswick said. ‘It looks as though Rose Chesne-Malvern may have done the right thing – for once. It would have been just like her to have hired Public Relations people who hated cats.'

Since I felt I was rapidly getting to that state myself, I didn't trust myself to speak. I simply smiled. If I was a trifle tight-lipped about it, she didn't know me well enough to notice.

‘Since you're getting along so well with Pandora –' she put a couple of tins and a carton of milk down on the table in front of the cage – ‘could I leave you to feed her? I must get back to Mother Brown.' She sailed away before I could answer.

I looked after her. Helena Keswick was wearing a long, doubtless warm, but undoubtedly clinging, nylon jersey housecoat over matching pyjamas, and looking more than ever like a sleek feline. I wouldn't have minded a mouthful of her fur.

Pandora gathered herself and took a flying leap from my shoulder to the table. She nosed hungrily at the tins and turned her head to glare at me impatiently. ‘Mrryah!' she ordered.

I got up slowly. That was a female for you every time. Out of the goodness of your heart, you let them sleep with you – and then they thought they owned you.

‘Mrryah!' I wasn't moving fast enough. But the way I felt, I was lucky to be moving at all. All I wanted now was to get back to the flat, shower, shave and change.

‘Mrryah!' But my British training prevailed. The livestock must be fed first. Perhaps because they nagged so much.

There was a tin opener amongst the oddments in a hamper under the table. I opened the tin with the orange label – from the way Pandora was nosing at it, that was the one she preferred – and wrestled with the three-cornered milk carton a while before managing to twist a corner off without spilling too much. I poured some into

Pandora's bowl then, feeling that fair was fair, took a swig myself. It wasn't as good as hot coffee, but it helped a bit. I began to feel more awake, and less like something the cat had dragged in.

Pandora finished her breakfast and I decided to return her to her pen in the Exhibition Hall before doing anything else. I'd get her settled before the photographers arrived. I picked her up and carried her down the corridor to the Hall.

Looking around, I began to feel cheered. I wasn't in this boat alone. I nodded across the aisle to Kellington Dasczo, reflecting that I knew characters who would have paid good money for a sight of him, tieless, sprouting whiskers which were several shades darker than his hair, and tottering towards the Gents with Pearlie King's earth box to empty.

‘Good morning, Mr Perkins,' Betty Lington sang out to me. Marcus Opal waved to me when I glanced his way. From all sides, I sensed an aura of approval. Now that I had stayed the night, it seemed that I had in some way proved my good faith. I was no longer an outsider paid to do the Public Relations, I was one of the gang.

Perhaps it had been worth the price of admission, after all. I was still reasonably young and in fair condition. My muscles would probably untie themselves again one day. Probably.

The cage door was swinging loosely. Pandora pawed it open and stepped inside. She walked over to her earth box, then paused and looked dubiously at the thin covering of gravel inside. I must say I agreed with her.

‘Just hang on a minute,' I said. ‘We can do better than that.'

I nipped around to Dave Prendergast's stall and filched a trial size packet of Pussy No-Poo. Pandora was still standing there, eyeing the earth tray with distaste, when I returned. I tore open the packet and emptied it into the earth tray, spreading it out evenly. Pandora stepped forward, sniffed inquiringly, patted it with a paw, then got into the box. I decided Dave could chalk the cost of the packet up to Market Research – the product was now consumer-tested. And approved.

The activity at Lady Purr-fect's stall was brewing up to fever-pitch. Innumerable characters with cameras, floodlights, light meters and associated equipment, were dancing about.

‘I'm still not happy about January,' I heard one of them say.

‘We don't have to shoot in sequence,' someone soothed. ‘Why not start with something else? How about April?'

‘I don't
feel
like April this morning.'

I was with him there – who among us did? A cold, grey, bleak November was what I felt like. But I didn't think I had a vote in the matter, so I kept quiet.

‘June,' he decided arbitrarily. ‘June and July, we'll start with. We can use that arbour with all the trees and bushes, down at the end. Quick now, before we lose the mood.'

Before someone arrived to prevent them from wrecking Dave's stall, he meant.

They swooped on Betty Lington's booth, collecting Silver Fir and, of necessity, Betty Lington herself. I followed along behind them, to watch the chaos. It always cheered me to see other people trying to work against the odds.

They took a few ‘cute' shots, then proceeded to get even cuter. ‘Why don't we put one of them up a tree and have the other one sitting at the foot looking up?'

‘Not Silver Fir,' Betty Lington bristled immediately. ‘
She
doesn't risk her neck up in some tree.'

The camera crew exchanged glances, but obviously weren't feeling hardy enough to make an issue of it. Not when Lady Purr-fect was on hand and without a champion. One of the men picked her up and started purposefully towards a medium-sized sapling. Betty Lington allowed Silver Fir to be positioned at the foot of the tree.

Neither of the cats was particularly bothered. They were pretty evenly matched: it was an inert force and an immovable object.

Just then, the sapling tilted and Lady Purr-fect lost ground by putting out her claws and digging them into a branch. They caught it and pushed it upright again, stamping down the ersatz soil to try to firm it. They got two shots before the director had another bright idea.

‘It looks sort of romantic, the two of them like that,' he said. ‘Why don't we do February here. Like Valentine's Day, you know.'

‘We can't,' someone objected. ‘There are leaves on the trees. There aren't any leaves in February.'

‘Strip the trees!' the director ordered. I looked around anxiously, but no one seemed to object. I wondered where the Security Guard was, then remembered that he was only here to see that the cats were safe. It was nothing to him if a stall were torn apart, so long as nothing was actually taken away.

‘Excuse me,' I interrupted as a couple of minions advanced upon the sapling. ‘I don't think you ought to do that. Those trees are only rented. They have to be returned to the Nursery.'

‘Who are you?' the director asked coldly.

‘I'm the PRO for this Exhibition, and,' I added, with more assurance than I felt, ‘the bill for any damage to this Stand will be sent to you.'

We settled down to a short glaring match, which was broken when Dave Prendergast rushed up. ‘What's happening?' he asked. ‘What's going on here?'

‘Absolutely nothing.' Seeing that reinforcements had arrived, the director began a strategic withdrawal. ‘We just took a couple of shots. And now –' he turned to his crew – ‘we'll do August. I always
feel
August as a Jungle Month. We'll take the Big Cats with Lady Purr-fect looking in through the bars at them. And why don't we have one of the other cats in the cage with them? For a contrast in size. Lying between their paws, perhaps?' With a strangled gasp, Betty Lington caught up Silver Fir and retreated back to her own booth. I must say I agreed with her. No one was entirely happy about the presence of the jungle cats, and that included me. I wondered if I would have accepted their presence as a good idea, had Rose Chesne-Malvern consulted me about it, instead of calling me in after the whole fait had been accompli-ed.

‘I'd like to thank you, Doug,' Dave Prendergast said earnestly. ‘I heard you as I was coming along the aisle. You kept them from wrecking my Stand. You're a real pal –'

‘Forget it,' I said. ‘It was a pleasure.'

‘If there's ever anything I can do for –'

But I had stopped paying attention. There was more dirty work afoot over by the Big Cage and, Dave notwithstanding, I was beginning to be sorry I had stepped in. At least, while they were busy stripping the leaves off trees, they couldn't be doing anything worse. Right now, they were going up and down the aisles, trying to persuade one of the owners to allow a cat to be posed in the Big Cage. Not surprisingly, they weren't having any luck.

There was only one cat in that aisle who was without someone to speak up for her. Just in case, I began moving towards the director and his crew again.

‘Aaraarah.' I recognized the little voice and pushed my way through the crowd. Pandora, looking worried, was being carried toward the Big Cage by one of the crew.

‘Oh, no, you don't!' I leaped forward and snatched her away from him. One of us was snarling, and it wasn't Pandora.

‘You, again!' The director rolled his eyes heavenwards. ‘
Now,
what's the matter? Is it your cat?'

‘No,' I said, ‘but I'm responsible for this Show, and these cats. You aren't putting
her
in that cage.'

‘Don't be absurd,' he said. ‘Didn't you read the book? Those cats are tame. It's perfectly safe.'

‘Right! Then
you
get in the cage with them,' I snarled.