Only the Cat Knows (26 page)

I had my hands full — literally — with Yvonne and we were
swaying
too close to the edge again.

The cat looked from me to the tower door. Perhaps I was beginning to get through to her. Then her tail bushed out afresh and she backed towards the parapet. Her eyes grew huge and round as she stared at the door to the stairwell.

Over a sudden lull in the chanting, I heard a strange clicking scrabbling sound from the stairwell.

Yvonne had begun a low vicious monotone. I didn’t understand French — which was probably just as well — but she was obviously cursing me thoroughly.

To hell with her, too! I kept watching the cat as her mouth opened in a snarl and she did some cursing of her own, drowned out as the chanting began to swell in volume. I followed her gaze to the tower door in time to see shadows moving there.

With something between a triumphant bark and a menacing growl, Brutus burst through it and out on to the walkway, Bud right behind him holding tightly to the other end of his leash, trying to keep him under control.

Yvonne and the cat both shrieked. Probably I did, too.

Brutus lunged forward and I let go of Yvonne. He and Bud could take over now. My concern was for the Duchess. I swooped her into my arms before Brutus could notice her.

Then it happened so fast I hardly had time to blink.

There was a final scream as Yvonne backed away from the charging Alsatian, overbalanced and fell from the aperture she had destined for me.

Brutus thrust his head through it and looked down, whining at being deprived of his prey. Bud moved forward and there was a clunk as his foot struck the monks’ choir, sending it hurtling into the void after Yvonne as the voices rose in a crescendo.

There was a muted thud I didn’t want to think about, followed by a distant clatter as the monks’ voices were silenced for ever.

Silence. I clutched the Duchess and we buried our faces in each other’s necks.

As from a great distance, I heard Bud say: ‘Down, Brutus, down! Friends. Good boy. Sit!’

Then: ‘I heard all that chanting, so I came to see what was up. And I heard screaming. Are you all right, Miss Vanessa?’

A comforting arm draped across my shoulders, an avuncular hand dropped to give my arm an encouraging squeeze — and froze when it encountered a firm bicep.

‘Miss Nessa?’ His voice faltered uncertainly. I raised my head and met his puzzled eyes.

‘You’re not Miss Va —’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m not.’

She was sleeping. Breathing smoothly and evenly, her colour almost back to normal, her hair growing back in short curly tendrils. The best sight I’d seen since I got back to England.

‘I don’t know when she’ll wake up,’ Dr Anderson warned. ‘It’s best to let her do so naturally. It may be some time.’

‘That’s all right.’ I drew a chair up to the bedside and settled into it. ‘I’ll wait.’

‘We also,’ Madame said. Oversall positioned her wheelchair beside me and pulled up a chair for himself. All the next of kin.

‘Well …’ Anderson was in full disapproving medic mode, but unable to do anything about it since the entire private hospital belonged to Oversall.

‘You
do
realize —?’ He was safer frowning at me and the offering in my arms. ‘Most people bring flowers.’

‘She’ll be happier with this.’ The room was already so crammed with flowers that it looked like a florist’s shop.

‘She will, indeed,’ Oversall said. The decisive word.

‘Well …’ Unsatisfactory, but Anderson obviously wanted to keep this job. ‘I have other patients …’ With an
On your heads be it
shrug, he left the room.

‘Now.’ I turned to face Oversall. ‘Are you going to tell me what’s been happening?’ I hadn’t seen him for a couple of weeks, not since that nightmare night when he had been brought to stand looking down at Yvonne’s broken body and think his own thoughts.

‘There isn’t much to tell.’ His face shuttered. ‘Everything has been taken care of.’

Swept under the carpet with the golden broom
, he meant.

‘Yvonne was with us for a very long time.’ Madame did not look at him. ‘We have returned her to her native France. Her family were satisfied with the arrangements. They were generous. My nephew will … notice her absence.’

‘I see.’ I did. Generous arrangements — and the family would also have been made aware that a major scandal about Yvonne was being covered up. No wonder they were satisfied. And it was Aunt Madame, was it? I filed that one away for later contemplation.

‘And Kiki?’ I asked. ‘I suppose you shipped her back to her family, too?’

‘We did everything necessary, everything possible. They, also, were — not happy, but satisfied with the arrangements.’

As they say, money can’t buy happiness, but it can certainly make misery more comfortable.

‘Francesca —’ Oversall said heavily, before I could enquire about her. ‘We still don’t know. We have no idea where the body is hidden. It’s … unfortunate that you didn’t find out from Yvonne what she did with her.’

‘Sorry to be so incompetent,’ I said. ‘But I was fighting for my life at the time.’

‘Do not be angry.’ Madame leaned over and put her hand on my arm. ‘It is over now.’

Was it? I wondered if Oversall thought so.

The cat stirred in my arms. She had been staring from the motionless figure on the bed to me and back again for some time. Now she wanted to get closer to investigate.

I set her down gently on the side of the bed and she crept forward delicately, nose twitching.

We all watched her with varying degrees of gratitude. There was nothing left to say — and it was something to occupy us.

Closer and closer she moved, until the cold wet nose
touched Nessa’s cheek. Nessa smiled in her sleep and instinctively stretched out a hand. The cat curled into it. Nessa’s smile widened and her eyelids fluttered open. As I had noticed myself, it was a lovely way to be awakened.

‘Glori —’ she whispered. Her eyes opened the rest of the way and she saw me. ‘Gloriana —’

‘Both your Glorianas,’ I said. ‘Although she strikes me as more of a Dowager Duchess.’

‘You think so?’ Her eyes began to shut again. The cat stretched out beside her and began purring loudly, no longer concerned that there seemed to be two of us.

‘What …?’ She was fading. 1 … doing here?’

‘Just rest.’ Oversall rose to hover over her protectively. ‘You’re safe now.’

‘Everett …’ She greeted him faintly, there seemed to be genuine affection in her smile. She looked beyond him. ‘And Madame …’ There was affection for her, too.

‘Go back to sleep,’ Madame said. ‘All is well.’

‘Is it?’ She looked wildly at me for a moment, struggling for something she ought to remember. ‘Vance — have I missed your Opening Night?’

‘No, I haven’t got a show yet. I’ve been … sidetracked.’

‘Don’t worry.’ Oversall was back to speaking with his usual assurance. ‘We’ll find something for him to do.’