Only the Cat Knows (7 page)

‘He won’t!’ She sounded very sure of herself. ‘He understands. He appreciates talent. He’s going to set me up in my own design business in the West End in London soon.’

‘Mmm-hmmm …’ Richie had the bored expression of one who had heard that before. Perhaps often — and from a variety of ‘talents’. ‘Just leave the peacocks alone, see?’

‘I suppose I can pick up any feathers I find around the grounds? They drop off all over the place. No one else wants them — and my vase is almost full.’

Madame snorted. Nina swung to face her and seemed to suddenly discover that I was there.

‘Vanessa!’ Almost visibly, you could see her deciding to use me to change the subject. ‘I didn’t notice you — I mean, I’m so glad to see you. You’re looking —’ She broke off in confusion.

‘I’m sorry.’ I smiled wanly, trusting to my pale foundation
and even paler face powder to speak of my condition. ‘I … I’m afraid I don’t … That is, I met the others at dinner last night. I didn’t see you.’

‘I wasn’t there. Inspiration called!’ She gave a virtuous sniff. ‘I was working in my studio.’

‘Vanessa —’ Madame picked up her cue. ‘This is Nina Santana.’ Her dry tone spoke eloquently of what she thought of that name. ‘She is our … resident artist. Everett always likes to have one or two around. Nina, you already know Vanessa.’

‘Of course I do.’ Nina spoke warmly. ‘Vanessa understands, too. She’s going to let me redecorate her quarters so that they truly reflect her personality.’

Is she, indeed?
I smiled vaguely. Another one staking her claim to a portion of Nessa’s life.

‘Now that you’re back, we can get started. I wanted to do it while you were away, so that it would be a wonderful surprise for you. But —’ she pouted — ‘they wouldn’t let me.’

Well, good for them
. Nessa’s quarters looked perfectly all right to me just the way they were — and I’m sure Nessa thought so, too.

‘Monica said it would have to wait until you returned. Now we can go ahead,’ she beamed.

‘Well, perhaps not right away,’ I said. ‘I don’t think I’m quite strong enough yet to face any disruption.’

‘Of course she isn’t!’ Madame snapped.

‘Have some sense, Nina,’ Richie said. ‘She needs peace and quiet for a while, not someone prancing around underfoot, changing everything.’

‘Some
stranger
,’ Madame underlined with a touch of malice. ‘Poor Vanessa doesn’t know you. She certainly won’t know what your work is like.’

‘I don’t.’ I didn’t bother with the apologetic smile. Nina was beginning to get on my nerves.

‘Oh, but you must come over to my studio! I’ll show you what I’m doing. You loved it before —’

Won’t you walk into my parlour?
I’d rather not.

‘Not right now.’ I pulled my shawl more tightly around me and gave a visible shudder. ‘I’m getting chilled, I’m afraid. I think I ought to go and lie down.’

‘An excellent idea.’ Madame, too, was fading fast. It had obviously been a strain to keep her head so high, now it lowered slowly and inexorably.

‘I’ll take you inside.’ Richie moved forward quickly.

‘Not yet!’ Madame pushed his hands away. ‘See to Nina first. Escort her safely back to her studio.’

‘Oh, I’m perfectly safe,’ Nina assured her blithely.

‘It is not
your
safety I care about!’ Madame snapped. ‘It is Percy’s. Do not let her near the peacocks.’

‘Right, Madame.’ Richie grasped Nina’s arm firmly and led her away.

‘Vanessa —’ Madame hissed as her head slumped still further to rest her chin on her collarbone.

I had to lean close to hear her.

‘Vanessa, you fool! Why did you come back?’

‘No change,’ Dr Anderson reported tersely. ‘She’s no better.’

‘But no worse?’

The flick of his eyebrow told me that the only worse left was — I refused to think of that.

‘She’s holding her own?’ I urged.

‘Such as it is.’ He shrugged uncomfortably. I still made him uneasy. The similarity — and the contrast — between the two ‘Nessas’ he was attending was almost more than he could cope with. I wondered how long he had been qualified and if this was his first post. If so, what a hornets’ nest he had been thrown into.

‘I think —’ he glanced at his watch — ‘I’ve spent a convincing length of time here now. I’d best be off on the rest of my rounds.’

‘Rounds?’

‘Oh, yes. I have some real patients, you know. Madame —’ He shook his head and sighed.

‘And Oversall himself?’ I guessed.

‘Not quite as sprightly as he used to be,’ Anderson admitted. ‘Doesn’t do any harm to keep a quiet check on him.’

‘Any others?’

‘Oh …’ He didn’t like the question. Any moment now, he was going to invoke medical ethics. ‘An ache here, a shooting pain there, a bit of general malaise. They’re all getting on, you know, even if they’d rather die before they admitted it.’

But it was Nessa, the youngest of them all, who had come so close to death. Who might still —

‘
Ooof!
’ Gloriana, who had been strolling around the sitting room, had suddenly leaped into his lap, landing badly.

‘Here —’ He lifted her up and resettled her. ‘That’s better, but you can’t stay, you know. I’m on my way.’

She responded by lifting her head so that he could stroke her throat.
Thank you, Gloriana
. That tells me he isn’t a stranger to you, you know him and trust him. He’s an accustomed visitor, probably dropping in for a cup of coffee and a chat with someone his own age after doing his rounds and treating the waxworks.

‘That’s enough.’ He lowered her gently to the floor, undisturbed by the huffy Duchess look she gave him as she stalked away. I was glad to see I wasn’t the only one she could deepfreeze. Anderson continued on his way to the door.

‘When will I see you again?’ The innocent question stopped him dead in his tracks.

He swerved around to face me with a look that combined disbelief, panic … and revulsion.

Was it because the question had sounded too feminine — or had I? Perhaps he had heard it too often from some exgirlfriend. Or even from Nessa, And here was I, so much like her — yet not her.

‘Look —’ I dropped out of character, deepening my voice — ‘you’re my only contact, the only source of information about my sister, my twin.
That’s
the only reason I give a damn about ever seeing you again!’

‘Yes, yes, of course. Sorry.’ He was struggling — whether to understand or to overcome his momentary revulsion, I couldn’t tell. ‘I — I try to call two days a week. Madame …’ He let the explanation trail off. ‘This is Tuesday. I’ll probably call again on Friday. Unless there’s an emergency’

I nodded. Having seen Madame, I understood. She was the embodiment of the expression ‘on borrowed time’.

‘Oh, and …’ Hand on doorknob, he paused. ‘Perhaps I should warn you. I’d watch my step with Nina and Kiki, if I were you. They can be a bit … erratic.’

I nodded again.
Tell me something I don’t know
.

And I wasn’t going to huddle together and swap girlish secrets with any of the others, either.

‘Are you okay now? Are you really okay? Honestly?’ Candy Shaeffer had cornered me as I headed for the library and the preprandial drinks.

‘Well, mostly,’ I said demurely. ‘Except for … um … the amnesia …’

‘Oh, that!’ Her flick of the wrist dismissed the problem as something less than an attack of hay fever. ‘Memory is greatly overrated. After all, don’t we reinvent ourselves periodically as we move along?’

Maybe you do in Public Relations, but most people take their lives more seriously
. I shrugged and produced another of my wan non-committal smiles.

‘You always agreed with me.’ Here it came again, that insistence on an intimacy that might or might not have existed. ‘We thought alike in so many ways — but there’s something different about you now.’ She eyed me thoughtfully. ‘I wonder how much all this has changed you.’

‘I wouldn’t know.’ I gave her a rueful smile this time. ‘If I can’t remember what I was like before, how can I know how much I’ve changed?’

‘I envy you,’ she said. ‘Here you are: young, pretty, bright, with the future before you and no past. You’re like a blank page.’

That’s right. And everybody was queuing up to scribble all over me. I waited for her contribution.

‘You know —’ Sure enough, it came. ‘I could do a lot with you.’ Her eyes narrowed assessingly. ‘I never did think you made enough of yourself. That mousy hair, those fade-into-the-background
clothes, no make-up. You just weren’t trying!’

Interesting — and confirming my own impression
. Nessa knew as much about costume and make-up as anyone in the business. As children, our favourite games had involved the dressing-up box and the tray of discarded lipsticks, eyeshadows and liners and all the other bits and pieces of make-up we had scrounged from older relatives and friends.

There was even a time when Nessa’s ambition had been to design costumes and stage settings. She had got off to a good start and then something had happened. A broken romance, I assumed, although I was on the other side of the world by then, so we couldn’t discuss things as we used to. Not that Nessa had shown any sign of wanting to talk about it.

But something had daunted — if not quite broken — her spirit and the next thing I heard, she had taken this secretarial job with Oversall. Licking her wounds? Skulking in her tent? Whatever, she had retreated from the world as she knew it — and found herself in a far more dangerous one. No wonder she had tried to fade into the background.

‘Vanessa!’ A hand was weaving back and forth in front of my face. ‘Are you there?’ Candy’s voice was sharp, annoyed. ‘Are you listening?’

‘Sorry …’ I swayed gracefully. ‘I … I’m not used to standing for so long …’

‘No, I’m sorry.’ But there was no contrition in her voice. ‘I should have realized that. Let’s go and have a drink. You’ll feel better.’

‘Tell me,’ I said, as we headed for the library. ‘Were we close friends?’

‘No.’ She surprised me, the first not to claim to have been my bestest closest buddy. The first honest answer I had heard around this place.

‘No, we weren’t … then.’ She turned and smiled, the
tips of her sharp white teeth gleaming below the painted curve of her lips.
Oh, the shark has pretty teeth, dear
…

‘Not then. But we can be … now.’

‘Here they are,’ Monica said. ‘We’d nearly given you up. I was afraid we’d overtired you yesterday’

‘Have a drink.’ Ivor started forward, a glass in his hand.

‘Thank you, I’d love a sherry’

‘But —’ He stopped short, looking down at the glass. ‘But you had Scotch yesterday,’ he spluttered indignantly. I’ve got it all ready for you.’

I noticed that — which was why I’d opted for sherry. A girl can’t be too careful these days. Not with drugs like Rohypnol and types like Ivor floating around.

‘Tonight I’d prefer sherry,’ I said firmly. The sherry bottle was full and still sealed.

‘But —’

‘For heaven’s sake, Ivor, give her what she wants,’ Monica said impatiently. ‘A person doesn’t have to have the same thing every night.’

‘I’ll have a sherry, too, for a change,’ Candy chimed in, giving me a conspiratorial look which was not lost on Ivor. ‘I think it’s a mistake for people to get too set in their ways.’

‘All right! All right!’ Quietly fuming, Ivor went back to the drinks table, slammed down the unwanted Scotch and began making far too much clatter as he rummaged around for the knife to cut the seal on the sherry bottle. Having done that, he pulled out the sherry glasses with unnecessary force.

‘Don’t chip those glasses, Ivor,’ Monica warned. ‘Mr Oversall chose them himself in Venice years ago. It would be hard to replace them.’

‘All right!’ Pettishly, he splashed sherry into the fragile glasses and sulked when Candy stepped forward to take both of them and bring mine to me. Whatever he had planned — whether a suggestive brush of the fingers, or
something more sinister with the Scotch — his wheel had been well and truly spoked.

I had taken a small armchair, bypassing a sofa with room for three. That didn’t please Ivor, either.

Ignoring him, I sipped my sherry demurely and looked around at my new best friends.

They were all here. Even Kiki and Nina had deigned to join us and were smiling hopefully at me.

I counted the house again and realized that only Amanda Sloane and Yvonne Beauclerc had failed to approach me. They sat together, talking quietly. I wondered what their game was.

I had a clear view when the door opened and the black-clad figure leaned into the room. As before, he met Monica’s eyes over our heads and signalled:
No
.

She nodded resignedly. She seemed to have expected nothing else.

Then, in the split second before he withdrew, I became aware that he was looking at me intently.

I glanced away, acting as though I hadn’t noticed, but I felt the shuddering chill you’re supposed to feel when someone walks over your grave. He hated me — and I didn’t know why.

What had I — what had Nessa ever done to him? Was he someone she had picked up and then abandoned on the rebound from her unhappy love affair?

He was a more likely candidate than Ivor: younger, better looking —

‘Shall we go in to dinner now?’ Monica rose, making the question rhetorical. ‘Mr Oversall won’t be joining us this evening.’

Neither would Madame. The wheelchair-sized gap beside me remained unfilled, the table setting undisturbed.

Perhaps the day had been too much for her. The argument with Nina, the warning to me and then Dr Anderson’s visit must have taken a lot out of her. She wasn’t
as strong as she used to be. I remembered the doctor’s sigh and knew it might be more than that. She needed her rest.

Yet I felt cheated. I had hoped, under the cover of light table chat, to find out something about what was going on around here. Her sudden outburst had told me that she believed Vanessa was in danger; her rudeness told me that she was probably more of a friend to Nessa than any of the other claimants sweet-talking themselves forward.