Something Hidden (4 page)

‘I don’t know where you put it all. If I ate what you ate, I’d be a giant blob.’

Jenny tilted her head to the side as she took a bite of the roll. ‘You look . . . confused.’

Andrew shunted his chair back to his desk. ‘I am.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I don’t know where I’m going to start.’

‘Why didn’t you tell her “no” then?’

‘I don’t know . . . stupidity.’

There was pause in which Jenny could have made a token effort to correct him. Instead, she turned to her monitor, half-eaten mini roll in hand. ‘I can get all the news print-outs from the
time if you want? We’re not going to be able to see the police files without a bit of fudgery-doo-dah, so it’s probably the next best thing.’

‘Fudgery-doo-dah?’

‘You know what I mean: greasing palms, favour for a mate – that sort of thing.’

Andrew didn’t like working with second-hand information but he didn’t have too many options. He checked his watch. ‘I’ve got to go out in ten minutes.’

‘I can stay and work here.’

‘No, you come too. I think I’m going to need backup.’

He paused, rarely sure how to broach things with Jenny. After a moment of uncomfortable silence, she peered up from her desk and he could see the recognition in her eyes that she knew
she’d missed something. Jenny had once told him that a former teacher thought she didn’t show empathy for other people. She’d found that interesting rather than insulting and
started to learn from observing others. Sometimes, Andrew liked to watch and wait to see what her reaction would be.

It took a second or two but then Andrew saw something akin to a penny dropping. Jenny’s eyes widened ever so slightly and then narrowed again. She put the remains of the cake on her desk
and started playing with her ponytail, untying it and looping her fingers through the strands. She looked as if she was remembering something painful but Andrew didn’t know if that was
another thing she’d learned.

‘I was a student at the time of the shootings,’ Jenny said. ‘Everyone was scared to go out, especially after dark. There was that robbery and then those two students were shot
days later. There were rumours every day that someone had been spotted close to campus with a gun.’

She hadn’t said that
she
was scared.

‘How long did it take to get back to normal?’ Andrew asked.

‘A couple of weeks? People soon move on. By the time it’s getting towards the end of term, they want to go out and celebrate.’

‘Did you know the kids who were shot?’

Kids to him.

Jenny shook her head. ‘I didn’t really hang around with anyone when I was at uni.’

Andrew’s memory was patchy at best – he blamed age – but the case was recent. Sixteen months previously, Owen Copthorne and his fiancée, Wendy, had witnessed a robbery
in a local jeweller’s. Barely two days later, Luke Methodist shot them dead close to the university campus, a short distance from Oxford Road, before turning the gun on himself.

After a week of public mourning and outrage, police had arrested the Evans brothers – Kal, Aaron and Paulie, a trio of Scousers, well known to Liverpool authorities, with long criminal
records. Fibres from Aaron Evans’ shoes were found at the scene of the robbery, with one of his fingerprints discovered on the back seat of the car they’d failed to set on fire. After
police found drugs and weapons hidden at Kal Evans’ house, everything had come crashing down, though the stolen items were never found.

Andrew scratched at his hairline, trying to think. ‘Weren’t the Evans brothers sent down a few weeks ago?’

Jenny click-clacked her keyboard, nodding as she typed. ‘Three weeks back. Kal and Aaron Evans each got life for armed robbery, with the prospect of parole in fourteen years, Paulie got
eighteen years. He could be out in about nine.’

‘Why’d he get less?’

‘He wasn’t holding a gun, plus the evidence wasn’t as strong that he was there. They were never charged with organising the shooting of the witnesses, only the armed
robbery.’

Andrew nodded along, reaching into his memory. At the time they’d been charged, it had been a big story but, as with most things, it soon went away. Police believed Luke Methodist knew Kal
Evans because he bought drugs from him. It was the only link they had from robbers to killer – but there was no confession from any of the brothers.

There was speculation that Methodist owed them money and this was what they wanted as payback. Having seen what he’d done, he turned the gun on himself in shame. No one knew for sure and
it wasn’t as if Methodist could dispute things. It couldn’t be proven in court, so the CPS did the brothers for the robbery – and Owen and Wendy’s killing was officially an
unconnected crime, even if everyone knew they were killed because of what they’d seen.

It was time to go, so Andrew stood again, looking around to see where he’d left his coat.

Jenny was on her feet too, leaning over to shut down her computer and then pulling her jacket on. ‘Do you think Luke Methodist killed them both?’

‘Of course he did.’

‘Why tell Fiona you’re going to look into it then?’

‘I
am
going to.’ He couldn’t meet Jenny’s gaze, stumbling over the reply. ‘Crime has another side. Everyone talks about victims and criminals but we all
forget there are others scarred too. Sometimes the family of the victim or the perpetrator has it as hard as anyone.’

‘Right.’

Jenny accepted the explanation at face value but it was better than telling her the truth. Andrew felt sorry for Fiona and perhaps giving her a sense of closure might help him forget the girl of
a similar age who’d slit her wrists when he was supposed to be watching her.

The haunted face of Fiona Methodist sat in Andrew’s mind as he tried to forget her story, at least for an hour or so. Instead, he focused back on the woman in front of
him who hadn’t stopped talking in at least six minutes. He wasn’t even sure she’d breathed.

Margaret Watkins was quite the woman: one for whom age was merely an inconvenience. She could’ve been anywhere between forty and seventy – it was hard to tell. Her definitely dyed
brown hair was almost a separate entity, fighting against the layers of hairspray with which it had been attacked and sprouting in all directions like a dropped cauliflower.

Some research showed that non-verbal signals made up to ninety-three per cent of all communication but Margaret’s must’ve been close to one hundred – either that, or she was
practising backstroke without the pool. Every time she said something, her arms flapped manically, making her husband duck for cover at the other end of the sofa.

Jenny sat patiently, taking notes, but Andrew was wondering where Fiona had gone. He suddenly realised there was silence, with Margaret’s helicopter arms now by her side. She was looking
at him expectantly, as was Jenny.

Andrew nodded quickly. ‘Right, Mrs Watkins—’

‘It’s Margaret, dear.’

‘Margaret . . .’ Andrew glanced down at Jenny’s thumb as she tapped a note on the pad in between them. Thank goodness one of them was paying attention. ‘. . . Can you
explain exactly what an F3 Bengal cat is?’

It felt like he was reading another language but Margaret was off again, errant waft of the hand catching her husband on the side of the head as he mistimed his duck.

‘You have F1, F2 and F3 Bengals, isn’t that right, Geoffrey,’ she said.

Geoffrey winced as if expecting another blow but nodded along in agreement. He had a neat moustache but that was the only hair anywhere near his head; the rest had presumably been batted away by
his wife.

Margaret didn’t stop: ‘Back when they originally crossbred the domestic cat with the Asian leopard, that litter and subsequent ones were the F1s. The F2s were the children of those
F1s, and the F3s are the next generation.’

‘Right . . .’ Andrew blinked. ‘Sorry . . . they bred cats with
leopards
?’

She stared at him as if it was a perfectly normal thing. ‘Precisely.’

Andrew had no idea what she was on about. Cats with
leopards
? Was that a thing? What next? Dogs with goats? What was the world coming to?

Margaret’s other arm shot off towards the canvas on the wall above the fireplace. The enlarged photograph was a picture of her surrounded by what looked like a pair of miniature leopards.
The animals were a creamy orange, dotted by thick black spots.

‘Those are my babies,’ Margaret said. ‘Elvis and Presley – they’re F3s. You should only use an F1, F2 or F3 for breeding. Mine are both studs.’

Andrew felt lost – a cat was a cat, wasn’t it? He took a moment to think of a question while examining the giant photograph. The cats really did look like mini leopards. He wondered
if they roared like them. Probably not.

‘How do you know they’re F3s?’ he asked.

‘Oh, Geoffrey’s got the paperwork somewhere, haven’t you, dear?’

Before she could take his head off, Geoffrey shot towards the cabinet on the far side of the room. If he’d had any sense, he’d have kept going through the patio doors and not looked
back. The poor sod probably had a permanent concussion.

Margaret leant forward, pointing towards the photograph again. ‘Everything has to be documented. You need birth certificates and proof of heritage. That’s why Elvis and Presley are
so valuable.’

‘How much are the cats worth?’

‘Oh, darling, I hate to think of it in terms of money – they’re part of the family . . .’ She paused, picking at an errant fingernail. ‘. . . But it’s tens of
thousands.’

Andrew chose the wrong moment to breathe in, almost swallowing his tongue and having to rely on Jenny to pat him on the back in order to not choke to death.

Tens of thousands?! For a cat! Even if she was exaggerating – which she probably was – the amount sounded ridiculous.

‘Do you want some water?’ Margaret began clicking her fingers in Geoffrey’s direction as Andrew croaked that he was fine. Moments later and she was back in full flow:
‘While we were out last week, someone came over our fence, drilled through the locks on the back door and snatched both cats. Poor Elvis and Presley must be terrified.’

Andrew had just about recovered some composure but was making sure he steered away from finance-based questions before breathing. Tens of thousands? Tens?
Of thousands?
What in the name
of all that is holy was going on?

‘Was anything else taken?’ he managed.

‘No – that’s why we know the thieves came specifically for them.’

‘What did the police say?’

Margaret’s face sank into a grimace, as if she was being force-fed sprouts. ‘Bah, useless, aren’t they? They came out with their rubber gloves and dusting stuff but they
couldn’t find anything. When we told them it was just the cats that had gone, they lost interest. Apparently, cat theft isn’t considered a crime because they can just wander off. You
would’ve thought the drilled locks were a clue.’

‘So the police are not even looking for your cats?’

‘They said “it’s not a priority”, isn’t that right, Geoffrey?’ Margaret looked over her shoulder but her husband was keeping his head down, sorting through
the papers in the cabinet at the back of the room, well out of harm’s way. ‘They’re microchipped, of course,’ she added. ‘Well, they were.’

‘Chipped?’

Margaret nodded. ‘Both of them are registered with the Governing Council of the Cat Fancy—’

‘The what?’

That was one Andrew couldn’t let go.

‘The Governing Council of the Cat Fancy. It’s where you register pedigree cats. I took them down to London to have them chipped, which should mean they’re traceable via GPS.
Whoever stole them must have taken the chips out because, as soon as we got home, I went on the computer and checked – but there was nothing showing.’

‘So whoever stole them knew what they were doing?’

‘Exactly – that’s what I told the police. We were trying to get them to breed with a pair of queens across the city but we’d only just introduced them to each other when
this happened. We’ve asked around within the cat community but nobody seems to have heard anything.’

Andrew assumed she meant they’d asked
humans
within the ‘cat community’ – but he wouldn’t have put money on it.

‘How much might a litter be worth?’ he asked.

‘It depends on how many kittens there are and if they all survive. I’ve heard of some going for a hundred thousand or more.’

Andrew was careful with his breathing this time – but he still nearly lost it. Bloody hell: a hundred grand for some cats? He was definitely in the wrong business. Forget that –
everyone was in the wrong business. He wondered how much money there might be in breeding goat-dogs.

Margaret muttered something under her breath, before leaping to her feet and sending her cup of tea flying from the armrest.

‘Fiddlesticks,’ she said, turning in a circle until she was facing Geoffrey. ‘Darling, I’m going to show them the set-up but, er . . .’

‘I’ll clean it up.’

Andrew and Jenny followed Margaret through the house, noting the array of faint tea-coloured stains on the carpet and skirting boards. This was clearly not an isolated incident. She led them
through the kitchen until they were in the garden, where the green of the lawn was tinged with a powdery white dusting, each step making a satisfying icy crackle.

Margaret pointed up towards a tall sheet of wire mesh that extended for half a metre above the wooden fence. ‘That’s our freedom fence,’ she said. ‘It allowed Elvis and
Presley to go for a walk around the garden but was too tall for them to climb. If they got too close to the edge, it would give them a gentle electric shock.’

Andrew peered up at it. Although too tall for cats, a human could easily scale the fence. With gloves, they probably wouldn’t feel the shock. Andrew pointed at the pristine flowerbeds.
‘Did the police check all this?’

Margaret turned to head back towards the house, nodding. ‘They had a whole team come in to check for footprints and all sorts. They went away but came back and said there was nothing to
find. We had to have the back door replaced, plus we got the rest of the locks redone for good measure. It’s Edie I feel most sorry for.’