To Catch a Creeper (21 page)

‘Twice – in the bath. But I didn’t see anything moving.’

‘Mmm. Pop him on the scales.’

***

‘And then there’s Aelurostrongylus abstrusus, Toxascaris leonina…’ She’s weighed Tic-Tac, inspected his claws, prised open his mouth to check his teeth, noted it all down and is now talking in tongues. Maybe the divorce-to-be has upset her more than she’s admitting.

‘They can’t hurt…humans, can they?

‘Too right they can,’ she scribbles a note on a printed pad. ‘Cat worms are nasty creatures, you know. Toxocara cati can cause vision impairment and Toxoplasma gondii, which strictly speaking is a parasite related to the malaria bug, can be very serious in pregnancy.’

‘Pregnancy?’ Like Rosa.

‘Signs are high temperature, vomiting, diarrhoea.’

‘In the cat or your pregnant best friend?’

‘Cat. Although probably similar symptoms in best friends.’ Her glum face breaks into the briefest of smiles. ‘Or rather pregnancy in general.’

‘Tic-tac’s still being sick.’ There was another little pile on the floor yesterday.

‘And,’ she turns back to her PC and scrolls up the page, ‘his temperature was rather high.’

‘Oh my God! Oh my good God!’ I find myself saying in an increasingly hysterical tone.

So there it is, I surmise, driving home while Tic-Tac wanders loose round the back seat like Lord of the Manor, having disintegrated the £4 cat carrier the vet persuaded me to cough up for. I’d prayed for an excuse not to visit Rosa, and it was handed to me on a plate. A plate that I was reluctant to hold.

The vet gave him an injection to stop the fleas and hundreds of packets of pills for the multitude of worms that he’s possibly harbouring.

After she realised how horror-struck I was about Rosa and how I wanted to ring her straight away or call another ambulance, she backtracked a little, saying you don’t only get toxoplasmosis from cats and that masses of people carry it, especially if you’re over the age of thirty or French. And, she added, it would be difficult to find out if Tic-Tac had it at any rate because it’s not like worms which poke out of a cat’s backside and the only other way to see is to have these antibody tests a month apart…by which time she would have had the baby (I explained how far gone she was). And then she added that as
my pregnant best friend had been living with Tic-Tac up until the time she conceived and had been brought up with cats, then she’d be likely one of those people who’d had it ages, in which case she’d be quite safe. So I calmed down a bit…but it’s left me with an excuse – Rosa can’t possibly come over now. If anything happened to the baby, well…it doesn’t bear thinking about.

‘How is he?’ Declan meets me on the front step, his forehead one big worried frown.

‘They’ve taken some blood, given him flea treatments and are running further tests. I’ve got some tablets and a ginormous bill.’ I stopped feeling sorry for the vet and her marital problems when she handed it to me. £130 for a ten minute consultation and a few drugs. Over £600 an hour and she’s implying she’s skint? She’s not the one with a husband going round buying enormous ovens on zilch salary.

‘What type of tablets?’ The cause of most of my angst says with alarm.

‘Only…’ And then I stop because I can always use Tic-Tac as an excuse to take time off ‘work’. ‘Very serious tablets. Very very strong.’

‘Where is he?’

‘The car. You’d better fetch him in.’ I’m not touching him now, not after all that worms out-of-backside talk.

Way
too much information.

***

‘She’s in here.’

I’m walking with Alec down the hospital corridor. Rosa’s had her baby. I know. Unbelievable. Alec’s so proud and Rosa’s just fine he says. We head along another corridor and up a lift…

‘It was a short labour. But natural.’

‘Good for her.’

‘No pethidine, no epidural, nothing.’

‘Impressive,’ I whistle.

‘Did you have any drugs, Cathy?’ We reach the third floor and the lift doors open to reveal another corridor. ‘When you were delivering?’

‘Some,’ I say. ‘Only soft though. So tell me, is it a boy or a girl?’

‘Wait and find out,’ he laughs, as we head down another maze-like corridor. Will we ever get there? A few seconds later, Declan appears from another lift. ‘Hi, Cathy. God he’s amazing.’

‘You’ve been to visit the baby? Without me?’

‘Yes. According to ecologists, who…’

I ignore his ramblings and walk over to the bed, Rosa’s lying there, all made up, beautiful rosy cheeks and sporting a yellow smock-like nightie.

‘Over there,’ she points with a proud self-satisfied smile. ‘In the crib.’

I excitedly pull back the little lace cover. Will it look like Rosa or Alec or…?

I step back in horror. It’s a great big heaving tapeworm, with a slimy pink flicking tongue, and it’s wriggling and rolling and Alec barges me out of the way and begins feeding him grains of rice with an oversized plastic spoon. Suddenly the fire alarm goes off, Rosa starts singing, ‘London’s burning, London’s burning’, Declan drops to his knees, lifts one foot like he’s about to sprint start, then runs, shouting out as he goes, ‘Every Man for Himself’, while Alec tugs at my arm, with this funny soft girly voice.

‘Mum! Mum!’ he’s saying.

‘What is it! What is it!’ I scream and sit up.

‘Calm down, Mummy.’ Sophie’s pyjama-clad arms swoop around my neck as she gives me a big cuddle. ‘It’s only the phone. Someone’s calling us.’

Phew, I drop my head back to the pillow. Thank God. Rosa having her baby without telling me. Declan seeing it first. What a horrible, horrible nightmare.

‘Open the curtains,’ I say. ‘Get a bit of light in here.’

‘But it’s still dark,’ she says, climbing under the duvet just as the ringing starts up again.

‘What!’ My eyes flit to my mobile, five-fifteen a.m. I throw off the duvet and rush downstairs to the hall.

It’s a woman. And she’s laughing down the line. Just plain laughing in a dreadful witch-like cackle. At this time of the morning. Who the hell…?

Am I still in the nightmare? Is this part two? And there’ll be another one, then another where I keep waking up.

‘Cathy.’

‘Henrietta?’

‘Oh, Cathy…’

And then I realise she’s not laughing, she’s crying, gulping, sobbing.

‘It’s Neil. He’s been arrested…’

Chapter 20

I walk into the police station and go up to the desk.

‘I’m looking for…’

‘Cathy, over here!’ Henrietta calls out. I round the corner and there she is. My heart gives a pang when I see her. She looks dreadful, her cheeks tear-stained, complexion paper-white. Her lips… Actually her lips look fine. Just the right amount of plumpness. Henrietta’s always had good lips.

‘How’s Neil?’

‘About how you’d expect. He’s in there.’ She jerks her head at a small room behind us. ‘They’re quizzing him right now.’

‘Who’s looking after the twins?’

‘My mum. Happened to be visiting.’

My heart pangs again. How I wish I had a mum who’d happen to be visiting when Declan got arrested. My own mother died before the kids were born. Never even had a chance to meet them or babysit. My dad well, he was a rat, left when I was a baby and my brother, Keith, a toddler. But enough about me.

It’s Henrietta who needs help now.

‘Luckily, he has an alibi for the times and dates of the robberies, but they still want to know what he was doing walking the streets. He was caught on CCTV.’

‘Was he wearing his…?’ I catch the eye of the young sergeant on duty and slide my hand against my mouth so he can’t see, ‘Baa, baa,’ I bleat quietly.

‘And mock fur stole,’ she says in a normal voice. ‘Don’t worry. It’s too late. Everyone saw. It’s just too awful.’

‘Maybe we can say he was on the way back from a fancy dress party?’

‘Maybe,’ she sighs in a dispirited way. ‘I bought him in clothes,’ she holds up a JD Sports bag, ‘but he’s not been given a chance to change. He’s always more vulnerable when he’s dressed as a woman. Oh look, here he is…’ The door swings open and Neil walks out, looking tired, dejected. His mascara has smeared on his cheeks and he’s carrying one shoe – a broken heeled burgundy stiletto with the gold clasp just behind the toe.

‘If you just sign here, sir…or madam?’ The desk sergeant hands him a pen.

‘What did they say, darling?’ Henrietta rushes up and kisses him.

‘They have me pinned as a suspect. Reckon I might be working in cahoots. They think the burglar’s been casing the joints on foot, that I might have been the one doing the casing.’

‘Yes, that’s what I thought.’

Both Henrietta and Neil turn and give me curious looks. ‘I meant the casing on foot, not that
you
were doing it, of course. Well you know the parking problems round Crouch End.’

Henrietta hands him the bag. ‘I’ve bought you some clothes, babes.’

‘Thanks, love.’

Neil looks a sorry state as he heads to the toilet while Henrietta slumps down onto a seat, doe-eyed. There must be something I can do. There must be… I spy the police officer who followed him out. He’s standing at reception chatting to the young desk sergeant.

‘Can I have a brief word?’ I ask. ‘In private.’

He nods and we step outside onto the pavement.

‘Inspector Willis.’ He shakes my hand. ‘And you are?’

‘Cathy O’Farrell. Local Neighbourhood Watch.’ I just stop myself from saluting and saying, ‘At your service, sir.’ Instead I take on a slightly flirtatious role, stroking my throat lightly with the tips of my fingers, like they advise in body language programmes. ‘Look, Officer, Inspector, you must realise, this is very sensitive. Neil, the man you just arrested, he’s…’

‘We didn’t actually arrest him. We just invited him in for questioning.’

Yeah at three or whatever it was in the morning. I swap my cynical smile for as pleasant as I can muster. ‘He and his wife, they really don’t want it getting out, the clothing thing.’

‘No.’ He nods.

‘I mean just because he’s a pervert doesn’t mean he’s a robber.’

‘He’s a pervert!’ he says aghast.

‘No, no…’ Why did I say that? I blame Janet. ‘Strike that from your records, please Officer. I meant, just because he’s a tranny doesn’t make him a pervert nor a robber.’

‘You’re right, it doesn’t.’ He bends both knees.

‘I’ve known him years. I can vouch for his character. He’s a nice man. A really nice man. A family man. If his kids’ school friends and their parents find out…’

‘I understand.’

‘No you don’t. He’s always been…’

‘Look,’ he says in a quiet but sharp voice, ‘I hear what you’re saying but we really don’t discriminate here at Hornsey Police Station.’

‘You don’t?’

‘Certainly not.’ He gives me a friendly uncle grin. ‘We’re a broadminded force.’

***

‘Don’t discriminate? Broadminded force? Friendly uncle grin? My arsehole!’ Henrietta seethes as we climb into my car.

‘Well that’s what he said and he seemed really sincere.’

‘Yes, but of course he’s hardly likely to admit they go out of their way to target black youths, gays and sexual deviants, is he?’

I cast a quick glance in my mirror at Neil who’s sitting in the back looking sheepish. ‘She wasn’t meaning you.’ I give a light laugh.

‘No,’ Henrietta says exasperated, ‘of course not, but…you need to stop this, Neil. You really do. Just until it’s over.’

‘But I can’t.’ His sheepishness turns to a mule-like stubbornness. ‘I just can’t.’

We drive home in silence.

***

‘Something wrong with your washing machine?’

Wednesday morning. Two days since the arrest and Mrs Baker, the elder, is standing on my doorstep leaning with both hands resting on a walking stick, a duck’s head engraved on the tip. As I said my goodbyes earlier I reassured Henrietta and Neil that it would all work out and the Creeper would be caught before long, but they seemed more than doubtful and not a little depressed. Even the presentation of my big fat file, forty pages long at last count, failed to cheer them up. Maybe because she skimmed straight through to the back where the last five sheets were photographs, the final page being me with my Neighbourhood Watch badge proudly on show. Maybe she thought it was a bit self-indulgent. Or maybe she thought it was all too little too late.

‘Not that I know of. Why?’

‘I have a perfectly good one indoors you know and if you want to borrow it, you’re more than welcome. No need to let pride stand in the way.’

‘But ours is fine,’ I say puzzled. ‘At least it was last time I looked.’ Unless Declan decided to reorganise the kitchen again and put another couple of ovens in its place.

‘So then why were you in the launderette?’

‘Why was I…?’ I gulp. The words ‘been’, ‘you’ve’ and ‘rumbled’ churn around my brain before snapping into place.

‘I saw you from the W7. Yesterday. You were pulling clothes out of a dryer.’

‘Oh.’ I quickly glance backwards. Declan’s coming down the stairs.

‘That wasn’t me,’ I hiss.

‘Oh yes it was,’ she scoffs. ‘I might be partially deaf but I’ve always prided myself on my vision.’

‘Hello.’ Declan gives Mrs Baker a wave and goes straight to the kitchen.

‘It might have been…my…my sister.’ I step outside and close the door behind me.

‘Sister?’

‘Twin…sister…er…’ I glance over her head at a McVitie’s truck trundling up the road. ‘Jaffa.’

‘Jaffa? You have a sister called Jaffa? Did your mother have Iranian blood?’

‘No. She was called Jaffa because she liked eating Jaffa Cakes. Her real name’s Tabatha.’

‘How nice to have a twin.’

‘Yes…well, it was sometimes, but God did we fight, whoo-ee, like cat and dog.’

‘And she lives round here?’

‘Hampstead. But she drops downhill to Crouch End to do her washing. Much cheaper machines. What?’ I cup my hand to my ear and cock my head as if listening, ‘OK darling,’ I trill, ‘won’t be long.’

‘You don’t lend her yours?’

‘Well I would of course, except…well, we’re not speaking.’

‘That’s tragic.’ She tuts twice.

‘No it isn’t. It really isn’t. We go through these phases. It’ll sort itself out. Always does. It’s a twin thing. Look, I must get on. Kids/school, etc.’ I step back inside and begin shutting the door. ‘See ya.’