Crime Writers and Other Animals (24 page)

Seraphina made herself characteristically difficult with her agent in New York. Lots of little niggling demands were put forward to irritate her publisher. She was just flexing her muscles. She knew the sales of the Mr Whiffles books were too important to the publisher, and ten per cent of the royalties on them too important to her agent, for either party to argue.

She also aired an idea that she had been nurturing for some time – that she might soon start another series of mysteries. Oh yes, still cat mysteries, but with a new, female protagonist.

Her agent and publisher were both wary of the suggestion. Their general view seemed to be ‘If it ain't broke, don't mend it'. An insatiable demand was still out there for the existing Mr Whiffles product. Why put that guaranteed success at risk by starting something new?

Seraphina characteristically made it clear that the opinions of her agent and publisher held no interest for her at all.

On the Concorde back to London, she practised and honed the phrases she would use at the press conference which announced Mr Whiffles' sad death from starvation in her cellar. How she would excoriate the stupid local girl who had unwittingly locked him down there in the first place, and then not been bright enough to notice that he wasn't appearing to eat his food. Surely anyone with even the most basic intelligence could have put two and two together and realized that the cat had gone missing?

There was indeed a press conference when Seraphina got back. The story even made its way on to the main evening television news – as one of those heart-warming end pieces which allow the newsreader to practise his chuckle.

But the headlines weren't the ones Seraphina had had in mind. ‘PLUCKY SUPERCAT SUMMONS HELP FROM CELLAR PRISON.' ‘MR WHIFFLES CALLS FIRE BRIGADE TO SAVE HIM FROM LINGERING DEATH.' ‘BRILLIANT MR WHIFFLES USES ONE OF HIS NINE LIVES AND WILL LIVE ON TO SOLVE MANY MORE CASES.'

To compound Seraphina's annoyance, she then had to submit to many interviews in which she expressed her massive relief for the cat's survival, and to many photographic sessions in which she had to hug the mangy old tabby with apparent delight.

Prompted by all the publicity, the volume of mail arriving at Seraphina Fellowes' house rocketed. And now almost all the letters were addressed to ‘Mr Whiffles'. Seraphina thought if she saw another paw-print on the back of an envelope, she'd throw up.

4. Playing Cat and Mouse

In July 1985, in a speech to the American Bar Association in London, Margaret Thatcher said: ‘We must try to find ways to starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend.'

Seraphina Fellowes, a woman not dissimilar in character to Margaret Thatcher, determined to apply these tactics in her continuing campaign against Mr Whiffles. His miraculous escape from the cellar had had saturation coverage. The public was, for the time being, slightly bored with the subject of Mr Whiffles. Now was the moment to present them with a new publicity sensation.

She was called Gigi, and she was everything Mr Whiffles wasn't. A white Persian with deep blue eyes, she had a pedigree that made the Apostolic Succession look like the invention of parvenus. Whereas Mr Whiffles had the credentials of a streetfighter, Gigi was the unchallenged queen of all she surveyed.

And, Seraphina Fellowes announced at the press conference she had called to share the news, Gigi's fictional counterpart was about to become the heroine of a new series of cat mysteries. Stroking her new cat, Seraphina informed the media that she had just started the first book,
Gigi and the Dead Fishmonger
. Now that ‘dear old Mr Whiffles' was approaching retirement, it was time to think of the future. And the future belonged to a new feisty, beautiful, young cat detective called Gigi.

The announcement didn't actually get much attention. It came too soon after the blanket media coverage accorded to Mr Whiffles' escape and, though from Seraphina's point of view there couldn't have been more difference between the two, for the press it was ‘just another cat story'.

The only effect the announcement did have was to increase yet further the volume of mail arriving at Seraphina Fellowes' house. At first she was encouraged to see that the majority of these letters were addressed to her rather than to her old cat. But when she found them all to be condemnations of her decision to sideline Mr Whiffles, she was less pleased.

Seraphina, however, was philosophical. Just wait till the book comes out, she thought. That's when we'll get a really major publicity offensive. And by ceasing to write the Mr Whiffles books, she would condemn the cat who gave them their name to public apathy and ultimate oblivion. She was turning the stopcock on the cylinder that contained his oxygen of publicity.

So Seraphina Fellowes programmed the letter ‘G' as the shorthand for ‘Gigi' into her computer, and settled down to write the new book. It was hard, because she was canny enough to know that she couldn't reproduce the Mr Whiffles formula verbatim. A white Persian aristocrat like Gigi demanded a different kind of plot from the streetwise tabby. And Seraphina certainly had no intention of enlisting George's help again.

So she struggled on. She knew she'd get there in time. And once the book was finished, even if the first of the series wasn't quite up to the standard of a Mr Whiffles mystery, it would still sell in huge numbers on the strength of Seraphina Fellowes' name alone.

While she was writing, the presence – the existence – of Mr Whiffles did not become any less irksome to her.

She made a half-hearted attempt to get rid of him by means of a plate of catfood laced with warfarin, but the tabby ignored the bait with all the contempt it deserved. And Seraphina was only just in time to snatch the plate away when she saw Gigi approaching it greedily.

Mr Whiffles took to spending a lot of time in the middle of the study carpet, washing himself unhurriedly, and every now and then fixing his green eyes on the struggling author with an expression of derisive pity.

Seraphina Fellowes gritted her teeth and, as she wrote, allowed the back burner of her mind to devise ever more painful and satisfying revenges.

5. The Cat's Pyjamas

‘I've done it! I've finished it!' Seraphina Fellowes shouted to no one in particular as she rushed into the kitchen, the passive Gigi clasped in her arms. The author was wearing a brand-new designer silk blouse. Mr Whiffles, dozing on a pile of dirty washing in the utility room, opened one lazy eye to observe the proceedings. He watched Seraphina hurry to the fridge and extract a perfectly chilled bottle of Dom Perignon.

It was a ritual. In the euphoria of completing the first Mr Whiffles mystery, Seraphina and George had cracked open a bottle of Spanish fizz and, even more surprisingly, ended the evening by making love. Since then the ritual had changed. The love-making had certainly never been repeated. The quality of the fizz had improved, but after the second celebration, when he got inappropriately drunk, George had no longer been included in the festivities. Now, when Seraphina Fellowes finished a book, she would dress herself in a new garment bought specially for the occasion, then sit down alone at the kitchen table and work her way steadily through a bottle of very good champagne. It was her ideal form of celebration – unalloyed pampering in the company she liked best in the world.

When her mistress sat down, Gigi, demonstrating her customary lack of character, had immediately curled up on the table and gone to sleep. So the new mystery star didn't hear the rambling monologue that the exhausted author embarked on as she drank.

Mr Whiffles, cradled in his nest of dirty blouses, underwear and silk pyjamas, could hear it. Not being blessed with the kind of anthropomorphic sensibilities enjoyed by his fictional counterpart, he couldn't of course understand a word. But from the tone of voice he didn't have much problem in getting the gist. Continued vigilance on his part was clearly called for.

Seraphina Fellowes drained the dregs of the last glass and rose, a little unsteadily, to her feet. As she did so, she caught sight of Mr Whiffles through the open utility-room door. She stared dumbly at him for a moment; then an idea took hold.

Seraphina moved with surprising swiftness for one who'd just consumed a bottle of champagne, and was beside Mr Whiffles before he'd had time to react. She swept up the arms of the silk pyjama top beneath the cat and wrapped them tightly round him. Then she tucked the bundle firmly under her right arm. ‘You're getting to be a very dirty cat in your old age,' she hissed. ‘Time you had a really good wash.'

She was remarkably deft for someone who'd had a woman to come in and do all her washing for the previous ten years. Mr Whiffles struggled to get free, but the tight silk tied his legs like a straitjacket. Though he strained and miaowed ferociously, it was to no avail. Seraphina's arm clinched him like a vice, and he couldn't get his claws to work through the cloth.

With her spare hand, she shovelled the rest of the dirty washing into the machine, finally pitching in the unruly bundle of pyjamas. She pushed the door to with her knee, then turned to fill the plastic soap bubble.

Claws snagging on the sleek fabric, Mr Whiffles struggled desperately to free himself. Somehow he knew that she had to open the machine's door once more, and somehow he knew that that would be his only chance.

The right amount of soap powder had been decanted. Seraphina bent down to open the door and throw the bubble in. With the sudden change of position, the champagne caught up with her. She swayed for a second, put a hand to her forehead and shook her head to clear it.

‘Quietened down a bit, have you?' she crowed to the tangled bundle of garments, then slammed the door shut. ‘Won't you be a nice clean boy now?' She punctuated the words with her actions, switching the dial round to the maximum number of rinses, then vindictively pulling out the knob to start the fatal cycle.

Seraphina Fellowes was a bit hung-over when she woke the following morning. And the first thing that greeted her pained eyes when she opened them was a ghost.

Mr Whiffles sat at the end of her bed, nonchalantly licking clean an upraised back leg.

Seraphina screamed and he scampered lazily out of the bedroom.

She was far too muzzy and confused to deduce that Mr Whiffles must have jumped out of the washing machine during the few seconds when the alcohol had caught up with her. She was too muzzy and confused for most things, really.

Her bleared gaze moved across to the chair, over which in the fuddlement of the night before she'd hung her new designer shirt.

The rich silk had been shredded into a maypole of tatters by avenging claws.

6. Cat on Hot Bricks

It was nine months later. A perfect summer day, drawing to its close.

On such occasions a finely tuned heat-seeking instrument like a cat will always know where the last of the day's warmth lingers. Mr Whiffles had many years before found out that the brick driveway in front of the house caught the final rays of sunlight and held that warmth long after the surrounding grass and flowerbeds had turned chilly. So, as daylight faded, he could always be found lying on the path, letting the stored heat of the bricks flow deliciously through his body.

Seraphina Fellowes felt very pleased with herself. Her self-esteem had taken something of a buffeting through the last months, but now she was back on course. She was on the verge of greater success than she'd ever experienced. And, to make her feel even better, she had taken delivery that morning of her new Ferrari.

Seraphina was driving the wonderful red beast back from the launch of
Gigi and the Dead Fishmonger
, and she felt powerful. The party had been full of literati and reviewers; the speech by her publisher's managing director had left no doubt about how much they valued their top-selling author; and everyone seemed agreed that the new series of books was destined to outperform even the success of the Mr Whiffles mysteries.

Oh yes, it might take a while for the new series to build up momentum, but there was no doubt that Mr Whiffles would quickly be eclipsed for ever.

Seraphina looked fondly down at Gigi, beautiful as ever, deeply asleep on the passenger seat. The cat had been characteristically docile at the launch, and the pair of them had been exhaustively photographed. Gigi was much more of a fashion accessory than Mr Whiffles could ever have been, and Seraphina had even begun to buy herself clothes with the cat's colouring in mind. Together one day, she reckoned, they could make the cover of
Vogue
.

She leant across to give Gigi a stroke of gratitude, but her movement made the Ferrari swerve. She righted it with an easy flick of the steering wheel, and reminded herself to be careful. In the euphoria of the launch, she'd probably had more to drink than she should have done. Not the only occasion recently she'd overindulged. Must watch it. George was the one with the drink problem, not her.

The thought drove a little wedge of unease into her serenity. It was compounded by the recollection of a conversation she'd had at the launch with a major book reviewer. He'd expressed the heresy that he thought she'd never top the Mr Whiffles books. Those were the ones for him; no other cat detective could begin to replace Mr Whiffles in the public's affections.

The wedge of unease was now wide enough to split Seraphina's mind into segments of pure fury. That wretched, mangy old cat was still getting more fan mail than she was! Bloody paw-prints over bloody everything!

Her anger was at its height as she turned the Ferrari into her drive. And there, lying fast asleep on the warm bricks, lay as tempting a target as Seraphina Fellowes would ever see in her entire life.

There was no thought process involved. She just slammed her foot down on the accelerator and was jolted back as the huge power of the engine took command.

Needless to say, Mr Whiffles, alerted by some sixth or seventh sense, shot out of the way of the huge tyres just in time.