The weight on my chest was crushing. I couldn’t breathe, there was a loud roar in my ears and an eye-watering stench filled my nostrils. I was pinned to the bed by red-hot pokers that stabbed at my heart when I tried to move. I was in hell. I’d definitely been warned about this in Sunday School. Please, I begged, if this is a dream, let me wake up now and I’ll change my ways.
Bad move. I opened my eyes, and looked into the eyes of the devil.
Burning, orange, devil eyes. Staring into my soul. The roaring in my ears lessened to a robust rumble and the stabbing became multiple pinpricks of razor claws kneading through my t-shirt. The eyes blinked. The rumble moved up ten octaves to a full-throated shriek.
Screaming was impossible because of lack of air, but I managed a thin squeak of terror. The devil opened its mouth, revealing huge fangs and releasing a burst of rank, fetid air as the head moved towards my face. I struggled to sit up, to get away from the fiend, but my hand pushed against something small and furry and soft and wet. And moving.
That did it for me. I threw myself sideways off the bed then scurried across the room on all fours until I was safely against the sofa in the living room. Whimpering, I reached my hand to the table lamp, and welcome light flooded the room. My gun was locked away, out of reach. Bugger. I crawled back to the bedroom door and peeked around, heart thumping. Sitting on my bed was the devil in the form of a huge black cat with orange eyes. He had a rat clenched in his jaws, and he was staring straight at me.
He was possibly the largest cat I’d ever seen. Was he the product of some mad zoological experimental lab? Huge head. Broken ear. And those mad eyes.
We stared at each other until he broke the spell by leaping off my bed and walking towards me. Dropping the dead rat at my feet, he sat back. But the rat wasn’t quite dead, and tried to crawl away, which prompted the cat to give it a swipe that sent it bouncing off my leg. The rat squeaked. So did I. The cat pounced, grabbed the rat by the head and shook hard. I heard a sharp crack, then a soft thud as the rat was once again presented for my appreciation. This time the rat was still.
The creature sat back and started to clean himself. Carefully, he buffed his devil face and thoroughly scraped his claws clean of rat blood and fur. I felt my pulse slow down as he transformed himself from a scruffy, wet and rumpled nightmare to a sleek, well-fed miniature panther. He paid special attention to his plumed tail. Somewhere in his alley-cat genes there was a cute, fluffy, little kitten with a flat face, but that was a long time ago; now he was a grown-up assassin alley cat.
“So who are you, big boy?” I whispered. He looked at me and trilled, then gave the rodent a playful pat. It didn’t move. He hit it harder.
“Oh, no you don’t. That has to go.” I jumped up and grabbed a pile of tissues, but when I tried to pick up the body a black paw flashed to bat it away from me. “We are not going to argue about this. The rat is going and I’d appreciate it if you stopped bringing me presents.” He hissed at me. I felt sorry for the rat, and at least now I knew what had been responsible for Bert’s murder.
I walked out to the backyard and threw the body over the fence into the park. The rain was gone, and the air was sharp with a first hint of autumn – that clean, crisp air from the Snowy Mountains that blows away the last of Sydney’s summer. I shivered. Time to get out the Ugg boots.
Turning back to my living room, I could see the cat sitting on my coffee table. He looked up at me, yawned, and wrapped his tail around himself. He seemed perfectly at home.
“Where did you come from?” He ignored me.
“How did you get in?” He blinked.
“Well, it’s time you left, big boy.” He settled down and wrapped his tail around his nose. “You don’t live here.” The tip of his tail twitched.
“OK. It really is time to go.” But how did he get in? The doors were deadlocked. Ditto the windows. No chimney access. No rubbish chute.
One eye watched me as I walked back into my bedroom to find my jeans and retrieve my slippers from the mess of bedding on the floor. “Bloody cat,” I muttered. “I don’t need this shit.”
I shuffled back to the cat. That wasn’t there. “Fucking hell, where are you?” I flicked on the lights, and checked all the dark corners and under stuff. The kitchen cupboards were all shut, but I checked them anyway. This was ridiculous. The cat had either disappeared or was playing with me, and I don’t like being stuffed around by anyone or anything. And I was too tired to care about a mysterious murderous moggie, no matter how big he was.
The thought of returning to my dead-ratty bed wasn’t appealing, so I wrapped myself in a blanket and flaked out on the couch. Sleep was out of the question, but at least I could lie there and listen to the garbos yelling and banging bins. And think.
I should have been thinking about solving the Jimbo problem, but my brain had other ideas. Constable Jack. I had to find a way to get my hands on him. Just for a while. I had to have a Plan.
And finally, just before I fell asleep to the soothing sounds of a dog-fight, I found my solution.
“I come bearing gifts. No sugar.” Jack handed me a coffee and walked through my door. “Nice place. Been here long?” He took his time to wander around my living room.
“It’s home. I like being able to close the door and just be me.”
“So what is the big mystery?”
“What do you know about cats?”
“Cats?”
“Big cats.”
“Big cats like lions and tigers?”
“No. A big black one with orange eyes.”
“Um. I like cats, but I’m not an expert. We had a couple of moggies up at Byron, but they looked after themselves. Or rather, my mother did.” He smiled, and finished his coffee. “Why?”
Thoughts of little fluffy kittens being cuddled by Constable Jack sent me all warm and fluffy inside.
“My bird was murdered and there have been dead animals on my bed, and last night I woke up and there was a cat sitting on me. And he had put a live, well, almost dead, rat on my bed. And then he finished off the rat on my bed.”
I could see him trying not to laugh. “And…?” “And then I turned my back and he disappeared.”
“So…do you want me to get rid of the rat? Or find the cat?”
“Smartarse.” I gave him the finger. “I dealt with the corpse, thank you very much, but I want to make sure the cat doesn’t come back. I mean, he’s huge and he’s got these weird eyes and he just made himself at home and then he hissed at me when I tried to move him off the table.”
“Sounds like quite a character. Sometimes cats make up their minds where they want to live, and that’s it. Perhaps he just loves you.” My heart went boing.
“Please. We’ve only just met.”
“Perhaps he’s been worshipping you from afar. After all, dead’uns are kitty-cat love offerings. He was bringing you presents. Cats do that. I remember that we had an old tortie who would drag in half-dead mice and expect me to be grateful and tell her what a beautiful girl she was. But I’d have to finish off the poor little things with the shovel.”
Aww. Constable Jack was a fluffy-kittie-cuddler with a soft heart…and a shovel.
“Thanks for that insight into the feline mind, Jack. But how did he get in here? All the doors and windows were closed. And I was in the bedroom when he left last night and I know that I closed the verandah door.”
“Is there anyone who could have let him in and forgotten to tell you? Does anyone have a key?”
Oh great. Now I’d have to admit that nobody else had a key to my place. There was no “significant other”. I was alone.
“Uh, no. I just changed the locks,” I lied.
“Do you want me to take a look around? He might be curled up in a cupboard. Cats do that. Such a gentleman.
“Go for it, Jack. I’ve looked, but you might see something I’ve missed.”
He took up such a lot of space as he wandered through my tiny little house. And he was thorough. I thought I’d dribble when he went down on his hands and knees to check under my bed, but there was no bogeyman or cat hiding among the chocolate wrappers, dust bunnies and my missing purple bra, which he retrieved and handed to me without comment.
He checked my cupboards – thankfully I’d had a manic organising afternoon a couple of weeks before – and stood tippy-toe to sweep the back of the top shelves. No cat. Then he moved to my rather grotty bathroom with the busted toilet seat.
“Well, there’s your problem. He’s using the window.” He nodded towards the small window high up above the sink. “I’ll shut that for you?” All he had to do was to reach up and he could move the sliding window. But it wouldn’t slide.
“Damn. It’s stuck. Do you have any WD40?”
“WD-what?”
“Right. You have no idea. So I’ll bring some over the next time I’m here.” Next time and here in the same sentence? “So finish your coffee and let’s get out of here. We’ve got an update in thirty minutes.”