Email from Alec Charlesworth to William Caton-Pines
Sent: Thursday, January 15, 4:25 PM
Subject: Roger
Attachments: Beside the sea (folder) and HOME (file)
Dear William Caton-Pines,
This is a very difficult email to write. The long and short of it is that I have heard of what happened at Lighthouse Cottage, and much as I have resisted becoming involved in the story of the two individuals known as Roger and the Captain, I find that I am now in it absolutely up to my neck. I have had to leave my house! I’ve had to move into a B & B near the station! It’s really disgusting, too – a big damp patch on the wall above the bed, and an air-freshener on the landing so toxic that I have to carry Watson quickly to our room, for fear the smell will kill him. But I suppose that’s neither here nor there. At least they let me check in after midnight, and have turned a blind eye to the dog. But you don’t want to hear about that. Good God, I’m beginning like Winterton! You don’t even know who I am yet! Rather than explain everything here, I have attached a folder and a file for you to read – some of which you will be familiar with, as it was written by you in the first place. I think it will make clear everything that’s happened so far. When you have read it all, you will know everything that I know. Which means you will also be aware of many unanswered questions, and many frustrating gaps.
Before you read the attached, I feel I should apologise for some of my “editorialising” in my account of the material in the folder “Beside the Sea” – especially any observations detrimental to yourself. I believe I call you an “idiot” on several regrettable occasions. I had no right to do this. “Staggering stupidity” is a rather inflammatory phrase that leapt out when I was preparing the material to attach with this. On top of this, I noticed an unfounded and speculative reference to “floppy hair” (you might be bald, for all I know), and also remarks such as, “He really is out of his intellectual depth with Roger” and “For once, he makes an intelligent decision.” I hope you can overlook such uncalled-for slurs. The plain fact is that I did find myself quite captivated by Roger. I can’t help admiring him, even now. I think it was something to do with his educated love of Tennyson’s earlier poetry and his profound aesthetic response to ancient cultural sites. Such intellectual elegance doesn’t come along very often.
I send you all this with a particular purpose. I have a large favour to ask. Since my life is evidently in danger from talking cats with lethal powers who can penetrate academic libraries and engineer the cruel deaths of inoffensive terrier dogs, and since there is no one else in the world with whom I would dare even raise the subject of talking cats – could I persuade you to act as my archivist? I realise I don’t know your current feelings on what happened at the cottage, but please believe that I am appalled and horrified by everything that happened at Lighthouse Cottage to Jo and to the J-Dog – and to you, too, Wiggy (if I may). I intend that nothing like it shall ever happen again. If I could just feel that the record was being kept somewhere – by you – it would help me face all that has yet to be done. In short, will you be my friend?
Yours sincerely,
Alec Charlesworth, FCLIP
(Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals)
Email from Wiggy [Caton-Pines] to Alec Charlesworth
Sent: Friday, January 16, 10:45 AM
Subject: Blimey
Dear Alec Charlesworth,
Blimey. How the hell did you get my email address?
Wiggy
Email from Alec to Wiggy
Sent: Friday, January 16, 11:30 AM
Subject: Blimey
Dear Wiggy,
I’m afraid a certain cat leaked it to Dr Winterton.
Email from Wiggy to Alec
Sent: Friday, January 16, 11:37 AM
Subject: Blimey, Jesus
Alec,
I need to think about this. Jesus. Bit of a bloody shock. Raking it all up again. Wiggy x
Sent: Friday, January 16, 11:40 AM
Subject: Blimey
If you would just read the files, Wiggy. Please.
Alec
Email from Wiggy to Alec
Sent: Friday, January 16, 6:34 PM
Subject: All right
All right, sorry that took me a while. I’ve read them, and I have a question.
Email from Alec to Wiggy
Sent: Friday, January 16, 6:36 PM
Subject: All right
Go ahead. Anything.
Email from Wiggy to Alec
Sent: Friday, January 16, 6:39 PM
Subject: All right
Can your dog really talk, or did you make that up?
Email from Alec to Wiggy
Sent: Friday, January 16, 6:52 PM
Subject: Thank you
Dear Wiggy,
Thank you very much for reading the files. It means a lot to me. In answer to your question, no, I didn’t make anything up. However, it might be significant that Watson hasn’t uttered another word since we left the house on Monday night. Perhaps it was some sort of hallucination brought on by terror. If Watson did have a plan, he hasn’t shared it with me. I’ve had to do all the thinking for both of us – and quite a strain it’s been, I can tell you. It was just the way he said, “Pack enough chicken treats for a fortnight.” If that wasn’t Watson, it certainly sounded like the sort of thing he’d say.
I do so hope you decide to help, Wiggy. It took me the best part of two days to write the file entitled HOME, and it was only when I’d finished that I realised how alone I was with this story; how it wasn’t a story, really, unless it had someone to read it. Tomorrow night Dr Winterton and I will attempt to purloin the Seeward pamphlet after the library closes. I am sure it contains the answer – otherwise why would the Captain go to such lengths to recover (or destroy) it?
Which reminds me: did Roger ever mention Seeward to you? Or anything about a “Cat Master”? What did Winterton mean when he mentioned the “big stuff” after the war? Why did Roger and the Captain fall out? It occurs to me that although the life-story tapes in the folder took him only up to his wartime experiences in the British Museum, he might have told you more – only off the record, as it were.
By the way, you never answered my question about whether you’re willing to act as repository for the rest of this story.
Yours, Alec
Email from Alec to Wiggy
Sent: Saturday, January 17, 4:30 PM
Subject: Operation Seeward
Dear Wiggy,
Well, it’s Saturday and I haven’t heard from you. I am just setting off for the library. If anything should happen to me, Watson will be at the Sandringham B & B in Milton Road, not far from Cambridge station. I’m sorry if this is “too much information” – but it’s very important for me to tell someone what’s going on. Have you had any thoughts at all?
Alec
P.S. Sorry. I just meant have you had a chance to think about what I’ve asked you. I didn’t mean, “have you had any thoughts at all?”
Email from Alec to Wiggy
Sent: Saturday, January 17, 11:45 PM
Subject: Operation Seeward
Attachments: PDF Plan of Library
Dear Wiggy,
Still not having heard from you, I’m afraid I’ve decided to use you as my confidante anyway. Winterton has been injured, Wiggy. Quite badly. But I’m getting ahead of myself. I should tell the story properly or not at all. This is for the record, isn’t it? But oh God, the blood. And the wounds!
This evening I entered the library at 5 p.m., using my temporary membership. As you will see from the attached plan of the library, the space immediately above the great reading room – accessible by the spiral staircase behind the desk – contains the music stacks, which are not accessible (to readers, anyway) from anywhere else. I had worked out a rather good plan, I thought. The main thing was to distract the dreamy Tawny away from the desk, then sneak up the spiral staircase to the music library, search for the book, and hide there until the library closed at 5:30. Then, using the spare set of master keys that Mary and Tawny have always (rather irresponsibly, in my opinion) left in the top drawer of the inquiries desk, I would let myself out of the reading room, and make my way down Staircase A to the emergency exit next to the cycle racks. Opening the door would set off an alarm, but the idea was that I would quickly hand the book – and the incriminating set of library keys – to Winterton who would be positioned outside. I would then go back inside and face the music with the security man (usually Mike on a Saturday), claiming to have fallen asleep on the floor of the history library before closing time and apologising for causing so much trouble. Winterton and I would then rendezvous at the nearby Kall-Kwik (just before it closed at 6:30), where we would copy and scan the pamphlet, and I could send the scan straight to you for safe keeping. I brought my laptop along for just that purpose.
I am writing this in A & E. It is 9:45, and I am trying to keep a lid on things! My main concern is for Winterton, of course, but I am also very distracted by the thought that Watson is at the B & B all by himself, and has been on his own since about 4:30 p.m. What if I’m here all night? But on the other hand, there’s no way I can leave. Winterton was delirious by the time we got here. He’d lost so much blood. Pray God he doesn’t spill the beans to anyone about exactly how – and why – he got those terrible cuts and gashes. I keep thinking of the bit in Jane Eyre when the brother from the West Indies (is it Mason?) is violently attacked in the night, and Rochester forbids him to speak a word of explanation to Jane, as she sits with this unknown bleeding man in the dark, and all the while she can hear the animal-like stirrings of the violent madwoman behind the locked door. This will mean nothing to you if you haven’t read the book in question, Wiggy, so I apologise for rambling. It was just that I kept saying pointedly to Winterton in the ambulance, “Best if you don’t speak, Winterton, old chap; don’t speak at all.” And then – just now – I remembered why the situation seemed so familiar, when nothing in my own previous experience has been anything like it.
You will be pleased to hear that the first bit of my plan worked quite well! That’s not much consolation to me right now, but I might as well tell the story properly, as I’m probably going to be here for quite some time. Improvising, I used a cat’s miaow to draw Tawny’s attention. It’s the only animal noise I’ve ever been able to make; also it seemed appropriate in the circumstances. Anyway, it worked. “Miaow” I said. “Miaaaoooow.” “Hello?” Tawny said, and left the desk to investigate. As you will see on the plan, there are two sets of swing doors to the reading room (at the same end) so it was quite easy to do the miaow from one side, and then nip round to the other doors and dodge up the spiral staircase while Tawny had gone the other way.
There was no one else up there, thank goodness, but there was one obvious problem to be solved: I had no idea where Mary had shelved the book! Here were six long walkways of tall stacks, all packed with (mostly) tall, thin musical scores. The Seeward pamphlet, in its protective slipcase, would hardly be conspicuous up here, and I had only twenty minutes to find it before all the lights shut off automatically at 5:30. But I did the right thing. I didn’t panic, and I thought about Mary. What would she have done? Where would she hide something in a music library? What did she know about music? Well, not very much. I thought of us watching University Challenge together, and Mary cluelessly shouting out the same answer every week – and that was enough. Haydn! She would have hidden it under Haydn!
And so she had. I found the pamphlet tucked behind a score of the Surprise Symphony just before the room was plunged into darkness. It didn’t look anything special, I must say, this little book. It had no aura. When I touched it, there was no responding gust of evil wind, accompanied by the sound of impish whispers from the darker corners of the stack. No, it was just like picking up any book. However, the sheer darkness of the music library after lights out was disconcerting, and I admit I was keen to get out. Luckily, Tawny wasted no time at all in closing up: at 5:31, she could be heard switching off all the desk lamps, humming tunelessly. Then she collected her bag and coat, switched off the main lights, and set the bolt and turned the key to one set of swing doors; then she set the bolt to the second set, and turned the key from the outside. Only then did I start to creep carefully down the spiral staircase. In the great reading room, the high windows allowed a certain amount of grey light into the room, but it was a while before my eyes grew accustomed to the murk. I coughed, and the sound rang out. I clutched the book in its slipcase to my chest and groped in the drawer for the keys. They weren’t there. Why hadn’t I brought a torch? I moderated my breathing (I’d started to pant), and continued to feel inside the drawer. And at last I found them. The relief was enormous. But then I heard something – faint and muffled but unmistakable – that made my blood run cold. A human scream. I now believe that what I heard was Winterton.
Wiggy, I’ll have to break off here. They have just told me they are going to keep him in; they’ve commanded me to go home. They’ve already given him a transfusion; he is now under sedation; he is definitely on the mend. Well, what a relief! “Thank you,” I said. I told them I was a mere acquaintance of his, who happened to discover him in his assaulted state – but I also said I knew he had no relatives, so I felt I should wait to see how he was. Everyone has been very kind, although I could have done without them asking, “Ooh, what’s that you’re writing?” all the time, and peering at the screen.
It’s nearly midnight. It’s been a long day, and I’m glad to be leaving. I am desperate to get back to Watson. He is a resourceful little dog – but a little dog none the less.
I just hope Winterton didn’t blab much. If he did, they might have put it down to delirium anyway. When they first examined him, they came out and asked if he’d ever been in the navy. I said no, not to my knowledge – for a moment, I imagined they’d found some interesting tattoos. “It’s just that he’s been rambling about a captain,” they said. I shrugged. “Can’t explain that,” I said. I have to get back to the B & B. I’ll write again as soon as I can.
Alec
Email from Wiggy to Alec
Sent: Sunday, January 18, 9:41 AM
Subject: Operation Seeward
Dear Alec,
I have just read your email from late last night, and I don’t know what to think. Your stuff is safe with me, of course it is. Send as much as you like. But I feel I ought to tell you that since my breakdown (as everyone calls it) I’ve been seeing a psychiatrist who has been very helpful – especially with antidepressants and what not – and she warned me that something like this might happen – that I would “start thinking the Roger stuff was all real again”! Well, I am bloody confused now, I can tell you. You’ve sent me two bloody audio files of me talking to Roger! And oh my God, he really does sound like Vincent Price!
But all the rest of it – how do I know it’s even true? It’s like a story. You even keep describing it as a story, Alec, so it’s not surprising I’m confused. You could be in Malawi. Or Brighton. You could be tucked up in bed somewhere. You could even be one of the chaps from school. You’re not Upton, are you? Bloody Upton; if it is you, I’ll bloody kill you. But even if you’re really Alec the Quite Unlikely Hero Librarian, you could still be making all this up deliberately. Scheming to drive me mad. They think I didn’t lift a finger to find Jo – and in a way I didn’t. I noticed those keys to next door were missing; I just didn’t think what it meant. And why didn’t I? Because I got so absorbed in Roger’s story, I forgot I was in one myself.
To be fair, I looked up all the Seeward stuff on the internet, so I know you’re not making that up, at least. Actually, I found another bit on YouTube that you probably ought to see – it’s a kind of companion piece to the film you watched – I’ll send you the link. But I don’t want to get sucked in again, Alec. Please don’t draw me into this. I’m not strong, like you. In fact, I’m very fragile. This lady-shrink the other day – she brought a fluffy kitten to the consultation room. A kitten. She wanted me to be nice to it.
“Isn’t this a bit unorthodox?” I said, but she took no notice. She put the kitten on my lap. I said:
“I don’t have a phobia about cats, Alison.”
“I know,” she said.
“I’m not scared of them the way people are scared of spiders – or of their knees suddenly bending the wrong way, and that kind of thing. I just know how cats think.”
But she’d made her plan and she was going to stick to it.
“What would you like to say to this lovely little innocent kitten, Wiggy?”
And I looked into its huge eyes and it looked back at me.
“Go on,” she said.
“Go on what?”
“Give it a stroke, Wiggy!” she said.
So I did my best. I made a big effort to stroke its little furry head, but the moment I touched it, it turned round to hiss at me, so I shouted, “GET OFF MY LAP, YOU BLOODY MURDERING BASTARD, YOU KILLED MY SISTER!”
I’m sorry to hear about Winterton. I do believe you, but I bloody well don’t want to. I’d rather think you were Upton in Malawi. I know how lonely you must feel. I have to say your plan sounded very good for a chap who’s probably never organised any sort of heist before, and I take my hat off to you. I hope little Watson was well and safe on your return. Of course, I’ve never met little Watson myself, and here I am caring about his welfare! What a twerp I’ll feel if it turns out he doesn’t exist either.
Wiggy
Email from Wiggy to Alec
Sent: Monday, January 19, 12:32 PM
Subject: Hello?
Dear Alec,
You never got back to me yesterday. Could you let me know what’s been happening? It’s Monday lunchtime. How is Winterton? Wiggy x
Email from Wiggy to Alec
Sent: Monday, January 19, 5:14 PM
Subject: Hello, hello?
Dear Alec,
You’re scaring me now, Alec. I’ve been checking for emails for the last five hours. Just a line would be fine. I just need to know how you and Watson and Winterton are. Wigs x
Email from Wiggy to Alec
Sent: Monday, January 19, 8:15 PM
Subject: Hello
All right. It’s evening now, and I’ve been thinking about things, and perhaps it’s my fault you haven’t replied all day. Please ignore what I wrote yesterday – all that “don’t know what to think” stuff. All that “poor me, I’m not well” stuff. I’ve been reading it back and I can understand if you got cold feet about confiding in me.
I want to help you, Alec, but am I the best person to have on your side? Yes, I’ve had experience of a talking cat; but think how long I left Jo’s phone in the fridge instead of taking it to a phone shop! I was so stupid, Alec. I really thought Roger had taken the phone into the garden to “play with it”! I had no idea what was going on. I cut out the cryptic crossword for him every day, and then helped him fill it in. He would say, “One down is FAN VAULTING.” And I’d look at the clue, which was, “Jumpy enthusiast often seen in church (3,8)” and I’d say, “How on earth do you get that?” And he’d drawl, “It’s just a knack, Wiggy. An enthusiast is a fan; jumpy is vaulting. Fan vaulting is often seen in churches.” And I’d say, “Oh Roger, you’re such a brainbox.” And all the time he was demonstrating to me how bloody clever he was. He knew Jo was in the cellar next door, and that I could have saved her if I’d known.
So I’m not very clever, and – I have to tell you this, Alec – I’m not very brave. I would never have been as brave as you, creeping around in that library after dark. But it’s the Wiggy Brain problem I think you should be wary of most. I was so embarrassed reading my notes about how I imagined Jo and the dog had been taken by aliens. I really did search the area for signs of scorched grass!
Anyway, that’s all in the past. I need to know what’s happening now. Please let me know. This is torture.
Sent: Monday, January 19, 10:36 PM
Subject: Alec, where are you?
Alec! For God’s sake, I’m going to pieces here. I don’t know what to think. Please let me know what has happened. I haven’t heard from you for two days. I’ve never met you but I am your friend. Wigs
Email from Alec to Wiggy
Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 6:03 AM
Subject: None
Attachment: PDF entitled Seeward
Dear Wiggy,
I’m sorry I didn’t reply to your emails. I’m sorry if I caused you any distress. The thing is, Winterton is dead. I know. I can’t believe it either, but it’s true, he’s dead. And I don’t want to be melodramatic, but I think this might be the last time you hear from me, so I want you to stop being weak about all this, because we don’t have the luxury. I know no one believes in this stuff, Wiggy. Of course they don’t. I wouldn’t believe in it either. And I know you’ve made errors of judgment that make you doubt yourself. But Winterton is dead and Jo is dead, and my own dear Mary is dead – and if I’m next, I have to know that you’re not going to delete all this material and take a pill to help you forget it!
Sorry to be harsh. I haven’t slept much in the last 72 hours. The only positive thing is that I do have the pamphlet, and I’ve attached a scan for you to see. Also the dog is safe, thank God. I’m touched that you care about him. But other news is not so good. I had a call on my mobile yesterday morning from someone who said he was Tony Bellingham – his name meant nothing to me but he explained he was that neighbour who called on me after Christmas at home, the one whose surname I’d never taken any interest in. He said there had been a breakin at my house and I needed to go there at once. It was a “bit of a mess,” he said. He was with the police. I said I couldn’t go; they demanded to know why not. I said I was with a friend at the hospital, who was in a critical condition. I said I would go later, but I shan’t. The last thing I want to do is go home. For one thing, he said it was a mess. And it was really neat when I left it, after all that sodding methodical unpacking.
And then, when I got to the hospital, there were police in the ward, and they told me what had happened. In the night, Winterton had died – but nothing to do with his injuries or his blood loss; he died of suffocation, and they were saying it was murder. They said Winterton, under sedation, wouldn’t have had much strength to push off his attacker, but the mystery was, how did the attacker get in? I have to tell you, Wiggy: I behaved so calmly; I pretended to be concerned but not devastated; shocked, but not alarmed. Much as I wanted to break down on the spot and say, “I know that evil cats did this! Death and damnation to those evil cats!” I had to pretend that I was as astounded as everyone else that such downright badness existed in the world. So I said pathetic things like “Why?” and “Poor fellow” and “Who would do such a thing?” I let them give me a cup of sweet tea from a machine, and then I hung around, sitting in the corridor, as if too shocked to go home – when all I really wanted was to hang around long enough to find out what had happened.
From what I could piece together, Winterton’s room was on the ground floor. A window had been left partly open, but it was much too high off the ground for anyone (other than a large, muscular cat with powers, of course) to reach from outside, so they were ruling out anyone climbing in to commit the deed. But it was still murder, the nurse told me. At around 4 a.m., she had been sitting at the nursing station when she heard the alarm from Winterton’s heart monitor; she rushed in to find him blue in the face. All over the pillow – and all over Winterton – were weird black hairs, like animal fur. Whoever suffocated Winterton, she said, must have used a black fur jacket or coat to smother him as he slept.
Poor man. How he must have wished – how I wish on his behalf – that on that fateful day on the Acropolis, he had just finished his drawing of fallen masonry and then packed up his schoolboy satchel, and gone to meet his parents for the long voyage home – without a cat in a basket. But he had read about cats like Roger. “I’ve read about cats like you.” And that was his downfall. I remember Roger saying to you that he suffered for his own hubris on the Acropolis that day; but so did Winterton, in the end.
I enclose a PDF of the Seeward pamphlet. I haven’t had time to read it closely yet, but a lot of it looks so disappointingly lame and predictable – All hail Beelzebub, king of cats! – that I nearly wept when I first opened it. To think Mary and Winterton died for this? Talk about the banality of evil. If Seeward was responsible for writing this – well, I’m sorry to swear, but he must have been a wanker. “And from out the flames of Hell cometh the Great Cat of All Cats, hail unto the Cat of Cats” – it goes on and on like that, for pages. But I shan’t give up. The main thing that caught my eye was on page seven: the list of Grand Cat Masters, starting with Sir Isaac Newton in 1691. There are about a dozen names altogether, including John Seeward, of course. And as you will see, Seeward names his successor, as well, which is very interesting.
I didn’t tell you how it went on Saturday night, but I expect you can guess. When I opened the emergency exit at 6 p.m., I found Winterton on the ground, already bleeding from the neck and head, screaming and thrashing about with a dark shape on top of him. The sound of the claxon alarm when I opened the door made the Captain shoot off – but I saw him, Wiggy; I saw the Captain’s huge yellow eyes watching us in the dark of that dingy courtyard. Mike the security guard appeared with startling speed – in fact, I think my plan of slipping the stolen book to Winterton would never have worked. We’d have been caught in the act. Mike got me to call for the ambulance while he administered first aid. He was so horrified by what had happened – and of course he knew all about the cat that had somehow got into the library on a former occasion – that he couldn’t have been less interested in my pathetic rehearsed excuses about falling asleep after tea in the afternoon, stumbling to the wrong door, etc. In a way, the Captain helped me get the pamphlet out of the library, by creating an extremely dramatic diversion.
Wiggy, I’m thinking of moving to a different B & B – it’s not just to get away from the landlady’s killer air-freshener (although that would be quite sufficient reason, believe me); I just think it’s sensible not to stay in any one place for too long. I’ll send the address when I can. Would you please study the pamphlet? I must be missing something important. But for the time being, I am going in search of the last Grand Cat Master named on the list, because from what little I can deduce from the mumbo-jumbo all-Hail rubbish in Nine Lives, he’s the key to putting a stop to all this. I’d appreciate it if you would have a look at the last page of the pamphlet, where there is talk of some sort of ritualistic device called a “Debaser” that the Cat Master “holdeth” – but what is it? Something about “a circle closeth”? It makes no sense to me – but as you can imagine, it’s hard to think straight right now. It’s such a shock to have lost Winterton. And it’s irritating, too. Winterton knew so much, Wiggy! Even if he was the most infuriating source of evil-talking-cat information in the world, he was a direct line to Roger – and more importantly, to Roger’s history. And now Winterton has been smothered in his hospital bed by – presumably – the Captain lying across his face as he weakly struggled and wriggled and died! I think I know what sort of nightmares my future is full of now – assuming I have a future at all.
I can’t afford self-pity right now, but I keep thinking that just three weeks ago I was at the seaside, at my lonely cottage, watching Watson run in circles on the beach, indulging myself in my sweetly sad feelings of loss over the sudden and unexplained natural death of Mary. Did I really know nothing of all this then? It’s impossible to imagine it now. I remember how Roger put it to you, when he was telling his life story: that once you’ve seen the world in a different way, you can’t go back. I’ve had so many new perspectives to deal with in the past couple of weeks that I can hardly keep track of them all. For example, Mary didn’t just die. Cats are murdering bastards. A load of black hairs on a suffocated man’s pillow do not indicate an assailant using a black fur jacket. The library has been holding powerful cat occult bastard evil shit ever since I’ve worked there. And as for Julian Prideaux – just a few days ago, I was saying that he was the laziest librarian on the planet, and I was mocking the way he used to leave his dandruffy cardigan on the back of his chair! I was wondering how a man of 70 had kept his job when others, like me, had been made to retire at 58.
And now I know from the list printed in the back of this pamphlet that he is the Grand Cat Master, appointed in person by Beelzebub, and has been so for 50 years, ever since John Seeward hanged himself in the garden at Harville Manor on September 3rd, 1964.
(By the way, you didn’t send that link.)
Telepathic message (also known as an Emiaow) from Roger the cat to Julian Prideaux, Grand Cat Master
Sent: Tuesday, January 20, morning
Subject: All Hail, Cat Master
All Hail, Cat Master. Roger here. May I approach thy presence, figuratively speaking, oh great librarian and holder of the Great Debaser? From afar, I cringe and fawn unworthily before thy almighty cat power and all-round top-drawer diabolical connections – etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Emiaow from Prideaux to Roger
Speak, Roger. This is an unexpected pleasure.
Roger
Yes, I expect it is.
Prideaux
Although I would appreciate it if you tried not to sound so bloody sarcastic. Beelzebub himself ticked me off the other day for not getting the proper respect from you blasted cats. He came all the way from Pandemonium because he found out that the Captain had started calling me “mate.” I said to him: it’s a different world nowadays, Beelzebub. It’s not as respectful as it used to be. People on mobile phones; people cycling on the pavement; people cycling across pedestrian crossings even when the lights are against them.
Roger
What did he say to that?
Prideaux
Oh, the usual platitudes. He doesn’t care.
Did he say, “This is hell, nor am I out of it”?
Prideaux
He did, actually.
Roger
He always says that. He thinks it’s funny.
(Pause)
Roger
I just wanted you to know that I heard.
Prideaux
Heard what?
Roger
About Winterton. About him being polished off in intensive care by “feline body-surf asphyxiation.”
Prideaux
Roger. Are you upset? I expect you’re upset.
Roger
Of course I’m not upset. I’m furious.
Prideaux
Roger, Roger, Roger. If you want to make a formal complaint –
Roger
What, to Beelzebub?
Well, technically, he is our line manager.
Roger
Yes, and I wonder what he’ll say when he finds out that, due to your incompetence, a librarian called Alec Charlesworth is now in possession of Nine Lives and intends to use it?
Prideaux
What? What did you say?
Roger
He’s in possesson of Nine Lives.
Prideaux
Alec from Periodicals? Look if this is some sort of joke – .
Roger
No joke.
Prideaux
Oh my God, the idea of Nine Lives being in the hands of someone like Alec from Periodicals! Roger, that book explains everything!
Roger
I know it explains everything, oh Satan’s Appointed Deputy. Including how Cat Masters themselves can be destroyed.
Prideaux
Now look. Don’t threaten me, Roger. Beelzebub himself –
Oh sod Beelzebub.
Prideaux
Roger!
Roger
I’m going to help this periodicals man. He likes Tennyson, and he called his dog after Dr Watson in Sherlock Holmes. He even remembers key passages form Jane Eyre in moments of crisis.
Prideaux
Roger, Roger. Stop and think. You’re rightly upset about Winterton – but haven’t you known for years that the Captain would get to him one day? Isn’t it simply a miracle that Winterton managed to elude him for so long? The Captain always blamed Winterton for taking you away from him, all those years ago on the Acropolis. Even when you were both with Seeward after the war, Winterton was always in the background, wasn’t he? The Captain knew that. When you left the Captain for a second time – when you chose to leave him – it really broke his heart.
Roger
He’d already broken mine! No, it’s over, oh Great Cat Master. I’m old, I’m jaded. I’ve even started to look at those people cycling on the pavement and think, “This is hell, nor am I out of it.” I worked it out last night, oh Lord of All Cat Evil: all told, I’ve been responsible for the deaths of eight people.
(Pause)
I’m giving you notice. I’m making it nine.
Prideaux
Look. You know you can’t kill me, Roger. You can’t kill the Cat Master! Roger – ?
Roger
I can if I read that book.
Prideaux
Roger – !
Roger
All Hail, Beelzebub, and all that. See you in hell.
Prideaux
Roger! Roger? Oh, bugger.
Email from Wiggy to Alec
Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 8:45 AM
Subject: Nine Lives
Dear Alec,
I hope this reaches you. I have been reading this bloody pamphlet for hours now and you’re right about how absolutely wanky it is – but it’s also weirdly plausible, you know. Remember that story you found on line about the old man who lived near Harville Manor whose cat came back with a physical aversion to Songs of Praise? I can’t explain it, but I’m really bloody haunted by that.
Sorry I forgot to send that link to the other bit of footage on YouTube. I’ll do it this time. You really ought to see it, Alec. It’s dynamite.
I think the best thing about this pamphlet, you know, is the way it implies that ALL cats are basically bastards like Roger deep down, but have gradually lost the ability to practice real evil as the centuries have worn on. Did you pick up on that? The exceptional cats, like Roger and the Captain, aren’t the product of some sort of miracle, Seeward says – they just haven’t degenerated the way all the others have. I think that’s what he’s saying, anyway. If it is, I think this explains such a lot about cat behaviour, don’t you? When they hiss at us, you see, you can tell that they really expect us to fall over and die – because that’s what used to happen. So when we just stand there, unharmed, and laughing in their faces, they’re completely miffed! Huffy, that’s cats for you – always got the hump. But why? We’ve always asked ourselves, “Why are cats so pissed off all the time? They get all the best seats in the house, they have food and warmth and affection. Everything is on their terms, not ours. They come and go as they please. Why aren’t they permanently ecstatic?” Well, now it’s explained. It’s because they’re conscious of having lost their ability to do serious evil, and they feel bloody humiliated.
Also, it turns out, the majority of everyday cats feel they’ve been unfairly abandoned by the Devil! Seeward seems to have taken a sort-of cat opinion poll. They all still worship him, apparently – but at the same time they know that he doesn’t care; that he’s too busy cooking up really big evil things like internet banking and double-dip recessions to bother with little furry minions whose only service to him is killing innocent (and insignificant) wildlife. Oh, and that’s the other thing! The way they kill birds and mice, and bring them home for us to see! Apparently it’s all bollocks about cats bringing us mice and birds because they believe in some childish way that we’re their big upright parents who will pat them on the back or something. They do it for only one reason: because birds and mice are their limit, but they think they’ll get their big evil powers back if they only do enough killing. Anyway, it was fascinating, all of this stuff. Say what you like about Seeward; he really knew his onions about cats. You know the way cats do that trampling thing on your lap, sort of kneading your groin? Well, that’s one of these “vestigial” things as well. It was how cats used to kill people by pretending to be friendly and then severing their femoral arteries! Purring was the way they sent people into a trance, you see – and then, when their prey was sort of paralysed and helpless, the cats would set to work with their claws! That’s what all cats are still trying to do, apparently, but not succeeding. I really love an evolutionary explanation for weird things like that, don’t you?
Alec, I have to tell you a couple of things and I hope you won’t be cross. The first thing showed quite a bit of initiative and pluck, I think. In your last email, you mentioned you were “going after” the Grand Cat Master, but you weren’t everso specific, and I was just reading and re-reading the bit in the book (at the end) about the “great debaser” and it suddenly occurred to me what it was. And I knew you didn’t have it, and I thought you’d bloody well want it, if at all possible. I’ve never explained to you that by sheer coincidence I live just three streets away from the library you used to work in – above the local Kall-Kwik, as it happens. It gave me quite a start when you mentioned the office downstairs as part of your plan for last Saturday night! I never mentioned this before because – well, you didn’t ask, Alec, did you? You didn’t say, “And where do you live, Wiggy? Not in Cambridge?” And besides, I wasn’t sure at first that I wanted to get involved.
Anyway, I studied the library plan you’d sent me, and this morning I thought I’d bloody well risk it, so I got myself into the library on a rather clever research pretext, and I found Staircase B after getting lost a couple of times, and in the end I found Prideaux’s office! I had it all prepared, what I was going to say if I found him in there – how I’d got lost looking for the old “bindery” office (whatever that is). I thought I might even comment on the awful old cardigan. But anyway, he wasn’t there, and I got it. Alec, I got the Great Debaser! No idea what to do with it now, of course. But I do have it in front of me as I write this, and I do feel proud.
The other thing I have to tell you isn’t quite such a positive type thing. It’s that I’ve remembered something Roger said to me – as you requested. You may remember that you wrote the other day:
It occurs to me that although the life-story tapes in the folder took him only up to his wartime experiences in the British Museum, he might have told you more – only off the record, as it were.
Well, what I’ve remembered is that Roger said he knew how to access my emails. Sorry. I know I should have mentioned this before, but it kept flashing into my mind to tell you – especially when you were begging me at the beginning to be your special mate and “repository” and all that – but then I’d always forget it again.
I’m really sorry, Alec. I mean, I’ve no idea if Roger has been reading every single thing you’ve sent me. But just in case, my advice would be, don’t tell me anything important from now on by email. Wx
Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 8:45 AM
Subject: Out of Office Auto Reply Re: Operation Seeward
I am currently rather busy and mostly away from my computer. If this is Wiggy, I am going to Harville Manor, but don’t tell anyone.
Email from Wiggy to Alec
Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 8:48 AM
Subject: You should change your auto reply
Alec, You probably ought to change your auto reply. Sorry. See previous email. Wigs x