It has been hard to know where to start with this final instalment of the story. In fact, I have stared at a blank screen for a day and a half, attempting to organise all my impressions of the last act (so to speak) – and simply failing. Perhaps I should wait? Perhaps it’s too soon? It was only a week ago that it all happened, after all; and it was traumatic, too, by anyone’s standards. But if I wait, won’t the impressions fade? Won’t I forget? And isn’t it my duty to get this right? I am beset by questions whose answers are just a matter of opinion. On balance, my feeling is that I should be a man and tackle it now, and put it all behind me. So that’s what I will do. I will have another cup of tea, and then I’ll pull myself together (and try not to repeat the unfortunate expression “be a man,” which I’ve never used before in my life) and press on and just pray that I remember to get everything in.
To get me started, I thought it would be helpful to establish a few basic things about the outcome; to set the guidelines, as it were. I have answered the multiple choice questions below with absolute honesty, which has not been easy. As you will see, there are some aspects of the story that I can’t yet quite confront – see my answer to question 3, in particular. But question 2 was by far the hardest for me, and I may yet cave in and change my answer from the pathetic “Not really” to “Yes, I feel terrible.” Because, was it all my own fault? Take Watson. It was certainly my fault that this innocent creature – a friend to all the world, and the bravest of souls – accompanied me to Harville. It was my fault, also, that Dr Winterton put himself in the Captain’s way outside the library on that fateful Saturday evening; likewise, Wiggy would hardly have turned up when he did, if I hadn’t absolutely insisted on his getting involved in my investigations. However, as much as I want to take the blame for everything, I do remind myself that, when you boil it down, Beelzebub and all his demonic feline deputies (from the seventeenth century onwards) are much, much more culpable in all this than I could ever be.
Anyway, here are the questions.
1. Did things turn out well, generally speaking, Alec?
Yes, very well 
No Not really 
Don’t ask
2. If NO, was it your own fault? (Think carefully.)
Yes, I feel terrible No Not entirely Don’t ask
3. Was anyone hurt?
Yes No Not really Don’t ask
4. Has the world been rid of the evil cats?
Miraculously, yes Worryingly, no Too early to tell
5. How do you feel about cats now?
Love them Indifferent Conflicted Hate them
6. How do you feel, facing the future?
Happy Relieved Numb Don’t ask
7. Would you consider a holiday in Dorset in the near future?
Yes No Not on your life
So, I went to Harville Manor. I set off shortly after sending my last email to Wiggy – which I find, looking back, was timed at 6:03 a.m. on the Tuesday after Winterton was murdered. In retrospect, I now think I should have waited to make a proper plan. I should also have tried to get some sleep. But I was angry and agitated and I couldn’t go home, and I loathed the smell of that bloody air-freshener, I can’t emphasise enough how disgusting it was, and I also felt compelled to do something. So I strapped Watson into his car-seat harness, de-iced the windscreen as well as I could, turned up the heater and set my sat nav for Dorset. It was a freezing, frosty morning in Cambridge, and heavy snow was predicted for the whole of the south of England before nightfall – but such a cheerless forecast did not deter me; quite the reverse. It made me all the more eager to get started. My sat-nav predicted a journey of under four hours (arrival time 10:02 a.m.), but I sensibly took this information with a pinch of salt. Sat navs are always making precise – but totally irresponsible – prognostications of that sort. The main things were to arrive in daylight and beat the snow. My plan, as I set off, was to stop for breakfast once I was safely southwest of London. And then, having steadied myself with a bit of necessary nutritional ballast (I hadn’t eaten a proper meal since before the library adventure the previous Saturday), I would properly – at last – study the Seeward pamphlet. I had every confidence that, with the priceless information I found there, I would find a way – at last – to put an end to the big black devilcat that, first of all, had terrified my wife at the library by ripping a small inoffensive study room to splinters, and then had come to our house and felled her in the garden with a single Satanic hiss.
Watson went to sleep on the passenger seat. Looking at him snoozing peacefully beside me, I wondered whether he had remembered to bring his old service revolver. To wake him up just to ask him, however, would be taking the joke too far – even though this was the one and only occasion in our lives when it would be appropriate to say the line. The Today programme held my attention for about ten minutes – but then I had to switch it off. News from the real world, concerning such burning topics as budget deficits and Syria, seemed just bizarre to me in both its scale and its irrelevance. I realised it had been a long time since I’d cared a bean about any other topic than the evil that cats do. Given my previous character, this development was quite remarkable. Who ever would have thought that a chap like me – who took the Guardian daily; who had never missed a Newsnight unless deeply indisposed or out of the country; and who sent funny letters to Private Eye (which they sometimes printed) – could turn so completely metaphysical overnight? But so it was. In fact, it seemed to me that every single item on the news – concerning economic doom and political hypocrisy and social breakdown – was not “news” at all. What I could hear was just a series of utterly transparent ploys to frighten and alarm the listeners – and frighten them, moreover, about the wrong things.
The snow started to fall just after I’d skirted London; the added urgency made me decide – rather stupidly – not to stop for breakfast after all. It was a day, I must confess, in which I made countless errors of judgment. Deciding not to eat anything, when I was already phenomenally light-headed, was arguably at the root of many of my subsequent mistakes. Of necessity, I did make a stop for fuel (and the lavatory) at a bright Esso petrol station, where I gave Watson a quick chance to stretch his legs and sniff some filthy roadside grass, but otherwise I considered it wise to keep going. Drive now, eat later – this was my over-confident scheme. The snow fell more heavily as I crossed the county border into Dorset – on either side of the road, fields and roofs and driveways were turning to a solid white, but the roads remained passable while it was daylight and I drove on steadily, with my old-fashioned windscreen wipers noisily knocking the snow to the edges of the glass, and the view ahead (in the headlights) made vertiginous by streams of atoms all apparently rushing to collide with the car. Formerly, on such mentally exhausting drives as this, Mary and I would have taken turns at the wheel. But now I was alone, and travelling at 15 miles per hour, and I kept myself amused just by checking the way the sat nav airily adjusted my predicted time of arrival (10:53 a.m.! 11:27 a.m.! 1:32 p.m.! 2:07 p.m.!) – with never an apology or acknowledgment, of course, for having been so absurdly optimistic up to now.
A hundred yards short of the gateway to Harville Manor (“In one hundred yards you will reach your destination”), I stopped the car in a lay-by under a street lamp next to an ancient wall, switched off both the engine and the windscreen wipers, and allowed the snow to settle, slowly and silently, on the glass. I needed to think. Something Wiggy had written to me had nagged me while I drove – that he was now aghast to realise that having been so caught up in Roger’s story, he had neglected to look for Jo. Had I let something similar happen to me? Had I forgotten to grieve for Mary? Of course, both Wiggy and I could argue that the cat story concerned us personally – but I had to face facts. When Tony Whatsit from next door had told me about Winterton looking for me (when I first returned from the coast), it had made me happy. I had felt excited; I had been thrilled that I was going to learn more; I was so agog to “fill in the gaps.” And at that point, I had no idea that Mary’s death had any connection to Roger, or the Captain, or even to Winterton himself. It was all right to argue that my eager and obsessive pursuit of this story had been about avenging Mary: there was some truth in that. But at the same time I needed to admit that pursuing these evil cats had also been a very effective way of putting her dreadful loss right out of my mind.
Sitting here now, inside this rapidly cooling vehicle that Mary and I had purchased together eight years before, I felt desolate, stupid, tired, a bit cold and (above all) weak with hunger. With a sort of morose satisfaction, I watched as the falling snow silently and inexorably coated the windscreen, effectively sealing Watson and me from the view beyond. When there was no view left at all – when a weird yellow darkness filled the car – I allowed myself first to close my eyes; and then I allowed myself to cry.
Naturally, Watson bore the brunt again. “Watson, I’m sorry,” I said. What had I done? Why were we here? I had driven halfway across the country, in a heavy snowfall, possibly putting myself and the dog at unnecessary risk – and all because of a story that needed an ending. As if stories ever did end anyway.
I undid Watson’s harness and pulled him onto my lap – and he licked the tears from my face, the ways dogs always do, because they like the taste. I thanked him and smiled, and started to pull myself together. “Watson,” I said, with a sigh. “If this isn’t all classic displacement activity, I’d like to know what is.”
And then we both heard and felt it together – something softly landing on the roof of the car. Watson barked, and I told him to shoosh. If I had been sensible, I’d have started the engine and used the windscreen wipers – and driven off smartly, as well. But it wasn’t as simple as that; for one thing, I couldn’t bear to disturb our feeble, snowy cocoon. Also, it wasn’t just that I didn’t want to see what was out there: I absolutely didn’t want it to see me.
“Perhaps it will go away,” I whispered to Watson.
But from the roof of the car, it jumped down and landed on the bonnet – the car bouncing a little, but not enough (thank goodness) to shift the snow on the windscreen. Paralysed, with one hand on the ignition key, and the other across Watson’s shoulders, I could make out the merest dark shape beyond the layers of glass and snow – moving from side to side, as if sniffing at the snow, less than fifteen inches from my face. Watson growled, and I couldn’t blame him. I felt like growling myself. Ten seconds must have passed like this, and then another ten. And then, just as I was withdrawing my hand from Watson, to take the steering wheel, and whispering, “It’ll be all right,” a huge cat’s paw struck violently at the windscreen, and we both jumped in the air. The first strike was followed by a rapid volley of blows – Bam! Bam! Bam, bam, bam! – that shattered the caked snow and sent it flying in shards – and revealed the terrifying sight of the Captain on the Volvo’s bonnet, huge and black and yowling, and at extremely close range.
“Get off my car!” I shouted (I wish I could say I thought of something better than that, but I didn’t).
“Wuff, wuff, wuff! Wuff, wuff, wuff, wuff!” said Watson.
“Get off, get off!” I repeated.
“Wuff, wuff, wuff!” repeated Watson.
I started the engine and the windscreen wipers. Undeterred, the cat continued to beat at the glass, his claws making bright white dents and pits. What were those claws made of, for goodness’ sake? And what could I do? I couldn’t help remembering the mess he’d made of that carrel in the library. What if the next thing he tore to pieces and left a claw stuck in (by way of gory calling-card) was me? My only option was to put the car in gear and gingerly move off. Surely the Captain would jump clear once we were in motion? But he didn’t. In fact, he seemed to think nothing of balancing on the snowy, slippery bonnet of a slow-moving Volvo driven without much conviction by a recently retired periodicals librarian who hadn’t had a proper meal for days.
“Get off my car!” I yelled again.
But he clung on easily, and kept chopping and bashing at the windscreen, which was – oh God! – beginning to crack and fracture. Again, I blame my foolish decision to pass up the chance of a quick sausage sandwich at a Little Chef; it might have made all the difference. Because, contrary to my normal Hamlet-y disposition, I failed to think things through. Rightly it occurred to me that braking to throw the Captain off was out of the question because Watson was unharnessed and might be hurt. But beyond that, I just couldn’t think, so I did a ridiculous thing: I accelerated. On the slippery road, I revved the engine and drove fast towards the gateway to Harville Manor, all the while shouting at the cat (absurdly) to get off the car; and then made an abrupt turn, hoping the Captain would be thrown clear simply by the sudden change in direction. But I lost control of the turn. And when the car slid to the right (as it was bound to), it hit the right-hand gate post broadside with considerable momentum. “Watson!” I said. The bang as we hit the post was terrific. The Captain shot off and hit a brick wall. The back door on my side caved in, and poor Watson was thrown sideways against the passenger door (and I have to admit, he screamed).
The good thing was, when the dust settled, the Captain had disappeared from view. The bad thing was, I had probably now written off the car, and the snow was falling more heavily than ever.
But the engine was miraculously still running, so I risked attempting to drive off. With a scrunch and rasp of metal, I edged the Volvo forward, unable to make out anything much about the way ahead – what with the snow and the damaged wipers and the buggered glass. Where was the Captain? There was no sign. Had he run away? Was he lying in front of the car? Was he possibly … dead? Well, I will never forget the strange satisfaction of feeling the car mount a tell-tale bump on the road, and drop down again. “Oops,” I said aloud. I couldn’t be sure it was him, because I couldn’t see. But if that was the Captain being run over by my battered car – well, hooray. Halfway up the drive, I stopped and gave Watson a reassuring hug – but it was more for my own reassurance than for his. Had the dear dog been hurt? He had hit the door with force, but he appeared to be all in one piece – and, for the first time since we had set out that day, I saw his tail wag a little, as if he were enjoying himself. One never knows how much of a situation a dog is taking in. I mean, I couldn’t swear to it, because I was a bit traumatised at the time – but I think, when we ran over the Captain (or possibly it was when I quickly reversed and drove over the bump for a second time, just to be sure), I heard a Daniel Craig voice beside me make the laconic remark, “Nice one.”
I need hardly say that running over the Captain had not been part of my plan. But let’s face it, I had no plan. So if the Captain was dead, did it matter that it wasn’t a big dramatic end – involving crucifixes and exposure to daylight and a stake through the heart? As I carried on driving at a snail’s pace towards the house – the car hardly gripping at all on the snowy driveway – I was reminded of a something Mary’s father used to say about playing golf, when he’d shot a quite poor round technically but had nevertheless emerged with a decent score. “There are no pictures on the scorecard, Alec!” Well, I suddenly saw the truth of this peculiar statement of the obvious – because, narratively satisfying or not, the score at present was:
Alec 1 Cats 0
– and that was surely good enough, even if the Great Cat of Cat Evil had just been vanquished, sort-of unintentionally, under the wheels of a classic Swedish saloon car of legendarily robust construction.
But I soon forgot the Captain in any case, because, arriving at the house, I had my first sight of Roger. Yes, Roger was here! And when I first spotted him – sitting high up on one of those curly-wurly Elizabethan chimneys, solemnly swinging his grey tabby tail, and watching us proceed up the drive – I’m ashamed to say my heart leapt. Despite his proven wickedness, there was something in Roger that simply captivated me. How unlike the Captain he was in every regard! Of course, I shouldn’t forget that the two cats had a lot in common. Both Roger and the Captain were Nine Lifers – with all the concomitant Nietzschean overtones. They had both travelled romantically through the remains of ancient civilisations, often by moonlight, reading and reciting poetry; they had hob-nobbed with the Durrells; most impressive of all, they had mastered the complexity of Greek ferry timetables. According to the photograph in the “Roger” file, they had also both lazed happily in the grass beneath the swinging corpse of a man who had been their nominal Master in this world. But now they were poles apart. Whereas the Captain now seemed to represent only the worst things in cats (murderous instinct, territorial violence, shattering toughened windscreens with bare claws), Roger stood for all that was best – elegance, beauty, fine whiskers, and supreme intellectual poise.
I got out of the car and sank an inch or two into the thick snow.
“Roger?” I called. With three or four neat bounding motions, Roger descended to the ground to meet me. It was like a dream.
“Alec,” he said.
He knew me. How on earth did he know me? I didn’t care. He held out a paw; I bent down and shook it. His eyes were so green. No one had mentioned before the sheer beauty of Roger’s piercing green eyes.
“Welcome to hell,” he said, and laughed. I laughed too. Good grief, I couldn’t believe it. It was the Vincent Price voice – in person!
“We ought to get inside. We don’t have long to get organised. Did you bring the dog?”
I said yes, I had brought him. Again, how did he know about the dog? What was it that needed to get organised? From inside the car, Watson barked.
“Ah, Watson,” said Roger. “Come at once if convenient. If inconvenient, come all the same.”
Five minutes later, we were inside the manor, which was no improvement, temperature-wise; it was considerably colder, in fact. Stamping my feet, I stood at a leaded window overlooking the darkening orchards while Roger sat on the wooden sill and indicated features of interest near to the house. Watson I had tied up in a far corner, and he had finally stopped barking – which was a relief, because everything echoed spookily in this shell of a house. To whom did Harville Manor now belong, I wondered. To Prideaux? Was this where he had always been when his cardigan was so artfully hung on the back of that chair in Special Collections, and the rest of us had covered for him? If so, he certainly hadn’t bothered to make it comfortable for himself here. No power was switched on; a few old office chairs had been herded into a dark corner; a few stubs of candles had been left around on the naked oak floorboards. Any vague and far-fetched hopes I might have entertained concerning a nice welcome-to-Dorset afternoon tea in front of a big manorial log fire were now in ruins. To someone who had insanely passed up his every chance for an infusion of sausage sandwich on the road, this was very hard.
“There’s the old well over there,” said Roger. I looked, obediently. My stomach made a little growling noise.
“There’s a story attached to it, of course, about witches, but it takes 48 minutes so I shan’t start.”
I laughed. “That’s a shame,” I said.
“I know, but there you are. There’s the tree where Seeward hanged himself. I expect you want to know all about Seeward?”
“Yes, please. I’ll get a chair.”
“Oh, but that would take at least an hour.”
I located a chair and pulled it over to the window. I needed not to be standing.
“There,” I said, with a puff as I sat down. “It was a long drive.”
“Of course, yes,” said Roger, understandingly. “And what time did you run over the Captain?”
He said it as if he were inquiring what time I’d come through Dorchester.
“I’m sorry?” I said. “What time did I do what?”
“You ran him over, Alec. It’s OK. I just need to know roughly when you did it.”
“Well, it was just now.”
“Good. So we’ve got about an hour before he comes back.”
“You mean – ?”
“Of course.”
“Of course he will. That’s why we’re here, Alec.”
“Right, yes.”
Deep down, I had known this. But it was sad to see that my scorecard was as undependable as the sat nav. It had just reverted to:
Alec 0 Cats 0
“Pay attention, Alec,” said Roger. “This is no time for one of your mental digressions. The Captain must be stopped, and the book you stole will help us. Seeward wrote it all down, you see. How to dispose of Nine Life cats – and their master – for good and all. That’s why Seeward left instructions for it to be burned. That’s why the Captain has been so desperate to get it back. Now, there are two stages to defeating the Captain, the method for both of which is specified in Seeward’s book –”
I interrupted him. I couldn’t help it. I was nearly in tears. Someone was actually telling me something! “Roger,” I gushed, “thank you, thank you for telling me all this.”
“You’re welcome. But –”
“It’s been really hard!”
“Yes, I’m sorry. It must have been.”
“So thank you. That’s all I wanted to say. Thank you.”
“Right.”
“That’s all. Sorry.”
“That’s fine. Now where was I?”
“You were saying there were two stages to destroying the Captain.”
“Oh yes. The point is, we must deprive him of both his powers and his immortality. The first requires us to employ the Great Debaser – which we might not have access to. But the second is by far the more important in any case.”
“Roger?” I said.
I hesitated. I wanted to say that I loved the way he had said “more important” rather than “most important” in that sentence. But perhaps it would be inappropriate to comment on matters of correct English at such a critical moment, so I just said, “Nothing. Go on.”
“I happen to know,” he said, “that all Nine Lifers lose their immortality if the Great Cat Master is killed by one of his own cat minions.”
“Yes?”
Roger took a deep breath and then said quietly, “I have vowed to kill Prideaux and I will do it this day.”
My mind raced. This was quite a big development. Didn’t it mean that now Roger would be mortal himself?
I didn’t know what to say. What I wanted to say was, “Roger, I can’t even remember why I’m here any more; I’m losing my grip.” Instead, I said weakly, “Roger, have you got a plan, then? I thought I had a plan, but you know what it’s like when you wake up from a dream and the plan isn’t a plan after all; it turns to water in your brain? It’s like that! But it sounds like you’ve got a good one. Have you? Have you got a plan?”
He laughed.
“You know about Prideaux?” he said, jumping down from the windowsill. “Of course you don’t know everything about Prideaux, but if I told you everything about him it would take 106 minutes and that’s no good because he’ll be here in half an hour. My plan concerns Prideaux first, and then the Captain, and then … me.”
He paused. It was fascinating watching his great cat-brain at work. I felt totally useless – and it must have showed, because Roger evidently felt the need to console me.
“Your running over the Captain gives my plan much more chance of success, though, Alec.”
“Yes. And actually, by the time Prideaux gets here, the snow on top of the Captain’s body will be quite deep, so with any luck Prideaux will run him over again, giving us yet another hour of breathing space.”
This seemed a little cold-hearted. However, I was hardly in a position to judge, given my callous reversing-over-the-body-and-running-over-it-again thing from earlier.
“So first, I need to see the pamphlet for myself,” said Roger. “You did bring it?”
I went to the car and retrieved Seeward’s pamphlet from the back seat. I did this with a certain feeling of defeat. People had died on account of Nine Lives. I myself had stolen it from a library. The fact that I’d gained virtually no enlightenment from it made me feel unbelievably stupid.
“I’ll gladly give you this,” I said, when I returned indoors, “If you’ll fill in the gaps for me, Roger. You do know everything, don’t you?”
“Yes,” said Roger. “Yes, I do.”
I handed over the pamphlet. Expertly, he turned the pages with his claws, and found what he was looking for.
“Good. I just needed to see this in hard print,” he said. “You never know with a PDF …”
Watching him read – watching those beautiful green eyes devour the information on the page – I was quite overcome. I had never admired anyone so much in my life.
“Ah,” he said at last. “It really is as simple as that!” He held up a paw and flexed his claws. He purred with happiness. God, he was beautiful.
“What does it say?”
“I’d like to tell you, but it would take – hang on.” He made a mental calculation. “It would take three days.”
“You keep saying things like that, Roger. I wish you’d stop saying that there isn’t time to tell me things! I have to know more. That’s why I stole that thing and drove down here.”
I sounded peevish, but I was too exhausted to correct my tone. “Why did Jo have to die in that cellar?” I demanded, and started using my fingers to indicate where I was on a long list of points. “Why didn’t you tell Wiggy where she was? What did the Captain do to Mary? What happened to you after the war years in the British Museum? What did Wiggy find on YouTube that I didn’t? Why did you fall out with the Captain, when you’d been such very close friends? Why has the Captain turned out this way?”
Roger seemed surprised by the intensity of my questioning.
“Winterton didn’t tell you anything?”
I made a “Ha!” noise. “He was hopeless! Winterton started every story in the middle. It drove me mad.”
Roger sighed.
“Look, Alec. I’ve got time to tell you this much. What happened at Lighthouse Cottage was this. Prideaux tracked me down.”
“He’s your master?”
“He’s my master. I’ve eluded him for decades, but in the end he always tracks me down. The Captain helps him. It’s been the same pattern over and over: I find a human I want to live with quietly; I start to tell my story, which is fairly lengthy –”
“I know.”
“– and I am always stopped by Prideaux, one way or another, before I can tell anyone the terrible truth of what happened here at Harville.”
“What did happen here?”
“Oh, Alec,” Roger said, with a catch in his voice. “You don’t want to know. All I can say is that it sometimes involved –” (and here he found it hard to speak) “– it involved kittens.”
As he said the word “kittens,” he closed his beautiful eyes and a great shiver of horror rippled right through him, from the end of his beautiful tail right up to the top of his head.
“Seeward was a monster,” he went on. “Prideaux worshipped him. He has given his life to preventing the truth of Seeward’s experiments from getting out. This time, having traced me to Lighthouse Cottage, he planned to snatch me away – and my greatest regret now is that I didn’t just co-operate. But it got complicated. Jo spotted Prideaux prowling about.”
“The binoculars?”
“Exactly. She made notes of dates and times. And then she started seeing that big cat as well, she got frightened, and I felt I couldn’t leave her.”
“And then you killed that poor little dog.”
“Of course I didn’t kill the dog!”
I bit my lip. “I’m sorry, I thought you did.”
“Well, I didn’t. Oh Alec, I loved that dog. Prideaux killed the dog because it was protecting me. When Jo found poor Jeremy dead, she got hysterical, and that’s when I suggested she hide in the cellar next door. I thought it was quite a clever idea; I knew she had those keys; I thought she would be safe. Jo loved me, Alec. You’ve seen the photograph of her holding me; you know she painted beautiful portraits of me. Didn’t she phone Wiggy to say, “Help me take care of Roger!” on the day it all happened? She begged me to hide with her, you know. But I was afraid it would make things worse for her if I did.
“My mistake was to scarper. It was only after I was sure Prideaux had gone that I came back to the cottage and realised Jo was missing. I tried to get in to the house next door but it had been locked up. From the window sill, I could see in to the kitchen – and I could see that a heavy trunk had been placed over the cellar trapdoor, making it impossible for Jo to get out. This was typical of Prideaux’s sadism: if he couldn’t catch me, he could teach me a lesson – This is what happens to people if you try to tell your story, Roger. He knew what it would be like for me, enduring Jo’s slow death, knowing it was all my fault and powerless to help. I don’t ask for your sympathy, Alec. I know I don’t merit it. But don’t forget, I am the one person you will ever meet who knows from their own experience what it’s like to die like that, slowly and horribly, in a vile, airless hole.
“It was three days before Wiggy arrived. And I know what you’re going to ask, and I want to set something absolutely straight. You keep asking, ‘Why didn’t Roger tell Wiggy where Jo was? Why didn’t Roger say?’ Well, you’re forgetting something, Alec. You’ve got quite accustomed to a crucial idea that a month ago you would have dismissed as utterly preposterous. How long do you think it takes for me to break the news to each new person that I am a talking cat? Well, check back in your precious files. It was several days before I said those first clear words to Wiggy, “Let me out” – and if you recall, he was freaked out by them and refused to believe his ears. By the time I could talk to Wiggy properly, the scratching noises had long since ceased. By the time he was writing James Bond scenes for me, my lovely brave Jo was most definitely dead.”
It would take a while for me to process all this. In the meantime I had just one question.
“So why did you pee on the phone when it was charging?”
“To destroy that terrible picture of the dog. Prideaux took the picture and replaced the phone on its charger. Alec, can you imagine how dangerous it is to pee directly on to a phone that’s charging at the mains? If any more proof were needed that I cared about Jo and couldn’t bear what had happened to her, it’s that I risked electrocution of the penis to destroy that terrible thing.”
Half an hour later, as darkness finally engulfed the house, we heard a car on the drive. We both strained to hear whether Prideaux would run over the Captain, and were relieved to hear the unmistakeable ker-bump from the drive that meant we’d been let off getting swiped at by gigantic beastly claws for at least another 60 minutes or so. I even let out a small cheer (“Yay!”), which was heartless of me, but also fairly understandable in the circumstances. Roger was worried that Prideaux would guess the cause of the bump, and maybe stop to dig the Captain’s body out of the snow – but there were no sounds of car doors, or shovels, or indeed cries of horror, and in due course Prideaux arrived at the house.
He was older than I’d remembered him. He stood up straighter. But when was the last time I had seen him? Casting my mind back, it was probably the retirement party for old Hopkins in the classification department. Hoppy (as we affectionately called him) had made a dreadfully ill-considered speech about how – if asked – he would set about classifying some of his colleagues according to the laborious “Beacham” university system, and it had been an unmitigated disaster, offending everyone present. Prideaux had walked out! Poor Hoppy had died within a few months of retirement, of course. As I now remembered (with a familiar sinking feeling), it was said that Hoppy’s newly-adopted cat had tragically tripped him at the top of the stairs.
“Charlesworth! Unbelievable!” huffed Prideaux now, as he entered. He was evidently not at all pleased to see me here. Roger and I were sitting on a pair of the office chairs, in a patch of moonlight from one of the leaded windows. Roger had arranged the furniture for Prideaux’s arrival in a sort-of circle. I had lit a few of the old wax candle stubs. Basically, it looked (ho hum) like the setting for the inevitable séance.
“Why on earth are you here, Charlesworth?” he went on. “This is between me and the cats. Nothing to do with you. Now piss off!”
Now, before I proceed with this account, I feel I have to make something very clear. It’s true that I was sensationally light-headed by this point. It’s true that I was weak and hysterical due to a fundamental lack of sausage sandwich. I had crashed the car. I had fallen in love with a pair of green eyes. I had thrown an infantile tantrum when a cat called Roger wouldn’t tell me immediately everything I wanted to know. And now I was reeling with all the new knowledge that Roger had helpfully supplied. Nevertheless, I stand by everything that happened at Harville, however far-fetched, and I am telling you that when Prideaux turned his face to me and said “Piss off!,” his eyes went red. I don’t mean they went a little bit red-rimmed like Kenneth Branagh’s when he’s being Wallander on the telly. When Prideaux said “Piss off!” to me, his whole eyeballs were not only bright red but illuminated, like traffic lights.
I was so startled that I giggled. This man can’t have satanic eyeballs, I thought. He’s a librarian.
“Where’s the Captain?” he snapped. “And what’s that dog doing in here? Seeward would turn in his grave! And as for you –” He pointed to Roger. “Have some damned respect!”
Roger jumped down from his office chair, and looked up at Prideaux. “Hail, oh Cat Master,” he said.
I giggled again. I don’t know why I couldn’t take it seriously; I just couldn’t.
“That’s more like it,” said Prideaux. “Roger, come here. Approach.”
Roger turned his back on Prideaux, and then did something I didn’t imagine a cat could do. With all four legs bent obsequiously low, he crawled slowly backwards towards Prideaux (it was something like moonwalking), and sat down demurely at his master’s feet.
Prideaux reached down and stroked Roger’s ears as a reward. Roger narrowed his beautiful green eyes, thrashed his tail a couple of times, and then (apparently) submitted.
To my own surprise, I piped up, “Can we have a light on?”
“Where’s the Captain?” Prideaux demanded again (ignoring me). “He said he’d be here before me.”
“He was detained, oh Great Cat Protector and Servant of Beelzebub,” said Roger. “But he isn’t far.”
“That’s true,” I said, and pulled a face. I wasn’t drunk, I swear it. But I couldn’t seem to control myself. Those flashing red eyes had been more than I could take.
Prideaux turned to me. “You have two things that belong to me, Charlesworth,” he said. His voice went big and echoey and the traffic-light eyes came back. I burst out laughing again. Honestly, it was hilarious.
“Two?” I squeaked.
“Seeward’s book and the Great Debaser. And I want them now!”
This time, when he flashed his red eyes at me, a spark of flame flew out and set fire to the floorboards.
“Oh my God, be careful!” I said, stamping out the spark. And then everything went swimmy, and I found I was gazing at Roger, sitting so demurely at Prideaux’s feet – his green eyes glowing almost as much as Prideaux’s red ones.
“He hasn’t eaten for days, oh Cat Master,” said Roger. “He’s not important. He knows nothing.”
“Huh,” said Prideaux.
I tried to say something but my mouth wouldn’t move, and I fell sideways off the chair. I had always said I’d been captivated by Roger, but previously I had meant it metaphorically.
Obviously, I’m sorry I missed a whole chunk of the proceedings of that big night as Harville. Just when things started getting truly interesting, I lapsed into a coma! Looking back, I can’t help wondering: was it Roger’s doing, or was I just very tired? Either way, it’s safe to say that when I woke up, things had radically moved on. From somewhere Prideaux had found a sort of wooden throne, and was now seated on it with Roger on his lap, and he was making an incantation. I was still lying on the floor where I’d fallen, next to the office chair. I wondered, should I let anyone know that I’d returned to the land of the living? Would it be wise to put my hand up and ask if we could watch the telly? I glanced at Roger, and he shook his head at me, so I stayed where I was. And that’s how I witnessed it all – a bit like Watson playing dead for the sake of a biscuit, I was playing dead in order to see all this: the candle-flames leaping up, gold and red, to the ceiling; the doors and windows pulsating to a mighty wind; red sulphurous smoke rising from the floorboards. Although I had never been in such a situation personally before, it was clear to me that someone was coming, someone was definitely coming – and it wasn’t, probably, the man from the fourth emergency service.
But at the same time, this ritual of summoning the devil clearly wasn’t going to plan for Prideaux. On his lap, Roger was purring, and Prideaux was saying, “Not now, Roger! Not now.” He tried to knock Roger off, but the cat clung on, and purred more loudly – menacingly loudly. His purr, in fact, grew so loud and deep and resonant that I could feel the vibration in the floor, and Prideaux’s throne was shaking. Watson, in his corner, started to bark. Meanwhile the smoke was still rising, and the wind still howling round the house, but Prideaux was no longer chanting – he had stopped abruptly, as if silenced by a greater power.
The purr grew louder still, and louder, and then Prideaux screamed. As I watched him, Roger started to make an exaggerated puddling motion in his Master’s lap. And suddenly a geyser of scarlet blood shot high into the air.
“Aaaaah!” screamed Prideaux, as Roger’s claws dug deep into his groin. More blood spurted; Roger ignored it. He kept purring and he kept puddling, his shoulders working up and down, as his claws pierced and ripped Prideaux’s flesh, tearing his life away.
At this point a large, dark figure began to materialise in the middle of the candle flames – a figure with unmistakeable goatish overtones.
“Master!” screamed Prideaux. “Master, stop him!”
But Roger wasn’t to be swayed from his grisly task. His claws dug deeper and deeper. Blood was now spurting in all directions, and the almighty purr was deafening.
“Get off me!” Prideaux screamed (without result) as his blood rained down on Roger, on the chairs, on everything. Meanwhile the huge figure continued to materialise within the circle; it began to look about it; it began to emit a smoky glow. And then –
Bang!
A great knock at the door echoed through the room, and the figure looked round in confusion. Watson, whose barking had got ever more hysterical in his corner, broke free and hurled himself towards the door.
Bang! Bang!
More knocking. The figure noticed me lying on the floor just as Watson turned round and (oh no) noticed him. It was the worst moment of all, as far as I was concerned: to see my brave little dog charging at the satanic figure, barking and growling; skidding and sliding on Prideaux’s blood. “No, Watson, no!” I shouted. “Stop it, Watson! Stop that!”
Bang! Bang! Bang!
And then it all happened very quickly. Just as the figure turned to deal with Watson, Roger leapt from Prideaux’s lap onto the floor, smothered in blood, and confronted the apparition.
“Beelzebub,” he said in a commanding voice. Their eyes met. “Your servant is dying. Look.”
It was true. Prideaux had stopped screaming and his breathing was shallow. His blood had stopped spurting. His life was seeping from him on his throne. The apparition became instantly unsteady. It began to fade, dip, swirl and hum. The force was like a helicopter out of control, spinning to its destruction.
Bang! Bang!
The renewed knocking startled us all, as did the big door opening. As we all turned to see who it was, the huge figure vanished, turning inside out, as if disappearing into a black hole. At the very last breath of Prideaux and the very last tiny wisp of the apparition, a man appeared at the door, and Watson – who never gives up, really – ran off to bark at him, the way he barks at everyone.
“Who is it?” demanded Roger. “Who’s there?”
And thus Wiggy entered, with perfect dramatic timing – to find me prone on the floor, the Devil disappearing, Watson hysterical, Prideaux a corpse and Roger caked head to tail in bright red arterial blood.
But his arrival was not the end of it all, because Wiggy had not come alone. We had scarcely time to get our breath back before “Is this the Captain?” Wiggy said, indicating a large black bundle in his arms. “Can you believe it, I found him in the road! Bloody hell, I nearly ran him over!”
There was no time for introductions – or indeed for explanations. I made a huge effort and got up off the floor, just as the Captain leapt from Wiggy’s arms, and approached Roger on menacing tiptoe, his back hunched high, his tail swishing.
“Hello,” I said quickly to Wiggy.
“Hello,” he whispered back.
Roger stood his ground, but it would have been clear to anyone: he was no match for the Captain in any sort of conventional cat fight.
“What have you done here, Roger?” the Captain demanded.
“I’ve set us free.”
“Who are these humans?”
Roger didn’t answer. They circled round, tails thrashing. Occasionally, one of them would hiss or snatch at the air with their claws. I took advantage of the break in the cat dialogue to introduce myself.
“You must be Wiggy,” I whispered.
“Yes,” he replied. “I got here as quickly as I could.”
Suddenly, the Captain lashed out at Prideaux’s throne, and broke one of the legs of it. Roger didn’t flinch.
“It’s over, Captain,” he said. “Don’t you feel it? We shouldn’t fight. It’s over.”
Astonishingly (and disarmingly), Roger dropped his fighting pose and sat opposite the Captain. It was a very deliberate action – showing extraordinary intellectual control – and the Captain watched him closely in some confusion. Roger pulled his body tight beneath him, and rested his weight very lightly on his delicate front paws. I noticed that his bloodied claws were now thoroughly retracted.
“What’s happening?” I said to Wiggy.
“It looks like he’s going to start telling a story.”
And so he was, in a way.
“For years and years,” Roger said, addressing us all, “all I’ve wanted is to tell my story. I told the first bit to you, didn’t I, Wiggy?” he said.
“That’s right,” said Wiggy. “We got to about 1945.”
“I told the first bit to Jo, too. Also to Michael the potter, and to six other people. Every single time – and there were eight altogether – Prideaux prevented me from telling it all. So I have never told the rest of my story to a living soul, and now – ?” He laughed, effectively. “Now, I never shall. The things that happened here. The way the Captain suffered here under Seeward. The unspeakable things Seeward made the Captain do – to kittens.”
Wiggy gasped and looked at me. I pulled a face to indicate I’d heard about the kittens already, but that I still thought it was shocking. We both looked at the Captain for his reaction. He relaxed his fighting position. He was listening.
“Seeward was a monster,” Roger continued. “But cats trusted him. The Captain trusted him, didn’t you, dear Captain, with your simple nature?”
The black cat closed his eyes and hung his head.
“He used you,” Roger added.
A tear trickled down the Captain’s face.
“And he made you commit the ultimate betrayal. I know you resisted him; I know you tried. But in the end you let him try to ruin me – your own dear Roger! A cat you had created; a cat you had wept for; a cat you had roamed all of war-torn Europe looking for after you got separated from him in Athens.”
Poor Captain! Despite his record of casual homicide, I had often imagined his despair when he got back to the Acropolis from Piraeus to find no trace of Roger – just those skinny Greek cats (those bastards) rejoicing and jeering at his companion’s humiliating capture.
“Tell them where you looked for me,” Roger said.
“Italy,” said the Captain. “Then France, Germany, Poland.” He trailed off.
Roger prompted him again. “How long did you look for me abroad?”
“Six years,” said the Captain.
We all made tut-tutting noises of sympathy.
“And he was only in the British Museum!” exclaimed Wiggy.
All eyes turned on the Captain, who appeared lost in sadness and remorse.
“Wiggy, did you happen to bring that little thing you found at the library?” Roger said, lightly.
“Ooh, yes.”
I was puzzled. What thing?
The Captain was puzzled too – and a bit suspicious. “Roger?” he said.
But Roger shrugged it off, as if to say that the little thing from the library was nothing at all to worry about.
“When I told the story of my Acropolis abduction to Wiggy,” Roger went on, still addressing the Captain, “I described how you had gone off to Piraeus to find out about the boats to Brindisi.”
“I had. I went on the bus.”
“And do you remember, Wiggy, that I talked about the Captain’s last words to me when he left me that morning?”
Wiggy hesitated. “I’m not sure,” he said.
The Captain broke in. “I said, ‘Roger, I’ll always look after you.’ ”
I felt quite choked up. In fact, we all did. Roger, the Captain, Wiggy and myself – we all started sniffing. The only one of us quite unmoved was Watson, who – I’m embarrassed to say this – had happily gone to sleep.
Roger approached the Captain and put his paws on the big cat’s shoulders.
“You gave me everything, Captain,” he said, steadily. “You showed me what a cat could be! Our ancestors were like you and me. They were strong and clever, and if someone had told them that cats of the future would be so feeble, they would have wept. We are the last of the Great Cats, Captain. But the price we paid for our immortality was subjection to the Cat Master – and now he’s gone.”
“Isn’t there another Cat Master to take over?” I asked. (It had been worrying me.)
“No. Prideaux was too arrogant to name one.”
The Captain sighed. “Do you remember when we were on a boat once, at night, in the Aegean?”
Roger nodded.
“It was the happiest moment of my life,” the Captain said. And then he started to recite the lines from Tennyson’s Ulysses (“That which we are, we are”) which I needn’t dwell on because everyone in the world knows them quite well by now because of Judi Dench doing them in Skyfall.
Over the Captain’s shoulder, Roger made a signal with his head to Wiggy, and Wiggy withdrew something from his pocket. It looked like a cat collar.
Roger nodded. Wiggy reached down and stealthily put it round the Captain’s neck. Lost in emotion (and Victorian poetry), the Captain hardly noticed what was happening.
Roger withdrew his paws from the Captain’s shoulders. “Shall we all go outside?” he said.
Watson woke up when I opened the door. He trotted along to join me, and we all went outside in the snow – Roger leading the way, with the Captain – dazed and subdued – behind him, then Wiggy, Watson and me in a line behind.
“What’s with the collar?” I whispered to Wiggy.
“It’s the Great Debaser,” Wiggy explained, evidently surprised that I didn’t know.
“Where did you get it?”
“You saw it in that card drawer in the library, Alec; but you didn’t know what it was. I went and got it! I wrote to you about it this morning – but of course you didn’t get the email.”
I was impressed. Wiggy had really come up trumps. Meanwhile Roger’s plan had gone extremely well. He had now deprived the Captain of both his powers and his immortality. It seemed to me, in fact, that the work had been done, and we should perhaps break it up now, head for the nearest conurbation, get warm, have a big dinner, and either all go our separate ways, or maybe Roger would come and live with Watson and me, and finally get the rest of his story off his chest. As we crunched our way through the fresh snow in the wintry orchard, I did a new calculation.
Alec 0 Cats 1
It looked as if this would be the final score.
By now we had reached the famous well – the one I’d seen Seeward posing beside, with the Captain sitting in the bucket. Roger jumped up on the stone wall; the Captain jumped up beside him.
“I feel really bad,” said the Captain. “I’m so sorry about everything, Roger.”
He then looked at me and Wiggy. “Was it your wife I met in that garden in Cambridge?” he asked me.
I was seriously taken aback.
“I was only looking for Winterton,” he said. “I didn’t hurt her. I just gave her a shock, I think. She fell down and then she didn’t move.”
I felt furious. “What do you mean, you gave her a shock?” I snapped. “How did you give her a shock?”
“Well, I’m not sure exactly,” he said, still sounding quite apologetic. “But probably by saying, ‘Hello, I’m looking for Winterton.’ ”
Roger decided to re-take control of proceedings.
“I have a few last words to say to you all,” he said. He looked so beautiful in the moonlight; in a magnificent manner, he addressed us each in turn. “Alec, Hamlet is right. A man’s life’s really is no more than to say one. Wiggy, give up on the screenplays.” Then he turned to Watson. “Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons with the greatest for the last.”
And with that he placed his paws either side of the Captain’s neck once more. Then, with the barest effort, he bent them both sideways over the well, and they both fell in. If I live to be a hundred, it’s a sight I will never forget.
“Roger, no!” I cried.
“Roger, no!” yelled the Captain as well, arguably with even more reason.
We rushed to the well, and Watson jumped up but I caught him – thank God I caught him before he fell in after them – but I also caught the fleeting sight of the two cats falling, together, locked in each other’s limbs, the Captain’s eyes huge with fright.
Wiggy and I stood there, too shocked to move. Roger had gone. With a magnificent final Watson address from Sherlock Holmes, he had taken the Reichenbach Falls way out, and the final score was, after all, 2-1 in favour of Alec.
So that’s nearly the end, and I’d like to finish my account with an apology. Reading it all back, I realise that at times I have been a tad flippant in the way I have written this, and I have also told the story with what appears to be a lamentable lack of narrative organisation. To these quite reasonable objections, I shall return (when I’ve decided what to say).
I am back at home in Cambridge now, and the adorable Watson is safely at my feet. We are both recovering from our respective ordeals, but I often wake up sweating, remembering how I caught his little body as he tried to jump after those evil cats into that fateful well. I wish I could say that spring is round the corner, but it isn’t. It is still absolutely freezing, and the weather forecasters have run out of jocular ways of breaking the miserable news that this state of affairs will continue for the next two months at least. Speaking of the weather, Wiggy and I were snowbound in Dorset for three days after the events at Harville, and I think we helped each other through it. He’s a chap with hidden depths, I think, despite the predicted floppy hair and mustard-coloured trousers. It was amazing that he understood from Seeward’s pamphlet what the Great Debaser was, and even more amazing that he remembered my description of a bit of a leather with a buckle in the Seeward card catalogue drawer in Prideaux’s office.
Having reached the end, I feel I must now revise my answers to the quiz I set myself earlier.
1. Did things turn out well, generally speaking, Alec?
Yes, very well No Not really Don’t ask
I think you will agree this is much nearer the mark than “Not really.”
2. If NO, was it your own fault? (Think carefully)
Yes, I feel terrible No Not entirely Don’t ask
Yes, I have come to terms with my own lack of responsibility, at last. My only sin, in retrospect, was to be so obsessed with this story.
Yes No Not really Don’t ask
I feel sorry for the cats, especially Roger. But I have no sympathy at all for Julian Prideaux. After all that eyeball-flashing, I quite enjoyed seeing his blood flying about like that. It seemed like his due come-uppance for a) being an Evil Cat Master in league with Beelzebub, doling out death to innocent humans just in order to punish the wilful Roger, and also b) all those bloody departmental meetings he didn’t turn up to. I had no idea my professional resentment went so deep.
4. Has the world been rid of the evil cats?
Miraculously, yes Worryingly, no Too early to tell
Wishful thinking, this. It’s just that I have dreams of Roger somehow climbing out of that well and coming to live with us. After all, unlike the Captain, he was not wearing the Great Debaser and therefore retained his powers, perhaps. What a team we would make: me, the loyal Watson and a brilliant talking cat.
5. How do you feel about cats now?
Love them Indifferent Conflicted Hate them
Yes, no change there.
6. How do you feel, facing the future?
Happy Relieved Numb Don’t ask
Not so numb, now that I’ve written my account.
7. Would you consider a holiday in Dorset in the near future?
Yes No Not on your life
No change there either, I’m afraid.
I no longer care much about the gaps in this story, so I hope you don’t either. I think I’ve made it clear that I asked everybody for enlightenment on even some of the niggling smaller details; I truly did my best. As you will have guessed, I did invent one small section of the narrative – Roger’s telepathic “emiaow” exchange with Prideaux – but I feel it is authentically what must have happened, and I thoroughly enjoyed writing it, so there you are.
I did finally see the clip on YouTube that Wiggy kept forgetting to send the link for. I now watch it over and over again. It’s in colour, with sound, and it’s a re-run of the rabbit experiment. It was filmed in 1964, just before Seeward killed himself. He uses the same curtain and a similar rabbit, but the cat this time is Roger. Seeward speaks to the camera – a thin, nasty voice; he pulls the curtain and Roger leaps up onto the table opposite the hapless bunny. But he doesn’t kill it. He sits beautifully, serenely, while Seeward orders him to do it. He lifts a paw and examines its underside, before putting it down again. Such nonchalance. He even reaches out and gives the rabbit’s flank a little pat. Seeward is evidently incensed, and the film ends. It’s my conclusion – and there is now no one left alive from whom I can get any collaboration, so I’m on my own with it – that Roger’s bold (and moral) refusenik attitude was the thing that broke Seeward’s cat-master spirit and caused his suicide. The photograph of the two cats in the grass is not about hedonistic animals callously lazing about in the shadow of a corpse (as it seemed on first sight); it’s a moment of great emotional importance to Roger, as he comforts the enslaved Captain whom he will shortly leave behind, to become a cat fugitive for ever.
It has become clear to me that until he killed Prideaux on that night in Dorset, Roger had never killed anybody. The eight previous lives – including Jo’s – were all taken by Prideaux, either to prevent Roger from telling the terrible secrets of Harville, or to remind him who was boss.
Having said I must apologise, I’ve turned quite unapologetic. I suppose that’s because there is a good reason for the rather irresponsible way I’ve told this story – sometimes a bit flippantly, and letting my style degenerate unforgivably, and allowing events to unfold just the way they did for me living through them, rather than organising the story properly, beginning at the beginning once I was in possession of all the facts. The thing is, my dear wife Mary loved to read mysteries – hence the name Watson for our stalwart little dog. I think I have mentioned how much I miss her. Well. There’s no change there, either. This has been written for Mary, with all my love. I’m sure it’s not good enough! But if I had written it in the conventional way, she would have guessed everything from about page six, because that’s what she always did. This is not to say, however, that she wouldn’t still have been two steps ahead of me, even with the story as it stands. She would have looked up from the manuscript, removed her old reading glasses, and said to me, reprovingly, “Oh, Bear.”