Death's Cold Hand, J.E. Mayhew [book club recommendations .txt] 📗

“So where was this Quentin when he died?” Noel said.

“In his house. Near where you stopped and picked me up.”

“And do you remember how you got there?”

“I walked. I’d been told to go there.”

“Who by, Terry?”

“The orders on the phone. I got orders to go there and wait for help,” Terry looked up as though a penny had dropped. “They sent me there and I found Quentin’s body.”

“Then you didn’t kill him?” Noel said. His heart thumped. He’d met a few psychos in his time, but he’d always been able to outrun them. Now at his age, stuck in this garage with a gammy ankle, he was a sitting duck. Terry didn’t seem like a killer, but what if he just lost control? Noel wasn’t a psychiatrist. He didn’t know if Terry was sane or not. “Who calls you and gives you orders, Terry?”

“They never say,” Terry muttered. “They just tell me to be somewhere and then someone dies…”

“This has happened before, mate?”

Terry nodded. “With Paul. I wasn’t there when Richard died. I tried to tell the police that Richard had been murdered but they didn’t believe me.”

“So let me get this straight in my old head, mate. You get a call telling you to go somewhere and when you get there, someone’s dead. Why do you go?”

“It’s Corporal Graves, see. He hates me. He can get into anyone’s body and control them. But every time a body he’s in dies, he gets weakened and if I burn an effigy, a bit of his soul dies too. They place the effigy for me, I melt a replica…”

“If you don’t kind me saying, Terry, that sounds a bit… crazy,” Noel said, easing himself into a standing position and putting the kettle on.

“I know. It is but it makes so much sense to me.”

“Does it make less sense when you take your tablets?”

Terry nodded and sighed. “Yes. No. I don’t know. I need help, Noel. I had a counsellor, she was good. I could talk to her, a bit like I’m talking to you now and everything made sense then for a while. She understood me.”

“Maybe we should find this counsellor then. See if she can help you,” Noel said. “Do you know where she lives?”

“I’m not meant to but I do. She lives by me. I saw her on the train and followed her home once. She’s called Nicola. Nicola Norton.”

*****

The Veterinary Surgery was only a couple of miles up the road and Blake employed the blue lights to get there in a matter of minutes. His mind raced, fatalism stumbling over panic as he imagined worse and worse scenarios. He couldn’t lose Serafina, not now, not ever. If she was gone, then he was cut loose from his past. Lost.

Abandoning the car by the roadside, he ran in, banging the door open. The receptionist gave a little squeal of fright. A woman sat hugging a dachshund and stared at him in horror.

“W-Will Blake… I’m Serafina’s… the cat… big Persian one…”

The receptionist’s eyes widened even more at the mention of the cat and she pointed mutely at the door through to the actual examination rooms. “Can I go through?”

The receptionist nodded once, still looking as though Blake was levelling a sawn-off shotgun at her. Blake nodded back and rushed for the door, bracing himself for the worst. He remembered all the times he’d accompanied bereaved relatives when they were required to identify a body. This wasn’t that bad. Not by a long chalk. “It’s only a cat,” he muttered to himself, grabbing the handle. But it was Serafina!

“It’s only a…” The low growl he heard as he opened the door was the most welcome sound he’d ever heard. Then things got strange.

“Please, no. Good pussy cat…” The vet stood on the examination table, holding a clipboard to her face.

Serafina, a ball of mad, exploded blue fur stalked around the base of the table like a tigress on the hunt. Her tail lashed from side to side.

In the corner of the room, a young girl huddled on top of a filing cabinet, desperately ensuring that no part of her dangled over the edge. It was quite a feat. Thin scratches lined her hands. She looked at Blake. “Please help us…” she said, weakly.

“Serafina,” Blake whispered, squatting down and rubbing his finger and thumb together as though he had a treat for her.

“Mr Blake, I wouldn’t advise…” the vet began to say.

“It’s okay, she knows me…” Serafina padded up to him and gave a plaintive meow, rubbing her head against his knuckles. Then she bit him, drawing blood before scrambling up onto his shoulder. “I missed you, too, old girl,” he muttered. He looked up at the staring veterinarian who hadn’t come down from the table yet. “Could I borrow a crate to take her home?”

“Absolutely,” the vet said, making no attempt to hide the relief in her voice. “I think we can assume she’s made a full recovery.”

*****

It was only two storeys but it was a fall that could easily kill. George Owens had been sitting on top of the Pro-Vets building most of the afternoon holding a bottle of vodka and a knife. PC Mark Robertson had spotted him from the carpark and called in assistance as well as phoning Blake.

“I’m sorry, sir. He was so insistent on not having any protection and now I can see why,” Robertson had said.

Blake had been at home just settling Serafina into her basket. The cat had become drowsy after giving him a few more scratches and bites. “Keep him talking, Mark. I’m on my way over.”

Owens had accessed the roof through a service door on the second floor. The office part of the building was a brick tower in the corner of the warehouse and the door opened onto a small flat roof. Owens had climbed off the roof and onto the corrugated metal that formed the warehouse part of the premises. The surface was smooth and slippery as Blake inched his