Bitter End Part 37

Fizz was as certain as she could be that the test was positive. People like Vanessa didn't fool around with s.e.x. If Rudyard was right in saying that she didn't want a family, there was no way she'd have been taking chances like some simple-minded schoolgirl. So, whatever means of contraception she'd been using, she must have had an accident an accident she hadn't been aware of, otherwise she'd have rushed out for a morning-after pill. Forgetting to take a 228. crucial contraceptive pill, or even a faulty condom, could have been sufficient to put her in the club.

'She was pregnant,' she said. 'If she'd been used to having irregular periods she wouldn't have worried. I reckon she was pretty well certain she was pregnant before she bought the test.'

'You can't possibly know that, Fizz,' Buchanan said, being congenitally unable to see anything but solid facts.

Fizz didn't bother to argue. Sooner or later he'd find she was right. The Forth appeared in intermittent flashes between the

warehouses and industrial premises along Seafield Road,

slate grey and sluggish. On the far sh.o.r.e the Kingdom of

Fife was masked by low cloud, making Fizz feel she was

looking at a seascape. 'You do know where this place is?' Buchanan said.

'Not precisely, but it's on the sh.o.r.e side. I remember noticing the lines of kennels one time when I was taking people to view a house in Portobello. I'm sure we'll see the sign.'

'I hope you've thought this through, Fizz. I wouldn't like to see you being charged with wasting police time.'

Buchanan leaned forward, peering through the streaming windscreen to scan the buildings on their left. 'And you could be, you know. Very easily.'

'No chance,' Fizz claimed, with partly feigned confidence.

'I've brought my disguise with me.'

She heaved her bag over from the back seat and produced a pair of gla.s.ses and a ski cap with a broad skip.

'See?' she said, when she had tucked all her hair out of view.

'Admit it -you couldn't tell me from Schwarzenegger.'

Buchanan rolled his eyes but was prevented from saying something sarcastic by the appearance of the sign advertising the dog and cat home.

The place looked like a miniature POW camp. The main construction material appeared to be chain-link 229. fencing, which surrounded the long rows of whitewashed kennels with their cramped runs, the administrative buildings and the exercise areas. Inside, however, the place was spotlessly clean and, Fizz was glad to note, smelled of neither disinfectant nor doggy poo.

There was a small reception area, well stocked with leads, dog food, cat toys, baskets, and books about how to discipline your dog or carry out your cat's wishes to its satisfaction. Fizz waited her turn at the desk, identified herself as a potential customer, and was told to follow a white line to the waiting room. Buchanan tagged along uneasily, out into the yard, past a couple of low buildings, and into a room containing a few chairs and a wall of kids'

drawings. Bereft of any other amus.e.m.e.nt, they studied the artwork until a young girl arrived to attend to them.

'Looking for a cat?' she inquired, chewing vigorously on a large wad of gum. 'Follow me.'

The cattery was only a few paces away: more chain-link fencing inside a long, not unpleasant building still lit by fugitive shafts of low morning sunlight. Only a dozen or so of the cages were occupied.

Ts this the lot?' Fizz asked.

'Yep. Some days we don't have a spare cage,' the girl said, 'other days we've hardly any cats at all. Just depends.

Cats go fast, you see. Not like dogs.'

Each cage bore a card giving the particulars of the occupant and contained a comfortable basket with woolly rugs and a couple of cat toys. Opposite the main battery of temporary accommodation there were a couple of chain- link 'playrooms' that someone had designed with love and intelligence so that the cats had things to climb and chase and explore.

Buchanan was immediately importuned by a big ginger and white torn who rushed to the front of his cage and started stropping himself up and down the links till his mark was forced to insert a finger and scratch his cheek. Fizz, knowing Buchanan for a sucker, was on to him right away. 230. 'Let's not cuddle them all, Buchanan, huh? We don't want to waste too much time.'

Buchanan swept an eye over the cages. 'What about that one?'

'Too much white on him.'

'Is white a no-no?'

Fizz sighed. 'Buchanan,' she muttered in an undertone, 'you wouldn't call a cat "Jet" if it wasn't totally black, now would you? Like that one there.'

She indicated a motionless object in one of the playrooms.

Surrounded by what amounted to a feline Disneyland, it was lying on its side on a piece of rug in an att.i.tude of deepest unconcern, and looked like it had been filleted and left out in the sun to cure.

Fizz turned to their a.s.sistant. 'Can you tell me about this one?'

The girl heaved herself off the door post and wandered over to an empty cage to read the card. 'Male, two years old, his name's Pooky and he was handed in the day before yesterday by his owner who was going abroad. Thirty pounds.'

Fizz was somewhat taken aback by the price. She had more or less a.s.sumed that they'd be giving cats away with a packet of tea but, since it was totally dependent on charity, the home, she supposed, would need to get some money from somewhere to support the long-stay animals. She risked a glance at Buchanan's face and discovered him looking a trifle pained but, what the h.e.l.l?

He'd spend that much on a decent meal without thinking twice about it.

'I'd like that one,' she said, making a unilateral decision to save time. 'We have a cat basket in the car.'

Pooky barely woke up as the girl picked him up and carried him back to the reception desk. Nor did he make any objection when, presently, he was transferred into Buchanan's arms and carried out to the Saab. Actually, he was a very attractive cat, if you liked that sort of 231. thing, with huge green eyes and a purr that clearly stole Buchanan's heart.

'What are they going to think when you take him back tomorrow,' he asked as he tenderly laid the inert bundle in Selina's travelling basket.

Fizz was not at all worried about that. If it actually came to pa.s.s, which she doubted, she'd be surprised if the people at the home would mind being able to sell Pooky for another thirty pounds.

Unlike Selina, who hated the sight of her travelling basket and demanded the freedom of the whole car on a journey of any length, Pooky was tickled pink with the mohair lap rug with which it was padded and fell asleep almost right away. Every time Buchanan stopped the car to check that he was still content and in perfect health his reports were heart-gladdeningly optimistic and they reached Hawick without incident.

'We'd better eat first,' Fizz said, spotting a promising restaurant in the main street and simultaneously experiencing a strong spasm of hunger.

'What about Pooky?'

'Look at him. He's unconscious.'

'Yes, but what if he wakes up and finds us gone?'

'Buchanan, he's a cat.' Fizz gave him a warning look. 'It won't mark him for life. And I'm hungry.'

He took a further careful look at the inert moggy and reluctantly abandoned it to its fate for all of twenty minutes. Fortunately, Fizz could eat quite a lot in twenty minutes and, seeing that they had no idea when they'd next get a decent meal, she forced Buchanan not only to do the same, but to buy a stock of Yorkie bars and canned drinks sufficient to sustain them for an indefinite period.

'Okay, mon capitaine,' Fizz said, as she sampled one of the Yorkie bars, 'let's do it.'

They couldn't miss the police station: it was an impressive three-storey building, as befitted the main office for the Borders district, standing on its own in the main street 232. and only a few yards from where they'd parked the car.

Pooky, as far as Fizz could tell, didn't even wake up as she carried the basket into the foyer and laid it on the counter of the inquiry desk.

'Help you, miss?'

The desk sergeant was no rookie. He had one of those middle-aged faces that has seen human nature at its worst and would slap the cuffs on you as soon as look at you.

Not the ideal sucker for any sort of scam.

Fizz gave him a nervous smile which was only partly counterfeit. 'I'm staying up at Chirnside and I've been looking after this cat for a couple of weeks. It was starving. I'd really like to keep it but a neighbour told me she'd seen a guy looking for a black cat.'