The No. 2 Feline Detective Agency Read Free Page B

any time soon – agreed to consider Jessie as a temporary recruit, provided there was good justification. A little late, the penny dropped. ‘Oh I see! Jessie is to be planted at Furcross as an insider – brilliant! But can she be trusted not to lose her temper? She does have a bit of a reputation. We could end up being sued by Marcia Woolcoat.’
    Tilly thought for a moment as she put the pan on for their bedtime milk. ‘Do you think this Marcia Woolcoat can be trusted? She’d have to go along with Jessie being there. We couldn’t afford to pay Furcross rates, and getting the TV back should be our first priority after the rent.’
    Clearly they were both tired and the conversation was becoming more surreal by the second. It was eventually agreed that Tilly would go to Furcross with Hettie in the morning, and would take notes during the questioning of residents and staff. The matter of theirmole could wait until they had a better idea of what was going on – which, in Hettie’s case, was a bit of a tall order. Delighted to be going further than the High Street, Tilly turned out the filing cabinet to look for her best cardigan while Hettie downed her hot milk, wound her alarm clock and curled up in her chair. It had been a long day, but there was no doubt that the No. 2 Feline Detective Agency was definitely on the map, even if the contour lines were a little shaky.

CHAPTER THREE
    Tilly awoke as she always did to the firing up of the Butters’ bread ovens. As she lay waiting for the warmth to permeate the walls of their room, she nuzzled each of her arthritic paws, encouraging them to face the day. She’d tried all the usual cures, but found that heat and nice dinners did more good than any nasty stuff in bottles. Since Hettie had taken her in, life was full of good food and warm beds, a great improvement on frosty old sheds and foraging in dustbins. Now, with their detective agency up and running, she actually had a sense of purpose in life – as well as organising and executing Hettie’s every comfort, of course. With thatin mind, she struggled from her blanket, folded it up and placed it in the filing cabinet for later, and put the kettle on for their morning tea. She padded softly round the room, reversing her evening ritual to transform bedsit into office again: the tablecloth was stowed in the bottom desk drawer; the dinner bowls – after a cursory wipe – were stacked in the fireplace; and the few stray crisps which still littered the carpet were tidied away as a breakfast starter. Licking the salt from her paws, and making some attempt to clean her face and ears at the same time, Tilly was now ready to coax Hettie into Thursday and their appointment at the Furcross home for slightly older cats.
    Hettie had been awake for some time, but preferred the chores to be concluded before she opened an eye or stretched a paw. Tilly was good at homemaking, and it would have been sinful to interfere with such a well-oiled machine before the first cup of tea had been delivered. The tea was hot, that was the best that could be said for it; this was the third day that the same teabag had been dangled into water and milk, but Tilly had conjured up a slice of bread with a scraping of cheese from somewhere, and they shared it before Hettie rose from her bed to start the day.
    Feeling a little underfed, Hettie’s heart leapt as she remembered Marcia Woolcoat’s ‘as and when’ invitation to meals at Furcross. Pulling on her best mac, she made a mental note to string her interrogations outand make sure that she and Tilly were able to embrace every opportunity offered by Marley Toke’s home cooking; Marley’s jerk chicken had been legendary at rock festivals across the land in the days when Hettie and Poppa lurched from one summer gathering to another. Whilst Tilly buttoned her cardigan, Hettie took two pounds through to the Butters’ shop to pay the rent and salivate over the prospects for dinner. Having exchanged