Ghost Cat
The birds had deserted their usual feeding places in the back garden.
In the shadow of a shrub was the cat with no name. The appearance of
the cat was startling. In the shadows, her white face was unexpected
and somehow sinister. She had a solid mocking stare.
The cat's stare said, ”you don't have any secrets, not from me.”
My imagination was getting the better of me. There was no way this
cat could know. Yet her intent gaze said, “oh really?”
Later in the day, I saw a blackbird on the lawn. I know blackbirds
tease cats at the peril of their own lives. So I looked around. The
white cat had gone. I breathed a sigh of relief.
As I walked home in the twilight, the wall of a neighbouring cottage
didn't look quite right. The cat was sitting perfectly still and
blending in with the white of the cottage wall. Her eyes were on me
again.
From then on, she seemed to haunt me and I could tell my fears were
getting the better of me. I was “losing my nerve” as the phrase
is. Equally it could have been my marbles.
In my head, I repeated the mantra I had taught myself, “murder
isn't murder if it's unintentional.”
I had read about someone who had killed a teenager with an automobile
and claimed diplomatic immunity. People who were less fortunate had
got prison terms of various lengths, some suspended sentences, but
nothing like the sentence for murder.
The look on the cat's face said she knew all about this and was not
impressed.
I did not know the soon-to-be victim but I knew a man who did. The
man who did was happy to transfer some money from one numbered Swiss
bank account to another if Mr Baxter were to meet with an unfortunate
accident. I did not inquire into his motive.
Mr Baxter was a man of regular habits. He crossed New Road between
nine and nine-fifteen every morning. I drive along New Road on my way
to Tesco at the same time as luck would have it.
That morning he was in exactly the wrong place at exactly the right
time. I sped up. My heart rate sped up. “They can't call it murder.
There's no motive. It's just an accident,” were my last thoughts
before the proposed event.
And there in the road in front of me was the cat. It was an instinct
to swerve to avoid it and it took me right into the path of an
oncoming landrover. I might as well have picked a fight with a tank.
My car was written off. In fact I was very nearly written off myself.
The PC who sat patiently by my bedside had collected together all the
witness statements and he read them to pass the time. Then he read
the Readers' Digest. He had started on the Sun crossword when they
told him I was ready to answer questions.
I told him all I could remember. I left out Mr Baxter.
“A cat, you say, Mr Jamieson?”
“Yes it was a white cat just sitting in the middle of the
road. I swerved to avoid it.”
“There is a bit of a problem here, Mr Jamieson. None of the
eyewitnesses, a Mrs Miller and a Miss Miller and Mr Greenland, saw a
cat. I think you might need to have a psychiatric assessment before
you drive again.”
Postscript
The local Worthing Herald said that a local resident, a Mr
Baxter, had suffered a fatal heart attack at the site of the
accident. I reflected that the money I was getting might compensate
for the loss of the use of my legs.
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