Only the Cat Knows (17 page)

‘Yes, well, keep up the good work.’ For a moment, it
looked as though Amanda was going to pat me on the shoulder, but she restrained herself and settled for a nod instead. Yvonne was already moving away.

Bemused, I drew another stack of envelopes towards me and went on with the addressing as though nothing unusual had happened. But this was the first time either of them had paid any attention to me. They had remained aloof while the others had tried to claim friendship or intimacy. Interesting … to find them now suddenly prepared to be chummy. Was it because I had been no threat to them before — but was now impinging on their territory?

A room I had never seen before (no surprise there) functioned as the Staff Canteen. I arrived late, hoping the corridors might be deserted enough to allow for some exploration, under the guise of having lost my way. I had already suspected that none of the senior staff would use the place and I was right. No one questioned my being there, however.

The unfriendly maid was behind the food counter, which was fine; I wasn’t in the mood for cheerful greetings. The most popular item on the menu seemed to have been the pork-and-leek sausages, there were only a few left. I nodded towards them and added a portion of onion mash and grilled tomatoes. I wouldn’t have minded a side order of the macaroni-and-cheese, but I was supposed to have a ladylike appetite.

Murmuring my thanks, I carried my tray over to a table at the end of the room and took a seat with my back to the wall. I could see everything that was going on and no one could sneak up on me. Almost immediately, this proved to be a wise move.

I saw him coming. I snatched up my tray and stood, but it was too late, he was faster. He stood at the end of the table, blocking my exit, then moved closer, invading my space. Smiling that oily smile, almost drooling.

‘
Dear
Vanessa —’ Ivor smirked. ‘I thought I might find you here.’ He moved closer, forcing me to inch back. The only alternative would be to hurl the contents of my tray in his face and, tempting though the idea was, there were too many interested faces turned in our direction.

‘And how does it feel to be back at work?’ He set down his tray, he had the macaroni-and-cheese and nothing else. ‘Are you settling in well? Are you enjoying it? Are you … remembering… the old days?’ He rolled his eyes insinuatingly at me and took the seat opposite, stretching out his legs so that I would fall over them if I made a dash for freedom. He behaved like a man with a lot of experience in herding unwilling sheep into places they didn’t want to go.

But I wasn’t the ewe he thought I was. On the other hand, I was going to have to deal with him sooner or later, and this might be the best place to make a start. In full view of a lot of interested eavesdroppers who could only guess at the undercurrents.

‘I’m all right.’ I reset my own tray on the table and sat down again, looking around for possible allies.

I encountered a couple of sympathetic smiles and a hostile glare from behind the counter. Charm Girl didn’t like any of us, but she disliked Ivor even more than most. I couldn’t fault her for that.

‘You’re looking better. Quite blooming, in fact.’

‘I still haven’t remembered anything.’ I cut short the phoney compliments. ‘Not one teeny thing.’

‘What a shame,’ his voice said.
Jackpot!
his expression said. ‘How disappointed you must be.’

‘Not that much. They warned me I might never …’ I let my voice quaver … ‘never get my past life back.’

‘You must let me help you, my dear. I can tell you what we used to do —’ He reached for my hand. ‘I can
show
you what we used to do.’

‘Not now!’ I stabbed one of my sausages with a savagery that made him wince and recoil swiftly. His instinct was right. It was only at the last moment that I had diverted
my fork from his groping hand.
Never, never, never
had Nessa had anything to do with this clown!

‘Perhaps you’re right.’ He looked around, smirking. ‘This isn’t the time or place. We must reminisce in private.’

On a freezing day in hell!
Nothing he told me would ever be true. Was he as obvious as he looked? Was he just trying to take over a vulnerable young woman he otherwise would never have stood a chance with? Or did he have another, more sinister, agenda? With a feeling of deep depression, I knew that I was going to have to find out.

‘We can talk later,’ I said reluctantly. ‘
Much
later.’

‘Not
that
much later.’ He pushed away his untouched food and got to his feet. ‘I’ll be —’ that insinuating plummy note slid back into his voice as he ogled me complacently — ‘
in touch
.’

He walked away with a self-satisfied strut. My gloom lifted slightly as I had a cheering thought: if he got too obnoxious, Bud would be more than willing to sort him out.

I lingered over my coffee until even the unfriendly server gave up, dismantled her hot table and went away after telling me, with a poisonous look, to leave the dirty cup on the counter, she’d deal with it later.

The corridor was deserted when I finally left. Looking both ways to be sure, I moved off in the opposite direction to the way I had arrived. If anyone challenged me, I was lost and looking for the way back.

All the doors along this route were firmly closed, no sound to be heard from behind them. The corridor twisted and became narrower, the lighting seemed dimmer. Perhaps this wing was unused.

The flagstone path leading off from the next turning was so narrow and dark that I nearly missed it. It could have been some medieval twitten running between two
dwellings, except for the roof above it and the door it led up to.

I tried the door cautiously and it swung open on well-oiled hinges. The carpet beyond was deep and luxurious, the wall sconces glowed warm and welcoming. This part of the building was definitely inhabited. It felt more like a private home than any place I had yet encountered.

Intrigued but wary, I moved forward, trying to look unaware that I was trespassing. I had not been invited into these superior quarters.

Somewhere ahead, familiar piano music rippled through the air. Yvonne. Was this her private apartment? I didn’t want to run into her but, as long as the music kept playing, that was unlikely.

In any case, I had covered too much distance to retrace my steps now. It was safer to go forward and trust the carpet to muffle all sound as I hurried past her door. There were other doors beyond hers, one of them must lead me out of this maze.

I headed towards the most promising, the one straight ahead with the corridor dividing into two paths in front of it. With luck, it might open into the grounds and I could —

The music stopped abruptly, followed by a crash, as of a keyboard lid being slammed down. The recital was over, the pianist was not in a good mood.

The last thing I wanted to do was to encounter her. I was supposed to be at my desk addressing those stupid envelopes. She would not be pleased to find me here.

I turned and, walking backwards, kept my eye on Yvonne’s door. Perhaps she was just tired of the piano and was going to settle down with a magazine or something.

The door began to open. I swung around and bolted for cover. The door straight ahead was already slightly ajar and no indication of life came from the room behind it. I dashed inside and closed the door silently before turning to face the room.

Out of the frying pan
…

I’d wanted to see Everett Oversall — but not this way.

The Great Man sat behind a large gleaming mahogany desk, facing the door. A blonde head bent close to his, hair almost sweeping his cheek as she shuffled documents for him to sign, not noticing that she had lost his attention.

I had it.

Caught in the laser beam from his eyes like a rabbit paralysed by oncoming headlights, I could only blink. And blink again, my mind gone blank.

‘Come in … Vanessa,’ he said.

‘What?’ Amanda’s head snapped back. ‘What are you doing here?’ Now I was caught in two laser beams. ‘How did you get in?’

‘I lost my way,’ I said feebly. ‘Where am I?’

‘Home,’ Oversall said. Those hooded eyes seemed to bore into me and I stared back helplessly. He was smaller than I had expected, in the way celebrities and film stars are always smaller in real life than they look in pictures and on film. Perhaps he was shrinking with age, but he still exuded an aura of power.

‘You’ve found your way home.’ He gave a short bark that might have been intended as laughter. ‘It didn’t take you as long as I thought it might.’

‘Lost?’ Amanda was not so amused. ‘A likely story! You’ve remembered, haven’t you? You thought you’d sneak in here and —’

‘Amanda!’ Oversall cut her off sharply. A quick look passed between them.

‘I don’t remember anything,’ I protested. ‘I wish I could. This … this is all so awful!’

Everett Oversall had kept both hands on his desk, toying with a ruby-tipped fountain pen, surely a gift from some Middle Eastern potentate. You don’t find writing instruments that florid in your local branch of Ryman’s.

So, when the door flew open and Yvonne burst into the room, I knew it must have been Amanda who had hit the panic button.

‘What is
she
doing here?’ Yvonne demanded as she saw me.

‘Remembering, I think.’ Amanda met her eyes. ‘If not now, then soon.’

And why should that bother them so much?

‘If only I
could
remember,’ I said. I keep trying — but there’s nothing there.’ Tears would be excessive, I decided, but I allowed my voice to quaver. ‘Nothing at all!’

‘You poor dear.’ Yvonne’s sympathy was as false as her eyelashes. ‘We must take you back to your rooms where you can rest.’

‘Yes.’ Amanda closed in on me from the other side. ‘You need to lie down and sleep. This is all too much for you.’

Hands like iron bands snapped around my wrists on either side, and they turned me relentlessly towards the door.

‘Just a minute,’ Everett Oversall intervened before they could lead me away. ‘If there’s a chance she might remember some of her past by being here, I think it’s a chance worth taking.’ His mouth stretched in a semblance of a smile. ‘After all, we want our Vanessa back again, don’t we?’

In the instant before they rearranged them into agreement, their frozen faces said they didn’t want Vanessa back, they didn’t want the other women who were cluttering up the place — and they could do without each other, too.

‘Yes —’ I twisted my arms suddenly, breaking free of their grip. ‘Yes, that might help. It’s worth trying.’

‘I’d hoped you’d think so.’ His eyes met mine grimly before flicking away to indicate a door on the far side of the room. I had the disconcerting feeling that I had just been sent a subliminal instruction.

It was obviously the only clue I was going to get, so I followed it — not forgetting to rub my wrists with an accusing look towards the ladies so anxious to get me out of there.

I began to wander around the opulent office, aware of
Oversall’s almost imperceptible nod of approval as I started off in the opposite direction, peering vaguely into shadowy corners and pausing to admire paintings.

When I finally reached the door he had indicated and put my hand on the knob, tension flashed through the room behind me like a bolt of lightning.

Without looking back, I opened the door and stepped inside. I heard a muffled gasp as I switched on the lights — but most light switches were just inside the door; that didn’t prove my memory was returning.

It was a warm and inviting room, the deep blue of the blue-and-silver-grey carpet matched by the window curtains, a polished rosewood desk glowing, logs waiting to be ignited in the fireplace, more paintings, a bookcase filled with tempting volumes — and a faint nostalgic fragrance in the air.

And not one damned envelope in sight.

I had found Vanessa’s domain. I knew it even before I saw the parade of foreign souvenirs trailing across the mantelpiece — every one of them sent to her from me on my travels.

I had picked up the paperweight of the pyramids and upended it to start the unlikely snowstorm fluttering down when I became aware that they were all standing in the doorway watching me.

‘Oh …’ I replaced the paperweight, the swirling snow now almost completely obscuring the pyramids. I’d thought it would amuse Vanessa and it had. But there was nothing funny about it now, nor about anything else.

‘Oh …’ I turned to face them; the tears blurring my eyes were genuine, they weren’t to know the true cause. ‘I thought… just for a moment… but it’s gone again. It’s … all gone …’

‘Sleep!’ Amanda started towards me purposefully. ‘That’s what you need. A good night’s sleep. I have some pills, if you don’t —’

‘She must rest,’ Yvonne concurred. ‘She is still weak and frail.’ She moved forward. ‘Come now, you need —’

‘That’s enough!’ Oversall’s raised hand stopped them in their tracks. ‘I’ve rung for Monica. She’ll be here in a minute — and she’ll take care of Vanessa.’

So he didn’t really trust them, either.

The phone rang before I had dressed for work in the morning. Half-expecting Anderson, I was surprised to find it was Candy with my marching, or rather, non-marching orders for the day.

‘There’s another dreary crisis this morning,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing you can do about it and the rest of us are going to be frantically busy sorting it out, so it might be better if you just skipped work today.’

Keep out from underfoot
, I translated.

‘You’re sure there’s nothing I can do to help?’ I made the obligatory offer to show willing.

‘It’s all in hand. Just a matter of tracing and finding some publicity material that went missing on its way to various media people. It happens every now and again. We have dealing with it down to a fine art — but it’s hectic here while we do. We’ll have it all sorted out by tomorrow.’

We don’t want you in the way today
.

‘Well, if you’re sure I can’t —’

‘Consider it a day’s holiday. Of course —’ her tone became arch, signalling a joke — ‘if you’re really determined to work, we can always send some envelopes over!’