Elaine Fromsett was wearing a flowered housecoat and a bright smile but looking a good deal older than in the picture Ruth Less had supplied. The hair was edged with blue and in one of those symmetrical, waved styles, framing the temples, favoured by the Queen and George III. I flashed my library card at her.
‘South-East Gas, Consumer Aftercare,’ I intoned, pointing my rainsoaked pencil purposefully. ‘I wonder if I might speak to the man of the house?’ Try that line nowadays and in ninety percent of houses you will get a faceful of feminism for your trouble – even from the men. That’s just the way it is. Elaine was not to be so easily provoked. She was old school.
‘I’m afraid there is no man,’ she fluttered, hand to beating heart. ‘My husband is dead.’
‘My apologies, madam. I understand you have just had some work done by us?’ She nodded. ‘I wonder if I might enquire the nature of the work.’ I made a stiff, imaginary tick on my clipboard.
She looked blank. ‘I think they said it was something to do with re-adjusting the supply feed valve synchronisation with the calibrated input manifold of the optimal pressure-reduction unit.’
‘Could you be more specific?’
‘I’m afraid I’m not entirely sure. I’m not very technical, you see, dear. Would you like to look at the work manifest? You’d better come in.’ She bustled off, leaving me to close the door and stand in the hall where a big barometer helpfully warned me to expect rain and a hollow elephant’s leg offered me a choice of worn umbrellas to deal with the problem. She called over one shoulder. ‘Go into the lounge and sit down, you poor man. Would you like a cup of tea? It’s such a horrible day, as cold as an unloved pussy.’ There wasn’t a whole lot I could say to that so I went through into a big, light room with pale blue furniture and a thick, grey carpet that sucked at my feet and smelled delicately of lavender. From a Georgian side table, photos of a distinguished gent with impressive, grey hair smirked in embarrassment as though- Gosh! - modestly unused to having his picture taken. A three-pipes-a-day sort of chap. On the plush sofa, a cat stopped licking its backside and stared at me in astonishment across a cocked and shapely tabby thigh. If only women could master that pose. Then it struck me that there was something odd about that cat, apart from its flirty look. It only had three legs. Another furry friend hopped across and looked up at me, its front leg encased in plaster and one ear missing. Everywhere were cats, incomplete cats, all staring at me with gimlet eyes. Multiple cat ownership is always associated, in my mind, with the stench of pee, sagging drawers and poverty, like an old folks’ home but this was something entirely different. Synchronisation is one of the odd facts of Nature. Fireflies, all over the world, flash exactly together. When people are walking side-by-side they unconsciously fall into step. Women of polygynous households slowly converge in their menstrual cycles – showing that males are lying about one of the principal excuses used to justify the harem. And cats – I now discovered for the first time – purr in phase when gathered together as if under the baton of a feline conductor. I have always liked cats, rational, self-contained creatures that permit only a limited and negotiated intimacy but are capable of radiating a deep sense of happiness like none other. I remembered from somewhere that a householder is legally responsible for the behaviour of his dog but even a domesticated cat is considered, under law, a wild beast and a free spirit and answerable only to itself. It is curious that the effects of purring and snoring – to which it bears such a close superficial resemblance – are so very different. The room was like a hypnotic chainsaw of free-spirited content. Mrs. Fromsett came in with soft steps, waving the manifest in one hand and bearing a cup and saucer in the other.
‘Have you met my little menagerie? I’m afraid I’ve got rather a lot of them, dear. You see, I give a loving home to wounded and abused pussies. If I don’t take them in, they put them down, you see, and there’s so much love left in them that we can’t have that, can we? My, you’re very young to have such a responsible position.’
Twenty minutes later I had two cats in my lap, the story of her childhood in Devon, her early life as a terrier-breeder’s daughter – destroyed by distemper - her husband’s demise – destroyed by dementia - the end of her relationship with her stepdaughter – destroyed by bad temper - her email address, bank account number and sort code and three jammy dodgers eaten off a real lace doilie. When did I last see a doilie? I liked her. More, I loved her. I wanted to adopt her as my mum and I had just donated twenty pounds to her favourite cat charity.
***
It was official. A retired policeman in Surrey had secured Elaine Fromsett’s DVLR printout and carried out a thorough Criminal Records search under her name. Nothing. No driving under the influence of indecent exposure. Our affiliates in India, where her bank outsourced its IT, had emailed a detailed copy of her current bank account. She lived a totally blameless life that would have made Mother Teresa look like an egocentric slapper, and probably only left her house to kiss babies in the street. Regular payments from the account included membership of the RSPCA and a charity that cured blindness in the Third World. She maintained a small but honest credit but, as I ran my finger down the column of figures, one thing stood out. She had been overcharged by South-East Gas by the sum of three hundred pounds more than the amount on the manifest, as attested by one, Wayne Biscotti, certified gas fitter. Clearly, Wayne and the other cowboys were violating the sacred oath that binds all gas-fitters and running a scam on little old ladies. When she received her own copy of the statement, in a few days’ time, Elaine Fromsett would scrupulously recycle it, but without carefully checking every payment. I sighed. Anonymity is important to my mission but sometimes risks must be taken. Three hundred pounds buys a lot of cat food in a hungry, feline-filled world. I hacked into the sloppy South-East Gas website, sent Mrs Fromsett a weasel-worded email from the head of security explaining what had happened, how the scam had been done, an offer of compensation and suggestions on how to best initiate criminal proceedings. That should be enough to get her money back when she presented it all to puzzled employees of the utility company but I knew in my heart that any investigation would be slapdash and superficial and that it would probably conclude that any irregularity was all due to the mysterious but phoney Customer Aftercare representative who had called on her that day and not Wayne Biscotti and his sidekick.
***
I drank tea, doubtless out of solidarity with Elaine Fromsett. In her own unconscious symbolism, Ruth Less drank black and bitter coffee without grounds or added sweetness. Her eyes were little pools of acid hate. She stirred. ‘Let me get this right. What you’re saying is that you have come up with precisely nothing, despite the fee I paid. Moreover, you now presume to judge me and my friend and, not only do you refuse our commission, you outrageously presume to warn her off from further protecting her own interests in this matter. Who do you think you are, Superman, using your powers only for good?’ The coffee house was crowded. It was a place of Italianate pretensions and Ukrainian waitresses where it seemed to take the staff about fifteen minutes to drain each cup of coffee from the death rattle of the Gaggia machine and then it tasted just like instant.
I couldn’t really argue with any of her summation. ‘That’s pretty much it. That’s the way the cookie crumbles.’ I took a Scottish shortbread from its cellophane sheath, crumbled it eloquently