Only the Cat Knows Read Online Free Page B

the message. Now that I thought of it, I was hungry. I checked my watch: 11:45. How time flies when you’re having fun!
    Holding the cat back with one foot, I eased the door open and looked up and down the cloister walk. It was deserted. An elaborate hostess trolley stood just outside the door. I tried to keep the cat away while I opened the door wide enough to roll the trolley inside.
    I needn’t have worried. She wasn’t going anywhere. Not now that the trolley was on her side of the door. She hurled herself against my ankles, nearly tripping me and purring enthusiastically.
    The truce was on again. At least until she had cajoled a goodly portion of my brunch away from me.
    ‘I’m hungry, too,’ I told her. ‘But don’t worry. There’s enough in here for a regiment.’
    A warming compartment held scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages and — in case they didn’t appeal — kedgeree. Also an assortment of rolls and croissants.
    A cool compartment beneath it had pots of yogurt, orange juice, small jugs of milk and cream, pats of butter, both salted and unsalted, and a variety of cheeses, all keeping nicely chilled.
    The last panel revealed a neutral compartment holding a selection of fruit and Danish pastries.
    ‘
Prryah-yah-yah!’
my new best friend enthused, pawing at the warming compartment. She couldn’t wait.
    ‘Oh, all right,’ I surrendered. The warmed plates were in a wide lower drawer and I took two out, piling a bit of everything on hers and rather more of everything on mine, and we settled down to a long satisfying meal.
    Old habits die hard — and why shouldn’t they? When we had eaten our fill, I salvaged the remaining cheeses, butter, jams and a couple of rolls and folded them into a napkin and secreted them at the bottom of a drawer. In a place like this, you never could tell when you might get your next meal.
    The cat watched with approval. She was indifferent to the rolls and jam, but she had a vested interest in those luscious cheeses.
    ‘Just in case,’ I told her.
    She blinked agreement, just before she slumped across my feet and conked out, her little tummy bulging.
    I wondered when she had last been fed — and how well. She had gulped down everything on offer, even the scrambled eggs, like some stray unsure of when — or what — her next meal would be.
    But she had the right idea. I yawned. A little catnap right now was not to be despised. It was not just the heavy meal, it had been a pretty sleepless night. I vaguely recognized that I was also probably experiencing some sort of delayed shock after the last few days.
    I gathered up the cat’s unprotesting form and carried her into the bedroom where we both collapsed on to the bed and into those everloving arms of Morpheus.

Chapter Four
    They were all so much older than I had thought. Beautifully nipped and tucked, Botoxed and liposuctioned, their smooth unlined faces turned towards me as I hesitated in the doorway. A faint golden glow about them might have been honey — or the amber they had been preserved in.
    I looked around at them, my face as blank as theirs. Blanker, I was holding mine steady lest a passing flicker betray that they were not completely unknown to me. Decades of exposure in headlines, gossip columns, social notes and endless photographs had ensured that the public were aware of their names, faces and exploits.
    But I had amnesia.
    We held the tableau for a long moment then, abruptly, they all seemed to relax. Whatever they had expected — or feared — hadn’t happened. On face after face, the tightly stretched lips forced themselves into welcoming smiles.
    And yet, I was conscious of a wave of hostility eddying towards me from someone — or perhaps more than one. What had Nessa ever done to them — except be a generation or two younger? In these circles, that could be enough.
    ‘Vanessa —’ The first to speak was a painfully thin woman whose blonde hair was pulled back so tightly into a chignon that it