As Dark As My Fur

  Contents

  Cover

  Recent Titles by Clea Simon from Severn House

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Recent Titles by Clea Simon from Severn House

  Blackie and Care Mysteries

  THE NINTH LIFE

  AS DARK AS MY FUR

  Dulcie Schwartz Mysteries

  SHADES OF GREY

  GREY MATTERS

  GREY ZONE

  GREY EXPECTATIONS

  TRUE GREY

  GREY DAWN

  GREY HOWL

  STAGES OF GREY

  CODE GREY

  AS DARK AS MY FUR

  A Blackie and Care mystery

  Clea Simon

  To Jon

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in Great Britain 2016 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  19 Cedar Road, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM2 5DA.

  First published in the USA 2017 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS of

  110 East 59th Street, New York, N.Y. 10022

  This eBook edition first published in 2016 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Trade paperback edition first published

  in Great Britain and the USA 2017 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD

  Copyright © 2016 by Clea Simon.

  The right of Clea Simon to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8682-8 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-785-2 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-854-4 (e-book)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland

  ONE

  I watch the girl.

  She is sitting at the desk, as she has since daylight, reading over the letter she has perused a dozen times or more, the page laid flat before her on the stained blotter. I have eaten and slept, but lightly, in the hours that have passed, aware at all times of her slim form dwarfed by that old oak desk and the tension that keeps her hunched over that one piece of paper. That has her murmuring, anxious, as if by repetition she will soothe what worries her.

  ‘Tenant deceased,’ she reads out loud, and I believe she would argue if she could. ‘Vacate,’ she adds, reading further. The words stir something in me. A memory and a regret. But the girl only sighs and shakes her head. ‘I can’t even make out the signature,’ she says, and falls silent once more.

  This one room has been our shelter for weeks now. Our home. A shabby office in a rundown area of town, rented by the month by the old man, who was her mentor and her friend. As much an efficiency as a workspace, with its kitchenette and the battered sofa, where I slept, yesterday, as the spring rains fell. As need drove her out, despite the cold and wet, to forage in our ruined city.

  I woke as the paper slid beneath the door, which has been broken and must now be crudely barred. Guarded it until she returned, her worn cloth sack fragrant with broken fruits. Already, I had examined the notice, cataloguing the scent of the hand that brought it, the ink that forms the words as well as the strange imprint at its top. Markers I may once have known, but which now mean nothing.

  The girl took her time with it as well, upon her return, staring at the imprint before putting it aside. With deliberate focus she then parceled out the contents of her sack onto the larder counter. Apples already darkened by decay, but which she separated into piles: wrinkled and sweet, bitter. Gone. She’d looked over as she did this, turning toward me, the question clear in her large green eyes, and I did my best to respond, settling myself comfortably on the windowsill and turning away to signal my disinterest in such vegetable matter, fresh or rotten. Only then did she eat, devouring one small fruit, sweet with rot, and sucking each finger clean. She is hungry, this girl, to the point of weakness, and yet she would share her food with me, a cat.

  She owes me nothing, this child, burgeoning on womanhood. Despite the time I spend here, my predilection for this sill and for a certain worn spot on that sofa, I am sufficient unto myself, a creature of the streets, and I have no need of her meager provisions. I appreciate her generosity, however. Few of her kind would choose to share – shelter or food – with such a beast as I, ragged and undomesticated. But I have little taste for what she consumes, the fruit of plants halfway to fermentation. Not in this form. In this life, and what came before is fading.

  Even if I did feel such yearning, hunger burning beneath my coal-black hide, I would not take from her. My green eyes may seem distant, focused on other matters, but I see the blue tinge of her skin, the fraying lips. She is hungrier than I, as well as cold, and I – I would remedy both, if I could. For although I am a beast, I am not without heart. Indeed, I have tried to feed her, bringing her the choicest of my prey on several occasions only to see her turn aside, much as I did earlier. And as I cannot will her out of such dainty habits, I have taken to dining in private, sharing her company only once I have fed, before I return to sit and brood on lives past and the possibilities that remain.

  I sit now on the windowsill, aware of how I must appear: a large, black cat at rest, my paws tucked neatly beneath me. As ruminative as any pet to the undiscerning eye, but what I brew upon is not fit for most to hear. My thoughts are dark. Although my eyes may seem to close, I remain alert. On a vigil. Waiting for what may come. For now, I watch the girl.

  ‘It’s no use, Blackie.’ She doesn’t look up as she shakes her head, her mop of pink hair falling over her eyes. She is addressing herself more than me, although she goes by the name Care –
a ridiculous name, as bad as that hair – and mine is not Blackie. ‘We have until the end of the week.’

  I jump from the windowsill at this to join her by the desk. I have no reply to offer – what I wait for is not hope, nor will it ease her hunger – but I lean against her in support. Her leg is warm through her thin jeans, and her skin smells clean.

  ‘At least you don’t seem too desperate.’ Her hands grasp my middle, and I let her haul me to her lap. ‘You’re plumping out,’ she says, one hand smoothing my midnight fur. ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were getting younger.’

  I can’t help myself. I purr. It’s not the compliment, although I take some pride in my coat, which has indeed grown lush and thick in the weeks we have been together. Since she pulled me, drowning, from the storm drain where I was overwhelmed. Where I faced three men – two lackeys and a leader both fearless and cruel. And where I woke to awareness in this feline form. No, it’s the rhythmic stroking that evokes this involuntary response, a purely animal reaction beyond my conscious control. No matter, the low rumble relaxes the girl, and for that I am grateful, happy to share my pleasure as well as the warmth of our bodies in this dim, chill room.

  I would sleep. The sun has passed its peak, leaving the sill, my accustomed perch, in shadow. And although there are hours yet before the light will fully fade, I would rest for hunting. I may appear younger, once again, having taken renewed vigor from the girl, but even as I stretch and sigh, I feel my age.

  And something more. My acute senses aid me even as the skills honed in my former life – the one I have begun to recall – recede.

  ‘What is it?’ The girl sits up, her hand still, as she feels me tense. I jump to the floor, unsure myself of what had startled me, and then I know. A noise – footfall, quick and quiet – a man, but a careful one, is coming up the stairs.

  ‘The landlord?’ The girl has noted how stiff I stand, facing the closed door, and has the wit to whisper. The messenger did not arrive like this, with stealth and care, but I lack the means to tell her, to appease her trepidation. Nor is it the one I fear – the leader of my tormentors, a fiend who still haunts my dreams. She rolls back the chair and starts to rise, as quiet as she can. She has not barred the entrance and would remedy that lack. But even as she approaches it, the door squeaks and opens. I hunch down, readying myself to leap.

  ‘Hullo?’ A low voice, soft and tentative, is followed by a brown felt cap pulled low over the ears of a small man with large eyes, which blink in at us. ‘May I?’

  ‘Of course.’ Care stands to greet her visitor, assuming a posture of ease. ‘Please, come in.’

  The little man does, and she ushers him to the old sofa before wheeling the desk chair up to face him. I keep watch, but at a distance. No, this is not the one I fear, but his minions may appear just so innocuous when they make their inevitable approach.

  She does not know this. Indeed, her anxiety is apparent as she wipes her palms on her thighs, eager to present a firm handshake. A good impression. That he appears more solicitous than patronizing, more mole than man, matters not. Although he has removed that soft cap and now holds it before him, with both hands, she is the eager one. Uneasy, not for fear of possible harm but for what he may bring. The visitor is a potential client. The girl is starving. The stakes are high.

  ‘How may I help you?’ she asks, holding her voice steady with an effort that I, at least, can hear.

  ‘You are – you have taken over the agency?’ His voice suggests some other doubt, a questioning.

  Care hears it too, and immediately begins to recite the catchphrase of her mentor, the private investigator whose office she now occupies. ‘I do the needful. Find the missing. Locate the wrongdoer. Retrieve what has been lost, and—’

  ‘That’s it,’ he interrupts. ‘Retrieval. Not – the others.’

  She nods and waits. He has begun to talk, and her silence will do the rest.

  ‘I recently ran into some – some trouble.’ His hands tighten on the cap, turning it slightly. ‘I do not – it is all in the line of business.’

  The cap continues its silent rotation, but the man holding it is still. Finally, she prompts him. ‘And what is your line of business, Mr—’

  ‘Quirty. Just – Quirty,’ says the little man. ‘I am a keeper. A keeper and a scribe.’

  Care nods again. In this city, the trades often go hand in hand. A man who can write, an educated man, is often the repository of papers. It is a good living for the small and weak, as I can still recall, but not without its risks.

  ‘I am good at my job,’ the little man says now. ‘People know me, and I do not ask for much. But my eyes—’ He waves a hand, as if to emphasize the near blindness of the large and bloodshot orbs. ‘I use a lens. A magnifier. It would mean nothing to most. Certainly not to the men who came, but to me …’ He falls silent, his eyes cast down as if to study the floor.

  Care nods. That look explains it all. ‘I’ll take your case,’ she says, as moved by his apparent frailty as by the injustice of the theft. It is not a wise choice, I would warn her. She too is one of the smaller creatures out there and may well be set upon as this man clearly has been. But her offer springs as much from a generous heart as from the need for clients. Besides, keepers – scribes – are trusted. His word may bring more custom.

  ‘I will need to visit your office,’ she says, her voice grown soft. From somewhere, she has learned how private such men may be, unless her time with me has heightened her awareness of the prey mentality.

  ‘Of course.’ He jumps up from the sofa, energized by her assent. But as he leads her from the building and down into the warren of streets down, I cannot help but be reminded of the scurry of a mouse. This man was born a victim, and I would not have the girl drawn too close.

  Although he leads us swiftly – for surely I would not leave the girl alone – he does not appear to take a direct path to anywhere. Instead, he ducks through alleys, scuttling around the edge of first one vacant lot and then another, crossing narrow streets shadowed by the buildings that loom above. The street names come to me, as if from a distant dream, and I recognize the printer’s district. Along Leading, as some wag had named this narrow road, the buildings nearly touch. Kern Lane, and then – yes – Ink Square, a pitted plaza where few of the cobblestones remain. Half ruined, this place is quiet, and has not enjoyed the seamy resurgence of the harbor so nearby. The block-like towers here, most now piles of rubble plundered like those cobblestones, are more the home of quiet squatters and small businessmen, such as this Quirty, where they are occupied at all.

  The little man skirts the open space, like some frightened rodent, and ducks into a muddy alley fragrant with a scent like that of fermentation, sharp and slightly sweet. I follow, lingering over one pile of rubbish, but there is no carcass beneath. It is ink that I have sensed, a surfacing memory informs me, a fragrance I now associate with Care and with that pile of papers. I am not surprised, therefore, when with one last look at the open square behind, the small man ducks around a mound of crumbling brick to a set of stairs. Nearly hidden behind the rubble, it descends to a metal door. There is no lock, not anymore. Perhaps there never was: a keeper relies on secrecy rather than such devices. But still he opens the door, holding it wide for her to enter, a gesture that recalls another, older time.

  For myself, I am leery of such portals, whether they latch or no, and instead make my way around the corner from where that same sweet, fruity scent emanates. I am rewarded by a window, long bereft of glass, although a flap of waxed paper must keep out the worst of the rains. It is easy for me to brush aside, and I have jumped down while the scribe is showing Care to a seat. It is a small room and private; its walls still hold. Wherever he keeps his stash of documents, it is not immediately apparent.

  Which may be just as well. That the thieves wrecked his place is evident, using more force than most would deem necessary. Although the little man appears to have wrestled his large desk back upright, m
arks upon it and upon the plain stone floor show where it had been thrown. The shattered remains of an inkpot have been swept into a corner, a chipped mug pressed into service in its place, although the pen that rests within is bent. This man, this keeper, has done his best to restore order, but my senses are attuned to other clues than sight. I can hear the whistle of the wind. A lack of solidity in this office, in his life.

  ‘I don’t ask—’ he starts and then catches himself. A hesitation based on fear, perhaps? ‘I hold my secrets, that is my stock in trade.’ A small smile as he sneaks a glance at her. Even amid this ruination, he is relaxed here. A creature in his den. The men were not successful in their quest. ‘Of course, that’s easier when I don’t have what is being sought. It doesn’t matter.’

  In his new volubility, he confirms my first conclusion but hastens to preempt any further lines of inquiry. ‘This world runs as it must, and I’ll not stand in anyone’s way. But my glasses – they’re magnifiers, like a giant lens. I need them for my livelihood and to take them …’ He shakes his head. ‘I need them.’

  ‘I can look for them,’ Care says with more alacrity than I’d expected. The job is small, and I cannot imagine this poor scribe can pay. She has been desperate, however, and more than that, I believe she feels a kinship with this little half-blind man. ‘If I can retrieve them, I will. And in return …’ She pauses. Bites her lip. ‘In return, you’ll owe me a favor. You can spread the word that I’m in business. That I can find things.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll be able to do more than that.’ The little mole man smiles, the first sign of joy I’ve seen on him. It transforms his visage, even to his tired eyes. ‘I knew your old man, you know. He’d be proud of you.’

  They shake on it, the bond of business, as I leap once more to the window and then out.

  ‘Did you hear that, Blackie?’ she whispers when I find her on the street. She is not surprised to see me, I believe, but neither does she expect me to comprehend her words. I walk a tightrope with this girl, each unsure of what the other can grasp. She stares at me, as if waiting for an answer. Unable to provide one, I sniff the curb. A dog has been here, as well as other men.