Pastworld by Ian Beck

Author:Ian Beck
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 1599900408
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Published: 2009-01-02T06:00:00+00:00

Catchpole looked around at the crowd. The ghoulish Gawkers had all but melted away. The rest of the street was on the move, bustling and busy, hurrying about their business. All except one, a lone woman stood motionless on the busy pavement. Everything and everyone flowed past her but she stayed still like a statue. She seemed to be scanning the street. It looked as if she were waiting for someone. Catchpole, curious, walked over to her.

‘Takes me back to my own childhood,’ he said, indicating the boys back at their snowball fight, and speaking in what he hoped was a friendly voice, ‘except that there never was this much snow and it was never so clean.’

The woman turned to him with a distracted face. She wore a wide battered hat in black felt, and had a spotted fur tippet tucked round her throat. The fur around her neck suddenly moved, a spotted leg stretched out and the head of a cat emerged and looked at him.

‘Down then, Kitty,’ said the woman. The cat jumped down on the end of a black leash and rubbed itself against her legs.

‘A very tame animal,’ Catchpole said.

‘What happened in there?’ she asked. ‘Did they find someone? Was it a man or a woman?’ She gestured at the pub with her gloved hand.

‘As a matter of fact it was a man,’ said Catchpole.

‘Can you describe him for me?’ she asked. ‘Only it’s really very urgent, you see.’

Catchpole spoke quietly. ‘He was a shabby man, seemed to have almost no teeth, and very pale eyes, most likely blind.’

The woman looked down at her spotted cat. ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘I fear I might know who it is. I have been looking out for him for a few days now.’

She bent down and scooped up her little spotted cat in her arms. She buried her face in its fur for an instant, and then she raised herself to her full height. She spoke to the cat. ‘I fear it’s Jack, Kitty, isn’t it? Poor old Jack.’

‘You knew him well then,’ said Catchpole. ‘You could identify him perhaps?’

‘Oh yes, we knew him, not well, but we knew him, didn’t we, Kitty? We called him blind Jack – not quite true because he could see, just not well.’

‘The body will be taken to the morgue. I wonder if we might walk there and I could ask you to make a formal identification?’

‘I don’t really fancy it much, but if I can be of help then, I will do what I can. Poor old Jack . . .’

‘If it is him,’ Catchpole said.

They walked off together through the busy, jovial winter streets.

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