To Catch a Cat by Marian Babson

momentarily forgotten the cat. He pushed open the door incautiously and heard a high sharp yowl of protest.
    â€˜Oh, no!’ He saw the cat skitter back as he entered. ‘I’m sorry, Leif. I didn’t mean to hurt you.’ The cat must have come to meet him and then been rewarded with a blow to its sensitive nose. ‘I’m sorry.’
    Leif was a forgiving cat and the blow hadn’t been very hard, probably it had startled him more than hurt him. He inched forward slowly, nose twitching, eyes on the possible bounty clutched in Robin’s hand.
    â€˜Not for you,’ Robin apologised. ‘Let me put them away and then I’ll open a tin of catfood for you to eat.’
    â€˜Eat’ seemed to be a word Leif recognised. He reared up on his hind legs to sniff at Robin’s hand, then dropped back on all four legs and backed away sneezing.
    â€˜Told you,’ Robin said absently, looking around for a safe hiding place. There weren’t many in this bedroom and he didn’t dare go outside the room where someone might stumble over his hoard. With an increasing feeling of uneasiness, he had to settle for putting them at the back of the dressing-table drawer, alongside Mrs Nordling’s bracelet.
    The cat leaped to the top of the dressing-table and advanced to its edge, peering down into the drawer and watching intently as Robin rearranged his underclothes to hide the contraband.
    â€˜You’re feeling better!’ Robin felt a glow of relief. ‘You’re getting lively.’
    Only … the relief gave way to a fresh anxiety. A lively inquisitive cat would not be willing to stay cooped up in one small room for very much longer. If Leif was getting over his shock and bruising, it wouldn’t be long before he wanted to begin exploring more of his new surroundings, perhaps even go out-of-doors where he might be seen. That could be disastrous – for both of them.
    â€˜Just be patient,’ he pleaded. ‘I promise you, we’ll work something out.’

14
    Josh was up to something. Or perhaps he’d been fired again and was working round to a good moment to break it to her. Mags lowered her eyelids and observed him through her lashes. He wasn’t fooling her, but he was fooling himself if he thought she might be upset at having to leave this dump. Why couldn’t he just spit it out? But he never did anything the easy way.
    He was hunched over the computer keyboard, moodily stabbing at the keys. Random words flashed up on the screen and then disappeared again with varying degrees of speed. He was talking to himself on that thing. Doodling, he called it. She could follow the pattern of his thoughts as words came and went.
    Outrage … disgrace … evil … our fair city – No, that one was too much, even for Josh, it disappeared instantaneously. Not safe … he tried again … in our own beds …
    She had it then. The Nordling murder. Josh was planning to make a big thing of it on his show. And why not? It was the biggest thing to hit this town since … since …? She shrugged mentally. She had no knowledge of the history of this town if it had one. It was just a town, like so many others they had lived in since she had linked up with Josh and joined him on his downward spiral. This one was a seaside town, that was the only difference. Otherwise, it was just as seedy, crumbling, downmarket and boring as any of the others.
    Deserted house … abandoned … empty windows like hollow eyes … what memories of horror? … Josh was well away now. He picked up speed as he continued with notes to himself. Grieving widower incommunicado … get interview first … hardhitting late-night stuff … Get him to vow revenge? … Push to tears? …
    â€˜You’d better be careful,’ Mags warned. ‘The last time you
pushed an interviewee too hard, he complained to the Broadcasting Authority and the