Read Online Cat Out of Hell by Lynne Truss - Free Book Online

me? Was it perhaps sent in error? On the drive home, all the way, I had maintained a running internal dialogue. Was Dr Winterton in desperate danger? No, stop thinking about this. Dr Winterton means nothing to you. A smell of cloves, you said. That’s all you remembered about him. A bit tough that poor Peplow had to die – although I have to say it was very classy of him to have chosen hemlock. Why had Jo put her phone on to charge and then gone next door to hide in the cellar? Why hadn’t she taken it with her? You’re right, this is a detail that makes no sense, but just don’t think about it because there is no way you will ever know the answer. Why did she think a next-door cellar was a good place to hide, anyway? I can’t imagine – especially if it had a heavy trap-door that could make it your living tomb. Imagine the sight Wiggy found when he opened that cellar trap-door . No, don’t. Don’t ever try to imagine that. You realise he heard the scratching for several days? If he hadn’t been such an idiot, he might have saved her! Don’t say that. Please don’t think like that. Roger said that the pit was the worst of all deaths . You’re quoting a cat now. An impossible cat, at that. So just desist. All of this story, remember, is based on the completely unacceptable and ludicrous premise of an evil talking cat called Roger that travelled romantically in the footsteps of Lord Byron in the 1930s and now solves cryptic crosswords torn out daily from the Telegraph .
    At six o’clock the doorbell rang. It was one of the neighbours – Tony Something. He and his wife have lived in the house next door for six years or so, so I suppose I really should know their surname by now, but I’m afraid I left that kind of thing to Mary. I picked up Watson and opened the door with him under my arm. Mary and I both had a horror of Watsonrunning outside when the front door was open, so we made it a rule to pick him up.
    “Alec,” Tony said. “I noticed the lights were on.”
    I realise I haven’t mentioned my name before. I do apologise. I suppose it was because this wasn’t my story.
    “Everything all right?” Tony asked. He and his wife Eleanor have been very solicitous since Mary died. It was Eleanor who called the ambulance on the fateful day. She looked out of an upstairs window and saw that Mary had collapsed in the back garden. Her heart had just stopped, they said. It just stopped. As I stood there with Tony, I realised I had never thanked his wife for what she did, or even talked to her about it properly. Did she think me very ungrateful and ill-mannered? Or did she understand that, when someone dies, there is so much to do, and facing people is the hardest part?
    It was still very difficult talking to people. I certainly didn’t want to face Tony right now. I didn’t know what to say.
    “Just having some soup,” I said. “Come in?”
    “No, no. That’s OK,” he said, but he remained shuffling on the doorstep – which was annoying, as it meant I had to continue holding the dog, and letting all the newly-generated warmth in the hall go straight out of the house.
    “How was the coast?” he asked.
    “A trifle bleak,” I said. “Are you sure you won’t – ?”
    “I was just checking. You’re back a little earlier than you said.”
    “Yes. I’d had enough.”
    “Well. You must come round for supper.”
    “Thank you.” I looked at the dog in my arms. I was hinting that I should like to shut the door and put Watson down. Tony thought I was hinting at something else.
    “Bring Watson.”
    “Oh. Thank you.”
    He turned to go, and then made a decision to say something more. I tensed up. I was afraid he was about to say something nice about Mary. But he wasn’t.
    “Someone was looking for you,” he said.
    “Really?”
    Instinctively, I held Watson more tightly, but otherwise I tried to show no reaction.
    “We told him you were away, but he said he’d come back.”
    “Oh. Well, thank