Eye for an Eye

Had she—
    The doorbell rang.
    Then again. Longer this time.
    He slunk into the kitchen doorway in case someone looked through the letterbox.
    The telephone rang, then the answering machine cut in.
    He listened to Alice’s voice end her recorded message with her stupid
Have a great day
, then Margo’s voice say, ‘Alice? Dieter? Me and Jim are outside. If you’re there, can you pick up?’ A pause for several seconds, then, ‘Did you get my message?’ Something thudded against the door.
    Sebbie tightened his grip on the knife, held it up before his eyes. In the moonlight, the serrated blade glinted like burnished steel.
    A man’s voice joined the woman’s, their words indecipherable. Then, ‘I’ll call later, Alice. Okay?’ Another pause, as if the woman was still hopeful of an answer, then a click as she disconnected.
    Sebbie lowered the knife. He was about to return to the hallway when he heard a metallic rattle, a light tinny sound like a lid closing. From the front door.
    He heard it again. A key being slotted into a lock?
    Did Alice’s friends have a key?
    How stupid he had been not to jam the lock. He should have stuck a hairpin in it, a bit of plastic, something, anything he could have snapped or torn off to block the mechanism.
    A heavy sound reverberated along the hallway. Sebbie half-expected the door to burst open. He drew back, knife raised, ready to strike.
    But when the digital display read 8:20, and the door had not exploded open, and the telephone had not rung again, and the whispers and rattles and thuds had vanished, he lowered his weapon.
    He was safe.
    In the darkness, he listened to the sounds of the house, felt the hair on the back of his neck rise as he heard something, a low moaning sound, as if ...
    Knife in hand, he crept from the kitchen, across the hallway and into the back bedroom. The room felt cold, and his nostrils filled with the stench of decaying meat.
    Alice and Dieter lay on the floor, their wax-like bodies twisted into two hapless heaps. The wind moaned past the open window. Sebbie pushed the sash up until the moaning stopped. Then he heard a laugh escape his lips as he looked down at Alice’s bloated face.
    ‘Cat caught your tongue,’ he cackled.
     
    Gilchrist stood on the cliff path, his back to the metal railing, the sea wind brushing his neck with fingers of ice. Garvie’s upper curtains were still open, but the house looked dark, save for a faint glow from the door by the landing. Garvie said she worked at night on her computer in the study off her bedroom, but as the upstairs rooms lay in darkness, he guessed she had finished for the day. Was she in bed? Or still downstairs?
    Was she alone?
    He remembered the shadow he thought he had seen flit past her bedroom window earlier. He needed to know if she had company, and who it was. But after fifteen shivering minutes, with the house showing no signs of life, he decided to pay Garvie a visit.
    What could Patterson do? Fire him twice?
    The doorbell chimes echoed back at him. He gave another press then waited until the chimes faded to silence.
    No response.
    He waited thirty seconds then stepped to the lounge window. A glimmer of light slipped through the tiniest of gaps between the curtains. He pressed his face against the cold glass.
    In the thread of light he could make out only the wall opposite the sofa, but enough to confirm the fire was out and the fireguard was in place. Snow was forecast. If Garvie was in, would she not have the fire on?
    He tried the doorbell again, ringing once, twice, before accepting that Garvie must have slipped out. He was about to turn when he heard the tinkle of a tiny bell. He searched the shadows but saw no twin moons shining back at him. The thought of the cats’ names brought a smile to his lips. Pitter, Patter. Two cats, two owners.
    He stiffened. Why had he not thought of it before?
    Pitter, Patter. Two cats. Two owners.
    Or a third person common to both?
    His mind powered through the labyrinth of what-ifs and maybes, the fogs of detection giving glimmers of probables, possibles, maybe-nots, until they thinned to leave the visual remnant of a cat with a disfigured face, and Fats Granton standing beside a young Maggie Hendren. He listened to Fats curse him in the front room of his mansion, heard the whisper of voices replay the words,
Whose cat’s she holding?
    Not mine. Hate the fuckers.
    And at that moment, Gilchrist saw his error.
    He remembered puzzling over why the