The Fog - James Herbert [97]
Every few months there would be a van waiting at a prearranged spot, and a dozen or so of the cats would be piled into it and driven off to a South London hospital. The man who drove the van, the man she had the arrangement with, took the lion’s share of the money paid by the hospital for the animals, but she still earned a nice little sum from it. Animals for vivisection had always been a profitable business even though the RSPCA had got massive support behind their outcry against it, but because it was necessary, and the authorities knew it, they turned a blind eye.
And the money she earned from the deal went towards feeding her own cats. Because she loved her cats.
Irma was oblivious to the smell that leapt from the room as she opened the door; after a lifetime of living with the creatures, their odour was part of her own, and the fact that thirteen of them had been locked up together in a room all night had no effect on her insensitive nostrils at all.
‘Hello, lovelies,’ she greeted them, expecting them to run towards her, nuzzling against her ragged dressing gown in which she slept, as they normally did each morning. But this morning, they remained aloof, neither moving nor making any sound.
In her annoyance, she failed to notice the yellowish mist that drifted in through the thin crack of the slightly opened window.
‘Now what’s the matter with you today?’ she demanded to know, her irritation growing. ‘Showing off, are you? Well, you can feed yourselves!’
She stamped from the room and into the kitchen where she retrieved two stiff and pungent kippers from the sink. Muttering to herself, she flounced back to the cats’ room and threw the kippers in.
‘’Ere,’ she shouted, ‘an’ don’t choke on the bones, you’re lucky to get ’em!’ She trundled back into her room and climbed into bed, pushing the comfortably curled-up cat that always slept with her away from the warm spot. It bristled in annoyance, but soon settled down again. Irma called out to the other cats again: ‘Don’t you come crawlin’ ’round me when you’ve finished your fish! I don’t want to know, I’ve got an ’eadache,’ and then to herself as she pulled the covers up to her chin, ‘Ungrateful pigs! I should take them all up the ’ospital, that’s what I should do! Except you, Mogs, you love your old lady, don’t yuh.’ She turned her head and smiled at the cat that purred next to her. ‘You’re a good old girl, you are. Not like them others – all they want is feedin’! Ooh, my ’ead does ache today!’ She closed her eyes to concentrate on the pain.
The cats ignored the fish and silently padded from their room and into Irma’s where they waited at the foot of her bed as she began to doze off.
Chief Superintendent Wreford slumped down the stairs and entered the kitchen. Yawning freely, he filled the electric kettle with water and switched it on. God, he was tired! He’d worked long hours because of this wretched fog business and last night was the first he’d been able to take off. Hopefully, it was all over now and he’d be able to take a spot of leave. He congratulated himself on covering himself in the Holman affair. He could have chosen to dismiss the man as a crank, but experience had told him never to ignore warnings, no matter from what source. He’d played it right, not making his enquiries official; at least not until he’d found out there was some truth to the story, and then he’d jumped in feet first, claiming credit for precipitating proceedings before the terrible Bournemouth disaster.
I bet Barrow was choked, he smiled to himself as he emptied stale tea leaves from the pot into the sink. A bit too ambitious, that lad, he’d like to see me come unstuck.
He stood with one hand on the kettle and one hand on the pot as he waited for the water