9

The first thing that was wrong was the cat.

Normally, when Fiona let herself in after a long day of persuading sulky teenage girls to throw a netball at each other, Byron would be immediately on ankle duty, curling himself enthusiastically around her trainers until opening cans of cat food was the only option. But as she let her shopping bag collapse onto the hall carpet – sloppily ejecting a rogue cabbage – the slinky devil was nowhere to be seen. The house was quiet. No ugly rattle of cat litter from the kitchen, and no guilty thump as he removed himself from the kitchen units.

‘Byron?’

Muttering to herself, Fiona wrangled the shopping into the kitchen, flicking on lights as she went. Byron was a housecat, much too fancy, expensive, and, let’s face it, stupid to be allowed outside unsupervised, but he did occasionally find some new hiding place in the house and vanish for hours. Once he had managed to squeeze himself into the open suitcase rammed underneath her bed. It was unlike him to pull a fast one at dinner time, however.

Fiona began rattling around in the cupboards, making more noise than was necessary to remove a can of shredded chicken and empty it into a plastic bowl. Normally, these exact noises would bring Byron out of his hiding place at lightning speed, but the house remained quiet. She placed the plastic bowl on the floor and waited. Nothing.

‘Byron? You little sod.’

At that point she thought of the wonky window she’d been meaning to fix for the last few weeks. He shouldn’t have been able to wriggle his way out of that, but what if he had? Pushing that thought from her mind, Fiona headed upstairs. May as well check everywhere before she started to panic.

The second thing was the smell. It hit her on the staircase, a wild and unnerving funk, like cages at a zoo. She frowned on the landing, thinking that perhaps Byron was ill and had thrown up somewhere, although cat sick was never usually so powerful.

‘Byron, you little sod, are you all right? That food is expensive, you know, I’d appreciate you not puking it up every …’

The words dropped into nothing, eaten up by silence and the stench.

‘Byron?’

She stood by her bedroom door, a sick feeling building in her stomach at the sight of the evening’s deep shadows. The smell was worse in here. It was too easy to imagine terrible things waiting for her in the darkness – Byron dead on the bed, his little kitty brain overheated and his fur covered in vomit. Or something else, something worse. A figure in the dark perhaps, watching her.