Cat's Cradle Read Online Free PDF

butcher’s wifeamong the people I knew? Why did I have to make things so difficult for myself? I couldn’t even shake off my foundling past but had now discovered it sticking to me like a burr carried home on the back of my skirts.
    Angrily, I upended my bag and chucked my clothes around. I knew what I was looking for – the scrap of the tartan blanket. I’d been using it as a bookmark for years. I found it keeping my place in a copy of
Robinson Crusoe
borrowed from Lizzie, Frank’s sister. The fabric lay limp in my palm as I mentally reconstructed the blanket it had once belonged to, the woman who had wrapped it round her child and finally the moment when she had walked away.
    She had walked away.
    And now, twelve years later, she – or some relative – was trying to step back into my life. That was if this wasn’t all a Banbury tale made to fleece me of my supposed riches.
    If only I knew.
    I had to find out.
    Crushing the cloth in my fist, anger surgedagain, a powerful rush like the tide under the arches of London Bridge. I had been so happy to return to England and now this woman – this Mrs Moir – had spoiled it all. She had opened the Pandora’s box of my past and I could not stuff it all back inside and pretend it hadn’t happened. I was now desperate to know more about my mother: the elusive woman who’d rocked my cradle, fed me, clothed me – cuddled me, perhaps? I couldn’t remember ever being held by a parent. A few hugs from friends and theatre folk over the years, but otherwise I had been starved of simple human warmth. An ache somewhere in the middle of my chest bloomed into a painlike hunger. I was going to find out why I had been dumped, what had been so wrong with me that my mother had decided I’d be better off taking my chances on my own on the London streets one cold night in January.
    I was going to Scotland.
    * For details of this particular episode in my literary career, I refer my readers to
Den of Thieves
.

SCENE 2 – CELEBRATING IN STYLE
    Mrs Fletcher’s voice rang through the house, summoning us all to dinner. Having changed into a clean gown of blue-sprigged muslin, I jumped down the stairs, skirts kicking up with every bound, fired by my new resolve. The outline of my plan was already taking shape. All it would need was a little money and a lot of guts. Well, guts I had aplenty. That just left, Reader, my usual state of empty pockets. I was going to need a loan.
    â€˜There you are, Cat. Would you take the plates?’ Mrs Fletcher gestured to the rack over the sink.
    I balanced four plates on my arm, pretty white china ones from her best set.
    â€˜You’d better make that six!’ she called as I set them on the kitchen table.
    â€˜Oh? Are we expecting guests?’
    â€˜They’re ’ere already. Nick and Joe are joinin’ us.’ She stirred the pot and tasted it. ‘Call ’em infor me, will you? They’re out back ’avin’ a bit of a wash.’
    I ducked out into the yard to find Mr Fletcher, Syd and his two friends all bent over the pump, doing a fair amount of splashing at each other and not much cleaning as far as I could tell.
    â€˜Dinner’s ready!’
    Nick, Syd’s dark-haired second-in-command in the Butcher’s Boys, chucked the towel to Joe and strode over. Lifting me by the waist, he swung me round.
    â€˜Cat Royal! I was beginnin’ to think we’d never see you again!’ He set me down and looked me over. Long-limbed and slender, he loomed over me these days. ‘I do believe . . . no, it can’t be true . . .’
    â€˜What?’ I looked down at myself, half expecting to see some fault in my clothing. ‘What’s wrong?’
    Nick, eyes shining with mischief, beckoned Joe ‘The Card’ Murray. The street magician sloped over, his raggedly dandified jacket flapping open to display the ribbons he hawked. Nick nudged him,