The lodger at Warwick

It was the back end of February, and it had been raining in Warwick for most of a week. I had parked two streets away, which in that part of town counts as close, and was wet through by the time I reached the door.

Mrs Ashby opened it before I had knocked. She was in her seventies, small and neat, and had the look of somebody who had not slept properly since about Saturday.

Monty was lying across the bottom of the stairs. He was a ginger cat of considerable size, and he did not move to let me past. I stepped over him. He opened one eye and closed it again.

“He’s not mine,” said Mrs Ashby. “He’s from next door. Mr Pell says he’s a terror for mice.” She looked at the cat. “I’ve had him since Sunday. Mr Pell says he cleared out his whole shed in a weekend.”

The kitchen was small and very clean, and every cupboard door was standing open. On the table sat a saucer of milk, untouched, and an open tin of something expensive with a fork in it.

“I’ve been feeding him up,” she said. “Mr Pell says he works better hungry, but I didn’t like to.”

She took me to the cupboard under the sink and pointed. Along the back, in the corner where the pipes came through, there was a scatter of droppings. Twenty or thirty.

I had brought the bait in with me, because people who ring about mice are generally right. I knelt on her very clean floor and reached into my bag for the torch.

Monty had come in behind us and was lying on the bag.

“Monty,” said Mrs Ashby. “Shift.”

Monty did not shift. I worked the torch out from under him an inch at a time while he watched me with an expression I can only describe as patient.

The droppings were mouse. Fresh ones are dark and soft, with a bit of a shine to them. These were grey. I picked one up and it went to dust between my finger and thumb. So did the next, and the one after that. There was dust along the pipe and a cobweb across the gap where it came through the wall.

I sat back on my heels.

She looked at the cupboard, and then at me.

She sat down at the table rather suddenly, then got up again and put the kettle on.

We both looked at Monty. He had gone back to sleep on my bag.

“He’s done nothing,” she said. “Not a thing in three days. I thought he was useless. Mr Pell keeps asking has he caught anything, and I didn’t like to say.”

I had been doing this for thirty years and had walked in expecting mice. Monty had walked in on Sunday and not bothered to get up.

“I wouldn’t hire him,” I said. “But I don’t think he was wrong.”

Mrs Ashby considered the cat for some time.

I packed wire wool round the pipe where it came through the wall and showed her how it was done. I told her to keep the cupboards shut and the bin lidded, and that if she ever found droppings that were dark and soft rather than grey and dry, she should ring me and I would come straight back. The bait went back to the van unopened. There was nothing to put it down for.

Before I left she opened another tin for Monty. He got up for that.

She rang a fortnight later. Nothing in the cupboard, nothing on the floor. She had slept eight hours the night before and woken with Monty on her feet.