A Nightcat's Prowl

Extract

“Bingo.” Cassie often wondered from where she had picked up that habit, but “bingo” was practically all she said while on a job.

Inside the safe there were, as per the form book, no bundles of cash, no small velvet bags of uncut diamonds and no gold bars. There were just papers, neat folders of papers. But the words on those papers were potentially worth more than if the little safe had been stuffed with cash and lined with gold.

Cassie popped the pen torch into her mouth and leafed through the files. There was no sense in weighing herself down with stuff she didn’t want and she had a shopping list of proprietary documents for which Maximus Industries’ nearest competitor would pay handsomely.

This one.

This was the folder she had come for. She put it in her bag and neatly replaced the other folders in the safe. From her pocket she took a card and placed it in the safe on top of the pile of folders. The card read, “You’ve been fined by… the Cat”. Giving herself a nickname had seemed a little self-aggrandising, but on the other hand she wanted people to know they had been robbed, she wanted them to know by whom (God forbid some poor secretary should be fired over the missing file) and she wanted them to know why. The word “fined” was important to her.

She closed the safe and made for the door. Just the Picasso to pick up, a short stroll back to the window, a zip wire to the nearest rooftop and she was home and dry. But as Cassie entered the outer office, pleased with how smoothly everything had gone, the night took an unexpected turn.

“Who the hell are you?!”

The man who had just finished removing the Picasso from the wall froze at the sound of Cassie’s voice from behind him. For a moment he clearly thought that he had been caught in the act, but when he turned to find that he was being addressed by a woman who was, like himself, dressed in uniform black and wearing a mask, he realised that she had as little legitimate right to be here as he did. He drew himself up to his full height, reached into his pocket and drew out a badge which he flashed solemnly.

“Police. Who the hell are you?”

You had to admire the balls, Cassie considered, of someone wearing a mask, obviously stealing a picture, and carrying a very fake police badge, who was still prepared to play this bluff. Not the brains perhaps — since British police don’t carry badges — but certainly the balls. And that was not the only thing that Cassie, indignant though she was about this interruption, found herself unconsciously admiring in her opposite number. Though the mask hid most of his face, it could not quite hide the fact that he was a handsome individual, and it did nothing to dull the impact of his blue eyes. Likewise, she couldn’t help thinking that his chosen attire was just a shade tighter than it needed to be, delineating the contours of the man’s body in a way that Cassie considered narcissistic, but also found quite mesmerising.

But Cassie was not about to let the man’s physical attributes, manifest though they might be, distract her from the point. She too drew herself up to her full height.

“I’m the Cat. Perhaps you’ve heard of me.”

“No.”

Well, that was irritating. Being the hottest new thing in cat burglary was one thing, but getting the word out was something else. You couldn’t exactly hire a press agent. Cassie forged on regardless.

“Look, bottom line, I was here first. Buzz off and leave the painting.”

The man scoffed. “I got to the painting first.”

“No, I got to it first. I was coming back for it.”

“Well, that was a bad decision, wasn’t it? I actually had it in my hands. I only just put it down.”

“Well, that was a bad decision, wasn’t it?”

As they snapped at each other, keeping their voices low, they were slowly, almost unconsciously, approaching one another.

“Look, there may be no honour among thieves but there’s a definite pecking order.” The words were reasonable but Cassie edged them with steel. “Finders keepers; losers weepers. And you are just so clearly the loser.”

The man shook his head. “I never lose.”

“Prepare to learn.”

“Well, I’m guessing you’d be an expert.”

“The painting’s mine!”

“I don’t see your name on it. Unless your name’s Picasso. Is it?”

“No, it’s ‘Bite me’.”

“Suits you.”

They were nose to nose now, or would have been if Cassie had been a bit taller.

“I’m done with warnings; leave the painting and get out!”

“Or what?”

“Or nothing. This isn’t a warning, it’s an instruction. Get out!”

“Who’s going to make me?”

And then they were kissing.

It occurred to Cassie, as she felt the man’s hands heading in a direction that was over-familiar but not entirely unwelcome, that there must have been a moment between them not kissing and kissing; a decision, a look, a spark of instigation. But she would be damned if she could recall it. One moment they had been arguing, the next they were locked in each other’s arms, almost biting each other in their furious passion. It had been like a snake strike, requiring a high-speed camera to see the details and ascertain if one of them had moved first or if the energy between them had simply built up to such a point that it had nowhere else to go.

The man pulled Cassie around, never breaking the kiss, so he could press her against the office desk, and Cassie responded instantly, pulling him hard against her, tearing off his jacket and flinging it to one side. There was not a conscious thought in her mind, only desire driven by pure instinct. It was as if the heat of the moment had burnt away anything remotely human about her and left something primal, something animal, and something rather wonderful.

Usually in cases like this something will happen before it goes too far. One or both of the participants will back off as the temporary high of the initial moment dies away. But the instantaneous electric shock of attraction that had passed between Cassie and the man was so powerful that it brooked no interruption. Even once common sense and rational thought had filtered back into Cassie’s head she remained absolutely certain about where this was going. The only question was desk or floor?

Then the burglar alarm went off.