Free The Black Cat by Martha Grimes

visiting for a week while his mum and new stepfather were on their honeymoon-a romantic getaway to Blackpool-and now it was to be another week relaxing at home in Bayswater before collecting Jasper. So the boy was destined to stay here another week, but a new destiny could always be arranged, thought Mungo darkly.
    The kitchen door swung open again, and Mrs. Tobias came into the dining room, one of his little Matchbox cars in her hand. “And get these things out of my kitchen!” She stood in the dining room, calling into empty air, “One more of your tricks and you’ll be out of here, my lad, honeymoon or no honeymoon!” The silver car, like a gauntlet, was thrown down. “Why, if Mr. Harry ever slid on one of these, you’d be out of this house quick as a wink.”
    Jasper had a dozen of these Corgi cars. They were always underfoot, and Mrs. Tobias, walking upstairs, had stepped on one and nearly landed downstairs on her head but just managed to grab at the banister in time. Jasper liked to roll them at Mungo and the cat Schrödinger when they slept. Mungo was sick of cars hitting him on the nose.
    Jasper Seines. The name was like a sneeze or a hiss. Yes, he was going to have to do something about Jasper Seines.
    He sloped off to have a dekko at Schrödinger’s kittens, still sleeping in the bottom drawer of the bureau in the music room. They were all sprawled out, including Elf, who was Mungo’s favorite, but now almost too big to be carried around by the skin of his neck, although Schrödinger managed to do it.
    It was time Jasper Seines went. What surprised Mungo was that Harry hadn’t bumped him off. He had seen Harry cast truly malevolent looks at the boy, but Harry was taking the gentlemanly approach (and Harry was always that) by merely suggesting to Mrs. Tobias, his housekeeper and sometime cook, that Jasper Seines must be missing school. Hint, hint, nod, nod, wink, wink. But Mrs. Tobias wasn’t one to pick up a hint and a nod, so Harry might hand her a broader message by kicking Jasper Seines down the cellar stairs.
    Mungo looked over the kittens as if they were licorice allsorts. He saw one was even smaller than Elf and was about to pick it up when Schrödinger padded over to scotch that particular bit of fun. Schrödinger was as black as squid’s ink and with almost as many appendages, or so it seemed, when she started routing Mungo.
    He sent her the message Don’t be daft. I’m not doing anything. She stared at him round-eyed, refusing to return a message, probably feeling it beneath her.
    So into this voiceless habitation came Jasper Seines. “Well, well, well, wot’s all this, then?” doing his imitation of some beat copper. Then suddenly, like a magician grabbing an object out of the air, he yanked up one of the kittens by its tail. The little thing screeched, and this earned Jasper Seines an attack from both sides: Schrödinger clawing his leg and Mungo sinking his teeth into the boy’s ankle.
    “You little fuckers! Get offa me!”
    The kitten dropped back into the drawer, and Jasper Seines yelled and, unable to shake off Mungo, yelled some more. Finally released, he ran crying to Mrs. Tobias; tears went flying from his doughy face as if even they wanted to get as far away from Master Seines as they could.
    Neither Schrödinger nor Mungo subscribed to that old saw about my enemy’s enemy. Nonetheless, Mungo thought, if they worked together (for once), they might be able to get rid of Jasper Seines.
    Schrödinger jumped into the drawer to see that no other devilment befell her brood; Mungo left the music room and went clicking across the gorgeously polished hardwood floor to sit near the kitchen and take in what was going on.
    Tearily, Jasper Seines was denying any action on his part. “No, I never done nuttin’…”
    “My patience is wearing thin, my lad.”
    Mungo sighed. Mrs. Tobias was nobody’s fool.
    “Aw right, I’d as soon go home! I don’t like it here!”
    What a nasty nephew.