A Cat Called Kat

Chapter Seven - Madam Patricia Delores

"Thank God," Mr Mac breathed. He was quiet for a few seconds as he thought.

"Mr Andretti's dead, though." I managed to get the words out though my voice broke slightly as I said it. "And Slimeball's taken control of the Family."

Mr Mac reached out and put his hand on my arm. I guess Master had told him about the whole Nonno - Nipotina thing we had going on.

We were quiet again for a bit as Madam Sexy in the bedroom said some quiet, tender, gentle, sexy things to her poor victim. I wasn't particularly convinced by her... but I was getting more and more convinced that it really was Caroline's voice.

"I thought I should get in touch with you because I decided that you were the one who was least likely to have betrayed him," I told Mr Mac, as much to get my mind off what was happening in the bedroom as anything else. "And Master agreed with my decision."

"Thank you, my dear," he replied, meeting my eye with a smile. "I'm touched."

"So, what's happening in the office?" Caroline asked.

"Mary Quentin has taken over," he told us. "She arrived on the morning after Anthony's death... reported death... with a couple of large Asian gentlemen who had conspicuous bulges under their armpits and demanded that I hand over all the security codes that I held. I didn't judge it politic to refuse them. Since then, I've been completely shut out of everything and I assume that they are just keeping me around to provide some sort of illusion of continuity for a couple more months before they ask me to retire... or they decide to 'retire' me more permanently!"

There was a bit more eyebrow work there.

"Anything else?"

"She's been obliged to shuffle around Enforcement a bit after Maximilian disappeared..."

"Disappeared or 'was disappeared'?" Caroline asked sharply.

"I've no idea. Nobody volunteered that information and I didn't deem it... judicious... to enquire." He gave a little smile. "However, on the morning of the coup, I happened to observe that a window in one of the downstairs meeting rooms had been smashed out..."

He waited and looked at me until I got there. "As if somebody badly underestimated Maximilian and he managed to get away?" I suggested.

Mr Mac nodded.

"If he's gone off and taken the security codes with him, that could explain a fair bit of the confusion in ED," Caroline explained thoughtfully. "The only other people who hold them are Anthony and me. I'll see if I can get back in touch with him."

"How on earth are you going to do that?" I asked.

She just gave me a look! I guess it was a bit of a silly question - she was never... ever... going to tell me anything like that!

"The other thing she's done is promoted a couple of unlikely candidates to the top floor - all women, incidentally - but otherwise, on the surface, things appear essentially unchanged."

There was silence for a moment, broken only by the sound of a couple of particularly unpleasant words from Madam Sexy in the bedroom and a bit of muffled groaning. It really sounded like there was some sort of torture going on in there rather than any sort of normal sexy time stuff but it was still doing funny things to my insides.

"So what do we do from here?" I asked.

"Is the traitor still in her cottage down on the coast?" Caroline asked.

"No," Mr Mac said with a smile. "Strangely enough, after the attacks, she felt obliged to move into Anthony's flat... for security reasons, of course! She sounded so disappointed about it... unbelievably disappointed!"