Chapter 1

Laura Steele picked up her black cat, Nero. "Good morning, Nero," she said with a wide smile. "What did you think of your new home, hmm?"

She held him close to her for a few seconds, and could feel the vibrations from his purring against her chest. Nero, a docile, phlegmatic cat, was not generally demonstrative. In this regard, mistress and pet were well matched. But after a separation of over a month, Laura had felt joyful on the previous afternoon when collecting him from the kennel service and bringing him for the first time to the apartment where she now lived with Remington.

Laura took the elevator down to the first floor lobby of the North Rossmore Avenue building, and approached the concierge's desk. One of the two uniformed men behind the desk turned towards her and smiled. "Hello, I'm Mrs Steele," she said. "From Apartment A. I spoke to one of your colleagues, Alvin, yesterday and he told me to come back today – Sunday – and speak to you about my cat, Nero."

"Of course, Mrs Steele. Alvin left us a note about the matter. Please, why don't you step into the office for a second and we can have a talk?" said the concierge. Laura was let in through a gate in the reception desk and shown into the glass walled office behind it. She sat in front of one of the large desks, while the doorman she had spoken to took a seat behind it.

"I'm Pete," he said. "My colleague out there today is Emilio."

"It's nice to meet you, Pete. Are you in charge here?"

"No, ma'am. That would technically be Alvin – he's the Head Concierge – but we're all pretty relaxed about that stuff."

"Oh, right."

"Yeah. You see, Mrs Steele, we have a team here of seven concierges, and we all work on a shift basis. There will usually be two of us on the front desk and parking duties at any time of the day or night, except sometimes during the weekday evenings – it can get kinda busy, and we might have three guys on duty, just 'cos there's so many cars to valet park."

"I see. Well, I explained the situation to Alvin, but of course, I had only just collected Nero yesterday when we spoke."

"Is this the little fella? Can I touch him?"

"Yes, of course. Nero – say hello to Pete!" Laura stroked Nero as she leaned forward, to let the doorman scratch the cat under his chin for a few seconds. The doorman smiled, then was all business again.

"Well, Mrs Steele, I know that you've only recently moved into the building, but I guess your husband has passed over a copy of the building rules and bylaws? The bottom line: there is no problem with property owners in the building having small pets, so your cat will be okay. In fact, we have a lotta older residents in the building who have dogs and cats. There is a size restriction, so the condo board doesn't allow large dogs, but this little fella here will be fine.

"It is the responsibility of apartment owners, however, to arrange for the care and good behavior of their pets; this applies especially to taking them for walks, and to litter tray situations, etcetera. I'm guessing you know what I mean?"

Laura smiled. "Oh yes, your meaning was clear, thank you."

"Sure, sure…like I said, most of our residents will take their dogs for a walk, have their pooper-scoopers ready, etcetera. Our main concern is maintaining the clean conditions of the hallways and grounds. A lot of the residents that work employ professional dog walkers or cat sitters, you know?" Laura nodded. "Anyway, the concierge team is always happy to be as helpful as possible, and we are prepared to take care of pets in emergency situations, but it is not generally a routine kind of a deal."

"What do you mean, 'emergency situations'?"

"Well…like a few weeks ago, one of our tenants was caught late at their office – real late – and so one of the guys on duty was quite happy to go up to that apartment and feed the dog, you see. This is a high trust position, right here – the front desk has keys to almost all the apartments for such emergencies. In fact, I think in this case it was my colleague Buddy who did it, and he's a real animal lover anyways – so he actually took the dog for an evening walk as well. But that situation was an exceptional one, you see?"

"Yes, indeed. Still, it's great that you are so helpful."

"Oh, we try our best, Mrs Steele," said Pete the doorman, smiling at Laura's flattery. "Now, what I understand from Alvin's note is that your main problem is that you want a way for this little fella here to come and go from Mr Steele's – I mean from your – apartment, right?"

"Yes, Pete, that's correct. Nero here is pretty self-sufficient, so I am happy for him to be left to himself, as he's used to it. Of course, my husband and I work all day. But we're lucky, since we're on the top floor, we have the terrace which will give Nero access to the outside. So when we talked it over, it seemed worth checking out with you whether there was a route down to ground level on the outside of the building."

"Uh-huh, that's what we understood. Well, Mrs Steele, we talked it over and it seems to us that if you can train your cat, erm, Nero – to use the fire escape route, then it can come and go as it pleases. The external fire escape on the north side of the building is fixed down to the ground, there's no retracting ladder at the ground level. So that means your cat here could climb the fire escape all the way up to the fifth story and your apartment terrace – I guess if it's smart enough. Would you like to check out the route?"

Laura nodded assent, and they rose and went out to the side of the building. The doorman took her to the base of the fire escape ladder, which switched its way back-and-forth up the side of the building.

"It's quite exposed, isn't it? Isn't it a security risk?" asked Laura.

"To be honest with you, Mrs Steele, it is – but that's the case with most fire escapes. We do have sensors that'll trigger floodlights at night if they detect any movement, up there and there…" Pete pointed high on the side wall. "And we have closed circuit cameras that are pointed at both fire escapes – there's an identical fire escape on the south side of the building – so if there's any suspicious activity, like, we'll catch it on tape."

"Well, that's good to know."

"Yeah. In fact, in an upscale building like this, security is as tight as it could be. Remember, one of the doormen also does a patrol round the building and down into the garage once an hour, twenty-four hours a day. And of course, if any of the fire escape doors are opened, they trigger an alarm in the concierge office as well. To be honest with you, Mrs Steele, we have had problems of nefarious characters trying to obtain ingress to the building using the fire escapes, so we are trying to be constantly vigilant about it."

"Hmm…" Laura nodded, thinking that most of the nefarious characters had probably been ex-girlfriends of Remington's, trying to gain ingress to his apartment, and even to his bed.

"So, would you like to head up now?"

Laura assented, then put Nero down and attached a lead to his collar. Following Pete the doorman, they began to climb up the fire escape, Laura dragging Nero with her and occasionally speaking to him, hoping that he would learn the route to their apartment and its terrace.

At the top, Laura picked Nero up again and held him in her arms, as she looked about. Most of her field of vision was taken up by the tiled roof of the building, folded as it was into odd planes and angles, with her neighbors' dormer windows visible here and there, as well as huge chimney stacks from the days when the apartments would have been heated by wood or coal fires. Across an area of sloping roof, she could make out the wall of her apartment's terrace, the only one on this side of the building.

"Look, Nero – there's home, okay?" she said. Laura was unsure if her cat understood, but decided it was time to head back down.

Turning around and looking down for the first time, she suddenly felt dizzy; she put out a hand to the fire escape rail to steady herself. A memory of when she had fallen from Remington's terrace a couple of years earlier came back to her. It wasn't until this moment that she had ever thought about how far she had actually fallen in her fight with Clarissa Custer – and how easily she could have been killed, if their fall had not been broken by one of the enormous, landscaped laurel hedges that surrounded the apartment block.

"Are you okay, Mrs Steele?" asked Pete.

"Erm…yes, Pete, I'm fine. Let's head back, shall we?"

Pete led the way back down the fire escape, Laura again letting Nero walk down on the lead, in the hope that he would learn the route. Back in the lobby, she thanked Pete, then took the elevator up to her apartment.

She took Nero out onto the terrace via the dining room. His basket had been tucked into a corner just inside this door, and since Remington had refused point blank to allow a litter tray inside, it was just on the outside of the same door. Nero would probably have to learn to come and go through this dining room door. But he had only been there one day, and Laura was not sure how she could keep the door open while they were at work without compromising the apartment's security; perhaps, Laura thought with a smile, they would have to get a cat flap.

Remington joined her on the terrace, handing her one of the cups of coffee he was holding. "All done?" he asked.

"Yes, thanks." Laura tried to point Nero's paws towards the fire escape. "Look, Nero – over there! That's the fire escape. Do you understand?"

"Er, Laura, is there any point speaking to Nero like he's an intelligent human being? He's a cat, you know."

"Oh, but he's special, isn't he? Aren't you, Nero? He's very intelligent, Remington – I'm sure he'll quickly figure out the route down to ground level."

"So the concierge chaps were content to show you the fire escape and let this little fellow use it? I half thought they might not be too keen on the idea."

"They were very helpful; like you said, he's a cat not a human being, so they don't see it as a security risk. It's just a case now of Nero getting used to it."

Remington chuckled ruefully. "I never thought I'd ever live with a pet, Laura. I was always on the move – couldn't afford to be tied down with the responsibility. Even though Daniel had a cocker spaniel for years at his place in London, it never seemed right for me. And now, here I am trying to train a cat."

"Excuse me, but I've done all the 'training' so far!"

"Good point, Mrs Steele."

"Anyway, don't let it worry you, Mr Steele – it's a cat, that's all. We're not yet talking about your having two point one children, a St Bernard and a Volvo station wagon!"