Chapter Four
You see what my mother had landed me in? Running around after a crotchety old lady and her hooligan dog wasn’t the sort of job I’d planned. On the other hand, I reasoned, it was only for a couple of hours a day and would bring in a bit of desperately needed cash, if I was to meet my bank loan repayment this month and maybe have a little left over to go into my scooter fund. And, as I kept telling myself, it was only temporary after all.
Particularly as the only work I had in the diary from The Chronicle this week was an extraordinary meeting of the parish council, to ‘discuss’ (that’s parish council speak for moan, whinge and generally waffle on about) the outbreak of potholes in the roads around the village with a representative from Somerset Highways Department, on Thursday evening.
I’d covered these ‘extraordinary’ meetings before – and take it from me, the only extraordinary thing about them is the amount of effort it takes to stay awake for the entire meeting.
I promised Elsie I’d be at her place next morning on the dot of 10.30am and headed back home. When I got there, Tanya’s sporty little car was no longer parked in Dad’s spot outside the house. With a bit of luck, she’d have said whatever it was she had to say and left.
The house was silent as I let myself in. The salon was closed now the pre-funeral rush was over and there was no sign of Mum.
I still had my piece on the Not-Much-Fun Dog Show to write up. As I went upstairs to my room, where my desk and laptop were, I was already working out how to string it out by including a little bit of unpleasantness between the judges and one of the owners. She’d thought her dog had won the prize for the dog with the waggiest tail, and was not best pleased to discover that her little pug had, in fact, taken first place in the ‘dog who looked most like its owner’ category.
The subeditors could be pretty picky when it came to the length of a piece and were inclined to chop off the end if it was too long for the available space. But if it stayed in, it could earn me another ten lines, as being freelance meant I got paid linage. The more I wrote, the more I got paid. I figured it was worth the risk.
There was an almost-promise from Mike, the new editor, of ‘maybe’ a staff job if things worked out and if (and this was the really big if) I could get myself some transport. My job as a local reporter in a rural area was sadly limited when the sole means of travel was my old bike and the number 167 bus that only ran when it felt like it and never on a Sunday or after 6.30pm.
So as well as paying off my bank loan, I was saving every penny I could to buy myself a little scooter or moped to get myself around. At one time, back in the days when I’d had a life, not to mention a proper job, I wouldn’t have been seen dead on one. But after a year buried in Not-Much Winchmoor with the pink and mauve bike I’d been given for my thirteenth birthday as my only means of transport, I’d stopped worrying about how uncool scooters looked.
There was a limit to how many lines I could squeeze out of a Fun Dog Show, even allowing for an over-the-top description of the monsoon that had turned the car park into a quagmire. And, of course, Pug Lady.
I was trying to figure out how I could work a remark about soggy doggies into my opening paragraph as I pushed open the door of my bedroom – and froze.
What the—? My bed had disappeared under a mound of suitcases. Various sizes, all in a matching faux leopardskin print. My ‘desk’ looked more like the dressing table it used to be, as my laptop had been pushed aside to make room for an astonishing array of expensive-looking lotions and potions.
As I stood there trying to work out what had happened, I heard the front door open as Mum came back in. And, from the sound of it, Tanya was still with her. I closed the door of my room and went back downstairs.
“Mum?” I hurried into the kitchen. “What’s with the pile of suitcases on my bed?”
“Oh, hello, love. You’re back sooner than I expected. Tanya and I have been out to lunch. Have you eaten?”
“No, but…”
“I’m just making a cup of tea. Do you want one?”
I wanted an explanation as to why my bed resembled an airport baggage reclaim area and my desk the cosmetics counter at Boots. But I settled for the cup of tea in the short term.
“What’s going on?” I asked, although the expression on Mum’s face told me I wasn’t going to like the answer to that particular question.
“Your Auntie Tanya—” she began, but Tanya cut across her.
“Really, Cheryl, how many times do I have to say it? Just Tanya, if you don’t mind. Aunty Tanya makes me sound like I should be wearing a shawl and pink fluffy slippers.”
Mum, who had changed out of her pink fluffy slippers and back into her work shoes, let the barbed remark go, which was more than I’d have done.
“Tanya will be staying here for a night or two,” she said.
“A night or two?” I echoed. Judging from the amount of luggage on my bed and the stuff on my desk, it looked as if she was planning on moving in permanently. “But why?”
“It’s just while she gets things sorted. She and Uncle Richard are…” Mum looked uncomfortable. She was probably the only person in Much Winchmoor who hated discussing other people’s personal problems. “Well, apparently they’re having a few... um, a few issues, at the moment…”
“Oh, for goodness sake, Cheryl,” Tanya snapped. “Stop pussy-footing around. Katie isn’t a six-year-old. She knows the score. The truth is, Katie, your Uncle Richard is, like a lot of men, an arrogant, selfish bastard who’s not afraid to use violence to get what he wants.”
I stared at her, in astonishment. Uncle Richard? Violent? He was the quietest, most inoffensive man on the planet. He crept about as if apologising for the space he was taking up and prefaced almost every sentence with the word ‘sorry’. As for the arrogant and two-timing bit…
“I don’t believe it,” I said.
Tanya shrugged and examined her long Barbie-pink nails. “Of course you don’t, sweetie. You only see the side of him that he presents to the world. The grey, mild mannered chartered accountant who would never say boo to a goose. Least of all raise a hand in anger. But then, let’s face it,” she turned towards my mother as she went on, “none of us really knows what goes on in someone else’s relationship, wouldn’t you agree, Cheryl?”
Mum dropped a cup, and was then too busy scrabbling around picking up the pieces to respond.
I answered for her. “I suppose not.”
After all, Tanya had a point. Certainly as regards Ratface, I hadn’t had a clue what had been going on there. As for my on-off relationship with Will, Elsie had been winding me up when she went on about the new blonde vet – hadn’t she? What if there really was something going on? I’d probably be the last to know.
“There’s no suppose about it, Katie,” Tanya said with a toss of her Dolly Parton mane.
“You’re probably right,” I conceded. “But Uncle Richard is always such a…” I was going to say a mouse of a man but decided against it. I settled for, “He’s such a quiet man.”
“The quiet ones are the worst, take it from me,” she said. “Still waters and all that. I could tell you things about your so-called kind and gentle Uncle Richard that would make your hair curl, which now I think of it might not be a bad thing.” She gave my hair a withering look and sighed. “Short and spiky is very last year, you know, sweetie.”
Before I could protest, she went on. “And last night was the final straw. He came into the bedroom while I was getting ready for bed and he—”
“I don’t think Katie wants to hear all the details,” Mum cut in quickly.
She wasn’t wrong there. She and Uncle Richard were the same age as Mum and Dad, for goodness sake! I shuddered at the thought.
“I’m sure you don’t mind, Katie, but I said Tanya could have your bed,” Mum said.
Too right I minded.
“But where am I going to sleep? There’s so much of your salon stuff in the spare room, there’s not e
nough space for a footstool, least of all a bed.”
“We can soon clear some of that out, enough for the little push-under bed from your room. You were always happy enough to sleep on it when you had friends for a sleepover.”
But that was because I was eight years old at the time.
It was one of those beds that had fold-down legs so it could slide underneath the other bed when not in use. Then when you wanted it, you pulled out the legs to make a proper-height bed. The only problem was Jules and I had been messing around one day and had snapped one of the legs.
Dad had said it wasn’t safe to mend it, and so ever since the bed had only been used at the low level. I’d been happy enough to sleep in it way back when. Not quite so keen at twenty-four.
“But it’s on the floor,” I protested.
“It’s only for a night or two, Katie,” Tanya said. “And I couldn’t possibly sleep on it. Not with my back. My chiropractor would have a fit if he thought I was even thinking about it. But you don’t have to scrunch up in the spare room, sweetie. I’ll be quite happy to share with you. It’ll be fun, don’t you think? We can have some nice girly chats.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Mum said firmly as she placed two cups of tea on the table in front of us.
“Thanks. But no tea for me, Cheryl.” Tanya stood up. “You’ll have to excuse me. I didn’t sleep a wink last night after Richard – well, you know. And I am totally exhausted, both physically and mentally. So if you don’t mind, I’m going to go and put my head down for an hour or two.”
Which was why I spent the rest of the afternoon in the salon trying not to breathe in too deeply, as the place still reeked from the morning’s perm-fest. Meanwhile Mum cooked up a storm in the kitchen. It was something she always did when she was wound up and my heart (and stomach) quaked at the thought of what our evening meal was going to consist of.
I sat on one of the spindly chairs in the Reception area with my laptop balanced on my knees, while I tried to think of fun and original things to say, in as many lines as possible, about the Not-Much-Fun Dog Show.
“Come on, then,” Mum said when I’d finally hit ‘send’ on my Soggy Doggies story and wandered back into the kitchen, which now looked as if Hurricane Harriet had just flounced through. “That’s tonight’s stew prepared and in the slow cooker. You can give me a hand clearing out the spare room now.”
My heart sank as I peered in through the cooker’s glass lid. There seemed to be an awful lot of grey, lumpy things floating around in a lurid mustard-coloured sauce. Things were not looking good but I knew better than to say so. Or ask what it was.
“But Tanya said she didn’t mind sharing—” I began.
“She might not mind, but I do,” Mum said in that don’t-argue-with-me voice that even the cat obeyed. “I’ve been meaning to have a clear out in the spare room so it’s a good thing really. And it’s only for a couple of nights, at the most. Tanya’s a real townie. She’ll be only too pleased to go back to Uncle Richard after a couple of days in the ‘back of beyond,’ as she calls it. Just you wait and see.”
But, of course, Tanya didn’t. It was as if she’d heard what Mum said and was going out of her way to prove her wrong. She had, she announced the next night over dinner, no intention of going back to Uncle Richard, and added that life in the back of beyond ‘had its compensations,’ whatever that meant.
She certainly couldn’t have included Mum’s cooking in those ‘compensations’ as the leftovers (of which there were plenty) from Monday night’s lentil and aubergine curry turned up again in Tuesday’s aubergine, lentil, and something from a tin with a missing label pie.
Mum’s cooking was a bit hit and miss at the best of times but that pie was off the scale of weirdness, even by her not-exactly-MasterChef standards. And I was pretty sure she was doing it to starve Tanya into moving on.
Only it didn’t work. The original night or two had somehow turned into four, and by Friday she still showed no signs of leaving.
She’d even taken to going for power walks around what she now referred to as ‘this charming little village’, claiming that the fresh air and exercise were doing wonders for her stress levels.
Good to know someone’s stress levels were doing ok. The rest of us were on serious stress overload.
Dad had taken to spending even more time than usual at the Winchmoor Arms, ever since Tanya started smiling winsomely at him and going on about how she’d chosen the wrong brother. Mum had given up on the prune and compote diet completely and was in danger of developing a serious Jaffa Cake habit. Even the cat was sulking because Tanya insisted on sitting in his favourite chair, and had dared to suggest he’d be perfectly happy sleeping on the floor.
The whole family was out of sorts and on edge and I couldn’t understand why on earth Mum put up with it. It wasn’t as if she and Tanya got on with each other. On the contrary.
But when I’d dared mention it to her, she’d snapped my head off and muttered something about ‘families looking out for each other.’
The atmosphere at home became so bad I began to look forward to the two hours I spent at Elsie Flintlock’s each morning.
This time last week, I’d have gone up to see Will and have a good old moan to him about it. But I still hadn’t heard from him and I was determined that I wasn’t going to be the one to back down and call him. Not this time.
So the week dragged on and even Thursday night’s extraordinary potholes meeting was slightly less boring than listening to Tanya’s endless prattle about the latest celebrity gossip, punctuated by Mum’s heavy silences.
But I didn’t hold out much hope of any great linage count from the meeting. There was, as the man from the Highways Department said, precious little money for potholes, either for the parish council or me.
***
Over the week Elsie and I slipped into a routine of sorts. She criticised everything I did and wore, while I cleaned her flat, checked her lottery numbers, walked her manic little dog and did outrageous things to my hair just to wind her up.
I’d meant to get up early on Friday morning and finish writing up my extraordinary potholes piece before going to Crabshaw Crescent, as I’d promised Mike that it would be on his desk first thing that morning.
But I overslept, thanks in part to being kept awake by Tanya talking on her phone, then watching some noisy film on her iPad until late into the night. I promised myself I’d finish the piece as soon as I got back from Elsie’s.
It was nearly lunchtime when I brought Prescott back from his walk, my last job of the day. As we turned rather sharply into the Crescent, to avoid Prescott hurling doggie obscenities at the Vicar’s cockapoo, Olive hurried out of her bungalow, as if she’d been watching for me.
“Katie, thank goodness I’ve caught you, dearie.”
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s Jasper, my cat.” Her thin face was shrivelled up with worry. “Would you keep an eye on him? I’ve got to – oh dear. I don’t know, I’m sure. I really don’t.”
As she fretted, a police car drew up outside.
“Look out, Olive,” I joked, worried by her extra pale face and hoping to get her to lighten up a bit. “They’ve come to take you away. Have you not been paying your TV licence?”
“That’s why I wanted to see you about Jasper.” She darted a glance around to make sure no one else was within earshot. “They’ve come to take me up our Millie’s, and I don’t know when I’ll be back. Seems she’s in a state.”
“Jeez, I’m sorry.” I wished I hadn’t tried to make that silly joke now. “Is it Abe?”
“You could say that. The old fool was shouting his mouth off in the pub the other night,” Olive whispered as a policewoman walked up the path towards us. “About what he’d do to that Margot Duckface for saying she wouldn’t be seen dead drinking his cider.”
“But that’s just Abe. Everyone knows what he’s like when he’s trolleyed.”
“That’s as maybe. But Marg
ot was found dead this morning. Face down in a vat of Abe’s HeadBender cider. And they seem to think it was Abe who put her there.”
When I’m nervous or shocked, I have this awful habit of saying stupid things. Lucky for me then the policewoman reached us before I could blurt out that, at least this year, nobody could say that Abe’s cider lacked body.
Chapter Five
By the time I’d seen Olive safely into the police car and assured her for the twenty-seventh time that Mad Dog Prescott wouldn’t get within lip-curling distance of her precious Jasper, Elsie had worked herself into a right frenzy.
She pounced the second I opened the door.
“What’s going on?” she demanded, her Brillo pad hair standing up in little spiky tufts where she’d been tearing at it. “Why have the police carted poor old Olive away? Has she forgotten to pay her TV licence again?”
“It’s not Olive who’s in trouble, it’s Abe,” I said, as I led Prescott into the kitchen, took his lead and harness off and gave him a drink. “Do you want me to make you a cup of tea while I’m in here?” I called out.
“Of course. I’m parched and it doesn’t do for people of my age to get de-hibernated. Just be quick about it. What’s that fool Abe done now? And what’s it got to do with Olive?”
“Millie’s in a bit of a state, apparently. So Olive’s gone up there to look after her.” I called through to her from the kitchen while I laid out the tea tray to her very specific requirements. Matching bone china cup and saucer (‘the one with the violets on, not the chipped one’), with a plate of ginger-nut biscuits on the side.
“Millie’s always in a state,” she said dismissively. “What’s it this time? Has she lost her bus pass again?”
Rough And Deadly (A Much Winchmoor Mystery Book 2) Page 4