A Christmas Cracker

by Trisha Ashley

  ‘I’m a fine one to talk about making mistakes – I didn’t exactly choose wisely with Jeremy, did I?’ I pointed out.

  ‘We’re both poor pickers,’ she agreed. ‘I’ll catch up with you whenever I can and when I can’t phone you, I’ll write.’

  ‘That would be wonderful. I can’t tell you how nice it is to get good, old-fashioned letters!’

  I wished Jeremy felt the same way about letters but, not unexpectedly, I had no answer to the one I wrote to him, telling him I would pay him back for storing my belongings when I was released and asking him to give me the name and address of Pye’s new owners, so I could write to them, too, and make sure he was all right. Not getting a reply made me want to escape and go to find him – but I knew if I did that I’d be sent back to a stricter prison again and it would be even longer before we could be reunited. I had to bide my time and count the days until my release. But at least I now had a link to the outside world in Emma.

  Until the happy day that I met Cedric Lathom, I think she was the only person in the whole wide world who was prepared to believe I was innocent.

  Chapter 4: The Prisoner’s Friend

  Ceddie, as he asked me to call him during his first visit, described himself as a Prisoner’s Friend but he was also, as it turned out, a Quaker Friend, too.

  When it had been suggested to me that since I had no visitors of my own, I might like him to visit me, I’d thought, well, why not?

  This proved to be one of the best decisions I’d ever made, because not only did it give me access to the visitors’ rooms in a small separate building, where I could indulge in coffee, hot chocolate, fruit juice and even biscuits, but Ceddie was the most wonderful person.

  He was a tiny, elderly man with a pointed face, a mop of silvery curls and large, innocent grey-blue eyes – though perhaps the word ‘innocent’ implies a trusting simplicity, which he didn’t have. It was more an unshakeable belief that there was inner good in everyone.

  Over several visits I found myself pouring out my life story to him. I’d never had a significant male figure in my life, father or grandfather, but if I had I’d have wanted him to be just like Ceddie.

  ‘Looking back, my life seems to have been a bit sad, only it didn’t feel like that at the time,’ I said ruefully one day towards the end of my sentence, while I was drinking the cup of hot chocolate he’d bought me as usual.

  ‘Your mother sounds such an interesting and loving person that giving up everything to care for her was clearly something you did from love, not duty,’ he agreed.

  ‘When she was first diagnosed with MS we hoped that it might be the slow kind, but she deteriorated very quickly … But she was never a burden and I had the support of my best friend, Emma, and my childhood sweetheart, Robbie, so I didn’t feel totally alone.’

  ‘Ah, yes, I remember you mentioning Robbie before,’ he said, smiling at me benignly.

  ‘He went straight into the army from school and we were too young to get engaged really, especially since I’d never have left Mum, but he understood that. He was a really nice boy.’

  ‘You said he was badly wounded and married one of the nurses who’d looked after him?’

  ‘Yes, they just fell in love. I hadn’t been able to get down to see him much, because of leaving Mum, so I didn’t blame him in the least. In fact, I wished them both well.’

  ‘That shows a warm and generous heart, my dear,’ he said.

  ‘I think our engagement lasted only as long as it did because mostly we were able just to write to each other,’ I confessed. ‘But by the time he got married I was fully occupied anyway, what with my casual packing job at Champers&Chocs, when my neighbour could pop in and sit with Mum, and my art work, especially when I started to sell designs to greetings card companies.’

  ‘I’m very impressed with your papercuts, Tabby,’ he said. ‘I think you have great talent.’

  I’d recently given him one depicting the prison as seen through the rose arch, the thorns like a circlet of barbed wire and inmates standing in every window, looking out.

  ‘Thank you – I get my arty side from Mum. She was a costume assistant and dresser at a Liverpool theatre until she got too ill to work. My father was an actor who was part of a touring production, but when Mum discovered she was expecting me, she found out he was married with a young family, so she never told him.’

  ‘I think she should at least have given him the opportunity to provide for you,’ he said, ‘but I can see that she wouldn’t want to upset his wife and family with such a disclosure.’

  I looked at him fondly, quite used by now to the somewhat Victorian flourishes of his conversation.

  ‘I checked him on the internet out of curiosity once, and I don’t think he’d have been much of an asset as a father. Anyway, we moved in with Granny and then later, after she died and Mum’s condition had deteriorated, the council gave us a specially adapted bungalow, so we were all right.’

  ‘When one door shuts, another opens,’ he said.

  ‘One thing does seem to lead to another,’ I agreed, ‘just not always fortunately. Once Mum passed away I had to give up the bungalow and started working regular shifts at Champers&Chocs, so I could pay the rent on Jeremy’s flat … which led to us getting engaged.’

  ‘Which should have made a happy ending, at last.’

  ‘I did feel as if I was on the brink of it, just before I was arrested. I’d had a successful small solo exhibition at a gallery in Liverpool and I was hoping to make a living from my artwork. I’d handed in my notice once I realised Harry, my boss, was still defrauding the customers, but the only thing I was guilty of was not reporting what I found out immediately.’

  I smiled and added, ‘Practically everyone I’ve met in prison has protested their innocence of the crime they were charged with, but I really didn’t do it!’

  ‘I am certain in my heart that you are innocent of any crime,’ Ceddie assured me.

  ‘Thank you – and I wasn’t even guilty of having an affair with Harry Briggs. I was engaged to Jeremy and, other than Robbie, my childhood sweetheart, I’d never even been out with anyone else.’

  ‘God always knows the truth,’ Ceddie told me, but I wished the judge had, too.

  ‘I will be away visiting relatives next week, but a friend of mine would like to come here in my stead, if you approve of the idea,’ said Cedric Lathom, on his next visit.

  My heart sank and I realised just how much I had come to depend on seeing him.

  ‘A friend as in Quaker Friend?’ I asked. I’d been reading up about the Quakers since Ceddie’s first visit had piqued my curiosity.

  He nodded, silvery curls bobbing. ‘She’s called Mercy Marwood. Her benevolence, like that of all the Marwoods, has always taken a practical turn. For many years she’s been sourcing and renovating old sewing machines to take out to Malawi, where she has also taught needlework. She’s just returned from her final trip there, for she feels that now she has turned eighty, it’s time to attend to affairs closer to home.’

  I’d grown used to Ceddie rambling on as if he’d escaped from between the covers of a Charles Dickens novel, but I thought that if Mercy Marwood had been teaching in Malawi into her eighties, she must be a tough old bird!

  ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve told her a little about you,’ he added, slightly anxiously.

  ‘No, not at all,’ I replied. ‘I imagine you can read the whole story of my life online, by clicking on the newspaper reports of the trial.’

  ‘I doubt the affair made the national headlines and, in any case, they would reveal little about the real Tabitha Coombs, who is a very fine person,’ he said, with one of his warm smiles.

  ‘Thank you. Somehow, after your visits I always feel better … and when they release me, I’ll miss you.’

  ‘I will always remain your friend,’ Ceddie said. ‘Had you any thought about where you might go and what you might do after your release?’

  ‘I have to wear a t
ag for two months and be under a sort of night-time house arrest – assuming I have a house to live in, of course,’ I said. ‘With no relatives, little money and a criminal record added to my lack of qualifications, I don’t see much chance of getting a job and renting somewhere, and anyway, they need an address before they’ll even release me. But I’m told they can find me a temporary place in a hostel somewhere, till I get back on my feet,’ I added, trying to sound more positive than I felt.

  ‘Well, my dear, Mercy has a proposition to put before you that may change that.’

  ‘A proposition?’ I echoed. ‘Do you mean … a job?’

  ‘The possibility of a fresh start, with somewhere to live, at least,’ he said. ‘But I’ll let her tell you all about it herself.’

  ‘But surely she won’t want to employ an ex-con?’

  ‘I have every reason to believe that she will and I think you’ll suit each other very well,’ he reassured me.

  He wouldn’t say any more about it and I wondered if his friend was returning because she was now so decrepit she needed a carer. After all, I had been my mum’s sole carer for years, so I was certainly experienced at looking after an invalid.

  It would mean my life had gone round in a circle again … but then, beggars and people with criminal records can’t be choosers.

  Chapter 5: Engagements

  Randal

  Charlie Clancy and I were having a catch-up session over a few beers at my flat between assignments. Being more or less in the same line of business, we were seldom in London at the same time.

  ‘I haven’t seen you since we bumped into each other in the street after you got back from that cruise. You looked like crap – and you don’t look much better now,’ Charlie said, with the frankness of an old friend. ‘How much weight have you lost?’

  ‘Too much: I wouldn’t recommend a toxic tummy bug to anyone as a diet aid,’ I said. ‘You don’t expect amazing luxury from a cut-price cruise company, but Kharisma sucked. So many passengers and even crew went down with it that if there hadn’t been a mutiny off Mexico it would have been like the Mary Celeste and running on autopilot round and round the Caribbean.’

  ‘That bad, was it?’ Charlie said sympathetically.

  ‘You’ll see the horrible details when the programme comes out,’ I said. ‘It was even worse than we’d been told, mainly due to a lack of deep cleaning between cruises and poor food preparation practice. I bribed my way into the kitchens for a look and, believe me, I pretty much lived on bottled water and biscuits after that. And when half the toilets weren’t functioning … well, you can imagine. It spread like wildfire. The stewards were paid so little, it’s not surprising they weren’t keen to tackle sick passengers’ cabins.’

  ‘But you caught it anyway, despite all the precautions.’

  ‘I was careful, but I suppose it was inevitable, and at least we’d all been taken off the ship at Cancún by that point. It was a week before the medical authorities would let me fly home and I’m still sticking to eating bland stuff for the time being. This is the first alcohol I’ve tasted in weeks.’

  ‘I have to say, you still look gaunt. I can’t believe they sent you to Greece on another assignment so soon after you got back.’

  I shrugged. ‘That’s how it goes. I’m off to investigate gap-year black spots worldwide next for a special programme, with some back-to-back filming for the ordinary series thrown in. South America first.’

  ‘Back to Mexico?’

  I shuddered. ‘Luckily no, because I’m always going to associate the place with feeling like death. I’m off to Peru first.’

  ‘I’ve always wanted to go to Machu Picchu,’ Charlie said enviously.

  ‘So have I, but not on the cheapest and dodgiest tour and staying in the worst backpackers’ hostels. I only hope my digestion is up to a series of new challenges by the time I get there.’

  ‘At least you visit exotic locations, while I just endlessly circle the dodgy dealers and rip-off merchants of the UK,’ he pointed out.

  I looked around the living room of the tiny flat that was my London base and thought how happy I’d be just to stay there. ‘The sense of excitement I used to get at the start of each new assignment has long since worn off,’ I said. ‘I think I’m getting too old for this game. What have you been up to?’

  ‘Got back yesterday after following a lead about horse-race fixing, but it was a bust.’ He took another swig from his beer. ‘But do you remember going with me to that small art gallery in Liverpool early last year, when I was following a lead about fake champagne?’

  I nodded, a brief vision of a woman with long, dark brown hair and unusual light lilac-grey eyes sliding into my mind. ‘The artist did brilliant papercuts, but also worked for that firm you wanted to investigate … what was it called?’

  ‘Champers&Chocs. I’d already had a tip-off from a disgruntled customer that they were selling cheap fizz relabelled as expensive bubbly, when by sheer good luck, I got a lead on Tabitha Coombs.’

  ‘It’s all coming back to me – her “friend” dropped her right in it, didn’t she? So, was she involved in the racket?’

  ‘Up to the eyes, as well as having an affair with the owner. It all came out at the trial before Christmas.’

  ‘Really?’ I felt vaguely surprised. ‘Her papercuts and collage pictures were really clever, so I wouldn’t have thought she’d need to work somewhere like that, let alone be involved in a fraud.’

  And now I came to think of it, I’d actually bought one of her pictures and arranged for it to be sent to my family home, Mote Farm, so presumably it had long since arrived and been stored away somewhere. I’d have to look next time I was up there.

  ‘Her boss, Harry Briggs, said the scam had been her idea in the first place and they always packed the special orders up after the others had gone home in the evening, then had a bit of how’s-your-father,’ Charlie told me.

  ‘I’m not sure I entirely believe that last bit – wasn’t she engaged to someone? I seem to remember a fiancé.’

  ‘Well, an affair isn’t illegal anyway, but Kate, her “friend”, got up and gave the court the same story, so it told against her. I don’t think the judge was convinced she was the instigator of the fraud, though, because Briggs got a five-year stretch, but he still sent her to prison.’

  ‘Really? If she hadn’t committed any crime before, I’d have expected a suspended sentence, or community service, or something,’ I exclaimed.

  ‘So would I, but the judge said he was going to make an example of her. She’s the reserved, sarcastic type, and I don’t think he took to her.’

  ‘Well, being reserved or sarky isn’t a hanging offence,’ I said mildly.

  ‘She looked guilty – but not half as shifty and guilty as she did on that secret film I shot inside Champers&Chocs, when she was showing me the packing room! I had someone pretend to phone her with an urgent message and then sneaked into the backroom – it was locked, but any baby could have opened it with a bit of bent plastic – and found a stash of fake champagne.’

  ‘How long a sentence did she get?’

  ‘Eight months’ custodial, so she’ll probably be released before too long. I don’t suppose the fiancé stood by her; he didn’t look the type to forgive and forget. But she was attractive in a witchy kind of way, wasn’t she?’

  I considered. ‘She was striking, I suppose – it’s not a face you’d forget easily.’

  ‘Maybe she’s your type?’ he suggested. ‘You could offer her a shoulder to cry on when she’s released.’

  ‘You’re way out, because I’ve just got engaged to Lacey Bucknall.’

  ‘What, the daughter of the All Thrills sex shops Bucknalls?’ Charlie exclaimed. ‘I didn’t even know you were going out with her!’

  ‘It was a bit of a whirlwind romance.’

  ‘Lucky you. I’ve seen her about in nightclubs,’ he said. ‘Stunning redhead, legs up to her armpits, slim as a model but with curves in all the rig
ht places …’

  ‘Yes, that’s Lacey, but she’s no airhead. In fact, she’s a businesswoman to the core.’

  ‘Still, you’ll be all right there. She’s probably got her own set of fluffy handcuffs and maybe a naughty nurse costume?’ he teased.

  I sighed. ‘You know, I’m getting tired of that sort of comment, and Lacey’s fed up with men who assume she’s up for anything, just because her parents own a chain of sex shops. She’s not like that at all.’

  In fact, she’d shown a distinct lack of enthusiasm for that aspect of our relationship, so I suspected the whole subject bored her rigid, which I suppose wasn’t surprising, given her background … I hoped to change her mind about that. And anyway, we shared a desire to settle down and start a family, and there was only one way to do that.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Charlie. ‘I’m sure she’s really nice.’

  ‘She sees the family business as like any other, just filling a gap in the market and making money. She’s recently set up her own mail-order company and it’s starting to take off.’

  ‘Selling what?’ he asked. ‘Tell me it’s not the same line as her parents!’

  ‘Not far off,’ I admitted reluctantly. ‘Instant Orgy. It’s party supplies, basically … for adult parties.’

  ‘Right …’ Charlie said slowly, though a glint of devilment appeared in his dark eyes. ‘That’s going to go down a storm with your aunt Mercy, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s not going to be easy,’ I agreed, because my elderly aunt by marriage, Mercy Marwood, came from a long line of Quakers, as had my late uncle. My mother had married out and lapsed, but I was aware enough of the Quaker outlook to know that Mercy might take a dim view of my fiancée’s business interests. ‘I’m hoping she gets to know Lacey first, before she finds out.’

  ‘How is Mercy?’ Charlie asked. We’d often spent part of our school holidays at Mote Farm and he was fond of her. And I was, too, even though by rights the family estate should have come directly to me after my uncle died, rather than have been left to my aunt to pass on. ‘Is she still out in Malawi, teaching needlework and stuff?’