Thieves!

by Hannah Dennison

  “You all right, luv?” Jimmy asked, squeezing my shoulder. “You look a bit down in the mouth.”

  “I just think it very sad that horse-drawn wagons are becoming a thing of the past,” I said quickly, realizing it was a perfect lead into a perfectly reasonable question. “When you’ve set up camp, how do you get around? Other than the VW camper and Dora’s enormous Winnebago, is there another vehicle? A Land Rover, perhaps?”

  “We use bicycles,” said Jimmy. “Why?

  “No reason.” I took a sip of tea. “You’ve been on the road a long time and must know everyone . . .”

  “Seventy years,” said Jimmy. “I just turned seventy last month, and yes, I do.”

  “I wondered if you’d heard about that poor gypsy woman who died last night in Mudge Lane.”

  “She wasn’t a gypsy,” said Jimmy firmly.

  Funny that Dora claimed to know nothing about it but Jimmy did. “Don’t you think it disgraceful? The police don’t even seem to care who this woman was?”

  “Is that so?” Jimmy shrugged. “That’s the police for you. More tea?”

  “She was dressed like a gypsy,” I persisted. “Riding a bicycle, too. The wig was a bit weird, though. I nearly fell over because it got all tangled up in my legs.”

  “You were there?” said Jimmy sharply.

  “I found the body,” I said, trying to keep my tone casual. “My car was hit by a Land Rover leaving the scene.”

  “As I said, she wasn’t one of ours.”

  “What about all the mourners coming for Belcher Pike’s funeral—I mean, to pay their respects?” I said. “Perhaps one of them might know something?”

  “Maybe,” said Jimmy slowly. “Tell you what, why don’t I ask around? Gypsies don’t like to talk to gorgers. You won’t get very far on your own.” Which is exactly what Dora had said, too.

  “Thank you—but . . .” Blast—Topaz! I’d almost forgotten. “I think it’s only fair to tell you that the owner of The Grange has hired a professional eviction service to come here on Friday.”

  “Eviction!” Jimmy’s jaw dropped. “They can’t do that. We’re allowed to camp here.”

  “Sir Hugh passed away,” I said. “His niece owns the estate now.”

  “That can’t happen. It mustn’t,” Jimmy cried. “If Belcher Pike is uprooted in his final days, his soul will go straight to hell.”

  “Jimmy, we’ve got a problem.” Noah’s face loomed large through the open half door. “Some idiot reporter is—”

  “Noah, lad!” said Jimmy with false joviality. “Come on in for a cuppa and meet my guest.”

  Jimmy’s pathetic attempt at warning Noah of my presence was not lost on me. Idiot reporter! My face burned with indignation—and to think I’d been attracted to him and his wretched guitar.

  “I was just leaving,” I said coldly. But, of course, I had to wait for Jimmy to move the tea service, push the table in, and pick up his chair so that I could squeeze past him.

  I was rapidly going off wagon life. It was far too cramped.

  “We’ll be in touch,” said Jimmy, all smiles once more. He opened the lower door and took in a breath of fresh air. “Now, that’s what real life smells like. Off you go back to your stuffy office.”

  Jimmy stepped aside to let me pass. I swept by Noah without giving him a second glance and tramped back to my car.

  Idiot reporter? Noah’s words stung. I might be an idiot for finding him attractive, but I certainly wasn’t an idiot when it came to sleuthing. Dora and Jimmy were lying about the dead woman in Mudge Lane, and maybe they were poaching, too.

  I kept circling back to the same questions. If the woman was a gypsy, why would they pretend she wasn’t? If the woman wasn’t a gypsy, why did the police say it was an accident but move her body to Plymouth?

  It was only when I was halfway back to Middle Gipping and had reached Plym Bridge that I realized that I’d forgotten to post Whittler’s check and drop off Barbara’s mysterious package.

  Fortunately I remembered there was a pillar box opposite Barbara’s house. Barbara had been born in Gipping-on-Plym and given the scandal that she had supposedly created all those years ago, might be able to shed some light on the new residents at The Grange.

  I turned the car around and headed back to The Marshes. Jimmy Kitchen’s cup of tea had been very good, but I could always do with another.

  15

  Fifteen minutes later I arrived at The Marshes and pulled up outside Barbara’s end-terraced house. Built on a ridge, Barbara’s two-up, two-down, overlooked a horseshoe of unattractive 1950s redbrick bungalows with metal-framed windows and corrugated iron roofing.

  In the center of the horseshoe was a patch of grass that always seemed to be waterlogged whatever the weather. Rumor had it that the bungalows had been built on a landfill and were steadily sinking—hence the local nickname “Little Venice.”

  Bill Trenfold’s post van was parked next to the old-fashioned cylindrical red pillar box. I checked my watch. It wasn’t even three thirty, and I knew the last collection of the day was supposed to be 5:30 P.M. Bill was picking up early.

  I opened my window and shouted, “Bill! Wait!”

  But he didn’t seem to have heard me. I’d no sooner gotten out of my Fiat when Bill simply drove off! It was little wonder that there were so many complaints about the postal service if the postmen had decided to enforce their own schedules.

  Blast! I had given Whittler my word, and now it looked as it I’d have to drive all the way back to Gipping to post his letter after all.

  Turning to the main reason for visiting poor Barbara, I went to get the shoebox. It wasn’t there.

  Puzzled, I opened the rear doors and looked under the driver and front passenger seats, thinking it must have slid forward. With growing dismay, it dawned on me that the wretched shoebox must have been stolen, and I knew exactly by whom.

  Blast the Swamp Dogs! No doubt they nabbed it when I was dealing with Jack Webster’s shenanigans. Of course I’d confront them, but it was annoying. Besides, what use would an old shoe and a bicycle bell have for them anyway? Come to think of it, what use would either have for Barbara?

  As Mum would say, “What you haven’t had you won’t miss.” The sender hadn’t left a note or return address. If it were that important, I was quite sure we’d hear about it, but until we did, I had other things to think about.

  I was tempted to leave, but experience had shown that Barbara had eyes like a hawk and ears like a bat. She was bound to have recognized my car and heard me shout out to the postman. I also noticed the curtains upstairs were open, suggesting Barbara was no longer lying stricken in a darkened room with a migraine.

  I’d just pop in for five minutes.

  On the front doorstep was a glass jam jar filled with wildflowers—forget-me-knots, ox-eyed daisies, and some purple flowers that I didn’t know the name of.

  How romantic! Who would have thought Wilf had it in him!

  I knocked on Barbara’s front door and must have stood there for a good five minutes until I realized she wasn’t going to answer.

  I knelt down and opened the letterbox. “Barbara?” I shouted. “It’s Vicky.”

  There was no reply. Dad said empty houses had a particular feel to them, and I had to admit to getting that feeling.

  I took the narrow path around the side of the house. A latch gate opened into a small, back garden surrounded by a high wooden fence. There was a neat lawn—no bigger than eight feet square—and a flagstone patio lined with tubs of geraniums and begonias. A white circular plastic table and matching plastic chairs stood under a blue umbrella emblazoned with the word Campari!

  Peering shamelessly through the ground-floor windows, I saw a spotlessly clean kitchen with no telltale signs of a teatime cuppa left on the draining board.

  Rapping smartly on the back door, I shouted again, “Barbara!” But there was still no reply.

  I tried to ring her home phone from my mobile but with no
luck. I also tried her mobile and again drew a blank.

  What if she’d fallen down the stairs—Barbara was getting up there in years despite her boasts of “sixty being the new forty.”

  I was in a dilemma. Should I break in?

  A quick look at Barbara’s window latches assured me of an easy access—but first, I had one more place to check.

  Barbara did not own a car. Instead she went everywhere on her beloved circa 1940 pink bicycle. Convinced it was a collector’s item and liable to be stolen for parts, Barbara stored it under lock and key.

  At the end of the garden stood a wooden shed. As I drew closer, I noted the old padlock shackle dangling from the hasp. I opened the door, and among shelves filled with empty pots and gardening paraphernalia stacked neatly on the floor sat an empty bicycle stand.

  Barbara’s bicycle was gone, which meant she was out.

  I returned to my car feeling distinctly uneasy. This was most unusual. Barbara lived for her job. Her life revolved around the bustle of reception, and she was often known to go into the office on her days off, “just in case there is an emergency.”

  A doctor’s visit was out of the question. Following the shameful exit of Annabel’s former beau, Dr. Frost, from Gipping-on-Plym, there was currently no G.P. The doctors of choice were the sadistic Dr. “Jab-It” Jolly, the podiatrist, or Dr. Bodger, who was a ten-mile drive away in Newton Abbot.

  Consoling myself that I had at least tried to deliver a package that I didn’t actually have, I could at least try to keep my promise to Whittler.

  I knew my route back to Factory Terrace would take me past three red pillar boxes—Tripp Lane, Swing-Swang Road, and Bexmoor Way—but first a quick check of the collection plate.

  I was right. The last pickup of the day was 5:30 P.M.! There it was in black-and-white—MON-FRI: 9 A.M.-5:30 P.M. SAT: 9 A.M.-12 NOON.

  It was then that I noticed that the cast-iron pillar box door was not set flush against the cylindrical wall. Bill can’t have locked it properly.

  I slammed the door shut.

  Back on the road again, my thoughts turned to the evening ahead at 21 Factory Terrace.

  Mrs. Evans loved a good gossip. Since it was she who had told Reverend Whittler about last night’s drowning in Mudge Lane, she was bound to have some information to share.

  16

  Annabel’s silver BMW was already in the drive behind Mr. Evans’s green Austin Rover Metro.

  As someone who had lived at Chez Evans for far longer than Annabel had, this particular privilege somewhat irked me. We were both supposed to park our cars on the street.

  Annabel’s “temporary” stay in Mrs. Evans’s sewing room had surprisingly turned into a two full months.

  Located in Lower Gipping, Factory Terrace was a row of dreary Victorian houses formally built for the workers at the six-story wool and textile factory—another Trewallyn white elephant—that stood opposite. The factory had closed down years ago and now stood derelict and vandalized—hardly the kind of neighborhood that Annabel claimed she was accustomed to. But with no man paying her expenses at the moment, presumably beggars couldn’t be choosers.

  One thing I loved about living with Mrs. Evans was having my own latchkey—unlike my previous landlady. I let myself in and was greeted by a delicious smell of baking pastry. Apart from Thursday night’s disgusting liver and onions, Mrs. E. was a decent cook, and at least there were always second helpings.

  After hanging up my safari jacket on the hall coat stand, I noticed a pile of mixed objects left in an unceremonious heap at the bottom of the stairs—a pair of leopard-print ankle boots, a copy of bestseller relationship guru Fenella Fox’s How to Be Irresistible! a pink satin robe, a hairbrush, and a bottle of red nail polish.

  A note, written in Mrs. Evans’s bold handwriting, was tucked into the top of an ankle boot. It simply said ANNABEL. Obviously, Mrs. E. was getting fed up with Annabel’s possessions seeping into every corner of the house.

  I found my landlady standing at the kitchen sink gazing out of the window. Her hair had the tight-curled look of the just-permed, and for once she had switched her usual floral housecoat for a bright yellow apron over a cream cotton blouse and skirt.

  On her right was a countertop full of an array of colorful mini recycling containers for which purpose I knew off by heart. Brown, for food waste, garden waste, and cardboard; blue, for paper, colored cardboard—not wet; white, for plastic bottles, cans, and tins—not polystyrene; and gray, for everything else. The same set that Ronnie had left at The Grange—only smaller.

  Mrs. Evans suddenly started to jerk her left arm about, crying, “Bother! Drat!”

  “What’s wrong?”

  She spun around. Two spoons were stuck to a metal band on her wrist. Mrs. E. flicked it violently left and right in a futile effort to dislodge the cutlery. “It’s this wretched magnetic bracelet.”

  “Why are you wearing it?” I laughed but Mrs. E. scowled, clearly not thinking it funny at all.

  “It’s for my arthritis. My Sadie bought it for me when we had our girl’s lunch in Plymouth last week.”

  I was glad to hear there was a grain of generosity in Mrs. Evans’s wayward daughter’s heart. Sadie Evans earned a ton of money pole-dancing at the Banana Club on Plymouth Hoe but was always on the scrounge.

  “As long as I stay away from anything metal, it’s fine.”

  “Damn and blast!” I cried, remembering Whittler’s envelope. “I completely forgot to post a very important letter.”

  “Why bother?” said Mrs. Evans, clicking her ill-fitting dentures. “The post is all over the place. Mrs. Pierce swore she sent me a check a fortnight ago—it was a lot of money, too—and that Olive Larch insists her check cleared through her bank.”

  I knew that Mr. and Mrs. Evans struggled to make ends meet. As a road worker for Gipping County Council, Mr. Evans’s salary was dictated by weather conditions and very unpredictable. Mrs. Evans said snail breeding was expensive, too, and that Mr. E. was always adding to his collection of terrariums.

  Mrs. Evans opened the cutlery drawer. A knife, spoon, and fork catapulted onto her bracelet with a series of chinks. “Oh, sod it!”

  I helped her remove them. “Why don’t I lay the table?”

  “Use the best linen. Middle drawer.”

  I did as I was told and took out a white damask tablecloth with matching napkins.

  We usually used a plastic tablecloth and paper napkins, so when Mrs. Evans placed a cut-glass vase of roses picked from the garden in the center of the table, I had to ask, “Are we expecting visitors?”

  “No.” Strain was etched across Mrs. Evans’s face.

  “Is everything all right?”

  “I’m trying to make an effort,” Mrs. Evans said miserably, nodding toward the open kitchen window. “Can’t you hear them?”

  I paused to listen. The familiar sound of Annabel’s tinkling laugh drifted along the evening breeze. “They’re in the shed,” Mrs. Evans went on. “She’s taken an interest in Lenny’s snails.”

  Honestly, Annabel was the limit! For the past couple of weeks, she had been blatantly flirting with Mrs. E.’s husband, who was an enthusiastic snail breeder and took the sport very seriously.

  As one of Gipping’s most popular summer pastimes, I had tried to get excited about the various celebrity snails that either were raced every weekend or appeared as “attractions”—Seabiscuit, Rambo, Bullet—but found the whole idea just too silly. I knew Annabel did, too. It was one of the few things we laughed about together.

  “Ignore it, Mrs. E. She’s just insecure.”

  “Why should I?” said Mrs. Evans defiantly. “I don’t like to see her making a fool of my man.”

  At the beginning, Mrs. Evans told me she found Annabel’s behavior toward “my Lenny” a joke, claiming she couldn’t believe that anyone would find him attractive.

  Without intending to sound unkind, I had to agree. I still suffered from nightmares following the time I acci
dentally walked in on the two of them fooling around. The sight of “my Lenny” wearing nothing but a pair of bottle-green socks was firmly printed on my brain for all eternity.

  But recently I noticed Mrs. Evans make the occasional barbed remark at Annabel’s mode of dress, the smaller portions she deliberately slopped onto her plate at dinner, and the circled classified advertisements for flats or cottages to rent left at her place setting at the kitchen table.

  Needless to say, Annabel either was oblivious or didn’t care.

  A sudden burst of laughter sent Mrs. Evans scurrying back to the kitchen sink to peer out of the window. “Here they come!”

  She took off her apron, darted to the counter, pulled out a drawer, retrieved a small compact mirror, and applied a layer of lipstick.

  Moments later, Annabel and Mr. Evans strolled through the back door arm in arm. The smell of Polo Sport aftershave filled the kitchen.

  “Yum, yum,” said Annabel. “I’m starving.”

  “What’s cooking, Millie?” grinned Mr. Evans, his eyes sparkling. Having always seen Mr. Evans in corduroys and an old threadbare sweater, I did a double take. Tonight he was dressed in jeans and a pressed short-sleeved shirt. He’d even shaved.

  “Egg and bacon flan.”

  “Don’t you mean quiche Lorraine?” said Annabel. “That’s the right way to pronounce it. It’s French, you know. And we love all things French, don’t we, Lenny.”

  Mr. Evans blew Annabel a kiss. The meaning was plain.

  “We call it flan in this house,” snapped Mrs. E.

  “Lovely,” I said. “I love flan, and you’re so good at making pastry.”

  “Lenny’s good at everything, aren’t you, sweetie?” said Annabel, batting her eyelashes. Mr. Evans turned pink with ill-disguised pleasure.

  Mrs. Evans’s dentures clicked into overdrive. “Not everything. The hinges on the wardrobe upstairs still need repairing.”

  “Nag, nag, nag,” he said. “That’s all she ever does.”

  “Wardrobe!” Annabel pretended to sound shocked. “Have you been jumping off wardrobes? Naughty Lenny.” She suddenly burst out laughing. “Oh, Mrs. E.! You’ve got something dangling—”