by Lyra Barnett
“Well yes, that’s what I’m thinking. I mean, she was sat right there at the table, but she doesn’t seem to have any reason to.”
“From what I’ve heard of Mrs Tranter, she would have had as much reason as Betty, more so, as she would have been on the wrong end of her nastiness all day every day.”
“Yes, but she says she liked her! That they got on like a house on fire!”
“And let me guess, Betty is in there saying that she hated the old bag?”
He nodded grimly as we shared a moment to appreciate the steadfast honesty of the Haddock make-up.
“But come on,” I continued, “where do they think Betty got cyanide from?!”
He looked at me curiously.
“We haven’t revealed the type of poison to the press yet.”
“In fact, where would anyone get it from? I mean, it’s not like you can go and buy it in the chemist is it?” Hoping to move him along without going into my snooping the last time I was at the station.
“Yes, that’s been troubling me as well. I got Pearson to look into it, you can make crude forms of it from items you can buy at home, but I just can’t see Joan Sithers making up a batch in her kitchen.”
He looked at me with pleading eyes.
“If there’s anything you can remember that might help Betty, try.”
He gave me a nod and strode off to his car and was gone.
I made my way into the reception of the little station, but Pearson said I was unable to visit Miss Haddock at this time as they were in the middle of an inquiry and she was an important witness. She had sounded like she was reading from a script, and I noted that Shaw had obviously told her to say ‘witness’ rather than ‘suspect’. Touching, but it wasn’t going to help get Betty out of this mess.
I began the walk back into town in deep thought. Someone was obviously trying to frame Betty, which made sense. She was the one who had handed the victim the coffee. The stuck open window on her car provided a nice easy opportunity to add a little more to the evidence pile, especially as it was always parked at the back of the café where anyone could walk past it.
I looked up and realised that I had walked back into town the same way I had done the last time I had visited the police station and was now back on the same street that Mrs Tranter had lived.
As I approached the house, I saw that the scaffolding was still wrapped around it, but unlike before, I couldn’t see any movement on its wooden platforms. I stopped in front of the small, neat garden and admired the work that must have gone in to it. The border which ran around three sides of the small lawn was completely free from weeds, the side which ran along the tarmac driveway was trimmed to perfection. Rose bushes were spaced evenly along the beds and even though it was late in the year, they still bloomed an array of alternating yellow and red colours.
The front door of the house opened and the small figure of Mr Tranter appeared.
“Can I help you?”
I searched desperately for some legitimate reason I would be staring at the garden of a recently widowed middle aged man, but couldn’t think of one. So I said the first thing that popped into my head.
“I’m a friend of Joan Sithers.”
I figured he would either consider Joan Sithers a trusted loyal employee of his late wife, or he would think of her as the prime suspect in his wife’s murder. Either way, I wasn’t expecting what he then did.
His eyes widened and he scuttled down the driveway towards me, threw an arm around me, and guided me back to the house and in through his front door.
He took me into a front room that smelt of wood polish and gestured for me to sit on a small beige two seater sofa with him. In an unexpected turn of intimacy, he took my hand.
“Is she ok?” His voice sounded pleading and desperate. His small eyes blinking at me from behind his thick glasses.
“Yes, she’s fine.”
Apart from possibly being a murderer I thought.
“Oh thank goodness,” he said, visibly slumping with relief.
I watched him for a moment, not wanting to say anything that would blow my cover. His eyes darted back to mine, but this time there was a glint of curiosity.
“Did she… say anything about Edith?”
Edith? Who on earth was Edith?! Then something clicked, it must have been his wife’s name.
“Only that she was poisoned.”
He nodded and looked down at his hands which were turning the wedding ring on his finger around and around.
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
His head jerked upwards, a look of complete confusion on his face. As though I’d said something utterly baffling rather than the standard line you were supposed to deliver to a grieving widow.
“Oh, right, yes.”
“I’m sorry, but I really must be going, I just wanted to see how you were,” I said standing up and moving towards the door. He didn’t move, he just sat there looking small and sad as he spoke in a thin voice.
“Can you tell Joan that I understand, and that everything will be alright please?”
“Yes, of course.”
I gave him a smile and let myself out and into the street.
What on earth did that mean? He understood? Did that mean he also thought Joan had killed his wife, but that it was ok?! The way he had asked if she was ok when I had first said I was her friend told me two things. The first was that Mr Tranter clearly cared for Joan, was it possible they were having an affair? I pictured the two of them and quickly shook my head to get rid of the image. The second thing it told me was that they hadn’t spoken recently, probably since his wife’s death. That was strange surely? I mean, what about his wife’s business? Didn’t he need to talk to the only remaining employee to sort out what was going to happen there?
I looked at my watch. I needed to get home if I was to make the welcoming dinner for my new housemates.
11
GUESTS FOR DINNER
M y mum was like a ball in a pinball machine. She bounced from the stove to the large wooden table which was covered in trays bursting with food, then off again to the sink to drain pasta which was added to a sauce that was bubbling gently back on the stove. I looked around the room at the organised chaos and whistled.
“Just how many people are you cooking for here?”
“Just us and our three guests dear.”
I estimated that it would take the six of us around nine days to get through this at three meals a day, but decided not to say anything. It was best not to disturb her when she was like this. There is a kind of… single mindedness to zombies. My cousin Amanda, who had been a zombie for only a few years, was just the same. Becoming obsessed over the smallest details, or beginning a task and continuing it with such focus and determination, that they ended up going way, way overboard. I scanned the sausages wrapped in bacon, and the whole roast duck in orange sauce, and the six individual pies and was pretty sure this was one of those times.
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Oh no dear, you just go and mingle.”
I watched her for a while. I had always worried growing up that she had felt like an outsider living with me and my dad. Vampires and zombies were similar in that they both craved things and if they didn’t get them, there were consequences. Where they truly differed though, was in their outlook in life. All the zombies I have ever met were fastidious, obsessive and industrious. They were all also rather nice. Werewolves like my cousin Laura though, they were a different kettle of fish altogether.
I left my mum to it and moved through to the sitting room where my dad was again holding court with the brandy.
“Felicity! Come and listen to Mrs Bard’s fascinating story about how she once brought down a chandelier in the Apollo Theatre!”
I moved towards the group and noticed Damien’s eyes rolling at me from behind the shrunken figure of Mrs Bard in her wheelchair.
“Well as I was saying,” croaked the ancient banshee, “I was seeing t
his young chap, name of Harold. Big strapping thighs he had, like tree trunks they were, and that’s not the only thing that was big, he had a…”
“The chandelier Mrs Bard?” my dad interjected urgently. His mouth was still turned in a smile, but now I was closer, I could see that the rest of his face didn’t agree. A small bead of sweat rolled down his forehead.
“Oh, right. Well, halfway through a performance of some boring Russian play, all about bread or something, I screamed so loudly that I loosened the fittings in one of the main chandeliers and it came crashing down on the orchestra pit.”
My dad laughed far louder than was strictly necessary.
“Oh yes, very good. Excellent! You must have been quite something to hear back then Mrs Bard.”
“Why did you scream?” I asked. I’d never really understood banshees. There weren’t many of them in our family, and the ones I had met outside of our widespread descendants seemed to have a topic of conversation mostly focused around vocal exercises and throat lozenges.
“Well,” Mrs Bard continued, turning to me with a face so thin she looked like she might crumble in the gentle breeze from the open windows, “this young man I mentioned, with the strapping thighs, got bored of the play, and the next thing I know me dress is down by me ankles and…”
“Dinner is served!” my mum announced from the doorway, breaking Mrs Bard’s flow and causing my dad to look like a man who had inadvertently wandered into a lion enclosure only to be yanked out at the last minute by a zoo keeper he would send Christmas cards to for the rest of his life.
He ushered everyone through to the dining room before Mrs Bard could regain her thread, and we sat to the feast my mum had prepared.
I was seated between Damien and Mr Shaw, who out of the corner of my eye I watched open, then fold, then reopen and place his napkin on his lap. He then began to tackle the mountain of food in front of him by lifting a serving plate and offering it to me before then serving himself.
“So, Mr Shaw, how do you like Stumpwell so far?”
“It is perfectly acceptable.”
“Oh, good.” That wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement for the town I called home. “And have you seen much of it yet?”
“I have visited the lumber yard at the edge of the town. It was acceptable.”
“The lumber yard? Well you won’t have seen much of the town’s beauty if that’s the only place you’ve been!”
A silence fell across the table as Mr Shaw dropped the serving spoon he had been holding. He closed his eyes and began speaking as though repeating a mantra.
“Wood is the most powerful substance on earth. As a tree it purifies the air and provides us fruit, shade and company. In death, it can become whatever man intends it to be, whatever we can conjure from the depths of our imagination.”
I glanced around the table looking for some sign that I wasn’t the only one who thought this was crazy talk. My dad was shaking his head at me slowly. I could almost hear his voice in my mind saying ‘don’t say a word.’
“Wood? It has its uses I suppose.”
There was a sharp intake of breath from Mr Shaw and he stood, addressing my mother.
“Thank you for this wonderful meal Mrs Twyst, but I feel I shall eat alone, later. If you would be so kind as to leave me a plate in the kitchen?”
“Oh yes, of course Mr Shaw.”
“God evening,” he said, bowing to everyone around the table but me.
“What on earth was that about?!” I said when the door had closed. My father dropped his head to his hands as Damien explained.
“Mr Shaw is rather fond of wood.”
“Rather fond?! He reacted like I’d insulted his mother!”
“He’s a bit obsessed with it dear. He makes ever such lovely sculptures though, doesn’t he Algernon?”
My mum never seemed fazed by anything. My dad lifted his head to agree with her, shooting me a look as he dished himself out a serving of new potatoes.
“Yes, they are lovely dear.”
“Anyway,” my mother continued, “I’m sure you’ll make up in the morning, Felicity. Maybe you could bring him a nice piece of wood?”
“You are joking? You want me to bring him a piece of wood?”
“Yes dear, then he can carve you something lovely from it. Now come on, don’t let your food go cold.”
I glanced at Damien who was smirking slightly as he helped himself to the food.
My parents were embarrassing enough on a daily basis, but now I had an audience in Damien. Worse than that, I’d just caught myself glancing at whether said audience had strapping thighs like the man in Mrs Bard’s story.
He did.
12
NEW EVIDENCE
The next day, after speaking briefly to a tired Betty on the phone from the police station, I stepped into the kitchen to drink my daily blood and found a note from Mr Shaw.
I apologise for my outburst. I can become unusually tempestuous on the subject of nature’s greatest bounty, please accept my sincere apologies.
Oh god, I was going to have to bring him a piece of wood back now.
I washed the blood down with a slice of toast which I ate as I left and began the walk into town. I had woken up with the sudden realisation that there were still two people from the day of the murder that I hadn’t spoken to. The Boon sisters.
It wasn’t that I thought they were involved, I knew they couldn’t have been, they hadn’t left their normal table in the corner of the café until Sandra had emerged from the back room with the port. Long after Mrs Tranter had been killed.
One thing was for sure, it wouldn’t be hard to find them.
I arrived at the café and sure enough, they were sat at their normal table facing out across the rest of the tables.
“Morning Sandra.”
“Morning. How is she?”
“She’s ok, tired. I don’t think those holding cells are much good for sleeping in. They’ve got someone from Cowton coming down to talk to her today, then they’re going to either charge her or let her go.”
“Bloody hell. What are we going to do?! She obviously didn’t do it!”
“Don’t worry, I’m working on it, but a coffee, a chocolate orange muffin and two of your iced fingers would help.”
She looked at me curiously, but nodded and brought my order to me on a tray which I took and headed towards the Boon twins.
“Morning ladies, I thought I’d bring you a little treat, on the house.”
“Ooh how lovely! Isn’t that lovely Tracy?”
“Oh it’s ever so lovely Lottie! We always said she was a lovely girl didn’t we?”
“We did. Lovely girl we said.”
The twins often had this way of talking about you as though you weren’t there. Being rather plump rosy cheeked older ladies, it was endearing rather than annoying.
“I was wondering if I could ask you about the other day, when the lady died?”
“Ha! Oh yes! Well it’s not surprising if you go on like that is it?”
Go on like that? What did that mean?
“Well no. You treat your body like a rubbish tip and soon you’ll pay the price.” Lottie said sternly to my right. I had no idea what they were talking about.
“Did you see anyone put anything into her drink by any chance?”
They both pulled themselves upright.
“It’s not done to speak badly of the dead,” Tracy said raising her nose in the air.
“I’m not asking you to, I just wondered if you’d seen anyone put something in her drink.”
“We didn’t like to say to that young police chappie, I mean, he’s not from round here is he? We can’t go around telling things about our own and putting them in a bad light to strangers can we?” Lottie said before grasping the iced bun in front of her and attacking it at the same time as her sister.
I leaned back, sipped at my coffee and tried to think back to the day of the murder myself. Had I seen anything different? An
ything that I was missing that could help prove Betty’s innocence?
I jumped, spilling coffee down the front of my dark green dress. Just before I had heard Joan Sithers’ scream, I had heard a metallic clang. As though someone had dropped something metal on the hard tiles of the café floor. Then, Joan Sithers had been at the side of the body, bending down. Why would someone who had screamed in horror, then get so close to the body?
What had the twins just said? Treating her body badly, carrying on like that, don’t want to speak ill of the dead?
I dabbed at the coffee on my dress with a napkin and leaned forward to the two women again.
“Did you see Mrs Tranter put something in her own coffee?!”
“May have done, but I don’t like to pass judgement on those that have passed.”
Ignoring the rather poetic nature of this comment, I continued.
“Was she using a hip flask? A metal one?”
“She did like her coffee Irish in the morning, but you won’t hear that from us,” Lottie said.
“That’s right,” Tracy agreed.
“Thanks.”
I jumped up from the table and dashed across the café to the table Mrs Tranter had been sat on when she died and dived to my hands and knees. There was nothing under the table other than a few crumbs of breakfast muffin that someone had obviously dropped that morning. I looked around for another minute or so, even checking behind the large plant pot that stood around five feet away. Nothing.
“What an earth are you doing? Other than scaring off my customers that is.” Sandra appeared above me as I looked under the tale for what must have been the fifth time.
“The day after the murder, did you find a hip flask anywhere?”
“A hip flask? No, why?”
I jumped up and headed for the door.
“I need to go to the police station right now, can you do without me today?”
“Well I guess so,” Sandra said, throwing her hands up in the air.
I burst out of the door and began running down West Street.
13
UNRAVELLING
I burst through the doors of Stumpwell police station to find DCI Marsh stood with a middle aged man who had the shape of a beach ball. I ignored the company and got straight to the point.