A Whiff of Scandal

by Carole Matthews

  Melissa could feel her breasts turning pink. ‘Er, this sort of work,’ she said bluntly.

  ‘This sort of work?’ Frank repeated.

  ‘Er, yes.’

  It took a few moments for it to sink in. He looked at her incredulously. ‘You’re a hooker!’ His voice had lost its quiver and had gone up an octave.

  A frown crossed Melissa’s face. ‘There’s no need to be like that!’

  ‘You’re a hooker! And you tell me there’s no need to be like this?’

  ‘I like to think of myself as a social service,’ she said. ‘A sort of recreational therapist for the unhappy and the inadequate.’

  ‘And presumably one of your unhappy and inadequate basket cases did this to you?’

  Melissa looked sullenly at him and she hung limply from her handcuffs.

  Frank put his head in his hands, massaging his fingertips through his thinning hair. ‘Why do you need to do it, Mel?’ He looked at her pleadingly. ‘Don’t I . . . don’t I satisfy you?’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with that!’ she protested. ‘Don’t think that. This is totally separate. I’ve only been doing it so that I could put some money away for a rainy day.’

  He stared at her with open-mouthed astonishment. ‘You buy an umbrella for a rainy day, Melissa, not become a hooker.’ He shook his head as if it would help him to understand. ‘Especially not when your husband’s a policeman.’

  ‘Don’t be difficult, Frank,’ she appealed. ‘It’s not like you.’

  ‘Don’t be difficult!’ Frank slammed his palm against his forehead. ‘I come home from a hard day at work to find you’ve been handcuffed to the bed wearing nothing but a Ventolin inhaler in your mouth. I have visions of rape, pillage and burglary on a scale never previously seen in Great Brayford and then you tell me calmly that you’re a hooker – sorry, recreational therapist – and that it was one of your cranky customers who tied you up like an oven-ready turkey for fun.’ Frank sighed – a sigh that contained extreme sorrow. ‘I don’t think I’m being difficult, Mel. I think I’m exhibiting the type of patience any self-respecting saint would be proud of.’

  ‘They don’t do it for fun, they do it for £69.99,’ Melissa said tetchily. ‘And it wasn’t a cranky customer, as you so nastily put it. It was Detective Constable Elecampane.’

  ‘Elephant’s brain!’ Frank’s eyes went round like saucers. ‘What in heaven’s name was he doing here?’

  ‘He’s one of my nice regulars.’

  ‘Nice!’ he exclaimed. ‘I suppose I should be grateful your inhaler was only stuck in your mouth and not in any other orifice. He’s not nice, he’s a sadistic bastard!’

  ‘No, he’s not,’ she protested. ‘Quite the opposite, in fact.’ He had seen the sharp end of her Kenwood food processor spatula often enough for her to know.

  Frank wouldn’t be placated. ‘Next you’ll be telling me that he helps children and old ladies across the street,’ he said.

  ‘Now you’re just being an old crosspatch.’ If she could have, Melissa would have folded her arms.

  ‘And you’re being unbelievably naive, Mel.’ He got off the bed and began to pace the floor. ‘Have any more of my colleagues from the Milton Keynes constabulary tied you to the bed while I’ve been working the afternoon shift?’

  ‘Speaking of which.’ She nodded her head towards her handcuffs.

  Frank crossed the room and, with an unhappy huffing noise, fumbled in his pocket for his handcuff key and started to undo them.

  ‘Our little secret’s safe,’ Melissa assured him. ‘There was only DC Elecampane.’ She paused hesitantly. ‘And, of course, one or two others.’

  Franks face suffused with a blood-red hue.

  ‘They speak very highly of you,’ she added quickly.

  ‘What am I going to do with you, Melissa?’ her husband wailed. ‘You’ve ruined me!’

  ‘Don’t take on so,’ she said. ‘I haven’t ruined you. I love you.’ Melissa snuggled against his stiff body. She wanted to rub her wrists and her ankles, they were throbbing like mad, but she thought it best to leave it until later. It made you wonder whatever possessed her clients to want to pay £69.99 a week for it. She couldn’t see the attraction herself at all.

  ‘I wanted us to have a baby.’ She softened her voice and fiddled with the buttons on Frank’s shirt. ‘I thought if I could do a bit of work on the side, it would help us to buy nice things. I’ve got quite a nest egg put by.’

  ‘I don’t think I want to know this,’ Frank said. ‘I couldn’t cope with being married to a hooker and a tax fraud.’

  Melissa ignored him and continued, ‘You want our baby to have nice things, don’t you? And the work I do for Dave doesn’t pay very much. I wanted to help.’

  Frank gripped her hands and held her away from him. He looked squarely at her. ‘Let me see if I’ve got this right,’ he said in a well-modulated voice. ‘You set yourself up as a hooker because you wanted to save up for us to have a baby. That’s what you’re saying?’

  Melissa nodded and smiled.

  ‘Melissa, are you on the same planet as the rest of us?’ he asked sincerely.

  She pouted petulantly. ‘I didn’t want you to worry about money.’

  ‘Don’t you think that knowing my wife is a hooker will cause me even more worry?’

  Melissa looked downcast. ‘Probably.’

  ‘Probably,’ Frank repeated softly. ‘At last we’re getting somewhere.’

  ‘I won’t do it again, Frank,’ she said earnestly. ‘I was going to give it up anyway.’

  ‘That’s comforting to know,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll be a good little housewife from now on,’ she promised.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he asked. ‘Wouldn’t you be better off with someone your own age, who could give you a bit more excitement?’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head, tears filling her eyes. ‘I’ve only ever wanted you.’ Pushing thoughts of one mad moment of lust for Bob Elecampane to the back of her mind, she resolved to love her husband more. And to prove it she would make him cottage pie every night of the week, and she wouldn’t complain if he came home late and it was burnt. ‘I love you, Frank,’ she sniffed. ‘Do you love me?’

  He shook his head, looking more than slightly bewildered. ‘Surprisingly, I do,’ he said.

  ‘Then we won’t mention this again,’ Melissa said firmly.

  ‘I guess not,’ Frank agreed.

  Melissa flung her arms round him. ‘I love you!’

  ‘So you’ve said,’ Frank replied. ‘Look,’ he disentangled himself from her. ‘I’ve got a lot to think about. Today couldn’t really be classed as one of the best days of my life.’ He rubbed his thumb along his eyebrows. ‘Why don’t you get yourself dressed while I go down to the Black Horse for a contemplatory pint with Reg?’

  ‘There’s one thing you haven’t said,’ Melissa pressed. She thought Frank looked older, more tired and more burdened. Perhaps this wasn’t the best time to mention it.

  ‘I can’t imagine what.’ His tone was resigned.

  ‘You didn’t say whether we could have a baby or not,’ she said coyly.

  He smiled, but it was a tired smile – a mouth smile, not an eyes smile. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘We can. But only if it’s a boy. I don’t think I could survive with two women like you in the house.’

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  ‘Would you like your Genoese apple cake up the ladder or are you going to come down for it?’ Angelica asked.

  Anise peered at her over the top of the binoculars and turned up her nose. ‘You’ve been making cakes out of old and rotten apples again,’ she said in an accusing tone.

  ‘They’re not old and rotten. Their skins are just wrinkled. Inside they’re perfectly all right.’ She sliced the Genoese apple cake and arranged it on the plate with a napkin. ‘A bit like us really,’ she said wistfully.

  Anise tutted. ‘Blow your blessed cake. I want to stay here and see what’s going on. That policeman
’s still in there.’ She gesticulated at Rose’s cottage with the binoculars.

  ‘How do you know he’s a policeman?’ Angelica inquired politely, nibbling the end of her cake.

  ‘You can tell them a mile away,’ Anise informed her. ‘It’s true what they say – they’re all flat-footed.’

  ‘And looking younger every year.’ Angelica sighed regretfully. She sank into one of the faded chintz armchairs and regarded her sister who was balanced, rather precariously she thought, at the top of the ladder.

  ‘Besides,’ Anise continued. ‘I saw him speaking into his walkie-talkie.’

  ‘It could have been a mobile phone – everyone has them these days.’

  ‘I don’t have one,’ Anise reminded her. ‘And you don’t have one either.’

  ‘Everyone apart from us,’ Angelica conceded. She picked crumbs from the arm of the chair. ‘He could just be another client.’ She looked up. ‘She could be taking group bookings and having a gang bang.’

  ‘A gang bang!’ Anise’s interest quickened and she fiddled with the focus on her binoculars. After a moment of intense focusing, she turned and stared at her sister through eyes narrowed to suspicious slits. ‘What do you know about gang bangs?’

  ‘Very little, I’m afraid. They never did seem to catch on in Great Brayford.’

  Anise huffed through her nose and turned back to the window, flicking the curtain aside to improve her view. ‘Oh, here we go. The door’s opening.’

  ‘I don’t know how you can see anything, it must be pitch dark out there now.’

  ‘It’s never dark up the lane any more with all her security lights flashing on and off every five seconds. It’s like living next door to a lighthouse.’

  ‘You can get infrared binoculars these days – built into a helmet. The baddies used them in Patriot Games to catch Harrison Ford in the dark.’ Angelica dabbed at the corners of her mouth with her napkin, folded it and put it back on her plate. ‘I think you’d look rather fetching in one of those. And it would take the strain off your arms.’

  Anise wheeled round and glared at her. ‘For a woman of your mature years, Angelica, you do talk a lot of tommyrot!’

  ‘Perhaps I could borrow them from you on Sundays. I wouldn’t mind having a go at catching Harrison Ford in the dark. He’s well on his way to drawing his pension, but you would never think it, would you?’

  ‘The policeman’s leaving. I wonder what he had to say to them. Whatever it was, I bet it’s managed to knock the smiles of their impudent young faces.’

  ‘I don’t know why you don’t just leave them in peace,’ her sister said. ‘What harm are they doing to anyone?’

  ‘Harm? Harm?’ Anise roared. ‘You need to ask what harm?’

  Anise’s face had turned puce and Angelica was glad she had moved the Genoese apple cake from the coffee table, otherwise Anise might have inadvertently sprayed it with spittle.

  ‘You talk about that girl as if she’s the Virgin Mary. When, as far as I can see – which is pretty far with these little beauties,’ Anise patted her binoculars affectionately, ‘they are both lowering the moral tone of Great Brayford. Her with her blasted aromatherapy and him with his tower block.’ Anise leaned heavily on the top rung of her ladder. ‘The very fabric of village life is at stake here.’

  ‘And do you really think that standing up a ladder, spying on them through binoculars, is the best way to perpetuate the finest traditions of country living?’

  ‘I like to do my part,’ Anise retorted.

  Angelica stood up and briskly brushed the remnants of Genoese apple cake from her skirt. ‘Great Brayford has always had couples living together without being married and husbands sleeping with their wives’ best friends. And how many vicars in the past few years have been caught with one of the congregation with their cassocks hitched up round their waists?’ She clashed the china tea plates together as she tidied them away. ‘More than I care to remember, that’s how many. There isn’t a day that goes by when there isn’t some whiff of scandal. I’m surprised we haven’t had a knocking shop up till now – we’re probably long overdue for one.’

  Anise’s face had darkened to a rich burgundy hue. ‘If I was your mother, I’d wash your mouth out with soap,’ she spat.

  ‘Well, you’re not,’ Angelica said, heading for the kitchen. ‘You’re just my cantankerous older sister.’ She turned and glared at her. ‘And if I were your mother, I’d wash your mind out with soap.’

  Anise was about to speak, but snapped her mouth shut instead. ‘Wait a minute,’ she said, raising her binoculars. ‘The front door’s just banged. Just as I thought, it’s him.’ She sniggered triumphantly. ‘And the smile certainly looks like it’s been knocked off his face.’

  ‘I hope you’re satisfied with yourself,’ Angelica said with disgust.

  ‘Oh, my.’ Anise craned her head at an unnatural angle. ‘The smile has been knocked off his face.’ There was a note of anxiety in her voice. ‘He looks very unhappy indeed.’ The anxiety increased to panic. ‘Oh my word. Angelica!’ She turned to her sister, spinning round on the ladder; the binoculars slipped from her grasp and she reached out to catch them, losing her footing. In a flurry of cashmere, chiffon and pearls, Anise fell to the floor, landing with a sickening, unhealthy crack.

  ‘Heavens above.’ Angelica abandoned the plates and rushed to Anise’s side. ‘Are you hurt?’ she asked her sister, who very much looked as if she was.

  ‘Ohh, ohh,’ Anise groaned. Her face had taken on a ghostly pallor as she nursed her leg which was bent at an angle not normally associated with the range of human legs. ‘I don’t know how I will live with the shame,’ she lamented.

  ‘Come now, Anise. Don’t take on so.’ Angelica patted her hand. ‘I’ll telephone for the doctor, he’ll be here as soon as he can. Just lie still.’ She smiled kindly at her sister. ‘Everyone’s entitled to be a little clumsy sometimes.’

  ‘It’s not that, you idiot!’ Anise snarled. ‘Builder’s Bottom is heading this way, looking absolutely ferocious. He waved his fist at me – right down my binoculars.’ She turned fearful eyes to her sister and clutched at her hand. ‘I’m afraid, Angelica, that I’ve been rumbled.’

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  ‘It’s broken,’ Dan said flatly, kneeling at Anise’s side. ‘At least, I think so.’ He looked at Anise with a sympathetic smile. Her face was grey with pain and the fine, tight lines seemed to be etched that bit deeper. ‘The ambulance won’t be long now. Try to relax, if you can.’

  Anise leaned back against the velvet fringed cushions he had propped against the stepladder behind her and began to weep gently.

  Angelica touched his arm. ‘Thank you, Dan. You’ve been very kind, when I’m sure she doesn’t deserve it.’

  Anise wept a little louder.

  ‘That’s okay,’ he assured her. He gave her a guilty look. ‘I do feel partly responsible.’

  ‘That’s nonsense,’ Angelica retorted. ‘She’s no one to blame but herself. If you go poking your nose into other people’s business, it sometimes has a habit of poking you back.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right,’ he agreed.

  ‘I know I am,’ she said firmly. ‘Now, I’m going to go into the garden to tell Basil. He’ll only go into a panic if he see’s an ambulance coming. I can’t believe he’s still here. Goodness only knows what he’s doing in the shed at this time of night. I think I’d better make a lot of noise as I approach him, don’t you?’ She gave Dan a rueful smile.

  ‘When you’ve seen Basil, can you pop across and tell Rose too?’ Dan lowered his voice. ‘I came over here threatening to kill Anise. I wouldn’t want her to think that I’d actually done it.’

  ‘I would normally say what a shame, but it somehow seems churlish under the circumstances,’ Angelica whispered back. ‘Though why she hasn’t been assassinated before now is beyond me. She’s managed to make enough enemies.’

  Dan suppressed a smile. ‘We shouldn’t speak ill of the broke
n-legged,’ he said. ‘Go and tell the others, I’ll stay with her until the ambulance arrives.’

  Angelica did as instructed, coughing loudly as she approached the garden shed and clicking her heels on the concrete path. Anise always said she shouldn’t wear high heels at her age, that they would stunt her growth and give her osteoporosis or she’d fall over and break her leg. Ironic really. And if, at seventy years old, despite decades of squashing her feet into stilettos, she still hadn’t succumbed to bunions or corns or fungus-thickened in-growing toenails, she was damned if she was going to start wearing Clark’s sensible footwear now. Heels gave a woman a shapely turn of leg, no matter what age.

  It was a balmy evening, the damp warmness of spring in the air. The garden was looking a picture. Even in the gloom she could tell that there was no superfluous grass growing in the path, and Basil seemed to be making a career out of edging the lawn. It looked considerably smarter than he did. Perhaps it would be fit for the Great Brayford Open Gardens Day, but it was doubtful that Anise would want hordes of sightseers with ice creams paying a pound to wander among the petunias.

  Angelica paused and coughed again outside the shed door. What old men did in sheds was one of life’s mysteries that had never revealed itself to Angelica. And she didn’t want it to reveal itself now in the form of Basil.

  She was relieved, when she did open the door, to see that Basil was browsing through a Suttons seed catalogue rather than the Playboy or Penthouse she had feared. He hurried his seed catalogue away just as guiltily though.

  ‘Angelica,’ he said, peering at her like a startled bird through his monocle. ‘What brings you to the shed at this hour?’

  She folded her arms protectively across her chest. ‘A little domestic crisis, I’m afraid, Basil.’

  ‘Crisis?’

  She perched on the edge of the potting shelf. ‘Now, I don’t want you to panic,’ she said, touching his arm reassuringly. ‘But I’m afraid the love of your life has had a nasty accident.’

  ‘Anise?’ Basil’s eyebrows shot into his hairline, merging his facial hair into one unruly mess. He looked remarkably like a rat peeping through an untidy hedge.