Pure Dead Batty

by Debi Gliori

  “Nhhho,” he wheezed, throat aflame, vision blurring while what felt like an atomic bomb detonated behind his eyes. “Nhhho. Harm. Done.” And, praying that this was indeed true, he passed the bottle back to Malky as consciousness fled and he fell backward into deep and drunken slumber.

  Sitting in the rear of a taxi parked on the rain-drenched Via Fiscale-Castrato in Bologna, Munro MacAlister Hall cursed the weather. Torrential rain had delayed the departure of the Glasgow-to-London shuttle, and after a heroic sprint along Heathrow’s escalators, tunnels, and moving walkways; followed by mowing down several slow-moving Americans trundling their outsize luggage; then sending a gaggle of Asiatic toddlers crashing to the concourse floor like unbalanced Weebles; and finally, despite offering the British Airways ground crew substantial bribes, Munro MacAlister Hall had not been allowed to board the gate-closed, now-departing flight for Bologna. That flight was the last that would have got him to the Armani boutique in time to pick up the promised item of baggage. As previously arranged, this was to be a locked silver suitcase stuffed full of cash in used and untraceable notes. This, Munro MacAlister Hall understood, was to be his payment for services rendered in making sure Mr. Luciano Borgia remained in prison for a very long time indeed.

  Staring at the shaved neck of the taxi driver in front of him, the lawyer bleakly scrolled through the remaining options left open to him. Although the client had specified that there was to be no face-to-face meeting, Munro MacAlister Hall was pretty certain that someone would have had to check that the suitcase was going to the right lawyer. Therefore, he reasoned, either that someone would have had to lurk in the changing rooms in the Armani boutique, or, more likely, one of the members of staff would have had to be involved. Looking at his watch, the lawyer reckoned that the boutique’s employees would be emerging from the building any time now.

  However, there remained an insurmountable problem. How on earth was he meant to assess which one of them was bent? It wasn’t as if they’d be wearing an impeccably tailored shirt proclaiming:

  I THE MAFIA.

  Nor, he decided, would they be carrying a violin case or wearing shades and a fedora with bullet holes puncturing its brim. And how many of them were likely to emerge? As the shutters barring the front door twitched and began to rise, Munro MacAlister Hall’s heart sank. A large group of exceptionally well-dressed young women teetered out into the rain, loudly discussing the various shortcomings of their footwear, their salaries, and their menfolk. None of them stood out as being particularly villainous or in any way different to her colleagues.

  The lawyer slumped back against his seat. This was hopeless. He’d simply have to try again tomorrow in the remote chance that no one had noticed an immensely valuable suitcase propped against the mirror in the south-facing changing roo—

  “Signore?” The taxi driver turned round, one arm slung casually over the back of his seat. “We have beena sitting in the rain for twenty minutes. The Armani boutique, it is closed. Tomorrow, it will be open again—this I promise, signore. But for now it is time for me to go home, si? And therefore, signore, you have to tell me where you want me to take you. Do you want to go back to the aeroporto, or would you prefer me to take you to a hotel?”

  “A hotel,” Munro MacAlister Hall muttered, watching the rain turn the windows of the taxi into a watery blur. “A good hotel, mind you. What would you recommend?”

  “Ah …” The taxi driver recalled the lawyer’s monogrammed luggage and correctly assessed that Signor MMH’s cashmere coat would have cost more than he could make in a year of nonstop ferrying fares around the city. “I think, signore, for a gentleman such as you, I would recommend the Grand Hotel Bagliadi on Indipendenza. Not simply because it is the most beautiful hotel in all of Bologna, but also because yesterday many senior policemen from all over Italy come to Bologna to stay in the Bagliadi. With so many officers of the law under its roof, I can promise you that you will be staying in the safest hotel in Emilia-Romagna.”

  A little while later he dropped him in front of the Grand Hotel Bagliadi, the chosen location for the monthly meeting of the Cosa Nostra, otherwise known as the Mafia.

  Lavender’s Blue

  Dawn leached blood-red into the darkness, lighting bruised clouds from beneath and cutting the night with a horizon vivid as a knife wound. Somewhere in the fiery distance a factory whistle screamed a summons to the sleeping citizens of Hades. Tiptoeing out of His chambers into His five-car garage, S’tan regarded the vehicles at His disposal. Not the Aston Martin, He decided regretfully, all too aware that His recent weight gain meant the Porsche and the Lamborghini were out too. He’d never be able to squeeze His vast bottom into anything remotely sporty until He lost some of His blubber.…

  “Oh, God,” He groaned, then gave a tiny squeak of dismay. There He went again. That was the third time He’d invoked the Other Side since His alarm clock had woken Him out of a dreamless sleep. Rummaging in the pocket of His XXXL gray sweatpants, S’tan found an overlooked shard of peanut brittle and stuffed it into His mouth, sucking frantically while He concentrated on the matter of transport. What was it to be? The white van or the black Range Rover? Deciding on the latter only because He recalled leaving a half-full bag of pork scratchings on the passenger seat, S’tan waddled across to His SUV, almost drooling with anticipation.

  Two hours later He pulled up outside a pair of white-gold gates which, He dimly recalled, had in a bygone time before acid rain been studded with pearls. Overhead, the sky had changed from a suffocating bloody dawn into a cool baby-blue morning. As His car’s electric window slid down, S’tan smelled the rarefied air that permeated the Other Side.

  “I’m expected for breakfast,” He muttered to the gatekeeper, and pulling on a pair of dark sunglasses against the bright glare of Heaven, waited to gain admittance.

  “Name?” the cherub demanded in an insolent tone. This was completely unnecessary since S’tan was instantly identifiable, despite the layers of fat swaddling His body. He was red, wasn’t He? Horns? Pointy tail? It didn’t require a degree in theology to work out who He was, after all. Again the cherub demanded identification, but this time it added something that sounded suspiciously like lard-for-brains under its breath, and at this, an ember of S’tan’s old fire was rekindled.

  Moments later S’tan plucked a stray feather from between His teeth and checked again in His rearview mirror for incriminating evidence. Devouring that disrespectful gatekeeper had been a spur-of-the-moment thing, with no premeditation involved. Guiltily, S’tan considered the caloric value of one plump cherub and wondered if He should atone by avoiding the breakfast entirely. That would be utterly hellish. Breakfast in Heaven was His monthly treat. He couldn’t miss it. It was too good. The Chef was the nearest thing to a domestic goddess that He’d ever encountered. He was assailed by an almost Proustian memory of bacon, sausages, hash browns … And then, wafting across the celestial parking lot, came the evidence that someone was cooking pancakes. The temptation was more than He could stand.

  Swallowing in anticipation, S’tan barreled through the revolving front door, skidded across a marble hallway, and bounced into one of the elevators just as the doors were closing. As he rapidly ascended to the revolving restaurant on Heaven’s topmost floor, it suddenly occurred to S’tan exactly why He’d completely cut cherubs out of His diet the previous year. How could He have forgotten? So indigestible, He recalled, assailed by a griping pain around His midriff. All those ghastly feathers. Oh, God, He thought, unable to stop Himself—this was the fourth time He’d invoked the Other Side. Hot, bothered, and awash in Self-loathing, He found Himself unable to suppress a gaseous eruption of such spectacular redolence and resonance that He felt obliged to turn round and apologize to His fellow elevator-users.

  Rotating with some difficulty, He slowly became aware that the lift was crammed full of living versions of His indigestible pre-breakfast snack. Hundreds of tiny cherubs clustered round His knees, their green faces and pained
expressions bearing witness to their inability to avoid inhaling the gassy by-product of their fellow cherub’s final transformation into the fabled Fart of the Arch-Fiend; the Gas of His Gruesomeness; the Wind of Ur-Wicca.

  Thank Heavens this only happens once a month, the Chef thought, watching as S’tan helped Himself to a fourth croissant from the bread basket. Tearing the pastry in half, the demon squashed it into the yolk of His eleventh eggs Benedict, raised the dripping handful to His mouth, and poked it inside.

  “Mffrg,” S’tan mumbled, waving His hands by way of punctuation and adding, “Arffl duph shlumtle.”

  “Absolutely,” agreed the Chef. “How perceptive of you. The eggs were organic. Now, what can I tempt you with? More coffee? Toast? Bagels? Bacon? Sausages? Hash browns?”

  “Yeshh,” S’tan groaned. “All of thosh. Phwooof. Lordy, that was divine.”

  Across the table, the Chef felt the breath stop in his throat. Lordy? Divine? How remarkable, he thought. Imagine that. After all these eons. Around the room, conversations had stopped, stuttered, and tried to carry on as if nothing untoward had happened. An angel at his table choked on a mouthful of fat-free natural yogurt and tried to disguise her outburst by turning it into a cough. S’tan’s expression grew slightly pained, and rooting through the pockets of His vast gray sweatpants, He produced a small cough drop, partly covered in gray fluff but still emitting a faint whiff of menthol. He passed this across to the coughing angel, holding up His hands to forestall her thanks.

  “No, no, no. Not at all,” He murmured modestly. “Least I could do. Thank Heavens I had the means at hand to assist. God forbid you should choke to death while I sit back doing nothing.”

  The Chef had to look away. Modesty? Thank Heavens? God forbid? Random acts of kindness? Something was definitely Up, and this suspicion was confirmed by S’tan’s next utterance.

  “Well, what’s it to be, hmmm? Shall I clear the tables and wash up, or d’you want me to dry?” The bloated Devil climbed to His feet, slapped His belly, and began to stack plates and bowls, humming under His breath as He moved from table to table. Suppressing a strong desire to scream out loud, the Chef realized that the Devil was humming a Christmas carol as He waddled virtuously off toward Heaven’s kitchen.

  A waitress slid a trayful of rubbery fried eggs under a heat lamp and stood back to admire the effect. Around the dining room, conversation was subdued as the hotel guests chewed doggedly through breakfast. Choosing to avoid all eggs, sausages, bacon, haggis, black pudding, and hash browns, Baci spooned muesli into a bowl, topped it with poached apricots and yogurt, and returned to her seat, glowing with dietary virtue. The waitress poked morosely at the skin forming on top of a mound of scrambled eggs and sighed as the swing door to the kitchens opened. The breakfast chef emerged bearing a bowl of yesterday’s re-microwaved porridge and sidled up to the waitress.

  “I’m gonny have to take another part-time job,” he complained. “This hotel’s no payin’ me enough. I spent all last month’s wages on ma car, and there’s only seventy-one shopping days till Christmas—ma kids all want computers this year; last year it was Rollerblades, year before …”

  Baci flinched. Christmas? Already? She hadn’t given it a thought recently, what with … She laid down her spoon and gazed sadly at her untouched breakfast. Overcome by a wave of sadness, she bowed her head and tried not to drip tears into her muesli. Christmas. What a hollow travesty that would be without Luciano by her side. My poor, poor Luciano, she thought, pushing her chair back from the table and standing up. The vision of him locked up, cold, and frightened, surrounded by real murderers, made Baci’s legs shake so much she feared she would collapse with sheer terror. Teetering along the deeply carpeted hotel corridors, she fled for the sanctuary of her bedroom, fumbling her key card in the slot, and rushing into the tiny bathroom, only to dissolve in floods of tears. She’d just been struck by an even more hideous thought. With Luciano in prison, she would have to go through childbirth alone. It was most unlikely that he would be released before Christmas, especially since Munro MacAlister Hall had made such a hash of his defense.

  Or was it a hash? Wasn’t it a deliberate campaign of misinformation coupled with several glaringly obvious omissions on the alibi front? After all, Baci reasoned, Latch, herself, and the children had all been witness to Luciano’s presence in StregaSchloss on the night Mrs. McLachlan had gone miss—gone forev—A sob welled up in Baci’s throat as she remembered how everything had started to go wrong after Flora had vanished. Hardly able to breathe, she thought how completely lost they now were without Mrs. McLachlan in their lives.

  They’d all loved her so much, not just Damp. Sunk in mourning, the Strega-Borgias had never imagined that they might be suspected of doing away with their beloved nanny. In the confusion of the days immediately following her disappearance the family had hardly even been aware of the police and forensic scientists crawling over the house, the moat, and the lochside. They were in too deep a state of shock to take any notice of anything. Despite repeated questioning by the police, none of them had any idea what could have happened to Flora. Between them, they had pieced together an account of that fateful evening, but nothing gave any indication of why, or how, or where the nanny might have gone. One minute she’d been dishing out supper; putting Damp to bed as usual; finding a Band-Aid for Ffup’s talon …

  Under pressure to recall each and every event, no matter how insignificant it might seem, they all vaguely remembered that this had been the day a photographer had turned up at StregaSchloss to take engagement photos of Ffup, but, as they all agreed, Mrs. McLachlan hadn’t been part of the group posing on the front steps.

  A distant alarm bell sounded in Baci’s mind. What had happened to those photos? Did they ever turn up? She had a sudden sharp recollection of how uncomfortable she had felt under the gaze of the photographer. As if—she shuddered, sitting down abruptly on the edge of the bath—as if he were peeling her apart layer by layer until he found the unborn baby curled deep inside her. Breathing deeply, Baci tried to banish such thoughts from her mind. Focus on what you know, she ordered herself. There’s quite enough going on right now to scare you witless without conjuring demons out of your memory. The bald facts of the matter remained: Mrs. McLachlan was, in all probability, dead; Luciano was in prison; and she, Baci, had to get herself well enough to return home to her children. At the thought of spending the foreseeable future as a single parent, she began to cry again. She simply couldn’t seem to pull herself together.

  Outside, in the anonymous blandness of the hotel corridors, she heard a vacuum cleaner start up; over its approaching drone a woman’s voice was raised in song. Baci grabbed a length of toilet paper, blew her nose, sniffed, blinked—and sniffed again. What was that fragrance? Was it the hotel’s complimentary soap? The shower gel? She inhaled deeply, trying to identify the perfume. Lavender? Yes. It had to be lavender. Then came a discreet tap on the bathroom door and a voice said, “Are you all right, dear?”

  Baci’s head snapped upright, her eyes immediately flooding with more tears.

  “Don’t say a word,” the voice whispered, as if its owner had pressed her mouth up against the door. Baci’s gaze fell to the gap beneath the door, but there was nothing there: no shadows, no feet in sensible shoes, no—

  “We need you to come home,” continued the impossible voice. “You know the wee baby’s fine, and as long as you don’t panic, dear …”

  Baci forced herself to breathe. For a split second she’d been convinced she was about to faint—but after all, being addressed by one’s possibly dead ex-nanny does tend to have that effect—

  “Signora”—Mrs. McLachlan’s voice was strained with the effort—“go home. Go home to StregaSchloss. Everyone is coming home. All of those you love. Love will … conquer … all.…” Her voice was so faint now, drowned by the din of the vacuum cleaner outside the door. “Storms … Amelia’s thread … we’re safe … don’t worry … for now it is … time.”
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  The vacuum cleaner was turned off and Baci could clearly hear the singer’s voice: “Lavender’s blue, dilly dilly, Lavender’s green …”

  “Flo—Flora? FLORAAAAAAA!”

  Baci’s self-control deserted her as, flinging open her bathroom door, she found herself face to face with one of the hotel maids, who dropped a curtsy and said, with unintentional accuracy, “Are youse a’right, hen? Youse look like youse’ve seen a ghost. Awfy sorry, hen—ah thought youse had checked oot.”

  The Stinger Stung

  An icy drizzle had begun to fall as DS Waters parked outside the police station in Auchenlochtermuchty. In the passenger seat beside him, DCI McIntosh exhaled noisily. DC Waters braced himself. What had he done wrong now? He was aware that he’d managed to cover their entire car in a thin scrim of mud driving back along that dreadful track from StregaSchloss, but that was hardly his fault. Was it the fact that he’d set off a speed camera on the straight bit before the roundabout that had caused the Chief Inspector to look so monumentally hacked off? Or was it the fact that he’d reversed into a trash can trying to squeeze into this squitty wee parking space? Whatever it was, DS Waters reckoned he was about to find out.

  “Can I, er, offer you a cup of coffee, sir?” he said, furious with himself for sounding so bootlickingly ingratiating. “Or tea, perhaps? I’ve got some nice chocolate biscuits, sir.” At this rate he’d be facedown on the pavement next, offering to act as a human boot-scraper. Gritting his teeth, he pressed on. “I’m sure we’ve even got some fruit teas if you’re off caffeine, sir. Mint, blackcurrant, cherry—” Ooops, he thought, skidding to a verbal standstill. Perhaps not the cherry, huh?

  The Chief Inspector turned round to face him, his expression inscrutable. “Detective Sergeant Waters,” he managed at length, “I don’t want any peely-wally namby-pamby fruit tea. After what I’ve just been through, tea’s the last thing I need. That bloody woman was our only witness. There’s nobody else prepared to stand up in court and swear that Lucy, Lukey, Lootch—oh, whatever he’s called bumped off all those people. Don’t you realize that our entire case against that weedy, murdering Italian aristocrat has just gone down the toilet?” During this rant the DCI’s voice had risen steadily, and was now loud enough to cause passers-by to stop and stare into the mud-encrusted police car in an attempt to see what was going on. Any minute now, DS Waters thought, the windows are going to blow out.