by EJ Lamprey
She peered into the box, regretfully decided against another doughnut and shifted into a more comfortable position. 'So, where was I? Oh, right, he went to Central to propose a full investigation and once we started pulling files and looking at the photos, it seems a few more may be connected. Which is why this is absolutely secret, because once the media think there could be a serial killer on the loose, it will be mayhem. Time was when the media worked with us in the common interest, but now it’s all about getting the story before anyone else does, and devil take the hindermost. They’ll blow it out of all proportion, spread misinformation and half-baked theories in all directions, and if there is a killer he’ll quietly vanish under the radar. No knowing how many more deaths before we pick up on the trail again; it took long enough this time.'
Edge cut a chocolate doughnut in half and offered the plate. 'So you don’t want me to mention it to awful Sandy at the Chronic Ill. Got it. Just as well you said.'
Kirsty grinned sheepishly at the reference to the local daily newspaper. 'As if you would – but nothing on Twitter, or Facebook, or even just chatting. Okay, okay. I know you wouldn’t. Iain’s now liaising with the big boys at Central about re-investigating any deaths that could be linked, and we’re pulling files on every death, natural or not, for older women in the last two years. Iain specified we should be checking for any sign they could have been dating, to check his theory, and every one we’ve confirmed so far had been actively dating on-line – trouble was, all on different sites. There are hunnerds of them!'
'Not really.' Edge sighed. 'Do you remember I tried that one for professional retired people? I told Iain that, but I don’t think I told him what I absolutely bet those site managers didn’t tell you – that most of them run off a central pool of singles. It’s really a bit of a scam.'
'Aha! I knew it would be worth asking you. No wonder they’ve been evasive, they won’t want that coming out. I’ll pass that back. Central have put an undercover woman on it full-time. At least now she won’t need to join every agency on the web.'
'And unless they’re hauling someone out of retirement, she won’t be able to go on dates,' Edge nodded. 'Which was where Iain thought I could help out. Of course, I jumped at it. Especially if she finds an absolute corker. It’s my civic duty, you know. Taking one for the team. Flying the –'
'Noted!' Kirsty interrupted, laughing. 'I’m sure they’re all regular movie stars. Aren’t there any single hotties here, then?'
'Not that I’ve found, but in all fairness I haven’t really been looking. I’ve seen one or two possibles out walking their dogs. I do like a man with a dog. They look quite nice but have rather hunted expressions. There are an awful lot of women here, you know,' Edge reminded her gloomily. 'Anyway, how’s your love life?'
'Rory’s back,' Kirsty glinted sideways at her aunt. 'Oh, dinna fash, not back with me. That backing singer he hooked up with on tour dumped him for a better prospect, which in theory was very good for him. But what it actually means is that he arrives at the flat whenever he’s had a few, to tell me I was the one after all. I’m looking to move, now, to get shot of him. There’s a paralegal I’ve met – studying part time for the bar, very nice guy – and if that’s going to get anywhere I really don’t want Rory crashing in on us. Or drunkenly serenading me from the street, and that’s happened too. I don’t think Drew’s got a dog, though.'
'Well, dogs aren’t essential, at your age.' Edge conceded generously. 'We’d better get moving, if we want to check out form, and we’re collecting my neighbour on the way. You’ll have to tell me about the promising Drew later.'
'Will do. Which neighbour, the Russian ballerina or the one who writes the bodice rippers?'
Edge laughed aloud. 'She’d pass out at the very thought of a bodice ripper! We’ve got about twenty of her books in the library, so I read one that was set in a part of Provence I’ve visited. It was so sweet and gentle it made me want to hurl myself at the nearest man and have my wicked way with him. Fiona was addicted to them as a teenager, which explains a lot.'
Kirsty, who knew Edge’s stepdaughter well, grinned appreciatively. Edge grinned back, then shot a slightly apologetic glance at the photograph of her first husband and went back to the books. 'They’re well written, and she writes really good background – you can practically smell the croissants – but everyone’s so nice. Her name’s Titania, if you can believe that, but she’s really old-fashioned. She prefers to be called Miss Pinkerton, Miss P to friends. Sylvia calls her the Great Tit behind her back and Taytie to her face. They loathe each other but she’s sweet, honestly, in a very other-worldly way. She considers Godfrey Crossley, for an example, pure Heathcliff, very romantic and brooding, when everyone else knows he’s a crabby old bugger, which is probably why she’s the only person he’s remotely nice to. She’s seventy going on eighteenth-century sixteen; Vivian doesn’t like her much but I think she’s lovely.'
Once again the bonfire image popped up; she longed to pass on the little bombshell Miss P had dropped, but loyally kept it to herself.
'I thought Vivian liked everyone.' Kirsty was mildly surprised. She’d known Vivian, her aunt’s friend since their schooldays, all her life. She waited patiently as her aunt vanished into the box-room tucked out of sight in her neatly-planned apartment, to hunt out a presentable summer hat, and raised her voice slightly. 'Will she also be playing this afternoon?'
'Vivian or Miss P?' Edge reappeared with her first husband’s Panama hat, faintly yellowed by age. 'It’s this or my gardening hat, I really have to get something suitable for summer. Yours is gorgeous. Not Vivian, she’s been dragged out clothes shopping with Donald. They’ve got themselves a project tonight and he said she had to dress to his standards. He’s the most awful fashion snob. William may be there. If he is, you’ll get to see him flirting with Miss P. It’s an education.'
'William flirts with everybody,' Kirsty remarked, holding the door open for her aunt, and Edge gave a naughty giggle.
'But with her, because he’s younger, he’s boyish, and a bit cheeky. It’s Billy Bunter chatting up Mrs Robinson. She adores him, and can’t forgive Vivian for being his favourite. And Vivian’s a wee bit proprietal about William and doesn’t quite like the trouble he takes with Miss P, so that’s why they aren’t particularly friendly. Very sweet to each other, but daggers, if not drawn, at least to hand.'
Chapter 2 - The time-travel cigar
Edge turned up the lighting and adjusted her wardrobe mirrors to check her reflection from several angles, frowning at the result. She was dressing to meet the others in the house pub for a late drink to hear how Vivian and Donald’s adventure had gone, but her favourite half-boots, soft cotton jeans and cashmere jersey were all black and she looked, she decided reluctantly, like a widowed crow. Even adding red and gold dangling ear-rings, and twisting her expensively streaked shoulder-length hair up into a very non-funereal casual topknot, didn’t lessen the air of extreme gloom. The outfit was flattering. It was comfortable. And she was definitely not going to change because, apart from anything else, it was her day for the laundry rota tomorrow and most of her alternatives were already in the clothes hamper. A couple of weeks of comfort eating and little exercise after a minor operation had made her usual favourites a little too snug, and discards were tossed in every direction.
Another assault on the cupboard’s deep reserves finally unearthed a gaudy poncho and she pulled that carefully over the topknot and studied the result. It would do. Only Donald would criticize, after all; he favoured blacks and greys himself, at least now they wouldn’t look like twins in mourning. Vivian, who was built on generous lines, bought her clothes from plus-size catalogues and enjoyed clashing colours together, while William – well, William, very tall, very broad and lavishly contoured, picked his clothes from the top of the eye-watering range and never thought about it again, pulling on whatever came to hand. It wasn’t even that he thought a successful sci-fi author should dress that way; he quite obviously did
n’t care what he combined so long as he liked the individual items. He and Vivian at least would enjoy the poncho. It had immensely deep pockets so she transferred her Kindle, lipstick and keys from her handbag, hung up the rejected clothes to leave the apartment at least superficially tidy, closed the pantry doors on the kitchenette, and let herself out the door.
The main house, a three-storey building with more than a nod to country estate in its design, was already closed for the evening but the pub shared a side door with the early breakfast room. There were five residents in the place, completely engrossed in a game of football on the huge TV screen. She signed for a small glass of house white – no cash changed hands at the Lawns – and went straight on through to the large conservatory, which served as dining room overflow and garden room. Cleverly-deployed lighting in the big plant pots and concealed about the area made it a very handsome room at night, and she had the place to herself. She glanced up at the clock above the pub door at she sat down. Just half past eight. She was earlier than she’d realized but she had wine, and, thanks to the Kindle, plenty to read.
She had finished her wine and was deeply engrossed in re-reading Benson’s Mapp and Lucia when she heard William’s unmistakable booming voice in the pub, and frowned at the little screen. William had indeed been at the boules tournament, and had annoyed her by flirting outrageously with Miss P until she was flushed, giggly and breathless. He had tried to include Edge in the banter after Kirsty left and they had both laughed at her and made her feel like a stuffy maiden aunt when she was repressive.
Not normally one to take the huff, she still wasn’t quite ready to have his undiluted company for the ten or so minutes before the others arrived; but the only escape, at this time of night, was through the pub itself – or through the Snug. To think was to act and she was across the room and slipping through the Snug’s weighted door even as the door from the pub into the conservatory started to open.
Scotland’s draconian anti-smoking laws forbade smoking in public areas, but the main house, built before such laws were ever dreamed of, and by a non-smoker, had included a smoking room with its own patio. After a bit of swithering, the room had been kept for its designated purpose – Grasshopper Lawns was, after all, private property. Smoking had always been discouraged in the rented apartments for safety reasons but the Snug continued to offer residents a comfortable and sociable alternative to their own small verandahs.
A familiar haze eddied lazily in the air and she found herself smiling in instant flashback as the weighted door of her sanctuary sighed shut behind her. Someone was smoking a cigar, the kind that James, her first husband, had particularly liked. The lingering curl of expensive smoke instantly evoked a vivid image of him on the terrace, cigar in one hand, sundowner in the other, the shrill rasp of the cicadas and the booming, barking, calling insistent noises that fill the velvety darkness on a hot night in Africa –
'Are you all right?'
'Oh!' She shook her head quickly. 'I had the most detailed flashback – from your cigar, actually.'
'Smells can be better time-machines than a TARDIS,' he agreed politely, a smile in his voice, and she smiled back. At this time of night the Snug was lit only by candles and the flickering of a very small pine-cone fire. By their friendly light the man who addressed her, and whom she knew by sight, could pass for early forties but by the more critical light of day she knew he was over sixty; tall, nicely built, distinguished grey at his temples and a bent nose that added character to a face that was interesting rather than conventionally handsome.
'Would you like one?' he added, and reached for the pocket in his duffle coat, which was thrown over the arm of the substantial wicker sofa.
'No, oh no thanks, I don’t smoke.'
He didn’t ask the obvious question, just quirked one amused eyebrow and settled back in his seat, thrusting out a huge white foot which scraped along the floor.
Edge, not normally shy, found herself at a loss for words. Asking a virtual stranger, and one not in the mood to chat, how he had hurt himself, seemed positively intrusive. He didn’t appear to feel any awkwardness and drew on his cigar again. Once again James and Africa were briefly evoked. It wasn’t only the cigar; he had the same voice, even the same accent as James, the velvet burr which Sean Connery had made internationally identifiable as the accent of Scotland. Rather as, she thought whimsically in the extending silence, all frogs were expected to sound like Hollywood frogs.
With a friendly nod she started towards the patio door, pausing as he finally spoke again.
'Were you escaping the sci-fi fellow?'
'Not escaping, as such,' she fibbed fluently. 'I like William, we’re friends, but he can be a bit… ' her voice trailed off. A bit what?
'He can talk for Scotland, but I’d like to go in for a drink, if you’d be prepared to chaperone me. I’m sorry, I should have introduced myself. Brian Mitchell. And I think you’re Beulah Cameron?'
'Yes I am. I’ve seen you around with your beagle. You’re Donald’s neighbour.'
Brian, who had hauled himself to his feet to offer his hand, nodded. 'Donald told me to call you Beulah, that you hated being called Edge. Is that right?'
'Well – the other way round, actually. I was named after a rich maiden aunt, in a fairly blatant attempt to curry favour. My middle name is Edgington, another family name, and I’ve been Edge since my first week at school. Donald knows that, but he never misses a chance to tease.'
Brian fumbled for his crutch and Edge, thinking back, added, 'Chaperone?'
He gave her a shy smile. 'Do you have any idea how unnerving it is to wonder whether a man is flirting with you?'
'Well – yes?' She looked at him, surprised, and he nodded.
'Fair comment. Let’s just say, when it astonishes you that a man would even think you could be interested?'
'Still yes.' Edge’s eyebrows went up further and he shrugged.
'Well, call me homophobic then. For most of my life such a thing would have been unthinkable. I’m a bit of a dinosaur in this modern world.'
'William?' Edge asked. 'Am I getting muddled? Don’t you mean Donald?'
She was more puzzled than ever and he said, slightly helplessly, 'Donald doesn’t flirt with me. William – well, he makes me nervous. Maybe he won’t do it in front of you, so you’ll be doing me a favour if you’ll join me for that drink. '
She held the door open for him to crutch his way through but he insisted on reaching above her head to hold it for her to precede him. William had taken up a position in a relatively well-lit corner, and was already engrossed in his Kindle, which looked like a toy in his big hands. He was well over six feet tall, nearly as large around, and could have modeled for the Holstein Henry VIII portrait, an illusion enforced by the rather determined Tudor red of his mane of hair and his tidy beard. He looked up with a smile and the merest sketch of I’m-thinking-of-getting-up, subsiding with relief when she flapped her hand at him.
'I wondered where you’d got to. Jamie said you’d already arrived. I got you a glass of house white, I was thinking I’d have to drink it myself. How long have you been smoking on the sly?'
Edge, who wasn’t very good at it, was forced into her second fib of the evening.
'I was tracking down a smell. Brian smokes the same kind of cigars as my first husband.'
William nodded at Brian, focusing on the big white eyesore. 'Quality stookie,' he said admiringly of the cast. 'What did you do to your ankle?'
Brian looked rueful. 'I’d like to say I was climbing in the Cairngorms. Thirty years of climbing without so much as a sprained ankle. Truth is, I tripped over my dog, took a huge step to get my balance, stood on his ball and – crack. First time I’ve been really glad to be here, too. I was so shaken I’m not sure I could have phoned emergency services. I was barely capable of pushing my panic button. Jane was there in about three minutes.'
'You poor baby,' William cooed.
Edge shot him a startled look, then looked ba
ck at Brian, who had flinched. 'Who’s Jane?'
'Matron’s new volunteer helper? Jane Pillay.'
'I think her name’s Jayenthi ...' William murmured and Brian shrugged indifferently.
'Tomayto, tomahto – before I sit down, I’m getting a brandy. Anything for you, Beul – Edge? William?'
Edge glared at William as the pub door closed behind Brian. 'I thought he was joking when he said you flirted with him. What’s with the ‘poor baby’ comment?'
'His fault, he started it.' William, resplendent in a vast vivid red shirt with a gold silk Ascot, still somehow looked for a second like a sulky baby. 'He patronizes Donald; I don’t like homophobes, and I like making them uncomfortable. He annoys me, to be honest. Treats me like a cripple. My walking sticks are a fashion choice and a convenience, not a necessity. I could knock him arse over teakettle in a heartbeat.'
'He can’t be that much of a homophobe if Donald likes him, and he does. Don’t do it in front of me, it makes me uncomfortable too.'
'Oho!' William glinted sideways at her. 'Sits the wind in that quarter?'
'Good grief, no!' Edge took a sip of her wine before going on quite forcefully, 'The man can’t step over a dog without falling over, his idea of fun is climbing mountains, and he won’t take the trouble to say someone’s name properly. Jane for Jayenthi, good grief. Haud me back.'
William grinned at her but let it go. 'Anyway, Donald doesn’t count, he’s the straightest gay man I ever met. I sometimes think he pretended to be gay so he’d blend in, and it became a habit. The whole theatrical world is stiff with them, after all. A non-gay choreographer is practically an oxymoron.'
'What are you reading?' Edge firmly changed the subject and he glanced down at his Kindle.
'A Joanna Lamprey story – she’s strayed into my territory, written a sci-fi. Inexcusable paradox at the end, in my opinion, and I told her so, but she’s put up a strong argument, so I’m re-reading to give it another try. She’s by way of a friend. Do you read sci-fi? It’s called Time After Time.'