Five Six Pick Up Sticks (Grasshopper Lawns)

by EJ Lamprey

  Brian returned with his brandy before Edge had to answer, and chose the chair furthest from William.

  'Sláinte,' he toasted and they raised their glasses automatically

  'Donald mentioned you were an investigator?' Edge asked politely, and he nodded.

  'We’ll have to bring you in on our murder-solving team.' William had obediently dropped the effeminate bantering tone. 'Quite a slick operation. Edge lets people tell her everything we need to know, Donald tracks down bodies, and I’m the brains. Vivian is my moll. We’ve got one hell of a track record.'

  'You can take my place on the team.' Edge said with feeling. 'Four murders in as many months – and getting closer and closer to home – were way too many. I’m resigning.' She belatedly remembered she was meeting Susan in a little over twelve hours to voluntarily get involved in another potential murder investigation, but banished the flicker of unease immediately. That was entirely different.

  'Donald’s told me a bit about it. My career was a lot more mundane.' Brian was apologetic. 'I mainly did tracing work, missing or absconding persons, or advising on industrial security. Never saw a murdered person in my life.'

  'Strictly speaking, neither have I,' William conceded. 'Donald trips over them all the time, though.'

  'I wonder how they’re getting on?' Edge turned to Brian to explain. 'He and Vivian are out tonight at rehearsals. They’ve joined an amateur theatricals group in Livingston which is tackling La Traviata – a giant leap from Gilbert and Sullivan, but the group’s apparently very talented. Vivian’s playing Flora, she’s thrilled about it. We’re all going to be expected to go so I’ve been swotting up on it. Can we count you in?'

  Brian laughed politely and glanced up at Sylvia, who had come through from the pub with her neighbour Matilda, instead of answering. The friends were an odd pair, both in their late sixties, Matilda placid and beige, the diminutive Sylvia gloved in a vintage dusky pink Chantal suit, her extraordinary nails painted exactly the same colour.

  'Hello all,' she said carelessly, and perched at the next table with a special sizzling smile for Brian which should have made his toes curl. 'Hello – Brian. Good heavens, Edge, I should have brought my sunglasses. So bright. How very brave of you. Did I hear you drumming up support for La Travesty?'

  'Yes, you did. Will you be coming along?'

  'I’ll be away, I’m afraid.' Sylvia looked at Brian under her false lashes and smouldered. He buried his bent nose in his snifter after a hunted glance at the Snug door.

  'When are you going away?' Edge was surprised.

  Sylvia finally took the burning stare off Brian and looked at Edge with a wicked smile. 'When is the performance?' she answered pertly and Matilda gave a nervous giggle.

  William shifted restlessly and Edge hastily congratulated Matilda on her boules success in the afternoon. If Vivian was proprietal of William, he was at least as protective of her. Interesting as a quarrel between Sylvia, with her stiletto barbs, and William, who used words for a living and had absolutely no inhibitions, might be, Edge had no intention of being this close to the crossfire. Sylvia’s eyes gleamed and William turned his attention back to his wine as Matilda and Edge determinedly rehashed the afternoon. Edge stole a quick glance at the wall clock. Just rising nine pm …

  After another five agonizingly long minutes, during which Edge could feel herself getting increasingly tetchy, the cavalry arrived in the form of the thespians. Vivian was still flushed with excitement and unfamiliar in what was clearly Donald’s choice of clothes; a very flattering Benetton cape over well-cut slacks. A professionally trained opera singer who had given up a promising career to marry, she hadn’t sung in anything more ambitious than strictly amateur productions for years and Donald had clearly been determined to make her look the part, even persuading her to apply vivid lipstick and make her face up to accentuate her good bone structure. Sylvia made a final effort to cut Brian out of the group but retired defeated under Donald’s saturnine stare. The latter sank gracefully into the chair next to Brian with only the tiniest wince in the direction of Edge’s poncho and told them generally, 'She was absolutely brilliant. A class of her own.'

  Vivian giggled. 'I don’t think they know what to do with us. Donald told them who my voice coach was and they keep asking me for advice! Then he went over to make a suggestion about the dance the chorus was doing – a tiny suggestion – and you’d have thought Verdi himself had decided to pop in. Plus every woman in the cast, and half the men, blushed every time he looked at them. We’re just too used to you, we forget how good-looking you are. I know we’ll all shake down together once they remember they’re very talented and experienced, I’m a has-been – well, a never-was – and Donald is just incredibly useful to have around, not God.'

  'Bite your tongue, woman,' he told her, smiling, and shrugged himself out of his black leather coat. As Edge had expected, he wore a black turtleneck and charcoal trousers. She was convinced he dressed to focus all attention on his blue eyes, but a recent brief holiday in Spain had banished most of his winter pallor and definitely improved what she personally considered to be, despite Vivian’s comment, an almost sepulchral appearance.

  Brian looked puzzled. 'I can understand them being thrilled to get a set designer of your reputation, but what’s with the dancing?'

  Donald shrugged. 'I started as a singer-dancer, back in the mists of time, when it was all musicals. Moved into choreography and somewhere along the line fell into set design. Back in my touring days productions needed everyone able to do a little bit of everything, and that’s what I’m enjoying most about this show. It’s fun. You should come along. And you, Edge.'

  'I can’t imagine anything I’d like less.' She caught the tart note in her voice even as he looked surprised, and added apologetically, 'I can’t sing, dance, paint sets or sew. All I can do, after a fashion, is write scripts, and I doubt they’d let me near the libretto.'

  'Well, it’s a lot of fun.' Vivian was still bubbling with enthusiasm. 'I thought I’d be absolutely paralyzed with shyness but now I’m glad Donald dragged me along. And by the way,' she added to Brian, 'he’s being modest. He’s won several major awards as a choreographer, and he still consults on big productions. That’s why they were falling over themselves tonight when he suggested a way to tidy up the crowd scene. How’s Archie? Has he fully recovered from that poisoning incident?'

  Brian cast Sylvia a quick hunted look and dropped his voice as he replied. Some six weeks earlier both his beagle and Sylvia’s poodle had been fed poison during a particularly nasty episode at the Lawns, but as quiet as he tried to keep his reply, she heard and joined in the conversation.

  William leaned slightly towards Edge and lowered his voice. 'What’s up? You’ve been snippy all day, everything okay?'

  She bit back a withering retort and just shrugged helplessly. After waiting a moment he patted her hand and turned his attention back to the general conversation. She finished her wine as quickly as she decently could, excused herself and left quietly via the pub.

  It was cool and quiet outside as she walked back to her apartment, the promise of summer a whisper on the night breeze, and she walked straight through from the walkway entrance to her tiny verandah overlooking the big garden. Her head ached slightly, and she was unusually restless, not regretting leaving the increasingly noisy gathering, yet not wanting to be alone.

  William was right; she felt thoroughly out of sorts, and had done since Kirsty, very bright-eyed, had cut their afternoon short. Drew had phoned to suggest a spontaneous dash to Perth for the evening, and Edge had naturally insisted she go. She had meant it, but it was ridiculous, at her age, to wish she too had an exciting man on the horizon. There would be no more of that sort of nonsense.

  Edge brushed an angry tear from her lashes, scolded herself roundly, and treated herself to a single small glass of Cape Velvet cream liqueur, which she sipped sitting on the verandah and staring out over the dark gardens. There was always the meeting with Sus
an tomorrow, and the exciting possibility of getting involved in a police investigation …

  Chapter 3 - What’s that, Lassie?

  Edge found Susan’s little close on her second attempt along the main road, parked in a bit of shade under a neighbour’s overhanging tree, and locked the car. Feeling rather self-conscious, she crunched up the gravel path and knocked on the door, turning slightly to admire the profusion of azaleas in the sunny, neat garden. Susan might be an undercover policewoman but she also possessed enviably green fingers. The garden was full but not overgrown and her shrubs rioted politely in a state of organized chaos. Birds, which had taken to the shelter of the branches at Edge’s approach, regained courage and swooped back to the bird feeder. She smiled at a cat scarer, eyes glittering, which protected the spot cats could have chosen to launch themselves at heedless birds absorbed in their meal. As she thought it, a ginger cat emerged from under a shrub and stalked up to wind itself round her legs. The birds scattered again and she bent to stroke the cat, which arched insistently and pressed against her.

  'Do you live here, I wonder? Where’s your owner?' She checked her watch – four minutes past eleven, thanks to the absence of a street name – and flapped the letter slot in the door instead of knocking again. The noise alarmed a bolder bird which had come back to the dry birdbath, but produced no other result. Nearly tripping over the insistent cat, Edge walked along the little path fronting the house, to the driveway. There was a garage, set back a bit, and a garden door in the six-foot wall between garage and house. The pull down garage door was shut – which didn’t necessarily mean the owner was home, but if she had done a quick trip to the shops, she would surely have left it open? The cat stalked ahead of her toward the wall, turned to look back over its shoulder, and meowed.

  'What’s that, Lassie?' Edge said facetiously, under her breath. 'Three children trapped down a mine shaft?' But she did follow the cat, which led the way to the garden door and then swarmed effortlessly over it. A more vocal miaow – feathering to a near yowl – floated back to Edge, who shrugged and tried the handle. The door opened into a utility area with the three standard wheelie bins, and a covered walk between kitchen and garage doors. The cat flap in the kitchen door opened and the ginger cat stuck its head out to look at her. The miaow was now very definitely a complaint.

  'Not my fault if Susan hasn’t fed you, okay?' Edge muttered, but knocked on the kitchen door. Nothing. The garden door clicked shut and she jumped. It had swung to of its own accord, but her startled reaction was a clear sign of her growing unease. She could check the back garden, walk round the house peering in windows and trying the doors; or she could go back to the car, ring Iain and say that Susan wasn’t answering, hadn’t topped up the birdbath and didn’t seem to have fed her cat.

  Knowing exactly which option William and Donald would have chosen, she turned sharply on her heel and went back to the garden door. Rather glad the area was entirely private and no-one could see her being so cautious, she used her elbow to push down the handle and hook the door open, and went hurriedly down the path, only really relaxing when she had nipped smartly back into her car and hit the central locking. Ridiculous – but her fingers shook slightly as she dug in her handbag for her mobile phone.

  Kirsty stayed with her at the car while Iain and a young constable disappeared through the garden door. 'You’re a bit pale, are you okay?'

  'You’re pale yourself,' Edge countered and Kirsty grimaced.

  'I hate this. I didn’t want you getting involved and I’ve got to know Susan quite well. She’s a very nice woman and I like her. If she’s been – hurt – and you’ve been caught up in any way, I’ll be very –' Her shoulder radio phone sputtered something, and she hesitated, then murmured a reply.

  'I’ll be back in a second,' she added to Edge, and headed up to the garden door.

  Edge waited in the car, her attention fixed on the house. The ginger cat re-appeared over the wall and headed straight for the car, standing with its eyes fixed on her and its mouth opening in silent, plaintive protest.

  'You can keep me company, if you like.' She opened the car door and the cat jumped in, cast a superior look around, then settled on the passenger seat, paws neatly tucked into its chest, and gazed musingly into space.

  A movement in the rear view mirror caught her eye and she watched with a sinking heart as a private ambulance drew up quietly behind the car. No lights, no siren. Not a good sign. Not good at all.

  'You’ve got company.' Kirsty walked back to the car and spotted the cat immediately. Edge said nothing, just waited, and after a minute Kirsty sighed. 'If you want the cat, you can keep it. It doesn’t have an owner any more.'

  'Oh Kirsty, I’m so sorry.'

  Kirsty shook her head impatiently and in a slightly strained voice said, 'I’ll see if Iain will let me take its things – there’s some food and a cat box.' She headed back to the garden door and Edge stroked the cat sympathetically, getting a tiny rumbling purr in response.

  Iain emerged from the house, peeling elasticated pull-ons from his shoes and came to the car, looking somber. 'Are you okay?'

  'Yes, but I’m not sure Kirsty is.'

  'She’ll be fine.' For a moment he looked infinitely tired. ' I can’t give you any of the cat stuff, we can’t really touch anything yet, but in fact you’d be doing me a real favour if you could put Mortimer up, at least for a couple of days. There’s a chance the ex-husband will claim him but it’s unlikely.'

  'Mortimer?'

  The cat looked across at them and blinked and Iain smiled at it. Behind him the young constable appeared and started securing Crime Scene tape in place. The net curtains in the house opposite twitched.

  'Aye. He’s no kitten, rising ten at least. Susan always reckoned he was more like a dog than a cat. He’s very particular about people and he’s obviously adopted you, so if you’re prepared to go along with that – I did bring his old harness out of the garage. It was covered with dust; fair to say it hasn’t been touched in a good few months. If you can’t take him I’ll have to, so either way it’ll be used.' He passed a black harness and lead through the window and she took it automatically.

  'He walks on a lead?' she was genuinely impressed, and Iain smiled wanly.

  'I did say more dog than cat!'

  Mortimer, it seemed, was used to traveling in a car, and maintained his musing pose all the way back to the Lawns. Once she’d parked her car in the private road, choosing proximity to her front door rather than the shaded off-road parking she usually used, she fumbled through putting on the harness in case he got away from her, then lifted him out, tucked him inexpertly under her arm, and let herself back into her apartment before putting him on the floor. He sniffed the dog bed, which she kept for canine visitors, with marked disdain, then sprang lightly, despite the trailing harness, to the deep window ledge and settled approvingly.

  Leaving him with a saucer heaped with tuna, and another of water – both graciously accepted – and an old copy of the Chronicle spread on the floor, she walked purposefully across the road to the campsite shop. Harry and his wife, it turned out, kept cats, and he was sympathetic and helpful.

  'I’ll gie you a cardboard lid for now. We don’t keep litter trays in stock, but that’ll gie you time to get to the supermarket. We do stock cat litter – did you walk across? Take the lightest yin then, but you’ll want to buy this brand once you’ve got the car.' He helpfully wrote a name down on the back of a torn envelope. 'We carry that here, but it’s heavy, ken? And cat food. Is he a big yin? Och, I’ll sell you some mixed pouches for now. Dinna worry about bowls straight away, they prefer to eat out of glass or china anyway. What you do is try him on different types of food. Cats is very particular. Of course, when you find what he likes, and buy it in bulk, he won’t eat it any more.'

  He laughed at her expression and his wife turned from packing shelves to nod in smiling agreement. 'They’re wee buggers for turning their noses up at food,' she told Edge. 'You only ne
ed to really worry if they’re not touching their water. Oh, and don’t give him milk. Cats like it, but it’s too rich, goes straight through them. We’ve got some nice cat toys, just a small range, but oor cats love them.'

  'He’s ten!' Edge protested, but politely added a catnip mouse on a length of elastic to her purchases, more to thank them for their help than in any expectation Mortimer would be interested. The walk back, with the unwieldy box lid and pouches in one carrier bag and the not-very-light-after-all litter in another, seemed a lot further than the walk across.

  To her complete amazement Mortimer was electrified when she produced the mouse, snatching it from her fingers and leaping back to the window seat where he alternately growled and crooned over the toy. She tugged the looped end of the cord and they had a dizzying ten minutes of play before he broke the elastic and triumphantly carried his trophy back to the window seat. Cats, it was obvious, were completely unlike dogs, and more research was necessary. After creating crude toilet facilities in the bathroom with the lid and the cat litter, she headed slightly wearily down to the house.

  The library in the main house was impressively comprehensive. Most of the books were novels in large print, but the reference section was more mainstream and included two books about cats. One, The Unadultered Cat by Terry Pratchett, looked more comic than reference, but the other, a slim one entitled The Healthy House Cat, looked just the job and she logged them both out in the register, along with a new Christopher Brookmyre for herself.

  'Did you find what you needed?' Megan, the front desk manager, smiled at her as she emerged back into the big hall, and Edge helpfully showed her the books she’d chosen.