Five Six Pick Up Sticks (Grasshopper Lawns)

by EJ Lamprey

  She shot Clarissa a mischievous glance. ‘As for your crush, um, you know they say all the best men are either married or gay? Well, Donald’s never been married…’

  ‘Oh? Ohh.’ Clarissa looked thoughtful. ‘Really? What a shame! Those eyes.’

  Edge was amused. ‘Very blue, but he’s a bit too chilly to be good-looking, to my mind. Which is a very unfair thing to say because I do like him. And he’s not the type to hold a grudge, you’ll be friends yet, dinna fash.’ She opened her car door and threw the umbrella walking stick across to the passenger side. ‘I’ll be at yours in about half an hour. No, that’ll be lunchtime, so why don’t I come up for a cup of tea at around three?’

  ~~~

  Vivian, Edge’s lifelong friend and a fellow resident at Grasshopper Lawns, raised her eyebrows as Edge let her in through the garden door. The small apartment, usually presentably tidy, had half-opened boxes on every chair and table, with a scattering of objects on the floor; while the sleeping alcove, its faux cupboard doors flung wide, looked as if a hurricane had been through it. The concealed box room which opened into the alcove also had its door thrown wide, and the pattern of chaos suggested it was the source of the hurricane.

  ‘Been having a tidy-out?’ She bent at what had once been her waist to pick up a hat and put it helpfully on one of the bookshelves. A generously rounded widow in her late fifties, with a beautiful smile and the fading echo of what had been extraordinary good looks, she now enjoyed the luxury of dressing to please herself and was a bright point on this dull February day in a heavy red fleece and baggy black tracksuit pants sprigged with large orange and red peonies. Her Labrador Buster picked his way cautiously over the debris to the dog bed Edge had bought for his visits, and sank to his haunches to watch developments with interest.

  ‘I really must, some time,’ Edge said ruefully. ‘I’m trying to find Bertie’s old stuff. I know I kept his muzzle and I’ve promised to help Clarissa Hobbes with that little monster of hers. You know she bit Donald?’

  ‘Clarissa did?’ Vivian, deadpan, bent again to pick up a jersey, and shook her head as she looked round for a place to put it down. ‘You must dig for things like a terrier, I can’t imagine what that box-room of yours must look like.’

  ‘Oh hush and put on the kettle, if you’re staying. Clarissa probably would have bitten him as a way of making his acquaintance, she said she’s had a tiny crush on him for years. Did you know he’d been in musicals before? And apparently quite sexy in them.’

  ‘Heavens, yes, sex on a stick. And his voice isn’t bad, with more vocal coaching he could have been very good but he didn’t bother, switched to choreography rather than chase the big time. I think he found the fans a bit unnerving. He likes to keep a distance, does our Donald.’ Edge hobbled back towards the box room and Vivian, obediently pulling on the pantry doors concealing the kitchenette, gave her a sharp glance.

  ‘What have you done to your ankle?’

  Edge sighed and emerged again to tell her. Vivian was, as expected, briskly unsympathetic.

  ‘I’m not saying they’re not gorgeous, because they are, but Edge honestly, what were you thinking? They ruined Burns Night for you, admit it. And it was such a good night!’

  ‘Oh, wasn’t it? The surprise, when they had a real piper for the haggis! I hope they do that every year from now; it was so much nicer than playing a CD. And Hamish read the ode so well, too, I go to pieces after the second verse and fall over my words, but he stuck with it all the way to the end. But be fair, Vivian, dancing is not at all a Burns Night tradition. I thought we’d be sitting round stuffed to the eyebrows with haggis and shortbread and singing traditional songs in fractured eighteenth-century Scottish. If I’d known there’d be a sudden rush to dance I’d have worn shoes I could dance in. Anyway, you’ve made your point. I don’t believe those horrible shoes were stolen at all, I think they were handed in as weapons of foot destruction and should have been blown up. I may keep one on the mantelpiece as a reminder not to be vain.’

  ~~~

  So much for life returning to normal after the sudden spate of murders at Christmas. There’s a suicide in the laundry on Sunday, a picnic on Monday, an alarming stranger staying on the campsite, a visitor turning Vivian’s life upside down, Edge finds herself temporarily looking after the alarming Maggie; oh, and Death pays a personal call. More hectic than ever. Nothing the quartet can’t handle, naturally. Since you read this book first, you already know that Maggie survives. I got a few complaints from readers who fell for her off-beat charm and who thought for a page or two that she hadn’t. From that point of view, you got lucky reading Five Six Pick Up Sticks first.

  SEVEN EIGHT PLAY IT STRAIGHT

  Edge’s actress stepdaughter is performing in a successful Fringe show during the Edinburgh Festival. Long-standing hostilities are set aside when a violent and bloody murder strikes all too close to home, but the temporary truce doesn’t last after Fiona accuses Edge of the murder. There’s fancy dress, melodrama, totally contrived coincidences and theatrical makeup in the climax, but how not, during the fabulous Edinburgh Festival?

  Chapter One - Friday 2nd August

  Opening Curtain, Edinburgh Festival

  Players take their places for the first crowd scene

  instruction to cast—mill around, this is a Festival crowd, personalities will develop later

  Miss P leaned forward, her plump cheeks pink with excitement, to look past William and Vivian at Edge, sitting further along the row of seats. ‘Ay’m so looking forward to this, Edge, Ay can’t tell you how much.’

  Edge shrugged helplessly. ‘Remember, there’ll be foul language,’ she warned, for at least the third time, and Miss P giggled and put her hands up to her ears, middle fingers bent forward, to show she was ready to plug them.

  ‘Dinna fash, me darling,’ William patted her knee reassuringly. ‘You’ll be fine.’ He patted Vivian’s knee for good measure and grinned at Edge. ‘We won’t melt.’

  ‘We might.’ Vivian looked around slightly despairingly. ‘I’d forgotten Fringe theatres are practically unventilated.’

  ‘Which is why I told you to bring a fan,’ Edge reminded her bracingly. She sat back and closed her eyes. It had seemed a good idea, before she left for her holiday in Florida, to buy ten tickets to this one-woman show at the Edinburgh Festival but she was already regretting it, not least because she was still slightly jet-lagged and woefully short on sleep. She and Vivian were both claustrophobic, and the theatre had been adapted from a conference room by draping it with fabric which cut out air, light and seemed to be inching in on them . . . a gentle breeze, from the edges of Vivian’s fan, revived her slightly and she opened her eyes as a single spotlight sprang to life and revealed Fiona Bentwood standing a few feet away.

  The show was slick, professional, bitingly funny and full of what were known locally as swearies. She did shoot one anxious glance across Vivian’s agitated fan at Miss P, who was sitting with her hands in her lap and her mouth open—with any luck, she didn’t know the actress’s frequent drawled ‘fahk’ even was a swearie—but for the rest gave herself up to the performance. It was, she was relieved to realize, good. It would do well. They all applauded enthusiastically at the end and Fiona, coming forward for a bow, looked her straight in the eye and nodded slightly.

  Vivian was away like a runner hearing the gun as the lights came up and Edge resisted the impulse to bolt after her and instead brought up the rear of the group, all easily spotted in the milling throng because of their purple peaks. Purple was a standing joke at the Lawns, but a flash of it was very useful in crowds, and Vivian was an ideal assembly point as she waited outside, vivid in scarlet tunic and slacks which clashed bracingly with her peak. The friends exchanged rueful glances as the group re-formed.

  ‘Edge, I’m so sorry, this wretched claustrophobia, I couldn’t bear it another minute. Did she see you? Did she come over to say hello?’

  Fiona Bentwood arrived with perfect timin
g to answer the question herself. ‘I did see her, and I’ve now come over to say hello. How are you, Aunt Vivian? You’re looking incredibly well. Hello, Edge. You look very tired. And all of you wearing purple peaks, how quaint—are you part of a religious order, or just all from the old age home?’

  ‘Darling. You were very good indeed.’ Edge, slim, casually elegant and self-possessed, leaned forward and they air-kissed politely. ‘People, this is James’s daughter, Fiona. My stepdaughter.’

  ‘My word, that makeup is jolly good,’ Miss P said with wide-eyed innocent malice. ‘You looked so much younger on stage!’

  ‘Fiona, darling, this is Titania Pinkerton, you used to love her books,’ Edge said hastily, and Fiona’s delicate over-plucked brows twitched back from their frown.

  ‘I still do, when I have time,’ she said cordially, and shook hands. ‘They’re just right for someone on the road, very relaxing.’ Miss P beamed, malice forgotten, and Edge went on with the introductions.

  ‘William Robertson’s also a well-known writer, although I don’t know if you’re into Sci-Fi? And the ballerina Olga Petrotchovitch;’ Fiona twitched slightly impatiently and Edge gave up on details. ‘Clarissa, Jayenthi , Brian, Matilda, Sylvia, Donald,’

  ‘Donald MacDonald,’ Fiona interrupted her, and took Donald’s unresisting hand between both of her own, smiling up into his blue eyes. ‘I’m a fan. Don’t tell me you’re at the Home too, you’re never old enough! Are you working on anything for the Festival? Are you still designing sets? What did you think of our set?’

  ‘Very minimalist,’ he said drily, ignoring her other comments. ‘But ideal for the show. I agree with Edge, it was good. Have you been doing it long?’

  ‘We first aired it in Grahamstown, this is the fourth Festival now, and the second year. I’m glad you liked it.’ He looked bored and she relinquished his hand reluctantly to look up at William, easily the biggest man on the square—height, breadth and curving bay window. ‘And I know you by reputation. My brother buys your books the minute they’re published, and shuts himself away to read them. He and his partner have booked to hear you speak tonight. Are you also at the Lawns?’

  ‘We’re all from the old age home,’ Sylvia was seething. ‘Edge dragged us along to give you a bit of an audience.’

  ‘Well, luckily you weren’t the only ones here, but I do appreciate your sacrifice.’ Fiona’s eyes sparkled as she summed up her tiny, bristling, beautifully-dressed opponent. ‘I didn’t mean to offend anyone but my stepmother with that comment, and that’s a battle that has raged for years.’

  ‘True enough. And much enjoyed by all the onlookers,’ Vivian, who had known Fiona even longer than Edge had, said peaceably, and Fiona switched tack with a slight sneer.

  ‘Quite the talented group, Edge, how on earth did you get them to let you in?’

  ‘No doubt on the strength of having a famous actress as a stepdaughter, although I had never heard of you myself,’ Sylvia was no Miss P, to be easily placated. ‘Edge, why didn’t you tell us you were related, when you invited us?’

  ‘In case the show was awful, of course.’ Edge smiled sweetly at Fiona. ‘I didn’t want my connections to get me evicted.’

  ‘Oh, ha-ha.’ Fiona’s brows twitched back together. She was of medium height, bone thin, with delicate mobile features and a mop of unruly hair. In direct sunlight the heavy stage makeup reversed the youthful effect of the friendly spotlights and she looked older than her stepmother. ‘This has been lovely, catching up, but I do have to go. Do you expect me and Jamey to visit while I’m here?’

  ‘It would be lovely if you did,’ Vivian answered hastily for Edge. ‘You must be incredibly busy. I didn’t realize JJ was here as well.’

  ‘He and Tim are living back in Edinburgh, I’m staying with them during the Festival. We’ll see what we can do. I know he would love to meet William.’ She put the slightest emphasis on the last, swept them all with a glance and a nod which warmed to a smile as it reached Donald, and half-raised her hand in farewell before turning on her heel.

  ‘Ooh, take that.’ Sylvia was still waspish as Fiona crossed the emptying square back towards the makeshift theatre. ‘You must have been a very wicked stepmother, Edge.’

  ‘Was there ever a stepmother who wasn’t?’ Edge remarked lightly. ‘Especially one not that much older than her stepchildren.’

  The distant boom of the one o’clock gun from the Castle galvanised them into action; it had already been arranged that everyone would buy whatever they fancied from the vast variety of street stands, and head for the Princes Street Gardens to meet up for an al fresco lunch.

  ~~~

  This book has the most crowded and tangled beginning of all the books in the series, and that is quite deliberate, to evoke the crowded and slightly bewildering, but wonderful, Festival. It does settle down and become a conventional whodunit–apart from the nod to theatre in its layout–until the ending, which plunges back into the marvellous chaos of the Festival and is pure melodrama. There is some waspish interaction between Fiona and her stepmother, and an unwise love affair to be sorted out, and an abducted girl to be found, a murder to be solved, a birthday to be endured, and an unpleasant encounter with some bodies. The book is proving particularly popular with those who have visited Edinburgh, especially those who have enjoyed the Festival, as it is set more in the city, its beauty and history, than the other books.

  Nine Ten Begin Again

  Unsurprisingly, there are murky goings-on at the Grasshopper Lawns retirement village, but for once they’re not getting the attention they deserve. In this fifth book in the series, Hamish, the popular bursar, is on a year’s sabbatical and has been replaced by a political wannabe who alienates everyone. She’s not the only new appointment, there’s a very suspect new maintenance manager who doesn’t delight the female residents as much as he thinks he does.

  Chapter 1 – Monday November 4th

  As Edge Cameron’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, she realized the woman on the office chair ahead of her wasn’t sitting waiting. Not if the gash in her throat was anything to go by. Edge’s hand went to her own throat and she stepped backwards, cannoning into the very large man ushering her into the room. He didn’t even rock, but he did stop walking and she shifted slightly forward, so she wasn’t actually pressed up against him, and took a deep breath.

  ‘That’s horrible,’ she managed and he laughed.

  ‘Horrible convincing?’ He reached across to flick on a light switch and the garish corpse sprang into hideous detail.

  ‘I have absolutely no idea, I’ve never seen somebody with a cut throat. I’ve never actually seen a murder victim in my life. But it did freak me out, so, yes, convincing. I never knew corpses went greenish white like that.’ She went forward, gruesomely fascinated by the body, which to her horror sat up convulsively.

  ‘Oh, you bugger, I thought you were a dummy!’

  ‘Nah.’ The ‘corpse’ stood up, grinning. ‘You know me, Edge—Bonny Baker. Nice to see you again.’ She held out a greenish-white hand with livid fingernails, two of them bloody, and Edge shook it politely.

  ‘Bonny, God. My hair stood on end. You’ve looked better.’

  ‘Cannae say the same to you, you look smashing. I heard you’d retired, I thought you weren’t old enough! So you’ve got a new TV show for us, have you?’

  ‘Well,’ she glanced round for Shona Black, and Bonny rolled her grotesquely shadowed eyes.

  ‘Oh aye. Say no more. But fingers crossed, hen. I have to go get to my scene, see ya later!’

  ‘Later,’ Edge echoed absently as Bonny left. The big man busied himself opening the blinds, although the thin November daylight made very little impact on the electric light; Edge could see her reflection, ghostly in the glass, superimposed on a rain-greyed Edinburgh. Hair pulled back, more tidy than her usual topknot, into a sleek chignon. Well cut trouser-suit, greenish-grey, fitted to her figure. In the ghostly reflection her lipstick looked dark, her mouth too
pronounced, but Donald had insisted the structured look needed an emphatic colour, that if she was to sell herself as dynamic and effective she had to look the part. It hadn’t worked so far. She’d not met Shona Black before, and had been surprised to be introduced to a woman thirty years her junior, bigger than most men, who was abrupt and rude in a world where insincerity kept charming smiles on most faces. They’d shaken hands, and Shona had asked if she could call her Beulah.

  ‘I’d much rather you called me Edge, I loathe the name Beulah,’ Edge had said lightly, and Shona had turned that round-eyed stare on her for the first time.

  ‘It’s my mother’s name.’

  Open mouth, Edge, insert foot. There was no point in trying to backtrack, and she had shrugged apologetically and smiled. ‘My second name is Edgington, and I do prefer Edge. I’m more used to it.’ The meeting had gone steadily downhill from that point.

  Shona Black, stopping in the doorway to say something over her shoulder, came in impatiently and took a seat behind the desk. ‘How convincing was that?’

  ‘Well, it horrified me. But as I said to Jason, I’ve never seen a murder victim. There are no corpses—well, no decaying ones—in the Pick Up Sticks script.’

  ‘Are you saying you’re not going to agree to any changes in the script?’

  Edge sighed inwardly. This was a waste of time, and she might as well leave right now, because she and Shona Black were not empathic and quite clearly could never work together.

  ‘Shona, I’m not saying anything of the sort. My agent set up this meeting to talk about the script I wrote, and we haven’t touched on it at all. You talked non-stop all the time we were in your boardroom about Black-Brown-Black’s productions. You sent me here to your office with Jason for a viewing, without any prior warning, of a corpse which was very effective, as far as I could tell, but I don’t have corpse expertise and hadn’t realized I’d need it.’ Edge picked up her handbag and put it on her lap. ‘We should call it a day, because I think Sarah got her wires crossed and you don’t really want to talk to me at all.’