Authors: Kitty French
* * *
I
screech
Babs to a halt along Brimsdale Road twenty minutes later and find a pantomime going on in the front garden of Scarborough House, with Leo prancing around like a buccaneer and Gran smoking a Gauloise in her purple kimono, pink spandex leggings and kitten-heeled fluffy Hollywood slippers.
Snatches of Leo’s rant carry on the wind to us as we pile out of the van.
‘Laughing stock . . . made a fool of . . . discrediting our profession . . . ought to be ashamed . . .’ He’s laying it on thick as he paces the unkempt front lawn like a disappointed father, and she is taking a drag from her ebony cigarette holder and looking into the middle distance like a bored teenager. She rarely smokes, only at times like this when she wants to use it for dramatic visual effect, and only ever Gauloise. I think she’s had the same box of twenty for at least the last decade.
Leo looks up and catches sight of us as I open the garden gate. He marches over with his chest thrust out like a peacock, his voluminous white shirt untucked from his skinny jodhpurs and billowing in the breeze. He looks more like he’s stepped from the set of a costume drama than a daytime TV broadcast.
‘I take it you put her up to this?’
I catch my gran’s eye over his shoulder for a second. Family loyalty almost suggests that I should lie to cover her bony ass, but to do that would be professional suicide, but doing that in the first week of business would be pretty fast work, even for me. Gran saves me the bother of having to decide whether to cover her backside or my own by stepping forward and waving her cigarette holder imperiously in the air.
‘I’m a lone ranger,’ she practically growls. ‘I dance to my own tune.’
We all take a moment to stare at her, and Marina high-fives her across the garden path. ‘Kudos, Dicey.’
‘Your gran’s amazing,’ Artie whispers beside me, awed by his first meeting with her, as most people are. Even at her advanced age she exudes a certain feline charm and men have always been putty in her bejewelled hands, although to be honest I think that Leo is probably immune to her at this very moment in time.
‘What were you thinking of?’ I ask Gran, because however hard I try, I can’t come up with a reasonable explanation for her behaviour.
‘Just lending a hand, darling,’ she responds, as if she truly believes that she has in some bizarre way assisted me.
‘Gran . . . how, exactly? Why would you imagine that crashing around inside a suit of armour on live TV would help anyone, least of all me?’
She looks at me like I’m the village idiot. ‘He said
you
shouldn’t come over today, and
you
didn’t.’
‘No, I didn’t, and I didn’t ask you to, either.’
She pulls a ‘so there you go,’ face. ‘Precisely. It’s not your fault. You’re entirely blameless for the fact that your rival looks incompetent and you can swoop in and save the day. You’re a hero, Melody. You deserve your own TV show.’
She says that last bit
really
loudly, and I think she expects the TV crew to elbow Leo out of the way immediately and sign me up instead. They don’t, obviously. They’re too busy wiping egg off their faces and hastily throwing their equipment into the back of their vans.
I shift my attention to Leo, aware that Gran has just pushed me off my favourite patch of moral high ground. I feel as if I’m face down in the dirt right now with a whole shovel-load of sucking up to do.
‘Leo, I’m so sorry, I genuinely didn’t have a clue she was planning to embarrass you on live TV.’
He stares at me, and I’m not entirely certain, but I think he might have just hissed. I don’t think it was intentional; at least I hope not. I’m touched by the fact that Artie takes a step closer to me, my unlikely henchman should I need him. Leo looks him up and down for a second, and then turns his derisive glance back on me.
‘Jealousy is a terrible thing,’ he says, clearly not in the mood to believe me. ‘Frankly, I thought better of you.’
Okay, so he’s planning on strutting around the moral high ground I’ve recently vacated. I’m not surprised.
‘I didn’t realise you’d stoop so low as to involve an octogenarian though. She could have broken her brittle bones falling like that.’
I’m fast running out of patience with him for not believing me, he really should know me better.
‘Oh please, I do yoga.’ Gran rolls her eyes. ‘I’d like to see your wounded peacock, young man.’
We all look at her, startled.
‘What? It’s a yoga pose. I’d show you but I’m not exactly dressed for it.’ She takes a pointed drag on her cigarette and waves her hand down in the general direction of her kimono.
I can feel Marina laughing silently beside me, and I know it’s one of those situations I’ll probably look back on and laugh at too, but right now it feels really important to make Leo to believe I’m not trying to sabotage him. Oh, I want to win, but I want to take him down cleanly because I’m better at my job, not feel as if I’ve won by default. This is the first job the agency has taken on, hopefully the first of many. We need the confidence boost of a win.
I
need it, badly, because this is my twenty-seventh year, the year when my life has to change.
‘Pose for a picture, guys?’
Oh, for God’s bloody sake. As if this situation could get any worse. Fletcher sodding Gunn just turned up.
‘
T
his is
the story that just keeps on giving, isn’t it?’
He’s leaning on the garden gate and is evidently more amused by the situation than I am; the only person even less pleased to see Fletch is Leo. There’s never been any love lost between these two, they’re at opposite ends of the spectrum in pretty much any way you’d care to mention. Leo has to be close to the top of Fletch’s ‘discredit before I die’ list, right below the Bittersweet family, two generations of which are currently caught here on the lawns of Scarborough House in a compromised position. He must feel like it’s his frigging birthday.
Gran blows an elegant plume of smoke into his camera lens when he tries to direct it her way, and he shakes his head.
‘A pleasure as always, Paradise.’
She prickles at his use of her full name; it’s so rarely used that it feels like a reprimand, which of course is precisely his sarcastic intent.
‘Nothing better to do than hang off my coattails, Gunn?’ Leo’s eyes bore into Fletch.
‘Cape,’ Marina mutters beside me. Artie flanks me on the other side, watching everything with wide eyes.
Fletch eyes Leo’s attire, his eyebrows raised in amusement. ‘Who have you come as today, Dark? A cut-price Mr Darcy for the post-
Jeremy Kyle
crowd?’
Much as I can see the cause for comparison, I hate that between us we’re giving Fletch a story he’ll dine out on for weeks. My grandmother is in her dressing gown on the lawn, for God’s sake.
‘I almost hesitate to ask what’s going on here,’ he says. ‘I mean I can hazard a good guess. Bunch of fakers exposed colluding to con the public into believing farcical ghost shite on live television. Blah blah blah. Is there any more to the story or should I wrap it up and go for an early lunch?’
Gran takes a slow drag from her cigarette and exhales an elegant plume of smoke, not unlike Marlene Dietrich in a black and white movie.
‘Your gran is the only person alive who can still make smoking look sexy,’ Marina says in open admiration.
‘She’s had long enough to practise it,’ I mutter, still sour with her for causing this entire debacle.
‘I knew your grandmother, Fletcher Gunn.’ She wafts her cigarette holder airily in his direction. ‘Wonderful woman. Used to come and see me every other Friday after she lost your Grandpa Ron.’ She smiles a faraway smile. ‘Now
he
was as character. Not unlike you, in looks at least.’
‘Don’t bother, Dicey,’ he laughs, even though he’s anything but amused. ‘Save your tea leaf reading for someone more gullible.’
Gran smiles benignly, completely unconcerned by Fletch’s rudeness. ‘I’m surprised you’re so scared of what you can’t see, given how forward-thinking she was, but then . . . you’re male.’
She’s getting under his skin; I can see a muscle flickering in his cheek.
‘Gran, you’re really not helping here. Go inside and put some clothes on at least?’
‘I came like this, darling, I have my leotard underneath. Quite a thrill for the taxi driver this morning, I should imagine.’
I hand Artie the keys to Babs. ‘Take Gran back to the van and wait for me?’
He nods and steps forward, glad to have a purpose.
‘Shall we, Mrs B?’
I watch as he offers Gran his arm, which she accepts with a sniffy glance at Fletch.
‘Thank you, Arthur, what beautiful manners you have. I find that chivalry is terribly underrated by the youth of today.’
She allows him to escort her away. I breathe a sigh of relief once she’s safely out of earshot. If only I could get rid of Fletcher Gunn so easily.
‘I still think it might be better if we step inside,’ I say to Leo, deliberately ignoring my least favourite reporter on the planet.
Leo shakes his head with a huff. ‘What, so you can insist again that this wasn’t your doing? Come on, Melody. We both know how jealous you are of my success. I knew you felt threatened, but this is just a step too far. Dicey could have ruined my career. In fact she still might have. It’s not you that has to go and explain to the production team what the fuck happened back there, is it?’
As he speaks, the Barbie Twins make their way down the garden path as if it’s a model’s runway. They glide to a halt a little way behind him. Fletch perks up considerably.
‘Nikki and Vikki,’ I say quietly to Marina, remembering their names.
‘No fucking way,’ she laughs under her breath.
Leo seems bolstered by the arrival of his troops. ‘You know something, Melody? It doesn’t even matter whether you knew about Dicey’s stunt beforehand or not, because the fact is that it happened because of you and your stubborn insistence on poking around in my business. You just declared war on live fucking television, and I hereby notify you of my intent to blast you and your ridiculous . . .’ he waves an arm in the vague direction of Babs ‘
wagon
right off the face of this goddamn planet!’
He jerks his head towards the twins, a signal that they should follow him as he stalks away. To be honest, I’m taken aback by the level of his vitriol and how willing he is to believe that I’d stoop so low. Maybe that sliver off my heart that was forever his just grew a little smaller.
Fletch throws the twins a wink as they walk past him. ‘Can I join your war cabinet, ladies? I promise to be a bad boy.’
Leo swings back around just long enough to growl ‘Fuck off, Fletcher,’ before he yanks open his car door and ushers the twins inside. Jesus, the testosterone coming off the pair of them is making the air hazy, it’s like heat rising from melting concrete on the hottest day of summer. Leo stares at me right before he slides into the driver’s seat and mutters ‘war,’ then screeches off. If he could have made his tyres smoke, he would have.
‘He’s hardly Winston Churchill, is he?’ Marina quips, as we watch him go. Her phone starts to ring inside her bra and she excuses herself, shooting me an apologetic look as she walks away towards Babs.
‘Just you and me then, ghostbuster,’ Fletch grins. ‘You still up for taking this inside and giving me an exclusive?’
‘You should be so lucky,’ I snark, because I’ve just remembered what Marina said about him checking out my backside the last time he was here. There’s no way I’m letting him into Scarborough House again, to look at my bum or anything else.
‘It wasn’t a come-on,’ he assures me, laughing. ‘Unless you want it to be.’
‘Do you have to flirt with everyone in a skirt? It makes you look seedy.’ I load my comment with as much derision as is possible, because I’m annoyed by the tiny ripple of interest that just skittered down my back at his words. I know, I know. It’s just that he’s hot and I’m going through a dry spell. I still hate him, even if my brain wants to register that his eyes are the colour of forest moss today and that the way he rolls his shirt sleeves back is sexy.
He looks over his shoulder. ‘You talking to me or one of your imaginary friends again, Bittersweet?’
‘You should go now. There’s nothing to see here and it’ll be a cold day in hell before I give you an exclusive.’
His eyes slide slowly over my
Willo The Wisp
T-shirt. For the record, Evil Edna was my heroine.
‘Better buy yourself a decent coat then, sweetheart.’
I watch him saunter off towards his car parked a little way down from the house and desperately want to sling an insult at him. I can’t say anything about his car, it’s a pretty cool, old navy blue Saab. I mean it’s not Babs cool, obviously, but it’s the kind of car that you’d be impressed by if a blind date turned up in it. It says ‘I’m different, I think outside the lines’. I can’t really pick holes in his dress sense either seeing as he somehow pulls off looking like he’s stepped from a dishevelled
GQ
shoot, and the lawn has only recently been vacated by my grandmother in her dressing gown. He manages to make office dress look totally unrespectable, somehow, as if he’s always straddling the gap between work and sliding into the nearest bar to down a double vodka. You know how some office guys wear cheap shirts you can see through and character ties that just aren’t funny? Fletch is so not that guy. As I watch him leave I notice his dark-charcoal shirt clings to him in in all the right places, just enough to accentuate his shoulders and skim his biceps as he moves, and I can’t imagine he’s worn a tie since the day he left school.
I snarl with frustration as he slams his door, feeling as if he’s got one over on me. Mostly because he has.
C
limbing back
into the van a few minutes later, I throw Artie a grateful smile for clambering into the back and allowing Gran to take his seat beside Marina. Not that she’d have climbed into the back anyway, but like her, I appreciate his good manners.
I don’t speak until I’ve hurled Babs sharply around a few corners to get my pent up aggression out.
‘Nice work, Gran. Like, thanks a sodding million.’
She shrugs. ‘It was nothing, darling.’
‘Oh, it was something, alright.’ A thought occurs to me. ‘Did Mum know you were doing this?’
Gran’s expression is conflicted. ‘Not exactly. I think she’d probably have vetoed it, so I didn’t tell her. Shame really, I think she might have had more success with Lloyd than I did. He’s a prickly one.’
‘Did they talk to you?’ I can’t keep up my angry act when there’s a chance that Gran might have learned something useful from the Scarborough brothers.
She leans her head back against the scuffed seat with a sigh and closes her eyes. ‘There’s a saying that comes to mind here, darling, something about not teaching your grandma to suck eggs, if I’m not mistaken.’
I huff under my breath and shake my head as I turn onto the far end of Chapelwick High Street, knowing that she’s going to make me work for not being more appreciative of her unorthodox intervention. The thing is, I’m sure that in her head she thought she was helping me. I know she meant well, even if what she actually did was more harm than help.
‘Okay, Gran,’ I say, ignoring Marina’s half-cough/half-laugh because she knows I’m about to try to eat humble pie without choking on it. ‘It was kind of you to try to help. I sort of appreciate that you didn’t intend to discredit our entire profession and make us all look like a bunch of cowboys.’
Gran opens her eyes and stares at me, and Marina’s slow shake of the head tells me that my opening gambit is not quite humble enough.
‘What I mean is that I know this came from a good place.’
‘You sound like an American therapist, Melody.’
Gran closes her eyes and I seize the opportunity to pull a face at her because I’m having one hell of a frustrating day. She opens one eye, sees my face-pulling and then closes it again.
‘That was extremely childish of you.’
Marina leans forward and picks up my gran’s hand. ‘What Melody is trying to say is that we all think that what you did back there was amazeballs, Dicey, and we are all entirely grateful to you for trying to help.’
I nod through gritted teeth, even though Gran’s eyes are still closed.
‘And it would be a big help to us if you could please tell us if the Scarborough brothers told you anything of interest, if you don’t mind,’ Artie interjects from behind us in his best professional voice, despite the fact that he isn’t belted in and has had to wedge himself between the back of the passenger bench and the wheel-arch to stop himself from being flung around the back of the van like a spaceman in zero gravity.
After a pause Gran finally opens her eyes. ‘Seeing as you asked so politely,’ she says, knotting the long string of pearls around her neck. ‘I gather that there’s ill feeling between Isaac and Lloyd.’
‘Well that’s putting it mildly, given that one of them killed their brother and they’re both trying to blame each other,’ I mutter, distracted by a white van man who just cut in front of us. When I blast my horn, he flips me the bird through his open window. I reply in kind with the universal sign for knob-head. Having the last word in the altercation goes a small way towards alleviating my grumpiness. I turn my attention back to Gran.
‘I found the same thing with Lloyd. He was no more chatty with you then?’
Gran looks thoughtful. ‘Not very forthcoming, no. He doesn’t want you meddling. I know that much. Nor Leo. He’s prepared to allow the sale of the house with them in situ. It’s Isaac and Douglas who are causing the uproar.’
‘Hmm, that’s what I got too. Looking into the available history of the house, which isn’t much, it seems that Isaac was generally held to blame for stabbing Douglas. He was never convicted, but his family cut him off and he never returned to the house again while he was alive.’ I pull into the cobbled cartway at the side of Blithe Spirits and Babs shudders with relief as I kill the engine. ‘Sad, really.’
‘If he didn’t do it, that is,’ Marina adds.
‘True. He’s easily the most forthcoming of the three, but he’s clearly furious and I’ve yet to work out what it is that I need to do to help.’
Marina unclicks her seat belt. ‘Solve the mystery of who killed Douglas Scarborough, at a guess.’
‘He’s rather a dashing chap, isn’t he?’ Gran says, folding her kimono over her knees in readiness to disembark Babs. ‘Quite the looker.’
‘I didn’t notice,’ I lie, blatantly. Marina raises her eyebrows knowingly and laughs.
‘Well, that explains why your cheeks were pink when he was around. You never mentioned our Dougie was a hottie.’
I shake my head, caught out. ‘Marina, he’s been stone cold dead for more than a century. He’s just about as far from a hottie as he could possibly be.’
I
bring
the conversation to an abrupt end by jumping out of the van and opening the back door for Artie to climb out. He stretches his long legs and then rounds Babs to help Gran to step down in as dignified a manner as possible for a pensioner in her dressing gown.
‘Is that all I need to do? Solve a murder?’ I say, wondering how the hell I’m supposed to do something that the police force failed to over a hundred years ago. ‘I’ll have this thing all wrapped up before dinner then.’
‘You could always ask your Magic 8 Ball,’ Marina suggests, then calls out ‘Great job today, Dicey!’