by Joan Aiken
Presently they left to find themselves a hotel room in Dorchester — they could have had the Pools’ house but I felt that would be unlucky — and to arrange for a celebration dinner that evening. “I’m really sorry about Ty,” Fitz said, giving me a straight look. “But I guess it was all for the best, really? I hope it was fun while it lasted?” And I said, yes, on the whole it had been, great fun while it lasted, thinking in what simple terms the young view life. But perhaps that is all for the best, too.
“We’ll be back to pick you up at seven then.—Is this your cat?” Fitz said in the doorway. “He does howl, doesn’t he? A strain of Siamese, perhaps?”
“I wouldn’t know. No, he isn’t my cat. Or, well,” I said, thinking again, “perhaps he is.”
“The postman came while we were waiting. Told us about the key under the flower-pot. There’s a letter for you on the counter.”
And Fitz ran back to me, as Polly started up the hill, to say in a breathless, urgent undertone, “Polly’s an orphan. Got a bad learning problem — several, in fact. She’s going to need a lot of looking after —”
I thought of the puzzled blue eyes, regarding me with alarmed mistrust.
“Darling boy — you don’t think you ought to be getting on with your own life?”
“But helping Polly is going to be my life,” he said, gave me a swift hug, and ran after her.
Perhaps, I thought, she believed me to be a murderess.
The letter was from Joel.
“Dear Cat, I’m terribly sorry about Ty. I hope you aren’t too shattered. Listen, dear heart — why don’t we get married? I know I’ve asked you before and you said it wouldn’t work, but now I’m asking you again. I worry about you! Look at the things you get yourself into! Someone ought to take care of you. Do think seriously about this. Much love, Joel.”
After I had fed Arkwright, and he had settled down beside me on the sofa, I began writing an answer to Joel, on a pad on my knee.
“Dearest Joel, you are a darling to suggest it, but it really wouldn’t work. I do appreciate your suggestion, but I don’t get on with your friends and they would find me a dreadful bore. Let’s just go on the way we are, eh? without putting constrictions on each other? You are my very best friend. I hope I see you soon. Love, Cat.”
Absently I removed a tiny yellow leaf from Arkwright’s glossy fur, and dropped it into the fire Fitz had thoughtfully lit.
For a moment I had thought it was one of Miss Morgan’s hearing-aid battery-stickers. They did, as she had said, get everywhere. There had been one on the crossbow bolt projecting from between Ty’s shoulders. But that meant nothing. It was Elspeth’s bow after all.
I had removed it, just the same.
What was the name she had given that lethal thing?
A quarrel, that was it. Such an odd term.
Pat and Shuna came into Number 2 and sat down, pale and silent and unwontedly idle.
“Let’s have a glass of sherry, Bets.”
“All right.”
“Can I have some?” asked Shuna.
“Certainly not. Apple juice for you.”
“It’s going to be a very good funeral, Aunt Elspeth. All the Greeks are going to take it in turns carrying Odd Tom’s coffin in a procession from the top of the hill. I’m glad Olga made that will saying what to do with her ashes, aren’t you? It’s much nicer that Tom will be the first in the graveyard.”
“Scattered at sea,” remarked Elspeth crossly. “Preposterous! Just like her silly self-importance.”
“What about Lord Fortuneswell? What about him?”
“When somebody has been murdered, the police hold on to the body until they are sure who did the murder. They keep it in a refrigerator.”
“So they may have him for ever.” Shuna looked a little anxious. “Poor thing, he will be rather cold.” Her face clouded still more. “Aunt Elspeth, what do you suppose has happened to Arkwright? You don’t think he died too, do you?”
“There’s no reason to suppose so,” said Miss Morgan decidedly. “He will very likely turn up. Cats can take care of themselves very well, remember. Why don’t you go out, and have a look round for him?”
“All right.”
Shuna stood up slowly, without her accustomed alacrity. Then, brightening a little, she said, “I could go and see Lady Fortuneswell. She must be feeling a bit sad, with her husband dead. Even if he was very nasty.”
“All right. Do that. Very good idea,” said Pat briskly.
When the child had gone out, she added, “Really that man didn’t get killed a moment too soon. Whoever did it deserves a public vote of thanks. Well —” glancing at her watch, “I’d better get off to the School Board meeting.” She stood, drained her glass, gave her old friend a comradely look, and went out.
Elspeth waited a moment or two, then, sighing, stumped out to her multifarious garden jobs. She would miss Odd Tom sorely — dear, good little man — but, she thought, how entertained he would have been at the notion that the police chose to consider him a murderer. Won’t do no harm, he would say. Welcome to think that if they’ve a mind to.
Slowly, Miss Morgan began crumbling the damp warm soil to a fine tilth.
Shuna loitered up the hill, stopping at every corner to study the rivulets running down between the marble slabs, and to call, unavailingly, for Arkwright. Down by the church, she saw, the Greeks were clustered, busy as bees, getting the building ready for Odd Tom’s funeral. I must remind Aunt Elspeth about going into Dorchester to get flowers, Shuna thought. Odd Tom liked daisies best, he told me so. This was a great big field of daisies, once, when he and the Missus first moved here. Daisies are the best, he said, because they come in summer when it’s warm. I wonder if you can get daisies at a flower shop. Aunt Elspeth will know. Won’t Tom be pleased to see the Missus again.
Absently, her mind moving back to integers, she stooped and picked up a paperclip which Mr Vassiliaides the architect must have dropped, which had lodged between two of the marble steps.
Then she went slowly on to tap at Lady Fortuneswell’s door.
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Joan Aiken
Joan Aiken was born in Rye, Sussex in 1924, daughter of the American poet Conrad Aiken, and started writing herself at the age of five. Since the 1960s she wrote full time and published over 100 books. Best known for her children’s books such as The Wolves of Willoughby Chase and Midnight is a Place, she also wrote extensively for adults and published many contemporary and historical novels, including sequels to novels by Jane Austen. In 1968 she won the Guardian Children’s book prize for Whispering Mountain, followed by an Edgar Allan Poe award for Night Fall in 1972, and was awarded an MBE for her services to children’s literature in 1999. Joan Aiken died in 2004.
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Bello
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First published 1989 by Gollanz
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