A Dash Of Pepper

by Sam Short

  “It’s pronounced Grin-der,” said Pepper. “Grin as in smile, and der as in — how der you mispronounce my name!”

  “That’s not how you pronounce dare,” dared the policewoman.

  “I rhymed dare with fur to make a point!” protested Pepper. “How dare you!”

  “Is this a regular misunderstanding, Miss Grinder?” asked the sergeant. “Because I feel like it might be.”

  “It happens from time to time,” Pepper admitted.

  The policewoman nodded. “Have you thought of hyphenating it?” she asked.

  “She’s right,” said one of the men still seated behind Pepper. “That would help. You can’t blame people for being confused.”

  “Certainly not,” said the woman sitting next to him. “It’s a tricky one.”

  “If I want the advice of a bunch of criminals in a police station waiting room, I’ll ask,” said Pepper. She raised an eyebrow at the young woman in the doorway. “Now… are we going to waste any more time, or are you going to interview me so that I may get on with my day?”

  Chapter 2

  With a single table, its surface pockmarked and scratched, the bleak decor of the interview room came as no surprise to Pepper. It wasn’t the first time she’d been in a police interview room, and she was confident that it wouldn’t be the last.

  The one thing that did surprise her, made her skin crawl, and caused a shudder of awful self-awareness to traverse her spine, was the wall overlooking the table.

  Instead of the peeling green paint she’d been used to in the interview rooms of the police station in the last town she’d lived in, the wall in Picklebury Police Station interview room was covered in a vast sheet of disappointment glass. Sucking in a breath as the glass seemed to taunt her, Pepper followed the sergeant into the room and placed her bag on the table.

  Risking a sneaky peak, Pepper quickly looked away from her reflection, reaching for the strand of greying hair she’d seen hanging over her forehead, and hiding it behind a less age defining strand. Was it really time for more colour? It felt like it had only been a week since she’d thrown a towel in the bin, ruined as it had been by Burnt Orange dye.

  Not allowing her eyes to wander back to the enormous expanse of glass, however tempted they were, Pepper sat down and folded her arms. “Is that a two-way mirror?” she asked. “I feel like I have a right to know.”

  The sergeant placed a file on the table and sat down, too. She shook her head and smiled. “No,” she said. “It used to be, but the room on the other side is now a storeroom, and the other side of the mirror is covered by plasterboard. It’s a relic of the past.” She pointed a sharpened pencil at one of the corners above Pepper’s head. “It’s all done by cameras these days.”

  “Good,” said Pepper. “I don’t like the idea of there being people on the other side of a mirror. It’s creepy.”

  “I agree,” said the sergeant. She gave Pepper a smile which almost disarmed her. “I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Sergeant Saxon, and it’s my duty to remind you that you are not under arrest. You are here voluntarily, and you have the right to leave whenever you wish, although that may lead to your arrest at a later date. Do you understand, Miss… Grin…der?”

  Pepper gave a brisk nod of her head. “That’s right. It rhymes with tinder. And yes, I understand I’m free to leave. It’s not the first time I’ve been given a police warning.”

  Sergeant Saxon studied the open file on the table before her. “No,” she said. “I’d noticed. You received three warnings from the police force in Matlock for a similar misdemeanour.” She looked up, the friendly lines of her face suddenly harsh. “You seem to have an infatuation with guerrilla gardening. Would that be a fair comment?”

  “I do not partake in guerrilla gardening,” said Pepper. “Guerrilla gardeners plant shrubs and trees in places they shouldn’t, in the hope of brightening up an otherwise dull town or city. I save the lives of plants that have already been planted. That’s all. And I don’t charge the homeowners for the privilege of my services.”

  “You trespass on people’s property, Miss Grinder, and dig up their plants. I don’t imagine the homeowners feel the need to consider themselves privileged,” noted Sergeant Saxon.

  “Perhaps they should,” said Pepper. “I charge some of my customers thousands of pounds for my services!”

  The policewoman scanned the file, her brown eyes making quick work of the page. She raised her face and looked at Pepper. “You’re a botanist,” she stated.

  “No, I am not!” said Pepper. “I knew the constable you sent to my home wasn’t listening when he was writing my details down. I told him, like I told him my surname name was Grin—der and not Grinder, that I am a botanical consultant. A botanist is a scientist — a person who studies the intricate biology of plants. I am somebody who instinctively understands the needs of a plant. People use my services to save the lives of cherished plants or to help them plan their garden before they plant their shrubs. I specifically explained this to the constable, Sergeant Saxon!”

  “He only had one line to write your job description on,” said the sergeant. “Perhaps he considered the word botanist to be sufficient.”

  Annoyance flaring, Pepper gave a frustrated sigh. “He may think so, but he’d be wrong.”

  “Job description aside,” said Sergeant Saxon. “It was your interest in plants which led to you trespass in the grounds of Highridge House on Monday of last week and commit criminal damage. Is that a fair comment?”

  “Before we go on,” said Pepper. “I’d be obliged if you’d provide me with any evidence which proves it was me who committed the alleged crime.”

  The policewoman carefully placed her pencil on the table and fixed Pepper with cautionary eyes. “Miss Grinder, you already confessed to the constable who visited you yesterday. For that reason, combined with the fact that the owner of Highridge House has stated that she no longer wishes you to be prosecuted, due to the fact that her azalea has flourished in the week since you were caught in her garden, you’re receiving a warning instead of being charged with a criminal offence. I can still choose to charge you, though, Miss Grinder. I have evidence which proves a crime was committed — if I wanted it to prove that. Are you sure you want to sound so argumentative?”

  Pepper sighed. “The constable told me you had some sort of CCTV footage?”

  “Indeed,” said the sergeant. “I could play it for you if you like but let me tell you that it’s very clear footage. The owner of Highridge House can afford to purchase the very best in security equipment. The footage her state-of-the-art cameras captured shows you cycling up to the locked gates of the property at…” She glanced at the file. “Ten-fourteen on the morning of Monday last week. You rode away, and then twenty minutes later you returned, this time you were equipped to commit a crime.”

  Pepper widened her eyes and gasped. “No, I was not!”

  “That’s how the evidence could be understood,” warned Sergeant Saxon. “If a suspected burglar is caught with a screwdriver or other tool used for prising open windows or doors, then he or she can be charged with going equipped for theft.”

  “I was not going equipped for theft,” protested Pepper. “I was going equipped to garden!”

  “I’m simply stating how the evidence could be read if the homeowner had not decided to ask us to drop the charges against you, Miss Grinder,” said the policewoman. “As I was saying, you returned twenty minutes later with a trowel and a bag of ericaceous compost in the basket of your bicycle.”

  “You’re telling me that a CCTV camera can read what is printed on a bag of compost?” said Pepper.

  The sergeant smiled. “The cameras in question are very powerful, Miss Grinder. So powerful that not only were we able to read what was printed on the bag from the footage provided to us, we were also able to make a positive identification of the woman throwing the bag of compost and the trowel over the wall, and then leaping over after them. The cameras provided
footage of such high clarity that we were able to make out each individual patch on the lady’s denim jacket. A denim jacket which looks very much like the one you’re wearing today.”

  “I’m sure I’m not the only female in Picklebury to wear a denim jacket,” said Pepper.

  Pointing at the right breast pocket of Pepper’s jacket, Sergeant Saxon smiled. “A jacket with a Rolling Stones patch on that pocket? A Van Halen patch on the other breast pocket, and a large Pink Floyd patch, which, if I asked you to turn around and show me your back, would be present on the very jacket you’re wearing?” She raised her right eyebrow. “Not to mention the numerous pinned badges which adorn your jacket, Miss Grinder.”

  “It sounds like an excellent camera,” admitted Pepper, dropping her eyes to the table.

  “It is,” confirmed the sergeant. “It also recorded you digging up the recently planted azalea which the homeowners had added to their garden, moving it to a position thirty feet away, and replanting it. Strange behaviour, wouldn’t you say, Miss Grinder?”

  “I didn’t know it was an azalea until you told me,” said Pepper. “But I don’t consider it to be strange behaviour. I’d say it was helpful behaviour. I knew the plant was struggling to survive in the position it was planted in, so I moved it to an area with a little more shade and added a little acidic compost to the soil. That’s all that happened.”

  “You knew the plant was in the wrong position just by peering through the bars of a gate?” said Sergeant Saxon. “Yet you didn’t know it was an azalea, although you’re a… botanical consultant?”

  “I don’t know the names of most plants,” explained Pepper. “I just know what they need.”

  “By looking at them through the bars of a gate?” asked the sergeant. “When they’re planted almost halfway up a two-hundred-foot-long garden? That’s quite a feat.”

  If the short police sergeant with the big brown eyes and pretty lips thought that was quite a feat, Pepper imagined she’d fall off her seat if she learned the truth.

  Pepper sometimes liked to imagine how she’d tell people the truth if she were allowed to. In this case, she’d plant both elbows firmly on the table, lean towards the young woman and smile at her. Then she’d narrow her eyes and say, ‘I’m a witch, Sergeant Saxon. I’m a witch of the earth, and as a witch of the earth, I’m as aware of the plants that grow in the earth as you’re aware of that pimple on your chin. The one you’ve attempted to cover with makeup but is still quite visible. Plants speak to me, Sergeant. Not using words, and not in a way I can put into sentences which you’d understand, but they communicate with me! Yes, Sergeant! You heard that correctly! I’m a witch who plants speak to! Ha ha ha!’

  Then, when the sergeant reeled backwards in shock and reached for the radio hanging from her jacket, panicking as she screamed into it, begging for immediate assistance, Pepper would tilt her chin heavenward and cackle in the way she’d often practised as a child, before grabbing her denim bag from the table and reaching inside. All the way inside! Her whole arm disappearing into the depths as the policewoman looked on in shock. ‘Yes!’ Pepper would say. ‘It’s a bottomless bag! And inside it, I have a wand with which I could change your life forever!’

  The terrified sergeant would stare at Pepper as she took her wand from the bag, rotating the finest handcrafted English oak masterpiece between finger and thumb as she waved it in the air, the tip dripping a stream of green sparks. ‘Do you mean you’ll turn me into a toad?’ the terrified sergeant would ask, frozen with fear.

  Pepper would look away, a little ashamed, and say, ‘I can’t do that, no. But I could give your glossy black hair split-ends or give that fat pimple of yours a few friends! Maybe you’d like a double chin to soften that perfectly shaped pixie face of yours, or a few extra pounds added to that pert little bottom you —’

  “Miss Grinder? Are you alright? You seem to have drifted off. Would you like some water?”

  Pepper blinked and cleared her throat. She shook her head and gave the sergeant a tired smile. “No. Thank you. I’m fine. Can we get this over with? I know I did wrong. Can I just be given my police warning so I can go home, please? I’m expecting a visitor.”

  Chapter 3

  With the crumpled-up police warning deep in her bottomless bag, along with a pile of junk mail she’d been meaning to recycle for two months, Pepper placed her denim bag in the wicker basket secured to the front of her bicycle and swung her leg over the seat.

  The toe of her right boot finding a pedal, she pushed away from the pavement and into the road, happy to be breathing fresh air again instead of the stale air of a police station interior.

  Cycling past limestone buildings embellished with weather-worn sandstone dressings, Pepper sniffed at the air, enjoying the aromas that Picklebury High Street had to offer. Her mouth watered as she smelled baking bread and cakes rolling from the open door of the bakery near the war memorial, and she used all her willpower to keep cycling towards the canal towpath as she zoomed past the Country Bumpkin pub and received a face full of beer fumes and an ear full of music and laughter.

  Vinegar shaken over hot fish and chips tempted her as she passed Betty & Bills Fish and Chip Bar, and it was with a smile on her face that she rode past the little florist’s shop and was rewarded with scents of the sweetest perfumes that nature had to offer.

  Taking the tight turning which took her alongside one of the three canal bridges in Picklebury, Pepper dismounted and carried her bike down the steps to the towpath below, the sound of her pedals striking stone bouncing off the old bridge walls.

  Heading east along the towpath, she passed the colourful floating narrowboat homes moored tightly against the bank-side and grunted a reply to the greeting offered by an angler as he baited his hook. And then, as she twisted her handlebars to avoid a moorhen with a death wish, she saw it.

  Nestled in grass and wildflowers and ignored by the ducks who foraged for food alongside it, its metal clasp reflected the sun, and the bright red of its construction made it easy to spot.

  If she breathed out hard and tilted her bike to the right, she was just able to touch the purse with her fingertips without dismounting, and with a little extra effort and a grunt, she was able to snag a corner between finger and thumb.

  Upright once more, she opened the purse and was greeted by the face of the woman who’d been so rude to her in the police station. The name on the library card, tucked into the see-through plastic compartment, was Miss Agnes Mowbray. Agnes… Pepper wasn’t sure the name suited the woman from the police station. Agnes was a friendly name, yet Miss Mowbray had been far from friendly when Pepper had offered her a farewell smile.

  Pepper delved deeper into the purse, frustrated that there was no other identification and nothing with an address on it. How on earth did Agnes expect to have her lost property returned if her purse contained no address? There were credit cards and money in the purse, but there was no driving licence or anything else that would help Pepper track her down.

  Wondering if Agnes hadn’t been able to find the bright red purse amongst the dark green of the grass because she was short-sighted as well as rude, Pepper put the purse in her bag. She looked at her watch as she pondered what to do next. She could take the purse to the police station immediately, and risk being late for her sister’s visit, or she could get home on time and take the purse to the police station the following morning.

  Not nervous of her sister, but not wanting to argue with her either, Pepper put boot to pedal, dodged a duck, and continued east. The purse could wait until tomorrow. Agnes Mowbray, the woman with the rude face, could wait until tomorrow.

  As a warm breeze blew over her face and the trees lining the opposite bank proudly projected their reflections on the rippled canal surface, Pepper began whistling as she headed home. Never knowing what song her lips were going to produce when she started whistling, she was pleased to hear the first few bars of The Chain by Fleetwood Mac rolling from her mouth, and by the time s
he’d reached the part of the song in which the bass guitar strummed out the notes the song was famous for, she’d stopped whistling and was producing a loud mix of humming and singing which bounced across the canal like a skimming stone.

  Her spirits rising as she pedalled, Pepper made short work of the mile of towpath between the bridge near her cottage and the canal bridge in Picklebury town centre, and as she climbed off her bike in readiness to haul the cycle up the steps alongside the bridge and onto the country lane above her, she paused as she heard voices.

  “Won’t you say yes?” came the deep pleading tones of a man. “My love for you is greater than anything I have ever known, and anything I’m ever likely to know! My heart swells so large with my love for you that it aches!”

  Placing a hand on her own fluttering heart, Pepper looked up at the walls of the bridge. She could see nobody, but the soft voice of a woman told her the man wasn’t speaking to himself. “Is your love for me greater than your love for the clouds? Than your love for those dangerous machines? Than your love for war?”

  “I would never leave solid ground again if it were my choice!” replied the man. “I would choose your hand in marriage over anything this world could offer me, my dearest Emily. I would die in return for living just one day as your husband. I would give up all I own to hear you be called Mrs Hayhurst! Say you’ll be my wife, Emily! Say you’ll allow me to love you for the rest of my days!”

  Pepper held her breath. She was quite obviously witnessing a proposal, and a glorious one at that.

  “Oh, Charles!” said the woman. “But how many days might that be? Twenty-thousand? One thousand? One hundred?” A pause, broken only by wind blowing gently beneath the canal bridge and rustling the fronds of a willow tree as it emerged on the other side. “One day?”

  Trying her best to be silent, Pepper awaited the man’s answer with nervous anticipation, unable to imagine how nervous the man himself might be.