by Sherri Bryan
Charlotte was enjoying the atmosphere. She’d just danced into the kitchen to fetch another jug of cream when Jess came in, a concerned look on her face.
“I’ve just heard them talking about Pippin,” she said, nodding to Tom’s family and referring to his West Highland Terrier. “Sounds like they’re going to rid of him. They’re not at all happy that they’ve been lumbered with a dog to look after. Thing is, something tells me that they’re not the type of people who’d go to the trouble of taking Pippin to an animal shelter. I reckon they’d be more likely to just drive somewhere, dump him in the street and drive off.”
“Oh, no! Don’t tell me that!” said Charlotte. “I can’t bear to think of what’s going to happen to him.” Her imagination ran riot, thinking of Pippin being terrorised by the children and yelled at - and worse - by the adults. She contemplated the situation for less than a minute before coming to a decision. “That’s it,” she said firmly, banging down the jug of cream onto the bar.
She went over to where Tom’s family were holding court.
“So the blonde woman said, ‘I hope you won’t hold it against me, Officer!’” Tom’s son, Ellis Potts, threw back his head and roared with laughter at his own, unfunny joke.
“Excuse me,” said Charlotte, raising her voice slightly to be heard above the raucous cackling.
Ellis, who fancied himself as something of a ladies’ man, turned and looked her up and down appreciatively. “And what can I do for you?” he asked.
“Um, I hope you don’t mind me asking, but I was wondering what’s going to happen to Pippin?” she asked, as pleasantly as she could and ignoring Ellis’s lecherous smile.
Blank stares met her inquiring gaze. “What the hell’s ‘Pippin’?” asked Ellis, scratching his head.
“Pippin. You know ... your father’s dog.” Good grief, thought Charlotte. They’ve been here for a week and they don’t even know who Pippin is.
“Oh, that little runt.” Miranda piped up. “Well, obviously, we’re not keeping him. If I’d had my way, he’d have already gone but we’ve had so much to organise, we haven’t had time to get rid of him. We’ll be taking him to the pound tomorrow,” she grinned spitefully.
“Not before time, if you ask me,” said Ellis’s wife, Rachel. “He’s done nothing but howl since Tom died - gets on my nerves.”
“Tell me about it,” said Victoria, Tom’s youngest daughter. “Even though I throw him outside every night, I can still hear him.”
Charlotte listened in horror. The weather had been dreadful recently – raging winds and torrential rain had made the lower than average temperatures seem even lower. How could they leave Pippin out in weather like that? She’d heard enough.
“Well, if you don’t mind, I’d like to take him,” she said. “Would that be possible?”
The words had barely left her mouth before Miranda Potts struck a deal. “Give me £600 and you can have him.”
“£600?!” squeaked Charlotte. “But you just said you were going to take him to the pound.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve just realised what a valuable asset dear little Pippin is, and I’ve changed my mind,” said Miranda, looking smugly around the table. “Tell you what. Why don’t you just tear up that invoice you were going to give us later, and we’ll call it quits?”
“Good call, Miranda!” said Ellis, raising his glass to his twin sister. “That’s the best news we’ve had since we’ve been in this dreary hole! God, I’d forgotten how dull it is here.”
£600 was the exact amount that Charlotte was charging for the exclusive hire of Charlotte’s Plaice for the party, the food, and an open bar. It was a heavily discounted rate, but she’d agreed to do it because it was for Tom.
What she hadn’t bargained on was that his children would take full advantage of her good nature at the first opportunity. As she glanced at their table, loaded with drinks, it was obvious that the open bar was something else they were taking full advantage of, too.
Charlotte thought of Pippin and bit the bullet. “OK, it’s a deal.” She stuck out her hand to Miranda, who spat into her palm before crushing Charlotte’s fingers in a vice-like grip. As Charlotte surreptitiously wiped her hand on the back of her jeans, she said, “Can I call round and collect him this evening? I can come straight round after I’ve closed up here. Would that be okay?”
Miranda shrugged. “Suit yourself. Just don’t come after nine, because we’ll be watching that new murder mystery on TV.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be there before then,” said Charlotte as she walked away with a slightly heavy heart.
“What was all that about?” Nathan was leaning against the bar, pulling the meat from a spare rib with his teeth.
Charlotte ran her fingers through her hair and sighed, shaking her head. “Put it this way. Before I went over there, I was a dog-less café owner, with payment pending on the bill for this lot.” She waved her hands in front of the food and bar to illustrate her point. “Suddenly, I’m £600 down on the deal, and before the day is out, I’ll be a dog owner. I’m taking Pippin.”
She quickly explained the conversation she’d had with Tom’s children to Nathan, repeatedly refusing his offers to take them to task about the conditions of the deal they’d made with her.
“Just leave it, Nathan. They didn’t force me into anything – it was my own decision. Seriously, just leave it.” She couldn’t help but grin at his stern face and squeezed his arm. “Really! Just forget about it. Okay?”
“Well, if you’re sure,” he replied, wiping his mouth on a serviette. “I hate to think that people are taking advantage of you.” He kissed the top of her head. “If you get any trouble from them, let me know.” He looked at his watch. “Right, I’ve got to get back to work. I’ll see you later.” He kissed her again and then he was gone.
“What lottery ticket?” Ellis Potts’ excited voice was loud enough to hear over the music and Charlotte turned to see who he was talking to. She saw Leo sitting at a table next to Tom’s family, all of them hanging on his every word.
“You didn’t know about the lottery ticket?” said Leo, sensing the opportunity to create a little intrigue. “Well, the day before your father was taken ill, he told us that he’d had some luck on the lottery.”
“How much did he win?” interrupted Victoria.
“Oh, he didn’t say how much he’d won. Your father was old school – he came from a time when it wasn’t considered good manners to talk about money. All he said was that it was a decent amount.”
“Well, where is it?” Greg Henderson asked his wife.
“How the hell should I know?” snapped Victoria. “I’ve only just found out about it myself.”
“Did you look through his wallet?” Rachel Potts demanded of her husband.
“What do you think?” replied Ellis. “That was the first thing I did when we arrived. There was definitely no lottery ticket in there.”
The family argued amongst themselves. Even Brandon and Bella looked up from their phones for long enough to have their say.
“Dad, don’t forget – if there’s enough money, I really need a new car,” said Brandon.
“Not before I’ve had my boob job,” whined Bella.
Ellis and Rachel stopped arguing and looked at their daughter, incredulously. “You’re seventeen years old – you are NOT having a boob job,” they said, in unison.
“Honestly, I don’t know where you get these ideas from,” said Rachel, pushing up her exceptionally ample bosom, which was threatening to escape from the v-neck of her close-fitting sweater. “Just because I’ve been blessed with naturally large breasts, you mustn’t be jealous, sweetheart.”
“OMG, Mum! I don’t want them made bigger – I want them made smaller!” said Bella in disgust. “They get in the way when I’m at judo practice. You thought I wanted them to look like yours? Eeeeewww … gross!”
Rachel shot her a withering look. “You’ll feel my hand around the back of your ear, young lady
, if you give me any more backchat.”
“Anyway, can we get back to the point,” said Ellis, impatiently. “This lottery ticket. It might not be for much, but if Dad went to the trouble of mentioning it and said it was for a decent amount, it must be worth finding.”
Miranda Potts sat quietly, listening to the conversation going on around her. Since negotiating the deal for Pippin, she had been lost in her own thoughts. Completely sober, she was the only member of the family who never let a drop of alcohol pass her lips since getting blind drunk at her and Ellis’s 21st birthday party, many years ago.
As her siblings and their respective partners argued fervently, she brought her hand down hard on the table.
“Listen!” Everyone stopped talking and looked at her in surprise. “When we get back to the cottage, I’m going to turn the place upside down until I find that ticket. And as I’m the only one responsible enough to look after it, I’m going to put it in my shoe for safekeeping until we’ve been told by the lottery claims office that the money is definitely ours.”
“Hold on. “Why should you be the one to decide who looks after the ticket?” said her brother-in-law, Greg, his irritation palpable. “What makes you more responsible than me?”
“My sentiments exactly,” said Victoria, sniffily. “We should put it to a vote.”
Miranda opened her mouth to respond, but before she could, her brother said, “As the oldest member of the family, if only by four minutes, and self-appointed spokesperson, I say that Miranda’s the obvious choice because she’s the only one of us who’ll remain sober enough to remember where the ticket is! All those in favour?”
He, Rachel and Miranda raised their hands, while Greg’s and Victoria’s remained firmly down.
“Just a minute. You can’t vote for yourself!” said Greg to Miranda. “That’s cheating!”
With a face like thunder, Miranda reluctantly lowered her hand.
“So, that makes two of us in favour, and two of us against,” said Greg. “Sorry, Ellis – looks like we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one.”
“Oh, no we won’t,” said Ellis. “Brandon! Bella! Get your hands in the air!”
To Greg and Victoria’s dismay, the young twins raised their hands, swinging the vote.
“Yesss!” Ellis punched the air. “To Miranda – the only sensible one among us!” He raised his glass to his twin, throwing a sneer at his brother-in-law.
Amid talk of the missing lottery ticket, big band tunes blaring out, and general merriment, no one noticed that certain revellers were eavesdropping on the Potts family’s conversation with great interest. The whereabouts of the winning lottery ticket had piqued the interest of a more than a few people. After all, finder’s keepers, as the old saying went.
Among the interested parties was a local reporter. She had covered the last crime in St. Eves and had got to know Tom quite well during the investigation. In amongst the crowd of people, nobody noticed her sidling up alongside the Potts family to listen as closely as she could. When she was happy that she’d heard enough, she sneaked out of the party and drove back to her office, speaking into her tape recorder all the way.
Chapter 3
When everyone had left the party and Charlotte and Jess had cleared up, Charlotte cycled straight round to Tom’s place. To her, it would always be Tom’s, no matter who lived there.
Thankfully, the rain had stopped, leaving the early evening air cool and fresh, and she rode straight through the deep puddles, her legs outstretched as the water splashed up to meet her.
She arrived at Tom’s and leaned her bike up against the wall. As she rang the bell, she could hear the kids yelling at each other on the other side, followed by a loud crash. More yelling … this time, the adults were joining in.
Charlotte waited patiently, wondering what would become of the little fisherman’s cottage.
She recalled Tom telling her that representatives from a firm of property developers regularly called round to see if they could persuade him to sell it to them. Of course, it wasn’t the cottage they wanted – it was the land on which it stood. Prime sea-facing, highly desirable land.
Tom would always send them away, telling them that he had no interest in selling - he was going to live out the rest of his days in the home he’d shared with his wife, Rose, since they’d married more than sixty years before.
Although Charlotte was happy enough with her own small, one bedroomed house with its small back garden, she would snap Tom’s cottage up in an instant if she could afford it. She would cherish it, just as he had, and would never let the developers get their hands on it. She had a feeling that if Tom’s children got wind of the developers’ interest, they would have no qualms about selling it to them, not caring in the least that they would bulldoze it flat.
With its uninterrupted view of the sea and beautiful garden, front and back, the cottage would be perfect for her, especially now that she was about to become a dog owner.
Charlotte had very little spare cash. The remainder of the money she’d been left by her parents had been put into long-term investments after she’d bought the café, and most of the profits from the business were ploughed straight back in.
She sighed as she realised that she’d just have to come to terms with the fact that the cottage was soon going to belong to new owners.
Startling her out of her daydream, Miranda Potts’ loud voice boomed through the door. “Who the hell is it?”
“It’s me, Charlotte … I’ve come to collect Pippin.”
Miranda cursed and opened the door. Charlotte could see a mobile phone on the floor behind her, smashed to pieces, which was evidently the cause of the argument in the background.
“Mum, she broke my phone!” shrieked Brandon.
“Oh, SHUT UP, you PIG! I HATE you!!” screamed his sister, Bella.
“Look at that phone! You think we’re made of money?!” screeched Rachel, her voice rising to an almost inaudible pitch.
“Leave it, love. We’ll have more than enough money soon enough to buy him ten phones,” said Ellis.
“Welcome to the madhouse,” scowled Miranda. “You’d better come in and get the mutt. He’s in the back garden.”
The stale smell of fried food hung in the air and as Charlotte took a breath to speak, she inhaled a lungful of cigarette smoke. None of the family even bothered to acknowledge her, but Charlotte preferred it that way – she hadn’t come to converse, just to get Pippin and get out.
She found him cowering under some bushes in the back garden, his chin resting forlornly on his paws. He would miss Tom dreadfully, but Charlotte was determined to give him lots of love and a good home. She kneeled down in front of him and spoke soothingly. “Pippin … c’mere boy. Let’s go home.”
When he saw her, he came running out and started chasing his tail. Round and round he went, before jumping onto Charlotte’s lap, his paws on her shoulders, and showering her with little, wet kisses. He could barely conceal his delight.
Charlotte handed Miranda her ripped-up invoice and asked, as pleasantly as she could, “Do you have his bed or any of his toys for me to take?”
Miranda laughed a joyless laugh. “That bed was the first thing to get thrown out – it stunk of dog. And we threw the toys out, too. That damn dog would leave them all over the place. It’s a wonder that one of us didn’t trip over them and break our neck.”
Charlotte had to bite the inside of her cheeks to stop herself from saying something she’d regret. Instead, she walked out of the house without another word, her little dog at her heels. It was beyond her comprehension that people could be so mean.
As she bent down to stroke Pippin, she could smell cigarette smoke on his coat and decided to stop off at the pet shop to buy some dog shampoo. She guessed that her clothes must stink of it, too, as she could still taste it on her tongue.
Cycling around the corner, she came to a stop at the shop. “Wait here, Pip - I won’t be a minute,” she said to Pippin, who
obediently sat down, his eyes never leaving her.
She picked up a bottle of dog shampoo, some dog food, a new bed, a basket, a food and water bowl and some new toys. As she waited to pay, she saw young Bella Potts on the other side of the street with a group of teenagers. They were Goths from Pensands, a nearby village, and Charlotte had seen them around a few times.
Bella was in deep conversation with the tallest, oldest-looking boy, and whatever they were discussing, it looked as though they were arguing.
Charlotte was debating on whether she should go over and check that Bella was okay, but when she saw her suddenly throw her arms around the boy’s neck and kiss him passionately, she decided that there was no need for her to intervene.
As she stacked her purchases in the basket on her bike, Charlotte suddenly thought, Wait a minute. How did Bella get here before I did? She was at the cottage when I left, wasn’t she? Or was she?
Charlotte cast her mind back and thought hard, before shaking her head.
No, she wasn’t there. I heard her arguing with her brother, but I didn’t actually see her. She must have gone out the back door after she threw his phone, and taken the shortcut into town. Yes, that would explain it, because she certainly didn’t leave through the front door. I’d have seen her if she did.
She finished packing her basket and cycled home, her new dog running happily behind her, barking all the way.
She didn’t see the figure in the shadows, watching her closely.
ººººººº
The next morning, Charlotte woke early. Nathan had come round for dinner the previous evening, but hadn’t stayed the night as he had a pile of paperwork at the station to get through. For the first time in months, Charlotte had enjoyed the luxury of having the bed all to herself … well, almost to herself.
Pippin had started off in his new dog bed, but when the rain had started again during the early hours, accompanied by loud claps of thunder, he’d taken a huge leap onto Charlotte’s bed, where he’d stayed for the remainder of the night, curled up next to her shoulder.
