How to Murder Your Mother-In-Law

by Dorothy Cannell

  “Don’t worry, Mum.” I spoke from the floor where I was picking up scones. “No one knows him hereabouts.”

  “If they don’t, they soon will!” Tricks bounced in her chair with enthusiasm. “Take my word for it, Elijah and his busking partner are going to be famous. They were singing a song of their own composition—‘The Fair Maid of Chitterton Fells.’ And I don’t suppose I need tell you that the woman who inspired it is sitting right here.”

  “Fancy that!” Mum drew upon some inner strength to come up with a thin congratulatory smile. “And here’s me thinking you had already made a name for yourself as the kind of woman who would drop her knickers at the drop of a hat.”

  If ever a moment called for immediate interruption, this was it. Lady Kitty did look pointedly at her watch, and Bridget did fidget with the handbag holding her cigarettes, but it was the opening of one of the windows and the appearance of a leg extending itself over the sill that saved the day!

  “Am I in time?” inquired my cousin Freddy as he sprang into the room with a grin as disreputable as his scraggy beard and unkempt ponytail. “A little bird told me that this meeting was for those wishing to audition for the job of reading tea leaves at the summer fête. And you know me, Ellie!” He scraped a bow, accompanied by a far-flung hand. “Have tent, will travel!”

  “He’s the limit,” I informed all and sundry, including Mrs. Pickle, who was still picking up scones and no doubt thinking that as the rightful descendant of a full-blooded witch, she was the one with the third eye.

  “Auditions?” Lady Kitty looked quite put out. “But surely you know, Ellie, that Frizzy Taffer’s aunt Ethel always reads the tea leaves. “Hers is a true gift. She’s been in constant communication with her husband, Herbert, since he passed over to the other side.”

  “I’m surprised,” I responded, “that he takes her phone calls.”

  “What’s that?” One of Lady Kitty’s eyebrows went up and didn’t come down.

  “Just a joke,” I said, not liking to repeat Frizzy’s sad admission that Aunt Ethel was believed by her nearest and dearest to have pushed Uncle Herbert down the stairs to his death.

  “The occult is no joking matter.” Freddy smiled wanly in my direction as he moved about the room, hands extended, eyes half closed. He had us right where he wanted us. Lady Kitty on her podium. Bridget in her armchair. Mum and Tricks on their opposing sofas. Mrs. Pickle still on her knees. And yours truly not knowing whether she was coming or going.

  “Those of us who see beyond the immediacy of the moment bear a heavy burden.” So saying, he crossed swiftly over to the table in front of the window and plucked one of Tricks’s bulbous red tomatoes from the brown paper bag. “But don’t let me frighten you.” He bit thoughtfully into the oozing red flesh. “I see fame and fortune, a handsome man of noble lineage, and a journey across the sea for someone in this room.”

  “Anything else?” Being a fool, I had to egg him on.

  “Like sudden death?” Mum was looking at Tricks.

  “As in murder?” Freddy’s grin was made the more ghoulish by the bloodred juice dripping onto his chin. “That’s certainly one way of taking destiny back into our own two hands.”

  Morning can be extremely kind and sympathetic when it feels like it. On waking up the next day after a nightmare that was longer than Gone With the Wind, without even the hope of a sequel to provide a happy ending, I was really ashamed of myself for letting a trivial thing like blackmail ruin a night’s sleep. As a woman on the go, I had to expect such occasional inconveniences and get on with my life.

  Ben had the twins in their booster chairs and a cup of coffee ready for me when I entered the kitchen. What more could a woman ask, except perhaps the right to call her sins her own?

  “You’ve got that look in your eyes,” he said without glancing up from wiping the breakfast off Tam’s face.

  “What look?”

  “The one that says you’re hiding something.”

  “Such as?” I laughed glibly.

  “Something really serious.”

  “Like what?”

  “You forgot to buy toilet paper or scorched one of my shirts.” He was now looking at me, more in sorrow than in anger. “These things happen, sweetheart, and you have to learn to forgive yourself. What bothers me is that you sometimes forget that marriage is about communication.”

  “Hark, who’s talking!” If I had learned one thing from wedded bliss, it was how to turn the tables. “I could hardly get two words out of you last night about your meeting with your father.”

  “You’re right.” He stood, rinsing off the facecloth at the sink. “But there wasn’t much to say. Dad was heading out of the Dark Horse when I went to see him on my way to work. And later, when I caught up with him in the village square, I could barely get near him for the crowd he and his partner had attracted.”

  “Did you at least find out if he is staying on at the pub, or whether he plans to camp out under his umbrella?” I removed Abbey from her chair and set her down on the floor.

  “There was no talking to him. Each time I tried, I got elbowed out of the way by some person tossing coins into the collection box like it was some good-luck fountain. As it was, I could barely hear myself think above the strumming of the sidekick’s guitar and Dad’s booming baritone.”

  “What is to be done?” I put Tam on the floor, where he could squabble with his sister. “He and Mum are growing further apart daily.”

  “Parents are a worry.” Ben shrugged into his tobacco-coloured tweed jacket, took a slug of coffee, and gave me a token peck on the cheek. “Two are enough, Ellie, I really don’t think I want to have any more.”

  “Say, ‘Bye-bye, Daddy,’ ” I urged the twins, and got ignored for my trouble. Who could reasonably blame them for wanting a little time to themselves? For a few moments I, too, relished the quiet, but before I had finished turning over the front page of the newspaper, I realized my ears were on the alert for a repeat of yesterday, when people never stopped knocking on the door.

  I was pouring myself a second cup of coffee when there came the rat-tat-tap so urgent I felt compelled to answer it. But before I could raise a foot to go and open up, Freddy slouched into the kitchen. What a sight for sore eyes! He had shaved his beard down to a convict’s stubble. His ponytail looked as if it had been used for sweeping up, and his shirt had a rip that exposed one nipple.

  “You hate me, don’t you, Ellie?” He stepped neatly over the twins to lounge soulfully against the Welsh dresser.

  “Never!” I cried. “My little tea party would have been deadly dull if you hadn’t come climbing in through the window to send chills through everyone present.”

  “Then what is your excuse,” he asked pitifully, “for not welcoming me with a piping hot plate of bacon and eggs? Surely you haven’t forgotten, Ellie, that this is my day off?” Having got that off his semi-exposed chest, Freddy dragged out a chair, spun it around, and sat straddling the seat. “If you’ll cross my palm with silver, coz, I’ll read your cup.”

  “Thanks, Gypsy Rose Lee. But I think you exhausted your talents yesterday.”

  “The ladies loved me.”

  “So you always say.” I bent down to hand Abbey the building block she needed to complete her wobbly stack. “But if you don’t mind, I have more important things on my mind than your escapades.”

  “Mother-in-law troubles?” Not being a complete cad, Freddy achieved an expression of familial concern.

  “Yes, to put it in a nutshell.”

  “She’s being difficult?”

  “More accurately, she’s having a difficult time.” Opening a cupboard, I pulled out a frying pan. “But heaven forbid that should come between you and a good breakfast.”

  “You’re too good to me.” Freddy dabbed his eyes before giving the chair a spin that sent it skidding across the floor to stop with its legs tucked neatly under the table. “How would you like me to take you out for a cheap, greasy lunch?”

>   “Thanks”—I slapped rashers of bacon into the pan—“but I am having lunch at Pomeroy Manor with Lady Kitty.”

  “You’re coming up in the world.”

  “We are meeting to talk about the fête.”

  “I thought you did that yesterday.”

  “Today we’ll be discussing where to rent the little Bunsen burners for the jacket potatoes and how many gallons of lemonade we will need. Which reminds me”—I cracked an extra egg into the pan for luck—“when do you plan to go around collecting money for supplies?”

  “Tomorrow, cross my heart and hope to die!” Freddy approached his nose to the stove and in the process almost lost what remained of his beard. “I would go today, but I think duty might be better served by my staying and chatting up the old girl while you’re off gadding.”

  I brushed past him on my way to the table. “Promise me that when you show up at people’s doors with your little tin can you will look respectable.”

  Before he could respond with more than a wounded look, the door opened and in came Mum, wearing a dressing gown that looked as if it had been passed down from an older sister and had yet to be grown into.

  “I thought I smelled cooking, Ellie, but don’t bother laying a place for me. I’ll turn right around and go back to my room so you can have a nice, private chat with your cousin, as is your right.”

  “My! You do look fetching this morning!” Flopping down in a chair, Freddy cranked his legs up so the heels of his wretched sneakers rested on the table edge. “Don’t ask me what it is, but there’s something different about you. Something kind of nifty.”

  “Ellie did curl my hair yesterday.…”

  “Gosh! That’s more than she’s ever done for me.”

  “I’m sure she’s very good to you … in her way.” Mum completed her compliment by sitting down at the table. And flushed, less from the heat of cooking than the realization that she and I had indeed made progress yesterday, I put a plate of bacon and eggs in front of her.

  “This looks quite nice, even if the egg is a bit runny.” She poked at it with her fork. “But a piece of toast would have been sufficient.” Her words still hung in the air when the hall door nudged open and Sweetie made her grand entrance. For a harrowing moment I thought Mum was going to set her breakfast plate on the floor. Instead, she bowed her head and said grace, then gathered up her knife and fork. It would seem an example must be set if she wished to prevent her little dog from becoming a picky eater.

  Sweetie was showing her annoyance by refusing to let the twins grab hold of her tail, when Jonas came humphing and grumphing into the room.

  “Didn’t you hear the breakfast gong?” Freddy tilted his chair on its hind legs and lowered a piece of bacon down his throat with the panache of a sword swallower.

  “He can have some of mine,” Mum said quickly. And there was something about the way she subsequently passed Jonas the salt and pepper that had me worried. There is a bit of the temptress in every woman, and I doubted not that Mum was still smarting from her latest go-round with Tricks. A complication for which we had no one to thank but yours truly.

  “Don’t mind me, I can always come back next Tuesday.” Jonas planted his elbows on the table and stuck out his moustache. Unlike me, he was very much a morning person and usually saved his grumpiness as a sort of treat—to be savoured later in the day. Immediately, I worried that he wasn’t feeling well. Could it be that his lumbago was acting up? Or was the problem something more serious? As I poured him a cup of coffee, my mind shied away from the thought that love-sickness, like mumps, might be the more severe for attacking later in life. Nonsense, I told myself, the man didn’t have serious designs on Mum. His marriage proposal had been made merely to boost her spirits during a trying time.

  Perhaps I needed to get out of the house for lunch. But first things first. Abbey and Tam were getting restless so, leaving my kitchen crew to do the washing-up, I took them for a toddle around the garden and afterwards to the nursery to read to them from one of our favourite picture books. Then there were beds to make, washing to be done and hung out on the line, and a half-dozen odd jobs, so that time got away from me, and I would have had to scurry to get the twins fed if Mum had not offered to do this for me.

  “I don’t know how I managed without you,” I said in my new spirit of appreciation after getting dressed for my outing. She had the washing-up done, Abbey and Tam down for their naps, and was at the kitchen table crocheting at a speed that made me fear her fingers would fly off.

  “You go and have a good time, Ellie!” Her eyes followed me to the door. “Don’t think about me sitting here by myself.”

  “Jonas is in the garden,” I offered.

  “I know, but I’m trying to keep my distance until I decide about marrying him.”

  “What about patching things up with Dad?” I tried not to sound panicky.

  “That’s not going to happen.” Mum’s nose twitched right along with her crochet hook. “If Beatrix can make him happy, who am I to stand in his way? Let her have him. Marriage to a busker isn’t for me, thank you very much. My parents would turn in their graves.”

  What stick-in-the-muds!

  While backing the car out of the stable, I considered buzzing down to the village square to see Dad and give him a piece of my mind. My confidence in my ability to meddle was undaunted, but a glance at my watch suggested I might be wise to go straight to Pomeroy Manor. Once through the iron gates and heading down Coast Road, I fixed my mind in a straight line, refusing to let it veer left or right. The morning had been clear, if not exactly bright and breezy. Now a mist was creeping up from the ground in trailing wisps—as yet no bigger than puffs of smoke from a cigarette but promising bigger and better things to come. I was thinking, as I turned onto Market Street, that we hadn’t had a good healthy fog in some time, when who should I see standing on the near corner but Frizzy Taffer, complete with headscarf. Her hands were laden with shopping bags so that it seemed unconscionable to pass by with a toot and a wave. What could Lady Kitty do to me if I arrived at Pomeroy Manor ten minutes late? Order that I be put in the stocks? Besides, it might not be a bad idea to ask Frizzy if she, too, had heard from the blackmailer. Which reminded me—Clutching the handbag at my side, I had to stop by the hollow tree on my way to the manor and make my deposit.

  Pulling up alongside the curb, I rolled down the window and asked, “Want a lift?”

  “Are you sure it’s no trouble?” Was it only the shopping that made Frizzy look as if she had the weight of the world in her hands?

  “Hop in!”

  “This is nice of you, Ellie.” Arms cradling her bags, she leaned back in her seat as the car took off. “Tricks says she had a wonderful time at your house yesterday. Nonstop laughs is the way she put it.”

  “There were some fun moments.” I struggled to remember what they were.

  “I hear your cousin Freddy is a scream.” Frizzy swayed towards me as we rounded a curve, and I caught a good look at her face.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked. “And don’t tell me nothing, because it’s written all over you. Has Tricks poached any more goldfish, or …?”

  “Oh, Ellie, it’s my aunt Ethel. She’s really a lovely person and the children are ever so fond of her, really they are—even Dawn, for all she sometimes calls Ethel a nasty old cow. Auntie almost had a fit when Tricks went and blabbed about your cousin wanting to do the tea leaf readings at the fête.”

  “He was doing a leg pull.” I turned on the windscreen wipers to get rid of the mist.

  “That’s what it sounded like to me, but Auntie was already in one of her tempers over what happened with my hair. Tom was really worried that she would knock Tricks out cold and”—Frizzy pressed a hand to her headscarf—“who needs that sort of thing in front of the children? It took me a good hour last night to get Auntie calmed down and afterwards … well, it couldn’t be more awkward; she’s decided to move in with us until Tricks moves out.”

&nb
sp; “If it doesn’t rain, it pours,” I said, looking up at the rapidly darkening sky.

  “Really, Ellie, under normal circumstances I’d be glad to have her. Auntie practically brought me up, so I’ve learned to make allowances when she flies off the handle into one of her shouting fits, but what with children, and the neighbours being so difficult, and the upset with Mrs. Pickle …”

  “What was that about?” I turned onto Robert Road.

  “It was all Dawn’s fault, the naughty girl. Would you believe she stamped and screamed—just the way Auntie does—and accused Mrs. Pickle of stealing her Barbie dolls. As if the woman would want them! Honestly, I didn’t know where to look. My face must have gone as red as my hair … what there is of it.”

  “Was Mrs. Pickle upset?”

  “She took her time—the way she does everything else, but when Dawn suggested we search her bag, she did flare up. And who could blame her? I didn’t think I would ever stop apologizing. And I felt so sorry for the poor woman, knowing she had to go straight from our house to work at the vicarage.”

  “And you didn’t look in the bag?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Mrs. Pickle didn’t insist?”

  “If she had, I would have died on the spot.” We were now on Kitty Crescent. As we closed in on Frizzy’s house, she exclaimed, “Look, there’s Aunt Ethel at the gate, waiting for me. At least Tricks doesn’t make me feel like a kid. In fact, most of the time I feel years older than her.”

  I pulled the car up against the curb. “I’m sorry you’ve been having such a difficult time.”

  “I deserve some sort of punishment for being a bad girl at the Dark Horse the other night.”

  Here was my cue to talk to her about the blackmailer. But surely if the money-grubber had put the squeeze on Frizzy, that would have topped her list of today’s problems. And what was the point of scaring her on the off chance that he—or she—might phone? For all I knew, whoever it was might not even be aware of Frizzy’s involvement in the mother-in-law plot. Or the villain could have decided it wasn’t worth the cost of a phone call attempting to get money out of someone who didn’t have it and who might in a state of desperation turn around and go to the police.