by Ann Purser
Terror on Tuesday
( Lois Meade - 2 )
Ann Purser
Feisty Lois, part cleaner, part amateur sleuth, is once more involved in solving murder – and this time, not one but two murders most mysterious. Once more her job is tailor-made for snooping, taking her into the houses and secrets of possible suspects. Lois has now moved to the village of Long Farnden (familiar to readers of Murder on Monday), and is setting up her own cleaning business, New Brooms, with a staff of four and a growing list of clients. Lois’s love/hate relationship with Detective Inspector Hunter Cowgill is renewed when she comes upon a weird demise with theatrical connections. She can hardly refuse to help Cowgill, and is drawn in, not entirely unwillingly. In the end… well, it’s worth waiting for! Suffice to say that there is terror, addiction, perversion and sadness. Just like life, really.
Ann Purser
Terror on Tuesday
Lois Meade #2
2003, EN
∨ Terror on Tuesday ∧
One
“I used to carry a knife,” Lois said conversationally, “when I was at school.” She had not bothered to lower her voice, and grinned at Derek’s expression.
He looked at her across the pub table. Lois Meade, his wife of nearly seventeen years, still a smart girl and making heads turn, and still with the same challenge in her eye as when he’d first seen her serving in Woolworths. She’d just left school then, to the relief of her parents and teachers, and it had been instant lust on his part. He knew she’d had a fairly wild youth, but this latest revelation was new. They’d been talking about the lawlessness of today’s kids, and about their own, who were safely at school, when Lois dropped her carefully calculated bombshell.
“No need to tell the whole pub,” he said calmly, rising bravely to the challenge.
“Yeah, well, things don’t change all that much,” said Lois, downing the rest of her beer. She looked at her watch, and stood up. “Time I went,” she said, and leaned across to kiss Derek firmly on the cheek. “See you later, then.” She walked across the bar with her loping stride, and was gone.
“Ahem,” said a tall, soldierly man standing at the bar. “I could not help overhearing Mrs Meade, and I must disagree. In my view,” he added, clearing his throat again, “today’s youngsters are totally out of control. Quite different from my day.”
Derek did not answer, but nodded and finished the ploughman’s he had shared with Lois. He was rewiring the Waltonby pub, a long job, and she had joined him for his lunch break.
However, the barmaid, a confident, chatty nineteen-year-old, dark and quick, laughed. “That was a long time ago, Major,” she said. “Things are bound to change. Now then, drink up and have another to give you strength.”
She straightened her short skirt, turned to refill his glass from the Teacher’s optic, and winked at the delivery man who was dumping crates in the storeroom behind the bar. “Hi, Darren!” she called. “Time for a quick one?”
The bar was not full, being a weekday, but half a dozen or so people looked up and smiled. The unmistakable innuendo was to them an extra something to brighten the day. But the major, standing so straight, banged his hand down on the bar and said loudly, “That’s quite enough of that, young lady! This has always been a respectable pub, as our landlord should have told you.” He sniffed, turned around on his heel, and walked out, followed obediently by a small, brown terrier, one ear up and one down.
“What’s eating him, Hazel?” said Derek, looking across at the barmaid. He’d seen the major in here most days since he’d started work on the rewiring, but had not taken much notice. One of those retired military blokes with not enough to do, he’d reckoned. Now he was curious; Lois had obviously roused him from his usual dignified silence. Derek waited for Hazel to finish dealing with the delivery, then asked her again, “Funny kind of bloke, isn’t he?” he said.
She laughed. “Oh, he’s all right. I expect I annoyed him, reminding him that he was old. Quite fancies himself, does the major! Likes to chat us girls up, in his slimy way. We go along with it, so long as he doesn’t go too far. Geoff doesn’t mind, do you?” she added, addressing the landlord, who had just come in with a plate of cod and chips.
The conversation became general, and Derek gathered that the major was called Todd-Nelson, lived alone in the village, came into the pub most days, and enjoyed the company of the young barmaids. He seldom talked to anyone else, and was very much a creature of habit.
Huh! thought Derek, not nasty habits, I hope. He didn’t really approve of these young girls serving behind the bar, especially late at night when things could get rough. His own daughter, Josie, now fifteen, was already talking about the time when she’d be able to earn a bit of money serving drinks. “Everybody does it,” she’d said. Like going clubbing, another of Josie’s goals in life. He sighed, then put it out of his mind. Lois would handle it, when the time came. He was confident of that.
“Right, Geoff,” he said. “Back to work.” He took his plate over to the bar, and Hazel smiled at him.
“Cheer up,” she said. “It may never happen.”
♦
Lois Meade sat in her small office, chewing the end of a pen and studying a list she had made on a piece of paper in front of her. The office had once been a doctor’s surgery in a big, solid house, four-square brick, with a small garden fronting Long Farnden High Street. Lois had been the doctor’s cleaner, and now here she was, moved from a council house in nearby Tresham, settled with her family, who had spread gratefully into the unaccustomed space. There was even a large garden at the back where Derek grew vegetables, and escaped from the usual turmoil of family life with three growing kids.
Josie, the fifteen-year-old, was first, then Douglas, nearly thirteen, and Jamie had been the last. Now eleven, he went with the others to school in the nearby town of Tresham. He sometimes called on his grandmother, who still lived on the estate and claimed she missed them all more than they missed her. “Your Lois has got ideas above her station,” an elderly neighbour had said to Lois’s mother, but she’d received a dusty answer, and Gran had encouraged Lois and Derek to make the move.
The telephone interrupted Lois’s thoughts. “Hello?” It was Derek, wondering if he should pick up anything on the way home. “No, I don’t want anything. Been to the village shop today. But listen, Derek, what time will you be home? I need some help, choosing a name.” She looked at the list in front of her. “I don’t like any of ‘em at the moment. Perhaps you or the kids can think of something better.”
Derek had originally suggested Careful Cleaners for the business Lois was setting up, but she had shaken her head and said she could do better than that. Now she was having trouble. Farnden Cleaners? Superclean? Clean-up Squad? No…none of them was right.
“We’ll do some brainstorming later, then,” she said.
“We’ll do what?” said Derek.
“Never mind, see you,” she said, and put down the telephone.
Lois Meade had cleaned houses in Long Farnden for several years before coming to live in the village. It had been an odd story, sad in a lot of ways. The doctor’s house, for instance, had come on the market because he and his wife had more or less run away from the great scandal. A woman had been murdered in the village, and he had been implicated. It had been enough of a stigma to put off purchasers, and the house was left vacant for months, the price sinking lower and lower, until Lois and Derek had looked at it, decided to ignore the bad luck name it had acquired, and bought it. Lois had liked the doctor, and felt no bad vibrations. On the contrary, as she went around the house she often thought of the good side of Dr Rix.
She had decided that on moving to Farnden she would no longer clean houses t
here, and had given in her notice all round. She knew only too well how enmeshed a cleaner can get in the private lives of her employers. It had helped, of course, when she’d been needed to assist the police with their enquiries…
But the children were still growing and ever more expensive in their demands, and she and Derek had pooled all their savings to raise a large mortgage. Lois decided to set up a business around the work she knew best, employing several girls to do cleaning on a proper, professional basis. She would fill in herself when the need arose, but in other villages, not her own. “Cleaning people’s houses,” she said in explanation to Derek, “gives you a special place. They talk to you, you see things, private things, and it’s best if they’re not too close to home.” Derek knew exactly what she meant. After all, she’d had a lot to do with finding out who murdered that poor woman. She’d been evasive when he’d asked her to promise not to get involved with that kind of thing again, and he was glad to see her putting all her energy and enthusiasm into setting up the business.
The whole truth was a little different. Lois had secretly enjoyed her foray into detecting, had got a taste for it. Things had got very tricky, even dangerous for her own family, which was why Derek wanted no more of it, but in the end there had been something satisfactory in it, like fitting in the last piece in a jigsaw puzzle. She had seen Constable Simpson out on his rounds several times, and he’d waved cheerily. And one day, when she came out of the village shop, Detective Inspector Cowgill was there in his car. He’d lowered the window and said, “Morning, Lois. Glad to see you…don’t want to lose touch…” And he’d smiled his chilly half-smile before driving off.
Lois got up and went into the big sitting room. They’d had to make do so far with their old furniture, but it looked cheap and small. As soon as she made some money from the business, that would be the first thing to do. If they were going to have a big house, they must try and live up to it.
Even as she thought this, Lois checked herself. This was exactly what she had said she wouldn’t do. She knew what the villagers would say: “That Lois Meade thinks just because they got the house cheap she can go up a few rungs on the social ladder…always did fancy herself, and she’s only a cleaner…” Well, let them talk. Lois knew her own worth, was proud of her husband and his skills, and of her children. She had no wish to be bosom pals with those who considered themselves the village’s elite. For one thing, she knew far too much about them. No, they’d soon see that the Meades were quite content to be who they were, and sod the rest!
Now she stood up, put down her pen, and left the room. In the kitchen, she opened the freezer and checked that there were enough beefburgers for the kids’ tea, and prepared herself for the returning wolfhounds.
♦
“Well now,” said Derek, pushing himself and his chair back from the kitchen table and patting his stomach. “Now we’ve all got to think of a name for Mum’s new business.”
A collective groan went round the table, and Josie said, “I thought you were calling it Careful Cleaners? Dad’s idea?”
Lois shook her head. “Boring,” she said.
“Thanks very much,” said Derek huffily.
“I know,” said Jamie, always ready to help, “what about Mum’s Cleaners?”
“Don’t be stupid,” said Douglas, shifting out of his chair.
“It’s not bad,” Lois protested, seeing Jamie’s face fall. “I’ll put it on the list.”
“And you can sit down, my lad,” added Derek to Douglas, “until you’ve made at least one suggestion.”
Douglas sighed deeply, and Josie winked at him. “I’ve got one,” she said. “Why don’t you call it Mop and Bucket?”
“That’s good!” said Jamie, and Lois smiled.
“Yep,” she said, “that goes on the list, too.”
“What about you, then, Lois,” said Derek. “It’s your business, after all.” Nothing, in his opinion, had come anywhere near Careful Cleaners. Told you everything you needed to know in two words.
“Dad’s idea’s on the right track,” said Douglas grudgingly. “It’s got alliteration, easy to remember…”
“Alliter what?” said Jamie.
“You’ll get there,” said Douglas, and warmed to the subject. “That’s what you need, Mum. Something simple, catchy and easy to remember. After all, people’re goin’ to have to look you up in the phone book, an’ that.”
Silence fell. Josie was fiddling with her hair, Jamie trying to kick Douglas under the table, and the rest thinking hard.
“I got it,” said Douglas triumphantly. “New Brooms.”
“That’s stupid,” said Jamie, getting his revenge.
But Lois and Derek beamed at Douglas. “That’s it, boy! Well done!”
“Well, I don’t know what it means, even,” said Josie, “let alone remember it.”
“‘New brooms sweep clean’,” explained Lois. “It’s an old saying. Everybody knows it.”
“I don’t,” said Jamie.
“Nor do I,” said Josie.
“Oh well,” said Douglas, “that proves it then, dunnit? Must be the right one.” And he stood up, made a great show of picking up his school bag full of homework, and stumped off to his room.
♦
Later that night, warm and comfortable in bed, Lois and Derek were talking. “Did you really carry a knife?” Derek said.
“O’ course I did,” said Lois softly, tucking a friendly hand inside his pyjamas. “Didn’t you?”
∨ Terror on Tuesday ∧
Two
John Todd-Nelson, whose real name was Smith, stood in the back bedroom of his unremarkable house. Most of the houses in Waltonby were old, and built in rich, dark orange ironstone, and all were carefully maintained by their new-rich owners. Even old farmhouses that had seen nothing but muck and slurry for generations were now repainted and re-pointed, had restored features that added another few thousands to the price, and were occupied by young families who had arrived with the stated intention of ‘joining in’. But Todd-Nelson’s house, semi-detached, with pebble-dashed walls and peeling green paint, was not one of these. It was an anonymous house, giving no clues to the character of the owner, except perhaps hints of a private man, with little interest in what it looked like to other people.
Major Todd-Nelson, as he liked to be known, stretched, and flexed his biceps. A dozen John Todd-Nelsons flexed them with him in the reflections from mirrors lining the heavily curtained, spotlit room. What he saw pleased him still. Not bad for a man in his fifty-second year, he told himself, and began on the series of exercises he performed every morning of every day, all the year round.
Today, he spent an extra half hour in the exercise room, took special care with his shower, and brushed with disciplined vigour his thick, greying hair, only lightly touched with a warming tone, as it said on the packet. Taking an eyebrow pencil from a small box on his bathroom shelf, he carefully darkened his neat moustache.
Impeccably dressed now, his regimental tie (to which he had no right) perfectly tied, and his white shirt gleaming, he went downstairs to his meagre kitchen. He poured a small helping of cornflakes into a chipped white bowl, topped it up with milk from a bottle, and sat down with the Sun newspaper, turning first, of course, to page three.
♦
Next door, in the other half of the pair of semis, the Reading family were at breakfast.
“I suppose sooner or later you’ll get yourself a proper job, or at least think about going to college?” Hazel Reading’s father was wasting his time. She was not listening – could not listen – because of the headphones clamped to her head. Richard Reading leaned across the breakfast table and snatched them away. “Just listen to me!” he shouted, and his wife Bridie rushed out into the garden, shutting the door behind her.
Hazel was not impressed. “What, Dad?” she said wearily. “It’s no good listening to you, because you always say the same old things. “Get a proper job’…”go to college’…I’ve he
ard it all before. And anyway,” she said, as she saw him open his mouth for another tirade, “working at the pub is just temporary. All the girls do it…and it’s a lot more fun than babysitting, and better paid!”
“All the girls?” her father yelled at her. “Just you and who else?”
“And Prue,” said Hazel calmly. “She’s posh, so that should please you.”
Her father stood up, red in the face with anger. “Prudence!” he snorted. “That’s a misnomer, for a start! God knows what her parents were thinking of, giving her a name like that! And I’ve no doubt you talked her into it!”
“She’s very nice,” said Hazel, “and learnin’ fast. Still a bit wet behind the ears, but comin’ along nicely.” And, turning her back on her father, she took the earphones and replaced them, turning up the volume in careless defiance.
Richard Reading opened the kitchen door so hard that it banged back on the worktop and the key fell with a clatter to the floor. He ignored it, and strode out into the garden, where his wife was nervously pulling up tiny weeds from an immaculate flower bed. Hazel, getting up from the table, picked up the key and replaced it, and then shut the door, quietly. She walked to the window and looked out at her parents. Her father’s voice reached her, but she could not hear what he was saying, though from his expression she knew it was not pleasant. Her mother, still crouched over the flower bed, looked the picture of dejection.
“Bastard!” muttered Hazel, and left the room.
♦
“Lois? It’s Bridie…Bridie Reading…” Lois, knowing she was in for a longish call, sighed and drew up a chair. But she was wrong. This time, Bridie Reading just about managed to tell her what had happened, then burst into tears and put down the phone.
Lois had known her a long time. Bridie lived in Waltonby now, where Derek was rewiring the pub, only a few miles from Long Farnden. But Bridie, like Lois, had grown up and gone to school in Tresham, and they had been mates. Both had rebelled in perfectly predictable fashion – a little petty shoplifting, truancy, smoking and drinking under age – and Lois had always been the ringleader. Once married, both had settled down to a law-abiding life of housework, casual work to earn much-needed extra money when the kids came along, and – in Lois’s case – loyalty to their husbands. Well, Bridie had been loyal too, so far, but Richard Reading was a very different kettle of fish from Derek Meade.
