by Sam Short
It seemed that the previous night had been more than just a catalyst for a new era in my magical life. It had helped move my personal life forward too, and as Willow, Boris, and I, climbed the footpath to the hotel carpark, I allowed the butterflies in my stomach to soar as high as they liked.
It was a good day, and I deserved a good day.
Chapter Nine
Granny sat in the passenger seat and Willow sat in the back of the Renault, rubbing white goat hairs from her black leggings. The neighbourhood Boris had give us directions to was in the the most upmarket area of Covenhill. Every tree that lined the pavement was perfectly trimmed and manicured, and it had been at least a mile since I’d seen any rubbish in the gutters.
“Are you sure Boris likes living in your cottage, Granny?” joked Willow. “It looks like he was used to a little more luxury in his life before he met you.”
Granny peered between the gap in the two front seats. “Boris is happy where he is,” she said, “and if he wasn’t, he’d have wanted to come with us today, wouldn’t he? Anyway, he’ll have all the luxury he desires when I can finally pay for the Range Rover.”
“Don’t take advantage of him,” I warned. “He may have money, but at the end of the day he’s trapped in the body of a goat. His decisions might not be good ones.”
Granny turned slowly to face me as I took a left turn into Gladiola Drive. “How dare you!” she said. “How dare you! Me take advantage of somebody? I’ve spent my whole life fighting against the injustices of society. I should be applauded for what I’ve done for the disadvantaged, not accused of taking advantage of somebody.” She shook her head woefully. “I don’t know, Penelope. Ever since you got your spell for the haven you’ve been a different person. A very different person indeed! You’ve changed. Don’t let it go to your head, young lady. Every witch gets their spell eventually — you’re not a special case. Bring yourself back down to earth amongst us commoners would you?”
“She only got it last night, and she spent most of that time unconscious,” said Willow, leaning through the gap in the seats as we approached the large house at the end of the cul-de-sac. “And we only picked you up twenty-five minutes ago, Granny. Penny has hardly had the time to change her socks, let alone make you think she’s changed her whole outlook on life.”
“We’re here,” I said, defusing the tension. Granny muttered something under her breath as I parked the car in the red-brick driveway and peered at the large house. “It’s beautiful.”
The large house was a modern build, but based on Georgian architecture. Built from cream stone, and with a narrow parapet at the rim of the roof, it loomed against the tall scotch pines which grew beyond it. Pillars framed the wide front door, and the garden was immaculate. “He must still be paying a gardener,” I said.
“Boris is paying all his bills,” said Granny, defensively. “Letting the credit card expire was a simple mistake on his behalf. Come on, let’s get inside, pick up his card, and go home. Rich people neighbourhoods make me want to vomit blood. They’re so pretentious, and they smell of envy.”
“Says the woman who’s only here so she can buy a prestigious car,” said Willow with a giggle.
Granny chose to ignore Willow, and scampered up the driveway, looking around at the neighbouring homes with furtive glances that made her look every bit like an elderly burglar, or a shy gypsy woman trying to sell lucky heathers to the wealthy. “Around the back,” said Granny, leading me and Willow around the side of the house. “Boris said the alarm won’t go off if we use the back door. He forgot to set it before he came to my cottage on that fateful night.”
“That disastrous night,” I mumbled, standing next to Granny as she slid a key from her apron pocket and opened the tall sliding doors which looked out over the large rear garden.
The doors made a gentle whooshing sound as Granny prised them open and stepped inside Charleston Huang’s home. “Wipe your feet,” she ordered, scrubbing the soles of her sandals on a Persian rug.
“I don’t think that’s a doormat, Granny,” I said. “It looks like it’s worth a lot of money.”
“Only a rich fool would put something worth a lot of money on the floor next to a door,” said Granny. “Boris is no fool, of course it’s a doormat. Now come on, don’t touch anything, we just have to get to the front door, find the letter from his bank, and pick up the personal belongings he wants me to bring home. We’re looking for a silver framed photograph of his parents, and a pair of antique wooden clogs. The clogs are for me, Boris said they’ll stop me dragging my feet. He says they force one to lift one’s feet and force good posture. I’m not to drive in them though. Boris said I could cause all manner of accidents.”
I’d have loved to have been a fly on the wall at Ashwood cottage when Granny and Boris had a private conversation. How the subject of clogs had ever come up intrigued me, but I decided to help Granny find them nonetheless. “I’ll look for the clogs,” I said. “Willow, you find the photo, and Granny can get the card. I don’t want to be in here longer than we have to. The car looks out of place in this neighbourhood — somebody might phone the police.”
“He said the photograph is in the living room and the clogs are upstairs,” said Granny sneaking through the kitchen, admiring the huge chrome stove as she passed it, and disappearing through the doorway.
Willow rushed off to find the photograph for Boris, and I headed up the stairs to look for Dutch footwear. Hardwood floors thumped under my boots as I navigated each of the five bedrooms looking for the clogs, and I couldn’t help but admire Boris’s choice of minimalistic decor. With plain off-white walls dotted with seascapes and modern art, and no clutter to be seen anywhere, it was the sort of home I’d have liked to live in if I was ever persuaded to leave my boat and live on land.
I found the clogs in the third bedroom I looked in, placed on top of a mahogany sideboard, next to a carved wooden duck and a photograph of Charleston standing on the great wall of China. He’d once told us that he’d been to visit the country of his ancestors, but had found the whole experience underwhelming. The sullen face staring back at me from the photograph confirmed he’d been telling the truth. He looked downright miserable.
A photograph on the wall above the sideboard caught my attention. I’d seen the lady somewhere before, I knew I had, I just couldn’t place her. The black and white photograph looked very old, and the lady in the picture was dressed in a ballet dancing outfit and was standing alone on a stage. I lifted the photograph from the wall and ran a finger over the old image. I’d definitely seen the woman before, and I decided to take the photograph with me so I could ask Boris about it.
Granny rifled through the stack of letters she’d placed on the small table next to the front door. “Is the credit card there?” I said, holding out the clogs for her to inspect.
She patted her apron pocket in answer to my question and gave the clogs a cursory glance, nodding her approval. “What’s that?” she said, pointing at the photo I’d brought downstairs with me.
I held it up for Granny to inspect. “The woman looks familiar,” I said. “I wanted to ask Boris about her.”
Granny pushed her glasses closer to her eyes, and took the photo from me. “Heavens above,” she said under her breath. “I knew it!”
“Knew what?” said Willow, emerging from the dining room with the silver framed photo of Boris’s parents under her arm. She joined Granny in studying the Chinese ballet dancer. “Hey, I recognise that woman, Granny,” she said. “She’s in your old photograph album!”
Of course! That’s where I’d seen her! Why did Granny and Boris both have a photograph of the same woman though? “Who is she, Granny?” I said.
“This explains everything!” said Granny. “I told you that the night Charleston came to me was fateful, didn’t I, Penelope? He was brought to me by magic and fate!”
“You said you found him in the phone book, Granny,” said Willow, helpfully. “Under acupuncturists. How is tha
t fate?”
“Oh, it’s fate alright!” beamed Granny. “There’s no such thing as a coincidence. This photo explains so much, girls! The woman you’re looking at was a witch. Her name was Chang-Chang, and I know she had secrets. She’s one of the very few witches who chose to die in this world. She visited the haven on occasion, but when her time came, she remained in this world instead of choosing immortality in the haven. I’ll bet my bottom dollar that the woman in this photograph is Charleston’s grandmother, and that would mean that Charleston has magic! If that’s not fate, I don’t know what is!”
“Why didn’t Boris tell you?” said Willow. “Surely he would know something?”
“Who knows?” said Granny. “Maybe he knew, maybe he didn’t. But it’s fate that brought him to my house that night, and it’s fate that sent Penelope up those stairs looking for clogs, and coming down those stairs with this photograph!”
“And the clogs,” I reminded her.
“Yes. Yes,” said Granny. “And the clogs. Come on, girls, let’s get out of here! There’s lots to do! First you need to take me to Mrs Timkins’s farm so I can offer her my condolences, and then you can take me to the Range Rover dealership so I can pick up my new car!”
“And then you can ask Boris about this photograph?” I said.
“I’ll leave that for a day tor two,” said Granny. “I’ll need to work out how to ask him. It is very personal after all, and you know me… I like to be tactful.”
Chapter Ten
Two sheepdogs ran to greet us as I parked the Renault outside Gerald Timkins’s home. The large house was at the end of a long bumpy track, and the field that Gerald had died in was hidden in the valley below us. The dogs acted as if nothing was out of the ordinary, but the drawn curtains in the windows of the old farmhouse told a different story.
Willow stroked one of the sheepdogs, and Granny shooed another away as she clambered from the car. “When my Norman died, rest his soul, Sandra Timkins came to visit me. Now the shoe’s firmly on the other foot. The circle is complete.”
“Granny!” snapped Willow. “Do you know how awful that sounded?”
“Nonsense,” said Granny. “That’s just how it is. Come on, the front door’s wide open, Sandra’s probably out in the fields, sowing seeds or pulling up lovely fat turnips, or whatever it is that farmer’s wives do — baking a cake, I don’t know. What I mean is she’s probably too busy to let yesterday’s tragic murder of her husband get her down.”
Granny stomped straight into the house without knocking on the open door, the dogs alongside her. “Coooee!” she yelled. “It’s only me, Gladys Weaver, come to offer my condolences! My granddaughters are with me too! We’ve come in their car, I’m off to pick up a brand new Range Rover when I leave here. Perhaps I should have come to see you after I’d collected the new vehicle — it would have dealt with the farm-track a lot better than that shitty little Renault did! Sandra? Are you here?”
Willow and I followed her into the house with a lot more dignity, wiping our feet on the thick doormat as we stepped inside the gloomy hallway. The smell of baking bread hung in the air, and music was being played somewhere in the farmhouse. Maybe Granny had been right. Maybe farmer’s wives were too busy to spend all of their time mourning when a loved one had passed over.
“Sandra!” shouted Granny. “Where are you?”
“I’m in here,” came Sandra’s voice. “In the living room. Doing the ironing.”
“Told you,” said Granny over her shoulder. “Getting on with things. It’s the best way.”
We followed Granny through the crooked doorway into the living room. It seemed Sandra wasn’t coping as well as Granny had imagined. She sat on the sofa, next to a pile of clothes, with an item of clothing clasped in her hands. She brought it to her face and sniffed it, her body shaking as she sobbed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was doing the ironing, and I could still smell Gerald on this t-shirt,” she said. “It’s very hard to accept that he won’t be wearing it again.” Sandra took another long smell of the shirt, and placed it next to her on the sofa. “Sit down, please,” she said. “I’ll make you all a cup of tea.”
“Are you on your own?” said Willow. “How are you coping?”
Sandra sniffed, and dabbed her eyes with a tissue she took from the beneath the sleeve of her jumper. “The police liaison officer wanted to stay with me,” she said, “but I sent her away. I’ll do better on my own. Gerald’s sister is coming tomorrow, she was coming to spend a week with her big brother, but now she’s going to be helping me arrange his funeral!”
“Oh, Sandra,” said Granny, sitting next to the distraught woman and placing her hand on her shoulder. “I’m so sorry. Have the police got any idea who killed him yet?”
“Granny,” I said. “Perhaps Sandra doesn’t want to talk about things like that.”
Sandra smiled at me. “It’s okay,” she said. “And I hope you two girls are alright, too. It couldn’t have been easy for you both to see my husband like that. I was very thankful that you waited with me until the police arrived.”
“It was the least we could do,” said Willow, looking at the floor. She lifted her eyes. “Let us know if there’s anything else we can do to help.”
“Thank you,” Sandra said, “I know I’ll cope. I have to. That’s what Gerald would have wanted, but I’m not going to pretend it’ll be easy. Finding out who killed my husband will help, of course, but things will never be the same without Gerald. We’ve been together for forty years. Since we met in school.”
“Do the police know anything at all?” said Granny. “Have they got a suspect yet?”
If Granny was speaking out of turn it didn’t seem to bother Sandra. She dabbed at her eyes with the tissue. “Only the people he’d argued with recently,” she said. “Gerald wasn’t really the type of man to make enemies, though. He just had misunderstandings with folk.”
“Who had he argued with?” said Granny, perching on the edge of the sofa and taking Sandra’s hand in hers. “Farmer Bill, by any chance? Don’t you think he’s got cold eyes, Sandra? Violent eyes, one might say. The empty eyes of an unkind man, almost.”
“Granny!” I said. Now was not the time to be bringing up her vendetta against Farmer Bill. “Why don’t you make the tea? I’m sure Sandra would like a cup.”
“That would be lovely, Gladys,” agreed Sandra. “If you don’t mind, of course. You could take the bread out of the oven for me too? It’s been in for ten minutes too long already.”
“I suppose I could,” said Granny, a little reluctantly. “You two can update me when I come back,” she said, looking at me and Willow.
I nodded and Willow shrugged. Granny made her way into the kitchen and found the source of the music, switching it off.
“The police don’t really have anything to go on, yet,” said Sandra, ignoring Granny’s outburst about farmer Bill. Most people in Wickford knew Granny, and most people in Wickford knew how to ignore her too. “It’s early days. They want to speak to that horrible birdwatching woman… Mrs Oliver,” she said. “She doesn’t understand the damage that crows can do to a crop, they need to be kept under control, and the scarecrows weren’t working. He had to shoot at those birds, and that woman wouldn’t leave him alone, always shouting at him and running to the police. I doubt she shot Gerald though. She’s all bark and no bite.”
Sandra picked the T-shirt up and took another smell.
“Had he argued with anybody else?” said Willow.
“Just the buyers for his crops, but that was always happening. That’s part of the farming business though, isn’t it? And they weren’t really arguments… more like negotiations really. Gerald didn’t really argue with people, he just got on with life, and let others get on with theirs. He was a good, kind man.”
“Tea’s up!” said Granny, storming back into the room with a tray balanced in front of her. “Your bread’s ruined though, Sandra. It might be alright toasted with a little marmite on it to d
isguise its inferiority, but I’d not want a cheese sandwich made from it, thank you very much! It looks and smells vile.”
I hoped I’d never turn out like Granny when I was her age. Watching Granny negotiate normal life was like watching a trained chimp riding a bike — it went through the motions, without knowing why, and without caring what happened around it.
“Never-mind,” said Sandra, moving the T-shirt aside so Granny could sit down. “I’ll bake another loaf. It will give me something productive to do.”
Sandra laid the T-shirt out over the arm of the sofa and took a cup from Granny. “Thank you. Gladys,” she said. “I do appreciate you coming to see me.”
“Sandra,” I said, my gaze still on the t-shirt. “Your husband was the tank?”
Printed on the red t-shirt in a large white font was the simple sentence — The Tank - Pie-eating champion of South England.
Sandra smiled. “Yes,” she said, with a gentle pride in her voice. “Gerald was unbeatable for years. He retired after winning for three years consecutively — it was a record! Nobody had won for three years in a row before. He retired because he was getting a little podgy from all the practice! I was forever having to let his trousers out and put new holes in his belt.” Sandra’s eyes twinkled as she remembered. “He only came out of retirement because somebody’s getting close to beating his record of three consecutive wins. He just couldn’t accept it. That was Gerald for you, though — very competitive!”
“Had he argued with anyone about the pie-eating contest?” I said, glancing at Willow. “Another competitor perhaps?”
Sandra shook her head. “Of course not. It’s just friendly rivalry between them.” She picked the T-shirt up and held it close to her chest. “Why are you asking these questions?” she said. “Do you know something? Do you know who killed my Gerald?”
