by JL Merrow
There was also a distinct lack of plumbing anywhere I could tell. And trust me, I can tell. I was starting to get a bad feeling about this one.
“So what can I do you for, love?” It slipped out. Honest.
Mrs. F-M. looked like she’d just been served a glass of wine with bits of cork in it, but at least she didn’t tell me off again. “I need you to find my necklace.”
Despite the loud clunk as my heart plummeted into my boots, I played dumb. “What happened to it? Down the loo? Plug hole?”
“I doubt it. I’m sure the little darling is keeping it quite safe somewhere.” The way she said darling, you’d be forgiven for thinking it had only four letters and rhymed with blunt.
“Not sure I follow you,” I said a lot more breezily than I felt. I mean, I should’ve known. I really should’ve known. So much for all the years I’d spent training in my chosen profession, getting my City and Guilds and all that bollocks.
“Don’t be obtuse.” Yeah, I could tell she was a mate of Cherry’s. “I need you to do that thing of yours. Remote viewing. Divination. Whatever you like to call it.”
I’d never called it either of those things in my life. “Uh, did Cherry say something to you about, you know?”
“Obviously. Now, can we please get on with it? I presume you charge by the hour. And I have an appointment at four.”
I was going to kill Cherry, I decided. Beat her to death with a couple of bloody dowsing rods. Or strangle her with a pendulum. For a mo, I seriously considered telling Mrs. F-M. where to shove her flippin’ necklace, but, well, I’d have felt like a right bastard if Sis had ended up getting yet more grief over it all.
Which I know doesn’t exactly fit with the whole wanting-to-kill-her thing, but that’s family for you.
“You do realise, once I start looking, I’ll come up with all kinds of stuff, yeah?” I said, admitting defeat. “I mean, there might be stuff you don’t want me to find—”
“Then you’ll just have to focus, won’t you? Now, it’s a simple pendant. Eighteen-carat gold, with a central, heart-shaped pink diamond surrounded by white diamonds. Quite delicate. Antique. Extremely valuable.”
“And you’re sure someone’s hidden it? I mean, if it’s just lost—”
“Quite sure. Alexander’s little poppet has hated me since the minute we met—of course, nobody should dare to take the place of her sainted mother—and you should have seen her face when he gave it to me as a wedding gift. I wasn’t a bit surprised when it went missing two weeks ago.”
I was beginning to have a lot of sympathy with Little Poppet-darling. Mrs. F-M. didn’t realise how lucky she was that it was only the necklace that’d disappeared. Sod it. What was I supposed to do now? For starters, I only had Mrs. F-M.’s word for it the necklace actually belonged to her. And I really didn’t like the thought of helping her go behind her stepdaughter’s back.
Mrs. F-M. strode through the room, grinding a silk kimono casually into the carpet with her heel as she went, and flung open a door at the far end. “You’ll need to search in here too,” she said, switching on a light.
I’d thought the bedroom, large as it was, was cluttered. The space beyond, which was almost as big, looked like it held fodder for a whole series of Cash in the Attic, and several episodes of Antiques Roadshow besides. Not to mention Hoarders. No wonder she’d wanted to call in an expert to find anything in there.
Didn’t make me any happier about being the expert she’d called. “Well, it doesn’t always work . . .” I tried.
She gave me a sharp look. “Cherry said you had an excellent success rate.” Something told me Cherry’d be in for a right ear-bashing if I didn’t at least give it a go.
Course, she’d be in for one from me whatever, but that was different. That was family, that was. “Fine. I’ll just . . . Um. You mind leaving the room?”
It was nothing to do with the vibes. I just didn’t like her breathing down my neck all the time.
She gave me a different sort of look then, and her tongue darted out to wet her upper lip, which creeped me out a bit—I mean, I could imagine her doing that on purpose, thinking it was sexy or something, but it looked totally unconscious. Sort of like a python while it’s considering whether it’s really got room for a whole goat. “No, I think I’ll stay.”
Flippin’ marvellous. “Uh, it’s easier if I’m on my own. Might take a bit longer with you here.” Well, she had said she had an appointment.
She smiled wide enough to show a bit of fang. “Then you’d probably better get started, hadn’t you?”
Great. “Well, could you go over by the door, at least?” I did not want her literally looking over my shoulder the whole bloody time.
She sent me a cool stare, then glided over to where I’d asked her to, somehow managing to make the sway of her hips look sarcastic.
Or, you know, maybe I was just a bit on the oversensitive side right then.
Once she had her back against the wall, I gave myself a brief shake, then listened.
I mean, not with my ears. For the, you know. Vibes.
Then I blinked. Whoa. Little Poppet-darling was one seriously secretive young lady. The room was buzzing with bright vibes, all tangled up like a plate of spaghetti. Forking any one particular meatball out of that lot wasn’t exactly going to be a picnic. There was a bitter taste to it all too, while we’re on the food metaphors. Or similes, maybe. Whatever. Whether it was all directed at the evil stepmother, I wasn’t sure, but there was definitely something—
Then the door swung open to hit the wall with a crash, I jumped halfway to the ceiling, and a loud female voice shouted in my shell-like, “What the hell are you doing in my room?”
I turned and gave Little Poppet-darling a weak smile while my heartbeat calmed down to nonlethal levels. At least I hadn’t been standing where Mrs. F-M. was. Another six inches closer to the door and she’d just have been a nasty stain on the wall by now.
“Plumber?” I said, my voice cracking just a little bit. “Thought you might have a leak in your pipes.”
She was a big lass—like her stepmum, she was about my height, but unlike Mrs. F-M., she had a healthy amount of padding on her bones. Same taste for tight, tailored clothes, but what came across as cool and professional on Mrs. F-M. looked downright racy on Poppet-darling, maybe because like the frocks on the bed, her blouse and skirt were definitely on the vivid side of the colour palette. Subtle clearly wasn’t a word she had any truck with if she could help it, and pastels were for pushovers. She looked like the sort of girl who liked a drink and a laugh, and would be up for a kebab or a bag of chips at the end of the night.
We’d probably have got on all right if we’d met under different circs, but right now her mouth was still narked at me and one of her eyebrows was telling me plainly it thought I was mental. “What pipes?”
“Well, you know these old places. Never find the plumbing where you expect to, do you?” God knows why I was covering up for Mrs. F-M., ’specially since she’d yet to say word one in our collective defence. Guilty conscience, probably, for going down the path of least resistance and not telling her to do her own sneaking around. “Tom Paretski, by the way. You must be, uh . . .”
“Vi. Vi Majors.” I noticed she didn’t bother with the double-barrelled bit. “And this is my room.”
She swung her gaze around the room, probably to check for what I might’ve nicked, and noticed her stepmum for the first time. “You.”
Mrs. F-M. peeled herself off the wall and stepped forward fearlessly. “Tom was just giving me a hand here.”
“Oh, I’m sure he was, and you can keep it out of my bloody bedroom. Your latest bit of rough, is he? Does Daddy know he’s here?”
“Oi, I’m not—” I spluttered, just as Mrs. F-M. snapped out an outraged, “Don’t be absurd,” in a tone that was less than flattering to yours truly. “Tom’s here to help me find something. You know how so many of my things have been going missing lately, don’t you?” T
here was a definite implication that Vi also knew why and where to.
“You know what?” I said, edging around Vi’s ample figure. “I’m just gonna let myself out. Let you and your stepmum catch up and all that.”
Mrs. F-M.’s lip curled. “Oh, dear Violet and I have said all we have to say to one another, I think.” She turned and stepped delicately out of the room, leaving me on my tod with an irate Vi.
Cheers, love.
“I can’t believe that cow. I could bloody kill her.” Vi turned to me. “Tell her I haven’t got her bloody earring or whatever it is she’s lost this time, and when she finds it, she can take it and shove it right up her—”
I made it out of the room, thank God, and shut the door behind me quick. Yep, definitely not much love lost in this happy little family. Course, these two were only related by marriage, so the whole blood-is-thicker-than-water thing didn’t really apply.
Then again, blood’s not the only thing that makes people family. And I’m speaking from a position of personal experience here.
Mrs. F-M. was waiting for me at the far end of the landing, head on one side and an eager look in her eyes. She didn’t seem fazed in the slightest by the hatred coming at her from Vi’s direction. Maybe that was why her skin was so pale and clear: she had antifreeze instead of blood running through her veins. “Well? Did you find it?”
“Didn’t exactly have a right lot of time in there, did I?”
“But did you get anything? Any sense of it at all?” She click-clacked closer.
“Weeellllll . . .” Shit. I really wasn’t comfortable with this. ’Specially after Vi had made her feelings on the matter so bloody clear. “Sorry. It was all a bit vague.”
“But there was something?”
“Um. Maybe?”
“I knew it.” She didn’t exactly purr. It was too reptilian for that. “You’ll have to come round again. I’ll call you.”
I made a mental note to call-screen from now on.
“In the meantime, there’s something else you can do for me. As you’re no doubt aware, I’m organising this year’s Harvest Fayre. I’m sure I can count on your support?”
“Uh . . .”
She smiled, all teeth and no sincerity. “Excellent. I’ll be in touch with further details. Now, I’m sure you have work to do.” She didn’t actually say chop-chop, but axes were definitely implied as she chivvied me out the front door.
Flippin’ marvellous. I stomped down the drive to the van, wondering just what I’d managed to sign up for without ever, at any point, saying yes. Hopefully it’d just be a stint manning the barbecue or working the beer tent. I could handle that, particularly the latter. Just as long as it didn’t involve me having to put on any sort of themed costume and make a prat of myself.
Oh God. Harvest Fayre? She’d better not be expecting me to dress up as some kind of humorous vegetable. A leek, maybe? It’d better sodding well not be a pea.
I slammed the van door a bit harder than I needed to and shoved the keys viciously in the ignition. This was not turning out to be my day. Still, at least I’d be able to console myself with a few rounds of cake at the Old Deanery. And maybe wring Cherry’s neck while I was at it for putting me through all this. I switched on my phone to check the time—Sis had said come round at four—only to find a text from her saying, Dont come rnd sprise bishp.
After a moment’s head scratching, I took it to mean she’d been surprised by a visit from the imperial overlord and didn’t want me coming over to show her up. Rather than, say, she just didn’t want to see me and was suggesting I go play pranks on His Right Reverendness as an alternative activity. Great. So now I wasn’t even going to get any cake. As I watched, a second text pinged through with a belated, Sry.
I wasn’t in the best of moods after that, so seeing as it was Friday, it was around teatime, and it was a nice day and all, I popped in at Phil’s office on my way home to see if I could persuade him to knock off early too and go grab a pint.
Alban Investigations Ltd. (director and sole employee, Phil Morrison, Esq.) has its registered address on Hatfield Road, St. Albans, above a firm of no-win-no-fee lawyers of the sort my barrister big sis likes to look down her nose at. It’s a cosy little place, by which I mean cramped, but then all he really needs is a desk and a couple of parking spaces: one for his shiny silver VW Golf and one for clients. Or, as might be, my van. I slotted it in neatly and rang the bell for him to buzz me up.
Phil had a file open on his desk when I walked in the door, but I was fairly sure that was just part of the window dressing to impress any potential clients who might drop in unannounced how busy he was. ’Specially seeing as he also had the paper open to the puzzle section and a cup of tea by his elbow. He gave me the raised-eyebrow treatment when I walked in, but I could tell he was pleased to see me.
“Fancy a pint down the Cocks?” I asked, dropping into one of his client chairs, because it’d been a while since I’d had a good swivel.
Ye Olde Fighting Cocks is a pub down by the park in St. Albans. Despite the name, it’s not a gay bar with a particularly violent rep, just your average watering hole with an extra bit of history.
It claims to be Britain’s oldest pub and to have been serving beer since around the time Vikings first made the happy discovery that monks in Lindisfarne didn’t fight back, but if you ask me, any place that feels the need to put “Ye Olde” in its name is definitely calling its authenticity into question. Normally I’d prefer the Devil’s Dyke in Brock’s Hollow, but it was presently undergoing major renovations on account of having been gutted by a fire back at the start of the summer. The landlady, Harry Shire (who’d also been pretty gutted about it all), was keeping her business going out of the downstairs room in a local restaurant, but on a sunny summer evening, you want a beer garden, don’t you?
Harry would understand.
Well, maybe not, ’cos I wasn’t planning on being daft enough ever to mention it to her, but, well, in principle she would. Probably.
“Some of us have to work for a living,” Phil muttered. Still, he closed the file.
“Hey, does that mean I get to be a kept man when we tie the knot?” I grinned at him. We’d got engaged the day after the fire, which had happened to be my thirtieth birthday, and the ring he’d given me still felt a bit weird on my finger. In a good way, mind. Definitely in a good way.
“In your dreams.” He smirked. “People are always telling me there’s a load of money in plumbing. Maybe I’ll be the kept man.”
“Yeah? Which people are those, then?” I mean, I’m not on the breadline or anything, but if plumbing’s the way to make your fortune, I’ve been doing it wrong all these years.
“Jase, mostly.”
“Like he knows his arse from anyone else’s elbow.” Jase was Phil’s brother, and a first-class graduate of the school of talking bollocks. We’d only met a couple of times so far. He seemed to like me for some reason, but I can’t say the feeling was all that mutual.
“Yeah, well, that’s not the only thing he’s been mouthing off about. I got a call from Mum this morning.” Phil imbued this dire pronouncement with the gravity it deserved, which was more than you’d think. “Something you want to tell me about?”
“Uh, right.” I tried to look like it’d genuinely slipped my mind. “You mean, like me bumping into Jase the other night down the supermarket, and him noticing the ring?”
I’d been a bit surprised Jase had realised the significance at the time, seeing as I was wearing it on my right hand—the plan was to switch it over to the left when we were official. Then again, maybe that’s what Phil had done when he got spliced to the Mysterious Mark?
That not being a subject I was too keen on thinking about, I preferred to speculate that Jase just wasn’t too hot on the difference between left and right.
Phil grunted. “That might be the sort of thing I was thinking of, yes. So I got a right ear-bashing from Mum, and we’re going round on Sunday for a bit more of
the same.”
I winced.
Look, it wasn’t like we were keeping the engagement a secret or anything.
But, well, relationships between mine and Phil’s families had never been much cop, owing (a) to the fact they’d had bugger all in common apart from sons the same age attending the same school, and (b) to a certain incident when we were seventeen, when I’d ended up under the wheels of a Chelsea tractor under circumstances that might, to some people, have looked like it was sort of Phil’s fault.
Which it wasn’t, all right? It was just one of those things. An accident. My mum and dad threatening to sue had been well out of order.
Now, all that was over a dozen years ago, and chances were Phil’s mum wasn’t still bearing a grudge or anything. But anyway, me and Phil had both agreed we weren’t in a hurry for any cosy family get-togethers.
“Oh, and she knows who you are,” Phil added. “Jase finally twigged.”
Jase hadn’t seemed to cotton on I was that Tom, when I’d first bumped into him way back in January, but I s’pose he’d had plenty of time since to remember why the name Paretski had seemed a bit familiar. “Uh, yeah, I thought he might have, the other night. You know, from the way he kept staring at my hip. You oughtta tell him, some gay blokes might take that the wrong way.”
Phil gave me a look. “You want to tell Jase it looked like he was eyeing you up? Just don’t expect me to bring you grapes when you wind up in hospital.”
“You mean you wouldn’t leap to my defence? I’m crushed.”
“Not half as crushed as you’d be if Jase really got into it with you. He used to beat the crap out of me when we were kids. Course, I reckon I could take him easy now.” He looked grimly satisfied at the prospect. Looked like he might have a few scores to settle there.
Which would really add spice to our Sunday lunch with the folks. Great.
“So were you serious about having to work, or can we go and get that drink? ’Cos I reckon I need one now.”
“Got a client coming. In about twenty minutes, so if you’re parked up back, you’ll need to shift the van.” Phil at least had the decency to look regretful.
