by Joan Jonker
‘Ooh, yer’ve got a nice surprise for me, sunshine! Well, that’s really kind of yer, and I can’t wait to see what it is.’
With a look of superiority, Nellie made a great play of bringing one of her hands from behind her back. In her hand was a plate, and on the plate sat two fairy cakes, in their white ruffled cases. ‘I made these meself last night, girl, so we could have them with our cup of tea. So if yer’ll kindly step aside, I’ll come in now.’
There was astonishment on Molly’s face as she moved back while Nellie used the door frame to pull herself up with her free hand. Such was her concentration on keeping the plate with the cakes on straight, she was scarcely breathing, and her tongue was sticking out of the side of her mouth. And when she managed to reach the living room, she placed the plate on the table with a look of pride at having made it without a mishap. ‘There yer are, girl, don’t they look nice? Good enough to eat, eh?’
Molly nodded. ‘They do indeed look very nice, sunshine, but I’ll bet any money that you didn’t make them. Yer’ve never baked a cake in yer life.’ Then Molly slapped an open palm on her forehead. ‘Oh, no, if my memory serves me right, yer did try yer hand at baking fairy cakes about fifteen years ago. I also remember they were so hard no one could eat them. The ones that didn’t end up in the bin, your Steve and his mates used to play cricket with.’
Nellie’s changing expressions had Molly turning her head away. She could just imagine the names she was being called in her mate’s head. ‘I bet yer telling a fib, and the truth is yer got them from the corner shop.’
‘I haven’t been to the corner shop, and yer can ask Maisie if yer don’t believe me.’ Nellie put everything she could into her look of disgust. ‘They’re not bought cakes, they’re home-made. And if yer doubt me, then our Lily will vouch for me.’
‘How the heck would your Lily know?’
‘Because she made the bleeding things, that’s why!’
Molly doubled up. ‘Why didn’t yer just bring the cakes with yer and say that? It would have been much easier and quicker than going through all that rigmarole.’
Nellie picked up the carver chair and carried it to the table. ‘Yer don’t have to tell me that, girl, ’cos I found out the hard way. If yer’d seen me performance, yer’d have laughed yerself sick. It took me ages to get me two hands behind me back, and I was made up when I’d managed it. That’s until I realised I had no hand to knock on yer door, and I called meself all the silly buggers going. Then Mrs Seymore from the top of the street came. She was on her way to the shops, and she knocked for me.’
In her mind’s eye, Molly could picture the scene. Her neighbour never did anything straightforward; she had to do things the hard way. But she always managed to turn everything into laughter. Mrs Seymore must have gone off with a smile on her face, which was a good start to her day.
‘Never mind, sunshine. Everything has turned out fine, and those cakes are making me mouth water. The kettle has been boiled so in a few minutes we can sit down and relax.’
‘And plan our campaign, eh, girl? Where does the McDonough and Bennett Private Detective Agency go from here with the case we’re working on? The case of the mysterious Mr Graham Collins.’
‘Wait until we’ve got a cup of tea in front of us, sunshine. My brain always works better when there’s a cup at hand. It won’t take a minute, and don’t you dare eat my fairy cake while I’m out in the kitchen or yer won’t get yer two biscuits. So think on, guzzle-guts.’
So Nellie swung her short legs back and forth, while keeping her eyes on the cakes. Her mouth was watering, but she couldn’t do anything about that. George said it was something to do with her glands. She didn’t know what her glands were, but she wasn’t going to ask because he would say she was ignorant.
‘Here yer are, sunshine.’ Molly set the tray down in the middle of the table. ‘I’ll pour, but you can put yer own milk and sugar in. That’s as long as yer remember to take it easy. I need milk for the breakfast.’
‘Yer could always run to the corner shop for milk,’ Nellie said in all innocence. ‘Alec opens up at seven o’clock.’
‘Yer can be a cheeky article at times, Nellie McDonough. Give me one good reason why I should run to the corner shop at seven o’clock in the morning, when I get enough milk off the milkman to see me through the day.’
‘Well, girl, now yer ask, the only reason I can think of for yer going out at that time of a morning would be if yer had visitors what drank a lot of milk.’
‘Yer hit the nail on the head, sunshine! So don’t be heavy-handed when ye’re putting milk in yer tea. Think of Jack and Ruthie.’
‘Ah, ay, girl, how can I think of Jack and Ruthie when me mind is on business? Surely a real detective wouldn’t slip up on the job just because of a lousy drop of milk?’
‘In that case, Nellie, yer won’t mind if I put the milk in for yer? It’s not that I don’t trust yer, sunshine, yer know I love the bones of yer. But as I’ve been married to Jack for nearly twenty-five years, I think he’s entitled to be my priority.’
‘Will yer put all those long words back in the dictionary where they belong, and pour the bleeding tea out before I faint with thirst.’
Molly grinned. ‘Your wish is my command, sunshine.’ She poured the tea and handed a cup to Nellie. ‘As yer’ll have seen, there’s biscuits on the plate. Mind you, I don’t know why I said that, ’cos the one thing yer never miss is something that goes down yer mouth and into yer tummy.’
‘Blimey! There’s not a mouthful in those fiddling little cakes. I could eat a dozen and still be hungry.’
Molly frowned when a thought entered her head. Knowing her mate inside out, she decided to have a bet with herself. Not for money, of course, but for satisfaction. ‘It was good of Lily to think of yer, Nellie, seeing as she’s out at work all day. How many did she bring down for yer?’
Nellie didn’t think before she answered, which she would kick herself for later. ‘She brought a dozen down, girl, straight out of the oven.’
‘That was very thoughtful of her,’ Molly said, while telling herself she’d half won her bet. ‘And how many did George have?’
Still Nellie failed to smell a rat. ‘Oh, he only had the one, girl, ’cos as yer know, George hasn’t got a sweet tooth.’
‘I bet Paul was pleased, though. I know for a fact that he’s inherited your liking for cakes and sweets.’
‘He wasn’t in when Lily came down, girl, he was out with Phoebe. Yer know what they’re like for dancing, and they’d gone to Blair Hall.’
‘Yer saved him some, though, didn’t yer?’
Only now did Nellie realise she’d walked right into a trap. Her eyes disappeared in the folds of flesh as she sought a way out. ‘I did think about it, girl, and I’d actually put two on a plate in the larder for him. Then I thought he wouldn’t eat them when he came home from the dance ’cos it would be very late and he’d go straight to bed. And they’d be stale by tonight, and stale cakes are not very nice.’
‘So, George had one, and yer’ve brought those two down with yer. By my reckoning, yer’d have nine over, so what did yer do with them?’
‘Well, it would have been a sin to put them in the bin, wouldn’t it, girl?’
‘Oh, I know yer wouldn’t do that, sunshine, so what did yer do with them?’
‘Well, I – erm …’ Nellie began to get flustered. ‘As I said, it was no good letting them go stale, so I couldn’t do anything else but eat them.’
‘You ate nine fairy cakes?’ Molly’s voice came out on a high note. ‘Last night, after yer’d had a dinner, yer ate nine cakes?’
Nellie began to shake her head, then realised she should be nodding. ‘There’s not a mouthful in them, girl, so don’t be looking at me as though I’ve committed a murder. Yer just put one in yer mouth, and then, like magic, it’s gone. Yer don’t even know yer’ve had one.’
‘Perhaps not, sunshine, but yer surely would know if yer had nine. Did George kno
w yer’d eaten them all?’
Her friend looked puzzled. ‘What’s it got to do with George?’
‘He didn’t see yer eating them, did he?’
This time Nellie had the grace to blush. ‘No, I stood in the pantry and gobbled the lot down.’ She went on the offensive then. With jaw jutting out, she glared at Molly. ‘If our Lily went to the trouble of making us cakes, she meant us to enjoy them. If she’d known I was going to get the third degree off me mate, I bet she wouldn’t have bothered.’ She leaned forward, eyes narrowed to slits. ‘And I did enjoy the bleeding things, too, so there!’
‘Well, that’s all that matters, sunshine, isn’t it? In the end, we both came out happy.’
‘Yer didn’t sound very happy to me,’ Nellie growled. ‘Yer sounded like the headmistress in the school I went to. She was a right ogre, she was. The least little excuse and she’d have yer holding yer hand out for the cane.’ It suddenly sank in what Molly had said. ‘What did yer mean when yer said we both came out happy?’
‘You had the fairy cakes that made yer happy, and I won me bet.’
‘What bet was that, girl?’
‘I had a little bet with meself that you had eaten all the cakes yerself. Yer see, I know yer so well, I knew yer’d never be able to go to bed and sleep while knowing there were cakes in the pantry. I don’t get any money for winning, of course, but I do have the satisfaction.’
‘I’m glad ye’re happy with yerself, girl, but here’s something for yer to dwell on. In the time yer’ve wasted over those fiddling ruddy cakes, we could have caught Graham Collins, got the police on his trail, and he’d now be in jail.’
‘I don’t think we could have done all that in twenty minutes, sunshine, but I admit I have wasted some time. So let’s get down to business. We can talk while we eat and drink.’
‘Have yer thought of a plan of action, girl? You know, how we are going to go about catching the rotter?’
‘I’ve come up with a few ideas, but can’t make up me mind which is the best.’
Being a private detective was a serious business, and Nellie’s expression said she was treating it as such. With her elbow on the table, and her chubby face cupped in a hand, she asked, ‘What have yer in mind?’
‘We need to know whether he is a genuine dealer, or whether he’s like those spivs we had during the war. You know, the ones who sold black market stuff. Except yer could tell them a mile off, with their long coats and greasy hair. Graham Collins is a different kettle of fish. To look at him, you’d think he’s a well-to-do man of means. A lot of the people in the houses he called at yesterday would take him at face value. Well dressed, well spoken and charming. Now we can’t prove he’s not all those things, but our intuition tells us he’s a scoundrel. So we need to find out if he is genuine, or if we are right.’
‘We’re right, girl, I’m sure of that. It’s as plain as the nose on yer face that he’s up to no good. Why would a genuine antique dealer choose to knock on doors in a poor area? Those people don’t have much, but ten to one there will be quite a few who have got stuff that their parents left them.’ It wasn’t often that Nellie was serious, but in this case she was. ‘I bet he’ll offer them coppers for what they’ve got, when they’d get a decent price if they went to a proper, honest dealer.’
Molly’s expression showed her surprise. ‘My God, sunshine, yer can put yer brain to good use when yer need to. Yer’ve really taken this case to heart, haven’t yer?’
‘I might act daft most of the time, girl, but I’d never stand by and watch poor people get ripped off by a rotter. Don’t yer agree that what I’ve just said is right?’
‘I think yer’ve hit the nail on the head, sunshine. I was thinking exactly the same thing in bed last night. At first I wondered why he’d picked a poor area to tout for business, then it hit me that he’d deliberately chosen that area because the people are poor, and would jump at the chance of earning a few bob. Like meself, they wouldn’t know the real value of an old picture or ornament. And because he looks and speaks so posh, they’d fall for anything he told them. But the question is, how do we find out if we’re right about him? And if we do find out, who is going to believe us? The police would laugh their heads off and send us packing. And I wouldn’t blame them, either! Two housewives walk into the station with this far-fetched story, and no proof to back it up.’
‘Well, we’ll just have to get it, girl! Come on, buck yer ideas up! We can’t just sit on our backsides and let him get away with it. We’ve got Claire to think about, remember. It’s better she finds out now that he’s a rotter, before she gets too attached to him. We’d be doing her a favour, and all the other poor people he’s planning to rob.’
‘I agree with everything yer say, sunshine, but it all boils down to having no proof. Without that we haven’t a leg to stand on.’
‘We’ll get it, girl, by hook or by crook.’
‘And how do yer propose to get it, sunshine? We can hardly stop him in the street and ask him what monkey business he’s up to.’ Molly sighed. ‘I lay awake last night thinking of a way to catch him at it, but whether it was because I was tired or not, I couldn’t get the old brain cells working.’
‘I was the same, girl,’ Nellie said, her head and chins nodding. ‘But I did come up with something. I think it would work, but you’ll probably pooh pooh the idea.’
‘Try me, sunshine, ’cos I haven’t got a clue.’
Nellie lifted her bosom on to the table so she could lean forward. ‘We’ve got a list of all the addresses he knocked at in that one street. And we know he’s going back at the same time next Tuesday. So I thought if we knocked on one of the doors, we could make up a cock and bull story about how he’s put a leaflet through our letter box but the dog had chewed it up before we had a chance to look at it. And we had heard he’d been canvassing in their street and wondered if they could let us see one of the leaflets.’ She could see Molly wasn’t impressed so far, and became impatient. ‘Come on, girl, pull yer ruddy socks up for God’s sake. At this rate we’ll never get anywhere. We could tell them any tale, just to get friendly. I’m good at spinning yarns, girl, and telling lies, as yer well know. Surely out of all those houses we’d find one we could get pally with.’
Molly began to take an interest. She leaned forward and patted her friend’s arms. ‘That’s just what I needed, sunshine, to wake me up. Ye’re not just a pretty face, are yer?’
‘Yer know it’s not me face that men lust after, it’s me voluptuous body they crave for.’ Nellie was glad to see her mate back in the land of the living. ‘So, yer think my idea is a good one, do yer?’
‘I think it was very clever of yer to think of getting friendly with one of the women in the street. And if we move your idea around a bit, we don’t really have to go knocking on doors. We could hang around the street until we see someone who looks friendly. We could still use the excuse yer made up about the dog, which I thought was brilliant. Especially as yer can’t stand animals of any kind.’
‘It’s not that I can’t stand animals, girl. I’ve got nothing against them, but I wouldn’t want one in me house. They’re too much work.’
‘There’s a place in the world for everything, sunshine, whether human or animal. God made it that way. The trouble is, He forgot to add that it was anywhere in the world except the home of Mrs Helen Theresa McDonough.’
‘I’m not that bad, girl. I wouldn’t be cruel to any animal. And you’ve got no room to talk, you haven’t even got a ruddy mouse!’
‘I did buy a trap, Nellie, and a piece of cheese. But the cheeky mouse had the nerve to leave a note saying he didn’t like red cheese and would be trying elsewhere.’
Nellie’s chuckle was hearty. ‘Thank God yer’ve got yer sense of humour back, girl. I was beginning to worry about yer. And seeing as ye’re beginning to come to life again, can we please get on with the business in hand?’
‘Yes. I believe we should plan our next move, and when we should put i
t into action.’
‘No time like the present,’ Nellie said, eager for a bit of excitement. ‘He won’t be around there today, so we’d be safe.’
‘It’s Wednesday, sunshine, so there won’t be many women out ’cos it’s half-day closing.’
Looking at the clock on the mantelpiece, Nellie said, ‘If we put a move on, girl, we could be there before half eleven. A lot of women like to do their housework before they go to the shops, to get it over with. There’s bound to be some around.’
‘Okay, now we’ve decided on a plan of action, let’s start. I’ll put these few dishes in the sink and wash them when we get back. If I do them now, it’s wasting precious time. Put yer chair away, sunshine, and let’s set off with determination.’
The two friends stood on the corner of the street. The main road it ran off was always busy, for there were shops selling anything and everything, and all at reasonable prices. It was an area of two-up-two-downs, where working class people struggled to make ends meet. But there wasn’t a house in the street that didn’t have a snow-white step and polished door knocker.
‘There’s a woman coming out of one of the houses halfway up, Nellie. Shall I approach her, or will you?’
‘Let me have a go, girl, and if I don’t have any luck, you can try the next one.’
The woman coming towards them was around the same age as themselves, with mousy hair and a slim figure. As she came abreast of them, Nellie smiled and stepped forward. ‘Have yer got a minute to spare, girl? Don’t worry, we’re not gypsies trying to flog pegs.’
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ The woman smiled. ‘Yer don’t look like a gypsy, and I can’t see any pegs, but these days yer can’t tell who’s who.’
‘I’ll vouch for her,’ Molly said. ‘She’s my best mate, and she’s quite harmless.’
‘In that case I can spare a few minutes of me time. What are yer after, queen?’
