The patient jerked slightly.
‘Sorry, Mr Knowles. The witchcraft isn’t inherited and doesn’t stretch to dental procedures. We’re treating your occlusal cavities with the best your private health insurance can buy – not some herbal infusion and an incantation.’
Joel grinned. His very blue eyes twinkled. The mask made him look even more dangerous. Like a highwayman.
‘Excuse me—’ the surgery door opened and Tammy undulated in ‘—Mr Johnson says have you nicked our steriliser?’
Despite declaring him far too old to be fanciable, since Joel’s arrival Tammy had taken to hoiking her uniform dress up to groin level and wearing long boots. She looked like a Principal Boy.
‘No, we haven’t,’ Doll muttered. ‘And I bet Mr J never used the word “nick” in his life. Viv’s probably got it out in reception for steaming her pores. Sorry Mr Knowles – would you like to rinse?’
Tammy undulated out again, slamming the door. Mr Knowles missed the basin.
Joel flexed his shoulders and removed his mask. ‘This Halloween party sounds like fun. There might be something similar on in Winterbrook, I suppose, if I bothered to look. I really ought to get out more, although I’ve got a feeling Halloween will see me in the flat watching Jamie Lee Curtis being scared out of her wits for the thirty-ninth time …’
Thanks to Tammy’s less-than-subtle interrogation techniques, the whole practice knew that Joel was a Divorced-No-Kids. And that the ex-Mrs Earnshaw was merrily shacked up with Joel’s brother in a Manchester semi.
‘Why don’t you come along to my Mum’s party, then?’ Doll said recklessly, helping Mr Knowles to his feet. ‘Well, it’s not a party as such, or so she says. Just a few people round to try out her new spells – er – recipes.’
‘I couldn’t possibly. Your mother doesn’t know me. And I couldn’t gatecrash a family-gathering—’
‘Course you could,’ Doll said as Mr Knowles scampered out of the surgery. ‘Believe me, one more stray odd-bod at Mum’s will be neither here nor there.’
*
‘It’s getting very dark,’ Lulu said, pulling her Afghan more closely round her and blowing on her mittened fingers. ‘And I’m sure people know we’re here. And the cars all go through that puddle so I’m soaking and cold – and there hasn’t been a sign of them.’
‘It’s more like December than October,’ Biff agreed from her chunky crouching position behind the hedge. ‘But don’t be such a namby-pamby, Lu. What’s a little discomfort compared with the mission we’re on? Although sometimes, on days like this, even I wish we could do our undercover stuff in the summer months only.’
Lu looked askance at her employer. ‘That’d be hardly fair on the animals, would it? Ill-treatment is probably at its height in the run-up to Christmas and just after …’
‘It was a joke,’ Biff said testily. ‘And don’t speak so loudly, Lu. We’re supposed to be on a secret sortie. Silence is the key. Oh, bugger …’
Lulu giggled as Biff’s mobile trumpeted Teddy Bear’s Picnic into the murky gloom.
There was a lot of hissed conversation, then Biff switched the mobile off with a flourish. ‘Hedley. Your mother phoned. Can you pick up a loaf on your way home?’
‘That’ll be for the pickled newt sandwiches.’ ‘What?’ Biff adjusted her misted-up bifocals. ‘I thought you were a committed veggie. Anyway, Hedley also said he’s had a tip-off from our people in Fiddlesticks – the quarry is on its way.’
Thank goodness for that, Lulu thought, hoping she’d remember Mitzi’s bread but somehow doubting it.
This front-line rescue service was a sideline of the animal welfare charity shop that Hedley and Biff had developed over the years. While Lu would do anything, anything at all, to rescue any animal in need, at the moment she was very cold and very uncomfortable, and beginning to become aware of the Afghan coat’s antisocial aroma when wet.
There was also a tiny part of her that thought that they might very well be on another wild goose chase.
Hedley and Biff’s underground network of informants were mostly over eighty, all slightly barking, and usually got the wrong end of every available stick. But because, on rare occasions, the intelligence had been correct and animals in sad and sorry states had been whisked away to live the life of Riley, Lulu knew she’d never refuse to accompany Biff on these missions.
However, she felt that this afternoon, squatting in a dripping privet hedge at the far end of Hazy Hassocks high street, on the flimsiest of tip-offs, with people and cars going past all the time and rush hour getting very close – well, such as the Hazy Hassocks rush hour was, of course – when they’d be visible to practically everyone, was probably not going to be one of their glory moments.
Biff and Hedley’s narks in Hazy Hassocks’s neighbouring village of Fiddlesticks were two elderly widows who had read far too much G.K. Chesterton and suspected everyone of everything. So far most of their information had been embarrassingly incorrect.
‘Here they come!’ Biff growled, squinting against the orange glow of the high street’s halogen lamps. ‘The silver MPV! Right on time!’
Lu pushed her beaded braids away from her eyes and exhaled. Her heart was thumping. There was a gnawing in her stomach as the adrenaline kicked in.
‘Now!’ Biff yelled, breaking cover and belting into the path of the silver people carrier. ‘Let’s get the bastards!’
Lu, emerging from the privet a split second later, screamed as the people carrier got Biff.
Biff rolled over and over into the centre of the road and lay still. The vehicle had slewed across the high street. People were running from all directions. The driver, an elderly white-haired man, sat there whimpering.
Shaking and crying, Lulu knelt beside the face-down Biff and tried to find a pulse, but the Afghan, the tears and her braids got in the way. She couldn’t find anything at all through Biff’s eighteen layers of clothing and Arnie-developed muscles. She did, however, find the mobile phone in one of Biff’s parka pockets and snatched at it.
As she was probably the only person in the entire world who not only didn’t own a mobile but was so non-techie that she had no idea how to use one, Lulu stared at it in despair. ‘How do you use this?’ she screamed up to the knot of people who were staring down at her. ‘Can someone get an ambulance?’
Three people helped to remove the phone from her mittens. It was probably the last she’d see of it.
‘Sod the ambulance,’ Biff muttered from her prone position. ‘Get them ferrets!’
‘Oh, you’re alive!’ Lulu hugged Biff’s massive shoulders in the rain-soaked gloom.
The crowd cheered.
‘Of course I’m perishing alive,’ Biff, still face down, spat out bits of twig. ‘Just winded. Sodding leave me alone and get the ferrets, Lu!’
Sniffing back the tears and pushing her plastered hair away from her face, Lulu scrambled inelegantly to her feet, trampling her long skirts underfoot. Pushing the still-whimpering driver aside, she tugged at the people carrier’s rear doors.
It was packed from floor to ceiling with cardboard boxes. At least the accident didn’t seem to have dislodged them, Lulu thought. But there were no air-holes! The ferrets may well have survived the impact – but what if they’d suffocated?
Chewing her lips, she ripped the top off the first box …
‘Oy!’ The white-haired driver had staggered round to the back of the people carrier. ‘What the blazes do you think you’re doing?’
‘Rescuing poor defenceless animals, you cruel bastard!’ Lu screamed. ‘We know what you’ve been up to! Collecting ferrets! Planning a nice little illegal line in rabbiting, no doubt! You can try to mow us down but you won’t stop us! There – look! Oh …’
The box contained several dozen soft felt hats. Lulu reached for another box. More flat circles of felt. And another. And another.
The white-haired driver had been joined by a growing crowd of home-going Hazy Hassockers. They all stared
accusingly at Lulu.
‘Berets,’ the driver said. ‘B-e-r-e-t-s. Pronounced, in the French, as berrays. Not frigging b-e-r-r-e-t-t-s or frigging ferrets. Okay?’
‘Er … yes …’ Lulu nodded slowly. Bugger. Bugger. Bugger. No doubt the old dears in Fiddlesticks were as deaf as posts, not to mention not being up to speed with French pronunciation.
‘I’m Jeffrey of Jeffrey’s Millinery,’ the white-haired driver said pompously. ‘These are our new winter line. We’ve just collected them from our out-workers in Fiddlesticks. Perhaps beret liberation wasn’t quite what you had in mind …’
‘Er – no – sorry …’ Lulu tried to smile placatingly, ignoring the dozens of berets soaking up the rain in the muddy gutter. ‘An easy mistake to make – oh, shit.’
With blue lights flashing and sirens wailing, an ambulance was inching its way through the mayhem.
‘Tell ’em to piss off,’ Biff wailed, trying to sit up but, being hampered by the hefty layers of clothing, merely flailing around like a beached seal. ‘I don’t want no ambulance! Tell ’em!’
Lulu watched in silent horror as the youthful green-uniformed paramedics leapt smoothly from the ambulance and went to work on the still-protesting Biff. One of them, of course, was Shay. Despite the awfulness of the situation, she drank in the tall, lean, tousle-haired Heath Ledger beauty of him. Was there a more intoxicating combination than someone so gloriously male carrying out such a brave and caring profession?
Nasty Niall and Designer Dee-Dee were instantly forgotten.
‘Excuse me, young lady,’ Jeffrey of Jeffrey’s Millinery tapped her on the shoulder, recoiling slightly as he got a full-on whiff of wet Afghan. ‘You stay right where you are. The police are on their way too. They’ll want to talk to you.’
Lulu nodded. She wasn’t surprised. Still, Biff would be able to explain the mistake when they arrived, wouldn’t she? Biff would be able to back up her story. Jeffrey of Jeffrey’s Millinery might drop compensation charges, mightn’t he?
Oh, double bugger.
Biff, still vociferously protesting, was being stretchered into the back of the ambulance.
Shay, making sure his patient was safely tethered, glanced across at her as he closed the ambulance’s doors. His eyes lit up. ‘Oh, hello. Nice to see you again. Guess what? Your mother’s just invited me to your Halloween party. Cool.’
Lu perked up. Life wasn’t all bad. What party? Who cared.
‘Oh, great.’
Shay nodded. ‘I thought so. It’s my night off. Oh, and I’ve asked Carmel—’ he indicated his tiny fairy-doll-pretty co-paramedic ‘—to come with me. That’ll be okay, won’t it?’
Chapter Ten
‘Eye of newt – yes; ear of bat – yes; claw of toad – yes …’ Mitzi ticked off the ingredients on her shopping list. ‘Well, okay then … dried basil, figs, bananas, barley water – yes; flaked blackberries, endive, tarragon – no; fresh grapes, leeks, lemons – yes; liquorice – no; marjoram, mixed nuts – yes; peppermint – no; pineapple, shallots – yes; star anise, strawberries, thyme – no.’
Much to Mitzi’s relief, unlike the previous ones, Granny Westward’s Halloween recipes had all seemed to contain quite normal ingredients. Okay, so the Balm of Gilead had posed a bit of problem, as had the rather worrying handwritten addendum about a sprinkling of betony being good for curing elf-sickness. And as for the spikily crafted suggestion regarding a good jugful of hemp seeds making the party go with a swing!
‘Apples, yes … ebony, no. Ebony? Ebony? Possibly a spelling mistake. Right – hazelnuts? A bit early … Ah, flaked poplar for astral transportation … perhaps not … And pumpkins for decoration and the flesh for Pumpkin Passion … hmmm …’
Realising that her monologue was quite loud and the list-ticking was fairly flamboyant, she stopped abruptly and cast a surreptitious glance around Big Sava.
Sod it. She was being carefully observed by a cluster of people huddled round the bargain baskets. Mitzi gave them a little smile, tucked the list into her pocket and, hoping she looked nothing like ‘mad woman muttering to herself’, trundled her trolley in the opposite direction. Anything still missing she’d probably be able to buy at Herbie’s Healthfoods, and as before, could improvise with the remainder.
Feeling quite buoyant, she joined the queue at Big Sava’s one and only open cash desk and slowly snaked forward. Even though it wasn’t quite the end of October, Big Sava’s tannoy was bellowing ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’.
Mind you, as they’d had tinsel up since August bank holiday Monday, Mitzi wasn’t unduly surprised.
They’d got on to Wizzard ‘Wishing It Could Be Christmas Every Day’ by the time Mitzi reached the till. She sang along with Roy Wood on the chorus as she unloaded her trolley.
‘Fifteen punds and thruppence, Mrs Blessing,’ Gavin the check-out boy sniffed. ‘This stuff for your party tomorrow?’
‘It is,’ Mitzi handed over a twenty-pound note, unfazed by his insider knowledge. Hazy Hassocks was a small place and Gavin was one of Flo and Clyde’s many grandchildren.
‘Nan and Gramp says you’re into cooking funny stuff since the bank sacked yer because you were too old to add up any more. It’s all fruit and veg, innit? You ain’t gone vulcan, have you? We gets loads of vulcans in here – won’t touch meat nor eggs nor cheese nor nuffin. Daft if you ask me. I mean, what would you ’ave at Burger King?’
‘Good point, Gavin. Maybe you should raise it on Question Time? And I wasn’t sacked by the bank because I was too damn old. I took early retirement. Very, very early retirement. And no, I’m not a vulcan, nor a vegan, nor even a vegetarian. And what are you doing?’
Gavin was holding the twenty-pound note up to the light.
‘Checking it.’
‘It’s kosher,’ Mitzi smiled. ‘Not one I made earlier – or even a little sample I helped myself to when I left the bank.’
‘Can’t be too careful,’ Gavin sniffed again. ‘Not with your family trouble.’
‘What family trouble?’
Gavin leaned across his till and looked conspiratorial. ‘I heard about your Lu being nabbed for a breach of the peace. In the ’igh street. In front of ’undreds of people. And then they didn’t even arrest her, did they? It was so not fair! They just told her to run along home. Don’t seem right somehow … us lot on the Bath Road Estate would have been hauled up in front of the magistrates before you had time to blink.’ He sighed heavily at the injustice.
‘It was all a misunderstanding.’
‘Yeah, well you would say that, wouldn’t you? ’ere’s your change. See ya later – and don’t forget you can get extra discounts on the OAPs’ specials. Oh bollocks, yeah – forgot – ’ave a nice day.’
‘You too, Gavin.’
Outside, tucked away at the rear of the high street, the wind howled between the grey concrete buildings and blew tumbleweeds of empty crisp packets around Mitzi’s booted ankles. Thumping her carrier bags into the back of the Mini in a corner of the Siberian wasteland that was Big Sava’s car park, she groaned. Not only did she feel about three hundred and ninety but thanks to Lulu’s brush with the law and the Hazy Hassocks jungle drums, the Blessings were now clearly akin to the Krays. And she still had the rest of her shopping to do. And she was bound to bump into umpteen people who would suck their teeth and tut in sympathy.
She locked the door and prepared to meet her doom.
The sycamores which lined the high street were whirling their little helicopter seeds in all directions. The green-gold leaves were eddying in the gutter. Putting her head down, Mitzi attempted to run the October gauntlet between Big Sava and Herbie’s Healthfoods. Sadly, the Kray theory had travelled well, she discovered, as several people stopped her to offer blustery commiserations on Lulu’s latest misdemeanours.
It was the trouble with living in a small community, Mitzi knew, although hopefully it would be a seven-day wonder. Lulu had seemed fairly unfazed by her ‘don’t do it again’ warning by PC
Hodgkin, and frankly, as Biff and Hedley managed to get into all sorts of peculiar situations thanks to duff information, a public caution was pretty good going. There would come a time, Mitzi was sure, when Lulu would be manhandled into the back of a police van and then the gossip mongers would really have a field day.
She hurried past Patsy’s Pantry. There were far too many furry hats and paisley scarves and Pringle twin sets in there. Too many pursed lips. Too many loudly voiced opinions. She simply couldn’t face a bevy of Torquemadas over an iced fancy.
It was with some relief that she stumbled into the tropical, overheated, spicy atmosphere of Herbie’s Healthfoods without encountering any further sympathetic tutting.
Herbie, his halo of receding frizzed hair making him look like a septuagenarian Art Garfunkel, beamed at her. ‘Lovely morning, Mrs B.’
Mitzi nodded as, with shopping list once more in hand, she scanned the pungently dark shelves for the remainder of the ingredients. Herbie thought every morning was lovely, even the most inclement ones. She assumed this was due to him having absorbed far too many happy herbs in his youth. At least he could be guaranteed not to comment on Lulu. The event wouldn’t have permeated his permanently fogged brain.
‘Ah – good choices,’ Herbie said as she thrust her purchases across the counter. ‘Lovely stuff for the Infernal Eve. That old Gran of yours must have really been in touch with the Dark Side.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Mitzi said quickly. ‘The recipes are simply traditional country ones for Halloween. For party games and things. We’re not holding a seance or anything scary.’
‘That’s what they all say,’ Herbie chuckled to himself and popped various dried twigs, desiccated leaves and little phials of powder into his trademark bottle-green paper bags. ‘Still, I suppose now you’ve retired you have to find something to while away the hours. Not much to look forward to at our age, is there? Not that I’d advise dabbling in the Black Arts as an alternative to cross-stitch – so don’t blame me if you unearth something with this little lot that would have been best left slumbering …’
Hubble Bubble Page 11
