by Kim M Watt
Mortimer gave a strangled growl of frustration. He’d never tackled anything bigger than a rabbit in his life, not even a sheep, but right now he felt that if he found whoever had done this he’d tear the top off their car and pluck them out like a bonbon.
“Beaufort! Mortimer!” Alice and Miriam were out in the lane too, and the heat burning in Mortimer’s chest was suddenly swamped with cold. Humans were so terribly fragile. What if the car was still out there, just waiting for them to venture out?
“They’re gone!” he shouted. “Go back inside. We’ll keep looking.”
“Rubbish.” Alice staggered forward against the wind. “Everyone inside. We’re doing no good out here in this.”
Mortimer gave Beaufort a pleading look.
“Come on, lad. Back inside. Let’s see what we can figure out.”
Mortimer followed him in, grumbling.
In the living room, Alice and Miriam managed to cover the hole in the window with bin bags and gaffer tape, the plastic chattering in the wind. There was glass on the floor and the sofa, and water stains spreading on both.
“What now?” Miriam asked. She looked pale, but there were bright, angry spots on her cheeks as she collected the biggest bits of glass.
“There’s no scent out there,” Beaufort said. “There’s too much rain. I didn’t even catch a whiff.”
“I saw the taillights when we first came into the living room,” Alice said. “They had too much of a head start for us to be able to do anything.”
“What did they throw?” Mortimer asked. He was starting to feel a little better, and slightly ashamed of his sudden desire to peel cars open.
“Come on,” Alice said. “Leave that, Miriam. Let’s see what our mysterious vandal has sent us.”
They surrounded the missile cautiously, as if it might suddenly uncurl and bite them. It was wrapped in a black bin bag that matched the one they’d used to repair the window quite nicely.
“I suppose we should leave it for the police to look at,” Miriam said, not sounding very keen.
“We could,” Alice agreed. “Or we could cut it open very carefully and see what’s inside.”
“And what do we say to the inspector?” Miriam asked.
“That the glass tore it on its way in,” Alice said.
They looked at the bin bag-wrapped object for a little longer, and Mortimer shifted side to side anxiously. He’d never wanted to interfere in police business, but they’d already interfered quite a lot. It seemed silly to stop now, when they might actually be able to find out something useful.
“I’ll get some gloves, so we don’t get our fingerprints on it,” Miriam announced. “And scissors.”
Beaufort picked the object up in one scaly paw. “Dragons don’t have fingerprints,” he said, and slit the bag neatly with a claw. The other three leaned forward, and Mortimer couldn’t hear anyone breathing. Scents drifted to him, a mix of dark metal and rust, and a whiff of ugly emotion, fear and fury topped with a nasty worm of yellow jealousy.
“Ew,” he said.
“Indeed,” Beaufort agreed. “Whoever sent this was not a very happy person at all.”
“Do you recognise the smell?” Miriam asked. “Is it Stuart Browning? It is, isn’t it?”
“No,” Mortimer said, who’d had a taste of the man as well as a smell, much to his shame. “He was more … level. Dangerous, but not in an uncontrolled way. Measured. This,” he took a wary sniff, “this is all emotion. No thought at all. Very unpredictable.”
“I agree,” Beaufort said.
Miriam puffed her cheeks out. “So what now? We’re still no closer to knowing who it is.”
“Let’s see what’s in there,” Alice said. “Do you mind, Beaufort?”
Beaufort made a distasteful little expression, but he peeled the bag away and exposed an old weight, like the ones Miriam had next to her scales in the kitchen. Hers were lovely brass, though, a mellow gold in the sun, and she still used them with the old-fashioned scales to weigh out ingredients. This one was big, maybe two pounds in weight, with more flaking rust than painted metal. There was a note fastened to it with a rubber band. Beaufort tugged the band off and laid the note on the floor so they could all read it.
I told u!!!
Back of or els!!
Dont call the polce or youll pay!!!!!
“Is that the same as the note on your door, Alice?” Miriam asked, her voice shaky.
“I rather think so,” Alice said. “Horrible font, basic white paper, and an over affection for exclamation marks and bad grammar.”
“Which still doesn’t tell us who,” Mortimer said, and plucked at his tail.
“Do stop doing that, Mortimer,” Alice said. “You can’t be shedding scales all about the place.” She sounded odd, and he gave her a confused look, but put his tail down. It was looking rather patchy.
“Wasn’t there someone else who liked exclamation marks?” Beaufort asked. “And bad grammar?”
They looked at him, the room suddenly still.
“The emails,” Miriam said. “The baker person, the one that was complaining about the fete.”
“And about you,” Mortimer said. “About the W.I. winning everything.”
“Oh, well done, Beaufort,” Alice said. “You’re quite right. The textspeak was just the same, too.”
“But we don’t know who sent it,” Beaufort said. “We even said no one could be so upset over a village fete. They’d have to be quite unbalanced.”
“Well, I think that’s rather a given,” Mortimer said.
“Baker,” Miriam said. “That’s a baking weight.”
“Or a butcher,” Alice pointed out. “Or a shopkeeper of any sort, really. Very traditional. And very un-cared-for, by the look of things. Besides, Priya was looking into bakers. She hasn’t found anything yet.”
Miriam waved impatiently, like she was trying to find the right word for something. “Baker. The weight. The email. The fete, the weight, the email. Hang on. Fate. It was spelt wrong. And the knife. The knife.”
“Miriam, would you like to sit down?” Beaufort suggested. “Rather stressful, all this.”
She gave him another impatient wave and pressed one hand to her forehead. “Knife. Fancy knife. Chef’s knife. And fete spelled fate.”
“What’s she doing?” Mortimer whispered to Alice.
“Some sort of free association, by the look of things,” Alice whispered back, which cleared up precisely nothing as far as Mortimer was concerned.
He was just opening his mouth to suggest that a nice cup of tea might make them all feel better, when Miriam yelped, “Got it!” and ran out of the room.
They stared at each other, then Alice said, “Well. We should probably go after her.”
22
Alice
Alice led the dragons into the warmth of the kitchen. Miriam was at the table, leafing wildly through the local newspaper, the one that she’d been doing the crossword in this morning. Was that only this morning? Alice rested her hands on the table, feeling immeasurably weary.
“Miriam, dear,” she said. “Would you like to share with us?”
“It’s here. It’s here, it’s here, it’s – here.” She stabbed at the page triumphantly with one finger.
Alice twisted the paper toward her. “Local bunnies all loved up?” she read. “Well, let alone the fact that it’s hardly news—”
“No! Under that! The ad!”
“Harrows, the oral experience of Kingston Womoor,” Alice read this time. “Be wowed, be awed, have your understanding of food radically re-examined.”
“But why on earth would anyone want to do that?” Beaufort asked. “Food is quite wonderful. Why would we want to re-examine it?”
“That’s Harold’s place,” Alice said. “A few of us tried it when he first opened up, to show support for a new business. But it was awful. He does all these weird things such as serving food in the dark, and has no cutlery, or no plates, or you have to eat on th
e floor with your hands behind your back or something equally ridiculous.”
“That’s him,” Miriam said. “That’s him exactly. Harold Minnow.”
Alice sniffed. “Well, if I’d known it was an oral experience rather than just lunch, I’d never have gone. Plus he was very rude when Gert asked if we could at least have a candle to find our plates with.” She examined the ad again. “But why do you think it’s him, Miriam?”
“Fete. He spelled it F-A-T-E in his email, just like BestBakerBoy.”
“But he was quite friendly in that email,” Beaufort said. “Why would he hurt the vicar?”
“And he sent those silly caviar-custard tarts to the meeting, not cupcakes,” Alice said.
“What if that was a distraction?” Miriam asked. “An excuse to be here while he dropped the cupcakes at the vicarage? Anyone would assume we made them.”
“It still doesn’t explain why he’d want to hurt the vicar,” Beaufort said.
“He was very upset,” Alice said thoughtfully. “He came to the fete two years ago, when he’d just moved here, and I rather imagine he thought he’d show us little country folk up. He entered all these fancy things in the baking competition – beetroot ice sculptures, and some sort of abstract lemon tart, and a green tea scone with something strange.”
“That’s not strange enough?” Mortimer asked.
“I agree, lad. That’s doing unnatural things to a scone, that is,” Beaufort said, his eyebrow ridges drawn down.
“Dandelion cream,” Alice said. “Green tea scones with dandelion cream.”
“That was it!” Miriam was hopping from foot to foot. “And he was so angry when he didn’t place. He called us all some very unpleasant names, and the vicar as well.”
Alice did remember. He was an unctuous little man, full of superiority, dispensing wisdom and condescending compliments to the other entrants in the competition. Saying things like how nice their cakes were, how quaint and traditional, as if that were a bad thing. The Women’s Institute was built on nice, traditional recipes. They weren’t about reinventing the wheel. They were about doing what they did well. Perfectly, in fact.
“He rather missed the point of the whole fete, didn’t he?”
“He did. And then his beetroot ice sculptures melted before they could even be judged, and the lemon tart was so abstract no one knew what it was meant to be.”
“And didn’t one of Gert’s grandchildren have a piece, and it made her terribly tipsy?”
“Yes! And no one would touch the green tea scones.”
“Except for Rose, who thought they were washing-up sponges.”
Both women laughed, and the dragons looked at each other in bewilderment.
“Um, I see how he’d be upset,” Mortimer said cautiously, “But upset enough to kill the vicar?”
Alice nodded. “It does seem extreme. But the vicar was one of the judges, and after Harold was so rude at the fete the vicar also wrote a rather pointed rebuke in the parish newsletter. He didn’t use any names, of course, but everyone knew who he was referring to. I don’t think anyone in the area has been to his restaurant since, and he was banned from last year’s fete. I think the frustration may have got the better of him.”
“And then there’s the knife,” Miriam said, and Alice frowned at her. “Don’t you remember him flashing around with his knives at the fete? He was doing a knife skills demonstration and being all fancy about it. There was nothing any of us could use. And he kept talking about how expensive all his knives were.”
“I don’t remember the knives so much, but now you mention it, I do remember that he cut himself about two minutes in,” Alice said. “How clever of you, Miriam!”
Miriam flushed. “Well, this kind of reminded me,” she said, and pointed at the ad again. Alice peered closer, at the photo of a scowling man holding crossed knives under the restaurant – sorry, the oral experience – name. Then she picked her phone up from the table and pulled up the photo she’d taken before she’d called Ben to see the knife in the door. She tilted it so the dragons could see, and waited. It didn’t take long.
“Let’s go pay Mr Minnow a visit,” Beaufort said, and Mortimer gave a most uncharacteristic and frankly alarming growl.
Getting two damp, muddy dragons into the back seat of her car was not something Alice had foreseen having to do, but they didn’t have time for Miriam’s driving, even if Miriam had been up to it. She found an old picnic blanket with waterproof backing in the boot and spread it out on the seat. “In you get,” she told the dragons. “Try not to stick your claws into anything. This car is still quite new.”
The dragons climbed in obediently, and Alice looked at Miriam, standing awkwardly next to the car. “What are you doing?”
“I’m quite damp myself,” Miriam shouted over the wind, as it collected handfuls of rain and flung it in their faces.
“Well, you’re not getting any drier, are you?” Alice asked, struggling to get her door open.
“I guess.” Miriam scrambled gratefully into the car, which was already steamed up with dragon breath, and Alice followed, tucking her legs in just before the door blew shut with a slam.
“Well, then,” she said, and fired the engine up. The headlights were cut short by the rain, but they did light someone’s bin blowing sideways across the road, and the bushes along the lane tossing wildly, like seaweed tumbled in the tide. “Let’s go catch a murderer.” And she accelerated into the night, both hands on the wheel and the windscreen wipers going full tilt.
There was something terribly exciting about it, Alice thought. The tremble of the car in the wind, the heart-in-mouth moment when it shimmied on the wet road, the sudden glimpse of debris rolling past ahead or to the side of them, the crunch of fallen twigs under the tyres. No one was talking, and she kept her eyes on the road, ghosting around the corners and playing through the gears. She knew these lanes, knew every twist and turn of them, but they were rendered strange and unfamiliar by the storm and the dark.
“Do you think we could go a little slower?” Miriam squeaked the second time the car aquaplaned around a corner.
“We could,” Alice said, not slowing down. Mortimer had braced himself behind Alice’s seat, face hidden in the corner. Only Beaufort seemed to be enjoying it as much as Alice, peering out between the two front seats with an enormous grin on his face.
“I don’t suppose we could open the windows …?” he suggested.
“No, Beaufort. It’d ruin the upholstery,” Alice said, swerving around a branch on the road and making Miriam yelp in fright.
“Alright then,” he said. “This is terribly exciting, isn’t it?”
Mortimer muttered something to the seat, and Miriam closed her eyes.
Harrows, the oral experience, was in an old pub, a two-storey, blank-faced thing squatting behind a gravel parking lot next to the road. There was a self-conscious looking fishpond and gazebo-type thing surrounded with potted topiary stuck in the middle of the parking lot, and no other buildings nearby. Kingston Womoor itself was another two miles down the road. The pub was probably a nice enough spot on a summer’s day, but right now it looked like it could play the part of a haunted house quite well. Alice pulled into the parking lot and switched the engine off, leaving the lights shining on the front of the building. It was entirely unlit, not even a glimmer visible inside.
“Power cut?” Alice suggested.
“Mortimer and I can see perfectly fine in the dark,” Beaufort said. “We’ll go in and roust him.”
Mortimer made an unenthusiastic noise. He looked faintly ill.
“We should have called the detective inspector before we left,” Miriam said anxiously, poking at her phone. “I’ve got no reception at all.”
Alice checked her own phone, but it was no different. “Ah, well. That’s why we have dragons,” she said, and Beaufort nodded firmly. “Let’s go in.”
“And do what?” Miriam asked. “Tell him to turn himself in, or the invisible
dragons will get him? That’s not a plan, Alice!”
“Well, it’s not the best plan,” she admitted. “But I do believe it’ll work.”
“Of course it will,” Beaufort said. “Although Mortimer and I could also just go in, and you two ladies could stay here.”
Alice glared at him. “We two ladies could, but we have no intention of doing so. Besides, what if he can’t see you or hear you at all?”
“We can make him see us,” Beaufort said, and grinned.
“Stop that. You’ll do nothing of the sort unless there’s no other choice,” Alice said. “I almost got arrested a second time today because I told the detective inspector that a scale was a guitar pick. You’re not taking any unnecessary risks.”
“A scale?” Beaufort asked, and Mortimer went pink with alarm.
“Never mind for now. Just try and keep a low profile, alright? Miriam and I will go, and tell him we know everything and that he has to turn himself in. You two can be backup.”
“I really wish we could just wait for the police,” Miriam said plaintively, and Mortimer nodded vigorously, one paw over his mouth.
Alice sighed. Unwilling conspirators were worse than no conspirators. “Do pull yourselves together, you two.”
Miriam started to say something, and hiccoughed. She clapped both hands over her mouth and gave Alice an apologetic look.
“You see?” Beaufort said. “You can’t take Miriam in. How can any criminal take her seriously when she’s hiccoughing?”
Miriam hicc’d again.
Alice shook her head and sighed. “Wonderful. Fine. Beaufort and I will go in. You two watch to make sure he doesn’t get away.” And she got out of the car before anyone else could start arguing with her, then reached behind the seat and pulled out a cane. It was black wood, smooth and beautifully carved, and the handle was the silver head of a dragon.
“Oh, that’s very stylish,” Beaufort said, following her out of the car.
