by Heide Goody
“Enough with the name dropping,” she said.
He stopped his pot shuffling and gave her a hurt look that only lasted an instant. “Where is Consuela?”
Sam tapped a pot.
“You sure?” he said. “So these other two are Cilla and Linda?”
She nodded.
Marvin picked up a heavy wooden chopping board and slammed it down on the Cilla pot, loudly crushing it.
“Dad!”
“Course on the stage, it was a sword straight through the cabinet.”
“I was going to use that plum!”
“What plum?” he said archly. “You mean one of these?” He lifted one pot to reveal a plum and the second undamaged pot to reveal— “Where’s it gone?” he said in a slightly baffled voice.
It took Sam a moment to realise this was not part of the act. “Not got time for this,” she hissed.
“Must have rolled down the side of the counter. Yes, it’s wedged down here behind the fridge.”
While he searched for his lost plum, Sam searched the kitchen cupboards for anything that looked promising.
She dug out a pack of lentils, some tinned tomato soup and some stock cubes. It wasn’t a brilliant start. She remembered something she had read in the paper about cooking without a kitchen. She boiled the kettle and popped lentils into her dad’s thermos flask along with boiling water. It might come in handy. The fridge didn’t hold much promise. A packet of cheese slices went into the carrier bag. If she found some crackers then at least it would make a snack.
Her father appeared in the kitchen. She hadn’t even noticed he’d gone. “All right dear. I’ve put her in the back for you.”
She turned slowly to face him. “Sorry, what?”
“Consuela. Cup of tea?”
She stared at her father. “The van?”
“Yes.”
“And did you notice anything unusual at all?”
“Maybe you could take it to that junk shop up from the pier. They might give you something for it.”
Sam rushed outside. If there was one thing possibly worse than having a misbehaving (yet protected) seal in the back of her van, it was the prospect of unleashing a misbehaving (yet protected) seal upon suburban Skegness. She opened up the van a crack to see if Larry had escaped.
“Blaaaark!”
She felt acute relief. How quickly she had come to accept that Larry was her passenger and she was responsible for his welfare right now.
She had a grey seal and a bearded lady in a gold sequin leotard in the back of her van.
Marvin stood on the veranda of the house.
“Everything all right, love?” he called.
“You are going to the opticians!” she shouted.
He held out his hands and felt about blindly. “Who said that?”
Sam gritted her teeth. “God preserve us from variety entertainers,” she muttered. “Did you not see the seal in the back?” she shouted.
“Cilla Black,” he nodded in agreement. “Scarborough Playhouse, 1972.”
“And we’re getting your hearing tested!”
Her app buzzed to tell her what she already knew: she was behind schedule. She drove away, aware that local pensioners were probably getting hungry by now. She drove to the express supermarket near the DefCon4 office and hopped out to look through the reduced section to find the bargains which were due to go out of date. There were several baguettes priced at ten pence each, so she scooped them all into a basket. A reduced pack of carrots and onions joined them. A pineapple for seventy pence.
“Yes!”
A mother with a pushchair stared at her.
“Cheap pineapple,” said Sam.
She added some full price potatoes and went to the checkout. She’d spent less than four pounds, but still had to convert all of this into something edible. She knew about cooking, but when she cooked meals for herself and her dad, they mostly had something like a lamb chop and some vegetables. She needed help.
Cat’s Café was just a couple of doors down. While Cat herself was something of a pain in the backside who simply would not shut up about her amateur dramatics group and dreams of becoming a playwright, she did know more than a little about cooking and wore her virtues on her sleeve. Sam nipped in.
“Morning, Cat.”
Cat, working behind her glass fronted counter, had a willowy and somewhat wan appearance. Sam wasn’t sure if it was the carefully cultivated pose of a would-be actor or the product of working long days in a greasy spoon café. Cat would argue vehemently that it wasn’t a greasy spoon, pointing out the jolly yellow and blue farmhouse décor, the healthy options on the menu, and the frankly baffling array of coffees they offered. But if ninety percent of the clientele were coming in for sausage, egg, chips and a cup of builder’s tea, then it was a greasy spoon all right.
“What can I get you?” asked Cat.
“Let me answer that with another question,” said Sam. “If I needed to feed eleven people, and these are older folks, and all I had was around fourteen pounds and a bag of mixed ingredients to offer, what would you suggest?”
Initially Cat looked at Sam with suspicion, then with interest. “What ingredients?” she asked.
Sam felt foolish as she reeled off the list of things she’d bought in the supermarket. “Oh, and some lentils that are in hot water in this flask as well,” she added, just to seal her reputation as a lunatic.
“Fourteen pounds will buy you the means to transform that into something splendid,” said Cat. “Though I don’t think this place’s food licence covers helping strange women cook dinners.”
“Am I strange?”
“Based upon available evidence. I shouldn’t help you but…”
“But?” said Sam.
“I can’t resist a challenge. Step round and we’ll get you peeling some taters.”
Sam slipped around the counter. She knew how to peel potatoes, so that was fine. What she didn’t know was that the smell of carrots and onions gently sweating in a pan after being chopped up into tiny bits would be so delicious. What’s more, when the tomato soup and lentils were added to them, they actually started to look pretty good.
“Now, there are two options,” said Cat. “You can blend some of this into a pretty tasty soup, and serve it with a chunk of baguette. Add some sausage to the rest and serve with your spuds to make a main meal. It will be fine without the sausage if you have some vegetarians on your client list.”
“Amazing,” said Sam. “What shall I do with the pineapple?”
“Cut it up and give them all some delicious fresh fruit. You’ve even got those cheese slices and bread for those who want something different. Here, these plastic tubs will hold your stewy soup.”
They loaded the food onto some bread trays Cat had out back and Sam placed them carefully on the Transit’s passenger seat. She’d told Cat the rear door was jammed shut, rather than try to explain about Larry. It sounded too outlandish, even to her ears.
Sam emptied her purse into the woman’s hand and climbed up into the driver’s seat.
“Get it to your clients while it’s hot!” said Cat.
There was a loud thud from the back of the van. Cat looked sharply at Sam. “What’s that?”
“Nothing.”
“I ’eard it too,” said a man walking by. “Have you got someone in the back?”
Sam had seen this scene on kidnap films. She knew better than to engage in explanations. “Double de-clutching,” she said with an airy wave of her hand. “It’s a bit tricky, this van.”
“But you haven’t even started the—” Cat began. Sam wound up the window and turned the ignition. She waved and drove off.
5
Sam resumed her rounds and delivered the meals to clients who were mostly scattered in the villages around Skegness. Mrs Donaldson in Sloothby who lived in a house that was too big for her and contained bedrooms kept in pristine condition for children and grandchildren who never visited. Mrs Clavell, a bitterl
y intelligent divorcee in Hogsthorpe who had kicked out her no-good husband after forty years of marriage. Mr Stewart in Huttoft, who had only come to the area to care for his elderly and isolated mother and, upon her death, discovered that being elderly and isolated was catching. Through villages and hamlets, Sam travelled with her deliveries, ignoring the bing and buzz of an app demanding she should be somewhere else, bringing some semblance of human contact to her clients.
There were some minor protests that there wasn’t the usual choice of food and that it had arrived later than expected, but when they saw what she’d brought them most stopped complaining and ate up. Fresh pineapple was a particular draw. Sam resolved to look out for fruity bargains for her next trip out. Even Mrs Skipworth, who had been impatiently waiting for her carrot cake, was won over with a juicy slice of pineapple.
“Sorry it took me a while,” said Sam.
“Did you have to go to South America to get it?” said Mrs Skipworth.
“It’s been one of those days.”
Sam was driving away from the last drop-off when her phone rang. She pulled up by the churchyard again to take the call.
“Delivery service,” said a man’s voice.
“Ah!” she said. “Do I have your seal?”
“What? No. Delivery service. I have parcel for DefCon4.”
The parcel delivery on her to-do list.
“That’s not due until four.” She looked at the clock on the dashboard. “It is four. Sorry, I’m not there.”
“I’m at your office.”
“Yeah, I’m not. Sorry.”
A police siren whooped on the road behind her. Sam made sure her handbrake was on. She didn’t want to get a fine for being on her phone while driving.
“When will you be here?” asked the man.
In the wing mirror, Sam saw a policeman step out of his car. She recognised the round face and uncontrolled waistline. Sergeant Hackett. Cesar.
She stepped down from the van, phone to her ear. “I’m not going to be there for twenty five minutes.”
“I have a schedule.”
“Or you could bring it to me, then everyone’s happy.”
Cesar spoke into the chest radio hooked onto his stab vest. “Attending incident at the Frost construction site in Welton le Marsh. Stand by.”
“I can wait for fifteen minutes, no more,” said the delivery man.
“Twenty,” said Sam. “Meet me halfway.”
“Twenty,” he agreed.
Cesar had his hand on his stubby yellow taser pistol.
“You wouldn’t believe the day I’m having, Cesar,” Sam said, conversationally.
He held his hand up to ward her off. “It’s okay, Sam, we’ll get this sorted out, I’m sure.”
“I wasn’t driving while talking,” said Sam, holding out her phone.
“Just tell us where the ransom meeting point is,” said Cesar.
“The what?”
“Twenty thousand, was it? That’s a lot of money.”
“I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Times are tough,” he nodded, his voice filled with all the sympathetic understanding in the world. Was that the beginnings of a tear in his eye? “The price of things these days. I get it. You were desperate. You thought you had no other option.”
“Desperate?”
“Please, Sam. Don’t make this harder than it has to be. Now, have you hurt them in any way?”
“Why don’t you ask me a question I can understand? Or better still, leave it for a couple of hours because I’m seeing you at the StoreWatch thing. I’ve got to get this package—”
“Kidnapping,” said Cesar, blurting it out like it had come from a dark and difficult place. “Have you abducted and imprisoned someone in the back of this van?”
The penny dropped. Someone had called the police – maybe the passer-by outside Cat’s Cafe – a reasonable course of action given the situation. Throw in the least competent cop in the Lincolnshire Police and certain results were inevitable.
As understanding dawned, Cesar drew his taser.
“You are not going to taser me,” Sam said.
“I really don’t want to,” he said fervently. “It hurts like billy bugger. I’m sure we can sort all of this out down at the station. Maybe over a cup of tea and a packet of hobnobs, eh?”
Sam wasn’t sure how many kidnappers had been talked round with the offer of a cuppa and some biscuits. Although, this was standard Cesar operating procedure. Northern Ireland, Kashmir, the Middle East… Cesar probably believed all could be solved with a catering-sized box of PG Tips and an inexhaustible supply of digestives.
“Open the back door, Sam,” he said.
“Well, hang on,” said Sam. “You really need to understand what’s going on here. Let me try to explain—”
“I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for all of it,” he said softly.
“Yeah, not sure about that…” she muttered.
Cesar took aim at Sam. “I’m sorry…”
“Okay, okay,” she said, walking round to the rear of the Transit and opening the door a crack. “Now, just peek inside to see what’s—”
Cesar stepped forward and pulled the door open wide.
“Blaaaark!”
Larry reared up in anger at the intrusion, or possibly he’d run out of food and thought they might have some more. Consuela, tucked under one of his flippers, wobbled alarmingly.
Cesar squealed and raised his weapon instinctively. Sam pushed his hands and aim aside.
“You can’t taser Larry!”
“Oh, my gosh!” yelled Cesar.
Larry roared and turned agitatedly on the spot, tipping Consuela out of the van and giving Sam a tail-flick of mushed food across the chest.
Sam tried to shut the door. It jammed on Consuela’s legs. Sam pulled her free. Cesar grabbed the door. Larry lunged and momentarily sank his sharp canines into his hand.
“That is not normal!” wailed Cesar, wild-eyed with surprise and pain.
Sam forced the door shut. “It’s Larry, the seal,” she explained, although it wasn’t much of an explanation.
“Flamin’ Nora!” Cesar exclaimed, shaking his injured arm.
“Hold still. There’s a first aid kit in the front.”
Sam fetched it from the glove compartment. She cleaned Cesar’s arm with antiseptic wipes. There were two rows of ragged little puncture marks where Larry had grabbed his flabby arm. Cesar sniffed, looking like he was trying to hold back tears.
“Larry’s been expelled from his zoo or something for bad behaviour,” she explained as she worked. “He’s eaten all the food for the meals on wheels. He was on his way to be released into the wild when there was a van mix-up.”
“A van mix up?”
“There was this van, and a little van, and I went to pick one up in my even littler van and…” Round and round they go, she thought.
The wounds were still bleeding. “You’re going to have to go to a hospital,” Sam said.
“Oh, I’m sure it will be fine,” he said, his voice strangled by the pain.
“You’re going to need a tetanus shot at least,” she said, wondering if seals carried rabies like dogs. Or maybe TB like badgers.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
Sam shrugged. “Did I mention I’ve had a bad day?” She started to wrap a bandage dressing around his arm.
“At least it’s not a kidnapping. Unless…” A stricken looked crossed his face. “Did you kidnap a seal, Sam?”
“Who would kidnap a seal?”
“Yes, quite right. But I’m going to have to insist that you drop the seal off—”
“I would love to.”
“—then you and I will need to have a chat. Maybe over a biscuit.”
“You need to go to hospital.”
“He barely grazed me. I’ll get my wife to have a look at it.”
“You’re injured.”
“Erin’s a
doctor. A cup of tea and I’ll be as right as rain.”
“Go. To. Hospital. Are you able to drive?”
“Of course,” he said.
“Good. I’ve got to collect a parcel. I will—” She was cut off by her phone ringing. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes, tops.”
“Have you got our van?” said a voice.
“Wait.” She glanced at her phone. “You’re the seal guy.”
“Is he all right?”
“Is he all right?” she repeated. Cesar had a seal bite in his arm, and her torso was liberally covered with a layer of mushed up food and – Sam sniffed and recoiled – something that had definitely come out of a seal’s end.
“Can you bring him to the Seal Land sanctuary up at Anderby Creek?” said the guy.
“I know where that is. I’ve got a little job to do first.”
“More important than animal welfare?”
She could hardly claim taking receipt of a parcel had priority, but she could do both jobs. Sam made to get in the van, then thought of her top. She wasn’t going to drive around with that thick layer of crap sat on her chest. She stripped off her top, holding the neck hole wide so none of the vile stuff got on her face or hair.
Cesar stared at her standing in a country lane in her bra. “What are you doing?” he whispered. “Oh, Sam. There’s no need for that. I can see your… Oh!” He covered his eyes in distress.
“Hospital!” snarled Sam. She propped Consuela up against the church wall and relieved the mannequin of her gold leotard, which had miraculously managed to survive an encounter with Larry unscathed.
“Sorry, doll,” she said and left her by the wall with the ruined top at her feet.
Sam drove as fast as she could back to the DefCon4 office. Larry bellowed at her each time she took a corner. She still wasn’t fast enough. She mounted the kerb outside the office, clipping the A-board for Cat’s Café and knocking it flat. Still in bra and trousers, she nipped up to the narrow office door and opened it to find a ‘Sorry we missed you’ note on the mat. She looked at the time on it and swore.
The delivery man hadn’t hung around at all.
Catching her breath, trying to find whatever shreds of calm she could, Sam stripped off her trousers and climbed into the leotard. She had to concede she didn’t quite have Consuela’s model physique, but it fitted, after a fashion. With her trousers back on, the leotard could pass for a shimmering top.
