The Old Dog and the Doorstep

by JP Wright

I made my way through the rose garden – which is a little sad at this time of year, mostly sticks in need of pruning, with a few water-logged, brown-edged nodding heads – and thence through the arch in the crumbly brick wall and into the kitchen garden. There was more life there, never mind the battered parsley. Butterflies were dancing around the cabbages, tiny clouds of tiny flies surrounded each scruffy parsnip top, mildew celebrated its coming victory over the leaning tomatoes: summer was gently relaxing into autumn.

  A low fence runs the length of the kitchen garden on the far side, with a little gate half-way down opening onto a footpath that winds along the edge of the copse, in the shadow of the trees any time after midday. The path hops a stile at the new – the newest – boundary of our land, breaks free of the copse then blunders across the ha-ha, rich with nettles, on a perilous ancient log bridge. Running a slalom between a trio of huge chestnuts, it reaches the lodge, or the gatehouse, which still belongs to us I think, though the land around it is the farmer's. It is not lived in, being very tumble-down and not worth the cost of repairing; it has only ever been, for me, somewhere to shelter when caught by a rain-shower on the way back from the village, staring out from the dusty darkness at the fat drops splatting down from the broken gutter. It is not much of a short-cut really, though it does cut out a curve of the driveway, and it still leaves a mile's walk along the lane to the village, but it is a route which, compared to the wide gravelled drive, leaves one less exposed to supervision from the house, except from the orangery. For a more secretive route, one might head into the copse at the stile; even then, one would be visible from the south-west corner of the house until amongst the trees.

  Before I had even reached the little gate, the gnat had come buzzing up behind me. I was almost pleased to see her when I realised that, wrapped in one of Mother's best linen napkins, she had brought two pieces of pie. There are few things better than cherry pie, made with cherries from your own garden, soaked in syrup and a dash of some kind of booze for a month, the resulting tawny juice being boiled down and used to glaze the oozing rubies before they are imprisoned behind a golden buttery lattice. It is not, however, a pie that travels well wrapped in a napkin swinging from the paw of a twelve-year-old detective, so by the time we reached the stile what remained was a mush of sweet cherries and crumbled pastry. The cunning little witch had grabbed a fork too, so we sat on the stile and dug in anyway. Greedy guts had more than her share; it is unbelievably unfair that she is so skinny.

  It was pleasantly cool there, but once we came out from the shadow of the trees, I began to regret my jeans. Kitty refused to remove the fleece knotted around her waist, refused to admit that it: a. was too hot; and b. looked ridiculous.

  “You look like a jerk,” I argued.

  “You look like a fat jerk,” she countered.

  In fact, my jeans make my hips look slimmer: she insisted they make my bum look fat. She does not even have one, so she is insensitive about these things.

  “I hope you get a huge arse, soon,” I told her. “An epic, enormous, double-barrelled, earth-shaking, chair-smashing, sofa-splitting arse.”

  “Not likely,” she grinned, sucking cherry juice from the fork. “And if I do I'll just hang around you, and I'll still look thin.”

  “You're a cow.”

  “You're a fat cow.”

  “You're a geek.”

  “Sow.”

  “Worm.”

  “Whale.”

  “Nerd.” Which is a pretty unanswerable allegation for her.

  “Nnn … Nerk!”

  “A nerk's not even a thing!” I crowed.

  “So – you're not even a thing,” she replied. And we continued happily that way until we reached the ha-ha.

  “What do you think,” I asked, as she closed her eyes half-way across the log and stuck out her hands – as if that could save her, “Speaking of geeks – Jeezus, K, be careful!” but she made it to the other side, instead of plunging headlong into the nettles which in a fair world she would have done; which I undoubtedly would have done. “Speaking of geeks, what do you think about Mother's guests?”

  “Losers.”

  “You think everyone's a loser. Is that the only word you know?” I paused in the middle of the bridge, considering whether or not to try to match the midge's display of bravado, but not for long: I continued with my eyes open, carefully, crabwise.

  “Okay. The Colonel and Beryl are old crocks: they are losing their wits. Ergo, they are losers.”

  “The Colonel is certainly sans teeth,” I admitted. I had noticed his false ones clacking about in his mouth as he called for booze.

  “The Singhs – the so-called Cutter-Plains – are IT technicians. Real-life geeks. And they hate each other. They won each other: some prize. Losers.” Kitty threw up her arms to the blue sky and spun around, delighted with herself.

  “What about the Vicar? He seemed nice. She.”

  “Dizzy now,” she panted, and flung herself down on the sheep-shit scattered grass, “I'm not sure about those two. Do you think they are?”

  “Of course. I mean, obviously.”

  She meant, are they together? I know what is coming next, because she has something of a bee in her crooked bonnet about it.

  “Do you think Miss Gymslip is?” meaning our PE mistress Miss Inslip, who probably is, I mean she has the hairstyle, but otherwise hides it well. I suppose she would have to: what would the trustees say? Old farts. In fact, I am not at all sure about my little sister. She will probably grow into boys, one day, but at the moment she seems to prefer Miss Gymslip. Perhaps some of grand-aunt Hettie has been passed down, somehow, by a side route. If she does grow into boys, she had better grow some boobs too, or none of them will have her.

  “You had better be nice to Gymslip,” I warned her, “because no boys will want a boobless wonder like you.” Which was unfair of me, I know, but she has arrows at least as sharp as mine.

  “There will be plenty of them, trying to keep away from your stink, old cow,” she hissed.

  “Pancake.”

  “Virgin.”

  At which I conceded defeat, because she knew that this year, not content with baiting me over Starlight, Annabelle had started calling me 'Virgin V'. As if she – the chinless, fat-arsed, straw-haired, horse-toothed, mange-ridden donkey – had ever been or would ever be with a boy. Suddenly, everyone was doing it: I mean attacking me, not the other thing, which almost none of them were. They were delighted, because if I was the one copping it, they were safe. There is no-one so quick to attack a flaw or tender spot as one who recognises it in herself. Silly girls.

  “Whom do you suspect?” I asked, to divert her away from this difficult area. “Whodunnit then, detective Tickham?”

  By now we had reached the first of the three chestnuts and, according to our custom, we began to circle it three times.

  “I will need to establish their alibis more clearly,” said titch Tickham, carefully counting her paces, “but I am not seriously considering any of the new arrivals as suspects.” As I began my second circuit, I thought I saw a flicker of movement behind the dusty window of the lodge. Or maybe it was just the reflection of a branch responding to the ticklish breeze that had just then begun to pick up. The Great Detective continued: “None of them had been seen in the house or grounds before or indeed until some time after the crime. Not only that, but they lack motive. It would be too easy, too dull, to conclude the mystery with the sudden revelation that a quiet librarian or stamp collector who has been lurking on the periphery of the story is in fact a psycho who indulges in motiveless crimes of destruction. Or even a couple of IT geeks driven quietly insane by their futile lives. No: we had better find our villain amongst the current suspects.”

  I stared hard at the window on my third circuit, and thought I saw a shape – pale face, blue shirt – staring back at me; but the sun was in my eyes and it may as easily have been a reflection of the blue sky and the scrap of cloud that was dangling up there all a
lone.

  “No,” concluded Kitty, stopping her circling and staring, thank goodness, back up towards our home with professionally pursed lips and narrowed eyes “the perp was already in the house, and was driven by a strong motive.”

  We proceeded to the next tree. “Do you still suspect Marcus?” I asked.

  “Reluctantly, I have to admit that he has not been eliminated from the investigation. And it does not look good that he was found at the scene. However …”

  “Surely you don't still suspect me?”

  “As the only witness – the only witness who has chosen to speak about the crime and their part in it – and with no-one else to verify your version of events, you have to remain a suspect,” she said.

  So she did still suspect me. And I expect you do too. No matter.

  Before the tyke could begin her circuits of the second tree I tugged at her arm and set off at a run around the back of the lodge. There is a so-called 'short-cut' there that we used to use when we were kids – a tunnel through the brambles and a scramble through the hedge. “Last one to the lane's a stinker,” I called back at her, knowing she would be unable to resist the old challenge. She caught me before I had reached the broken fence, pushed ahead through the bramble patch and, despite catching her fleece, popped out through the hedge and onto the lane well ahead of me. Once she had passed me, I stopped racing: I even paused to pick a few blackberries, and squeezed through the hedge carefully, though not without getting my hair caught more than once. Knowing I looked ridiculous, I still tried to preserve some dignity, popping a few berries in my mouth and throwing the rest at the bug as she hopped about laughing,

  “Stinker, stinker.”

  I did not care; I had my own reasons for wanting to get her quickly away from the lodge. I said only “Watch out for cars, idiot,” and set off up the lane.

  It was a hot day for walking, now we were away from the shade, with the heat bouncing up off the road and my black jeans baking my legs. By the time we were half-way to the village I was red in the face, in danger of sweating grossly, probably had leaves in my hair from scrambling through the hedge, had cherry juice and blackberry on my hands and lips. I looked pretty awful: almost as bad as the ragamuffin. Anyone who saw us would know we were sisters, which is something I try to avoid. Not only that but, despite the pie and those few blackberries (how I regretted throwing some at the pest), I was getting properly hungry. Remember I had had no breakfast, and no tea, and no lunch either, as Mother had flapped and flustered me away before I had a chance to grab anything.

  The louse, of course, was quite content with her tangled hair and smudged face, and continued to dance and skip about me as I trudged along.

  “Though I should not really advise you,” she said, stopping her prancing for a moment, digging the pen out of her pocket and wagging it at me, “I suggest you put pressure on the cat to collaborate your story.”

  “You are an idiot,” I complained.

  “Unless you wish to change your story, and put Marcus in the frame?”

  “He did not do it,” I insisted.

  “He was found at the scene, and his footprints were all over the parsley patch.”

  But Marcus does not wear size 10 shoes: Kitty had not spotted the footprint I had found under the window. I kept silent and marched on. The lonely cloud had been joined by a few comrades, but too few to shade us. We did not have far to go now, but we still had the cakes to get, and to get back home, and I had stuff of my own to do. On the way back I would have to get K past the lodge without her nose twitching, so I was planning to take the path through the copse, even though it was a rough route and we would be carrying cakes. Until the previous summer, I had still allowed the grub to pester me into going down there, to poke about in the little stream that cuts through the woods before trickling down into a boggy hollow between the trees and the village, and to have bug-infested picnics in our 'den', a musty, leaf-mouldy hollow at the base of an old tree that, probably a hundred years ago, fell over but survived and kept on growing. By the stink of the place, it was home to foxes or badgers too. She would still go down there, like a child, if she had someone to go with. I would sooner stay inside.

  “Anyway, what will you do – since your witnesses will not talk?” I asked, after a silent half mile.

  “I will watch and wait,” replied Kitty, “There will be another crime, and the fiend is bound to make a mistake. Also, I will continue to put psychological pressure on the suspect…”

  “You mean on me? That won't work.”

  “On you, sister dear, without fear or favour.”

  I began to think, as we reached the fringes of the village, that I probably should have listened to Mother when she told me to phone ahead to Mrs Baker. “Have you got your phone?” I asked.

  “Nope.” Of course not. I had mine in my pocket, but knew that the thing had neither battery nor credit. The charger, I had left at school; the credit, I had spent on the new Dublin Boyz ringtone or song. If the irksome ickle sister had bothered to bring hers – which I know she hardly uses and always has credit on even though she will never let me borrow it – we would have been okay. As it was, my concern increased as we got into the village proper. The quiet village. The small village. The Saturday afternoon village. It has its moments: at the harvest festival one could almost call the streets 'thronged', and what is nearly a crowd gathers on the green for the May Day fair to jump about with ribbons and slurp down vile junket (if there is any 'food' more sick-making than warm milk left out in the sun, half-clotted with some substance scraped from inside the stomach of a sheep, well I do not want to taste it). At Christmas, there is almost a parade, candle-lit, of wassailers. However, a still, hazy late-summer Saturday afternoon is when you will find Hapeney Fen at its most peaceful, if death is peace.

  “Did you not phone ahead? Mother said to phone ahead,” said the pain.

  “Shut up,” I muttered.

  We rounded the church (where, if we had cared to step inside, we might have had the counsel or cold comfort of a dozen generations of ancestors whose bones mouldered there, under the floor) and crossed the green to where the humming business hub of our community was set. A pub, an ex-post-office that sells groceries and knick-knacks but no stamps, the bakery, another, less reputable, pub. My fears were clearly justified, as the bakery's blinds were drawn down like firmly closed eyelids, protecting the display window from the heat and light of the afternoon sun. The door, normally wedged open to release a warm yeasty gust iced with pink sugar, was firmly shut. Was the bakery closed? Was Haugh-Frost a lousy, lying, freckle-faced, buck-toothed cow? Of course it was closed.

  “Try the door,” Kitty suggested.

  “What's the point?” I groaned. The little paper clock inside the door showed eight a.m. – tomorrow's opening time, or even Monday's, and presumably the earliest time that a cake was to be had within at least ten miles.

  Chapter 4