To Love and to Perish

by steve higgs

  That could start with Tamara’s very exacting pink gerbera demands. When Mindy left the boutique ten minutes later with Buster leading the way, she was heading for Carson’s florist in the High Street. They were another firm with which I had a great relationship. They made sure my boutique was always stocked with a fresh bouquet in the window and I gave them a lot of business. With Mindy planning to collect coffee on the way back, I turned my attention to the wedding we had set for next weekend.

  At my end of the market, I am not trying to cram in a wedding every weekend; I select only the most prominent or most interesting clients. However, that can mean several in a single month if that is the way they fall and that was what I had now.

  After the debacle of the Howard-Box wedding last weekend, we needed to focus on the next event. In exactly eight days’ time, on Friday next week, we were all travelling to Raven Island off the south coast of Kent. In Raven’s Bluff, the palatial folly built there, we were to be witness to the marriage of Anton Harker, a popular TV host, and Geoffrey Banks, a soap opera star. They had money and fame which made them a great catch for Philips’ Wedding Plans.

  Justin joined me and we started to plot the detail of how we would meet the groom and groom’s needs. There was much to plan but where any other day I would be completely focused on what I was doing, today I found myself distracted by thoughts of Derek Bleakwith and John Ramsey.

  It was only when Mindy returned with the coffee and I took a few moments to think about what I needed to do over the weekend, that I remembered something that made my heart skip a beat in fright.

  The Cat and the Dog

  The fact that I had a date tonight was scary enough; I haven’t been on a date since my husband, Archie, died a little more than three years ago and, to be honest, I don’t think nights out with your spouse really count. In which case, I hadn’t been out on a date in over three decades.

  There was a certain terror that went with meeting Vince Slater for dinner and I knew what it was that scared me. It wasn’t that he had shown interest in me right from the moment we met, or that I was going on this date because I found myself tricked into agreeing to it – Patricia Fisher had a lot to answer for – but more that Vince awakened in me a sense of hope.

  At fifty-five, I was consciously refusing to acknowledge that I was throwing myself into my work because I just didn’t have that much else going on in my life. I didn’t need a man. At least I didn’t want to need a man and fervently believed I could live the rest of my life alone. However, I also believed Archie would be sad to know I had so little waiting for me at home each night.

  So Vince showed up with his heroic actions, saving my life while getting injured and being ever so brave about it. He had a pirate’s smile, one which any woman could tell was bad news but liked to look at anyway. He was also handsome, strong, and courageous. He looked after himself, had his own money … the list of positive attributes was probably quite a long one if I got to think about it. However, and this is a pretty big however, I wasn’t looking for a relationship. The idea that I might one day share my bed with another man quite frankly terrified me.

  Nevertheless, I was going out for dinner with him tonight. It was just dinner. I would drive and maybe have one glass of red wine. He was paying, and I picked an expensive restaurant that most people cannot get into but … well, I have a book of contacts and the ability to leverage a relationship when required. Not that I was doing anything the restaurant owner was unhappy with, I like to think all my professional relationships are mutually beneficial. I recommend those businesses whose attributes and standards are most aligned with my own. In so doing I ensure my customers will talk about every element of their interaction with me in a positive tone.

  Mindy had a date tonight as well, though at nineteen her dates were a wholly different beast to mine. She left the boutique just a few minutes after five which was quite late enough. I stayed on another twenty minutes to finish up the notes from the Bleakwith meeting. Sitting at my desk in the pool of light thrown by the antique lamps I vastly preferred to the overhead strip lighting, I thought some more about what happened to Derek.

  What had I actually seen today? Looking back at the images in my head, John Ramsey was either a good actor or he really hadn’t pushed Derek over the balcony. I heard him when he spoke and saw his face – he looked innocent to me. Yet the chief inspector had him arrested on the spot; the testimony of the victim’s wife sufficient to convince him of John’s guilt.

  Coming back to the here and now with a jolt, I realised ten minutes had passed while I stared at the inside of my own head. It was Buster who disturbed my train of thought as he got up to inform me his stomach was rumbling. Had he not done so, I might have sat there for hours.

  Amber, my pedigree ragdoll cat, was at home and would also want dinner. It was time to go.

  My house is a cottage on the other side of the River Medway. The ancient bridge spanning the wide swathe of dirty brown water is often clogged when I leave the boutique, but not so today, and I made the journey in just under fifteen minutes.

  Just outside of Strood which sits on the hill on the far side of the Medway valley, the small village of Twydhurst has a pub and a corner shop with a post office inside and very little of anything else unless you count the church. I have lived there for twelve years, ever since the cottage I fell in love with as a child came up for sale.

  I had a battle to buy it and paid over the odds to secure it because the other buyer foolishly admitted a desire to bulldoze it. His plan was to build a modern, six-double-bedroom property on the footprint of the original single-story house. I have never once regretted my decision.

  Since moving in I have decorated and added a modern kitchen because the old lady who inhabited before me was still using standalone appliances and a cooker from the nineteenth century. A modern bathroom was required as well, but otherwise, the delightful cottage was untouched. It was small, but it had been big enough for Archie and me.

  Amber was sitting on the carpet in the hallway twitching her tail at me in a display of bored annoyance. ‘It’s about time,’ she muttered, making sure I saw how disappointed she was before turning around to saunter off with her tail held high.

  ‘Yes, Amber, I’m sure you are not actually starving,’ I pointed out, shedding my coat and bending to take off my boots by the door.

  ‘My stomach is empty enough that it woke me from my nap, Felicity,’ she mewled in disgust. ‘That means I am operating on reduced sleep and will now have to squeeze in an extra nap before my main sleep tonight.’ What a terrible dilemma. ‘I see you brought the dog home with you again,’ she complained as she sashayed out of sight and into the kitchen.

  I swung my hand to grab Buster’s collar, but he was already running, his tiny legs shooting him along the hallway carpet. He and Amber had never seen eye to eye, each of them doing their best to aggravate the other at every opportunity. Amber claimed the house as her own, constantly seeking ways to get the awful dog smell out of it. Buster believed the house was his and would mark Amber’s bed if he got the chance.

  I kept her bed on the counter in the kitchen.

  Hopping, as I tried to get the stupid zip on my left boot to move, I gave up and hobbled after my pets with one boot on and the other off. Buster was barking his death threats and must have got close enough to Amber to scare her because she made that horrible hissing rowling noise cats manage to create. Hobbling through the kitchen door, I got to hear something smash.

  Shards of white china covered the stone tile of the kitchen floor. It was the lid from my Aunt Ida’s butter dish and as I tried to yell, ‘No!’ Amber flicked the base of the butter dish off the counter too.

  Buster was on his hind legs, standing up to bark at the cat though he knew he was several inches too short to ever get to her.

  ‘Come here, cat! I’ll make mincemeat of you!’ Buster threatened.

  Amber looked over the side and swatted his nose the next time he tried to j
ump at her. ‘There’s a good doggy. Keep acting predictably for me. Look Buster, there’s butter on the floor.’

  Momentarily distracted, Buster glanced, saw the butter, and swooped on it. Sure, he wanted to kill the cat, but food was food. Unfortunately, he was dumb enough to eat the shards of broken china too. He would most likely think they were put there deliberately to add some extra texture and crunch.

  I shooed him back, finally getting hold of his collar so I could drag him from the room.

  ‘But the butter!’ he barked. ‘I’ll clean it up for you.’

  With a final shove, I got him into the hallway and shut the door.

  Amber licked a paw with feigned nonchalance. ‘Isn’t it so much nicer with him anywhere but where we are?’ she commented lazily.

  I blew out a frustrated sigh. ‘No, Amber. I like Buster living here. You and I have this conversation most days.’ From the cupboard in the corner, I took out a dustpan and brush along with some anti-grease spray and got onto my hands and knees.

  ‘Do we?’ asked Amber, still sounding bored. ‘I hardly remember. Any conversation about the dog isn’t worth remembering. Unless you wanted to talk about taking him to the vets, of course. I would listen to that conversation with interest. I hear they do a very cost sensitive service in both euthanasia and castration. I would even come with you to help you through any emotional nonsense you might feel.’

  From the carpet tile, I looked up to meet Amber’s radiant sapphire eyes. ‘Emotional nonsense?’

  She twitched her tail and licked her paw again, using it to wipe around her left ear. ‘Yes. You know how you humans get – all silly and teary eyed just because the dog’s carcass went in the bin.’

  ‘That’s horrible,’ I gasped, shocked that she would talk about Buster in such terms.

  Amber paused her grooming to look down at me. ‘Only for the dog,’ she pointed out as if I might have missed a vital point. ‘You and I would be able to continue our lives and think how much happier I would be. That’s got to be worth the cost of the visit, surely.’

  Becoming vexed, I got off my knees, scooped Amber and took her to the kitchen door.

  ‘You need to go outside and think about how awful I would feel if anything happened to either one of you.’ I plopped her unceremoniously on the step outside and closed the door.

  ‘But you would have me to comfort you,’ Amber explained, strolling back in through the kitty door as if nothing had happened.

  I picked her up again, this time moving fast before she tried to escape me, shot the lock on the kitty door, and placed her back on the step outside.

  With a wagging finger, I said, ‘Buster is your brother, and you should be nicer to him.’

  I got a raised eyebrow. ‘Brother? I think I just threw up in my mouth.’

  I shut the door and went back to the mess of Aunt Ida’s butter dish.

  Buster was pawing at the internal kitchen door, Amber was meowing loudly at the door to the garden, and I felt like pouring a large glass of wine.

  So I did. There is generally a bottle of something crisp, white, and overpriced in my fridge. My nearest supermarket is a Waitrose – the highest of the high end of regular supermarkets – so I always get the best of whatever I have on my shopping list, but one must pay the mark up for it.

  Savouring a moment of peace as the chilled wine slipped over my tastebuds, I blocked out the sound of my pets. Moment over, I got on with getting them fed.

  Amber eats on the kitchen counter, Buster on the floor. Any other combination has proven to be fatally flawed.

  Feeling content, which you can translate to hoping fervently, that they would fill their bellies and retreat to separate corners of the house to sleep, I went upstairs to shower and change.

  My table at the Wild Oak in Aylesford was reserved for eight o’clock, a time I felt was neither early nor late. I hadn’t eaten at the restaurant since before Archie died though I remembered their excellent steaks well.

  I’m sure most women would shave their legs before going on a date. I did not for I was quite certain (thank you) that Vince would not get to see them. It’s not like I have hairy legs like a rugby player after all. In the same vein, I threw on the first items of underwear my hand fell upon.

  This was a functional event where two people were going to eat dinner and have a conversation. It was nothing more than that. A rumble of emptiness from my belly convinced me to eat a cheese cracker. It went well with the last of the wine in my glass and would have to keep me going for a while because even though our table was booked for half an hour from now, I knew it would be most of another thirty minutes after that before I got to eat anything.

  Perhaps some olives to nibble at the table would suffice.

  Pausing at the door to my living room, I raised my voice to address Amber and Buster. ‘Can I count on you to stay out of each other’s way while I am out?’ I asked, a hint of warning in my tone.

  Amber lifted her head and opened one eye. ‘Out? Where are you going?’

  ‘She’s mating,’ said Buster.

  ‘I am not!’ I spluttered.

  Buster, spread across the rug by the radiator like a melted chocolate bar, rolled over to meet my eyes. ‘You’re going out to meet a man, right?’

  ‘Yes, but.’

  ‘Sounds like mating to me,’ said Amber, the cat and dog agreeing on something for once.

  I was frowning so hard my eyebrows threatened to kiss my cheeks. ‘I am not mating. There will be no mating.’

  Buster rolled back over. ‘Humans are so weird about mating.’

  I started to argue but caught myself before I could stamp my foot in frustration. ‘Just make sure the house looks the same as it does now when I get back. I don’t want any torn cushions, Buster,’ he flipped his head around to shoot me a ‘Who me?’ expression. ‘And I don’t want my curtains shredded, Amber.’

  Amber didn’t even bother to look up, scorning me with her indifference.

  With an exasperated breath that this was my life, I snatched up my handbag, checked the contents and left the house. It would take me twenty minutes to get to the restaurant and though I didn’t want to go, I wasn’t rude enough to arrive late.

  Or so I thought.

  Thief in a Searchlight

  Orion Printing is one of those places you drive by a thousand times without ever noticing. Until you have a reason to notice it, that is. I knew where the business was, of course, I have been there thousands of times to drop things off or to collect. It is less than a hundred yards from The Wild Oak, but only when I parked my car did I remember they shared the same carpark.

  By the river in the small village, the small-scale, yet successful printing business was right there in front of me. It would be more accurate to say the back of it was as I was facing the rear of the building. Ahead of me, in a row that backed against the rear wall of a small line of businesses, several spaces were reserved for employees.

  To my surprise and confusion, one of the spaces was taken by a large blue Range Rover. John Ramsey’s Range Rover to be exact. I felt certain it was the same one but moved in closer to satisfy my curiosity. The lights in the carpark beat away most of the dark, but behind the rear wall of the buildings, inky black shadows ruled. I needed the torch on my phone to be able to see the scratches Buster left with his claws earlier today.

  Was he out of custody already? How had he managed that? I felt sure Joanne’s statement would be sufficient to convict.

  Peering through the passenger window, I saw a mound of paperwork on the seat. It was loose leaves of paper; lines of numbers that looked like a profit and loss statement or a cashflow report. I had an accountant firm on contract to deal with mine. It was probably something I could do but subcontracting it out gave me more time to work on the business. Basically, I knew more or less that what I was looking at were financial statements but that was about it.

  What I noted, when I shone my torch around, was the red circles around some of the figures.
Lines came from more than one with exclamation marks at the end. Straining my eyes to see, I was leaning on the car and jumped half out of my skin when the door shifted.

  It hadn’t been properly closed. Glancing at the popper thingy, I could see the car wasn’t locked. My heart rate spiked, not because I was now worried John was nearby, but because I knew what I was going to do if he wasn’t.

  I stepped back a little, peering around the edge of the car to see if anyone was about. The carpark was empty and silent. I could hear the river gurgling twenty yards away behind the cars. My heart started to hammer in my chest as I went back to the passenger door. The paperwork was right there!

  All I had to do was open the door and grab it. I could decipher it later, but anyone could see there was something about it that had spiked John’s interest. All the exclamation marks had to mean something. Another squint through the window showed there were notes at the bottom of the page, but they were handwritten and too difficult to read upside down in the dark.

  A question surfaced in my head. What would Patricia do?

  Knowing I absolutely shouldn’t, I grabbed the door handle anyway. The door popped open just a fraction as I held it almost closed and looked guiltily about again. Standing on my tippy toes, I still wasn’t tall enough to see over John’s car, but I couldn’t hear anyone approaching, so I opened the door another inch.

  The light came on inside, bathing my face in light. Panicking, I yanked the door open far enough to snake my arm inside, grabbed the top few pieces of paper, and pushed it shut again.

  My heart was threatening to leave my chest, it was pounding so hard. The pages got stuffed unceremoniously into my handbag just before I stepped back out into the light from the overhead lamps.