by H. Y. Hanna
“I’m sure she wouldn’t want anybody to know about it now,” said Florence. “She would be mortified!”
“But Lara knew about it, because Gaz told her,” said Glenda.
“Which means Cheryl could have murdered Lara to stop her blackmailing her about her guilty secret,” said Mabel triumphantly.
“Hang on, hang on—that’s a bit of a leap,” I protested. “We don’t even know if Cheryl knew that Lara knew… or if Lara was trying to blackmail her… And even if she had been, that doesn’t mean Cheryl murdered her! Come on, it’s not as if this was some kind of state secret—even if Lara was silenced, Gaz still knew about it… and there would be other ways to find out. I’m sure the police would have dug it up eventually if they did a bit more research into Cheryl’s past.”
“Well, if you didn’t think that Cheryl might be guilty, why did you come here then?” asked Mabel.
I paused, stumped. She was right. “I… I’m just double-checking, that’s all,” I said weakly. “We’re not even sure if Gaz is telling the truth. I wanted to make sure that there really is a picture of Cheryl in the magazines in the first place.”
“Well, why are you dawdling then?” asked Mabel.
Without waiting for me to reply, she opened the door and marched into the shop, followed by the other three. I hesitated for a moment, then sighed and hurried in after them. I found myself inside a cluttered store, filled to the brim with sex toys, lingerie, bondage equipment, lubricants, condoms, and an assortment of strange-looking objects that I had no idea what they were for (and probably didn’t want to know).
A young woman wearing a hideous black leather corset came hurrying up as we entered, but she faltered as she saw the Old Biddies.
“Can… can I help you?” she asked.
“Just browsing,” I said brightly.
She goggled at the Old Biddies tottering past us. “Uh… are they just browsing too?”
“Yes, they’re… er… they’re with me,” I mumbled, hurrying after the four octogenarians.
The girl hesitated, then retreated behind her counter, although she continued to watch us suspiciously over the tops of the shelves as we wandered around the store. I was hoping to find the rack of erotic magazines, look through the vintage issues, and get out as soon as possible, but I hadn’t banked on the Old Biddies’ avid curiosity. They seemed to want to pick up every item on the shelves and examine each one in excruciating detail.
“What do you suppose this is for, Florence?” asked Glenda, holding up a piece of lurid pink silicone.
“It looks a bit like a banana,” said Florence thoughtfully.
“But you put batteries in it,” said Glenda, unscrewing the end to show us.
“Maybe it’s a kind of torch,” suggested Ethel. “My Eveready torch unscrews at one end, just like that. Does it take 9V batteries too?”
“The quality of products in this place is really quite poor,” said Mabel with a disdainful sniff. She held up a pair of black panties. “Look at this pair of knickers—there’s a huge hole right in the middle! And this pair! And this pair!” She rifled through the rack. “All of these have holes. I would have sent them all back to the manufacturers, instead of having the audacity to sell them in the store. And for so much money too! Disgusting!”
“Oh, look—they even sell shortbread biscuits in here,” said Florence, who had wandered down the aisle. She held up a tin labelled Dunking Dickies.
Ethel peered over her shoulder. “Well, whoever was using the cookie cutter wasn’t very good with it,” she said. “All the biscuits look like penises.”
“What do you suppose this is for?” asked Glenda, holding up a life-sized rubber foot.
Oh help. In my wildest dreams, I never imagined I would have to go into a sex shop with the Old Biddies. I grabbed the rubber foot from Glenda and shoved it hastily back on the shelf.
“Look… can we just… move on? I think the magazines are over there.”
I hustled them over to a wall of magazine stands and left them discussing the improbable proportions of the busty girl on the cover of Penthouse while I hunted through the section marked “Vintage Porn”. Remembering the dates that Gaz had mentioned, I rifled through the issues from the ’80s, taking out several and flicking through them quickly. My heart sank as I realised how many more magazines were arranged on the racks in front of me. How was I ever going to go through them all?
Then, just as I was about to admit defeat, the magazine I was holding opened onto a large centrefold depicting a young woman clad only in a black velvet choker and a pair of stiletto heels. I stared down at the faded photo. She was thinner and more fresh-faced, with artificially bright blonde hair that was obviously coloured from a bottle, but there was no denying that it was Cheryl Sullivan.
I felt a stab of disappointment. A part of me had still hoped that Gaz was lying. I thought uneasily of what Cheryl had told me about the strict Catholic school where she worked. If her colleague had been fired simply for hosting sex toy parties in her home, what would happen to Cheryl if the school found out about her past in pornography?
It’s not even as if there’s any way to pass this off as something else, I thought, looking down at the picture again. With her suggestive pose and inviting expression, there was no doubt that Cheryl was happily flaunting her naked body for the camera.
But what I had said to the Old Biddies was true, I reminded myself. Just because Cheryl was ashamed of her past didn’t mean that she would murder someone to hide it. And she couldn’t hide it, anyway. That was the whole point. Killing Lara wouldn’t have kept her secret safe—it would be easy enough for anyone to find out the truth if they just did a bit of digging. (In fact, I was surprised that none of the tabloid papers had unearthed this yet.) Still, I knew that people weren’t always logical, especially scared, desperate people. More than one murder had been committed for the flimsiest of reasons, simply because people had panicked.
“What have you found, dear?” asked Mabel as the Old Biddies came over to join me.
Ethel’s eyes popped out as she saw the picture of Cheryl. “Oh my goodness, she hasn’t even covered her front bottom!” she squeaked.
“Is that really Cheryl?” said Glenda, leaning over to peer closely at the page.
“HEY! What are you guys doing?”
I looked up to see the shop assistant glaring at us.
“Those magazines are for buying, not reading in the store. Are you in here just to sneak a look at free porn?” she demanded.
“Oh no… no!” I said, shoving the magazine back on the rack and grabbing something at random from the shelf next to it. I hurried to the counter. “Here… um… I’m buying this.”
The girl looked mollified. “Cool. I haven’t tried this model of the Randy Rabbit, but I hear it’s really good.”
“The Randy what—?” I looked down in horror at the box I had just handed her. It held an enormous purple vibrator. “Oh! Actually… um… I don’t… I’m not sure—”
“Don’t worry, you won’t regret it,” said the girl earnestly, opening the box. “It’s got all these different settings, see? Rotating, pulsing—”
“That’s—that’s great!” I cut in, my face flaming as I noticed that a couple had just walked into the store. Oh my God, I hope it’s not one of the regulars at the tearoom! I thought, turning so that my back was to them.
“Now, would you like it gift-wrapped?”
“Uh… no, no… that’s fine… In fact, never mind the box,” I gabbled, grabbing the vibrator and stuffing it out of sight in my handbag. “I’ll just pay for it, okay?”
I stood in an agony of embarrassment as she put the sale through. The Old Biddies came to stand next to me and I braced myself for Glenda to start asking “What do you suppose this is for?” again—but thankfully, she and Florence seemed to be preoccupied examining the sexy lingerie displayed by the counter. As the girl was handing me the receipt, a man in a business suit came into the store. He cast a shi
fty look around, then leaned over the counter and said out of the corner of his mouth:
“I’m looking for a blow-up doll. You got any with extra-large breasts?”
Before the girl could reply, Mabel said in her booming voice: “They’re over in the cabinet by the far wall, young man, although I must say, I find it quite preposterous that you should be requesting a specific breast size. Back in my day, girls made do with the size of breasts that they were born with—none of this ‘boob job’ nonsense—and men knew better than to reveal their preferences in public. They behaved like gentlemen and—”
“Uh… yes, right… well, we’d better be going now,” I said, grabbing Mabel’s arm and hauling her out of the shop, leaving the man looking slightly shell-shocked behind us.
“Goodbye!” said the other Old Biddies, waving to the girl behind the counter as they tottered out after me and Mabel. “Thank you for a lovely time!”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Once I’d seen the Old Biddies safely onto a bus, I climbed onto my bike to head home. But as I was about to push off, I changed my mind—the thought of sitting alone in the house didn’t appeal to me—and instead, I headed northwest out of Oxford and cycled to Meadowford-on-Smythe. Arriving at the little stone bridge which crossed the stream just outside the village, I dismounted and wheeled my bicycle slowly up the High Street, enjoying the sight of the pretty little shops and winding cobbled lanes which made Meadowford such a popular tourist destination. Even on a wintry day like this one, the village looked quaint and picturesque, with the grey clouds adding drama above the thatched roofs of the traditional Cotswolds cottages.
I parked my bike outside the tearoom and let myself in, shutting the door behind me and leaning on it with a happy sigh. Ahhh… The Little Stables wasn’t open, of course, but somehow, even without the hum of customer conversation and the comforting smell of fresh baking, it still had a cosy, welcoming atmosphere, a sense of peace and security. And after the havoc in the sex shop, I was glad to get back to my little haven.
Still, I knew that I was only putting off the inevitable. I needed to call Devlin and tell him about Cheryl. It was important information and she was still a suspect in a murder investigation, no matter how much I liked her. Reluctantly, I pulled out my phone and was just about to punch in Devlin’s number when a knock on the door startled me. I opened it to find Cheryl Sullivan herself standing on the doorstep.
“Hi!” she beamed. “I was at a loose end this morning so I thought I’d take you up on your invitation to pop into your tearoom. I’d arrived here before I remembered that it might be shut, but then I saw the bike outside and thought I’d try on the off-chance—” She faltered, her smile fading as she saw my expression. “Is something wrong?”
I hesitated, then took a deep breath and said: “Cheryl, on the first night of the Semi-Finals, when I came back to the concert hall with Muesli, I searched for you but couldn’t find you anywhere. Where were you?”
She looked bewildered. “What… what do you mean? I told you—I went out to the little car park behind the concert hall to look for Misty again.”
“Did you see anyone? Talk to anyone? Did anyone see you?”
She flushed. “You’re asking if I have an alibi for the time of Lara’s murder, aren’t you? Do you think that I might have murdered Lara?” she asked incredulously. “That’s crazy! Why on earth would I want to kill her?”
“Because she found out about your shameful secret,” I blurted.
Cheryl went very still. “My… my shameful… secret?” she stammered. “I… I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I mentioned the name of the magazine in which I had seen her picture at the sex shop. She blanched visibly.
“That… that was a long time ago,” she whispered. “I was a student… I needed the money. We… we all make bad decisions sometimes, especially in our younger years—”
“But you thought that bad decision had been covered up and hidden safely away, didn’t you? Until Lara raked it all up again. What did she do? Taunt you with it? Threaten to expose you to the press? Or to your school? That would have cost you your job, wouldn’t it? Is that why you killed her?”
“NO!” cried Cheryl, looking horrified. “I didn’t kill Lara! How could you—I would never—that’s a horrible thing to say!”
“The truth is horrible sometimes.”
“But that’s not the truth!” said Cheryl. “I didn’t kill Lara! I wouldn’t have killed her even if she had been blackmailing me or whatever—but anyway, she wasn’t! I don’t know where you got that crazy idea from. I don’t think Lara even knew about my past. And in any case, it wouldn’t have mattered if she had told my school.” She raised her chin. “I’d told them myself.”
“You did?” I stared at her.
She nodded. “Years ago, when I went for the job interview. I didn’t want it hanging over my head, like some guilty secret, so I told them everything. They were surprisingly understanding about it, actually. Maybe it’s the Catholic belief in confession and forgiveness, but anyway, they gave me the position, in spite of my ‘chequered past’. So you see, there was nothing that Lara could hold over me.”
I didn’t know what to say. She had taken the wind completely out of my sails. Not only did I now look a complete fool, I also felt like a narrow-minded, sneaking Judas.
I cleared my throat and said awkwardly, “Um… well…”
“I was wrong about you, Gemma,” said Cheryl, two spots of angry colour in her cheeks. “I thought you were my friend—but friends don’t go around behind each other’s backs, prying into their past and then making nasty assumptions!” She lifted the gift bag she had been holding and thrust it at me. “Here. I brought this as a thank you for your help with my act.” She handed me a hand-knitted toy mouse. “And I made that for Muesli. I was going to give it to her myself but you’d better take it since I doubt I’ll be back.”
Turning on her heel, she stalked down the street and out of sight. I stood miserably on the doorstep, holding the gift bag and watching her go. I’d never felt so small and ashamed of myself. How could I have got it so wrong? Then I straightened. Actually, I hadn’t. My gut instinct had always been that Cheryl was innocent. I’d just let myself be swayed by the “evidence” to the contrary.
Sighing, I stepped back inside and shut the door. But now, the empty tearoom no longer seemed cosy and welcoming. Instead, the silence felt oppressive and all I kept hearing was Cheryl’s voice saying over and over again: “I was wrong about you, Gemma… I thought you were my friend… I was wrong about you, Gemma… I thought you were my friend…!”
Impulsively, I let myself back out, jumped on my bike and headed back to Oxford. Not to my cottage though. Suddenly, for all her faults and exasperating habits, I wanted to see my mother. I cycled to the tree-lined streets of North Oxford, parked my bike outside my parents’ elegant Victorian townhouse and hurried inside, only to stop short as I stepped into the sitting room. My mother had a visitor and my heart sank as I recognised the woman sitting next to her on the sofa. It was Grace Lamont.
“Hello, darling—how lovely! Are you staying for lunch?” trilled my mother.
“Er…” I hesitated in the doorway. The last thing I wanted to do was have lunch with the scary editor of Society Madam magazine. But my brain struggled to come up with a realistic excuse on the spur of the moment and the long pause meant that if I declined now, it would have been obvious why. “Um… yeah, I’d love to have lunch with you.”
Grace shifted irritably in her seat and said: “I do abhor the way young people say ‘yeah’ these days. So sloppy and uncouth! The word is ‘yes’—a nice, firm affirmative, with no slurring or distortion of the vowels.”
Bloody hell. Lunch with this woman was going to be torture. My mother had always been pretty strict about manners and etiquette, but Grace made her look like a slovenly ’60s hippy. I went to wash my hands before the meal—one of the edicts drummed into me from an early age—and
then sat down with some trepidation opposite Grace at the dining table.
My mother had prepared a simple meal of salads and cold meats, accompanied by soft bread rolls, for which I was grateful as it involved fewer fancy utensils and less effort for me to remember which knife or fork to use on what first. But even as I reached for a bread roll, I hesitated. I knew you definitely didn’t bring the whole roll up to your face and take a bite out directly, but were you supposed to break the bread roll open with your hands? Or slice it into two halves with the bread knife? Which was the correct etiquette? Suddenly, I couldn’t remember.
Surreptitiously, I watched Grace, but to my dismay, while she accepted helpings of salad and cold roast chicken, she declined the basket of bread rolls. Bugger. She was probably avoiding carbs or something. I looked to my mother for guidance, but she had just left the table and gone into the kitchen to bring out something else. I was left holding a bread roll aimlessly in front of me, like a squirrel posing with a nut.
I saw Grace raise her eyebrows at me and hastily put the bread roll down on my side plate. To stall for time, I grabbed a nearby platter and made a performance of helping myself to some potato salad, saying brightly:
“So… um… are you doing interviews with any of the other judges from the show?”
“No, but I shall be including a special feature on some of the contestants in the next issue,” replied Grace. “Your mother has been telling me about several of the performers who have quite interesting backgrounds. While Society Madam does focus on home-making, fashion, and etiquette, we do also like to include human interest stories from time to time. And given the enormous amount of national interest in the show, I think our readers might enjoy some coverage of the performers.”
“Yea—yes, I noticed several newspapers and magazines have been doing stories on the contestants.”
“Well, naturally, we would not publish the type of dreadful sensationalist stories that are favoured by the tabloid papers,” said Grace haughtily. “We aim to provide thoughtful, intelligent editorial, with a focus on family values. Thus, I would like to interview the mother of the twins about the challenges of bringing up child prodigies, for example. And the plumber, Mr Ziegler, seems an interesting man. According to your mother, his family came over to England from Germany during the Second World War.”
