The Magic of Christmas (26 page)

‘But Caz made her stop, so perhaps she’s sorry now, and this is a present?’ Ophelia suggested. ‘But I don’t want her peace offering!’

‘If it
is
a peace offering. We know she’s spiteful enough to do something nasty. I’d throw it away, just in case, if I were you.’

‘I’ll do that,’ Caz said, the stony expression on his face boding ill for Polly — though would she have tried something that might have harmed Ophelia’s baby? I thought back to what I knew of her, which, due to my avoiding her as much as possible, was not a lot.

‘I could be quite wrong about her, but it is odd that I was the only one who got the dodgy jar of tomatoes when she was handing them out to half the village that time,’ I said slowly. ‘And another thing: although I’ve only been to her house once for a book launch party, I was horribly sick afterwards, though I didn’t hear of anyone else being taken ill.’

‘Toadstool,’ Caz said meaningfully.

‘
Toadstool?
’ For a minute I thought he’d run mad, then I remembered: ‘You mean that poisonous one you showed me — was it in the basket of field mushrooms Polly brought me to swap for eggs?’

He nodded grimly.

‘And wasn’t it the kind you only get in woods, not open fields?’

He nodded again.

‘Could she be that jealous and vindictive? It’s so downright nasty!’

Caz shrugged.

‘Well, if it is true, let’s hope she doesn’t present any more little gifts to other people disguised as my offerings! I’d better tell Marian Potter tomorrow that someone is maliciously leaving tainted jars of food that look just like mine on doorsteps and she will spread the word. And I’ll stop covering the jars with anything except Cellophane from now on, even if they don’t look as pretty!’

Ophelia had lost interest by now and wandered off to commune with the quail by means of little cheeping noises. She seemed to be frighteningly at one with them mentally, which didn’t bode well for the intellect of her future offspring.

I followed over. ‘So, what are you going to do with the quail?’

‘Give them a happy life and I can sell the eggs, too. I think that’s all right,’ she said earnestly.

‘OK, they’re yours,’ I agreed.

She was totally impractical, but I expected Caz would just quietly go in and do what had to be done with the birds when she wasn’t looking.

They seemed to be settling down into a pair, though an odd couple they made. Maybe knowing secrets about each other forms a bond, for he was aware she was in ARG, and he’d told her what he did with the grey squirrels he caught. And Ophelia seemed very malleable, apart from a bit of occasional stubbornness, so I expected he’d slowly bend her into the shape he wanted over time.

Why did that make me think of brandy snaps?

Caz found some cardboard boxes, which he punched holes into, and loaded the quail up then and there, dismantling the pens and taking those, too, since I would have no further use for them.

What with the big bare space where the greenhouse used to be, and the lack of cheeping, moving feathers in the barn, things were looking quite deserted, apart from the hens and ducks. They’d all sheered off while Caz and Ophelia were there, but now came back looking for any pickings.

With a sigh, I went back into the cottage and looked out my recipe for brandy snaps, even though trying to wind them round the handle of a wooden spoon is such a pain that I couldn’t usually be bothered.

Next day when I was on my way back from a spot of pet-sitting duty, I spotted Caz and Nick in the woods near the drive. Caz seemed to be talking, or at least, replying, which was amazing! Then they shook hands …

What was that all about? Had some kind of deal been done?

On Sunday we were invited up to lunch at the Hall. Actually, we had an open invitation, but sometimes I was too busy, or wanted to go out with Jasper for the day while I’d still got him.

Nick was cooking, as he often did because he said it gave Mrs Gumball a rest. Though she protested at having her kitchen taken over, I think she was quite pleased really: she was no spring chicken any more, after all.

He was in and out of the kitchen when I got there and spurned my offer of help, though he accepted Jasper’s even though he only knows the theory of cooking and not the practicalities. So I left him to stew in his own
jus
and sat down at the dining table with the others.

Unks smiled at me fondly, then went back to reading the sports section of the Sunday paper.

‘We’re going on a garden tour by coach,’ Mimi informed me chattily.

I stared at Juno. ‘Is that a good idea?’

‘Don’t see why not — I’m fully fit again. I’ll frisk her for knives, scissors and plastic bags before we set off, and I won’t take my eyes off her for a minute within fifty paces of anything green. It’s a late-booking bargain.’

Mimi smiled innocently.

‘I don’t think
you
will get a lot out of it, Juno,’ I said. ‘You could do with a more restful holiday, after your accident.’

‘There are entertainments in the evenings at the various hotels,’ Mimi said. ‘It’ll be fun. But Juno and me have got to share a room. People will think we’re an odd couple.’ She giggled.

‘Pity, I was hoping to pick up a toyboy,’ Juno said, ‘preferably a rich one who could whisk me away from this madhouse.’

‘She doesn’t mean it,’ Mimi confided to me. ‘Her heart belongs to Sean Connery.’

‘I’ve never been one of those romantics,’ agreed Juno, ‘but I like a man to be a man.’

‘Do you think Nick is a macho man, Lizzy?’ Mimi asked, with one of her disconcertingly clear looks, just as the man himself strode into the room carrying the soup tureen, with Jasper following up behind with a silver basket of bread.

‘If macho is big, male and overbearingly bossy, yes,’ I said sweetly.

Nick gave me one of his slaty looks, the purple-edged sort.

It was good soup, followed by roast beef and perfect Yorkshire puddings, and he’d made one of his apple pies for dessert, which I have to admit was delicious, though I certainly wasn’t going to tell
him
so. Instead, I said the pastry was a little dry and asked for more cream.

Jasper and Nick were talking quietly in the kitchen when I carried through the dessert plates, and I hoped it was serious male stuff, because my attempt to discuss Safe Sex and STDs with Jasper certainly hadn’t gone down too well.

Nick seems to be Confidant of the Moment — but not mine. Been there, done that, and once was enough!

I was stuffed to bursting point after the coffee, but then Nick practically dragged me back into the kitchen and made me taste three different coffee granitas before I left. When I said I didn’t think any of them had that extra something, he went very sulky, even though (unlike what I said about the apple pie) it was quite true.

On the way home Jasper said I’d hurt Nick’s feelings and I should have pretended one of the granitas was great, and I said, astonished, ‘Why should I, when he’s always so rude about
my
cooking?’

‘But you know he doesn’t mean it. He’s just joking — it’s affectionate.’

‘I’m not so sure about that,’ I said darkly.

Anyway, I’m never again going to tell a man something is wonderful when it’s not. It’s my un-New Year resolution.

I passed on the warning about gifts of possibly tainted bottled goods being left on doorsteps by the simple method of mentioning it one morning at the Christmas Pudding Circle meeting. Marian especially is permanently plugged into the local grapevine via the post office, so by afternoon everyone within a five-mile radius would know, like dropping a pebble into a pond and watching the ripples spread.

After that I hadn’t intended to give the matter much further thought. In fact, I was half inclined to think Ophelia’s jar of tomatoes had been a gift from some well-meaning villager, who’d simply reused a gingham circle from something of mine. Goodness knows, I’ve supplied enough preserves and pickles to village fairs, fêtes and bazaars over the years!

But then Leila phoned me out of the blue in mid-afternoon while I was making a carrot cake and, to my complete astonishment, apologised for what she’d said at the funeral.

‘Of course, much of it was true, but it was not the time or place for such matters. I had come simply to pay my last respects.’

‘Quite … and … thank you,’ I replied cautiously, though not sure quite what I was thanking her for.

‘I see clearly now I was deceived by Tom and also, perhaps, by Nick. But that is life, so now I am resolved to stay single. Nick says he will still review my restaurant in his articles; it will not make a difference, our divorce,’ she added, sounding surprised and slightly scornful of his magnanimity. ‘So, we should all bury the hatchet and move on, yes?’

‘Er, yes … and it’s nice of you to phone me,’ I said doubtfully, wondering if there was a catch, for example, exactly
where
she meant to bury the hatchet.

‘I could do no less, after you sent me the peace offering, though a pot of blackberry jam, that is not sensible to put in the post, even packed so well.’

‘Jam?’

‘It says “Blackberry Jam: Middlemoss Autumn Fête” on the label, so I knew it must come from you.’

I’d provided some to be raffled off for charity, so it must be one of those. ‘You haven’t eaten any, have you?’ I demanded urgently.

‘No. I do not eat jam, it is not in my diet regime.’

‘Then don’t! I didn’t send it, someone else did — and I’m afraid it might be … tainted.’

‘Tainted? You mean poisoned? Someone is trying to
kill
me? But that is ridiculous!’ she said witheringly.

‘No, I’m sure she doesn’t intend to kill you, just make you sick and pin the blame onto me. She’s tried the same thing with Ophelia Locke, but I wasn’t sure—’ I broke off. ‘Oh, you don’t know Ophelia, do you?’

‘I know
of
her. I have been told she claims to be carrying Tom’s child, but she sounds a type most hysterical and neurotic.’

‘I suppose she is a bit,’ I agreed, wondering who Leila’s spy in the village was. ‘But she is pregnant and there’s a possibility it could be Tom’s — about one in four, if you want the odds. But anyway, she found some bottled tomatoes on her doorstep the other day and assumed they were from me, and they weren’t. And then I remembered once having a bad experience with bottled tomatoes someone gave me, and I got suspicious. Only it seemed so incredible that then I thought I must be imagining it.’

‘But you are confusing me with all this talk of bottled tomatoes! Who — and why? And …’ There was a pause. ‘It is Tom’s other woman doing this, that weird person, Polly something?’

‘I think so,’ I admitted. ‘I can’t imagine who else it could be, and there are a few too many coincidences. She’s been blackmailing the local animal rights campaigners into targeting me, too, so I wouldn’t put it past her.’

‘I will set the police on to her!’

‘There isn’t any proof, so I don’t think they could do anything, but I’m going to let her know that she’s found out, so she’ll think twice before trying anything else!’

Leila still maintained that the police should be involved, but I was wary: what if they thought I’d done it myself, as a sort of double-blind?

But in the end she agreed she would do nothing for the present, and rang off, after adding that if I was ever in the vicinity of her restaurant there would always be a table free for me, an offer I thanked her for but was unlikely to take up.

When I next popped into Annie’s cottage on the way to see to Flo, I told her exactly who I’d meant when I’d warned them at the CPC meeting that someone was leaving poisoned preserves on doorsteps. Then I retailed my conversation with Leila.

‘Poor, poor woman!’ she said sadly.

‘There’s nothing poor about Leila!’

‘No, I meant Polly, to be so consumed with spite and jealousy that she could do such awful things!’

‘Well, that’s one way of looking at it,’ I said. ‘Trust you to feel sorry for her! And it’s all very well playing these pranks on me and Leila, but Ophelia’s pregnant and it might have made her really ill or harmed the baby! Goodness knows what she put in those tomatoes.’

‘That’s true, and she might do something else! Perhaps I ought to tell Gareth so he could go and reason with her?’ she suggested doubtfully.

‘Absolutely not! There’s no way she’s going to cast herself upon his bosom and weep tears of repentance, and it would be like sending Daniel into the lioness’s den.’

‘What are we going to do, then?’

‘I’m going to speak to Polly, preferably in a public spot with other people about. I’ll tell her I know about her tricks, and if she does anything else I’ll report her to the police. That should stop her.’

‘Oh, I hope so,’ Annie said earnestly. ‘Perhaps it will shock her into realising how badly she’s been behaving, so she can move on.’

‘I wish she would move
away
,’ I said, getting up. ‘Well, must go and see to Flo on my way home. Ritch isn’t going to be back until late and she’s probably got all four paws crossed by now.’

‘You really aren’t falling for him, are you, Lizzy?’ she asked anxiously.

‘No, of course not, though if celibate widowhood ever palls on me, it’s nice to know my options for random sex are still open.’

‘Lizzy! You wouldn’t!’

‘Probably not — especially if he continues with
all
his dubious habits.’

In the afternoon Nick rang and
demanded
I go up to the Hall and taste his newest version of coffee granita, but I declined, since I was in the middle of a huge quince jelly-making operation by then and could hardly down tools at his bidding.