Thieves! (13 page)

I’d just pop in for five minutes.

On the front doorstep was a glass jam jar filled with wildflowers—forget-me-knots, ox-eyed daisies, and some purple flowers that I didn’t know the name of.

How romantic! Who would have thought Wilf had it in him!

I knocked on Barbara’s front door and must have stood there for a good five minutes until I realized she wasn’t going to answer.

I knelt down and opened the letterbox. “Barbara?” I shouted. “It’s Vicky.”

There was no reply. Dad said empty houses had a particular feel to them, and I had to admit to getting that feeling.

I took the narrow path around the side of the house. A latch gate opened into a small, back garden surrounded by a high wooden fence. There was a neat lawn—no bigger than eight feet square—and a flagstone patio lined with tubs of geraniums and begonias. A white circular plastic table and matching plastic chairs stood under a blue umbrella emblazoned with the word
Campari!

Peering shamelessly through the ground-floor windows, I saw a spotlessly clean kitchen with no telltale signs of a teatime cuppa left on the draining board.

Rapping smartly on the back door, I shouted again, “Barbara!” But there was still no reply.

I tried to ring her home phone from my mobile but with no luck. I also tried her mobile and again drew a blank.

What if she’d fallen down the stairs—Barbara was getting up there in years despite her boasts of “sixty being the new forty.”

I was in a dilemma. Should I break in?

A quick look at Barbara’s window latches assured me of an easy access—but first, I had one more place to check.

Barbara did not own a car. Instead she went everywhere on her beloved circa 1940 pink bicycle. Convinced it was a collector’s item and liable to be stolen for parts, Barbara stored it under lock and key.

At the end of the garden stood a wooden shed. As I drew closer, I noted the old padlock shackle dangling from the hasp. I opened the door, and among shelves filled with empty pots and gardening paraphernalia stacked neatly on the floor sat an empty bicycle stand.

Barbara’s bicycle was gone, which meant she was out.

I returned to my car feeling distinctly uneasy. This was most unusual. Barbara
lived
for her job. Her life revolved around the bustle of reception, and she was often known to go into the office on her days off, “just in case there is an emergency.”

A doctor’s visit was out of the question. Following the shameful exit of Annabel’s former beau, Dr. Frost, from Gipping-on-Plym, there was currently no G.P. The doctors of choice were the sadistic Dr. “Jab-It” Jolly, the podiatrist, or Dr. Bodger, who was a ten-mile drive away in Newton Abbot.

Consoling myself that I had at least
tried
to deliver a package that I didn’t actually have, I could at least try to keep my promise to Whittler.

I knew my route back to Factory Terrace would take me past three red pillar boxes—Tripp Lane, Swing-Swang Road, and Bexmoor Way—but first a quick check of the collection plate.

I was right. The last pickup of the day was 5:30 P.M.! There it was in black-and-white—MON-FRI: 9 A.M.-5:30 P.M. SAT: 9 A.M.-12 NOON.

It was then that I noticed that the cast-iron pillar box door was not set flush against the cylindrical wall. Bill can’t have locked it properly.

I slammed the door shut.

Back on the road again, my thoughts turned to the evening ahead at 21 Factory Terrace.

Mrs. Evans loved a good gossip. Since it was she who had told Reverend Whittler about last night’s drowning in Mudge Lane, she was bound to have some information to share.

A
nnabel’s silver BMW was already in the drive behind Mr. Evans’s green Austin Rover Metro.

As someone who had lived at Chez Evans for far longer than Annabel had, this particular privilege somewhat irked me. We were both supposed to park our cars on the street.

Annabel’s “temporary” stay in Mrs. Evans’s sewing room had surprisingly turned into a two full months.

Located in Lower Gipping, Factory Terrace was a row of dreary Victorian houses formally built for the workers at the six-story wool and textile factory—another Trewallyn white elephant—that stood opposite. The factory had closed down years ago and now stood derelict and vandalized—hardly the kind of neighborhood that Annabel claimed she was accustomed to. But with no man paying her expenses at the moment, presumably beggars couldn’t be choosers.

One thing I loved about living with Mrs. Evans was having my own latchkey—unlike my previous landlady. I let myself in and was greeted by a delicious smell of baking pastry. Apart from Thursday night’s disgusting liver and onions, Mrs. E. was a decent cook, and at least there were always second helpings.

After hanging up my safari jacket on the hall coat stand, I noticed a pile of mixed objects left in an unceremonious heap at the bottom of the stairs—a pair of leopard-print ankle boots, a copy of bestseller relationship guru Fenella Fox’s
How to Be Irresistible!
a pink satin robe, a hairbrush, and a bottle of red nail polish.

A note, written in Mrs. Evans’s bold handwriting, was tucked into the top of an ankle boot. It simply said ANNABEL. Obviously, Mrs. E. was getting fed up with Annabel’s possessions seeping into every corner of the house.

I found my landlady standing at the kitchen sink gazing out of the window. Her hair had the tight-curled look of the just-permed, and for once she had switched her usual floral housecoat for a bright yellow apron over a cream cotton blouse and skirt.

On her right was a countertop full of an array of colorful mini recycling containers for which purpose I knew off by heart.
Brown
, for food waste, garden waste, and cardboard;
blue
, for paper, colored cardboard—not wet;
white
, for plastic bottles, cans, and tins—not polystyrene; and
gray
, for everything else. The same set that Ronnie had left at The Grange—only smaller.

Mrs. Evans suddenly started to jerk her left arm about, crying, “Bother! Drat!”

“What’s wrong?”

She spun around. Two spoons were stuck to a metal band on her wrist. Mrs. E. flicked it violently left and right in a futile effort to dislodge the cutlery. “It’s this wretched magnetic bracelet.”

“Why are you wearing it?” I laughed but Mrs. E. scowled, clearly not thinking it funny at all.

“It’s for my arthritis. My Sadie bought it for me when we had our girl’s lunch in Plymouth last week.”

I was glad to hear there was a grain of generosity in Mrs. Evans’s wayward daughter’s heart. Sadie Evans earned a ton of money pole-dancing at the Banana Club on Plymouth Hoe but was always on the scrounge.

“As long as I stay away from anything metal, it’s fine.”

“Damn and blast!” I cried, remembering Whittler’s envelope. “I completely forgot to post a very important letter.”

“Why bother?” said Mrs. Evans, clicking her ill-fitting dentures. “The post is all over the place. Mrs. Pierce swore she sent me a check a fortnight ago—it was a lot of money, too—and that Olive Larch
insists
her check cleared through her bank.”

I knew that Mr. and Mrs. Evans struggled to make ends meet. As a road worker for Gipping County Council, Mr. Evans’s salary was dictated by weather conditions and very unpredictable. Mrs. Evans said snail breeding was expensive, too, and that Mr. E. was always adding to his collection of terrariums.

Mrs. Evans opened the cutlery drawer. A knife, spoon, and fork catapulted onto her bracelet with a series of chinks. “Oh, sod it!”

I helped her remove them. “Why don’t I lay the table?”

“Use the best linen. Middle drawer.”

I did as I was told and took out a white damask tablecloth with matching napkins.

We usually used a plastic tablecloth and paper napkins, so when Mrs. Evans placed a cut-glass vase of roses picked from the garden in the center of the table, I had to ask, “Are we expecting visitors?”

“No.” Strain was etched across Mrs. Evans’s face.

“Is everything all right?”

“I’m trying to make an effort,” Mrs. Evans said miserably, nodding toward the open kitchen window. “Can’t you hear them?”

I paused to listen. The familiar sound of Annabel’s tinkling laugh drifted along the evening breeze. “They’re in the shed,” Mrs. Evans went on. “She’s taken an interest in Lenny’s snails.”

Honestly
, Annabel was the limit! For the past couple of weeks, she had been blatantly flirting with Mrs. E.’s husband, who was an enthusiastic snail breeder and took the sport very seriously.

As one of Gipping’s most popular summer pastimes, I had tried to get excited about the various celebrity snails that either were raced every weekend or appeared as “attractions”—Seabiscuit, Rambo, Bullet—but found the whole idea just too silly. I knew Annabel did, too. It was one of the few things we laughed about together.

“Ignore it, Mrs. E. She’s just insecure.”

“Why should I?” said Mrs. Evans defiantly. “I don’t like to see her making a fool of my man.”

At the beginning, Mrs. Evans told me she found Annabel’s behavior toward “my Lenny” a joke, claiming she couldn’t believe that anyone would find him attractive.

Without intending to sound unkind, I had to agree. I still suffered from nightmares following the time I accidentally walked in on the two of them fooling around. The sight of “my Lenny” wearing nothing but a pair of bottle-green socks was firmly printed on my brain for all eternity.

But recently I noticed Mrs. Evans make the occasional barbed remark at Annabel’s mode of dress, the smaller portions she deliberately slopped onto her plate at dinner, and the circled classified advertisements for flats or cottages to rent left at her place setting at the kitchen table.

Needless to say, Annabel either was oblivious or didn’t care.

A sudden burst of laughter sent Mrs. Evans scurrying back to the kitchen sink to peer out of the window. “Here they come!”

She took off her apron, darted to the counter, pulled out a drawer, retrieved a small compact mirror, and applied a layer of lipstick.

Moments later, Annabel and Mr. Evans strolled through the back door arm in arm. The smell of Polo Sport aftershave filled the kitchen.

“Yum, yum,” said Annabel. “I’m starving.”

“What’s cooking, Millie?” grinned Mr. Evans, his eyes sparkling. Having always seen Mr. Evans in corduroys and an old threadbare sweater, I did a double take. Tonight he was dressed in jeans and a pressed short-sleeved shirt. He’d even shaved.

“Egg and bacon flan.”

“Don’t you mean quiche Lorraine?” said Annabel. “That’s the right way to pronounce it. It’s French, you know. And we love all things
French
, don’t we, Lenny.”

Mr. Evans blew Annabel a kiss. The meaning was plain.

“We call it flan in this house,” snapped Mrs. E.

“Lovely,” I said. “I love flan, and you’re so good at making pastry.”

“Lenny’s good at
everything
, aren’t you, sweetie?” said Annabel, batting her eyelashes. Mr. Evans turned pink with ill-disguised pleasure.

Mrs. Evans’s dentures clicked into overdrive. “Not everything. The hinges on the wardrobe upstairs still need repairing.”

“Nag, nag, nag,” he said. “That’s all she ever does.”

“Wardrobe!”
Annabel pretended to sound shocked. “Have you been jumping off wardrobes? Naughty Lenny.” She suddenly burst out laughing. “Oh, Mrs. E.! You’ve got something dangling—”

“What’s on your arm, you silly woman.” Mr. Evans began to laugh, too.

“It’s for my arthritis,” said Mrs. Evans stiffly. She tore off the bracelet and threw it into the sink with a crash of clanking metal.

“You’re getting past it, old girl.” Mr. Evans guffawed, giving Annabel a wink. He flexed his muscles. “You won’t see me getting arthritis.”

“It’s hereditary,” I said quickly. “I have it and I’m only twenty-three. It’s the damp weather.”

Mrs. Evans stomped over to the stove and returned with a saucepan. She put five potatoes on each plate except for Annabel’s, on which she put only one—and a deformed one at that. Annabel also got a burnt slice of flan.

Mr. Evans gestured to Annabel’s plate with his fork. “See what little Annie eats?”
Little Annie?
“Next to nothing. You should try that. Lose some of that pot belly.”

“You can talk,” Mrs. E. quipped. “Why don’t you do something about that fat gut of yours?”

“I think it’s rather sweet,” said Annabel. “He’s nice and cuddly.”

I caught Annabel’s eye and glowered at her. She just smirked and started cutting tiny pieces of food and popping them daintily into her mouth.

Mr. Evans reached over and gently smoothed Annabel’s hair away from her face. “I love long hair,” he said softly.

Mrs. Evans’s expression was nothing short of murderous, which reminded me—“There was nearly a murder committed at The Grange today,” I said, glad to change the subject.