Scandal at Six (Lois Meade Mystery) (2 page)

Two

B
y ten o’clock, the whole village knew about the snake.
A
zoo handler had arrived, in a
T
resham
Z
oo van with a snarling tiger emblazoned on the side, and with the utmost confidence and calm had picked up the snake and settled it comfortably in a large wicker basket.
H
e then bought an ice cream for himself from
J
osie, and making his way out, smiled at a small crowd once more gathering outside.

“I shall never have another minute’s peace,” said Josie, still nervous about staying inside the shop. She sat on the shop step in the sunlight, talking to Andrew Young, one of her mother’s team of cleaners. Andrew had been around the world as a student of interior decoration, and was consequently quite knowledgeable about snakes.

“I’m sure you’ll be safe now,” he said. “It was a definite one-off, though how it got inside your locked storeroom, I cannot think. Have you found a tenant for the flat up above yet? If the snake story gets out, potential tenants are going to think twice!”

Josie shook her head. “There’s still some of my stuff up there, and I keep meaning to take it down to the cottage. There’s always something more urgent to do. But now, when I think about it, I start to shake. I mean, if a snake can get in—”

“Or was put in?” said Andrew.

“What d’you mean? Why should anyone put a snake into my shop? Oh hell, Andrew, do you think somebody did it purposely?”

“It’s possible,” he said. “I can’t think how else it got in, unless it came down the chimney.”

Josie frowned. “The chimneys are all blocked off,” she said, and seeing the ghost of a grin on his face, she added that it was no laughing matter. He hadn’t seen the snake, and probably wouldn’t believe how huge it was.

“So what are you going to do, Josie? Is Matthew going to look into it?”

“He doesn’t know about it yet. He’s not due back until around six this evening. Meanwhile, I’m staying outside here, unless there’s customers wanting to be served. What are you doing here, anyway? Did Mum send you down for something?”

“No, it was Gran. I was early for my next job—at Stone House, Mrs Tollervey-Jones—and so I called in at Meade House. Gran sent me down for milk. Apparently they’ve run out. Shall I go in and help myself?”

Gran Weedon was Lois’s mother, who acted as housekeeper for the family. She had a sharp tongue and a warm heart, and she, Lois and Derek lived in Meade House in relative harmony.

Josie got to her feet and followed Andrew into the shop. “I suppose I’m being silly, aren’t I? It’s extremely unlikely there will be another snake. Here’s the milk. I’ll put it on Gran’s tab.”

She opened the counter drawer to take out the account book, and her hand touched something cold and dry and alive.

“Ahhhhh!” Her scream seemed to Andrew to go on forever, and he rushed around the counter to grab her.

“For heaven’s sake, Josie, do shut up! Let me look.”

He pulled out the drawer to its full extent, and saw a large toad looking at him. It was ugly, mottled yellow and warty, and it began to crawl out and up onto the counter.

“Andrew! Get it out of here,
please
!” Josie quavered. And then it was all too much for her, and she rushed back to the top of the steps, sat down with her head on her knees and sobbed silently.

*

By the time Derek Meade got home from work, Lois had summoned a family council of war.

“War on all reptiles,” she said, as they sat down at the kitchen table. Derek, Lois, Josie and Matthew, Gran Weedon and Andrew Young, who had so heroically dealt with the toad, all had coffee in front of them, and Josie had brought a large box of tissues in anticipation of more tears.

“Where’d you put it, boy?” said Gran. “I don’t mind frogs, but I can’t be doing with toads. They look evil, the way they crawl, like some kind of alien creature on the telly.”

Josie began to sniff.

“Gran,” said Derek, “if I were you I’d keep off the subject as much as possible. You can see our Josie is very upset.”

“Huh! I’ve dealt with worse things, I don’t mind tellin’ you.”

“Right,” said Lois. “Let’s stop meandering about, and get down to business. I’ll make some notes, and we can decide what action, if any, we mean to take. You first, Josie. Start at the beginning.”

Josie took a deep breath and sat up straight. “The snake was curled up in the storeroom when I opened up this morning. God knows how it got in. There was no gap anywhere. The odd thing is that the door out to the garden was unlocked. Either someone cleverly picked it or I somehow left it open. My fault, anyway, and my responsibility. I shall know better in the future. The snake was taken away by the zoo man, and Andrew and me reckoned that was it. I could put it behind me. Not literally, of course! Anyway, when I went to look in the counter drawer to get the account book, I touched this horrible thing, and then Andrew took over. It was an enormous yellow spotty toad, and he put it over the back fence into the field. I wasn’t very brave, I’m afraid.”

“Of course not, me duck,” said Gran. “But it ain’t no coincidence, is it? Somebody’s got in and left them things in the shop to frighten you. I reckon it’s a job for the police. Like you, Matthew. Don’t you agree with me?”

“I think it might be better if I helped, but also told someone at the station about what’s happened,” said Matthew. “Being as it’s family, it might make my position a bit difficult.”

“I know who we can tell,” said Lois.

Derek groaned. “Not him,” he said. “Not the famous detective inspector, semiretired, and scourge of the county?”

“Yes, him,” said Lois. “I shall ring Hunter Cowgill, and it’ll be a nice little job for him.”

Andrew Young said nothing, but thought privately it might not be as little a job as Lois seemed to have decided. He had sensed something sinister in the thinking behind this happening. What kind of a person would frighten an innocent young woman in such a cruel way?

“With someone living there, you’ll feel a lot safer, Josie,” said Lois. “It is a nice little flat, after all, and at the moment, the place is vulnerable, with no direct neighbours and nobody in residence.”

“Are you going to put ‘must be tolerant of sundry reptiles’ in the ad?” said Derek.

“Very funny!” said Lois. “But it won’t be so easy to find a suitable tenant, what with stories in the papers, an’ that. We’ll ask around, and advertise in the local, and then do some interviews. And I’ll be down to open up with you tomorrow morning, just in case there’s an elephant eating the sweets.”

“Well done, mother-in-law,” said Matthew. “And I’ll have a word with Uncle and tell him you’ll be in touch.”

Matthew Vickers was a nephew of Detective Chief Inspector Hunter Cowgill, and they both worked from the Tresham police station. Cowgill had a special relationship with Lois. He was more than fond of her, but she kept him at arm’s length. Together they had solved several criminal cases, and Lois refused any kind of reward for what Derek called her ferretin’. He disapproved strongly, but was sensible enough to know that with his Lois, the surest way to guarantee her carrying on with her peculiar hobby was to forbid her to have any part of it.

“And Matthew dear, could you possibly not call me mother-in-law? Makes me feel about a hundred in the shade. ‘Lois’ will do nicely.”

The meeting broke up, with Andrew going back home to Tresham, Matthew and Josie returning to their cottage, and Lois, Derek and Gran settling down for the evening news on television.

When the familiar local news announcer appeared, the three sat up in horror as a large cobra filled the screen. “This lovely snake,” said the girl, “turned up in the village shop in Long Farnden this morning. The owner of the shop sent for the owners, Tresham Zoo, and all was tickety-boo in no time. The snake, named Flatface, was collected and returned to its quarters, and no harm done to snake or shopkeeper. And now for the football results . . .”

Three

T
oday being
S
unday, the shop was closed, except for an hour or so sorting out the newspapers and sending the newsboys off on their rounds of the village.
J
osie had been reluctant to open up on her own, and so
M
atthew, who had a day off, went with her.
H
is reassuring presence broke the tension of venturing into the stockroom and checking all around to see that no more reptiles had ventured in.

“So, is that all?” All the newsboys had been dispatched, and the regulars who came in to collect bread and their papers had been served. Matthew looked out of the shop door and saw heavy dark clouds massing beyond the playing field. The first cricket practice session would be starting at eleven, and he was a keen coach, having been a useful batsman and bowler when at school.

“Yes, that’s it,” said Josie. “Here’s my keys. Could you lock up, while I run up to Mum’s and check when she wants to get going on the ads and posters?”

“For the flat tenant? Yep, of course. I’ll go straight down to the pavilion, and then come up to Meade House to pick you up when we’re finished with cricket.”

Josie disappeared, and Matthew went back into the stockroom for one last check. It had occurred to him that someone could have hidden upstairs in the flat when she had left the shop for a few minutes, perhaps to talk to a deliveryman. They could have nipped upstairs and then, when Josie had shut up shop on Friday evening, crept out and released the snake, hidden the toad in the drawer, and scarpered next morning when she came in. This unknown person could have been hiding in the flat all the time and got his kicks from hearing her scream! Why hadn’t anybody thought of that?

Then another thought struck him. Although Josie wasn’t sure that she locked the back door of the shop which led into the garden, it would still have been difficult to get into the flat. Surely that had been locked at the top of the stairs? But had it? Josie used to live there when a bachelor girl, and still had one or two of her things in cupboards. She could have been in and out and forgotten to lock it. Habit dies hard.

Thinking it might be a good idea to investigate upstairs right now, he fetched the flat key from where Josie kept it hidden, and started upstairs. It was dark, and about halfway up, he felt something soft and squelchy under his foot. Ye Gods! Not another one. He reached down and extracted from under his shoe the body of a very dead frog. Not as evil-looking as the toad, but very nasty when squashed.

“Thank goodness she’s gone up to Lois’s,” he muttered. “She’d have had hysterics!” He checked the flat door, and found it locked. Then he found a rag and cleaned the stair, dug a hole in the back garden and disposed of the frog, then set off for the playing field.

Was the frog mere coincidence? Frogs do sometimes venture indoors. He considered this and rejected it. This was a very deliberate campaign, and the obvious motive—to frighten Josie into a nervous state—was a slender one. He was already an experienced policeman, and knew that motives were often complicated and often rooted in past grudges or resentments.

He decided not to tell her about the frog.

*

Lois and Derek were lingering over a late Sunday breakfast, and Gran had joined them at the table. Conversation was desultory, but all three were thinking around the same subject. Josie and the reptiles. When they saw her passing by the window with a smile and a wave, they were all relieved, and looked forward to being able to immerse themselves in the doings of the rich and famous in the Sunday newspapers.

“Hi everybody,” Josie said. “Looks like rain. Matthew came with me to open the shop, and now he’s gone down to cricket. He’ll be disappointed if they’re rained off.”

“Never mind,” said Gran. “We can talk about the advertisements for a shop tenant. If you ask me, we’re going to have to take great care to get the right person. After all, they’ll be left on the premises and could help themselves to anything they fancied.”

Josie shook her head. “No, Gran. There’s a door we can keep locked between the storeroom and the stairs to the flat, so the tenant will use only the back door that leads only to the stairs.”

“Good gel,” said Derek. “I’m sure it will all work well, and you’ll have no more trouble. I’ll put a lick of paint inside the flat to smarten it up. We should get a decent rent, then. We’ve had several enquiries since you and Matthew got married, and you moved down to his cottage. We can follow them up. Should have done it months ago.”

“Should have done a lot of things, but it ain’t until something bad happens that we all get round to thinking about it,” said Gran. “But yeah, you’re right. It could be a nice little income.”

“We could get new curtains,” said Lois. “And we need to think about whether it will be a male or female tenant.”

“Oh blimey,” said Derek. “Does it matter, so long as they’re decent, honest people?”

“And is it going to be one tenant or two?”

At this point, heavy raindrops rattled against the window, and they saw Matthew running past. He came breathlessly in through the kitchen door.

“Rained off!” he said, sitting down heavily at the kitchen table. “But still, some good came out of being down there. The vicar came over soon after we started, and we had a chat. I mentioned a tenant for the flat, and he said he had just the right person. Or persons. I think there would be two of them.”

“Matthew! You didn’t say they could have it, did you? Mum will want to go through the proper procedure, won’t you, Mum?”

Although Josie was in sole charge of the shop, the actual premises and business had been bought by Lois and Derek, and so in matters like tenancy, they had the final say.

“Afraid so,” Lois said. “We have to know a great deal about any likely tenants. I expect the vicar’s candidates will be the deserving poor.”

“So?” said Josie, coming to her husband’s defence. “So surely we can do our bit to help?”

Derek frowned. “That’s all very well,” he said. “But your mother’s right. We need a nice middle-aged couple, perhaps with a dog that’ll bark in the middle of the night. Maybe a retired caretaker. Somebody like that.”

Lois’s dog, Jeems, divining that they were talking about dogs, decided it was time for her party trick, and she unhooked her red lead and deposited it at Derek’s feet.

“Hello, here’s somebody who wants a walk,” he said, and suggested they all leave the subject of tenants until tomorrow. They could get together after Lois finished her weekly meeting with Andrew and the cleaning girls of New Brooms.

Matthew and Josie declined an invitation to stay for lunch, and Derek decided to take Jemima for a walk down to the playing field. “She loves picking up the ball and scoring a few runs,” he said. “Maybe it’ll have stopped raining by the time we get down there.”

Gran said that it was time she got the joint of lamb in the oven, and Lois retired to her study to check papers for tomorrow’s meeting. She watched Josie and her husband walking down the drive to their car, and smiled. A lovely couple, thank goodness. Then, as she looked, Matthew turned and ran back into the house.

“Lois?” he said. “Didn’t want to tell you in front of Josie, but when I went upstairs to check on the flat, halfway up I trod on something squashy. It was a frog, already dead, but not nice.”

“Ugh! Well, thanks for telling me, and you did the right thing not telling Josie. Poor gel won’t take much more.”

*

Coffee time came, and Gran appeared with a mug and a biscuit for Lois. She sat down on a chair by the window and looked down the street towards the shop.

“Who do you reckon done it, Lois?” she said.

“No idea. It’d have to be someone who was able to get the snake out of the zoo and keep it until it was time to leave it in the stockroom. And it’s not all that easy to find toads and frogs these days. Some nature-reserve nutter? Or a worker at the zoo? They get all kinds of nasties to look after in there. Reptiles, an’ that.”

“And all kinds of nasties working in that place?” said Gran. “I reckon you’re on to something there, Lois. We’ll suggest that at the meeting tomorrow.”

“I think I’ll ask Dot Nimmo to stay after New Brooms is finished. She knows the local underworld and its scams and dodges in Tresham. Perhaps we could recruit her to be on our investigating team?” Lois had worked before with Dot. But in Gran’s opinion, this member of Lois’s team was a pain in the neck, and she showed no great enthusiasm for Lois’s suggestion.

“Maybe later,” she said. “So are you taking up the snake case?”

“Of course,” said Lois. “It’s not just the cruelty to the creatures, but to our Josie as well. And then there’s the security thing. Okay, so Josie left the doors open for any bloke to get in. But then the alarm should have gone off. Maybe she forgot to set it. Trouble is, living in a village where you know everybody, you get careless about security. No wonder poor Josie was so upset! She’s sure it was her fault.”

“You’ve assumed it was a man, I see.” Gram sniffed. “It is just possible it could’ve been a woman with a grudge. Some old jilted girlfriend of Matthew?”

Lois laughed. “I think that’s letting your imagination run away with you, Mother,” she said. “Anyway, we’ll discuss all these things tomorrow. I think I’ll go and meet Derek and Jeems on their way back. Looks like the rain has stopped.”

“And I’d think twice about Dot Nimmo, if I was you,” Gran said. “And tell Derek there’s to be no dropping off at the pub for a pint. This is a prime piece of lamb, and I don’t want it spoilt.”

*

In nearby Tresham, in the bar of the county hotel, two men sat talking, drinks in hand. One was youngish, boyish almost, and with colourful casual clothes, and the other an autocratic-looking man in a well-cut grey suit.

“So do you think it will work, Justin?” the older man said.

“Okay so far, Uncle. I had a quick look around after dark, and getting in was not difficult. There is a very suitable wooden shed at the back, and I would be on the spot. Could be ideal, and I could keep an eye on comings and goings in the shop. In the evenings, of course, there’s no one about, unless the girl is working in the stockroom, so I could attend to things then.”

“And did the snake thing do the trick? Will it frighten other possible tenants?”

The younger man laughed. “Good God, yes! Did you see the news item on the telly? The shopkeeper girl was frightened out of her wits. If she has any, that is. No problems, Uncle. Couldn’t be better. I shall proceed with my plan as outlined.”

A waiter approached, and said, “Your table is ready, Mr Pettison. Come this way, please,” and the two went happily in to lunch.