Femmes Fatal (25 page)

“Your understanding, please!” Dr. Melrose’s eyes were rimmed with woe. “I was desperate to the point of resorting to tactics of intimidation. I even arranged
to have a pair of peacocks kidnapped from the Fully Female premises and sent a letter indicating they would end up in the soup if the place didn’t close down.”

“That wasn’t kind,” I said.

“Believe me”—the doctor’s voice broke—“I have been punished. The chap who did the job demanded extra money for smuggling them into the zoo. But never mind that. Try, if you will, to picture this evening’s scene. I arrived home to find Flo absent. I knew a feeling of peace that was indescribable; then came a ring at the door and I opened it to be confronted by a woman in a Halloween mask. Shocked, I asked what I could do for her, and to my horror she cried, ‘Trick or Treat,’ then flashed open her raincoat. Naked! Completely naked! And something in me snapped. I picked up the doorstop and brought it down on her head. I didn’t need to remove the mask to know it was Flo. I would have known that appendix scar anywhere. I didn’t have to look at her or touch her to know she was dead.” Whether Dr. Melrose was touting his professionalism or talking his way through the pain was not clear. His monotone washed over us the way the dark waves below would have washed over poor Flo had the grieving widower succeeded in his scheme to rid himself of her body.

“Doctor,” I said, my voice as chilly as if I had just emerged from a midnight dip, “heaven forbid that I question your medical judgment, but I think you might be well-advised to get a second opinion.”

“What are you saying, Mrs. Haskell?”

“That your wife isn’t as dead as you think.”

“Ellie!” Gripping my arm, Ben stared down at the body. “By Jupiter, I think you’re right!”

“Impossible!” Dr. Melrose appeared to be coming back to life himself. Indeed, I sensed a slight annoyance that his diagnosis had been challenged.

“She moved!” My shout shook the earth and sky.
“Look!” Dropping beside Flo, I hardly felt the pain of the pebbles that poked through my slacks to embed themselves in my knees. “She’s opening her eyes. Oh, thank God! She’s squeezing my hand.”

“John …?”

“I’m here, old dear!” Dr. Melrose pressed a fist to his mouth to hold back a sob.

“Where are you?” Flo’s fingers broke away from mine to grope the air for a more familiar touch.

Still Dr. Melrose did not move. “I must have been in shock,” he kept muttering. I stood and joined Ben in forcing the man down into the penitential position. Finally he snapped back into focus. Removing his hat, he folded it into a makeshift pillow and placed it under his wife’s head before unbuttoning his coat to use it as a blanket.

“John …?”

“Quiet now, while I examine you.” Watching his hands gently probe her head, then work their way down her neck, I wondered if he was resigned to that moment when she would look him in the eye and ask, “Why did you try to kill me?”

“Squeeze my hand with your right one.”

“John …?”

“Now the left one.”

“Please …!” Flo’s head thrashed from side to side, but if the poor woman saw Ben and me, she gave no sign. “Why does my head ache? Why am I here, lying by the side of the road at dead of night?”

“I don’t expect your forgiveness.”

“The last thing I remember is sitting on the sofa; the sitting room window was open and a breeze stirred the net curtains. I was reading the Fully Female manual and came to the chapter on Holiday Treats. My word, Halloween sounded jolly! What a pity it’s only April, I thought, and then … it hit me.”

My eyes met Ben’s. So her timing was a little off. Who could expect perfect chronology under the circumstances?

Dr. Melrose buried his head in his hands. “I’m so sorry, old dear.”

“It hit me,” Flo continued, over and around him, “that pulling my Halloween stunt now would give it extra pizzazz, like Christmas in July. I seem to remember putting the manual down and after that … nothing.”

Lifting his head, Dr. Melrose pressed praying hands together. “What did you say?”

“Everything is a complete fog.”

“Thank God!” The words came out in a roar sufficient to jolt awake an audience sleeping through the opera.

“What?”

“Amnesia,” Dr. Melrose hastened to explain to his unsuspecting wife while Ben and I stood rooted to the ground like a couple of trees, “is Mother Nature’s way of cushioning a person from the memory of trauma.”

“What trauma?” Flo pressed a hand to her presumably throbbing head.

“Lie still, old dear, and I will explain.” Dr. Melrose glanced upward at Ben and me. “Do you see Mr. and Mrs. Haskell standing over there?”

“Where?” Flo strained her neck to see, but she still appeared to have trouble bringing us into focus. “Oh, yes, but John, what have they to do with … everything?”

“Let me start at the beginning. After you put on your Halloween stunt”—the doctor could not restrain a shudder—“I suggested we continue … the foreplay with a drive up Cliff Road. Everything was perfect, from the music on the radio to the love words you were whispering in my ear, when abruptly the idyll was over. We
came to the bend in the road just past the church and a cat darted out in front of the car.”

“Poor pussy!”

“Your very words at the time, old dear.” Dr. Melrose, still on his knees, squirmed. “Seeing you so distressed, I couldn’t flatten that animal into a hearth rug, and so I did what no motorist should do, particularly on such a road as this. I swerved, hit the brake … and when I lifted my head from the steering wheel, it was to find you thrown from the car, wondering how you came by that lump on the back of your head.”

“Wasn’t I wearing my seat belt?” Flo was visibly fighting to keep her eyes open.

“You said you found it too constraining.”

“What a fool I’ve been!” She reached up her hand to her husband, but looked at me and Ben. “Was it your cat?”

I nodded, unable to speak, and turned away with Ben at my heels. There had been a macabre blessing to the “death” of Flo Melrose; it had numbed me to the loss of my beloved Tobias. But now feeling was returning with the painful, prickling sensation of pins and needles to a sleeping limb. No more would I watch my furry friend tiptoeing through the summer grass with a lei of butterflies about his neck. The twins would neither babble his name nor stalk his tail. And never again would I sit on winter evenings with my furry heating pad on my lap.

My eulogy was interrupted by Ben, who had reached the car a pace ahead of me. “He’s gone.”

“Yes,” I mumbled, wishing he wouldn’t state what we already knew.

“Ellie, have you forgotten I gave up euphemisms after the twins were born? When I say Tobias is gone, I mean he is not where we left him.”

“Oh, my heavens!” Dropping on all fours, I stretched prone on the road to peer under the car, and sure enough, I saw not so much as a whisker. “You know what this means?” I started blubbering as Ben helped me to my feet. “Some wild animal has made off with him!”

“Sweetheart”—his voice was a blend of exasperation and tenderness—“this is Chitterton Fells. The hyenas aren’t tucking in their napkins for a late-night snack of Tobias. Clearly, his death was of the same temporary variety as that of Flo Melrose.”

“He was so still!”

“Agreed. But he afterwards recovered and … Ellie!” he shouted, leaping two feet in the air and punching the air with his fist. “I think I see him over by that rock where the grass is moving!” Still shouting, Ben dodged a few yards to our right, was transformed into a dark silhouette, and returned moments later with his arms sprouting fur. “Damn!” Scuffing his shoe. “Poor blighter, he’d been sick and I stepped in it.”

“What a night!” I gathered Tobias into my arms, still unable to believe he wasn’t a ghost. Certainly he was cold enough to have been haunting this spot for centuries, but that could be alleviated by tucking him inside my cardigan coat so that all that was visible of him was one ear and a dopey-looking eye.

“Ben …”

“What?” He was staring across the road, to where Dr. Melrose was still huddled over his wife.

“I’ve been thinking.”

“Same here.”

“Well,” I said, giving Tobias a hoist, “I’ve been remembering that old joke about the cat and the salmon. You know the one—a woman prepares a salmon for a dinner party and leaves it on the table while she goes
upstairs to dress. When she returns to the kitchen, she discovers her cat has been eating the salmon. Not having anything else to serve, she does a patch job with radishes and chopped egg, and the dinner party proceeds as planned with everyone tucking into the salmon and declaring it fit for a king. When it comes time for dessert, the woman returns to the kitchen and suddenly realizes she hasn’t seen the cat for a while. She opens the back door and there he is, stone dead. Convinced the salmon is the culprit, she goes in and confesses the whole story to her guests so everyone troops off to the emergency room to have their stomachs pumped. But later, when the woman returns home, a neighbour walks over and sheepishly confesses that he ran over the cat when backing out of his garage earlier that evening.”

“What are you saying, Ellie?”

“Saying is too strong a word. I am wondering, that’s all, whether what happened to Tobias could be a reverse of the story. We assumed he was hit by the Melroses’ car, but suddenly I am wondering if it was the salmon that almost did him in. I’m not saying it was bad—just too rich for his blood. Ben, I saw him when he stepped into the road, and I swear there was something wrong with him then. He was lurching, and when the car was almost on top of him, he stood there and gawped.”

“Probably mesmerized by the lights.”

“That’s what I thought, but …” I gave an uneasy laugh. “Oh, never mind. The late night is probably getting to me. Why don’t you get the picnic things together and we’ll head home.”

Watching Ben race up the slope to the birch grotto, I hugged Tobias closer for his warmth and my own. Talk about someone walking over my grave! Suppressing a shiver, I glanced toward the churchyard and saw what was either a short tree or a tall person standing
near the gates. Was Mr. Gladstone Spike taking the night air because he could not sleep, or was I once again letting my imagination run away with me?

“Ellie?”

Unlike Ben and most normal people, I have never been able to leap several feet in the air, even when startled. A sort of bunny hop is the best I can manage. Dr. Melrose was ushering his wife into the passenger seat of the car, and it was she who had called out the greeting.

“So sorry about the cat.” She lifted her hand in a wave as wan as her smile, and before I could reassure her that in the midst of death there is life, her husband had closed the car door and was heading toward me.

“A parting word, if I may?” Removing his hat, he clamped it to his chest and bowed his head. “Mrs. Haskell, I am completely at your mercy and that of your husband. If this evening’s events become known, I shall be ruined.”

“One would suppose so,” I said coldly. “A doctor who cannot tell whether his wife is dead or alive does not exactly inspire confidence.”

“I was beside myself.”

“Good!”

“Do I have your promise of silence?”

“For a price.” Looking him in the eye, I could see all the way inside his head to where the wheels turned.

“Blackmail, Mrs. Haskell?”

“Sticks and stones, Dr. Melrose.” Opening up my cardigan coat, I shifted Tobias into his arms, crushing his hat in the process. “As you see, my cat is alive. What I want to know is whether he will stay that way.”

“This is your price?”

“Coupled with your promise that you will never lay a hand on your wife again.”

“Mrs. Haskell, I’ve been married to Flo for over thirty years—”

“And that gives you one turn at bat?”

Making no reply, he got down to the business of examining Tobias, raising first one eyelid, then the other before exploring the abdominal area. “Given the circumstances, this may sound fishy”—Dr. Melrose’s sheepish expression had given way to one of surprise—“but I’d say this animal has been poisoned.”

“Fishy’s the word!” My eyes strayed toward the churchyard, but before I could say anything more, Ben emerged from the shadows, complete with picnic basket and travelling rug. Dr. Melrose quickly returned Tobias to me and clapped his hat back on—to look taller, I suppose, as he braced himself to grovel anew.

The telephone was ringing somewhere on the outskirts of sleep and I shot up in bed the following morning to find Ben gone and the hands of the clock pointing accusingly to eight o’clock. Hair all over the place like a St. Bernard’s, I did not pause to grab my dressing gown before panting out to the landing to pick up the receiver.

“Hello?” I fussed with the collar of my flannel nightdress, hating the thought of anyone hearing me, looking like this.

“Ellie, this is Bunty Wiseman.”

“Oh … how are you?”

“Heavenly!”

“Really?” Dragging forward a stool, I sat down with a thump.

“What do you expect, a year’s mourning?” Bunty’s laugh bounced off my eardrum. “Bloomin’ heck, love! I’ve had a whole night to pull myself together. The way I see things, Gladys Thorn gets Li and I get his wardrobe.”

Such savoir faire boggled the mind. My eyes turned to the photograph of my mother-in-law Magdalene Haskell and read her mind. Marriages aren’t dissolved like flavoured gelatin in hot water; they are torn apart limb from limb like charred flesh at a pig roast.

“If there is anything I can do …” My lips paraded out the worn cliche.

“There certainly is,” said Bunty blithely. “You can come to the party I am throwing for Li and his luscious fiancée.”

“The
what
?” The stool shot out from under me and I ended up on my knees clutching the telephone cord as if it were a lifeline.

“You heard me. I intend to show the world how the Fully Female woman behaves when the impossible happens. Does she crawl into bed and hibernate until the divorce is final? Not on your Nellie! She paints her nails and the town. So, Ellie, can I count on you tonight at seven?”

“Uhhhmmm!” Staggering to my feet, I tried to come up with an excuse to avoid what had to be the antisocial bash of the season.