How to Murder Your Mother-In-Law (14 page)

“Of course,” I said, “Robert Road, Kitty Crescent!” The three of us—baby Laura had accepted the call to action—were engaged in a crawling race worthy of the St. Anselm’s Fête, over the Snakes and Ladders board and around the Noah’s Ark.

“In here!” Frizzy yanked open the door to the cupboard under the stairs and hustled her offspring and me into the cave where mops and brooms gawked at us out of the shadows. Laura gave a snuffle of delight as I popped her into the clothes basket full of sheets and towels. And people say housewives lead humdrum lives! Frizzy shoved in behind us and was drawing the
door shut, when Tricks provided a delightfully heart-stopping moment by appearing in the wedge of light. No room in the air raid shelter; but Frizzy was in quivering command.

“Lie down and play dead,” she ordered.

Tricks was nothing if not a sport. Down she went flat on the floor, arms at her sides, only her hair sticking up.

“Is it the insurance man, love?”

“Lady Kitty.”

“Ah!” The syllable held a wealth of comprehension.

“Don’t get me wrong.” Frizzy spoke into the fog raised by her panicked breathing. “I don’t think Lady Kitty’s some sort of monster. She does no end of good with all her charity work, and no one could accuse her of being a snob.”

“Well, I don’t see how she could be, love!” Tricks piped up from her foxhole. “Everyone knows her mum was chief cook and bottle washer up at Pomeroy Manor and her dad was the handyman. Talk about one for the book—the lucky ducks having that windfall on the pools just about the time Sir Robert inherited the manor and all its debts. Don’t have to be brainy to see why he married the meddlesome Minnie, do you?”

I fully expected Dawn’s voice to screech from above stairs, “Hark, who’s talking?” But we didn’t hear a peep out of her.

“Aren’t you worried about the children giving the game away?” I inquired into the gloom.

Frizzy shook her head which, given the breadth of her hair, put a crimp in our cramped space. “What with the mood Dawn’s in, she wouldn’t answer the door if her life depended on it. And, awful as it sounds, we have Lady Kitty alarm drills. If Barney’s out front, he’ll have ducked out of sight and Dustin will have taken a peek out the window and taken cover behind a chair. As I say, she’s not a bad sort but …”

Silence, so thick it threatened to smother us, sifted
up through the floorboards. It took me a moment to realize that, in a manner of speaking, the all-clear had sounded. The knocker had not come walloping down again. I heard the baby gurgle, I heard Tricks lift her head from the floor, and I was joining Frizzy in exhaling a relieved breath when I heard a woman’s voice inquire, “Anyone home?”

My knees turned wobbly. And I was only an innocent bystander. What must the woman of the house be feeling? We hobbled out into the hall, Frizzy treading on my heels and both of us stumbling over Tricks, who was still facedown on the floor. Only baby Laura escaped the humiliation of the moment. She was left asleep in the clothes basket, like Moses cast adrift in the bullrushes.

“Your ladyship!” I stammered.

“What an unexpected treat!” Frizzy’s smile kept sliding off her face.

“I was writing a note to put through the door, when I thought to try the knob.” Lady Kitty gave a self-congratulatory laugh. She was wearing a fur coat which didn’t go with the month of June or her headscarf. A law unto herself, this woman. Her snapping black eyes moved to Tricks lying flat out by the staircase. “A simple curtsy would do, Beatrix.”

This jest, if such it were, produced a puckish grin from Tricks. “I was doing my daily meditating.”

“She goes into a sort of trance.” Frizzy helped her mother-in-law to her feet. “Sometimes it takes us hours … 
days
to bring her out of it. And Mrs. Haskell”—she nudged me forward—“she and I were just checking the fuse box. The fridge keeps turning itself off.”

“What?” Lady Kitty’s voice conveyed disapproval. “That won’t do, will it! We can’t have appliances getting above themselves. And you, Frizzy, can’t go sticking your head in the cupboard under the stairs every time something goes wrong.”

“No, your ladyship.” This response was made in a junior-housemaid voice.

“The fuse box has nothing to do with it. I’ll send around my electrician. And you be sure and tell him that if he doesn’t do the job in record time, I’ll take his name out of the hat.”

Perceiving our blank expressions, Lady Kitty was so gracious as to explain herself. “My father used that method when paying his bills. He’d put the names of the people he owed money to in the hat he wore to funerals and weddings. Every Saturday night he’d hold a drawing to see who would get paid that week. If someone annoyed him, he took that person’s name out of the hat. And that went for me and my sixpence pocket money.” Her eyes gleamed at the memory. “I wasn’t brought up soft. And I’ve never taken the easy way since Father’s win on the pools made me mistress of Pomeroy Manor. But that doesn’t mean I look down my nose at those who never quite seem able to cope.”

“I do apologize for the muddle.” Frizzy’s hair had lost most of its oomph.

“Makes a home, doesn’t it?” Tricks beamed.

“It’s my being here.” I thrust myself into the fore. “I barged in just when Mrs. Tom Taffer” (sounded like something out of a nursery rhyme) “was getting going vacuuming up the toys … I mean the floor.”

Lady Kitty favoured me with a crisp smile. “I gather you’re here, Ellie, in your official capacity as chairwoman of St. Anselm’s Summer Fête. Time’s marching on, and it doesn’t do to get behind with our responsibilities, does it? How much money have you collected so far for the tents and other equipment?”

“Fifty pence.” I addressed her lace-up shoes.

“Not doing too well, are we?” She tightened the knot of her headscarf. “It strikes me, Ellie, that if I can offer the manor grounds year in year out for this event, you could put your best foot forward.”

“My cousin Freddy has promised to go out collecting.”

“Very kind of him. But call it delegating—call it what you will—it doesn’t do to shift our responsibilities. If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing ourselves.” Lady Kitty’s expression softened. “What you have to realize, dear, is that charity work is not for the faint-hearted. If we are ever to make this a better world, we have to learn to turn the screws. Speaking of which”—she pointed a finger—“I see a screw is missing from the Hoover.”

“Perhaps the baby ate it,” Tricks said brightly.

“Very possibly, but I had hoped better care would be taken with my property.”

“But I thought”—Frizzy flushed a deep orange—“I thought you gave me that vacuum.”

“
Lent
, dear. Not gave.” The smallest of frowns creased her ladyship’s brow. “I’m always willing to help out in a fix, but we all have to assume some personal responsibility, don’t we, dear?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“That’s right. And to show I’m not disappointed in you, I’m going to send my Mrs. Pickle over to give this place a good turnout.”

“That’s awfully good of you, but—”

“No buts, Frizzy, I’m well aware that Edna Pickle is slow as treacle, but she’s prepared to stay till the work is done, and as she’ll tell you quite proudly, she can’t read, so you never have to worry about her snooping. I’m sure if you start watching your pennies, you’ll be able to afford her a couple of days a week until the house gets squared away.”

“Thank you.”

“That’s my mission! Picking up the pieces of other people’s lives. Ellie”—the grande dame of the western world turned to me—“you must come for lunch tomorrow—no, better make it the following day. Be at Pomeroy Manor at noon sharp, and we’ll get you organized. We want this to be the best fête ever, don’t we?”

What I wanted was to get home, but someone knocked at the front door before I could make my
getaway. Frizzy opened up to admit a tall young woman with stooped posture and her hair hanging in schoolgirl ponytails on either side of her face.

“Pamela.” Her ladyship’s fur coat bristled as she turned to face the intruder. “I thought I told you to stay and watch the bikes.”

“I know you did, Mumsie Kitty.” The girl’s hands were tangled into knots that would never come undone. “But when I looked at my watch I got worried that you would be late for your doctor’s appointment and I didn’t want your blood pressure to go up.”

“I have a watch of my own, dear!”

“I’m sorry! I thought you gave it to Mrs. Pickle so that she could time herself when doing the stove.”

“
Lent
, dear! Not gave. Too good-natured for my own good, that’s my trouble.” Lady Kitty gave a sigh that rippled the tail ends of her headscarf. “People take advantage.”

“You
must
take the Hoover back,” Frizzy made haste to say.

“Certainly, dear! Pamela can tie it on her handlebars. My goal is always to encourage people like you to better yourselves, not to crush initiative. But first things first. Let me introduce my daughter-in-law, the Honourable Mrs. Allan Pomeroy. She and my only son live with me and Bobsie Cat—as we call Sir Robert. They have their own room and get one night out a week. Isn’t that right, Pamela?”

“Yes, Mumsie Kitty.”

“There isn’t a happier family anywhere. May God strike me dead if I tell a lie,” Lady Kitty told us.

M
y father-in-law was a disgrace to the honoured Haskell name. Duty dictated that I seek him out at the Dark Horse and demand that he return with me to Merlin’s Court and beg Mum’s forgiveness for last night’s indiscretions. But before I reached the corner where Kitty Crescent turned onto Robert Road, I knew I wasn’t up to another round as peacemaker. The morning had been one big fat waste of time, and I longed to see my children again before they were grown up and ready to leave home.

I was standing at the bus stop in the drizzling rain, looking at my watch, when there came a roar of thunder so low to the ground I feared the sky had fallen. A hurricane whipped my skirts between my legs as my cousin Freddy pulled up against the curb. His lean, mean legs straddled his motorbike, and the arms of his leather jacket were pushed up to display metal bracelets that looked like handcuffs. The pavement was still
vibrating when he turned off the engine and flashed me a fond smile.

“Want a lift, coz?”

“Shouldn’t you be at Abigail’s?”

“Lunch hour.” He shook his head sadly. “The curse of the workingman. Come on”—he patted the seat of the bike—“hop aboard.”

His skull-and-crossbones earring, coupled with the ponytail that looked as if it had been used to wipe up an oil spill, did not suggest someone who would hum along, up hill and down dale, at a chaste thirty miles an hour. But as I have said, I was eager to get home now, if not sooner. For all I knew, Mum was sunk in depression, Jonas was on the brink of proposing marriage just to cheer her up, and the twins were hungry enough to eat each other.

We were off in a blast worthy of Cape Canaveral. The car ahead of us took the ditch and a lorry backed around the nearest corner, leaving the road ours for the seizing. A dozen lampposts came charging at us like a troop of Gilbert and Sullivan policemen. Shops and windows gaped at us with wide window eyes, but even the traffic lights determined it was futile to try to stop us. Each one for a mile stretch turned green at our approach until the town itself took the hint and scarpered into the mist.

“Comfy?” Freddy shouted over his shoulder.

For the moment the Constable landscape hovered quietly behind its hedgerows, but who knew when a big furry cow might loom up and go “Moo!” or even “BOO!” If Mum had been here, she could have occupied herself with crocheting, but all I could do was make conversation.

“I say,” I yelled, “do you know Allan Pomeroy?”

“Who?”

“Sir Robert and Lady Kitty’s son.”

“Oh, him!” Freddy’s damp ponytail slapped my cheek. “Met him once at the Dark Horse. One of those fair, rosy-cheeked blokes who look as though they
should still be in short trousers. Talked proper posh, mostly about his mother.”

“Devoted to her, I suppose.”

“Terrified, is more like. He was telling me and the other blokes at the bar how Mumsie arranged his marriage.”

“Did what?” I almost bounced off my seat.

“You mean you haven’t heard about it from your source?”

“Mrs. Malloy? She must have assumed I already knew.”

“I guess! Picking your son’s wife is going a bit overboard these days, wouldn’t you say? The woman has to be bonkers. Get this, Ellie: She arranged a cooking contest and awarded the bridegroom to the winner.”

“You’re joking!”

“As true as I’m sitting here.”

“And women entered this contest?”

“By the score. They came out of the woodwork. And who can wonder? With his father’s pedigree and Mumsie’s money, Allan Pomeroy had to be the most eligible bachelor for miles around. I tell you, coz, it makes me grateful to be a common slob.”

I was speechless. The road rose up like a drawbridge as we headed for the clifftop. My hands un-snapped from around Freddy’s middle, I was leaning backwards, my shoulders resting on a cushion of the air. The sky was inches from my face. Just when I thought I was to be thrown to the four winds, the world abruptly righted itself and we were buzzing down the straightaway within view of St. Anselm’s Church.