Sunday cont.
Chris was not particularly happy to be back in Upper
Grumpsfield so soon.
Gary drove to Hilda Bone’s house in Cleo’s red car and
waited until Chris and Ned turned up in their van before getting out and
crossing the road to greet them.
“Not another corpse,” said Chris. “Please, not another
corpse.”
“Not that I know of. Have I missed something?” said Gary.
“It looks like it. There’s a queue. Funny goings-on again at
a posh OAP home the other side of Middlethumpton. Gisela got onto it because
her mother lives there.”
“Poison, I suppose. Sounds about right for an OAP home.”
“That and smothering. One of the carers decided to relieve
residents of their right to live. She got at half a dozen.”
“So what did she feed them on?”
“The most popular and easiest to come by poison of all:
arsenic.”
“Where’s the woman now, Chris?”
“At HQ, in an arrest cell.”
“Why wasn’t I told?”
“I only heard about it through Ned. He was on duty yesterday
and quite surprised when a Mrs Burton was wheeled in, dead as a doornail and
hairless. He rang me, of course, and I went in to take a look at the corpse.”
“Mike should have told me,” said Gary, “or Nigel. He’s my
assistant, after all.”
“You’ve been promoted, Gary. The small fry doesn’t run to
the superintendent all the time.”
“But my assistant should know better. I’ll put a stop to
that sort of secrecy. I want to know everything, Chris, not be protected. Roger
is a good friend and he’s going marry my mother, but he was too involved with
himself and his divorce after his wife was sent down for murder. I want to be
more than just a fund-raiser and signer of documents that I did not help to
write.”
Ned looked a bit perplexed. As second in command at
forensics, he tended to be reserved about passing anything on before consulting
Chris. He had not heard the gossip that went round at HQ at the time of Mrs
Stone’s killing. Roger Stone was a nice guy, and clearly innocent of the crime
on his wife when the vultures all around would have preferred to see him behind
bars.
Forensics was autonomous. They did a job on which the
sentencing of a suspect often depended if they had provided the only reliable
evidence in a case. Ned did not want to ask about any case that happened before
he got to HQ, but he would look at the report on what presumably had been very
distressing for Roger in the archives.
“I thought Gisela was on duty,” said Gary.
“She was - sort of. It is pure coincidence that the devilry
at that home came to light. Gisela was visiting her mother, and thanks to that
mother, the scandal was revealed. Gisela’s mother was apparently very
distressed about the dead woman and told her daughter that she thought they
were all being poisoned. She suspected the carer who also looked after her.
Gisela was naturally alarmed. The dead woman, who had not been laid out though
she had been found dead early that morning, was put through a hasty laying out
ritual under Gisela’s supervision and then transported by ambulance to the
forensic lab at HQ, where Ned formed the reception committee. Gisela had done
the right thing for a change.”
“Not quite. She should have contacted me,” said Gary. “She’s
supposed to be managing the traffic corps not having corpses taxied around.”
“Don’t be so hard on her, Gary,” Chris said. “Just imaging
it had been your mother. She was probably frantic.”
“What did Gisela do with the suspect?”
“She called a patrol team. They arrested her on suspicion
and put her in an arrest cell downstairs.”
“Until further notice, I suppose. I’m glad Gisela did not decide
to bring her to HQ herself.”
“Even Gisela is not that foolhardy,” said Chris. “The patrol
cops squeezed the carer into the back of their car.”
“Squeezed?”
“Nurse Daisy is not only an angel of mercy, she is also as
round as a barrel, but good-natured. And that description is quoted from their
report.”
“I would not describe someone who was dishing out arsenic as
good-natured.”
“No, but that’s how she was described to me, too. I think
one of the patrol guys was quite enamoured. He probably sat next to her on the
back seat and got the full force of her sexuality…. You should have fun with
her tomorrow.”
“Spare me. Gisela set the ball rolling. Let her enjoy the
dubious sexuality.”
“Gisela is too close to deal with the case.”
“OK. She could get Roger onto it. He’s still part-timing,”
said Gary. “He wanted to do something ordinary.”
“Don’t chicken out!” said Chris. “I told you that Gisela is
distressed. She’s waiting for you to turn up tomorrow, she said. It’s you she
wants.”
“How do you know that?”
“She told me when she
phoned. She’s taken her mother home, but wanted the forensic findings a.s.a.p.
I’ll go round and get a blood sample of the mother when we’ve finished here.
Then Gisela can get in touch with her GP. The old lady will be OK now. She
wasn’t comatose or anything.”
“On reflection, I don’t suppose it matters who takes the
case on, since the culprit has already been caught,” said Gary. “Daisy probably
still thinks she was doing the right thing.”
“Thank Gisela’s mother for that. She connected her mother’s
hair loss with arsenic and asked her the right questions,” said Chris.
“It seems that we are lucky that Gisela’s mother is still
alive.”
“Three others are dead and Daisy was looking after them,
too. I wonder if she had a financial motive. They often do.”
“Angels of Mercy are often thinking of their own future, so
I dare say you’re right.”
“You can change your mind and have a cosy chat with her
tomorrow, Gary, if you want to spare Roger...”
“I thought I was going to get a smooth start on the 3rd
floor, but it’s been an awful week, and the prospect of a hugely overweight
promiscuous killer named Daisy is almost more than I can bear.”
“Let’s get this business over then, shall we?”
“You’re right. One step at a time. The Crightons are almost
certainly the parents of Betjeman, the guy who enjoyed killing and admitted to
it proudly,” said Gary.
“He can’t be here, can he?”
“In spirit perhaps. I’m not looking forward to hearing about
him. Mothers usually gush even when their offspring is a seasoned criminal,”
said Gary.
***
Mr Crighton answered
the door, indicated where Chris and Ned should go to join Mike upstairs with
Mrs Crighton, who was asking questions, but first took Gary aside.
“I’ve got a problem,” he said.
Gary faintly remembered being sorry for Mr Crighton, who was
clearly a victim of marital circumstances.
“Are you keeping it from your wife, Mr Crighton? Is it a
woman?”
“I wish it was,” said Crighton. “I let that empty room
upstairs without telling Mrs Crighton.”
“I don’t understand. If you let the room last night, why did
you want a prospective lodger to look at it today?”
“I didn’t like the look of him,” said Crighton.
“But you let him stay last night,” said Gary.
“He said he would be gone before we got up.”
“He could have murdered you in your sleep,” said Gary. “Did
you get his name?”
“Murphy,” he said. “I’d seen him before, next door getting
on fine with Hilda Bone and he was friendly at a distance. I asked him why he
didn’t get a bed at Mrs Bone’s and he told me they were away and he did not
have a key.”
“So you let him stay in the vacant room upstairs.”
“Done up as an apartment for my son – I mean Mrs Crighton’s
son.”
“Your son?” said Gary, remembering that the Crightons has
said their son was adopted because they did not want a homicidal lunatic in the
family. Had Mr Crighton found out something new about the son’s parentage?
“Mrs Crighton usually says he’s my son, but I have serious
doubts.”
“We can get a DNA test, Mr Crighton. Do you want that?”
“I’m not sure I’d still have a roof over my head,” said Mr
Crighton, struggling with the temptation to be in a position to reject Betjeman
once and for all.
“It’s your decision, Mr Crighton. I can see that the
situation is intolerable for you.”
“Better not, thank you. Things are bad enough as it is.”
Gary could see that Mr Crighton was really tempted to take
up the offer. Another time of asking and he would.
“It was too late for Murphy to go anywhere else, so I let
him in through the back door while Mrs Crighton was watching TV. He was very
quiet, as if he did not want anyone to know he was there. I was nervous and had
second thoughts, since my wife often has a funny feeling about strangers. But I
had let him in. He was upstairs and I didn’t dare tell Mrs Crighton about him
after the deed was done.”
***
Mr Crighton was either very in awe of his wife, or very
scared of her, thought Gary, remembering that when it came to intuition, he had
often enough depended on Cleo. He supposed that was why witches were all
purportedly female. He couldn’t remember male witches being dunked till they
drowned in the old days, but social history was admittedly not his strong point,
and Cleo said those witches might be hermaphrodites or twitters or simply poor
devils born in the wrong gender. There was a lot to be said for modern
psychological support.
***
“Are you still listening?” said Mr Crighton, cutting into
Gary’s reveries.
“Sorry, just thinking. Did you feed the man?” Gary asked.
“We had a bachelor kitchen put in and he could make coffee
or tea and eat the biscuits I had put in the bread bin just in case.”
“I can’t quite understand why Mrs Crighton did not realize
that he was up there,” said Gary.
“She felt vibrations through the ceiling and I told her it
was the spirit of Betjeman seeing if everything was ready for him.”
“And she believed that?”
“Oh yes. She’s into spiritualism, Inspector.”
Mrs Crighton called down the stairs. You could not have
described her shouting as spiritual.
“Where are you?”
“Coming, dear,” said Crighton.
His voice was filled with sweetness and light. Gary thought
Mr Crighton probably did a lot of play-acting.
***
Chris set up his laptop with its brilliant fingerprint app.
Ned taped prints to screenshot into the programme for comparison with tabs in
the HQ databank. In a matter of minutes it would be clear if Marble had been to
the house. His prints had been recorded several times elsewhere, most recently
in Brighton, of course. At Gary’s behest, Ned took DNA samples from the
Crightons, which Gary explained as a routine method of identifying strangers.
Crighton looked at Gary somewhat fearfully as he explained the function of the
DNA, but Gary did not make any mention of family relationships and the like.
Chris thought DNA testing the Crightons was superfluous, but
Gary waved him down when he tried to say so. A nod and a wink did the rest.
Gary decided to ask Mrs Crighton a few routine questions.
Before he could do so, however, Mrs Crighton treated him to a taste of her
mysticism.
“He has been here, Inspector, I know it.”
“But your son would not have escaped through the window, Mrs
Crighton. He would have come to you, surely?”
“We don’t know that, do we? Spirits have their own rules. If
he just came to see the room, he may not have wanted to see us at that moment.
Astral travel is like that.”
“Is that what it’s called?”
“Yes. If someone is somewhere and dreams of being somewhere
else, he’s spirit takes him there when he is asleep.”
Mr Crighton looked exasperated. He was not going to be the
one who told her that she was imagining things, since he himself had explained
that the vibrations were spirits solely to stop her going upstairs to look. Mrs
Crighton saw her son as a soulmate. Mr Crighton hoped the Inspector would keep
quiet about him letting Murphy sleep there.
Eventually, Chris looked up from his laptop and said “He was
here.”
“I told you he’d been here,” said Mrs Crighton.
“Spirits don’t leave fingerprints,” said Mr Crighton,
regretting his earlier explanation of the presence above.
“The tabs belong to a Mr Harry Marble,” said Chris.
“Who’s that?” Mrs Crighton wanted to know.
“Will you tell her, or shall I?” said Gary to Crighton.
“He’s a man who wanted to visit Mrs Bone, but she is away so
I let him stay the night here,” said Mr Crighton. “But his name is Murphy.”
“How dare you do such a thing without my permission,” Mrs
Crighton snarled. “Especially Irish. You know what happened across the road.”
Mrs Crighton was referring to Paddy Kelly, whose scandalous
behaviour had been the talk of Upper Grumpsfield.
“You were watching TV,” said Crighton meekly.
“That’s no excuse. What about Betjeman’s spirit? Where’s the
man now? Has he paid?”
“That’s the point, Mrs Crighton. We are looking for the man
and he has escaped again.”
Mrs Crighton was clearly upset that Betjeman might not have
visited the house after all, but seemingly even more upset at the thought that
the stranger had stayed the night free of charge.
“Escaped?” she said. “From a zoo? Only animals escape from
zoos – and prisons.”
Gary decided that the next thing Mrs Crighton would do was
try to arrange her son’s escape from his safe cell at the penitentiary down the
road to Oxford.
“Of course not,” said Gary. “From a police car.”
“What had he done?” Mrs Crighton wanted to know.
Gary was not sure whether he should tell the Crightons what
had happened, but he decided it might be a good idea, just in case the guy
turned up again.
“He probably murdered Mrs Bone by setting fire to my villa
with her locked inside,” said Gary, truncating the story as much as possible.
“What was he doing in your cottage?” Mrs Bone asked.
“Not the cottage, Mrs Crighton,” Gary explained. “I had
bought Dr Marble’s villa from the bank.”
“So what was Hilda doing there? Noseyparkering? And now she’s
dead?”
“Burnt to a frazzle,” said Chris, who wanted to make this
awful woman squirm.
“What Mrs Bone was doing there is a question we are trying
answer, Mrs Crighton,” said Gary.
“She was friendly with a Welsh person,” Mrs Crighton said.
“A bit funny such an old woman going for a young man.”
“Come on, Mrs Crighton. That man was at least as old as
Betjeman,” said Crighton.
Gary again wondered why they did not use first names.
“He called himself Brian,” said Mrs Crighton.
“Bryn,” Gary corrected. “A Welsh name.”
“Whatever, Said Crighton. “He wasn’t much of a woman’s man,
I can tell you.”
“He was an old lady’s man,” said Mrs Crighton, getting into
the spirit of things purely because she found the whole idea of Mrs Bone going
for ‘Brian’ or anyone else distasteful.
“He wasn’t any kind of a man,” said Crighton. “Bryn Thomas
was a twitter.”
“Now, now, Crighton,” said Chris. “The rights of man being those
of a species with male and female components, so it applies to all human beings.”
“Whatever you think of that Mrs Bone’s gentle-something,
you’d better catch the man who stayed here before he murders me,” said Mrs
Crighton in a righteous voice. Presumably she did not think her husband was a
candidate for Marble’s wrath, or was it more likely that she didn’t care?
Chris and Ned packed up their equipment, announced that they
had gathered enough evidence to see them through, and left.
***
“What do I do now?” Mrs Crighton wanted to know.
“Keep windows and doors shut and don’t let anyone in,” said
Gary.
“What about my room, Mr. Do you still want it?” said Mrs
Crighton, turning to Mike.
“Under the circumstances I’ll look elsewhere,” said Mike,
following Chris and Ned down the stairs.
“I want my money from that other person,” said Mrs Crighton.
“How much does the room cost per night?” Gary asked.
“Don’t listen to her,” said Crighton. “I was doing the
fellow a good turn.”
“Then you can do the washing and clean up after him,” said
Mrs Crighton.
“Sorry about her, Inspector.”
“So am I,” said Gary. “If the man turns up, let me know.
Here’s my card.”
“You’re very important, aren’t you” said Mr Crighton. “I’m
surprised you bothered yourself about such a humble home.”
“I suppose I am,” said Gary, “but it’s more important to
catch Mr Marble before he can hurt anyone else.”
“And that DNA?”
“Do you want to know if Betjeman is your son?”
“Yes. It would be a way of getting away, wouldn’t it?”
“No,” said Gary. “If you were married to the mother when the
baby was born, you are the legal father.”
“But I wasn’t,” said
Crighton.
“That changes everything,” said Gary.
“Then do it,” said Crighton.
***
Gary’s skill at mimicry came into full throttle as he
described the scene at the Crighton house to Cleo.
“If that guy had just told the police that he was harbouring
a suspicious person, you’d have him behind bars now.”
“Marble was lucky. Bertie Browne’s Gazette doesn’t come out
till tomorrow.”
“Don’t say you’ve reported Marble’s escape to him,” said
Cleo.
“I didn’t. But somebody else will have. He has informants
everywhere.”
“He should at least ask you if it’s OK to publish.”
“He was probably rung up by an anonymous person saying he
was a police insider. Mr Browne won’t check up on that. He never does.”
“He’s breaking the law, isn’t he?”
“What law?” said Gary. “The one that says thou shalt not
publish searches for missing persons?”
“OK. So maybe that will be of some use.”
“We’ll have to wait and see. I’d be interested to know where
Mr Marble dosses down tonight?”
“At the villa? That bedroom was not burnt. The bed is still
available.”
“It’s freezing cold, Cleo. He wouldn’t do that, would he?”
“I think it’s possible. A patrol team could take a look
during the night. It would keep them occupied. There isn’t much going on at two
in the morning.”
“You might even be on to something,” said Gary, attempting
not to sound resentful that he had not thought of it first.
“I can’t think of anywhere else he could go. He obviously
did not want to break into Hilda’s house.”
“He has his scruples,” said Gary.
“Isn’t it a bit late in the day for scruples?” said Cleo.
“Joking, my love,” said Gary, who was not finding it funny
to be outwitted by a common criminal.
“Taking of joking,
I’d rather you scrupulously got the veg ready for our high tea, or whatever you
like to call it.”
“Who’s coming?”
“Dorothy and Linda, who will be hugely entertained by your
description of the goings on at the Crightons and is going home tomorrow; your
mother and Roger, who will also want to hear all about it; and us, meaning you,
me and the two Charlottes. Joe’s at the hospital till tomorrow. Then they are
coming home with the newcomer. Lottie is staying the night here and the girls
will help with the little ones.”
“Perfectly organized as usual,” said Gary.” Except for the
carrots, Sweetheart. They are awaiting your attention.”
***
An evening that had started normally, with a nice balance
between comedy and crime, ended with surprises, however. Gary had answered
everyone’s questions about the Marble case, which had special significance
because it involved the devastation of the villa, and there had been no
progress in finding out who was responsible.
Marble was still on the run, as far as Gary knew (assuming
that the guys at HQ had not circumvented him again). He had ordered a patrol
car to pick up Marble at the villa if he decided to go there, having burnt his
boats at the Crighton house where Mrs Crighton was sure Betjeman was on the
point of release, and would join them in flesh and blood body, not just with
the astral one that had taken a fatal knock during the course of events.
“What’s that, Daddy?” Charlie was bound to ask.
“Would you like to get out the big encyclopaedia and read it
up, Charlie? I don’t think this company will believe me.”
Throughout the meal, Linda had sat astounded at the repartee
in which Dorothy was clearly revelling.
“I’m trying not to be nervous,” Dorothy said. “But have you
given a thought to Jane’s house? Wouldn’t that be the ideal place to hang out?”
Gary looked at Dorothy.
“Is that a hunch?” he said, angry with himself because he
had left Jane’s place completely out of the list of possible hideouts, and so
had Cleo for that matter.
“He probably does not know about that house, Dorothy. He never
went there,” Gary retorted in self-defence.
“You don’t know that.”
“I don’t think Jane Barker was part of Marble’s life,
Dorothy.”
“But Thomas or Hilda might have told him about it. They met
at the villa, after all.”
“I have to admit that it is a possibility,” said Gary,
“though we don’t know if they were all there at the same time.”
“But it’s the strongest possibility,” said Cleo, “and
Dorothy is next door so she has a special interest in who comes and goes.”
“Doesn’t Jane have a relative to take over?”
“She was alone in the world except for that white dog after
Jim died. And she gave Joe the dog quite soon after, didn’t she?” said Dorothy.
“It got dirty all the time and its bark was about has fearsome as that of a
Pekingese puppy.”
“So that house will be going for grabs,” said Gary.
“Too small,” said Dorothy. “It’s one of those houses that
look big from the outside and have quite small rooms. I always used to think
such houses must have spaces behind the walls.”
“Possibly to hide dead relatives,” said Charlie, “or astral
bodies.”
“OK Sweetheart. Look in Wikipedia on your tablet and read it
out.”
It did not take long for Charlie to find the relevant page.
Linda marvelled at how computer-literate she was.
“No great achievement, Linda,” said Gary. “Charlie belongs
to a generation that does not know the world before the computer.”
“Shall I read all of it, Daddy?”
“Please don’t. Just the bit about astral travel that we need
to know now, which is what Mrs Crighton thought the noises upstairs were.”
“Wikipedia says that an “astral body is a subtle body posited by many philosophers, intermediate
between the intelligent soul and the mental body, composed of a subtle
material. The concept ultimately derives from the philosophy of Plato: it is
related to an astral plane, which consists of the planetary heavens of
astrology.”
“Wow,” said Cleo.
“Shall I read some more?”
said Charlie.
“No. It’s about time you two
girls astral body yourselves to bed, don’t you think?” said Gary.
“Do you want to talk grown-up
now, Daddy?”
“No, but you look tired.”
The girls went round issuing hugs and saying goodnight
before they went to off to bed.
***
“Whatever is going on, I don’t want an escaped convict or
even an astral body hiding out next door to my cottage,” said Dorothy, with
more than a hint of haughtiness in her voice.
“I agree,” said Roger. “We’ll have to control it, won’t we?”
“You could have a séance,” said Charlie, who had been eavesdropping.
“Go to bed,” commanded Gary.
“We’ll leave the light on. Astral bodies don’t like electric
light.”
“Do that if you’re scared,” said Gary.
***
“I’ll order a second patrol team to look round the villa at dead
of night,” said Gary. “I just hope there aren’t too many multiple crashes to
otherwise occupy the traffic guys. We only have a limited number of cars, after
all.”
“We’ll do it ourselves, Gary,” said Roger. “We’ll stroll
there quite innocently at around 2 a.m. and make sure no one is in the house.
Do you still have a key, Dorothy?”
Dorothy took out a large ring of keys, prised Jane’s
house-key off and handed it to Roger.
“I always keep keys together,” she explained.
“Brilliant,” said Roger.
It seemed as if Dorothy had decided to snub Gary.
“If that’s settled, can we move on to what I was planning to
say?” said Grit.
After a consensus had been reached that put an end to the
Marble case for the evening, she made her portentous announcement.
Roger is buying the cottage next door,” she announced.
“We’ll renovate it and move in there. It’s small, but it’s big enough for two.”
“I didn’t even know it was for sale,” said Cleo. “I know the
old guy who lived there wanted to move to the seaside, but I thought he would
keep the little place in case he wanted to come back.”
“That’s what we expected,” said Roger.
“But he’s going to stay with a distant cousin he was once in
love with and Roger persuaded him to sell his cottage to us,” said Grit.
“Aren’t you happy about that?”
“I’m happy for you, Mother, but what are you going to do
with your own cottage?” said Gary.
Cleo groaned. Ulterior motives were Gary’s strong point, but
he was now missing the message.
“It isn’t my cottage, Gary. It’s a grace and favour
residence that actually belongs to your wife.”
“But I didn’t buy it and are living in it,” said Cleo.
“That old lady who left it to you knew what she was doing,”
said Grit. “I had an architect here on Friday while you were out. I had to let
him see your kitchen, so it was not breaking and entering.”
“You know you can come and go as you please here, Grit.”
“But that does not mean I can bring Tom, Dick and Harry in
without asking.”
“Get to the point, Mother,” said Gary.
“The point is that the two cottages are going to be joined
up as one and your wonderful family will have enough room for all my
grandchildren – assuming you and Cleo agree.”
“Wow,” said Cleo. “Will that work out – joining up the
cottages, I mean?”
“They are very near one another and built as mirror images.
That means the kitchens are actually next to one another. They’ll be joined up
and the wall widened. When it’s all finished you won’t know that it has not
always been like that.”
“I’m flabbergasted,” said Gary. “All I need to do now is
finance it.”
“I have a life insurance and savings, Gary, and that is
going to pay for the new cottage,” said Roger. “I’ve also sold my bachelor
flat. Grit says she’s going to cash in her life insurance too and add it to the
building fund.”
“You can’t spend all your life savings on us,” said Cleo.
“What about Joe and his family?”
“We’ve talked to him. He’s not planning a large family and
he’s quite happy with the plan.”
“And we can spend our money usefully,” said Roger. “You
brought us together and we love our new life. We also love the children. It’s
already been contracted, anyway,” said Roger. “I’ll get planning permission
through next week. It’s useful knowing the blokes who decide. I’ve done them
enough favours.”
“That smacks of corruption,” said Linda, looking horrified
that arms of the law could break it at will.
“No Linda, it smacks of justice,” said Roger.
Dorothy looked daggers at Linda.
“I didn’t know you were in judgment,” she said.
“If it isn’t corruption, it’s nepotism,” said Linda.
“These are my friends, Linda, and they are less corrupt than
your little finger,” said Dorothy, deciding that she was not going to let Linda
into her life ever again.
“There’s no way I can thank you, Mother” said Gary.
“How about a big hug?” said Grit.
“There’s prosecco in the fridge,” said Cleo.
“I’ll get it,” said Roger.
“We’ll all get it,” said Cleo. “There’s less formality in
the kitchen.”
“We’ll go home now, Linda,” said Dorothy and no one stopped
them leaving since it was clear that Dorothy was extremely angry and did not
want to share her best friends with Linda.
After the family had emptied the prosecco bottles, the party
broke up. Gary jogged to Dorothy’s cottage to make sure they were out of harm’s
way. They would be safe behind locked doors and windows, and with some lights
left on all night, since it was unlikely that Marble would break into an
illuminated hideaway. In fact, it was not Marble’s intention to make himself
known to anyone.
Cleo made sure the children were OK, took a shower, and went
to bed. Gary took his shower and found his way under the king-size duvet.
“Roger’s calling for you at two,” Cleo said. “Better get some
sleep.”
Gary groaned.
“Why did I agree to that?” he said.
“Wasn’t it Roger’s idea?”
“One of Dorothy’s hair-brained hunches is getting me out of
my warm bed at dead of night. I wish she’d take up tatting.”
“What’s tatting?” Cleo asked.
“Lace-making. I think that’s what the three witches in
Macbeth did when they weren’t stirring their cauldron.”
“Are you going to sleep wrapped in that damp bath-towel?” Cleo
asked.
“Not if you take yours off.”
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