One to Six, Buckle to Sticks (Grasshopper Lawns Book 11) Read online

  ‘How bloody kind of you. Oh my dear God.’ Tears started down Vivian’s face as she finally looked at Dallas, then away, as though the sight of the other woman hurt her. ‘You shattered my childhood memories, made me think my adopted mother was a cheat and a liar, that my own mother didn’t even want me. You’re saying I‘m directly responsible for Simon’s murder, and we know how he died, it was foul, it was an execution. You pulled a gun on me and you killed poor Maggie—’ she looked over at the crumpled dog, then gasped and slopped tea as her hand jerked. ‘Maggie just moved! Look!’ They all stared at the ’dead’ dog as she pulled herself painfully onto her elbows and blinked at them through a mask of blood. Edge made a wordless sound and dropped on her knees next beside the animal.

  ‘Maggie, sweetie?’

  Maggie whimpered, lay back and twitched her stumpy tail. Donald said urgently, ‘I’ll go get my car, we’ve got to get her to the vet. Phone ahead, tell them we’re on our way. And William, get a tray or something to put her on, she probably shouldn’t move too much.’ He was through the door and running down the service road even as William heaved to his feet and headed into the kitchen.

  ‘There you go, Miz Oliver.’ Iain took the violently trembling cup from Vivian, wiped it dry, and folded her fingers back round it. ‘Keep drinking that. It’s the best thing for shock until Matron gets here. Miz Cameron, how did you suddenly find out Dallas was the murderer?’

  ‘Her purse was on the kitchen floor.’

  ‘Of course!’ Kirsty breathed. ‘Maggie!’

  ‘Yes but hush, don’t say her name, she flinched when you did. William, can you hurry? My knees won’t hold out much longer but I want to keep her still until we’ve got her on a tray.’

  William reappeared with a sizeable butler’s trolley with a detachable tray, a heavy towel over his arm. ‘Just the job’ he said with satisfaction. ‘The trolley folds, like a wheelchair. Now, I can’t crawl on the floor these days—’

  Iain smoothly and efficiently fed the towel-padded tray under Maggie, who growled in a half-hearted way, then closed her eyes again. Between them Kirsty and Iain lifted the tray onto the trolley and wheeled it towards the door. William, for once without a teasing commentary, hoisted Edge effortlessly back to her feet as Matron arrived, flushed and breathing heavily, on the doorstep. Through the open door, they could hear the insistent sirens racing along the top road.

  Donald arrived with his car almost neck and neck with the ambulance and police car escort which Iain had summoned for Dallas. The ambulance driver helped him lift the ’poor wee dog’ into the back of the car while William folded the trolley into the boot, then squeezed his bulk into the back of the car to hold the tray steady. Donald’s car raced away scattering gravel and Edge, held back by Iain to complete her own statement, knew a moment’s relief that Clarissa had remained oblivious to the entire proceedings.

  She phoned the local vet, then stood back from the door as Dallas, who had been checked by medics and was considered capable of moving under her own steam, was assisted, fractionally less sympathetically, into the back of the ambulance. William’s hefty blow had knocked her completely unconscious for nearly a minute and she would need to be fully checked for concussion as quickly as possible.

  ‘So you got a full statement.’ Edge came back into the library where Matron was tending to Vivian, who was finally starting to get a little colour back in her cheeks.

  ‘Unsigned, and anyway she’ll deny every word, say that she was concussed.’ Kirsty flipped her notebook to a new page. ‘But it’s nice to know what happened. I only hope she doesn’t sue William for hitting her.’

  ‘What’s this about the purse?’ Iain prompted patiently, and Edge fetched it from the kitchen for him, the distinctive gold-stamped DW bright on the black leather. He flipped it open and stared down into Alison Martin’s happy face. ‘Oh aye. Stupid of her to carry that photo, but she was grieving.’

  ‘I tried to call you back, to say don’t stop her, let her get clear, but then we heard you at the door. And then everything went crazy.’

  ‘Oh, Aunt, Iain was right, Donald should never have risked it. But as it turns out, it was probably for the best, the way things turned out.’

  ‘Not for Maggie.’ Edge said in a muffled voice.

  Kirsty patted her sympathetically. ‘I did tell you that was a pop gun, didn’t I? The shot must have knocked her senseless without penetrating that iron skull of hers, or even only struck her a glancing blow. Donald did knock Dallas’s arm as she fired. The very fact Maggie’s alive at all is good reason to hope she’ll make it.’

  All’s well that ends well

  Maggie’s personality changed completely after her eventual return to the Lawns. She became staid and quite portly, sleeps a great deal, is deeply devoted to Clarissa, and is sociable to visitors, both human and canine. She is still fascinated by purses, and has been given quite a few by her friends and admirers. She no longer needs to be muzzled.

  ~

  Vivian went down south for a few days to stay with her sister, returning just in time to celebrate her belated non-birthday as planned, at the opening of La Bohème. William, who insists he shuts his eyes only to better appreciate the quality of the singing, gave Edge an attack of the hiccups by snoring quite audibly at a key moment, and muttering ‘Magnificent. Magnificent!’ into his beard when Vivian elbowed him indignantly in the ribs.

  ~

  Sylvia has made a full recovery, apart from a marked tendency to say whatever comes into her head. She says the whole affair just proves family aren’t a patch on dogs, and is talking of buying a young poodle, both to keep Froufrou company, and to re-enter the race to Crufts.

  ~

  Patrick Fitzpatrick suggested to Dallas Wendell that she might sell a small block of shares to the Grasshopper Four Consortium, by way of thanks. She agreed. The Toussaint-Wendell group is expected to go public very soon.

  FIVE SIX PICK UP STICKS

  DEDICATION

  Dedicated to my lovely daughter and her future husband, who met the old-fashioned way, through work. Also to my beta readers, they are above diamonds.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Besides the usual, my thanks to Police Scotland for patiently answering a lot of daft questions and clearing up a few points. Any errors in police procedure are accidental or deliberate, but all mine.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Tuesday

  Boules tournament.

  Detective Inspector Iain McLuskie locked his police car in front of the main house at Grasshopper Lawns and struck off across the large garden with the confident familiarity of a man who knew the place well. With several murders there in fairly quick succession over the winter he’d spent a fair bit of time at the retirement village, but things had been restfully quiet lately. It was a pleasant novelty to be visiting socially, and he looked around appreciatively at the changes the season was bringing to the Lawns.

  Spring had been late arriving in Scotland this year, but was making up for lost time; an army of tulips, flaunting vivid scarlet petals, marched through the borders past exhausted daffodils and crocuses, and the giant bank of rhododendrons was bulging with fat buds. Privet hedges crossed each other to make X-shaped mini private gardens at regular intervals around the perimeter of the lawn; he could see a few gardening enthusiasts already hard at work in the lovely spring weather. The sky arched blue overhead, the sun was warm on his face and the lightest of zephyrs pushed a few puffs of cloud overhead, and stirred the blossom on the fruit trees.

  An indifferent gardener himself, and father to young football hopefuls, his own small garden was stripped to basics. One day, he promised himself, when he had the time, he would pop back here for gardening ideas. In the meantime, he was making his way to number twelve of the apartments that encircled the lawns, to run a proposition past Sergeant Kirsty Cameron’s slightly eccentric aunt Edge.

  The aunt in question, who in his opinion looked ridiculously young to be living in a retirement village
, was found busily weeding her hedge garden, which contained an elegant old bench and some ancient flagstones nostalgically imported from her previous home. She was wearing faded jeans, an overlarge plaid shirt and a completely disreputable gardening hat, and was clearing weeds between the flagstones with vigour and a running muttered commentary.

  ‘I hope there aren’t any swearies in that lot, Miz Cameron?’ He hailed her cheerfully and she twisted round.

  ‘Detective Inspector McLuskie! What a surprise. And of course there were swearies. Along with a magic spell that apparently banishes creeping buttercup. If it works I shall rent myself out for gardening services and be rich for life.’ She used the bench’s sturdy support to scramble to her feet and looked past him, surprised. ’Where’s Kirsty?’

  ‘Helping out in Grangemouth for the next few days.’ He pointed at his cheek. ‘You’ve—er—got a bit of mud...’

  ‘Oh, I must look like hell. Gardening doesn’t suit me.’ She pushed her battered gardening hat up her forehead—adding two more smears of mud, to offset the rakish dab on her cheek—and shot him a sharp look. ‘Not that I’m not pleased to see you, but what brings you here? Come on over to my verandah, do. I’ve some lemonade there in the shade.’

  Two Havana chairs flanked a tiny table which held a jug of iced lemonade and a glass, and she waved him to one of the chairs.

  ‘Help yourself, I’ll get another glass. I’ll only be a moment.’

  He started a polite demurral but she fixed him with another sharp glance, said ‘Nonsense!’ and vanished inside.

  Smiling, he poured himself a half-glass. Kirsty Cameron was in her twenties, a pleasant and competent police officer who was a pleasure to work with, but she was the image of her aunt. He had a sudden impression of what she would be like in thirty years’ time. Still slender, still attractive, redoubtable…

  Edge reappeared without her hat and gardening gauntlets, her mischevious face free of smudges, and a fresh glass in her hand. She sank down into the other chair with a sigh of relief and he held the jug up invitingly, and filled her glass at her nod.

  ‘I hope I’m not interrupting?’ He drank gratefully—the lemonade was icy, clean and sharp, delicious—and she grinned at him.

  ‘Not at all, I was clearing my decks for Kirsty’s visit this afternoon. What can I do for you?’

  ‘I ken Kirsty visits Tuesdays so I wanted to speak to you first. I was going to ask how you were but I can see you’re back to your old self, right enough.’

  ‘Just a small operation.’ She was dismissive. ‘Part of growing older, such a bore, but I hope you got my thank you note for the flowers; it was very kind of you all. And being called JB Fletcher did wonders for my ward cred!’

  ‘Ah, now, you know we value your detective skills. In fact, I’m hoping you might be interested in—well, if you’re not too tied up with anything at the moment—you’ve jokingly said a couple of times in the past that you wanted to join the Force?’

  ‘You’re offering to sign me up as a hobby bobby?’ She leaned forward, eyes bright with interest and he waved his free hand vaguely.

  ‘Not sign up, not as such. More if you’d put in an occasional…let’s call it appearance, on our behalf? I don’t know if Kirsty has said anything at all about some deaths we’ve recently picked up on which have aroused our suspicions? I’ll let her fill you in, but long story short, there’s a potential link to the dating agencies that cater to singles over fifty.’

  He half-filled his glass again and sat back. ‘You ken the whole Scottish police force has been reorganized, aye? There’s no denying that doing away with all the little divisions has improved our overall picture, and now we’ve picked up some odd similarities in a few geographically-scattered deaths. I’ll have to ask you not to talk about it the noo, we don't want to start any kind of panic in case it’s pure coincidence. We’ve been lucky; there was already a fraud investigation starting in the senior singles scene, with a top undercover poliswoman assigned to it. She’s just the person to take it up a level. Problem is, all this extra information got dumped on her, and all urgent, and she says there’s a limit to what she can do without ever meeting the marks. It would really help her if there was someone doing the social, appearing as her, but only in low risk situations. And it would be good to have someone—er—’

  ‘Old?’ Edge offered helpfully and he laughed awkwardly.

  ‘No, no! I was trying to think how to say someone who could genuinely be interested in meeting senior singles. Old wasn’t the word I wanted!’

  ‘I know what you mean. Someone older, who really could be expected to want to pick up sticks and sympathize about gout. I joined one of those senior dating websites myself, once. You wouldn’t believe some of the responses I got—from all ages, too. Still, it was cheap; you get what you pay for. I did think of going for one of the more expensive select introduction ones, mainly because my accountant Patrick looked on the verge of being snapped up by one of his widows, and that would have left me without my standby escort. Then he managed to escape, and I also made friends with Donald and William, so I never bothered.’

  Iain grinned involuntarily. ‘Life must have been very quiet before yon Laurel and Hardy! There’s nothing for them in this set up, though. What I thought was, mebbe you’d like to pop round, have a talk with Susan, weigh each other up and see if it would be something that would interest you? She’s working from her home, it’s just over the way, in Onderness. She’ll talk you through what she’s doing, the possibles she’s already identified, how she’s monitoring things. She’s very good, and a nice person, you’ll like her. And you’ll ken why I’m asking, when you see her. You look very like the profile picture of herself that she’s posting on the websites.’

  ~~~

  Edge poured the last of the lemonade into her glass and gazed thoughtfully into space after Iain’s departure. Murder. Back in December, when Betsy Campbell’s death had started a whole train of events, proximity to murder had been quite exciting, but there had been rather too much of it since then. Still, this wasn’t on the spot, and her involvement would be very limited. It wasn’t even confirmed that murder was involved at all—

  Her train of thought was abruptly interrupted by the sight of a sizeable rump reversing slowly into view on hands and knees from the miniature garden next to her own and a breathless voice calling her name.

  Stifling a laugh, she hurried over to help Miss Pinkerton up. The older woman, her neighbour in number thirteen and known to all as Miss P, gasped out grateful thanks as Edge helped her to her feet.

  ‘Ay do it every time!’ Miss P puffed ruefully. ’Ay think Ay can manage on my weeding stool, and then Ay reach too far for a pesky herb and the next thing Ay know Ay’m on all fours again. Ay don’t know how you manage to get up and down so easily.’

  ‘I don’t at all,’ Edge assured her. ‘If it wasn’t for my bench I couldn’t get up either. You should get a bench in your bit, they’re very useful.’

  Miss P was at least seventy, with a fresh complexion, fluffy white hair and the wide candid eyes of a young girl. Writing an endless stream of wistfully romantic novels kept her in comfortable circumstances, and Edge considered her an ideal neighbour—quiet, gentle and unsociable. Over the three years they had been neighbours, Miss P’s extreme shyness had only slowly thawed to the point where conversation occasionally slid past the briefest of friendly greetings, towards the first glimmerings of friendship.

  ‘Ay really should be doing this at midnight anyway,’ she said diffidently and unexpectedly. ‘Dark moon, you know. Most efficacious. But at my age, midday will have to do, Ay can’t be crawling on all fours to my apartment at midnight. What would my neighbours think?’

  ‘Well, this neighbour would be quite startled, certainly. I was going to ask if you’re a good witch, but even in my head it sounded exactly like a line from the Wizard of Oz.’

  ‘Oh, not a witch at all, not really. Not any more. Ay was quite the Wiccan in my younger years,
even now Ay observe the more practical rituals, like cutting herbs according to the moon phases, but Ay don’t like to talk about it—or be talked about, if you’d be so kind.’

  ‘Of course not, although I think it’s fascinating. Did you at least get all your herbs?’ Edge fought to rid her mind of an image of her portly neighbour dancing round a midnight bonfire, and succeeded.

  Miss P beamed at her and held up a slightly crumpled woven bag. ’Oh yes, once Ay was down there Ay got the lot before Ay called for you. Ay had a feeling you’d understand when Ay heard what you said to that nice-looking policeman. Before you moved away, of course. Not that Ay would have listened if Ay…’ She gave up on her jumble of sentences and settled instead for. ‘Will you join me for a quick cup of tea?’

  ‘I’d have loved to.’ Edge had to shake her head. ‘My niece will be here in less than an hour and I’ve still to make myself and the apartment presentable. Are you coming up to watch the boules later this afternoon?’

  ‘Ay hadn’t planned—well, maybe. Ay don’t really go out in public alone but Ay suppose it isn’t really public. That’s at the top bit, where the new allotments are?’

  ‘No need to go alone, we’ll knock on your door on the way past.’ Edge was firm. ‘You’ll like Kirsty, she’s lovely. And boules is such fun.’

  ‘It was very popular in France, when Ay lived there, but of course it was only older people who played it in those days.’ Miss P seemed completely unaware of possible irony. ’Ay do remember Godfrey saying the first tournament was very successful. Did you play?’

  ‘No, I couldn’t at the time, I’d just had my op. Pity, because I love it, I’ve played it a bit in the past. I think the competition will be fierce today, but every time I thought I’d pop up and get in a little practice there’ve been people working on their game. Sylvia and Matilda are there half the day, every day. I imagine they’ll be the winners today.’