Wednesday cont.
It was as if some kind of trouble was waiting to happen.
When she got back to her cottage, Dorothy was horrified to
see that her front door was wide open and the door key was in the lock! She was
almost sure that she hadn’t forgotten to lock up , but she had been nervous
when she left and preoccupied with her appearance. What would Gary say?
The cottage was empty, but the kitchen had been ransacked
and the kitchen door into the back garden was also wide open. Dorothy phoned Cleo,
who was just about to leave the bistro. Cleo called Gary at HQ, and he promised
to send a squad car and forensics immediately. Cleo told Gary that Dorothy had
confessed to leaving the key under the little milk crate ready for Thursday’s
yoghurt delivery to the fridge. Gary insisted that Dorothy was too scatter-brained
for responsibility. Cleo reacted angrily. Had Gary never forgotten anything,
then? She could remind him of a thing or two.
There were times when Cleo disliked Gary, but it did not
stop her loving him to bits.
***
Cleo walked quickly to Dorothy’s cottage, and Chris arrived soon
after in the forensics van and commented drily that two incidents in Upper
Grumpsfield on one day was two too many. His colleague took it with a bit more
humour and set about taping for fingerprints, especially on the back door,
since Dorothy was sure that’s how the intruder had left the house.
“What’s missing, Dorothy?” Cleo asked.
“Only food. All my fresh baking from last night has gone. But
whoever took everything does not like eggs. They are still here.”
“I suppose that’s because you would have to find a way of
cooking them, Dorothy. Food you can eat without cooking is obviously better if
you are hungry and on the loose somewhere.”
The two sleuths uttered synchronically the name “Jessie.”
Chris checked the fresh prints online with his database.
They were confirmed as Jessie’s. He would report in detail to Gary, but Cleo
could not wait that long. She phoned Gary immediately to tell it him that Jessie
had paid Dorothy’s cottage a visit. Gary should get the Priory crypt searched
if he hadn’t already done so. Cleo thought the girl might go there to hide and
eat the stolen spoils.
To Cleo’s surprise, Gary agreed. It would not be the first
time Jessie had used the crypt as a hideout. It was a pity that Greg was on the
way to somewhere or other chasing Jack Cooper’s Rolls Royce. He’d been at the
crypt the first time.
“Send Nigel!” suggested Cleo, tongue in cheek. “He was
there, too.”
“The hell I will, Cleo. There’s a new crew just joined us.
They can go.”
“Always assuming they aren’t afraid of ghosts,” said Cleo.
“Dave Gates is a burly boxer type and his colleague runs
marathons,” explained Gary.
“Wow! You sure get good guys at HQ!”
“Dave will cope as well as Greg, and Nigel can stay in the
warm,” said Gary, who was in fact very pleased with the way Nigel coped as his
assistant. “Nigel is better than a female,” he’d been heard to say, and
sometimes Gary wondered if his own macho behaviour was his way of hiding his
true sexual orientation. He wouldn’t be the first. Cleo would have laughed to
hear that suggestion.
In the meantime, Cleo went next door to ask if anyone had
seen Jessie.
Mr Barker was in the garden, too busy fussing around his
runner beans on their supports to look out for strangers, he said, but he had noticed
a young woman and wondered why she was wearing a yellow fisherman’s oilskin
with the hood up when it wasn’t raining. He had given the person no further
thought. She had disappeared into the copse behind the houses. He thought it might
be one of that Quaker tribe who lived in the big house opposite the Vicarage. They
wore odd clothes.
“But yellow oilskins aren’t odd clothes, Mr Barker. Didn’t
it strike you that wearing an oilskin on a hot day is silly?”
“Unless you’re a fisherman,” wisecracked Mr Barker. “Anyway,
what’s silly about it? Oilskins are often found hanging in sheds because
gardening has to continue even in the rain! That could be where the person I
saw got hers.”
Cleo decided there was no point in speculating. She was more
interested in exactly what Mr Barker had seen, so she pressed on with
questioning him.
“She was quite small. Definitely a girl,” said Mr Barker.
“Was she carrying anything?”
Mr Barker thought he had seen a shopping bag like Dorothy’s.
His vagueness was starting to get on Cleo’s nerves. He was not a good witness. Gary
would make mincemeat of him. She went back into Dorothy’s kitchen and told her
what Mr Barker had reported.
“Whoever it was has pinched my supper,” said Dorothy.
“Where’s your shopping bag?”
“That’s gone as well.”
“Was that the one with the little dog on it?”
“Yes. The thief must have packed my groceries in it and left
me to eat old biscuits and eggs. I notice that the biscuits are still in the
tin.”
“Dinner’s not a problem, Dorothy. Come and share ours,” Cleo
invited.
“Robert doesn’t know,” protested Dorothy, a bit nervous
because she thought Robert might ask her about Cleo’s activities.” He won’t
have prepared enough.”
“He always prepares enough. He ignores any attempt of mine
to lose weight. Although, now....”
Cleo stopped in her tracks. Dorothy looked at her shrewdly.
“Now what, Cleo? You’re not expecting, are you?”
Cleo was put out by the turn of phrase.
“I thought I had told you.”
“Do you mean you are having a baby?”
Cleo was trying to play down her slip of the tongue.
“Yes, but I don’t want everyone to know.”
“I’m not everyone.”
“The problem is…”
“Robert. He does not want children, does he?”
“No.”
“Well, cheer up, the bun is probably Gary’s,” said Dorothy.
“Robert thinks I’m
too old to have a baby.”
“But these days that’s normal, Cleo. In the old days men
married several times because their wives tended to die in childbirth or soon
after and the men needed several heirs because the children died like flies in
infancy.”
“But those women were young, not nearly forty. And they
farmed out their offspring to a wet nurse and carried on with their lives as if
nothing had happened.”
“Of course, having a baby was often lethal in those days. I
should think that on average women had a much shorter life-span than men for
that reason. The only way for a man to die young was to go to war or lose a
duel. In any church, high and mighty men have bronze plaques listing their
various wives. The men got older and the women stayed young, or rather, died
young.”
“You are well informed, Dorothy.”
“I quite enjoy reading about social history,” Dorothy
replied. “If I’d been around a hundred years ago I’m sure I would have been a suffragette.
“
“And women are still often at the mercy of the men they
befriend,” said Cleo. “Look at me! I put p with a lot from Robert. He thinks he
owns me. Men used to own and abuse women and still do.”
“Exactly. Have you ever wondered how many of the wet nurses’
babies replaced the highly-born babies who had succumbed to an early death? The
baby deaths were kept secret so as not to ruin the positions of socially
accepted wives, and of course, to make sure there was a new generation to
inherit the family fortune.”
“An intriguing thought, but none of that applies to us,
Dorothy.”
“Of course it doesn’t, but it’s fascinating social history,
isn’t it and history is repeating itself as soon as Robert is declared the
father of your child. Gary – if he’s the father – wouldn’t stand a chance
legally.”
“I think this is the first time I haven’t thought of that
terrible time in my life and that other baby who didn’t even get to be born.”
“Time to leave all that behind you for ever. This baby will
have a decent father, whoever it is, and a good start in life. Go back to your
cottage and warn Robert that I’m coming for food. I’ll give you an hour to tell
him the news and then I’ll walk down and enjoy celebrating with you. No time to
bake a dessert though Jessie kindly left me flour and sugar and there’s butter
in the freezer. I’ll bring some strawberry sorbet I made yesterday because
Jessie did not eat it. By this evening I’ll have made a list of what’s missing
here.”
Fortified by the realization that Dorothy approved of the
baby and had speculated discreetly that it was not Robert’s, Cleo walked back
home and called out gratuitously ‘I’m here’ as she closed the front door that
scraped over the flagstones in the little porch.
“I heard that door again. I’ll have to take some more off
the bottom. I’m glad it’s you, Cleo. The casserole is crying out to be eaten.”
“Can it wait an hour?”
“Is that how long it will take for Dorothy to get here?”
“How did you guess? I have an hour to tell you there are
going to be three of us.”
“I know that already. Dorothy phoned to warn me. There’ll be
you, me and her.”
Since this conversation was taking place between the
vestibule and the kitchen, voices were raised. Now Robert moved towards the
living-room as Cleo entered.
“Good job it’s a casserole then, Cleo.”
“Dorothy said it was a bun.”
“She’s getting beyond it.”
The game of cross-purposes was usually quite fun, but annoyed
Robert today. Puns on words usually bridged the Atlantic language gap, but this
time Robert was genuinely puzzled.
“The bun won’t be here for about 6 months,” Cleo continued.
The penny dropped. Robert dropped his oven gloves. If he’d
have been carrying the casserole, he’d have dropped that, too.
“I don’t believe it.”
“You’d better. Dr Mitchell does not normally make things up.”
“Are you sure?“ he said and bit his lip. He looked
concerned.
“I wouldn’t say Dr Mitchell was a natural healer, but at
least he’s a decent medic.”
“The news, I mean.”
“So you don’t mind?”
“Mind?”
“Us being too old and all that stuff?”
“I suppose I’ll get used to the idea,” Robert replied, the
idea of an immaculate conception going through his head. That was where
superstition and Christianity clashed, be mused.
“I’m glad about that, Robert.”
“Did you think that I’d be upset?”
“It did cross my mind. Something is bothering you. You’d
better tell me what,” Cleo continued, expecting Robert to ask her if he was the
baby’s father.
But he didn’t.
“Well, sit down and I’ll get on with the dinner,” he said. “We’ll
need a dessert.”
“You didn’t even mention abortion, Robert,” said Cleo,
wanting to get that cleared up immediately.
“I would have if I’d thought you would go for it.”
“I’ll try to forget you said that.”
“As I said, we’ll need a dessert.”
How indifferent Robert was. Another nail in his coffin, Cleo
thought.
“Dorothy’s bringing one,” she said
***
When she arrived, Dorothy was ready to suggest ways of
accommodating the new arrival at the
cottage even before she had taken her hat off.
“I see you’re wearing the hat with the cherries again,” Cleo
commented.
“The cherries are new,” said Dorothy. “Miss Plimsoll has the
old one. This one used to have a feather.”
“You’ve heard the news I expect, Dorothy,” Robert said,
bringing cutlery and plates to the dining-table.
“You don’t look very pleased,” said Dorothy.
“I’m over the moon,” said Robert without moving a facial
muscle.
“I guessed,” said
Dorothy diplomatically. That was the truth, after all, however you interpreted
it.
“What about the agency?” Robert wanted to know.
“Having a baby does not put an end to all crime, Robert.
I’ll carry on, of course!”
Even as she said those words, Cleo realized that it was the
truth though she had not given the agency a thought since her visit to Dr
Mitchell. Dorothy could hardly conceal her delight that something so dear to
her heart was not going to come to a sorry end, as Cleo had hinted on more than
one occasion.
“Better make Dorothy a partner, then,” said Robert.
“That’s a great idea,” said Cleo. “You’ll have all the
stress with Gary, Dorothy. I expect that will please Robert, won’t it?”
Cleo was looking hard at him, but Robert did not comment. He
would stop speculating about the baby. Miracles did happen, after all.
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