exactly what she meant. After all, she’d had a lot to do with finding out who murdered that poor woman. She’d been evasive when he’d asked her to promise not to get involved with that kind of thing again, and he was glad to see her putting all her energy and enthusiasm into setting up the business.
The whole truth was a little different. Lois had secretly enjoyed her foray into detecting, had got a taste for it. Things had got very tricky, even dangerous for her own family, which was why Derek wanted no more of it, but in the end there had been something satisfactory in it, like fitting in the last piece in a jigsaw puzzle. She had seen Constable Simpson out on his rounds several times, and he’d waved cheerily. And one day, when she came out of the village shop, Detective Inspector Cowgill was there in his car. He’d lowered the window and said, “Morning, Lois. Glad to see you…don’t want to lose touch…” And he’d smiled his chilly half-smile before driving off.
Lois got up and went into the big sitting room. They’d had to make do so far with their old furniture, but it looked cheap and small. As soon as she made some money from the business, that would be the first thing to do. If they were going to have a big house, they must try and live up to it.
Even as she thought this, Lois checked herself. This was exactly what she had said she wouldn’t do. She knew what the villagers would say: “That Lois Meade thinks just because they got the house cheap she can go up a few rungs on the social ladder…always did fancy herself, and she’s only a cleaner…” Well, let them talk. Lois knew her own worth, was proud of her husband and his skills, and of her children. She had no wish to be bosom pals with those who considered themselves the village’s elite. For one thing, she knew far too much about them. No, they’d soon see that the Meades were quite content to be who they were, and sod the rest!
Now she stood up, put down her pen, and left the room. In the kitchen, she opened the freezer and checked that there were enough beefburgers for the kids’ tea, and prepared herself for the returning wolfhounds.
¦
“Well now,” said Derek, pushing himself and his chair back from the kitchen table and patting his stomach. “Now we’ve all got to think of a name for Mum’s new business.”
A collective groan went round the table, and Josie said, “I thought you were calling it Careful Cleaners? Dad’s idea?”
Lois shook her head. “Boring,” she said.
“Thanks very much,” said Derek huffily.
“I know,” said Jamie, always ready to help, “what about Mum’s Cleaners?”
“Don’t be stupid,” said Douglas, shifting out of his chair.
“It’s not bad,” Lois protested, seeing Jamie’s face fall. “I’ll put it on the list.”
“And you can sit down, my lad,” added Derek to Douglas, “until you’ve made at least one suggestion.”
Douglas sighed deeply, and Josie winked at him. “I’ve got one,” she said. “Why don’t you call it Mop and Bucket?”
“That’s good!” said Jamie, and Lois smiled.
“Yep,” she said, “that goes on the list, too.”
“What about you, then, Lois,” said Derek. “It’s your business, after all.” Nothing, in his opinion, had come anywhere near Careful Cleaners. Told you everything you needed to know in two words.
“Dad’s idea’s on the right track,” said Douglas grudgingly. “It’s got alliteration, easy to remember…”
“Alliter what?” said Jamie.
“You’ll get there,” said Douglas, and warmed to the subject. “That’s what you need, Mum. Something simple, catchy and easy to remember. After all, people’re goin’ to have to look you up in the phone book, an’ that.”
Silence fell. Josie was fiddling with her hair, Jamie trying to kick Douglas under the table, and the rest thinking hard.
“I got it,” said Douglas triumphantly. “New Brooms.”
“That’s stupid,” said Jamie, getting his revenge.
But Lois and Derek beamed at Douglas. “That’s it, boy! Well done!”
“Well, I don’t know what it means, even,” said Josie, “let alone remember it.”
“‘New brooms sweep clean’,” explained Lois. “It’s an old saying. Everybody knows it.”
“I don’t,” said Jamie.
“Nor do I,” said Josie.
“Oh well,” said Douglas, “that proves it then, dunnit? Must be the right one.” And he stood up, made a great show of picking up his school bag full of homework, and stumped off to his room.
¦
Later that night, warm and comfortable in bed, Lois and Derek were talking. “Did you really carry a knife?” Derek said.
“O’ course I did,” said Lois softly, tucking a friendly hand inside his pyjamas. “Didn’t you?”
? Terror on Tuesday ?
Two
John Todd-Nelson, whose real name was Smith, stood in the back bedroom of his unremarkable house. Most of the houses in Waltonby were old, and built in rich, dark orange ironstone, and all were carefully maintained by their new-rich owners. Even old farmhouses that had seen nothing but muck and slurry for generations were now repainted and re-pointed, had restored features that added another few thousands to the price, and were occupied by young families who had arrived with the stated intention of ‘joining in’. But Todd- Nelson’s house, semi-detached, with pebble-dashed walls and peeling green paint, was not one of these. It was an anonymous house, giving no clues to the character of the owner, except perhaps hints of a private man, with little interest in what it looked like to other people.
Major Todd-Nelson, as he liked to be known, stretched, and flexed his biceps. A dozen John Todd-Nelsons flexed them with him in the reflections from mirrors lining the heavily curtained, spotlit room. What he saw pleased him still. Not bad for a man in his fifty-second year, he told himself, and began on the series of exercises he performed every morning of every day, all the year round.
Today, he spent an extra half hour in the exercise room, took special care with his shower, and brushed with disciplined vigour his thick, greying hair, only lightly touched with a warming tone, as it said on the packet. Taking an eyebrow pencil from a small box on his bathroom shelf, he carefully darkened his neat moustache.
Impeccably dressed now, his regimental tie (to which he had no right) perfectly tied, and his white shirt gleaming, he went downstairs to his meagre kitchen. He poured a small helping of cornflakes into a chipped white bowl, topped it up with milk from a bottle, and sat down with the
¦
Next door, in the other half of the pair of semis, the Reading family were at breakfast.
“I suppose sooner or later you’ll get yourself a proper job, or at least think about going to college?” Hazel Reading’s father was wasting his time. She was not listening – could not listen – because of the headphones clamped to her head. Richard Reading leaned across the breakfast table and snatched them away. “Just listen to me!” he shouted, and his wife Bridie rushed out into the garden, shutting the door behind her.
Hazel was not impressed. “What, Dad?” she said wearily. “It’s no good listening to you, because you always say the same old things. “Get a proper job’…”go to college’…I’ve heard it all before. And anyway,” she said, as she saw him open his mouth for another tirade, “working at the pub is just temporary. All the girls do it…and it’s a lot more fun than babysitting,
“All the girls?” her father yelled at her. “Just you and who else?”
“And Prue,” said Hazel calmly. “She’s posh, so that should please you.”
Her father stood up, red in the face with anger. “Prudence!” he snorted. “That’s a misnomer, for a start! God knows what her parents were thinking of, giving her a name like that! And I’ve no doubt you talked her into it!”
“She’s very nice,” said Hazel, “and learnin’ fast. Still a bit wet behind the ears, but comin’ along nicely.” And, turning her back on her father, she took the earphones and replaced them, turning up the volume in careless defiance.
Richard Reading opened the kitchen door so hard that it banged back on the worktop and the key fell with a
