made the difference), and an employee named Patsy Rankin had just sliced some potatoes thinly, tossed them in the hot oil, and served up homemade potato chips the like of which had never been seen in any fast-food place. The customers loved them so much, sales of everything had leaped by over ten percent. No one appreciated inventiveness more than Moe Bletchley. Patsy Rankin was immediately transferred to the Birmingham headquarters in charge of food innovation, a position created for her talents alone.
Chick’nKing had cost a fortune to get started but had already tripled that fortune for Moe Bletchley. The difference between his and others’ fast-food emporiums was that the food was better and the buildings so whimsical they simply sucked people in.
Linus Vetch had been admitted six weeks before and was clearly rallying. The unusual thing about Bletchley Hall was that the people who came here, all diagnosed with a terminal illness, did not all leave in a box. Actually, it was part hospice, part nursing home, and not a small part resort. Of course, no one could enjoy this last element if he wasn’t deemed sick-to-dying. But some diagnosed as terminal got considerably better and left under their own head of steam-or perhaps to the disappointed expectations of their relatives, who were then forced to return the elderly family member to his or her own hearth. This made Bletchley Hall a sort of miracle home and, consequently, a highly desirable last stop on the road to wherever. This rallying of seemingly hopeless cases mystified the doctors.
“What the hell’s the big mystery?” said Moe. “It was you fellas misdiagnosed these cases in the first place.”
“Mr. Bletchley,” Dr. Innes had said, “Linus Vetch came in with esophageal cancer. Hardly ever does a patient recover from that particular cancer. Linus Vetch has had radiation, chemo, a bone marrow transplant-”
“So? Maybe the voodoo finally kicked in. It happens.” Moe started humming.
This, of course, infuriated Dr. Innes and no wonder: If a patient had terminal something, he should terminate.
“It makes me wonder,” Moe went on, “why you fellas hate to see somebody get better.”
“That’s absolute nonsense. I-”
Moe waved a thick-veined hand, meaning
“Funny,” said Dr. Innes. “I never really suspected that.” He flounced off down the hallway in a manner that Moe was surprised hadn’t raised Matron’s suspicions.
Linus Vetch was propped up in his bed, looking wasted-true-but otherwise like a man on the mend. The poor fellow, in his seventies, had been through the hell of chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant and still lived to talk about it. That he could talk was surprising, the radiation and chemo probably doing his vocal cords little more good than the cancer that had invaded his esophagus a year ago.
Moe bumped into the lavishly appointed room and up to the bed, where Linus shot his hand up for a high five. They had taken to greeting this way ever since the once-dying man had been able to raise his arm. Moe had to admit it was amazing. He himself had never been sick (with anything other than contrariness) and he knew he had no conception of the physical pain Linus Vetch had been cursed with.
“So what’s up, buddy?” Moe treated all patients-he preferred to call them “guests”-as if they’d just stopped in for a pleasant weekend.
“Better today. Must be your cooking.”
“Brought you tonight’s menu.” Moe believed looking forward to a fine meal could keep you going at least until you got it. Food was surprisingly soporific and comforting, and the meals here were cooked by two first-rate chefs Moe had lured away from two four-star restaurants.
Linus drew himself into more of a sitting posture and fumbled for his glasses. “Where did I put the damned things? Always losing them.”
“Maybe they’re in the drawer.” Moe nodded toward the bedside table. Linus always kept them there and always forgot that he did.
Linus found them and hooked them over his ears, as if for a better view of Morris Bletchley. Then he removed them and looked around the room.
He had the most searching look Moe had ever seen. Eyes that scanned the entire room, floor to ceiling, as if some sort of answer could be found in the William Morris-designed wallpaper, the Art Deco wall sconces, the beautiful wood floors, Kirman carpet, and high windows that looked out over the flower-bound stream.
Still, Moe wished he had the answer, or at least some answer to give Linus.
Linus said, “What put you in that wheelchair?” He was always asking this. It was clear he was glad that Moe, although not dying, hadn’t got off scot free.
But Moe had. He could walk as well as the next man (as long as the next man wasn’t Linus, who couldn’t make it to the toilet without a steadying hand).
Moe slapped the wheelchair’s arm. “Life, Linus. Life put me here.”
27
When Emily Hayter answered her doorbell the following morning, she looked up at Melrose as if she’d been expecting to see someone else. As she opened the door, her small mouth seemed to form a word or words called back when she saw him. Her figure was hefty with age and too much of her own good baking. Melrose could smell some of it now, the spicy warmth of cloves and nutmeg that hung in the air.
He introduced himself, unnecessarily, for she clearly knew about him; had the disappearance of Chris Wells not superseded him, Melrose would be the most interesting thing in the village. Seabourne had stood untenanted for a number of years (except for the Decorators, who hadn’t lasted long). Curiosity overcame inconvenience. She waved him in with the wooden paddle she was holding-he wondered what it was for-invited him to have a seat and a cup of coffee, and said the apricot bread was just cooling. Had it been timed for someone else’s arrival?
Emily Hayter lived in a little street not much wider than an alleyway behind the village’s main street where the Drowned Man and the Woodbine Tearoom sat. Her cottage was similar to her neighbors’: a mansard roof sloping down to peephole windows and whitewashed clay. It stood in an overgrown garden. Indeed, the garden seemed to have trailed into the front room, for here where Melrose took a seat were weedy potted plants, ivy-bound, and papery, stricken buds and blossoms.
Yet Mrs. Hayter struck Melrose as a woman of industry, so perhaps a lack of time was her problem. Coming in with a tray of coffee, she confirmed this. “There just never seems to be time for things,” she said, as she jammed the plunger down in her French press pot, which seemed to sigh in its downward descent in tune with Mrs. Hayter’s own huge sigh. “You saw the state o’ my garden, and in here too. You can see-” She waved the white napkins she’d brought in around the room as if they were flags of surrender, and poured the coffee. She did this with a grace that spoke of many years of pouring. The bread she now passed to Melrose looked delicious and was undoubtedly the source of the spiced air.
Once they’d settled back, she asked him how he was liking Seabourne. “Very much. It’s a beautiful place. A wonderful setting, too, up there overlooking the sea.” He added this, hoping it would cue her to speak of the children.
“Cold, though. Costs a fortune to heat those rooms.” Her glance swept over him, no doubt estimating the extent of his.
“I don’t mind a nip in the air.” (Oh, yes, he did.) “I’m used to it.” (Oh, no, he wasn’t.)
Emily Hayter struck Melrose as a pump that would require some priming; she hadn’t risen to the prospect overlooking the sea, so perhaps he should lead with more suggestions. “The estate agent tells me the owner lives in the village. In a kind of nursing home and hospice?” He was sure she would be only too ready to talk about the eccentric Morris Bletchley.
“Oh, yes. Mr. Morris started that. Used to be a stately home, and he took it over and calls it Bletchley Hall. I expect it’s quite nice for these unfortunates so near-” She could not summon a cliche to make death more acceptable. “Mr. Morris, yes, he’s a queer duck, that one.”
Melrose waited patiently to be told about Mr. Bletchley’s queer duck-ness while Mrs. Hayter fed herself a
