ILLUMINATION BOOK CHAPTERS (UPDATED LIST OF CHAPTERS HERE).. ROMANTIC COMEDY — QUIRKY ROMP — CO-STARS MOOCHER THE DOG

‘White Lies and Custard Creams’ — Chapter Eleven

Bicarb is best! His Mum said so.

Simon was amazing. His face registered the exact same expression it would have if they’d offered him a slice of toast and marmite, his habitual form of sustenance. Liz took a quick glance out of the window for reassurance. Moocher was okay — she could see him doing his I’m-a-snow-plough bit where he lowers his snout to the ground and leaning on his chest he pushes his way through the long grass with his back legs. He always collapsed in a heap when he did that. Liz was sure he was laughing to himself.

She turned back to the little tableau in front of her. Yes, it was still there. She moved away from the window so they wouldn’t realise that her weak spot was in the garden. They hadn’t hurt Simon yet and she couldn’t see any power tools. Perhaps they borrowed them as they went along rather than bringing their own? They were firing questions at Simon who still looked like he was about to tuck into a pile of warm and butter-dripping toast. Man-oh-man, he was cool.

Yummy demanded: “Where is it then?”

Chuckler chuckled and added: “We know, you know.”

They completely ignored Liz. She wasn’t too upset about that. She considered burrowing under Simon’s duvet and pretending to be asleep, but as his bed seemed to be the repository of most of his discarded socks, that option was out. Not only that but she knew if she did that she’d never be able to look her lion-hearted dog in his beady eyes again. Bloody hell.

There was only one thing she could do. She inched casually along the bed in Moocher’s snake-in-the-grass mode and then with what she was sure was an evil grace, she picked up old Beethoven, slightly chipped around the edges but otherwise good enough for her purposes, and in one athletic bound she was up and had smacked that old Beethoven down on Shorty’s head. She’d gone for him because she wasn’t sure she could reach the others.

He dropped to the floor with a very realistic body-hitting-the-floor sound. Shorty himself didn’t make any noise whatsoever. One minute he was there, being an outright ruffian, the next he was lying on the floor looking like a victim. Liz worried that the custard doughnut she’d had for breakfast was going to put in a reappearance. She’d never hit anyone in her life before and it felt very strange to have done so now.

Simon suddenly let out the most terrifying howl and, shucking off a life time of reserve, let loose with his feet and hands and, oh boy, Yummy and Chuckler didn’t know what hit them. Liz didn’t think they were hurt, but they were certainly surprised. So was she. In fact, they were all pretty shocked. They stood around, carefully out of reach, watching with some apprehension as Simon did what could only be described as a fearsome war-dance, drumming his feet on the floor and shooting his hands out with lethal intent in every direction. Liz was afraid he might dislocate something, but he couldn’t hear her pathetic cries of: “Be careful, Simon,” above the cacophony of terrifying yowls and howls he produced from a face screwed up in manic and horrifyingly gargoyle fashion.

Liz’s attention was distracted from this amazing spectacle by the sight of Hugh in the doorway. Her stomach lurched and she immediately dropped her gaze. She had no idea what he was doing here, but he looked just as unhappy, but at the same time disapproving, as he had the last time she’d seen him and she didn’t want to see it. Nor did Yummy and Chuckler. They took off so fast they were a blur. They shouldered Hugh out of the way like he was a mere stripling instead of a six foot something chunky hunk of male and they were off, down the stairs and out. She heard the front door screech and then slam. You’d have thought they’d have learned to lift that door by now.

And she was left with Shorty out cold on Simon’s floor. Simon, thankfully, was taking a break from his demonstration of a short-circuited tap-dancing robot and stood there with a huge grin on his face. Liz had never seen that grin before either. It was remarkable what it did for him.

She felt sick. She couldn’t believe she’d knocked out a fellow human being. Liz had often wondered what she’d do if a burglar got in. She’d want to be absolutely sure he hadn’t just made a mistake and got into the wrong house before she hit him with anything.

Maybe in this case it was all that denial venting itself on the nearest victim.

“Maybe you’d better sit on him, Hugh,” she said, still not looking at him, but waving a delicately feminine, but head-crushing hand, at Shorty’s recumbent form. “Until we decide what to do with him.”

Hugh didn’t move. “Go on,” she said. “You’re much heavier than either of us.” She trusted that would be true despite her biscuit-fest since he and she split up. Eek. Mustn’t think of that. Mustn’t think of Hugh in happier times. Tears hovered at the ready.

“No, I won’t. What a ridiculous thing to do. We need to make sure he’s not harmed before he brings action against you. What on earth possessed you?”

Unbelievable. This Charity person had a lot to answer for.

“Come on, Simon. Give us your weight.” He and she crossed the room and sat on Shorty. Just in time too. Shorty was beginning to make the sort of noises one might expect from someone starting to come round after being smacked on the head with a bust of Beethoven. Liz felt cold and shivery. It was going to take a while for her to get used to the idea of hitting people. She much preferred arguing and shouting. It had a lot going for it that she never realised before she had the chance to compare it with getting physically violent. Or maybe it was the man-shaped glacier that had arrived in the room that was making her feel frozen from the inside out.

“Geroff,” mumbled Shorty.

And, gosh, she thought Simon was going to.

“Stay right where you are!” she snapped, glaring at him.

She forced herself to move enough to grab Beethoven. Shuffling back on her knees she loomed over Shorty’s head. He flinched and she grinned. Power was a terrible thing.

“Right then, Shorty. What were you lot after?”

“Go screw yourself.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“You heard. Go screw yourself.”

“You’re not in any position to be rude you know. I just want to know what the hell you lot were up to. It can’t be that difficult. You must know.”

“Not telling.”

Sighing heavily in a you’re-making-me-do-this-and-it’ll-hurt-me-more-than-you kind of way, she held Beethoven threateningly, inches away from Shorty’s face.

He laughed. For crying out loud — he laughed! And, of course, he was right. Sighing even more heavily, she placed Beethoven on the floor and looked at Shorty. What was she going to do with him?

Just thinking it made her look at Hugh at last. He had always had an answer to her little problems. But she was sorry that she’d given in to that impulse. Hugh’s face at that moment could have made bread mouldy. It was too much. “Bloody hell, Hugh. I didn’t ask you to come back. If all this just seems like too much trouble to you, then, please, feel free to leave. Go and get happy. Please be happy.” She fancied her voice wobbled on that last bit.

He scowled at her as though he wanted to shake her. Then he left. Silence sank into the room for the time it took for him to go down the stairs and out the front door. She decided denial about all that would be a good thing, too.

It goes without saying that they went through all the palaver of why they couldn’t get the police in and to be fair, she could just imagine it: “Oh, well, Officer, you see I left my front door open and three men walked in. They were coming to get Simon’s finger you see and they picked him up off the ground and held him there threateningly. How did I know they were after his finger? Well because, well because…”

Liz felt she owed it to Clive not to mention him after what he’d told her and he was the one whose finger had been nicked and disposed of. He should be the one who made the decision about his own involvement. Although how that tied up with the finger Stella had apparently attached to a brick and chucked through the window was a complete mystery. In fact, her brain was beginning to protest about all its unaccustomed exercise.

“Well, you see, Officer — I could tell just as soon as I clapped eyes on them that they were the type of people who removed other people’s fingers with power tools. There’s a lot of them about you know. Well, yes — you’re right. Simon still has all his fingers. Why Mr Medley in particular? Why his fingers? Um, well, we don’t know that. We were hoping you could find out. And, yes, I did hit Shorty with Beethoven, but I had good reason. No, he hadn’t threatened me, but all the same he was threatening Simon. No, my dog didn’t give any warning. He was outside being a Lion of the Serengeti. He’d been locked out though — you must admit that’s suspicious. Oh, if it was you coming to take someone’s finger you wouldn’t want a great black hairy finger-eating lion in the house either, therefore you’d lock the dog flap too. Right… Thank you for all your help, Officer.”

Yes, she could see it now.

“By the way, Shorty,” she said. “Why did you lock the dog flap?” She waited expectantly for him to swallow his mouthful. They were in the breakfast room by then eating toast and drinking coffee. Shorty, it turned out, was as fanatical about marmite as Simon. That was nice. A common interest after all.

Shorty looked at her as though she was a foundation short of a house and said: “Why would we want to tangle with that ravening hound? Easiest thing to do was shut him out. Anyway, the chief’s allergic.”

Of course.

That was okay then — her near concussion had been worth it to save the thugs any hassle and ‘the chief’ a rash. The fact that she knew the ‘ravening hound’ would have been more likely to investigate their pockets than their motives was neither here nor there. It also meant that locking him out had saved him from getting hurt too.

On the other hand, how did they know there was a dog in the house at all, let alone a ravening hound and how did they know he was outside already, as if waiting to be locked out? She couldn’t make any sense of it. In fact, she’d given up trying to make any sense of any of it by this time and still hadn’t a clue what to do with Shorty. In all conscience she couldn’t let a finger poacher run loose in society if she had him in her power and anyway, she still needed to get to the bottom of all the happenings. What to do, what to do?

The door-bell rang. They all stiffened and looked at each other. This was ridiculous — cowering in her own house. Liz got up, marched down the hall, through the lobby and flung open the front door. She must have looked fierce because her client, poor old Mr my-mother-always-told-me-that-washing-up-liquid-would-taint-the-salad-so-I-use-just-bicarb, recoiled from her as though she’d slapped his face with a dead fish. Good grief — she’d completely forgotten her appointment. Tax implications. Jeez, fancy forgetting about Tax implications.

She bared her teeth at him. It was the closest she could get to a welcoming smile. She stood back for him to enter the hall, but he couldn’t get past the lobby. Moocher, Simon, Tony and Shorty were all crowded around staring at the poor blighter.

“Get back,” Liz ordered. “This isn’t an exhibit. This is my client.” But, as it turned out, her client had other ideas too.

“Brian,” he squeaked, his face suffused pink with delight, his hands outstretched to the man recently hit with Beethoven and then pinned to the floor in a sea of stiff socks. Brian? He didn’t look like a Brian to Liz.

A dawning look of recognition stole over Shorty’s face. “Leslie,” he shouted and launched himself into her client’s arms. Leslie? He didn’t look like a Leslie to her.

“Oh, this is so FAB — meeting you again,” Leslie said. “Where’ve you been? Watcha bin doin’? We’ve all missed you so much since you stopped coming to the Tip of the Month Club. Why did ya stop coming?”

They’d stepped apart by then and were grinning uncontrollably at each other like a couple of hysterical wart-hogs. Liz shut the front door carefully, making sure that it was indeed shut. She’d seen a long low car outside with two men in it, looking very Yummy and Chucklerish. Why hadn’t they gone home?

It was no good. She would have to ring the police.

She ignored the chorus of protest from the assembled party, marched down the hall and snatched up the telephone.

The police turned up. Eventually. She told them absolutely everything, held back nothing.

They turned out to be even more obstructive than she could possibly have anticipated in her wildest nightmares.

“Lion of the Serengeti?” PC Number One stared at Moocher. “That mutt?”

“Well, excuse me. ‘That mutt’ happens to be my best friend.”

“What’s he being now?”

She looked in Moocher’s direction. He had no sense of timing, that dog. He was doing his I’m-a-very-clean-dog, I-wash-myself-thoroughly-no-matter-the-distractions-in-my-life thing that he did sometimes. Jeez.

Liz didn’t like the leer on PC Number One’s face, not at all.

“It’s obvious what he’s doing, isn’t it,” she said. “Just what all men do, all the time when they think people aren’t looking. Checking it’s still there.”

Well, she was sorry, but she just couldn’t take unnecessary insults to her best pal. It wiped the grin off PC One’s face though. And he took his hand out of his pocket.

Liz had a feeling that little incident didn’t help her case any.

“What’s he doing now then?”

Oh, dear. She looked at Moocher, dreading what he might be up to now. But it was all right this time.

“Oh, he’s doing his if-I-press-myself-close-enough-to-the-floor-everyone-will-think-I’m-a-plank-and-no-one-will-notice-that-I’m-inching-towards-that-bit-of-toast act. He’s a bit of a thief, you see.”

“He’s a thief, ay? Well, that probably explains it. Perhaps he fancied a snack, thought he’d check out the fridge and had a spot of finger and that’s why you can’t prove your case.” He thought that was hilarious and rolled about in his chair like a mad suet pudding.

Liz instantly suffered a severe case of sense-of-humour-loss, and didn’t reply.

“Don’t you get it?” PC One insisted on repeating.

Boy, he was thick.

He persevered. “Eaten the evidence, I mean. D’ya geddit? D’ya geddit?”

He’d choke on his own wit in a minute. It would be a quick death.

“Or was it too close to the bone for your liking? Hahaha.”

Where was Beethoven when she needed him? Boy-oh-boy, her celebrated patience was taking a real bashing today. She could have done with Simon there to back her up about the finger, but he’d disappeared, probably to smoke himself to death as fast as possible.

She could have done with the new Hugh there, actually. His sour-faced disapproval of everything that moved would have put this lot in their place in seconds. She nearly howled her head off at the very thought, but womanfully fought the urge back.

PC One persisted. She could tell he was the life and soul back at the station. “Perhaps he needed it to make a phone call. Couldn’t get his claw to stay on the button and kept hitting the wrong digit. Hahaha. Digit, digit. Geddit, geddit? Hahaha.”

Very bloody funny.

Liz was also picking up snatches of PC Number Two’s thoroughly vicious interrogation of Shorty. It went like this:

“Oh, no, you should use lemon juice, that’s the best bet for getting stains out of…”

Shorty: “No, no, no, bicarb — old standby I know, but old is best you know.”

Leslie: “Brian’s right, as always…”

PC Number Two: “As for carpets, especially for wine, salt’s the best thing…”

Shorty: “Salt? Ah, yes, I’d agree with salt for wine, but not on carpets. Tablecloths, now…”

Leslie: “Brian’s bound to be right. He’s President of…”

PC Number Two: “Cat fur! Goodness me, yes, cat hair is just awful to get off…”

Shorty: “Simple though with a wet cloth, oh dearie me, yes.”

He wouldn’t say ‘simple’ in that lilting, carefree way if he’d ever experienced the Moocher Effect, that’s for sure. The Moocher Effect could reduce a clean, well organised residence into a wasteland of tumbleweed-like hair-balls rolling about carpets that had mysteriously become all the same colour — overnight.

Leslie: “Tip of the Month Club. Meets on the third Thursday in the month…”

PC Number Two: “President? Proud to meet you, sir…”

Great manly shaking of hands all round. They all got out their diaries and there followed a great discussion as to where they would meet up and how best to use a taxi and not pay a tip. Oh, good. Liz was so pleased that satisfaction and beaming faces were the order of the day in her house.

After they’d kindly eaten every biscuit that could be found and used up all the milk and damn near all the coffee, they let her off with a warning about wasting their time and told her how lucky she was that Shorty, being the magnanimous chap he was, didn’t want to press charges about her assault on him. Hugh would have been pleased.

Shorty made the most of it. He blushed and tried to twist his toe into her floor, the very picture of bashful oh-don’t-embarrass-me stuff. She wished, oh how she wished, she hadn’t rung the police. She would never ring them again. Everyone else had been right and she’d been wrong and she deserved every nasty pun and snide remark that came her way!

Shorty-Brian and Leslie, formerly known as her client, left together. It didn’t seem right to let Shorty go after their traumatic experiences, and that wasn’t even counting Clive’s. As they were leaving, however, Shorty assured them, in a breathless voice that he’d seen the light and wouldn’t be walking the dark path anymore. But although he had seen the light he couldn’t possibly spill the beans on his erstwhile colleagues. Surely, they could understand that? She supposed they could. In a we’ll-stick-together-schoolyard kind of way.

“You needn’t worry about me,” he said. “I won’t be troubling you again. It was only a part time job after I took early retirement, just to give me an interest and get me out the house.”

“What was a part time job exactly?” Liz was mystified.

“You know, being a hoodlum.”

“You can get a part time job as a hoodlum?” Was her mouth hanging open?

“Of course. That’s what I did. But I’ve realised I have much more to offer by expanding the Tip of the Month Club. In fact, I shall start producing a magazine and perhaps we’ll meet fortnightly from now on. Much more my thing you know.”

Leslie was overjoyed to hear this and capered around the front room clapping his hands. He stopped in front of Liz, puffing. “Sorry I turned up a bit early,” he said. “But I’m glad I did or I wouldn’t have met Brian again. Don’t worry about the tax stuff. You just do whatever needs to be done and tell me how much. I have every faith in you. Well in terms of accounting, that is. Defamation of character’s clearly not your thing. Lucky for you Brian is such a nice chap.”

Yeah, right. Chortle, chortle.

“I expect the others are waiting for me,” Shorty said. “We’ve made a good team, but now I’ll tell them that it’s over. Sad really, but every good thing must come to an end sometime.” Shorty shook her hand and said: “Do give me a ring when you want to fit nets. I inspected next door’s while we were in there — immaculate. Superb job. I’ll be happy to help you with yours.” He presented her with his card which read: ‘Brian Threadneedle at Your Service for all those little jobs you didn’t know you needed doing.’

Short, concise and insulting.

Liz didn’t actually throw them out, but neither did she lie down on the doorstop to prevent them leaving before they demanded sight of her stained cutlery and heaped unwanted advice on her. Why on earth had she ever felt badly about knocking him unconscious? She vaguely wondered if that was qualification enough for her to earn a bob or two at this hoodlum lark? She wondered how much it paid?

As the house went quiet Liz turned to Simon, who hadn’t managed to smoke himself to death yet although he’d had a good go, and they stared blankly at each other.

They were still doing it when Julie burst into the room. Although the word, ‘burst’ with someone that frail isn’t right. ‘Dripped’ might be a better word. Her already-pale face was paler than usual and tears poured down it. She ignored Liz entirely and fixing an impassioned stare on Simon she threw herself to her knees by his chair and laid her head on his lap, very reminiscent of Moocher laying his head on Tony’s lap. How touching. However, Moocher’s approval of Tony hadn’t produced the terror that this incident did in Simon.

This was the first time Liz had ever seen him look frightened in all the time she’d known him, despite all the nasty little burning episodes, not to mention being threatened by three gruesome thugs. She watched in fascination as his hands, as if with a life of their own, levitated above the shiningly blonde head, hesitated and lowered to hang lifelessly once more down the sides of the chair. He stared imploringly at Liz.

She shrugged, heaved herself from her chair and left him to it. She was getting dead keen on things that weren’t her business staying that way. Dead keen. Also, it served him right for not sticking up for her about the existence of the finger with the police. Then again, if he had, it might have got Stella in trouble and it would seem that, terrified of her though he might be, he didn’t want that.

Curious though she was about what Simon and Julie were up to, Liz went up to the attic, got up her household finance spreadsheets on the computer and tried to pretend that fixing the French windows would cost nothing.

She did wonder where Clive was and felt a twinge of guilt that she no longer wanted to know anything about him either, but it was only a little twinge, and then she forgot him. Let them get on with it. She was sick of everybody and had a life of her own to get sorted. An early night seemed like a good plan all of a sudden. An early night and absolutely no thought of Hugh would do the trick. She’d just sleep that man right out of her head.

Chapter Ten of ‘White Lies and Custard Creams’ is here!

Chapter Twelve of ‘White Lies and Custard Creams’ is here!

All ‘White Lies and Custard Creams’ chapters to read are here.

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