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

‘White Lies and Custard Creams’ — Chapter Nineteen

All clues lead to … next door — one way or the other

‘White Lies and Custard Creams’ cover on phone, tablet and paperback, by Susan Alison

So what was she going to do about Julie? Why did she abduct Moocher and threaten such foul things? She couldn’t be allowed to get away with it. Who was she, really? If only Liz knew just what the hell was going on. If only life could go back to being the way it was before that fateful day when, due to her desire to pay her bills, she took in two new, unknown lodgers. That would teach her a lesson. She’d never pay her bills again! That would sort it.

Even then, she didn’t have much to pay her bills with had she wanted to. There were only two lodgers in residence now. Liz was still upset about Simon. He’d been there for a long time and to up and leave just like that was quite a rejection. She’d thought they were friends. She could imagine the allure of finding a family when he thought he was on his own forever, but even so… she leapt up and ran upstairs to his room.

Flinging open his door she saw that his room looked much the same as it always did. In other words she was still in danger of being mobbed by a load of old socks gone bad. What did this mean? Perhaps he was coming back later to get his gear. Perhaps he was going to rent two places at once in case one didn’t work out. She chased along to Julie’s room and saw that it was completely clean and clear, as though she’d never been there. Actually, it was cleaner than it had been before she took it, and all ready for another lodger.

Even so, Julie couldn’t be allowed to roam the world abducting innocent dogs and, possibly, torturing them for her own ends. But what could Liz do about her? Perhaps she should call the police? As soon as she thought of it she went cold at the very idea — they’d turn up eager to take her away she suspected and lock her up in their deepest, darkest and dampest dungeon. After all, she’d wrecked property and threatened someone with a knife. Then who would there be to protect Moocher? She flung her arms around his neck and buried her nose in his fur. He stank! He really, really stank. She tried not to hurt his feelings by recoiling too violently. He ought to have a bath, but considering what he’d already been through she didn’t want to expose him to more stress. She’d leave it until tomorrow, until things had settled a bit.

In the meantime there was still the problem of Julie, not to mention a load of unanswered questions. Sighing, she made her way out to the kitchen, if it could still be called that, but she didn’t make it as the door bell went just as she was in the vicinity so, breaking the habit of a lifetime, even though she wasn’t expecting anyone, she answered it.

It was Hugh and the look he gave her was so loving and kind she immediately burst into tears and threw herself onto him. To hell with Charity. She needed her ex just now. Charity could have him later.

They sort-of shuffled into the front room and sagged onto the sofa until she was all cried out. She felt a lot better but could only imagine she looked a lot worse.

Drained, she pulled away from him and finally looked at him properly. He didn’t look too good himself. “What is it?” she demanded.

“Charity’s broken off our engagement.”

There. He just said it. The wild uprush of elation that immediately overcame her had to be ruthlessly crammed back down again. He looked so miserable and stunned.

“Why would she do a thing like that?”

He shifted slightly in his seat. “You haven’t seen the Evening Post, then?”

“No.”

Sighing he pulled it from his inside pocket where it had got tangled with his wallet, and opened it to the offending page. It was a very nice picture, she thought. Hugh looked very hero-ish on the bonnet of that car, tackling crime, not flinching from his social duty. The teddy bears had turned out quite well too.

She slid her hand over his wallet where he’d absently placed it on the sofa.

“She already had doubts because I’m always around here.”

“How does she know that?”

He stopped and frowned. “I’m not sure. But then with this as well… She said it just showed I didn’t respect her enough. She said it would make her a laughing stock.”

If Charity really loved Hugh that wouldn’t stop her, but Liz wasn’t going to say that. He really did look pole-axed. At first, Liz had thought: he’s free now. He’s free for me. But then she realised, sinkingly, that he was probably further from her now than when he was engaged. Anything she could get out of him would only be on the rebound.

But then — who cared? She’d take him any way she could get him. She leant forward, unobtrusively pushed his wallet under the cushion, and edged herself over it as she did so, grabbed his hand and stared thrillingly into his eyes. “I love you, Hugh,” she said, putting all of herself into the proclamation.

He patted her hand. “I know you do,” he said soothingly and pulling away he stood up. “Now that we’re caught up I’d better be off. I’m due in at the office.”

And he was gone.

So much for that! She’d declared herself to him and it seemed that although he believed her, it had no future. After all, she’d been telling him for years they had no future. What would be different now?

Dazed, she wandered out into the kitchen and switched on the new kettle. Then she meandered out into the breakfast room to see if there were any biscuits she could filch when she became aware of a strange and unsettling incident being acted out next door.

In her breakfast room Lydia stood facing Julie who held a gun and waved it about in a very disconcerting manner. Julie appeared to be saying something with a great deal of passion. Outside their window, Simon lounged in the swinger thingy, his eyes shut, smoking a cigarette. It seemed he had no idea of what was going on behind him. Liz tapped on her window to get his attention. She couldn’t think what he could do, but somehow it didn’t seem right that he was out there enjoying a smoke whilst directly behind him, their dear old neighbour, Lydia, was being threatened by a gun-toting dog-torturer.

However, he didn’t hear her frantic taps. Nicotine heaven was too enticing for him to pay attention to what was going on. Julie heard, though. She swung around, saw Liz, brought the gun up, and pointing the business end of it at her, she pulled the trigger. There was no thunderous roar though, so perhaps she didn’t. Moocher suddenly barked and ran up and down the hall in a frenzy of excitement. Liz had fallen to the floor just like in the films. But surely Julie couldn’t have pulled the trigger or the windows would be broken. There was nothing to stop her doing so, though, if she hadn’t already, so it wasn’t necessarily safe yet.

Liz gradually raised her head above the level of the window and saw that Lydia and Julie had gone. She looked some more and realised that Simon had disappeared from sight, too. She immediately convinced herself that she’d been mistaken. Perhaps it had been a cigarette lighter or something. After all, she didn’t see guns that often. She wouldn’t necessarily know the difference on sight between a gun and a cigarette lighter.

On the other hand, for all she knew, Lydia was lying mortally wounded on her floor. And even if she wasn’t, Liz still had to do something before she was harmed by that innocent-looking little girl who was turning out to be the worst thing to hit Malvern Road since the fish and chip shop stopped using newspaper and started using polystyrene containers.

But she was torn as to what to do with Moocher. She didn’t want to take him with her in case he got hurt and she didn’t want to leave him in case someone got in again. Her dilemma was resolved when she heard the front door screech and Melanie advancing down the hall shouting: “What are you doing grovelling around on the floor? Lost something?”

“Nah,” Liz said. She scrambled to her feet trying to brush off great drifts of dog hair as she did so. It was time she hoovered before someone collected up all the dog hair scattered around the house and made a Moochenstein out of it. Ooh — a Moocher-dog with a bolt through his neck.

“Actually, Melanie, could you keep an eye on Moocher for me please? I just want to rush in next door. I won’t be long. How about taking him up to your room? That would be best.” Melanie nodded and Liz ran out of the house, down the path, along the pavement and up Lydia’s path. Of course, the front door was shut and did she really think some trigger-happy cow was going to answer it just because Liz might happen to ring the bell?

She wondered where Hugh was. She could do with him now, but realised he was probably sorting out a crazed café owner, although he’d said he was off to work.

“Silly Billy,” she admonished herself as she turned around and, running, retraced her steps, through her own house and out through the back, over the wall and in through Lydia’s back door. She dashed through her very nice, very elegant, extended kitchen and through her breakfast room and down her hall and into and out of her sitting room and front room and upstairs and all around and everywhere else as well. No one there. No one home. They’d disappeared fast! Where on earth had they all gone, and did it mean that Lydia had been abducted now?

It was all getting to be too much for her brain. It felt decidedly limp and she sagged into a chair in Lydia’s front room and stared at the floor wondering what she should do next. Which was how she came to completely overlook the entrance of a man with greying hair cut close to his head and an evil-looking scar across his face. She finally spotted him when his hand-made shoes came into her view. Slowly she lifted her head to behold Lydia’s brother. It had to be Lydia’s brother. The resemblance was uncanny. Liz didn’t know she had a brother, but then, there was no reason why she should have told her everything about herself. She just thought she had told her everything in all those interminable conversations over multitudinous cups of tea.

“Hello there,” Liz said with great originality. “I take it you’re Lydia’s brother.” She stood up and held out her hand for his. “I’m Liz Houston from next door and I do have a good reason for being here.”

He looked very surprised, which she thought was odd. Their resemblance must have been remarked upon many times over the years. “Yes,” he said eventually. “Yes. My name’s Vincent Banton.”

They shook hands in a very civilized manner considering neither of them were in their own home and maybe both of them were trespassing. But Liz was now incapable of being surprised.

“I expect you’re looking for her. Lydia, that is. Well, I’m very pleased you’re here. You might be able to help. I’m looking for her as well. I think she may have been kidnapped.”

Vincent stepped back from Liz and eyed her strangely.

“Sorry,” she said. “I should have given you some warning. There have been some peculiar goings on here recently. Mind you,” she added, as another thought struck her, “It’s also odd that you’ve turned up just now considering you haven’t been here in all the time I’ve known Lydia. Which is quite a long time.” She stared hard at him wondering what foul deed had resulted in the scar that spoilt an otherwise good-looking face. He might be Lydia’s brother, but that didn’t necessarily make him a good guy. He might be one of the baddies for all she knew. Here she went again — diving in without enough caution. When would she learn? It was her turn to step back. As she did so she looked around, rather wildly, for a possible weapon in case he went for her.

“What do you mean, kidnapped?” he asked, with every appearance of horror. He even looked a little pale. He couldn’t be that good an actor. Perhaps he was okay after all.

“I have a feeling that she’s been kidnapped by one of her new lodgers.” Liz really couldn’t imagine Simon being in on abduction. She didn’t think it was his thing at all. “Namely, a girl called Julie Carrington-Smythe who kidnapped my dog and was going to cut his paws off. I still have no idea why she did that. She probably cut off the finger that was in my fridge too, so she’s a nasty piece of work, but, to be fair, that might have been Stella…”

“A finger in your fridge… Stella?”

Oh, dear, her new accomplice seemed to be faltering at the first fence. People simply didn’t have the stamina these days. Where the hell was Hugh? He should have known she needed him like he always used to know.

“Yes, that’s right,” she snapped. “But we don’t have time for that. We must find Lydia. Now. Come on.” She dived out of the house and ran down the path with Vincent in hot pursuit, and lo and behold, for once, just when she really wanted them, there were two PCs waiting for her on the pavement.

“Oh, wow! Hello,” she exclaimed. She didn’t know why she bothered. They completely ignored her. They were concentrating on what they could see over her shoulder, or rather, who they could see over her shoulder. There was a yell and Vincent took off as though chased by a bad-tempered leopard. The two policemen ran off after him but not nearly so convincingly. There was no chance they would catch him.

Well, what was that all about?

She didn’t have to wait too long to find out. Another couple of PCs suddenly appeared as though they’d been hiding in the bushes, which she had to assume they had been, and she recognised one of them. So. They weren’t taking proper turns after all. He’d been here before. And he immediately started rabbiting on about how that letter found around the brick had indeed been written by a known and wanted dangerous criminal. A drug dealer. This PC was positively preening himself as he informed her that this drug dealer, this dangerous criminal, was the chap that she’d just come out of Lydia’s house with — a certain Mark Scotter who had stolen a load of money years and years ago.

“Nah,” Liz said. “You must have it wrong. That chap’s name is Vincent Banton, and although my next door neighbour hasn’t exactly been herself recently, she’s a model citizen and Vincent Banton is her brother.”

But he wasn’t convinced. “Sorry about your neighbour, Ms Houston, but that chap’s definitely our man.”

“How you can possibly tell from that glimpse of him I don’t know,” she said, and hurried on before he could tell her. “But, anyway, you must help me find Lydia. She’s missing and I’m afraid she’s been kidnapped by her lodger and she’s got a gun. The lodger, I mean. Not Lydia.”

He coughed and looked everywhere except at her. Then he got out his notebook and pretended to look for something in it and then he put it away again. The other PC started to whistle and wandered nonchalantly off to peer in the flowerbeds as though they contained opium poppies in profusion and he’d only just spotted them.

“What is it?” she asked. She had one of those sinking feelings she got occasionally. She’d been getting them more and more just recently.

“It was Lydia, um, Mrs, um… herself, who telephoned us to say there was a burglar in her house who had broken through from your house. Not only that, but she recognised him and named him as our man — this Mark Scotter. I can’t tell you how she knows who it is. That would be giving away a confidence.”

He blushed though, so Liz could imagine. Except that Lydia didn’t strike her as someone whose life would have been in any way different before now as it was now, except that she would have been younger, of course. Now, it turned out, she was some gangster’s moll! Not only that, but some gangster that looked exactly like her brother!

“Oh, maybe that means she’s not been kidnapped. Good. Although where Julie fits in is anybody’s guess,” she said. “That also means she must be the connection with the person who’s been breaking my windows — or at least the last time because it might not all have been the same person, might it?”

He whipped out his notebook again. “You’ve had your windows broken before?” he asked, giving her a very dark look. Very dark. She remembered, then, that the other breakages hadn’t been reported for what seemed like good reasons at the time. She was heading for deep water if she wasn’t careful. She scrutinised her nails and decided to chew the corner of one of them whilst casually looking around for a diversion. And she spotted one. Hallelujah! There was a diversion just waiting to divert.

There was a car with opaque windows racing up Malvern Road, closely followed by Kevin’s truck, last seen at close quarters when Liz was being Boadicea. The first vehicle tore into the side of the road, mounted the pavement and just missed her PC who still stared at his notebook as though that would protect him. The car came to a rocking halt. Liz and PC stood, as though turned to gravestones, as the driver’s door slowly opened and smoke mushroomed out of the interior. The windows weren’t opaque at all. It was just Simon with his own special aura. He appeared out of the smokescreen and stood there looking as though he wasn’t sure why he was standing there. He probably wasn’t. The other vehicle screeched to a halt in the middle of the road, three men jumped out and ran over to Simon.

“Ooh, look, if it isn’t Yummy and Chuckler and someone else,” Liz said. “I wonder if the other one is Kevin.”

Her PC said, “You know these people?”

“Yeah, sure. The first one is my supposedly loyal lodger who has now defected to next door. The two guys with the handsome sweaters on are Yummy and Chuckler. Their job is to remove people’s fingers with a power tool, if they remember to bring it. And if I’m not mistaken, the other guy actually owns that vehicle and is known as Once-in-a-lifetime Kevin. His Aunt Betty lives down the road and has a wart on her chin. There you go. Quite clear isn’t it?”

By this time the three in the second vehicle had realised there were two hulking great policemen standing on the pavement. They stopped to carefully consider this clearly unforeseen development. They slowly drifted backwards as though no one would notice. They’d obviously been practicing the Michael Jackson moon walk.

Simon looked positively harassed as well he might if he’d been chased all over town by three men intent on his kidnap. He fumbled around his pockets looking for a cigarette end and, in the process, found his glasses. Placing them on his nose he also realised there were two policemen present. He immediately yelled: “Arrest them — they keep trying to kidnap me — and that other one is a drug dealer.”

“Blimey, Simon, that’s a pretty serious accusation to throw around,” Liz said. It’s one thing to go around kidnapping old lodgers and swapping tips with people, quite another to be accused of being a drug dealer.

“He is,” Simon shouted. “The café’s been his cover. I know it. His name’s Mark Scotter.”

Yummy and Chuckler looked at each other and looked at Kevin. Yummy said: “We’re not into that sort of thing, mate. You been leading us on?”

“Stuff you,” Kevin said and leapt for his pickup.

Liz’s two PCs looked at each other and simultaneously said: “The café?”

“The Cakehole Café,” Simon said.

“Oh, shit! It’s not that other one, it’s this one,” shouted one of the PCs and they both jumped into action. They wrenched open the doors on their car and took off after Kevin in a welter of exhaust fumes and streaks of rubber left on the road. As far as she could see when Kevin braked to take the junction at the end of Malvern Road, his back-light was still out, so they could get him for that if nothing else.

“Right, that does it for me,” Yummy said. “I can’t handle it when it gets into that sort of thing. I’m retiring.”

“Yeah. And me,” said Chuckler, and chuckled. “It was only part time anyway and it hasn’t been the same since Brian left.”

“How we gonna get home?” Yummy enquired, looking hard at Simon.

“Catch a bus?” Simon suggested, fumbling around for another dog end, only this time there were none and he had to light a whole new cigarette. He sucked down that smoke like it was the elixir of life. Liz almost wished she was a smoker.

“I reckon the least you can do is give us a lift home now we ain’t gonna kidnap you no more,” Yummy said, with every appearance of sincerity.

Amazing the processes of some people’s logic. Simon obviously thought so too and gave them what she could only describe as a glacial stare.

“Well,” huffed Yummy. “There’s no need for that attitude. We was only doing our job when all’s said and done.”

Amazing.

Apparently not so amazing. Simon took them home. “Just to get rid of them,” he said to her later, somewhat sheepishly.

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

Chapter Twenty of ‘White Lies and Custard Creams’ will be here next week!

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

I own the copyright and have asserted my right to be identified as the author of this book in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998.

‘White Lies and Custard Creams’ is on Amazon as a Kindle book, and a paperback book. It’s also in Large Print. Susan’s newsletter sign-up

‘White Lies and Stakeouts’ follows on from ‘White Lies and Custard Creams’, although, it too, can stand alone.

Susan’s Amazon Page / Susan’s Etsy Store / Susan’s newsletter sign-up