Jam and Jeopardy (2 page)

Sunday 13th November

Stephen and Barbara Drummond arrived at Honeysuckle Cottages a little later than usual the following day and Janet Souter’s greeting was almost a repeat of what she had
said to her other nephew and his wife.

‘So you’ve managed to come at last, have you? I’d given you up altogether.’

‘Sorry, Aunt Janet.’ Stephen was about to make an excuse, but the old woman tossed her head and pulled her woollen cape more tightly round her shoulders.

‘Nobody considers me. It’s always self, self, self. Ronald and Flora are exactly the same.’

Barbara looked down at her hands, with their covering of cheap rings, and braced herself to endure another unpleasant afternoon. She was proved correct. Aunt Janet was at her most obnoxious, and
waded in straight away.

‘That Mrs Valentine, the minister’s wife, came round on Friday afternoon collecting things for the Sale of Work, but the chiropodist from Thornkirk was here at the time, so I told
her it wasn’t convenient and she’d have to come back later. She was quite annoyed, and it was raining, so, of course, she didn’t appear again. A fine sort of wife for a minister,
I must say.’

‘Did you
have
anything for the Sale of Work?’ Barbara asked idly, not really caring one way or the other.

‘Oh yes.’ The old woman laughed gleefully. ‘I’d made a cherry cake, and I was going to give her what was left of the raspberry jam I made in the summer, but she
didn’t have anything. The sale was yesterday, so I’ll just keep the three jars for myself.’

Her childishness annoyed Stephen, who had other things on his mind. ‘Aunt Janet, here’s ten pounds towards the money we owe you. It’s all I can manage this month, I’m
afraid.’

The white head spun round. ‘Ten pounds? Chicken-feed! That’s not even paying off the interest. You’ve a poor head for business, Stephen, that’s what’s wrong with
you. Well, it’s your lookout, for you’ll be paying me back for years to come.’

‘Will I go and put the kettle on for a cup of tea, Aunt Janet?’ Barbara was trying to avoid further lectures.

‘Tea? Oh no, I had my flycup before you came, and it’ll soon be my suppertime.’

This was no time to fall out with her – not when they owed her so much money and she might demand instant repayment – so Barbara swallowed the tart retort that sprang to her lips.
With a great effort, she smiled instead. ‘We’re sorry about being late, but Stephen didn’t get home for lunch till after two, the shop was so busy.’ She regretted the last
few words as soon as she uttered them.

The old woman tutted with disapproval. ‘If women can’t buy what they need through the week, it’s their own fault. You shouldn’t trade on a Sunday, Stephen, it says so in
the Bible.’

Where in the Bible did it say that, Barbara wondered, and a smile crossed her face at an imagined eleventh commandment:
THOU SHALT NOT OPEN A GROCER’S SHOP ON THE SABBATH
DAY, NEITHER SHALT THOU SELL POTATOES, NOR ONIONS, NOR CIGARETTES
. These were the items most requested by Stephen’s customers, who were not particularly good at forward planning. Her
amusement was cut short.

‘It’s maybe funny to you, Barbara, but if everybody flouted the teachings of the Good Book the world would be in an even worse state than it is now, and that’s saying
something.’

The Drummonds were saved from further philosophic gems by the peal of the front doorbell, and when Janet went to answer it, Barbara turned impatiently to Stephen.

‘She’s getting on my bloody tits!’

‘Barbara!’ His wife’s choice of words often upset him.

‘She gets worse every damned week, and I can’t stand much more of it.’

‘You’ll have to think up a convincing excuse so we can leave.’

‘We could say we’ve got guests coming for dinner at seven.’ Barbara reflected, not for the first time, that her husband needed a good kick up the rear end to make him show some
initiative.

A rather vicious smile played across the old woman’s face when she returned to the room. ‘That was Violet Grant from Number Three. Grace Skinner’s sister, you know.’

‘They’re the two widows, aren’t they?’ Barbara asked.

‘Violet’s the older one. She was asking if I’d seen their dog, seems he’s disappeared. Maybe he’s eaten some of the arsenic I laid in the garden yesterday morning.
Davie Livingstone gave me some to kill the rats. I’ve told them umpteen times I wouldn’t be responsible for what happened if I caught their mongrel in my garden again. I can’t
stand dogs.’

‘Nor people,’ Barbara muttered under her breath.

‘I sent her away with something to think about, anyway.’

Stephen cleared his throat nervously. ‘I’m sorry, Aunt Janet, but we’ll have to be going. We’ve some friends coming for dinner at seven and Barbara’s still a lot to
prepare.’

‘You always consider other people, never me. I’m only the old aunt with all the money.’

‘Now, that’s not fair!’ Barbara couldn’t stop herself from saying it, and the other woman wasn’t to know that the dinner was a trumped-up excuse. ‘Tonight was
the only night they could come.’

Janet Souter screwed up her mouth. ‘Huh! Arriving late and leaving early. You’ll soon not bother to come at all. I’d better keep an eye on that arsenic in my shed, in case you
try to finish me off.’

Stephen gave a nervous laugh, and tried to soothe her hurt feelings. ‘No, Aunt Janet. We love coming to see you, and we’ll be back next Sunday.’

‘Come at a decent time, then.’ She was only slightly mollified, and they could hear her muttering to herself as they went out. ‘Dinner, if you please. Supper’s not good
enough for them.’

As their old Escort rattled out of Ashgrove Lane on to the High Street, Stephen started humming.

‘Why the sudden good humour?’ his wife asked, suspiciously. ‘You’re usually just as cheesed off as me when we’ve been to see the old bitch.’

Even the last word failed to irritate him at that moment. ‘I’ve found the answer to everything.’ He smiled smugly.

‘What d’you mean? Really, Stephen, you can be so annoying at times.’

‘I’ve thought of the perfect solution to all our troubles, and that’s all I’m saying.’

Janet kept standing at her back door, smirking to herself as she recalled the seeds of temptation she had sewn in the minds of her nephews.

‘You’re looking pleased with yourself.’

Startled by the voice, she looked up to see Mabel Wakeford regarding her inquisitively.

‘It’s just something I said to the . . .’ She broke off, then went on, ‘I may as well tell you. I’ve given Ronald and Stephen something to chew over. I told them
about the arsenic . . .’

‘Oh, Janet, are you trying to see if they’ll use it? Do you think that was wise? You told me they were both short of funds, and they might . . .’ Mabel, too, broke off but
hastened to add, ‘No, no, your nephews would never think of anything like that. They wouldn’t want to hurt you in any way.’

Janet gave a most unladylike snort. ‘You think not? Well, let me tell you that the thought has crossed both their minds, I can vouch for that. And I hope they do try. The thing is,
they’ll both be disappointed. I have a trick or two up my sleeve, you see.’

She turned away abruptly but was chuckling as she closed her back door behind her. Stephen and Ronald were surely mad enough at her now to do what she hoped they would do. She had told them both
about the arsenic, and where she kept it, so now she’d just have to wait till next weekend.

She trusted that one of them would make an attempt to poison her. They were both such nincompoops, but surely at least one of them would have the nerve. If one of them did try, though, she
intended leaving him all her money. It would prove that he had some willpower of his own, some drive, some spunk. If neither of them had a go, she’d instruct Martin Spencer to make out a new
will leaving her entire estate to some charity. That would show them what she thought of them.

She was under no illusions about why they came to see her every weekend. They were making sure of their inheritance, and family loyalty and affection didn’t come into it.

Barbara was a common trollop, really, but she was the only one of the four who ever showed any spirit, and that’s why the Drummonds had been given the twenty thousand pounds a few months
ago. Barbara would occasionally answer back, or have an argument with her, and Janet loved verbal sparring. She couldn’t stand Flora, though. A big fat elephant with the personality of a
mouse, she should have been Stephen’s wife – like to like.

Janet Souter had never been very fond of her nephews, even when they were children, although she hadn’t seen so much of them then. Their mothers, her two younger sisters, Alice and
Marjory, had married well, and moved away to Aberdeen. Both had been made widows quite young, but were left quite comfortably off. They had sent their sons to good schools, and even financed them
when they set up in their own businesses.

Her sisters had died more than a decade ago, within a year of each other. Neither of the boys had much between their ears – Stephen had failed all his exams – and they couldn’t
handle their affairs properly. They were desperate to get their hands on her money, especially Ronald. Well, she was giving them a chance to prove their merit.

She rose from the wooden armchair, and threaded her way through the furniture that cluttered up her small living room. The passage was cold, so she hoisted her shawl round her shoulders as she
went into the icy kitchen to put the kettle on.

She sat on her stepstool to wait for it to boil, and began to plan the trap she was going to set for her two nephews. It would have to be well thought out.

Friday 18th November

Although it was already ten o’clock in the morning, and the temperature had risen little, the bushes and trees still wore a thin coat of icing, and the part of the main
road that Mrs Wakeford could see from her window had the shiny surface of an ice rink. She had wondered if her neighbour would tackle her usual Friday morning shopping trip, but Janet Souter seldom
admitted defeat. Almost never, in fact.

Having spent most of the night planning her own urgent mission, Mabel now changed her old slippers for a heavy pair of shoes, and slipped on her winter coat. Then, after closing her back door
behind her as quietly as she could, she went over the low fence that separated the two gardens. This flouting of a long-standing unwritten rule made her feel so guilty that she almost turned back,
but she overcame her conscience and made for the shed first. Janet Souter had gone too far in raking up scandals, especially one from over sixty years ago. And if she wasn’t stopped, she
could uncover a much more damning incident of not quite so long ago – an incident that had been kept successfully hidden from the whole village. Knowing Miss Nosey Parker Souter, though, she
had probably worked it out.

Mabel was trembling with apprehension, anger and fear of being caught when she entered her own home again about thirty minutes later. It had taken longer than she thought, but it had had to be
done, otherwise her life wouldn’t be worth living.

The butcher’s shop door banged loudly as Janet Souter came out, smiling grimly to herself. She’d shown that John Robertson that he couldn’t make a fool of
her! Two pounds fifteen for that little bit of steak. He was another one who believed she was in her dotage, but the piece of mutton would do her nicely for two days, and it only cost one pound
thirty.

‘Morning, Miss Souter.’ The man approaching was beaming at her, but she was in no mood for pleasantries and turned a sour face towards him.

‘Good day, Mr Pettigrew. I hope Douglas is keeping well, after his all-night sessions?’

Sydney Pettigrew, the chemist, a large, well-built man with a receding hairline, had reached his own shop now, and she was gratified by the change in his expression as he stood holding the door
handle. ‘What do you mean “all-night sessions”?’

‘Don’t tell me you didn’t know your son sometimes stays out all night?’

Her sarcastic sneer annoyed him, and he spoke more sharply than normal. ‘He sometimes sleeps at his pal’s house. You know what youngsters are like these days.’

Her top lip curled even more. ‘You don’t know yours, then, for it’s Gilbert White’s wife who keeps him out, not his pal.’

His brows came down. ‘What? Oh, I think you’re mistaken, Miss Souter.’

‘No, no, I’m not mistaken. I’ve seen him creeping up the Lane past my house at five o’clock in the morning. A fine carry on, and her a married woman.’

The man looked as if he wanted to say something, but decided against it, and contented himself by murmuring, ‘I’ll put a stop to it. It won’t happen again.’

The old woman smirked broadly when he went inside his shop. That was one in the eye for young Master Pettigrew, she thought. When she’d confronted him last week, he’d told her to
mind her own business and threatened to sort her out. Well, he was the one who was going to be sorted out. His father would see to that.

When she reached Ashgrove Lane, she walked up the garden to her back door; it was quicker than going round the front. Stopping to admire her lilac tree, she wondered why Violet and Grace had not
removed the body of their dog, but probably they were too scared to come into her garden. This was Guild night, though, when they knew she would be out, so they would more than likely grab the
chance sometime this evening.

‘I warned them often enough about their mongrel digging holes in my garden,’ she muttered. ‘It serves them right that he got what was coming to him.’

Her back door was unlocked, because the key was too big to carry in her pocket. She was too forgetful to hang it on a hook inside her coal bunker like she used to, so she didn’t bother.
She supposed it would really be safer not to leave it unlocked all the time – after all, the front door had a yale lock with just a small key – but she’d always been in the habit
of going out by the back. Except on Fridays, when she went to the Guild with Mabel Wakeford. Old habits die hard. Still, there had never been any burglaries in Tollerton, very few crimes of any
kind. The two bobbies here had it very easy.