The elderly Matilda Green sipped her cup of tea. 'Are you quite sure Daisy?' she asked, well aware that young Daisy was not the sort of woman to make things up. After all, running an establishment such as hers, Matilda had to know, and trust, her girls intimately - especially in a sleepy village where scandal simply would not do.
Matilda spent the night wondering about what Daisy said.
There was only one garden backing onto her own, and she was quite sure the elderly Mr Bartholomew was not a peeping tom. And even if he had such tendencies, Mrs Bartholomew was sure to rectify the idea with a frying pan upon the head. And as Matilda stood by her window in the middle of the night, staring at the cottage next door, her own sixth sense was praying on her mind.
'And how are dear Mr and Mrs Bartholomew?' asked Matilda the next morning. 'I haven't seen them lately.'
Across the post office counter, Mrs Evans, the local gossip, said: 'Well, I don't know. They don't seem to have been out much lately,' she added - which, Matilda knew, was strange.
And her suspicions were aroused even more late that afternoon when she decided to give her neighbours a visit.
'Something is definitely amiss,' she said, back in her cottage, both Daisy and her friend, Mae, sat by her.
'So he wasn't having an extra special fantasy, then,' offered Mae, to which Daisy poked her with her elbow.
Matilda's face darkened. 'Oh no, dear. There was an unwashed cup on the coffee table. Mrs Evans said so when she visited. And Mrs Bartholomew would never leave washing up like that.’
By the afternoon, her curiosity was so aroused that she went to town. Waiting for the appropriate person to pass, she said: 'Hello Timothy, dear, fancy seeing you here.'
DS Tim Evans stopped. 'Aunt Matilda, how are you?' he asked.
Not that Matilda was really his aunt, but as Mrs Evans' son, he had known Matilda since he was a boy.
'Well actually,' said Matilda, putting her old woman act on, 'I'm a little concerned.'
'Really? How can I help?'
'It's old Mr and Mrs Bartholomew, you know. They really don't seem right.'
She looked intently into Timothy's face; caught a passing look of concern. Then, he said: 'Not really a police matter, Aunt Matilda, is it?'
'Of course not,' she said, 'how remiss of me. You must be so busy - what with the case.'
Not that Matilda knew anything about a case. But she always knew how to pull Timothy's strings. She'd been psychologically profiling him since he was five. 'My mother's been gossiping again, hasn't she?'
'Timothy, I really don't know what you mean.'
'Well I can assure you, Aunt Matilda, you're in no danger. We'll soon catch him, and there's no reason to believe he's gone to the village.'
Matilda Green knew that to push him further would arouse suspicion. But she already had enough to go on. Someone was clearly on the run. Someone was clearly hiding out next door. And the Bartholomew's had moved to the village ten years ago and tried to keep themselves to themselves. It was a mystery Matilda was sure she could crack.
'It's quite simple, Daisy dear,' said Matilda in the cottage that night. 'I've spent the afternoon looking over the old newspapers in the library, starting ten years ago and working back. Although I didn't have far to look.’
So that was it, thought Daisy an hour later as she stood in the Bartholomew's garden. Mr and Mrs Bartholomew had had a son who had been imprisoned for a vicious rape. In disgrace, they had moved, but on a recent day release the son had gone into hiding.
No wonder she felt she was being watched; and he no doubt enjoyed himself.
'Well enjoy this,' she said as she thrust her boobs out of her tight and confining blouse. 'Or maybe this,' as she stood there, in the semi-dark, massaging them with a pout.'
At that, she sauntered out of the garden, wiggling her bottom as she went, and disappeared back into Aunt Matilda's cottage.
It was five minutes later that the back door opened, alerting Aunt Matilda in the front room, pouring herself a cup of tea.
'Hello, dear,' she said as the man entered, 'can I interest you in a cup.'
His suspicious eyes took in the room. 'Where's the girl,' he said, 'I know she came in here.'
Matilda Green lowered her voice, said, 'which girl do you mean?'
Unsure what she said, he moved closer, leaned over, and didn't see what hit him as Matilda brought the baseball bat up from behind her chair.
'You're sure you're alright?' asked Timothy Evans an hour later. 'But of course I am,' replied Matilda, thinking of the poor man's head, and asking: 'One lump or two?'
THE CASE OF THE POISONED PEN
'Well something has got to be done,' said Mrs Evans from behind the post office counter. 'We simply cannot have those ugly new houses here.'
Matilda Green had to agree. But at that moment she didn't quite know what she could do about it. After all, she was only a lowly pensioner, not a woman with any real clout. 'Yes, I do hate these new developments,' she said. 'Maybe we should have a meeting.'
'Good idea, Matilda, I'll see if I can organise one.'
Matilda's mind, however, was on Mae, farmer's wife, red headed, and the youngest of her 'girls' at twenty one. Mae's mind, however, was not on Matilda. She was dancing erotically in Matilda's spare room, giving the gentleman on the bed a welcome boost to his ego before she jumped on him and gave him the ride of his life. Indeed, by the time she had finished, both were hotter than they had been for a long time.
'You look exhausted,' said Matilda as she returned to her cottage, the gentleman having recently left.
Mae beamed, drying the sweat from her brow. 'It was a good session, Aunt Matilda, and I believe in earning my money,' which was a noble ethic in a woman so young, thought Matilda.
Pouring a cup of tea, Matilda got up shortly afterwards and went to the door, the post just being deposited. Opening the letter, her wrinkled brow creased further. 'Oh dear,' she said, 'we seem to have a problem.'
One hour later, all the girls were assembled in Matilda's front room, Penny, Daisy and Mae. Showing the letter around, it was short and to the point: 'How are your prostitutes today?' it said, although prostitutes was spelt with too many ‘t’s.
The girls looked glum. 'It's all over, Aunt Matilda, isn't it; the job, and maybe even our marriages.'
'Nonsense, Penny,' said Matilda, smiling. 'It's simply a problem that has to be overcome.'
'What do you think it means?' asked Daisy.
Matilda thought a moment. 'Well, it's either a simple troublemaker, or the person responsible will soon be asking for money.'
'You mean it could be blackmail,' said Penny.
'Indeed. So I suggest we find out who it is.'
Daisy said: 'But where do we start?'
Matilda continued: 'It has to be someone who knows us, which means one of the clients or someone local. I can discount the former because they're all known to me and I trust them. So we'll concentrate on the locals.' She looked at the letter once more. 'It's clearly a man's writing, but done with the wrong hand to disguise it. However, it's still clear that he's left handed, not very bright, and uses cheap paper, so he isn't very rich.'
'Which still leaves us with a lot of suspects,' said Mae.
Exactly,' said Matilda, 'so I suggest we stop this terrible development being planned and assist the village in every way we can.'
The girls were somewhat bemused by this change of conversation. But the next evening they beamed as they returned, a petition in hand with the signatures and names of practically everyone in the village. And it didn't take Matilda long to identify, from the list, a not very bright, not very rich left handed bad speller among them. However, tracking down the suspect was one thing; and her situation was made no better when Matilda received a phone call from DS Timothy Evans, whom Matilda had known since he was a boy.
'Timothy,' she said, 'how can I help you?'
'You're not going to believe this, Aunt Matilda, but we've had an anonymous comp
laint that there are prostitutes working from your cottage. Can I come round tomorrow evening to talk to you?'
A problem, indeed. But Matilda Green just loved a challenge. The following morning she knocked on the door of the culprit. 'Good morning young man, I wonder if you could help the protest against the development.'
For five minutes she kept him at the door, noticing a mixture of disdain and embarrassment in his features. But back at the cottage, she said to Mae: 'Did you get them?'
Mae beamed in her usual way. For as Matilda had distracted him at the front door, Mae had entered by the back, confirmed he had the correct paper, and torn out two blank cheques from his cheque book. Using his entry and signature on the petition, Matilda masterly forged two cheques payable to her and rushed them to her bank. Taking out the equivalent amount from her own account, she drove her Mini back to the village, explained the payments for services rendered to the complainant, shutting him up for good, and then depositing the exact amount with Mrs Evans.
'Oh, it's so good of you Matilda,' she said. 'It will be enough to get the protest started.’
'Not at all, it’s the development what is important.'
Later that evening, DS Evans knocked on the door. Entering the living room, he was surprised to see Penny, Daisy and Mae sat around the room with oodles of needles, cloth and a sewing machine. Matilda wasted no time at all in advising of their side line of making gentleman's suits to fit.
Timothy smiled. 'I do apologise, Aunt Matilda. But when we hear of strange men visiting, and the girls coming and going at all hours … well, I knew it was ridiculous to start with.'
Matilda giggled in a girly sort of way. 'Oh dear,' she said, 'me, a madame, I ask you.'
Timothy said: 'So I suppose you could call this a bit of sweat shop.'
Matilda smiled. 'Yes dear,' she said, 'you could say that.'
BONUS – CUTHBERT KING
MATCHBREAKER
Cuthbert King sat in his study contemplating the letter in front of him. Some sixty years of age, his mind was as sharp as ever, and as he pushed his mass of white hair from his eyes, he turned to Mr Sprat.
‘I don’t think I can resist this one,’ he said.
Mr Sprat, a small, wiry man with wire-rimmed glasses, smirked. ‘You never can, Cuthbert,’ he said. ‘You never can.’
Cuthbert sighed. ‘The letter is from a Mr Johnson, whose son was recently murdered. He was found one early morning on the pavement by his house, his head caved in. The police, it seems, have drawn a complete blank.’
‘They must have a prime suspect,’ said Mr Sprat.
‘For a time,’ Cuthbert replied. ‘His fiancé was in the frame – a girl of twenty one named Kylie Mortimer. But her mother gave her an alibi.’
‘Mothers do,’ said Mr Sprat, sardonically.
Later that afternoon, Cuthbert King and Mr Sprat sat in Mr Johnson’s lounge. They refused a cup of tea.
‘So tell me about Kylie Mortimer,’ Cuthbert said.
Mr Johnson, a rotund man of fifty, looked deeply depressed. ‘She’s a beautiful woman,’ he said. ‘But more than that, she is pleasant – a charming girl. I can’t believe the police could ever think she had anything to do with it. She was so dedicated to my son.’
The detectives left shortly afterwards. Throughout the interview, Cuthbert had stared intently at Mr Sprat’s nose. His main weapon in detection, it had a habit of twitching whenever his ears heard a lie. Mr Sprat denied this, of course. No one else had ever noticed such a twitch, but then again he didn’t have any other friends to test it on. However, on the occasion he stood in front of the mirror while Cuthbert lied and lied again, his nose never moved; which led Mr Sprat to a simple deduction. It didn’t. Rather, it was Cuthbert’s own intuitive abilities, represented by his seeing the nose move.
The Mortimer household was a hive of activity and intrigue. ‘Come in Mr King,’ said Angela Mortimer, Kylie’s mother, as they arrived. ‘You must excuse me, my daughter is being tiresome again.’
Kylie was, indeed, beautiful, and flitted in and out of the room as she prepared for a date. Cuthbert couldn’t help but notice the strangeness of this. After all, surely she should have been grieving.
‘He is not acceptable, dear,’ said Angela. ‘You are far too good for him.’
‘Excuse my mother, Mr King,’ said Kylie. ‘I know she only wants the best for me, but she can be such a bore.’
‘And who is the lucky man?’ asked Cuthbert.
‘A sore point,’ said Angela. ‘My daughter is dating her dead fiance’s best friend. And like him, he is not good enough for my daughter.’
Finally, Cuthbert grasped hold of the conversation. ‘You were with your mother when your fiancé was killed,’ he said, directing the question at Kylie.
Kylie replied in the affirmative; whilst at the same time, her mother said: ‘You need to be speaking to his father. They never got on, and I’m quite convinced he killed him.
Mr Sprat’s nose was twitching.
‘One of them is lying,’ said Cuthbert, back in his study. But as both ladies were speaking at the same time, it was impossible to decide which. But regardless, the facts were coming together, and as Cuthbert King knew only too well, you could usually gain all the information you needed in the first few hours of an investigation. The remainder of the case was simply a process of putting the information in the correct place.
‘So whodunit?’ asked Mr Sprat, presently.
Cuthbert sat back and thought deeply. ‘We know that Mr Johnson did not lie to us, yet it is clear that he was deceived by Kylie Mortimer’s behaviour. How could she be so dedicated to his son, as he thought, when she is clearly not grieving and is having a relationship with his best friend?
‘I can see why the police had her as prime suspect. And we can, of course, doubt her alibi. A mother will go to the most extraordinary lengths to protect a daughter, so she could well be lying.’
‘So we need to break the alibi,’ said Mr Sprat.
‘It would seem so, but …’
The conversation was interrupted by a phone call. Cuthbert King picked up the receiver, listened and replaced it. ‘The case has moved forward,’ he said. ‘Kylie Mortimer seems exceptionally clumsy. Two of her boyfriends have been murdered within a week.’
The crime scene was like any other. The physical facts may differ, but to Cuthbert King there was always the smell. Yet it was not a physical smell, but the sense of human decay; yet not the decay of the body, but the decay of the perpetrator’s mind.
Police and forensics had done their work, but to Cuthbert this was when he began his.
‘The body was laid here,’ he said, pointing to the road. ‘The man had been walking when someone came from behind and struck him on the back of the head with a heavy object. Not satisfied with a single blow, the perpetrator then finished him off with four others.’
Mr Sprat said: ‘That’s identical to the previous murder, so we’re dealing with the same person.’
‘We are indeed. But we must look further afield to discover who it is.’
Cuthbert walked to the end of the road. ‘The problem I have is that, if Kylie Mortimer killed them, why did she do it in public?’
Mr Sprat seemed confused.
‘She could have done it at a time of her choosing, when no one could possibly see her. Doing it on the street is just too clumsy. Our killer simply has to be an opportunist, unable to gain intimate access to the victim.’
‘That makes sense,’ said Mr Sprat.
‘And look here,’ continued Cuthbert, scrutinizing the bush close by. Branches were broken and leaves lay on the pavement. ‘There’s been a recent struggle here.’
Mr Sprat said: ‘But it could have been anybody. And anyway, what’s the relevance?’
Cuthbert smiled. ‘Imagine the scene – an opportunist kills, but was the person seen? And if so, would a struggle take place close by?’
‘Possible,’ said Mr Sprat.
‘And look at
this,’ said Cuthbert, reaching into the bush. He brought out a piece of torn cloth and smelt it. Suddenly, as he recognized the perfume, he froze. ‘Of course,’ he finally said. ‘Come on Mr Sprat, we haven’t much time!’
For a small, wiry man, Mr Sprat had an unusual strength. Hence, it took him just a few seconds to batter down the locked door to the Mortimer residence. However, his excitement waned into sadness as he saw the battered body of Kylie Mortimer on the floor by the stairs.
Cuthbert King stared at the body also, recriminating himself that he had not been in time. From a closed door, they heard a muffled voice. Slowly, Cuthbert walked over and opened it. Within the room sat Angela Mortimer, covered in blood. In her hand she held a phone to her ear.
‘That was the problem,’ said Cuthbert King, later that day. ‘Mrs Mortimer could only accept the best for her daughter, and that is why no man could ever meet her expectations.’
‘But to murder them,’ said Mr Sprat, ‘is going a bit too far.’
‘Not at all,’ Cuthbert advised. ‘Not when it becomes an obsession.’
‘But that hardly explains why she killed her daughter.’
‘Angela Mortimer had miscalculated her attack, and her daughter was a witness to the murder.’
‘But to kill her seems absurd.’
Cuthbert offered a grim smile. ‘When a parent wants only the best for their child it can often mean they want to live their life through them. And when that happens, the child becomes just another aspect of their own obsession.’
Mr Sprat was beginning to understand. He recalled Angela Mortimer’s words on the phone:
‘Yes, that’s right,’ she had said to the undertaker. ‘I want the most expensive coffin. I’ll only have the best for my daughter.’
About the Author
1955 (Yorkshire, England) – I am born (Damn! Already been done). ‘Twas the best of times … (Oh well).
I was actually born to a family of newsagents. At 18 I did a Dick Whittington and went off to London, only to return to pretend to be Charlie and work in a chocolate factory.
When I was ten I was asked what I wanted to be. I said soldier, writer and Dad. I never thought of it for years – having too much fun, such as a time as lead guitarist in a local rock band – but I served nine years in the RAF, got married and had seven kids. I realized my words had been precognitive when, at age 27, I came down with M.E. – a condition I’ve suffered ever since – and turned my attention to writing.