Page 33 of Crazy Spooky Love
I snarl with frustration as he slams his car door, feeling as if he’s got one over on me. Mostly because he has.
Climbing into the van afew minutes later, I throw Artie a grateful smile for clambering into the back and allowing Gran to take his seat beside Marina. Not that she’d have climbed into the back anyway, but like her, I appreciate his good manners.
I don’t speak until I’ve hurled Babs sharply around a few corners to get my pent-up aggression out.
“Nice work, Gran. Like, thanks a sodding million.”
She shrugs. “It was nothing, darling.”
“Oh, it was something, all right.” A thought occurs to me. “Did Mum know you were doing this?”
Gran’s expression is conflicted. “Not exactly. I thought she’d have vetoed it so I didn’t tell her. Shame really, she might have had more success with Lloyd than I did. He’s a prickly one.”
“Did they talk to you?” I can’t keep up my angry act when there’s a chance that Gran might have learned something useful from the Scarborough brothers.
She leans her head back against the scuffed seat with a sigh and closes her eyes. “There’s a saying that comes to mind here, darling, something about not teaching your grandma to suck eggs, if I’m not mistaken.”
I huff under my breath and shake my head as I turn onto the far end of Chapelwick High Street, knowing that she’s going to make me work for not being more appreciative of her unorthodox intervention. The thing is, I’m sure that in her head she thought she was helping me. I know she meant well, even if what she actually did was more harmful than helpful.
“Okay, Gran,” I say, ignoring Marina’s half cough/half laugh because she knows I’m about to try to eat humble pie without choking on it. “It was kind of you to try to help. I sort of appreciate that you didn’t intend to discredit our entire profession and make us all look like a bunch of cowboys.”
Gran opens her eyes and stares at me, and Marina’s slow shake of the head tells me that my opening gambit was not quite humble enough.
“What I mean is that I know this came from a good place.”
“You sound like my therapist, Melody, if I had one, which I don’t.”
Gran closes her eyes and I seize the opportunity to pull a face at her because I’m having one hell of a frustrating day. She opens one eye, sees my face-pulling, and then closes it again.
“That was extremely childish of you.”
Marina leans forward and picks up my gran’s hand. “What Melody is trying to say is that we think what you did back there was amazeballs, Dicey, and we are all entirely grateful to you for trying to help.”
I nod with gritted teeth, even though Gran’s eyes are still closed.
“And it would be a huge help if you could please tell us if the Scarborough brothers told you anything of interest, if you don’t mind,” Artie interjects from behind us in his best professional voice, despite the fact that he isn’t belted in and has had to wedge himself between the back of the passenger bench and the wheel-arch to stop himself from being flung around the rear of the van like an astronaut in zero gravity.
After a dramatic pause Gran finally opens her eyes. “Seeing as you asked so politely,” she says, knotting the long string of pearls around her neck. “I gather that there’s ill feeling between Isaac and Lloyd.”
“Well, that’s putting it mildly, given that one of them killed their brother and they’re both trying to blame each other,” I mutter, distracted by the white-van man who just cut in front of us. When I blast my horn, he flips me the bird through his open window. I reply in kind with the universal sign for knob-head. Having the last word in the altercation goes a small way toward alleviating my grumpiness. I turn my attention back to Gran.
“I found the same thing with Lloyd. He was no more chatty with you, then?”
Gran looks thoughtful. “Not very forthcoming, no. He doesn’t want you meddling. I know that much. Nor Leo. He’s prepared to allow the sale of the house with them in situ. It’s Isaac and Douglas who are causing the uproar.”
“Hmm, that’s what I got too. Looking into the available history of the house, which isn’t much, it seems that Isaac was generally held to blame for stabbing Douglas. He was never convicted, but his family cut him off and he never returned to the house again while he was alive.” I pull into the cobbled cartway at the side of Blithe Spirits and Babs shudders with relief as I kill the engine. “Sad, really.”
“If he didn’t do it, that is,” Marina adds.
“True. He’s easily the most forthcoming of the three, but he’s clearly furious and I’ve yet to work out what it is that I need to do to help.”
Marina unclicks her seatbelt. “Solve the mystery of who killed Douglas Scarborough, at a guess.”
“He’s rather a dashing chap, isn’t he?” Gran says, folding her kimono over her knees in readiness to disembark Babs. “Quite the looker.”
“I didn’t notice,” I lie, blatantly. Marina raises her eyebrows knowingly and laughs.
“Well, that explains why your cheeks were pink when he was around. You never mentioned our Dougie was a hottie.”
