We were having a leisurely brunch when Evangeline's mobile phone began ringing. Of course, she'd left it in her bedroom and had to go and find it.
â
Wha-a-t?
' The modified shriek brought me to my feet, sending Cho-Cho tumbling to the floor. We both dashed in the direction of the incoherent shrieks.
âEvangeline, what is it? What's the matter?'
âDon't worry, Eddie,' she said into the phone. âWe'll help you. We'll get you out of this.'
âWhat is it? What's happened?'
âWhat do you mean â ' her face froze â âwe've done enough?'
âLet me talk to him.' I wrestled the phone from her.
âI told them I'd been with you all day,' Eddie's plaintive voice was saying. âEvangeline Sinclair, Trixie Dolan and Dame Cecile Savoy. “Just ask them,” I said, “they're my alibi.” And they said, “Pull the other one, there's bells on it.”'
âAlibi? What do you mean, alibi? Eddie, what's going on?'
âRon!' Evangeline abandoned her attempt to get the phone back. âRon Heyhoe! Where's my address book? Ron will know what to do. He'll have friends down there â '
âDown where? Eddie, where are you?'
âBrighton,' Eddie said lugubriously. âBloody Brighton.'
âBrighton? What are you doing there? You told us yesterday you never wanted to go there again.'
âI didn't,' he said. âBut they came and got me.'
âGot you? Eddie â '
âGot it!' Evangeline surfaced from the depths of a drawer, waving her address book triumphantly. âNow â¦' she began riffling the pages. âRon ⦠Heyhoe, Ron, Superintendent.'
âSome git took my licence number,' Eddie said. âGave it to the coppers, didn't 'e? So, âere I am, under arr â No, no, I'm not finished. Let me talk. I â ' The line went dead.
âEddie!' I pushed buttons wildly, trying to get him back, but nothing happened.
âAh, here it is!' Evangeline dived for the regular telephone and began stabbing numbers.
âWait for me!' I abandoned the attempt to reach Eddie and rushed to the extension. I wasn't going to miss this.
âSuperintendent Heyhoe, please. It's an emergency ⦠Certainly, this is Evangeline Sinclair.'
I picked up the extension in time to hear an ominous silence. Then a click and a heavy sigh announced that we had been put through.
âRon? Superintendent Heyhoe? Ron, is that you?'
âGood morning, Miss Sinclair. What's the problem?' His doom-laden tone expected the worst â and he was going to get it.
âNow, Ron, you promised you were going to call me Evangeline, remember?' That was her idea of softening him up.
âWhat do you want ⦠Evangeline?' He wasn't buying it.
âI was just thinking ⦠it's been such a long time since we've seen each other. Why don't we get together for a drink? Soon.'
âEvangeline, I have a drug-related shooting, six mobile phone muggings, two burglaries and a missing child on my hands right now. If that's all you have on your mind, perhaps we could discuss it at a later time.'
âOh! ⦠Well, there is a teensy-weensy little problem ⦠I'm afraid it's rather urgent.'
â
How
teensy-weensy?
How
urgent? What have you done now?'
âIt isn't us. It's our friend, Eddie. You know, the taxi driver.'
âSorry.' He didn't sound it, he sounded relieved. âI can't do anything about parking tickets or traffic violations.'
âOh, it's nothing like that! I wouldn't dream of bothering you about little things like that.'
âNo?' He paused for thought, then asked uneasily: âWhat did you mean by urgent?'
âUmm ⦠well ⦠I'm afraid Eddie has been arrested.'
âWhy?'
âIt's all a terrible mistake. Some busybody saw his taxi â we hired him to take us down to Brighton for the day â and reported him. He had nothing to do with what happened. None of us did.'
âIf it happened in Brighton, it's way out of my bailiwick.' Again he sounded relieved. âI can't do anything about it.'
âI know that. I wouldn't expect you to. I was just hoping you knew someone down there who could help us. One of your police colleagues. You all know each other, don't you?'
âI wouldn't say that.' It was clear that he didn't really want to say anything â except, perhaps, goodbye â but curiosity was getting the better of him. âWhat's the charge?'
âCharge?' Evangeline was stalling for time, as though that might make the explanation easier.
âThe charge.' It just made Ron more suspicious. âContrary to certain assumptions on the part of the public, the police do not just arrest people on a whim. They usually have good cause. What is it?'
âEr, actually, I'm afraid there's more than one,' Evangeline admitted. âThe kidnapping part of it is ridiculous. Cecile will tell you that herself â just as soon as she gets over her snit.'
âCecile? Savoy? You mean
Dame
Cecile Savoy is involved in this?' he groaned.
âCecile is the least of it.' I could hold back no longer.
âThank you, Trixie, I needed that.' His voice was grim. âGo on, Evangeline. What else?'
âWe really just stumbled into it â '
âAnd stumbled out.' I added moral support.
âEvangeline â ' It wasn't appreciated. At least, not by him.
âWe had nothing to do with the arson. The fire had obviously been set and smouldering before we arrived. It just happened to break out while we were there.'
âKidnapping ⦠arson â¦' Ron was bemused.
âIt had obviously been set to cover up the murder. Eddie discovered the body in the back room just before the fire exploded.'
I distinctly heard a whimper at the far end of the line.
âRon â¦? Ron â¦?' Evangeline called anxiously. âAre you still there? You
are
going to help us, aren't you? You must know somebody down there we can turn to?'
There was a long silence.
âRon â¦?'
âI'm thinking,' he said. âI'm trying to decide who I hate enough.'
âOh, Ron!' Evangeline giggled girlishly with relief. There are moments when even she can tell she may have gone too far. âYou're such a tease!'
âPerhaps Thursby,' he said.
âNot until next Thursday? We need someone now!'
âNot Thursday, Thursby,' he corrected. âWhen we were rookies there was a rugby game. We were on opposing sides, of course. He wrecked my knee with a dirty tackle. Put me out of action for months. I still get nasty twinges in bad weather. Yes. Definitely Superintendent Hector Thursby I owe him one.'
Â
My weekend case was nearly packed when I looked up and into a pair of accusing eyes.
âCho-Cho! I'd almost forgotten you!' She blinked. That was what she had been afraid of. I was going off and leaving her. But I couldn't leave her here on her own with no one I would trust to look after her properly.
âYou'll have to come along with us,' I told her. âI'm sorry. I know I've promised you that you'd never have to get back in that awful carrier again but â '
âWhat on earth?' Evangeline appeared in the doorway. âI thought you were on the phone. What are you doing here talking to yourself?'
âI'm talking to Cho-Cho-San.'
âSame thing.' Evangeline sniffed and regarded the cat coldly. âWhat are you going to do with her while we're away?'
âWe'll have to take her with us.'
âNonsense!' Evangeline began, then hesitated. âOn the other hand, that might not be a bad idea. We can watch people's reaction to her. Someone may be very surprised to find she's still alive. Someone who expected her to have perished in that fire.'
âMaybe â¦' I shuddered and tried to pull myself back from thinking about that. âBut we can't be sure that the person who brought Cho-Cho to the shop, the person who killed the man in the back room and the person who set the fire are all one and the same person.'
âPerhaps not, but it's too many coincidences otherwise, wouldn't you say?'
âPossibly.' I hated to admit it, but she could be right. âCertainly, I'd bet that the killer set the fire, but the person who tried to dispose of Cho-Cho could be someone else entirely.'
âThat would mean two cold-blooded merciless people converging on the same shop at the same time. Do you really think that's likely?'
âWhy not? The kind of people who go to that kind of shop have to be pretty cold-blooded in the first place.' I threw the last few essentials into my case and zipped it shut.
âThe immediate problem,' Evangeline brooded, âis: what are we going to do for transportation? We relied on Eddie, but he's in jail. You didn't happen to catch the name of his cousin?'
âHe didn't throw it.' I picked up the case and followed her into the hall. âWhy don't we just rough it and use public transport? I understand the trains go frequently.'
âDon't be absurd!'
âEvangeline!' I stared aghast at the pile of cases beside the front door and saw what she meant. âWe're not going to Outer Mongolia! Only to Brighton â and it's full of shops and boutiques. If you've forgotten anything, you can just pop out and buy it. You don't need all that luggage!'
I'd once been in a small road company that had barnstormed from Seattle to Padukah with less. And that had included some of the larger chunks of scenery.
âNow ⦠who could recommend a good car hire firm?' She paid no attention. As usual. âWhy don't you ring Martha and ask? Perhaps Hugh would volunteer his car.'
âI don't know about that â¦' I hesitated. As though on cue, the phone rang.
âThat may be Ron's friend!' Evangeline snatched it up. âHello? ⦠Oh.' Her face fell, she held the phone out to me. âIt's for you.'
âMother!' Martha's voice was loud and distraught. âMother â we have an emergency on our hands!'
âThe children!' I gasped, my heart sinking. âWhat â ?'
âThe children are fine. It's the book!'
âIs that all? I mean, I'm sorry, dear. What's gone wrong with the book?'
âThere's nothing wrong with the book â except that it may never be finished. It's Jocasta! It's disaster!'
âCalm down, dear. It can't be that bad.'
âIt's only a miserable cookbook,' Evangeline muttered crossly. Martha's voice was ringing out loud and clear. âIt's not
Gone with the Wind.'
âPlease â¦' I waved a shushing hand at Evangeline. âNow, take a deep breath, dear, and â '
âAsk her about the car,' Evangeline prompted.
âWill you please â '
âMother, are you there? Are you listening? You're my only hope!'
âI don't like the sound of that,' Evangeline said.
âOh, shut up!' I didn't like it myself. âNo, not you, darling â '
âOh, you don't need to tell me that. It's Miss Sinclair, isn't it? Being snide, as usual.'
âI heard that!'
âGo on, darling.' I couldn't deny it. âI'm listening. What's wrong with Jocasta? She hasn't â ?' That sudden fear for the children had not quite left me. âShe hasn't come down with some awful disease, has she? Something catching?'
âNo, no, nothing like that. It's worse. She ⦠she hasn't any gas!'
âMost cooks would be pleased about that.' Evangeline just couldn't keep her big mouth shut.
âPlease â '
âNot that kind of gas.' Evangeline and Martha were both speaking so loudly that they had no trouble hearing each other. âThe kind you heat your house with. And cook with.'
âOh-oh â¦' It was becoming clearer now.
âExactly. We're on a deadline and she's testing all the recipes before we can use them. You know how casual theatre people are about exact amounts and precise directions.'
âNot just theatre people.' I came from a long line of by-guess-and-by-God cooks, who just kept adding ingredients, sometimes substituting, stirring and tasting until they had the results they wanted. Martha was the same, which was obviously why this Jocasta had been brought in as editor.