A Brush with Death: A Penny Brannigan Mystery - By Elizabeth J. Duncan Page 0,12
isolated, with only a few neighbours to worry about, and the wooded lot and fields behind it, she always felt they were being watched and that everyone must know about them.
That evening, a few moments before the familiar theme song began, Emma heard the back door open and seconds after that, wearing her green tweed coat, Alys was bounding into the room. “Who do you think you are kidding, Mr. Hitler, if you think we’re on the run?” she sang as she took Emma in her arms and kissed her.
Laughing, the two flopped down on the sofa.
“Our meal’s in the oven keeping warm until the programme’s over,” Emma said. “Here’s some cheese and biscuits to tide you over, you stupid boy!”
Laughing at the popular catchphrase from the programme that everyone in Britain was using, Alys took the plate Emma handed to her and bit hungrily into a piece of cheddar. “Oh, and a bunch of grapes, too! Lucky old me!”
“Take your coat off,” Emma commanded, “and I’ll hang it up for you.”
When the programme finished, Emma took their dinner from the oven and they sat together at the table. Emma glanced around to reassure herself that all the curtains were closed, while Alys poured them each a glass of wine.
“Relax,” she said. “Stop fussing; there’s nothing to worry about. Why are you so twitchy?”
“You know what the gossip machine is like around here,” Emma replied, “and if certain people knew you were stopping here, it’d be in overdrive. I daren’t even post my letters to you from the town post office—the post mistress is that nosey. I have to walk halfway to the next town and use the rural box outside the pub.”
Emma took a sip of wine, put her glass down, and looked at her companion.
“Look, it’s probably nothing, but I’ve had a feeling lately that I’m being watched. I noticed someone lounging about when I came out of the butcher’s, and then I saw the same man again a few days later near the school. I have no idea who he is—never seen him before.”
Alys pushed a bit of lamb chop around on her plate.
“Well, maybe he was a parent.”
“No,” said Emma. “I know all the parents and he’s not one of them.”
“What did he look like?”
“Rather tall, on the skinny side, and well, he looked a bit like a ferret. Had squinty eyes and a really mean look about him.”
“Doesn’t sound like anyone I know,” said Alys. “This lamb is delicious. How did you make it?”
“I fried it,” said Emma flatly, “same as I always do. Don’t try to change the subject.”
“Sorry, love,” said Alys. “But I think you’re worrying for nothing, just like you always do.” Seeing Emma’s downcast face, she reached for her. “I love your hands,” she said softly, kissing Emma’s fingers.
After dinner they tidied away the dishes and then cleared the table for a friendly game of Scrabble.
While Alys set up the board and turned the tiles facedown, Emma flipped through her collection of LPs.
Holding a black vinyl disc in her hand, she called through to Alys in the dining room. “How about Donovan? Are you in the mood for him?”
Alys nodded, poured herself a small glass of brandy, and as the opening guitar chords of “Catch the Wind” filled the two small rooms, the women selected their tiles and the match began.
About twenty minutes later Alys lit a small cigar, and smiled to herself as a look of triumph spread across Emma’s face.
“Watch this,” said Emma, as she laid down her tiles.
Q-U-E-E-N-L-Y
“And on a triple, too!” she exclaimed. “Let me add this up. Ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen . . .”
Alys laughed and then, sitting back in her chair, crossed her legs and stuck out her tongue a little, and with her thumb and middle finger removed a small piece of tobacco from the end of her tongue.
Emma stopped counting and glanced at her.
“That is so sexy,” she said.
“What is?” asked Alys.
“When you do that thing with your tongue and your fingers.”
Alys inclined her head slightly and tapped off the ash from her cigar.
“Only you would think something like that.”
“Damn! Now you’ve made me lose my place and I’ll have to start counting all over again. You’re just getting cross because I’m going to win.”
“No, I’m getting cross because you haven’t asked me how the work on the new exhibition’s coming along.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t think. How is it coming along?”
“Really well. It will be ready for the show in February.