Free As It Is On Telly by Jill Marshall

wince, ‘it’s not holding together very well. And neither is the cat judging by the smell.’
    ‘Oh God.’ Mary would be devastated on all fronts. Flinders decomposing. The indignity of a cardboard box coffin. The blocked drains caused by bits of cat and cardboard. ‘There’s nothing for it,’ she said eventually. ‘Mary goes to her sister’s on Saturday afternoons. We’ll have to take Flinders out and never, ever tell her.’
    At which point Kat suddenly remembered an urgent appointment and beat a retreat. So it was Bunty who found herself, half an hour later, in a tracksuit recycled from the coffee group running club, wellies recycled from the coffee group gardening club, and a pair of brand new Marigold rubber gloves, far from recycled as she mostly managed to avoid doing the cleaning herself. She wasn’t sure why, on reflection; even with the prospect of coming across a dismembered moggie, it was really quite a lot of fun digging around in the dirt.
    Dan leaned back on his spade. ‘Right, that’s it. If you just jump in the hole and lever it out, we should be able to get it out in one piece. Oh! Okay, two pieces.’
    ‘It’s only the lid,’ said Bunty. Ankle deep in stinking water, she averted her eyes from the deeply disturbing image of Flinders minus his eyeballs and wedged the lid back on with a squelch. ‘Quick, before Mary comes back,’ she added.
    Dan yanked her out of the hole with one tug of his enormous hand. ‘You know, for a little person you’re pretty … What’s the word? Feisty.’
    ‘Little person? Isn’t that what you have to call midgets these days?’ Bunty bridled, fairly sure she had seen something like that on Boston Legal . ‘I am not a midget. Just short, that’s all. With small feet.’
    Dan grinned. ‘That’s what I said. Short. And feisty.’
    For one awful minute she was reminded of Jammy Jason smirking at her across the champagne bucket. Was Dan possibly flirting with her? He was certainly looking her up and down in a fairly carnivorous way. ‘Why are you staring at me like that?’
    ‘You’re sinking,’ he said.
    ‘Oh.’ It was true. Flinders’ grave was fast filling up with scummy brown water, and Bunty’s heels were sliding into the sinkhole. She was now only up to Dan’s waist again, and she averted her eyes politely from his crotch as he grabbed her under the armpits and pulled her clear of the mire with a loud and rather rude squelching sound.
    It was in this tableau, Dan clutching Bunty under the arms, Bunty’s feet barely touching the floor, and a rotting cat squashed in between them, that Mary found them as she approached silently on her Scholl orthopaedics. ‘Oh, Bunty. Whatever are you doing?’
    Bunty took in her appalled and wrinkly face. Goddamnit, she had to be the one who looked like the adulterer, didn’t she? Why hadn’t Mary caught Graham inflagrante in the flower bed? ‘Mary, believe me this is not what it looks like.’
    ‘It’s not Flinders?’ Mary’s relief was palpable. ‘Only I thought I recognised the shoe box.’
    Dan let go abruptly. Clearly Bunty was on her own in this one. ‘Ah. No. No, that is, in fact, Flinders. In the shoe box. You see, the hole …’ Bunty looked around desperately. ‘The hole was filling up with water because of this blockage … further down. I knew that Flinders was under there. And I know how he hated water.’
    A small light appeared in Mary’s opaque eyes as she fished in her handbag for a handkerchief. ‘He did.’
    Bunty stroked her arm. ‘Remember that time he chased Charlotte’s paper plane up in the tree and wouldn’t come down because he was right over the pond?’
    It had all been quiet sweet really. Charlotte was three, possibly four – certainly not school age at any rate – and it was a glorious early autumn afternoon, mellow as a peach. Graham had come home from work early to surprise them both, spurred on by the unexpected sunshine, and while Bunty sat at the kitchen