Free Pets on Parade (Prospect House 2) by Malcolm D. Welshman

own dog. All very embarrassing.
    Once the Spencers had departed, we awaited, with interest, the arrival of Mrs Venables. Not that we were being nosey, mind you. Just a little curious. I wouldn’t want anyone to think we suffered from what I call ‘net curtain twitch’. But Lucy and I were both standing to one side of the upstairs bedroom window – the best vantage point – mugs of coffee in our hands, when the removals men arrived and started unloading the lady’s belongings from the back of their van, which they’d conveniently reversed up really close, enabling us to peer straight down into it. Excellent.
    ‘Hey, look,’ exclaimed Lucy, using a finger to move the curtain slightly back to get a better view, ‘she’s got a piano.’ It was a small upright, nothing grand. ‘Wonder if she plays?’
    ‘No doubt we’ll hear if she does,’ I replied, thinking of the lack of sound-proofing.
    ‘That’s a nice dining table. Looks Victorian,’ she said, as the removals men manoeuvred an elegant, oval table with pedestal legs down the ramp. ‘And that chaise. Very classy,’ she added. ‘Although I don’t like the red brocade. Bit old-fashioned. Still, she’s certainly got some tasteful pieces.’
    ‘Honestly, Lucy,’ I said, pulling her away from the window. ‘Don’t be so nosey.’ But I couldn’t resist one last look and spotted a removals man carrying in a large aspidistra in an ornate, green-and-purple china pot. Nice.
    When, the next day, Mrs Venables came round to introduce herself, she was very much as I’d expected a lady who owned a piano and an aspidistra to be. Mind you, we’d already sussed her, watching her the day before, trotting in and out to the removals van, giving orders in a crisp, no-nonsense tone of voice, very much in control – not that we could actually hear what she was saying, try as we might – the outer walls of the cottage were solid and over a foot deep, and we thought it a little too obvious to open the window. We weren’t that nosey. Besides, later, we could always put our ears to the partition wall.
    ‘Hello, I’m your new neighbour,’ she said when I opened the front door. ‘Eleanor Venables. Thought I’d pop round to make myself known.’ She held out her hand and we exchanged a very firm handshake. I judged Eleanor to be in her early sixties. She had a round moon face, a little wrinkled round the eyes, echoed by a deep line running down from each corner of her mouth, which had the effect of divorcing her chin from the rest of her features and gave the impression of a ventriloquist’s dummy being manipulated from behind – the chin jolted up and down when she spoke. The impression was maintained by brown eyes, flecked with grey, which swivelled past my shoulder as she took in the contents of our tiny hallway and then zeroed in to fix on me. But this lady was no dummy. You could tell from the cut of the heather tweed jacket and skirt she was wearing and the finely embroidered white blouse that Eleanor had taste. And the thick sweep of platinum-grey hair, tied back in a perfect chignon, gave her a slightly imperial image, which, coupled with the fragrance of lily of the valley – a perfume my mother adored – made for an attractive if slightly formidable lady – one who I envisaged could make an ideal president of the local Women’s Institute, and run it with charm and decorum while ensuring everything got done exactly the way she wanted.
    Her way, at that precise moment, was to be asked in, and, having introduced myself, I felt obliged to invite her to step inside. ‘I’m afraid it’s a bit of a mess,’ I apologised as Eleanor surged past me and swept into our living room.
    ‘But charming all the same,’ she replied. ‘I do so like your fireplace. I have a similar one, although mine has the original brickwork.’ She walked over to the fireplace and ran her hand down the brick veneer. ‘That could always be taken off I suppose.’ She reached up and