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

weekend off, taking advantage of the glorious, late summer sunshine to work through any hassles at the practice – and there had been a few – by venting them on some serious gardening; in particular, cutting back the edge of the lawn where it had encroached on the border and endeavouring to ensure I kept a straight line down from the cottage. It really was a pleasure to be working with such rich, dark, loamy soil, and I could imagine the owners or tenants working the same patch down the centuries. My unearthing, last week, of some shards of clay pipes just reinforced that feeling.
    So seeing Eleanor walking down her garden prompted me to put a temporary halt to my spadework and, resting one foot on the heel of the spade, I called out cheerfully, ‘Hi there, Eleanor. Grand afternoon, isn’t it?’
    The grey head stopped, approached the fence and Eleanor’s moon face rose over it. It wasn’t exactly radiant. ‘It would be if it wasn’t for the likes of this …’ A yellow, rubber-gloved hand appeared, holding between finger and thumb the tail of a headless mouse whose body swung beneath it. ‘Tammy brought this in and deposited it on my hearth rug.’ There was a visible twitch of disgust from the moon face. ‘I was just going to bury it.’ Her other hand appeared, equally sheathed in a yellow rubber glove in similar mint condition, but this one was holding a pristine trowel which caught the sun and flashed at me.
    I rammed my spade in the edge of the border and walked over, stepping onto a small pile of bricks which I’d neatly stacked there, remnants of the edging to the patio I’d constructed earlier in the summer – with Crystal’s blessing, of course, as it wasn’t my property. Why stack them there, halfway down the garden, alongside the boundary fence? Well, no obvious reason, although it did make it easier to get a better view of my neighbour’s garden when no one was about. It was an attractive garden, twice the size of ours, being formerly two plots before the pair of cottages had been combined; the Spencers had obviously spent a lot of time redesigning it with the incorporation of a screened-off vegetable plot and a secluded patio – which became significantly less secluded if I stood on my pile of bricks. Right at the bottom of the plot, in one corner, they’d created a tiny wild patch, consisting of a pond flanked by a clump of reeds, with a couple of water lilies on its surface and a bank of native plants – pink campion, bergamot and meadowsweet amongst them – which were allowed to grow unhindered. It was to this spot that Eleanor was heading.
    I was in the mood for a bit of a chinwag but Eleanor, waving the decapitated mouse at me, said, ‘I’d rather get rid of this first, if you don’t mind.’
    I watched as she resolutely continued with her rodent disposal strategy, her tall, angular figure clad that afternoon in all the classic colours one would choose for such treks into the wilderness … even though it was only a patch of overgrown garden: spotless, green corduroy trousers; matching green waistcoat over a light-green linen, short-sleeved shirt; and soft, green rubber wellies, complete with buckles at their tops. The only accessories that clashed with her country image were the pristine yellow gloves – and, of course, the headless mouse.
    Once the carcass had been disposed of by burial beneath a holly bush, Eleanor negotiated the circular slabs set round the edge of the pond; she did it with arms stretched out, gloves held up in front of her, and studied each stone circle before placing a boot precisely in its centre. She dithered a moment when the stones stopped at the edge of the lawn and then, having decided the dry turf was unlikely to foul her wellingtons, she crossed over to continue her chat with me.
    ‘I do wish Tammy would stop bringing in these offerings,’ she said, with a little shudder, waving her now slightly soiled trowel in the air. ‘Such a beastly