Free Aunt Dimity Down Under by Nancy Atherton Page A

kind,” I said. “Please thank her for me. Do you have children?”
    “Two boys,” he replied. “They’re not twins, like Will and Rob, but they’re only a year apart. Braden is ten and Ben is eleven.”
    “Where do you live?” I asked.
    “Near Wellington,” he replied. “I’d be more specific, but I don’t want your eyes to glaze over.”
    I smiled ruefully but pressed on. “What job am I tearing you away from? ”
    “I train horses,” said Cameron, confirming my hunch about the outdoorsy nature of his occupation. “And you’re not tearing me away from anything. According to my wife, I’m in dire need of a holiday.”
    “It’s a good thing I didn’t bring my sons with me,” I said. “They’d want you to go back to work straightaway. They love horses.”
    “I know,” he said. “Bill has e-mailed quite a few pictures of Will and Rob on their ponies.”
    “He’s a proud papa,” I acknowledged. I looked down at the biscuit tin and shook my head. “I don’t know what to say, Cameron. Not every man would leave his wife, his children, and his job for the sake of an old friend.”
    “Nor would every woman. Looks as though we have something in common.” The minivan pulled away and he turned the key in the ignition. “All set?”
    “Drive on,” I said.
    Two minutes later we were cruising down the main drag of a bustling shopping district. Most of the shops were small and independently owned rather than links in multinational chains, and the sidewalks were crowded with people of all ages and races. There was so much to look at that I felt a small twinge of regret when the shops petered out and we entered a residential area.
    A left-hand turn took us onto a short street lined with a mixture of fairly impressive mansions and modest but well-tended homes. At the end of the street, I caught a glimpse of ocean framed by towering trees I didn’t recognize.
    “Pohutukawa trees,” said Cameron, following my gaze.
    “Pohutu—what?” I said.
    “Pohutukawas,” he said. “They’re covered in red blossoms at Christmastime. Very cheerful.”
    “Pohutukawa,” I repeated carefully, filing the word away for future reference. I planned to spring it on Aunt Dimity when the opportunity arose.
    Cameron slowed to a crawl, then parked before a two-story house that was modest but not well tended. The top story was clad in corrugated iron siding, the bottom in a pale yellow stucco striped with rust stains. The narrow balcony that ran across the front of the house was littered with cigarette butts and a few leggy plants, and a broken picnic table graced the balding front lawn. Two of the second-floor windows were open, but the windows on the first floor were tightly shut and covered with drapes.
    “This is it,” Cameron said.
    Weah-heah, I thought, and got out of the car.

Seven
    C ameron accompanied me to the yellow house’s recessed front door and stood a few steps behind me as I pressed a finger to the doorbell. When a voice shouted down to us, we exchanged puzzled glances, then returned to the front lawn, to peer up at the balcony.
    A woman gazed down at us through a haze of cigarette smoke. She was clad in a shocking pink T-shirt, cutoff denim shorts, and neon-green flip-flops. Her coarse black hair sprouted from the top of her head in a ponytail drawn so tautly against her scalp that she shouldn’t have been able to lower her overplucked eyebrows. Though she dressed like a teenager, her hair was liberally streaked with gray and her blunt-featured face was mottled with age spots. Her voice was deep, gravelly, and loud enough to be heard back at the Spencer.
    “What do you want?” she bellowed.
    “Good morning,” I called up to her. “I’m looking for Mr. Aubrey Jeremiah Pym, Junior. I believe he lives here.”
    “Not anymore he doesn’t,” said the woman. “A. J. died two months ago.”
    “He’s . . . dead? ” I said, thunderstruck.
    “As a doornail.” The woman paused to exchange a few