Free 7 A Tasteful Crime by Cecilia Peartree Page B

Go’, except that he knew that phrase was hopelessly old-fashioned. ‘Well, get round to the back garden then. We’ll only have a few seconds to do this.’
    He walked up the path and rang the door-bell.
    One of the television crew opened the door. Fortunately it was Charlotte, who had seemed slightly less threatening than the rest. On the other hand, having faced up to plenty of school bullies in his time, both among the pupils and on the staff, Jock couldn’t really bring himself to feel threatened by anybody in what he thought of as civilian life.
    ‘What’s that thing doing parked across my driveway?’ he demanded, trying to model himself on Christopher’s annoying neighbour, Mr Browning, who was always complaining about something. ‘It’s nearly time for church and I can’t get my car out! It’s very inconsiderate. Mrs Laidlaw’s usually so careful about these things.’
    He harangued Charlotte until she called to Ken to come out. He harangued them both until they were just out of Tricia’s gate and then scurried up the drive of the house next-door, squeezed through a convenient gap in the fence and reached the Laidlaws’ back garden. He hoped they wouldn’t think it odd that he hadn’t waited to make sure they did what he had asked.
    Darren was holding the back door open for him. Tricia and Maisie Sue were in the kitchen. Jock was slightly surprised at Tricia’s choice of assistant, but maybe she wanted an American perspective on baking. Or maybe Maisie Sue had some special affinity with vegetables.
    ‘Hello,’ said Tricia, looking harassed and wearing far too much make-up. She had a variety of apparently random ingredients on the table in front of her. Jock recognised some of them as similar to the things he had glimpsed at Jemima’s.
    ‘You’ve got a lot of make-up on, Mum,’ said Darren.
    ‘It’s the TV people. Charlotte said I was too shiny. And red. So she tried to tone it down with some green stuff. Now I feel like a courgette myself.’
    ‘You’ll be OK, Tricia,’ said Maisie Sue, bustling around taking things out of cupboards and putting other things away, just as if she knew what she was doing. ‘You look great. Just take a few deep breaths, and repeat after me: I look great. I can do anything I want. It takes more than a couple jumped up teenagers to scare me.’
    Tricia very sensibly ignored this advice. ‘You’re not meant to be here,’ she said to Darren and Jock. ‘I’ll get disqualified. You’ve got to go. They’re going to start filming me as soon as Eric gets here.’
    They heard the front door bang, and Ken’s and Charlotte’s voices in the hall.
    ‘We’ll go then,’ said Darren. He gave his mother a quick pat on the arm, and he and Jock headed for the back door, which led out directly from the kitchen. But as they were almost there, they heard footsteps just outside, and Eric’s voice calling,
    ‘Don’t mind me, Cinders, it’s just Buttons coming by to help in the kitchen.’
    The back door began to open again. Why had the man come round that way? Darren and Jock shuffled backwards, away from the door. The voices in the hall got closer and louder.
    ‘Quick, you’ll have to hide under the table,’ whispered Tricia. ‘Come on.’
    She moved out of the way to make room for them to crawl under the kitchen table. There was a flap that came down at the far side to hide them from anybody else’s view.
    ‘Does this remind you of anything?’ murmured Darren, and started to laugh.
    It was the cattery all over again. At least there weren’t any litter trays, Jock thought gloomily, but he would be crippled for life after sitting hunched up in here.
    ‘Sssh!’ said Tricia, just as the door to the hallway opened and the sound of feet announced the return of Charlotte and Ken.
    ‘Sorry?’ said Charlotte to Tricia.
    ‘Oh, nothing, I was just telling Maisie Sue to be quiet so that we could concentrate on preparing ourselves for the filming to start.’
    ‘I