Rory hadn’t been gone long when the doorbell rang.
David, who’d been idly sketching ideas for a new outfit for Gregory—it was way past time he had a superhero costume—went to answer it. “Hello?”
Standing on the doorstep were a woman in her thirties and a round-faced boy of ten or so, both of them smartly dressed in Marks and Spencer’s finest. David perked up. He hadn’t had any Jehovah’s Witnesses to chat to in ages.
It was the woman who spoke. “Oh, hello, are you Rory Deamer? The postman?”
Perhaps not the God Squad after all, unless they’d taken to targeted attacks. “No, I’m David Greenlake, the postman’s lodger. Are we playing Happy Families?”
She sent him a familiar look—half-baffled, half-amused. “I’m Sarah Meadway. Susan Young’s daughter.”
“We are playing Happy Families.” David smiled at the boy by her side. “Would this be Master Bun, the baker’s son?”
Although if he was, he was a poor advertisement for his parent’s wares, with his doughy, undercooked complexion.
The boy favoured David with the sort of sidelong, narrow-eyed stare usually reserved for the mentally challenged. “No. I’m Todd.”
“Todd Cod, the fisherman’s son?” David asked hopefully. Now he came to think about it, there was definitely a hint of fish belly in that complexion.
George’s mother made a firm effort to wrestle back control of the conversation. “We wanted to thank Mr. Deamer for what he did for my mother. Is he in?”
“I’m afraid he’s at a football match.” David wondered what services Rory might have rendered to the presumably elderly Susan Young. The mind positively boggled.
“Oh, that’s a shame. Would you pass on our thanks, please? And please give him this.” She handed him a gift bag containing a bottle of some sort. “It’s only a token. We really are very grateful—I hate to think what would have happened if he hadn’t gone round yesterday. I mean, I call her every Sunday night, but . . .”
She gave David a significant look. He nodded wisely, as if he had the first clue what, exactly, it signified.
“And please tell him she’s doing well in hospital. We’re not sure when she’ll be out, or if she’ll be going back to the house . . .” She made a helpless gesture. “It’s all rather up in the air for now. But please do thank him for us.”
“Of course.”
After they’d taken their leave and he’d shut the door, David took a sneaky peek into the gift bag. It held a bottle of Lagavulin that was older than Fen.
David’s estimation of whatever aid Rory had rendered to Mrs. Young went up several notches, along with his eyebrows.
When Rory returned home, sans Lucy, he seemed a little abraded around the edges.
“How was the football?” David asked with forced brightness.
Rory slumped down onto the sofa. “God, don’t ask. Lucy got sent off, and when I got her back to Evie’s, Leo was crying his little heart out cos flippin’ Lewis lost his temper with him again.”
David stared, an uneasy hollow in his stomach. “He didn’t . . .?”
“What, hit him? Nah, nothing like that. Just words.” Rory sighed heavily, looking wearier than David had ever seen him.
David knew only too well how deeply words could pierce a boy, and he had a fair idea that Rory knew it too. Would a hug be received in the spirit in which it was intended? He wasn’t sure—and by the time he’d considered it, the moment was past.
It was safer in any case to go for a manly pat on the shoulder. “Never mind. Here’s something that’ll cheer you up. Hopefully. Do you like single-malt whisky?”
“Why, you got some?”
“No, but you have. Dropped off with fervent, if cryptic, thanks by someone who described herself as Susan Young’s daughter.” David gestured at the gift bag which he’d left on the coffee table as a gaudy conversation piece.
Rory’s eyes lit up but not, apparently, at the prospect of alcohol. He didn’t even glance in the bag. “Yeah? Did she say how the old girl’s doing?”
“Fine, she said, although that could mean many things. She didn’t go into detail, but it sounded reassuring. So what’s all this about?”
“Ah, ’s nothing, really. The old dear had a fall and couldn’t get up, so I got an ambulance for her.”
“I don’t believe for one moment that’s all you did. That’s barely worth a half bottle of Teacher’s. There must be more to it than that.”
“Nah.” Rory ducked his head, a blush spreading over it. “I only had to borrow a ladder and nip round the back. Well, I had to break a window to get in. Poor old girl was in a right state. She’d been there a couple of nights.”
It was all making sense now. “And, presumably, you were the one to notice there was potentially something wrong in the first place?”
“Yeah, but . . . You do a round long enough, you get to know people’s habits. And she never leaves post sticking out the letterbox. Likes the place to be tidy, see? So I thought I’d better check up on her. And there she was.”
“Waiting for her gallant saviour. Why didn’t you tell me about your heroic exploits yesterday?”
Rory rubbed his head with a faint rasping sound as his calluses caught on the stubble. “Didn’t think about it.”
“Because saving lives is all in a day’s work for you?”
“Nah, well . . . I didn’t do nothing. I just found her. It’s the doctors what do all the work.”
Rory’s speech, David had noted, had a tendency to get more ungrammatical in direct relation to how uncomfortable or emotional he was feeling at a given moment. It was rather adorable. “Whatever you say, I think this calls for a toast to the hero of the hour. Whisky? Or tea?”
“Seeing as the lady took the trouble to bring this over, we might as well crack it open—you’re gonna join me, aren’t you?” Rory finally delved into the gift bag and brought out the bottle of Lagavulin. “Whoa, nice.”
“Sure you still want to share now you’ve seen what it is? No, don’t get up—I’ll fetch the glasses.”
David managed to locate some plain glass tumblers on only the second try—he was getting the hang of Rory’s kitchen. “Now, normally I’d say the more fingers the better, but just a small one for me or I’ll be away with the fairies.”
Rory poured them each a modest amount, then held up his glass. “Right, here’s to Mrs. Young’s health.”
“And to her dashing saviour,” David added firmly.
Rory blushed, muttered “Shut up,” and drank.
Bless.
They were two snifters in and had reluctantly decided against a third when David’s phone rang.
It was Fen.
David picked up with a smile, already rising from the sofa so as not to disturb Rory’s television watching. “Bonsoir, ma petite crevette. To what do I owe the pleasure? You spoke to me like, one day ago. Do we need to get you some more friends—”
“Shut up and listen,” Fen said by way of friendly greeting. “This is important. You’ve got to help me.”
“Of course, darling. Just let me slip into something more suitable for burying bodies. The combination of blood and mud can wreak havoc on delicate fabrics.” He started upstairs.
Fen giggled. “There’s no bodies. Well, not dead ones.”
“Sorry. I draw the line at burying people alive.” Reaching his room, David flung himself down on the bed. Gregory tumbled from his perch on the pillow to nuzzle companionably at his ear.
“Listen. We’ve got to get Granny O a new boyfriend.”
“We have?”
“Duh. So she’ll stop being sad about Rory. And I know there’s someone she fancies.”
“Ooh, do tell. Anyone I’m acquainted with?”
“Do you actually know anyone in the village apart from me, Dad, Patrick and Rory?”
“It’s early days. I’m working on it.”
“Anyway, his name’s Si, and he’s a roofer.” She paused, clearly trying to evoke a sense of drama.
David pounced. “Is that some new way of saying he’s a hottie? Oh, him, he’s a total roofer?”
Fen made a strange, strangled noise. The audible equivalent of an eye roll? “He mends roofs. Rooves? I dunno. But yeah, she was talking about him on Sunday. One of her neighbours had him round to sort out her roof, and she said he was really good-looking.”
“Probably taken, then. All the best ones always are, alas.”
“No, he’s not, cos I asked Dad and Patrick later and they know him from Spartans and they said he had a girlfriend back in Wales and he moved here to forget her. And then Dad made this stupid joke about him choosing Shamwell because there’s not a lot of sheep farms around here, which is just so racist.” She paused for breath.
“Let me guess, you told him this?”
“Well, duh. And then he got annoyed, and I never got to ask him and Patrick if they’d help me fix up Granny O with Si-the-roofer. Although they’d probably just have been useless anyway. Dad’s always all, You can’t force these things—”
“So who else have you tried to play Yente to?”
“Uh?”
“Yente? Bit of a busybody, not in the first flush of youth, fond of fiddlers in high places?”
“What are you even on?”
“Musical theatre, darling. Which reminds me, we need to continue your education. How about a trip to—”
“Look, this is important. We need to get Granny O and Si together.”
David was impressed. Usually the mere mention of a trip to the West End would have all other thoughts scurrying from Fen’s mind like rats from the Titanic. “Fine, then. How do you propose we do it?”
“You need to tell Dad you can see some loose tiles on our house.”
“Why can’t you do that?”
“I can’t lie to Dad!”
“But it’s fine to tell me to? You know, some people feel morals shouldn’t bear too close a resemblance to cheap knicker elastic.”
“Whatever. I mean, you’ll be way more convincing.”
“Hm. I feel I’ve spotted a fatal flaw in your cunning plan. Won’t he simply look up at the tiles himself and see that they’re not, in fact, loose?”
“No.” She sounded smug. “He’s, like, really sensitive about needing glasses now. So he won’t even check with Patrick. Cos he doesn’t want Patrick to think he’s old.”
“Fine. I don’t see how it helps, though. What if he calls a different roofer?”
“He won’t. And not just cos he’s a Spartan, Dad’s got this big thing about employing local people. Which is good,” she added earnestly. “Like, for the planet as well as the village, because they don’t have to travel as far.”
“That still doesn’t explain how your Granny O comes into it. And by the way, you might not want to call her that in front of the object of her affection. Not that I’m an expert, but I believe the term granny doesn’t immediately conjure up lascivious images in the mind of the average straight man. Certain Premier League footballers excluded, of course.”
“You’ll have to tell me when he’s coming round so I can get her to come over at the same time.”
“And what if it happens to be while you’re at school?”
“I can take a sickie. That’d be even better, cos I could say I need her to look after me.”
“So lying to your school and your grandmother would be fine?”
“Meh. She’s not my real granny.”
“And what about poor Rory’s crushed feelings, when he discovers I’m plotting to find his ex another man?”
“Like he cares. He dumped her. Ages ago. Anyway, why would you tell him? Duh.”
Duh, indeed. And, to be honest, Rory hadn’t seemed all that upset about the breakup. More fatalistic. Certainly not as if he was hoping for a reconciliation. So it would probably be okay to fall in with Fen’s plan.
Might be best not to mention it to Rory, though.
David went back downstairs with thoughtful tread. He couldn’t help feeling this could all go horribly wrong. Mostly, for him.
“Everything all right?” Rory asked as David sat back down on the sofa.
“For a given value thereof, yes. Now, what did I miss?”
Rory frowned. “Not sure. Lot of moody shots of grey skies. And the victim’s wife had a row with someone. Or it might have been the detective’s wife. I get them two confused. And then she killed herself. I think. I’m hoping they’re gonna— Oh.”
Sombre music played, and the credits rolled. “That was the final episode, wasn’t it?” David asked.
“Yeah. Huh. You know, I’m not sure I’m really into this Scandi noir stuff.”
“Mm. Well, we gave it a good shot.” David shrugged, then beamed. “PlayStation?”
“You’re on, mate.”