“You’ve got a man in your garden with his head down a drain,” Miranda said, as she stared out of Beth’s kitchen window.
“That’s Derek,” Beth said. “He’s a plumber. James sent him along.”
“Have you had problems?”
“A few. Derek’s here to sort them out.”
Miranda nodded, and walked away from the window, curiosity satisfied. “Speaking of Jimmy, any more dates planned?” she asked.
“We’re not dating, Mirri.”
“Well you should be. Letting a man like Jimmy Bartlett go to waste is a crime.”
“He’s in love with someone else,” Beth said flatly.
The look of shock on Miranda’s face was almost comical. “Rubbish,” she said.
“It’s true,” Beth said, pouring hot water onto some instant coffee granules. “So you can stop your matchmaker impression and give me a break.”
Miranda gave a theatrical sigh, and sat down at the kitchen table. “He told me he was single. Men, you can’t trust a word they say. Who is she, this vixen who’s stolen Jimmy’s heart?” she said, just as theatrically.
“Jessica Franklin. She used to live here, in this house.”
“Used to? Where does she live now?”
“She doesn’t,” Beth said, bringing the coffee mugs across to the table. “She’s dead. Died about fifteen years ago. But James is still carrying a torch for her.”
Miranda’s features softened. “But that’s tragic,” she said. “Poor Jimmy, to be grieving all this time, unable to let go and move on. How did she die?”
“She drowned, in the lake we went to the other day.”
Miranda shuddered. “Why didn’t you tell me before we went there? I would never have agreed to go.”
“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t know then. I’m slowly putting the story together. As James tells it, he and Jessica were sweethearts, but not according to Derek. If you believe him they were never a couple.”
“An odd thing to lie about,” Miranda said.
“Yes it is,” Beth said, absently staring out the window at the hunched form of Derek Clarke as he peered into the gloom of the manhole.
Clarke swept the walls of the sewer with the milky beam of the flashlight, noting the large amount of weeds clinging to the brickwork; an unusual growth, but not enough to cause a blockage. He had his rods in the van. It might be an idea to run them through the drain. He checked his watch. He had a couple of hours before his next job—a malfunctioning boiler at the local pub.
He went back to his van, and opened the back doors, pulling out the bundle of flexible rods and dropping them to the ground. They were similar to the rods the old-fashioned chimney sweeps used to use. Each measured four feet long with male and female screw fittings at each end, enabling him to build them to a length of fifty yards, more than long enough for most domestic sewers. Whereas the chimney sweeps’ rods were capped off with a circular brush, his had a spiral steel, clawlike attachment ideal for catching and removing obstructions. To add strength, the rods were made from a mixture of fiberglass and carbon fiber, making them lightweight and flexible, but very strong.
He dragged the bundle back to the open manhole, screwed on the steel claw and, adding one length at a time, fed the rods into the drain.
He’d added four rods before he encountered any resistance. He pushed, but it was as if he were trying to force the rods through a wall of sand. Taking a firm grip on the end rod, he twisted it sharply back and forth, and then tugged it. A second or two later the rods worked themselves free. He hauled them back, and eventually the steel hook emerged from the drainpipe, dragging something wet and orange. Milky, dead eyes stared up at him from the bottom of the manhole.
“Oh, shit,” he said under his breath, as he realized it was the body of a dead cat. “How in God’s name did you get down there?”
The entrance to the manhole was barely two feet square. Squeezing down there to retrieve the dead animal wasn’t going to be easy. Then, as he shone the flashlight down the drain, he realized that climbing down there wouldn’t be necessary. The steel claw at the end of the rods had embedded itself in the animal’s body. He tentatively tugged on the rod, and the dead cat moved. This wasn’t going to be pleasant.
Inch by inch he pulled the animal to the surface, finally lifting it free from the manhole, and putting it down on the scrubby grass beside the opening where it lay, a wet, tangled mass of dirty ginger fur, with sightless eyes and a bloated body punctured by a ugly gash in its side where Clarke’s steel hook had screwed into it.
“Looks like he’s found the blockage,” Miranda said, peering out through the kitchen window.
“Can you see what was causing it?”
Miranda cupped her hands around her eyes, and pressed her forehead to the glass. “I can’t really…no…wait a minute… Oh…” She turned back to Beth. “You stay here,” she said, and dashed out of the back door.
“But how did it get down there?” Miranda said to Derek Clarke, who was standing over the cat, as if guarding it.
He shrugged. “It’s a cat,” he said, unnecessarily. “They can get anywhere if they have a mind to. Had one sleeping under the hood of my van once. Only discovered it when I started the engine. Never seen anything move so fast.”
“How the hell am I going to tell Beth?” Miranda said.
“You don’t have to,” Beth said.
Miranda spun round. Her friend was sitting in her wheelchair less than ten feet away, her gaze locked on Teddy’s wet and twisted body. “Hon, I’m so sorry,” Miranda said.
Beth ignored her, turning her attention to Clarke. “So you found out what was causing the blockage. Well done,” she said.
“Wedged in the pipe,” Clarke said. “I made a bit of a mess of him, getting him out.”
“Can you bury him for me? I’ll pay you extra.” Beth said, blinking furiously, determined not to cry.
“Yes,” Clarke said. “Yes, of course. Where?”
“Here’s as good a place as any.” Without another word she spun the chair around and headed back to the house.
“Beth, wait!” Miranda called to her departing back. Then, “Fuck it! This is the last thing she needed.” She followed Beth back to the house.
They both left Clarke to fetch a spade from his van,
“Teddy hated it here,” Beth said.
“You can’t say that. He was a cat. He would have adjusted.”
Beth shook her head. “I don’t think he would. He was scared, Mirri. Skittish, jumping at shadows. He was never like that in London. I feel guilty for bringing him up here.”
“Now stop that,” Miranda said. “There’s no point beating yourself up over it.” She poured her friend a large brandy from a bottle of Courvoisier tucked at the back of a kitchen cupboard. “Here, drink this. You’ve had a shock.”
Beth took the glass from her and touched it to her lips, but the smell of the spirit made her gag. She set the glass down on the kitchen table. “Ever since the other night when I went out and left the back door open, and that other cat came in, Teddy was running scared. He probably found an opening to the sewer, and was using it as a hiding place.” She pushed herself away from the table, and went across to the back door to watch Clarke bury her cat.
Miranda looked on helplessly for a moment, before opening her attaché case and pulling a small sheaf of papers from it. “You need to see this,” she said.
“What is it?” Beth said disinterestedly.
“A contract from Fox in the States. They want to turn Mirror Ball into a TV series. You get a ‘created by’ and an executive producer credit, as well as an obscene amount of money. Interested?”
Mirror Ball was Beth’s bestselling novel to date: a playful, but racy love story using the 1970s disco culture as backdrop. It was the novel she had written just prior to the accident, and critics and readers were agreed it was her most accomplished so far. Since the accident, and her confinement to the wheelchair, she wondered whether she would be able to produce anything so good again.
She had hoped for a film deal—maybe a small, independent art-house movie. The thought of a series airing on national television was beyond her wildest imaginings.
“Yes,” she said. “Where do I sign?” Her words felt defiant. Her natural inner strength kicking in to start the grieving process. Maybe even start the next good novel process.
“That’s better,” Miranda said. She flipped over the pages, pointing to the yellow highlighted indicators. “Here, here and there.”
“I wasn’t expecting this,” Beth said.
“There are all sorts of residuals, rights on the repeats and such like, but I’ll handle those.”
Beth regarded her friend gratefully.
“I like to feel that I earn my commission,” Miranda said.
“I’d be totally lost without you,” Beth said candidly.
“Yes,” Miranda said. “And me you. Now, are you going to let me take a peek at what you’re working on?”
Beth was usually very guarded when she was working on a new project. Nobody was allowed to see a new book until she had typed THE END. Nobody apart from Miranda, that was. Their relationship transcended business. She trusted Mirri implicitly, and regarded her as her one true friend.
“Sure,” she said. “It’s up on the Mac. Go into the office and make a start and I’ll make coffee.”