Seven Eight Play It Straight: Grasshopper Lawns, #4

By EJ Lamprey

In Seven Eight Play It Straight Edge’s actress stepdaughter is performing in a successful Fringe show during the Edinburgh Festival, which attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors and is always a busy family time at Grasshopper Lawns. Long-standing hostilities are set aside when a violent and bloody killing strikes all too close to home, but the temporary truce doesn’t last after Fiona accuses Edge of the murder.

• Language: English
• Publisher: EJ Lamprey
• Release date: Mar 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9781536564129

Book preview

Foreword

No book set in Scotland could be without occasional moments of Scottish. Beyond the soft burr of the accents, which will have to wait for the audio version, it is very nearly a language on its own, descriptive and pungent. Some words shared with English are pronounced differently, and some words are unique to the country. In Scotland, you would chap on a poorly neighbour’s door and offer to get their messages (knock and offer to do their shopping). All Scots speak English, but few can resist the temptation to slide sideways into the joy of Scots every now and then and my characters are no different.

The general meaning should always be clear from the context—a brief glossary has been added at the end for easy reference. Definitely is pronounced deffi-NATE-ly in Scotland and has deliberately been spelled ‘definately’ in appropriate dialogue. Superb is almost two words, pronounced soo-PAIRRRB, and I have hyphenated it for that usage. The same applies to other spelling ‘errors’ spotted in dialogue (polis for police, photies for photographs, etc). I have kept this to a minimum, to avoid puzzling non-Scottish readers, but hope you will enjoy the occasional reminder that you are north of the border.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents and settings are either fictitious or used fictitiously and not to be construed as real.

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All rights reserved. No part of this book can be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the author.

Prologue—approximately three years before the present story

‘So what’s your news?’ Vivian carefully put the coffee cup down on Edge’s side-table, and sat with a decidedly sedentary ‘oof’ in the opposite chair with her own cup. ‘You sounded really excited on the phone.’

‘I am, a bit, I got a fantastic offer for the flat, so that’s it, done and dusted. Selling.’ Edge turned back from the mirror, where she had been trying to loop a strand of her heavy shoulder-length red-blonde hair back into her topknot. She was an attractive woman in her mid-fifties - her eyes were her best feature, but she had good cheekbones, and used makeup to maximise her full-lipped mouth and draw attention from a decidedly stubborn chin. She wore clothes well, and would spend up to an hour to achieve an appearance of having chosen her outfit at random. The differences between her and Vivian, who was a classically beautiful redhead but very overweight, and who genuinely dressed in whatever clothes came to hand first, were superficial: they were very good friends.

‘But the flat is magnificent! I thought you loved it!’

Edge shook her head. ‘Not really, it doesn’t have the happiest memories. A dead husband, resentful stepdaughter and sulky stepson aren’t the nicest ghosts to share a place with, and I do rattle around in it, much too big for one. Fiona and JJ may have loved their ‘Aunt’ Vivian, but they certainly didn’t appreciate ‘Aunt’ Vivian’s friend breezing in and marrying their father. Those last few years back here in Scotland were particularly bloody awful, you were lucky, you were the other end of the world. Poor James, trying to keep the peace! I’ve been meaning to put it on the market for a while, I write and eat and practically sleep in one room and the rest gathers dust. No garden, and that hellish couple with the screaming baby as neighbours, and I could never just up and go when I felt like it. I’ve got big plans for the future.’

‘You’re not leaving Scotland?’ Vivian looked anxious and Edge snorted.

‘No, idiot. But I do want to travel a lot more than I have been. And I’m tired of living on my own.’

‘So come share with me, I’ve asked you often enough!’

‘God, no. I love you like a sister but two middle-aged widows sharing a single house? Never. I can’t think of a way of ending a friendship faster. Anyway, one of us might yet meet a luscious man and want a little privacy! I want a nice little place to myself, interesting neighbours, good security so I can lock up and go whenever I feel like it, and I still want to be near you, near my niece, and to be able to put people up when they come to visit. And I’ve found it, I think. Have you ever heard of the Grasshopper Lawns retirement village?’

Vivian put her cup down, appalled. ‘You’re too young to go into an old age home. Anyway, why on earth would you want to?’

‘It’s not an old age home,’ Edge said patiently. ‘Well, not in the way that sounds. It takes people from fifty-five. They’ve got totally independent apartments, a fabulous garden, guest accommodation facilities, and they only take people with interesting pasts. Even better, it's only twenty miles from Edinburgh, near Onderness, and my niece is stationed there. I told you she's joined the police, didn't I? I was interviewed by the bursar, the administrator and one of the residents, an immaculately-dressed little Englishwoman with nails like talons, who apparently used to be a Cold War spy. Patrick recommended the place. And I want you to apply too; we can be neighbours.’

Vivian was already shaking her head. ‘Oh, no, Edge. I have to keep the house so the kids can stay here when they come over with their families. And I don’t really like meeting lots of strangers, I like the quiet life, you know that.’

‘I do know that. And I don’t approve, and you know that. The kids come over, what, every other year? You’ve not even been going back to Africa lately for Christmas family gatherings, you’re getting so housebound. How long have we been friends?’

‘Every time someone says that, they want something.’ Vivian sipped gloomily at her coffee. ‘You know how long. Since we were eight.’

‘And in all that time have I led you astray?’

Vivian started to laugh. ‘When have you not! You were the most terrible influence on me!’

‘Nonsense. I got you out of your music room and away from your endless scales, and you hauled me out of reading every play ever written in my attempt to become a great playwright, and letting life pass me by altogether. The pair of us were very good for each other, we always have been. I have a feeling about Grasshopper Lawns. I think it could be a bit of an adventure, and I really, really want you to think about it. Come look at the place. Help me move in. Okay? And I’ll tell you what else, they have labradors in the main house. Any of the residents can take one for a walk whenever they like. In fact, the bursar, Hamish, who is an absolute duck, said there’s such competition sometimes that residents adopt one and then the Lawns gets another from Labrador Rescue.’

She studied her friend closely as she let that sink in. Vivian was lovely, but since Gordon had died she had been gaining weight steadily, rarely smiled, and was sinking into a greyness that worried Edge very much indeed. She knew all about the devastating depression of widowhood but she’d promised Gordon she’d take care of Vivian, and she had never broken an oath in her life. And never would, if it came to her best friend, who had taken the skinny shy little Beulah under her wing at primary school, re-named her Edge and included her with the popular set. Vivian had invited her out to Africa and introduced her to James, comforted her after his death, been her first and greatest fan when she started writing her first scripts. She wouldn’t be a person the Lawns considered interesting without Vivian’s influence on her life.

Vivian weakened, as Edge knew she would. ‘Oh, I have missed having dogs around. But I don’t have an interesting past, I’d never get in. A Cold War spy, heavens!’

‘And writers, and a Russian ballerina, and a mercenary and an actress. They liked me and I’m just a TV scriptwriter on fairly second-rate shows who had a slightly famous second husband. To be honest, I think they liked that I was so young; you’re not the only person who hears ‘retirement village’ and translates it into ‘old age home’. Rather fun to be young for anything these days. When I said I had a friend who grew up in the Diplomatic Corps, has lived in embassies all over the world, trained for opera with probably the best vocal coach ever and gave it all up for love and life in the colonies, they practically signed you up on the spot. They want you to apply, and I want you to apply. And you know me, I always get my way in the end. I’m more stubborn than you are.’

Vivian sipped slowly at her coffee while Edge watched her with bright eyes. Finally she said, ‘You really have one of your feelings about this place? That it would suit us?’ Edge nodded and she sighed. ‘Okay. Tell me more about the dogs.’

Three years later

SEVEN EIGHT

PLAY IT STRAIGHT

This is unlike the other books in the series in a few ways. Oh, there’s still murder, and it is still a whodunit, and the friends are very much in evidence, but it is Edge and her stepdaughter, the actress Fiona Bentwood, who take centre stage. The title, instead of being Lay Them Straight as in the nursery rhyme, is Play It Straight and that’s carried through in the structure of the book; there are scene breaks rather than conventional chapters, for example. There’s fancy dress, performing artists, melodrama, totally contrived coincidences and theatrical makeup in the climax, but how not, during the fabulous Edinburgh Festival?

PART ONE – EXPOSITION

Scene One

Edinburgh Festival

Not every scene will be described in detail as this is not, after all, a play. This scene starts inside a Fringe theatre for the performance of a one-woman show featuring Fiona Bentwood, but moves swiftly into the thronged streets and parks of the lovely city of Edinburgh, basking in August sunshine (which is not, it has to be said, always the case, in August).

The small theatre is crowded. The characters in the audience relevant to the scene are wearing purple peaks, and are all in late middle-age. The starting impression of a crowd is quite deliberate, but the nervous reader can be assured that most are extras—the major characters will move in turn into the spotlight and by the time the book returns to the festive chaos of the third part—the climax—every clue will have been presented, every important character introduced, and the background extras will indeed be merely colourful background. Series regulars will meet old friends, and new readers are not expected to remember names in this first rush of introductions, just to pick up general impressions. 

Miss P leaned forward, her plump cheeks pink with excitement, to look past William and Vivian at Edge, sitting further along the row of seats. ‘Ay’m so looking forward to this, Edge, Ay can’t tell you how much.’

Edge shrugged helplessly. ‘Remember, there’ll be foul language,’ she warned, for at least the third time, and Miss P giggled and put her hands up to her ears, middle fingers bent forward, to show she was ready to plug them.

‘Dinna fash, me darling,’ William patted her knee reassuringly. ‘You’ll be fine.’ He patted Vivian’s knee for good measure and grinned at Edge. ‘We won’t melt.’

‘We might.’ Vivian looked around slightly despairingly. ‘I’d forgotten Fringe theatres are practically unventilated.’

‘Which is why I told you to bring a fan,’ Edge reminded her bracingly. She sat back and closed her eyes. It had seemed a good idea, before she left for her holiday in Florida, to buy ten tickets to this one-woman show at the Edinburgh Festival but she was already regretting it, not least because she was still slightly jet-lagged and woefully short on sleep. She and Vivian were both claustrophobic, and the theatre had been adapted from a conference room by draping it with fabric which cut out air, light and seemed to be inching in on them. . . A gentle breeze from Vivian’s fan revived her slightly and she opened her eyes as a single spotlight sprang to life and revealed Fiona Bentwood standing a few feet away.

The show was slick, professional, bitingly funny and full of what were known locally as swearies. Edge did shoot one anxious glance across Vivian’s agitated fan at Miss P, who was sitting with her hands in her lap and her mouth open—with any luck, she didn’t know the actress’s frequent drawled ‘fahk’ even was a swearie—but for the rest gave herself up to the performance. It was, she was relieved to realize, good. It would do well. They all applauded enthusiastically at the end and Fiona, coming forward for a bow, looked her straight in the eye and nodded slightly.

Vivian was away like a runner hearing the gun as the lights came up. Edge resisted the impulse to bolt after her and instead brought up the rear of the group, all easily spotted in the milling throng because of their purple peaks. Purple was a standing joke at the Lawns, but a flash of it was very useful in crowds, and Vivian was an ideal assembly point as she waited outside, tall and vivid in scarlet tunic and slacks which clashed stridently with her peak. The friends exchanged rueful glances as the group re-formed.

‘Edge, I’m so sorry; this wretched claustrophobia, I couldn’t bear it another minute. Did she see you? Did she come over to say hello?’

Fiona Bentwood arrived with perfect timing to answer the question herself. ‘I did see her, and I’ve now come over to say hello. How are you, Aunt Vivian? You’re looking incredibly well. Hello, Edge. You look tired. And all of you wearing purple peaks, how quaint—are you part of a religious order, or just all from the old age home?’

‘Darling. You were very good indeed.’ Edge, slim, casually elegant and self-possessed, leaned forward and they air-kissed politely. ‘People, this is James’s daughter, Fiona. My stepdaughter.’

‘My word, that makeup is jolly good,’ Miss P said with wide-eyed innocent malice. ‘You looked so much younger on stage!’

‘Fiona, darling, this is Titania Pinkerton. You used to love her books,’ Edge said hastily, and Fiona’s delicate over-plucked brows twitched back from their frown.

‘I still do, when I have time,’ she said cordially, and shook hands. ‘They’re just right for someone on the road, very relaxing.’

Miss P beamed, malice forgotten, and Edge went on with the introductions.

‘William Robertson’s also a well-known writer, although I don’t know if you’re into Sci-Fi? And the ballerina Olga Petrotchovitch;’ Fiona twitched slightly impatiently and Edge gave up on details. ‘Clarissa, Jayenthi, Brian, Matilda, Sylvia, Donald,’

‘Donald MacDonald,’ Fiona interrupted her, and took Donald’s unresisting hand between both of her own, smiling up into his vivid blue eyes. ‘I’m a fan. Don’t tell me you’re at the home too, you’re never old enough! Are you working on anything for the Festival? Are you still designing sets? What did you think of our set?’

‘Very minimalist,’ he said drily, ignoring her other comments. ‘But ideal for the show. I agree with Edge, it was good. Have you been doing it long?’

‘We first aired it in Grahamstown. This is the fourth Festival now, and the second year. I’m glad you liked it.’ He looked bored and she relinquished his hand reluctantly to look back at William, easily the biggest man on the square—height, breadth and curving bay window. ‘And I know you by reputation. My brother buys your books the minute they’re published, and shuts himself away to read them. He and his partner have booked to hear you speak tonight. Are you also at the Lawns?’

‘We’re all from the old age home,’ Sylvia was seething. ‘Edge dragged us along to give you a bit of an audience.’

‘Well, luckily you weren’t the only ones here, but I do appreciate your sacrifice.’ Fiona’s eyes sparkled as she summed up her tiny, bristling, beautifully-dressed opponent. ‘I didn’t mean to offend anyone but my stepmother with that comment, and that’s a battle that has raged for years.’

‘True enough. And much enjoyed by all the onlookers,’ Vivian said peaceably, and Fiona switched tack with a slight sneer.

‘Quite the talented group, Edge, how on earth did you get them to let you in?’

‘No doubt on the strength of having a famous actress as a stepdaughter, although I had never heard of you myself.’ Sylvia was no Miss P, to be easily placated. ‘Edge, why didn’t you tell us you were related when you invited us?’

‘In case the show was awful, of course.’ Edge smiled sweetly at Fiona. ‘I didn’t want my connections to get me evicted.’

‘Oh, ha-ha.’ Fiona’s brows twitched back together. She was of medium height, bone thin, with delicate mobile features and a mop of unruly hair. In direct sunlight the heavy stage makeup reversed the youthful effect of the friendly spotlights and she looked older than her stepmother. ‘This has been lovely, catching up, but I do have to go. Do you expect me and Jamey to visit while I’m here?’

‘It would be lovely if you did,’ Vivian answered hastily for Edge. ‘You must be incredibly busy. I didn’t realize JJ was here as well.’

‘He and Tim are living back in Edinburgh, I’m staying with them during the Festival. We’ll see what we can do. I know he would love to meet William.’ She put the slightest emphasis on the last word, swept them all with a glance and a nod which warmed to a smile as it reached Donald, and half-raised her hand in farewell before turning on her heel.

‘Ooh, take that.’ Sylvia was still waspish as Fiona crossed the emptying square back towards the makeshift theatre. ‘You must have been a very wicked stepmother, Edge.’

‘Was there ever a stepmother who wasn’t?’ Edge remarked lightly. ‘Especially one not that much older than her stepchildren.’

The distant boom of the one o’clock gun from the Castle galvanised them into action. It had already been arranged that everyone would buy whatever they fancied from the vast variety of street stands, and head for the Princes Street Gardens to meet up for an al fresco lunch.

Clarissa tucked her hand in Edge’s arm. ‘Your stepdaughter looked as if she wanted to drag Donald away and eat him,’ she said slightly disapprovingly, making Edge laugh.

Clarissa had a long-standing crush on