Nicola Barker - Burley Cross Postbox Theft

In an act of pure self-defence, I points the gun at the little blighter.

‘Calm down, Eliot!’ Miss Brooks snaps.

‘Don’t you be telling the likes of me to calm down!’ I yells (incensed). ‘Try having a word with your demented fowl!’

‘I am speaking to the duck,’ she says, then repeats her instruction for a second time:

‘Eliot! Calm down!’

On this occasion, the duck responds to her order (promptly desisting from its hissing and a-flapping), but it still continues glaring at me, sullenly, through its evil eye.

‘I suppose as you thought it was a real hoot to name that ugly broiler of yourn after a man of my complexion,’ says I, severely affronted (my high colour has oft been remarked upon by men of a medical stamp — although I think as they make too much of it, myself).

‘After you, Mr Tooth?’ says she, batting her lashes, like butter wouldn’t melt.

‘Don’t come the innocent with me!’ I yell.

‘The thought had honestly never crossed my mind!’ she insists. ‘If you must know, we actually named him after T.S.’

‘T.S.?’

‘T.S. Eliot — the famous poet.’

I stares at her, blankly.

‘Macavity: the Mystery Cat!’ she cajoles me.

I stares at her blankly.

‘Macavity’s a Mystery Cat,’ she declaims, ‘he’s called the Hidden Paw —

For he’s the master criminal who can defy the law!’

I stares at her, blankly.

She stares back at me, brows raised a-way, as if she can’t quite believe any person of passing intelligence might not be instantly familiar with this so-called ‘poet’ of hers. Then she quickly qualifies, ‘Although if I were you, Mr Tooth, and the duck was named in my honour, then I think I should probably take it as an enormous compliment. Eliot is very highly bred, after all. You can see it in the pride of his bearing, in his magnificent plumage, and in the wonderfully refined, pale blue of his eye.’

She gazes at the duck for a moment, full of admiration. ‘A marvellous, forget-me-not blue,’ she sighs, before adding, ‘I believe you have eyes of exactly that fine shade yourself, Mr Tooth…’ Her intense gaze turns to me, now. ‘What a startling coincidence!’ she exclaims, with a small laugh.

‘You have yet to explain to me,’ says I (determined not to let the woman sweet-talk me off the subject), ‘what kind of questionable enterprise you was just lately engaged in — employing a ten-yard piece of rope, of uncertain origin — in the middle of my Private Fishing Lake, Miss Brooks.’

‘Oh, that…’ She shrugs. ‘It was nothing. I was just submerging a dead badger.’

‘Sorry?’ says I.

‘I was just submerging a dead badger,’ she repeats, ‘the one I told you about the other day, in fact…’

‘Do I hear you a’right?’ says I. ‘You was submerging a dead badger in the middle of my Private Fishing Lake?!’ ‘Indeed, Mr Tooth,’ she says, cool as a cucumber.

‘Well then,’ says I (mad as a bull again), ‘might I suggest as you go and retrieve the blasted thing, Miss Brooks?!’

‘Retrieve it?!’ says she, appalled. ‘But I couldn’t possibly do that!’

‘Why not?’ says I (stamping my foot).

‘Because I’m not permitted to swim in the lake, Mr Tooth!’ she trots out.

Not permitted to swim in the lake!

Not permitted …!

‘Perhaps you might like to inform me,’ says I, removing a notebook from my pocket (white with rage, now, Mr Brogan), ‘as to why you felt the need to submerge a dead badger in that particular hard-to-reach — not to say out-of-bounds — location, Miss Brooks?’

‘Why?’ she repeats, plainly astonished by this question (and intimidated by the notebook, too, I shouldn’t wonder).

‘Yes, why , Miss Brooks,’ I enunciates sharply, priming my pencil with a small dab on my tongue.

‘Well, because after poor Gracie died from swallowing all that carelessly abandoned fishing twine…’

‘Gracie?’ says I.

‘The dear swan,’ says she, with a baleful look, ‘and you neglected to remove the corpse in time.’ ‘Neglected?’ says I (insulted).

‘Absolutely,’ she confirms, then seeing as how I am pausing a’fore writing down this detail, she kindly spells out the word for me: ‘n-e-g-l-e-c-t-e-d,’ she says.

‘I KNOWS AS HOW TO SPELL NEGLECTED, MISS BROOKS!’ I yells.

‘Oh… Good,’ she says. ‘Well, anyway,’ she promptly continues, ‘this young badger happened across dear Gracie at some point, decided to have a little nibble on her, and then before you could say “Bob’s Your Uncle”, he’d dropped dead, too! I looked for any evidence of twine lodged in his throat, but couldn’t find any. It was at this point that I asked if you might consider disposing of the poor soul, because I wasn’t sure of the cause of death, and felt his continuing presence on the shore line wasn’t entirely conducive to—’

‘You asked me to dispose of it,’ I quickly interrupts (having turned to the relevant page in my notes), ‘because you said as how several local dogs was “worrying away” at the corpse.’ ‘Exactly!’ she says, beaming. ‘Spot-on, Mr Tooth!’

‘And if I remember a’right, Miss Brooks,’ I calmly venture, ‘I then responded by telling you that so far as I was aware, all the “local” canines involved in this unfortunate scenario was in the company of your confounded “swimming ladies” who, for the record, was TRESPASSING ON MY BLOOMING LAND!’

She completely ignores this, Mr Brogan, and instead says, ‘Obviously the ideal thing to do would’ve been to bury the corpse, and I initially pursued that approach, Mr Tooth, but the ground around here was much too cold and hard for me to hack out a hole of any real depth. The dogs and foxes simply dug it straight back up again. It was then I decided that it might be an idea to submerge the corpse in the lake itself.’

‘Submerge a corpse?!’ I scoffs. ‘And how does a person go about submerging a corpse, Miss Brooks, when the very nature of a corpse is to float?’

‘Well, there you have my dilemma in one, Mr Tooth,’ she says. ‘At first I thought I might just weigh the feet down with rocks, but then logic told me that it would be impossible to transport the badger out there, manually, with the rocks — and obviously I don’t have access to a boat…’

As she speaks, she rubs away at her arms with her hands (so as to try and generate herself a bit of heat, I suppose).

‘Then my sister, Rhona, came up with the wonderfully innovative idea of attaching deflated, biodegradable plastic bags to each of the four paws, swimming to the middle of the lake and then inflating the bags and allowing the weight of the water itself to sink the animal.’

‘Deflated, biodegradable plastic bags?’ I echo, gaping at the notion.

‘It’s apparently the technique they use when sinking wind turbines in the ocean,’ she explains. ‘They pin them to the ocean bed by filling these huge, empty containers with the surrounding water — it’s actually extremely clever when you come to think about it.’ ‘Sweet Lord have mercy!’ says I.

‘I reasoned that the bags would soon biodegrade,’ she continues, ‘and that while this process was under way, the bigger fish in the lake might feed on the badger and thereby gradually dispose of it.’

‘Which is ideal for me, Miss Brooks,’ says I, smiling (almost beatific), ‘to have a large, potentially toxic, dead badger in the middle of my Private Fishing Lake for all the fish to gorge theyselves upon.’

‘Precisely!’

She beams.

‘I’M BEING SARCASTIC , MISS BROOKS!’ I bellows — at which point the duck commences its big old performance again (the hissing and the posturing and the wings all a-flap).