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M.C. Beaton: Death of a Prankster

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M.C. Beaton Death of a Prankster

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When Constable Hamish Macbeth receives news that there has been a murder at the home of the practical joker Arthur Trent, he prepares himself for another prank. But on arrival Macbeth finds Trent most decidedly dead, and a houseful of greedy relations all interested in the contents of the will.

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The snow had stopped, but Enrico remarked that all surrounding roads were blocked. “You will soon run out of food,” said Melissa, but Enrico shrugged and said he was always prepared for weather such as this and had plenty of stocks.

Melissa tried to sympathize with the servant, saying it must be a difficult job. Enrico merely froze her with a look and said he considered himself fortunate. He had a slight air of hauteur and carefully accented English. Melissa suspected that, like quite a number of Spaniards, Enrico considered himself a cut above the British and therefore tolerated the foibles of his employer as evidence of a more barbarous race. His small dark wife was even haughtier and more uncommunicative.

As far as Paul was concerned, Melissa wondered why he had invited her. He had not made a pass at her. He seemed to spend an awful lot of time in the library reading. Melissa put on her leather jacket and a pair of combat boots and ventured outside. Enrico had managed to clear some of the snow from the courtyard. The sky above was a bleak grey. The house, seen clearly from the outside, was a large square grey building with turrets on each corner in the French manner, rather like a miniature château. Arrat House lay at the foot of a mountain that reared its menacing bulk up to the sky. The house itself was on a rise, and below, on the right, she could make out the huddled houses of a village.

She peered up at the top of the house. There was no television aerial. Television would have whiled away some of the time, she thought dismally.

She shivered with cold and went back into the house, kicking the door open first with her boot and jumping back in case anything fell from the top of it.

Paul was in the library. She sat down on a chair opposite him and said, “Is there no way we can get out of here?”

He sighed impatiently and marked his place in the book with his finger. “I’m just settling down,” said Paul. “We can’t do anything else at the moment. Look, do you mind? This book’s very interesting.”

“Having brought me to this insane asylum, I think you might at least have some concern for my well-being,” said Melissa stiffly.

“What else can I do?” he asked edgily. “I mean, it’s hardly prison. The food’s good. As Mother said – ”

“I am not interested in anything your mother says,” snapped Melissa, suddenly furious. “I mean, you’re all poncing around as if you’re lords of the manor, and just look at this dump. It’s in the worst of taste. Ghastly tartan carpets and pink lamps. Yuk!”

“I would have thought,” said Paul in a thin voice, “that any female sporting pink hair and combat boots did not know the meaning of taste. Mother said…”

Melissa stood up. She told Paul and his mother to go and perform impossible anatomical acts on themselves and stormed out.

She went up to her room and sat on the end of the bed and stared bleakly about her. She had a longing for her mother, to put her head down on that aproned bosom which always seemed to smell of onions and cry her eyes out.

The door opened and Paul walked in. “What do you want?” demanded Melissa.

He sat down on the end of the bed next to her and blinked at her owlishly. “I just wanted to say I liked your hair,” he said, taking her hand. “You’ve washed all that gel out of it and now it looks like pink feathers.”

“Did your mother give you permission to say that?”

“Come off it, Melissa. I’m a bit on edge. This is all wrong, you know. I’d been working up courage to ask you out since I first saw you. It was your eyes, I think, so large and grey. We should have gone out for dinner and…and talked, but here we are. I don’t really want to talk about Mother. Except to point out that it’s easier to love than to be loved. She is very possessive. My father was a quiet, unambitious man. I think she divorced him to marry Jeffrey because she wanted nothing but the best for me – best school, best university. I…I’m glad I’m free in a way now and that I’ve got my own place and work I like. You wouldn’t know anything about that. I mean, about being shy and burying yourself in your work. You’ve probably got lots of friends.”

“Not really,” said Melissa. With a burst of rare candour, she added, “I’m a terrible snob, really. I’m so ashamed of my working-class background that I adopt poses. I’m shy, too. I wasn’t even a good left-winger. I’m not really interested in any politics. I just went along with it at university because it gave me a role to play. So when I joined the atomic research centre, I dropped all my old acquaintances. They were very excited at first about me having the job and saying I could give them inside information and I got frightened and didn’t see them again. So we’re very alike in a way.”

He carefully removed his glasses and put them in his pocket. He took her by the shoulders and deposited a clumsy kiss on her lips. Melissa wrapped her arms around him and kissed him back.

“Wow,” he said shakily. He turned brick-red and fumbled in his pocket for his glasses and put them on. He walked to the window and looked out, and then he gave an exclamation. “Come here! Look at this!”

Melissa joined him. Down below, Enrico was making his way out of the courtyard on skis.

“Can you ski?” asked Paul. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I can.”

“Ever done any cross-country skiing?”

“Yes, I went on holiday once to a ski resort in the French Alps, one of these cheap student trips.”

Paul’s eyes blazed with excitement. “We could ask Enrico if he’s got another pair and if we can borrow them. Then we’ll pack up what we need. There’s a couple of old rucksacks in a cupboard in the games room. We’ll just take off. I’ll get a map. We could even go across country to Inverness if we start very early in the morning and the weather stays clear. What do you say?”

“You mean, get out of here? I’d love it.”

“We won’t tell anyone. We’ll just send the skis back when we get to Inverness with the British Rail door-to-door delivery service. Everyone will think we’re going off for a day’s skiing. Let them all stay here and suck up to the old man if they want!”

“As soon as the roads clear, we must get out of here,” said Angela Trent to her sister.

“Is that wise?” asked Betty. “I mean, Dad can be very quirky. He pays us an annual allowance, but he could stop that any time he felt like it – and worse. He could leave us nothing in his will. We’ve never worked at anything. We’re too old to start now.”

There was a light ping from the phone extension. Angela picked it up. “It’s working again,” she said. “That’s something anyway. I don’t think I can stand much more of this, Betty.”

“Well, I don’t like it,” snapped Betty, “but there is no way I am leaving the field clear for the others. Have you noticed how Charles and that Titchy girl are playing up to Dad?”

“Yes,” said Angela with a frown. “Something’s got to be done about that pair. Dad’s stopped playing tricks on Titchy and she’s making goo-goo eyes at him and he’s loving it.”

“I’ll think of something,” said Betty. “You’re all talk and no do, Angela.”

“And you’re all bitch, bitch, bitch.”

The sisters fell to squabbling, although Angela was half-hearted about it. She was thinking about Titchy.

When Betty pointed out that Angela was badly in need of a shave, Angela used that as an excuse to storm out. She went quietly along the corridor and opened the door to Titchy’s room, in the same way as everyone else at Arrat House had quickly learned to open doors – standing well back for a few moments after she did so. The room was empty.

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