7 Sorrow on Sunday by Ann Purser

Battersbys’ garden lad. He’s a bit slow on the uptake, and his mum is frantic. Apparently the Battersbys were taking him to a point-to-point yesterday to watch the races. He was going to stay with them for the night, to give his mum time off to visit a friend. He’s fond of Blanche, and she’s very kind to him. But he slipped away from them at the races, and they thought he’d gone home with somebody from the family after all. Didn’t do nothing about it, which was pretty stupid, I reckon. Anyway, Blanche rang his mum when he didn’t turn up to garden this morning, and the poor woman is hysterical. She thought he was safe with the Battersbys. She called the police straightaway, and they’ve searched the village, but no trace. Called me, in case I’d seen him on my rounds. Poor lad, I hope he’s OK. He’s frightened of everything.”
    “Anyway,” she continued, “I just came in to tell you we’ve got a new recruit. She’ll be coming in for a talk.”
    “Who is it?” Hazel said curiously. She didn’t know Mrs. M was looking for another cleaner.
    “Dot Nimmo,” said Lois, and waited for the earth to quake. It did.

F IFTEEN

    “Y OU’VE DONE
WHAT
?” N EXT MORNING G RAN STOOD, duster in hand, by the piano in the sitting room. It was scarcely ever played, now that Jamie had gone off to study music. Lois remembered the night when Derek and his mates had smuggled it into the house after Jamie had gone to bed, ready for Christmas morning.
    “I felt sorry for her,” Lois lied.
    “Yes, yes, and now tell me the truth,” Gran said.
    She speaks to me as if I’d just bunked off school and was covering up, Lois thought. “It’s really my business, Mum,” she said. “But I’ll remember what you said about the Nimmos.”
    “It’ll be too late then,” Gran said darkly. “You must be out of your mind. Well, don’t come complaining to me when things go wrong.”
    “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Lois said. “Now let’s change the subject. I need to go over to Waltonby to see the Battersbys this morning. Their garden boy, young Darren, has gone missing, so they say.”
    Gran nodded. “It’s all round the village this morning,” she said. “People are being asked to look out for him. Goodness knows what’s happened to him. He’ll never cope on his own, poor lad. His mum’s frantic, they say. Josie had the police in the shop this morning, asking her to put up a notice.”
    “Mum,” said Lois, looking at her watch, “how do you know all this by ten o’clock in the morning when, as far as I know, you haven’t been out of the house?”
    “It don’t take long for that kind of thing to get round. And before you get all high and mighty, it’s just as well.People in villages know everything about everybody, and sometimes it comes in useful.” Gran sniffed, and turned to get on with her dusting.
    Lois collected her jacket from the hall, and went out. She was not at all sure she’d done the right thing with Dot Nimmo. Gran could well be right. But Lois justified her decision to herself by saying she’d rather have Dot under supervision than getting up to God knows what on her own. She’d obviously made a start with the nice woman in Tresham. And one thing was sure: the Nimmos would not need to go out scrubbing. Money was their business, and they were certain to have plenty of it. No, Dot was driven by revenge, and if, as Lois increasingly suspected, the Nimmo deaths had something to do with the stable thefts—which in themselves could be the tip of a much worse iceberg—Dot’s connections could be very useful.
    She drove through the twisting, narrow lanes towards Waltonby, and had to slow down dramatically when a couple of large horses with beefy women aboard came trotting along. They arranged themselves into single file, and raised hands in thanks as they passed. What enormous creatures they were! All those rippling muscles and powerful legs. Lois chuckled to herself. “And the horses too,”