NeighbourhooNeighbourhood Watch

receiver and looking at her companion.

‘I need to take this call, it sounds serious.’ She waved Ann towards the front door. ‘Meantime, why don’t you have a break and go and put the kettle on.’

With that, they both hurried inside and the front door closed. There sat the rug, all alone.

Icrept into the light, almost counting my steps. Heart hammering, I peered down one end of the rug. Seeing nothing, I pulled out my phone, got the light working and took another gander. Then I gave a strangled squeak as a voice boomed out. ‘What on earth are you doing?’

I snapped upright. ‘I… I know what you’re doing.’ Actually, I hadn’t got a clue. ‘You’re er…’

‘Did Robert hire you?’ cried Bea as she rushed from the porch. Reaching me, she loomed as I cowered. ‘Did you follow us? Are you some kind of private detective?’

Robert was not in the rug. Nothing lay inside except perhaps another heavy rug. Both appeared tightly woven, exotic and very expensive.

As I stood quivering with fright, I noticed something I’d missed. Two suitcases stood in the rear of the Land Rover, along with an oil painting and a set of silver candlesticks.

‘No, I’m not a detective,’ I muttered. Even so, I needed to add up the clues. A woman had fled in the dead of night, taking some clothes and family heirlooms. Her friends hadn’t said a word about her plans. That way, no rumours could circulate and get back to her husband. A husband who must be doing far worse than complaining to the council about potholes… ‘Ann’s left home,’ I concluded.

‘She’s done a moonlight flit.’

‘And who are you?’ Bea demanded for the second time. ‘Are you a friend of that nosy-parker friend of Robert’s at number 15?’

‘No, I’ve no idea who that is. It’s a long story, and it might sound a bit peculiar.’

‘I think you’d better come inside,’ replied Bea.

Turned out Ann wasn’t the only woman who’d fled to Bea’s sprawling house.

Upstairs slept a young woman with a baby and toddler in tow. In another room lodged a girl who’d escaped after telling her controlling other half she’d only be half an hour at the shops. Bea had turned her new abode into a refuge.

She and Ann had a right laugh when I explained my mother’s suspicions. ‘I feel so stupid,’ I said later, as I sat nursing a

mug of cocoa in Bea’s huge kitchen.

‘Murder is never the answer,’ she replied as we sat at the table. After her exhausting evening, Ann had already gone up to bed.

‘But something was buried tonight,’ Bea went on. ‘Ann’s deplorable marriage. May it rest in peace. She said

Robert would never let her go — that’s why we had to do it all in secret while he was off night-fishing at the lake. We did hope no one would see a thing.’

‘Mum won’t say anything, will you, Mum?’ I had her on speakerphone by this time.

‘No, of course not,’ she sniffled down my mobile, quite undone by it all. ‘I had no idea Robert was that bad. I hope I can visit poor Ann.’

‘Oh, all the girls from the close will be round,’ Bea replied. ‘I’ll ferry them all in once things settle down.’

‘Who hasn’t said they want to bump somebody o ? We all talk a good murder’

Something else certainly took its last breath that day, the ladies’ caution. They’d no longer keep Mum on the outside. I knew she’d get involved. Mum is the kind who likes to know where all the bodies are buried — figuratively, at least.

No, the solution to a bad marriage is never murder.

Well, not unless you know different?