Angel of Death

‘So I gather. I must say, I’m very relieved that Miranda will have you here to look after her.’

‘You can rely on me, don’t worry. I’ve spent years sitting around in patrol cars at night watching someone. I’ve got good ears and I can do without sleep, I nap during daylight hours. I’ve rigged up poacher traps at the back of the cottage – black wires tied between bushes that set off alarm bells. I was taught how to do it by a gamekeeper. Nobody can move about out there without tripping over one of my wires. And they’re quite invisible at night.’

‘Sounds perfect,’ Neil said, furtively studying Freddy’s ginger moustache.

Freddy let them into the cottage, switching off a burglar alarm before stepping over the threshold. Once they were all inside the hall he turned on the electric lights and Dorothy came out of her bedroom and stood at the top of the narrow stairs, peering down at them. She was in blue, brushed-cotton pyjamas over which she wore a shortie blue velvet robe and her bare feet were pushed into blue velvet slippers.

‘Everything all right?’

‘Yes, hello, Mum. You remember Neil, don’t you?’

‘Of course I do.’ Dorothy came downstairs, smiling at him, and he blinked at her with the same stunned expression men had always worn when they first met her mother. Even now Dorothy had . . . whatever it was . . . sex appeal, beauty, magnetism, a combination which turned men’s heads, in spite of her age.

Freddy was looking at her with the same entranced attention.

‘You’d better get back outside,’ she said to him softly, and he nodded obediently.

‘Yell if you need me!’

‘I will. Thank you, Freddy.’ She brushed a hand up his arm, smiling gratefully at him.

He blushed. ‘No problem.’

Dorothy had him wrapped around her little finger, thought Miranda, and then thought, was her mother going to marry Freddy? She wasn’t sure how she would feel about that.

She liked him, but her mother had always enjoyed her independence – how would she submit to being married, tied down again?

‘You must stay the night, Sergeant,’ Dorothy said to Neil. ‘I’m afraid the spare room is just a little box, but the bed is comfortable.’

‘That’s very kind of you.’

‘Now, about food – have you eaten? I can quickly whip up supper for you both – how about omelettes?’

‘That would be lovely,’ Miranda said. ‘Can I have a tomato omelette?’

‘Of course – and you, Sergeant?’

‘The same for me, thanks.’

‘Chips with them? Or would you rather have salad?’

‘Chips, please,’ Neil said.

‘Salad for me, Mum. Can I come and help you?’

‘I don’t need help to make a couple of omelettes! You go and lie on the sofa, you must be very tired, driving all this way. Put the electric fire on in the sitting room, and there are rugs in the cupboard by the window.’

Miranda knew that if she lay down with a rug draped over her, she was so tired she would fall asleep within minutes, so she sat upright, switched on the television and watched a documentary about African national parks to keep herself awake.

‘Aren’t big cats beautiful?’ she thought aloud, staring at the screen. ‘Look at the way that leopard is moving. Poetry in motion.’

‘Pity they eat people,’ Neil drily replied and she laughed.

‘Well, we eat cows and sheep – where’s the difference?’

‘You aren’t a vegetarian, are you?’

‘No, just a member of the Be Fair to Leopards Party. I do love them, don’t you? What strikes me about big cats is that household cats, ordinary tabbies, act in exactly the same way. Clean themselves, move, eat, just the way wild cats do. They’re just as beautiful and bloodthirsty. We had a cat once who used to kill mice, shrews, birds – bring them into the house and arrange them on the mat in front of my mother, like trophies. He used to eat their heads, poor little things, and leave the rest. Too lazy to pluck or skin them.’