Scoop, p.26
Scoop!, page 26
Douglas Fleming was over the moon when Jimmy Kelland was not only accused of impersonating a municipal employee of Gipping-on-Plym Power Services, but also held responsible for all the power outages since January. I suggested my readers turn to page three for some safety guidelines taken from, “Ohms on the Farm! Hidden Hazards!”
Naturally, I gave credit to my mystery helper who refused to be named. This started a flurry of speculation, enough to prompt a guess-the-identity contest for next month’s competition. This was good timing, since Ronnie’s recycling extravaganza had to be postponed until he’d made a full recovery.
“It’s rather exciting having our own vigilante,” Topaz said, giving me a wink. “I wonder who it can be?”
“He won’t be from Gipping,” Barbara declared. “Our men folk don’t have the stamina for intrigue.”
“I heard it was a woman,” Topaz said.
Barbara’s eyes widened. “No! I don’t believe you.”
“Ms. Turberville-Spat told me herself,” Topaz was grinning from ear to ear, clearly enjoying her inside joke. “She was in the café only yesterday.”
“Oh, you don’t want to take any notice of the Spat woman, dear,” Barbara said dismissively. “She’s utterly gaga. Not a lot upstairs, if you know what I mean. There’s a lot of inbreeding in the upper classes.”
“Oh!” Topaz looked crushed.
“Obviously, I didn’t see the person’s face,” I said hastily. “But whoever it was showed real bravery and deserves a medal.”
Topaz shot me a grateful smile. “Thanks, Vicky.”
“I’ll tell you who deserves a medal!” Annabel strode into reception. “Me! That’s who.” She carried a rolled-up newspaper in one hand and a large bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken in the other. “Ronnie Binns should have been left to burn.”
Annabel threw a copy of the Plymouth Bugle onto the counter with disgust. “I am never working with that smelly little man again. Ever.”
Topaz eagerly snatched up the Bugle, ignoring Annabel’s scathing look that implied she had no right to be there.
Ronnie Binns was photographed on the front page leaning against his dustcart. He gazed off-camera, as if he’d survived some natural disaster and found the Lord—i saw ANGELS! SAYS DUSTMAN IN KIDNAP SHOCKER!
Ronnie certainly had a gift for high drama. In exaggerated detail, he outlined his own version of events. He’d gone to The Grange to “give them Northern folk an earful about their blatant flaunting of recycling rules.” Instead, he was “knocked to the ground with an iron bar”—unlikely—and “marched barefoot, shackled, and blindfolded over broken glass” to an “execution shed” in the forest. When questioned about the identity of his “female companion,” Ronnie declared that she was so “traumatized by the events” she’d asked for her name to be left out of the newspaper.
Apparently, Ronnie’s rescue by “a plucky young slip of a girl,” bore a startling resemblance to the climax in the latest Bruce Willis action movie, complete with several helicopters, a mortar rocket attack, and a rooftop chase.
“Why didn’t you tell them your side of the story, Annabel?” I said.
“Who cares about the Bugle?” She scowled. “Anyway, all I remember was getting out of the cab at The Grange and removing my surgical mask. One of those Kelland chaps must have crept up behind me and the next thing I know, everything went black.”
“Everything went black?” How clichéd!
“When I came round, there was this awful stench.” Annabel shuddered. “It was like being in a sewer and then—” she gagged “—I realized Ronnie was holding me in his arms and I couldn’t escape.”
“Some men can make a girl faint,” Barbara said. “Take Jimmy Kitchen—”
“Things only got better when there was this lovely smell and I felt as if I was floating on a cloud.”
“That was the cannabis,” Topaz chipped in. “It was drying in the barn and when it caught fire—”
I kicked her shin, hard. “Ouch.”
Fortunately, Annabel seemed too lost in her own self-pity to notice. “But, I do remember one thing …” She turned to me with a frown. “I kept hearing something about fog.”
I nearly fainted. “Fog? Oh, fog! That’s right. The Kellands were supposed to be shipping the stuff from Plymouth last night, but it got canceled because of fog.”
“No. That wasn’t it.” Annabel snapped her fingers. “Silence! Let me think a minute.” We all duly paused. My heart began to pound.
Finally, Annabel pointed to me. “I remember. It was something to do with you,” she said curiously. “Yes, that’s it. You and fog.”
“I think someone smoked too much pot,” I said. “Doesn’t it make you delusional, Barbara?”
“Sometimes,” Barbara said. “When I was a member of Gipping Nudist Colony, Jimmy and—”
“I’ll ask Ronnie. He’ll remember.” Annabel shuddered again. “Perhaps not. No, it’ll come back to me.” Annabel peered into the empty bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. “I’m still starving.”
“There’ll be refreshments at the farmer finals this afternoon,” Barbara said. “I thought we’d serve hot dogs. Am I coming with you? I can’t ride my bicycle in this skirt.”
“If you must,” Annabel said wearily. “Though why Vicky volunteered to look after reception is beyond me. Oh, wait.” She looked first at Topaz, and then, me.
A knowing smile spread across Annabel’s face. “Well, I won that,” she muttered to herself, “if nothing else.”
“I heard that and I know about your childish bet with the others,” I said. “Actually, Barbara has put a lot of work into this competition and I think it’s only fair that she should go.”
“That’s right,” Topaz declared. “And if it wasn’t for Vicky, there wouldn’t even be a prize.”
“Really?” Barbara looked surprised. “No one tells me anything.”
Fortunately, Mary Berry came to the rescue. I told her that if she donated Gordon’s Leviathan 400 to the Gazette competition, I might be able to secure a promise from Ethel Turberville-Spat that Dairy Cottage was hers for life.
Still high on her nighttime super-spy caper, Topaz agreed, probably because I sprinkled my request with warnings like “accepting dirty money” and “Inland Revenue.”
“I still don’t think it’s any business of yours, Topaz,” Annabel said. “Anyone would think you worked here.”
“But I—”
“She doesn’t,” I said quickly.
“Let’s get it over with.” Annabel picked up her Mulberry bag. I’d been tempted to tell her it was stolen property, but changed my mind. Why kick a dog when it’s down?
I wasn’t sorry to miss out on all those farmers, especially since an unexpected cold snap caused the contestants to insist they don Speedos. With Steve, Dave, Probes, and Robin all vying to take me to dinner, my social calendar was full.
It was strange that now I was no longer interested in my sailor, he was terribly interested in me. Robin must have phoned at least six times since my face appeared alongside my trademark byline, a VICKY HILL EXCLUSIVE!
With Annabel and Barbara gone, for an awful moment, I thought Topaz was going to wax lyrical about our nonexistent relationship.
“I’m off to have a nap now.” She yawned. “Doing a bit of UFO spotting tonight. Do you want to come?”
I told her I was tired.
“An investigative reporter never sleeps, Vicky,” Topaz said. “Surely you should know that by now.”
It was four o’clock when the Gazette phone rang in reception and a man’s voice asked for me.
The line crackled, the connection was bad, and the accent sounded West Indian, but my heart filled with joy.
It was my dad. “Good work, kiddo.”
Hannah Dennison, Scoop!
