Flappy Investigates

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  Dedicated to my dear friend Nicole Majdalany with love and gratitude for the countless times she has made me laugh.

  Chapter 1

  Badley Compton, Devon, 2010

  If there was one thing Flappy abhorred, it was people poking their noses into other people’s business. It was beneath one’s dignity to invade someone’s privacy and something Flappy would never ever do – unless it was absolutely necessary and, by all accounts, unavoidable. Now was one of those moments.

  Careful not to catch her pale cashmere sweater on the brambles, Flappy crouched in the bushes, binoculars in hand, and focused her attention on the young couple standing in the garden of Hollyberry House, in front of a dead apple tree. The woman was pretty with shiny brown hair and a slim, willowy figure, dressed in clothes that Flappy would describe, with a slight curl of her upper lip, as ‘bohemian’. The husband was of average height, bald with glasses, wearing a suede jacket and jeans. These people had clearly moved down from London hoping to find a bucolic paradise here in Badley Compton. Well, Flappy didn’t blame them. Badley Compton was undeniably very charming. With its quaint little harbour full of blue-bottomed fishing boats, Georgian townhouses, old-fashioned cafés and bookshop, and the close-knit community one didn’t often find in this modern world of constant coming and going, it was a townie’s idea of rural bliss. And Flappy was the unrivalled queen of it. If it weren’t for her there would be no summer fêtes, jumble sales, Harvest Festival teas, Halloween parties, book clubs and May Day dances to bring the community together. It was all the doing of the redoubtable Flappy Scott-Booth, not that she would ever take the credit. Flappy was, to her core, both gracious and charitable. However, when these two upstarts from London had had the audacity, the sheer nerve, to occupy Flappy and Kenneth Scott-Booth’s front pew at church on Sunday, the very seats they had sat in for almost thirty years, Flappy’s graciousness and charity had been stretched to their limit. Something had to be done.

  Flappy watched the couple closely. She couldn’t hear what they were saying. In spite of being good at practically everything, she was not good at lip reading. She focused the binoculars on the tree and imagined they were wondering whether or not to cut it down. Flappy, were they to seek expert advice, would suggest they train a climbing Himalayan rose up it. She had one at Darnley and it was quite spectacular. In fact, when she and Kenneth opened the gardens, the many beautiful gardens, of Darnley Manor to the public for three weeks in June, the rose inspired both admiration and awe from visitors who came from far and wide to view it. The Himalayan rose at Darnley was, to be sure, one of the wonders of Badley Compton.

  Flappy shifted the binoculars further and ran her critical gaze over the borders. Poor poor things, she thought with a swell of Schadenfreude, which, had she been aware of it, would have made her feel quite ashamed. However, Flappy was conveniently unaware of the less gracious and charitable side of her nature. The gardens of Hollyberry House were truly an overgrown mess and needed a great deal of work to put right. She sighed at the couple’s misfortune and considered how incredibly lucky she was to have a small army of gardeners at Darnley who kept the borders, lawns, arboretum and orchards at their luscious best. She wondered who this unfortunate pair were going to employ to untangle the terrible jumble of bindweed and elder that plagued their new home. She sniffed and lowered her binoculars. One thing was clear. This young couple were here and they were here to stay.

  Flappy staggered out of the bushes onto the lane and smoothed down her trousers. Just as she did so, a familiar yellow Volkswagen came into view. Mabel, Flappy’s best friend and unofficial lady-in-waiting, was stooping over the steering wheel concentrating very hard on the road. When she saw Flappy, she checked her rear-view mirror and, seeing no one on her tail, pulled up. She rolled down the window. ‘Flappy!’ she exclaimed, noticing the binoculars at once. ‘What are you doing?’

  Flappy lifted her chin and gave Mabel a superior smile, as if surprised that Mabel couldn’t tell because, really, it was very obvious. ‘Birdwatching, Mabel,’ she replied. ‘I’ve just spotted an extremely rare long-tailed skua, not to be mistaken for the pomarine skua. It’s easy to muddle them up.’ Flappy, in truth, had no idea what either looked like but had heard two twitchers from Norway discussing them on the local news a few days before. If there was one thing Flappy was good at, it was fishing information out of her memory when information was required. Indeed, she had an exceedingly good memory and this was a prime example of how very good it was.

  Mabel was duly impressed, albeit a little confused, as to why Flappy would be birdwatching in town. Didn’t bird watchers, on the whole, head out to the beach or countryside? Nevertheless, she certainly wasn’t going to question her friend, who always knew best. ‘Do you want a lift?’ she asked.

  Flappy climbed into the passenger seat. ‘I left the Range Rover at the pub,’ she explained.

  Mabel giggled. ‘If anyone sees it, they’ll think you’re having a mid-morning beer.’

  Flappy frowned. ‘I don’t think so, Mabel.’

  ‘No, of course not. You’re absolutely right. If there’s one person in Badley Compton who won’t be having a beer in the pub, it’s you, Flappy.’ Mabel was keen to please her friend and, as Hollyberry House was just behind the hedge, her memory was triggered. ‘You remember that couple who sat in your seats at church on Sunday?’

  ‘They’re not our seats, Mabel,’ said Flappy, pretending that she hadn’t minded.

  ‘Well, not officially, but everyone knows that’s where you and Kenneth always sit.’

  ‘What about them, this couple?’ Flappy’s gaze drifted out of the window in search of the long-tailed skua to demonstrate her uninterest.

  ‘They’ve just moved down from London. They lived in Bloomsbury. He’s some sort of computer expert and she’s a journalist. They’ve got two young children called Martha and Rafe.’

  Flappy did not trust computer experts or journalists and gave a sniff, which signalled her disapproval. ‘I gather they’ve moved into Hollyberry House,’ she said breezily. ‘Apparently the garden’s a jungle. Perhaps I should send one of my gardeners round to give them some advice. That would be nice, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, it would,’ Mabel agreed.

  ‘It would be nothing for me but mean so much to them.’

  ‘You’re very generous, Flappy. I’m sure they’d really appreciate the gesture.’

  ‘I’ll get onto it right away.’ Flappy squeezed her eyes shut. ‘Their name has just escaped me,’ she added, which wasn’t true because Flappy never forgot anything.

  ‘They’re called Price. Jim and Molly Price,’ Mabel replied. ‘She was in Big Mary’s this morning having coffee on her own. I noticed she only had coffee. I suppose one doesn’t get a figure like that without abstaining from croissants and cake.’

  ‘Young people,’ said Flappy with a sigh. ‘The lovely thing about getting older is that one doesn’t have to worry about one’s weight anymore. I eat like a horse, as you know, Mabel. There are more important things in the world to worry about than one’s figure.’

  Mabel drew up outside The Bell and Dragon. ‘Shall I pop round later?’ she asked eagerly, for Mabel enjoyed the status of Flappy’s Number One Friend, with the special privilege of being permitted to turn up at Darnley uninvited.

  ‘Actually, today I’m having tea with Hedda. Why don’t you come for mid-morning coffee tomorrow and bring the ladies? We need to plan the New Year’s Eve ball.’

  ‘Ball? I thought it was a party,’ said Mabel. The New Year’s Eve party had been an annual event in the town hall for years.

  ‘It’s going to be a ball and I’m going to host it,’ said Flappy, who had only just this moment thought of it.

  Mabel’s eyes lit up. ‘Oh, Flappy! What a marvellous idea.’

  ‘I know,’ said Flappy with a self-satisfied sniff. If Hedda Harvey-Smith could give an end of summer party that dazzled the local community then she, Flappy Scott-Booth, could do even better. ‘A grand ball such as Badley Compton has never seen.’

  ‘Well, Hedda and Charles’s party was pretty spectacular,’ Mabel reminded her. They had, after all, invited Monty Don and hired Jason Donovan to perform.

  ‘Mine will be even more so,’ said Flappy determinedly, and Mabel was in no doubt that it would be.

  Flappy stepped out of the car. As she walked away, Mabel gazed at her with envy and admiration. There she was, in her sixties, with the slim figure of a much younger woman. Mabel took in the beautifully cut trousers, the cashmere sweater that matched her aquamarine eyes, her perfectly coiffed blonde bob and the angular line of her jaw and cheekbones, which rendered Flappy’s face so striking, and sighed at the miracle of such effortless beauty. Mabel was a poor imitation, but still she tried so very hard to copy her friend. Flappy was unaware, because Mabel fell short in every area of her endeavours, but had she noticed she would have been pleased. After all, is it not true that imitation is the highest form of flattery?

  Flappy drove home listening to Dolly Parton. Had she had company in the car she would have played something classical like Andrea Bocell
i, but as she was alone she sang along contentedly to ‘Jolene’, liking the sound of her own voice very much. In fact, had she lived a different life, a life with less responsibility and less Kenneth, she might have been a singer.

  At last she turned into the stately gates of Darnley Manor and drove up the tree-lined avenue towards the house. Through the trees Flappy could glimpse the garden where gardeners in green T-shirts and khaki trousers could be seen trimming the yew hedges and cutting back the shrubs, for now autumn was beginning to settle onto the leaves in soft yellows and browns and the odd flash of red. Every time Flappy saw the house she felt a deep sense of satisfaction and gratitude, yes gratitude, because she considered herself so so lucky to have such a superior-looking home.

  Darnley Manor was indeed what one would describe as an ‘important’ house. Not quite stately, but jolly close. It was built in the eighteenth century, which was incredibly chic, and remodelled a hundred years later, adding large, airy rooms to the back with big latticed windows that looked out onto the croquet lawn where Flappy held her parties. The house had charm due to the harmony of its proportions and the great age of the stone, the colour of wet sand and clothed in wisteria, which flowered an exquisite purple in the spring.

  She pulled up on the gravel, beside her husband Kenneth’s caramel-coloured Jaguar, and climbed out. With a light gait, because Flappy was in a very good mood, she skipped up the steps to the front door and flounced into the hall. No sooner had she entered than Kenneth, short and stout, appeared at the top of the stairs in a pair of red trousers and a blue shirt, straining slightly over his belly, having changed out of his golfing clothes. ‘Ah, just the person I want to see,’ he said.

  ‘Hello, darling. How was golf?’

  ‘Bloody dog ran off with my ball!’

  ‘I thought dogs weren’t allowed on the course.’ The course to which Flappy referred was, of course, the Scott-Booth Golf Course, which Kenneth built when the couple had first settled in Badley Compton some thirty years before. Immaculate, manicured and expensive, it was Kenneth’s pride and joy and Flappy’s saviour, for what wife wants a husband at home all the time?

  ‘Damn thing escaped from someone’s car.’

  ‘How very careless of the owner. I hope you complained. People shouldn’t be allowed to behave like that.’

  ‘I was going to complain until I discovered who the dog belonged to.’

  ‘Who?’ Flappy’s attention was now piqued, because Kenneth was the sort of man who made no distinction between a duke and a dustman. After all, he had come from nothing and made his fortune with a fast-food chain that he had subsequently sold for a great deal of money. Flappy, on the other hand, noticed every subtle nuance in class and status. She wondered who Kenneth considered important enough to warrant their dog having permission to tear about the course.

  ‘Colin Montgomerie,’ Kenneth declared.

  Flappy rolled her eyes. ‘The golfer?’ Good Lord, she thought with disappointment, I was expecting a royal at the very least!

  ‘The big man himself. I couldn’t tell him to take his dog off the course, could I? Even though the damn thing was charging about the green with my golf ball in his mouth! Now if he’d dropped it into the hole that would have been another matter.’ He chortled as he came down the stairs. ‘Now, I’ve just been speaking to Jasper and guess what?’ He raised his eyebrows and grinned.

  ‘What, our son’s finally earning enough money not to have to ask us to top up his bank account?’

  ‘Not this time. He and Briony are moving to …’ Kenneth hesitated, hoping to create a sense of drama, but he only succeeded in irritating Flappy, who did not like her daughter-in-law, who she considered upwardly mobile and pretentious. ‘Badley Compton,’ he announced in triumph.

  Flappy looked appalled. ‘What? Coming here? To live?’

  ‘Well, not right here, not to Darnley, but they’re going to rent a house in town. Isn’t that good news? They’re arriving next week, which means they’ll be here for Christmas!’

  ‘That’s a bit sudden.’

  ‘They’ve been planning it for some time, apparently.’

  ‘Then why didn’t they give us notice?’

  ‘They’re spontaneous, Flappy. That’s what Antipodeans are, you know. Spontaneous.’

  ‘Queering my pitch, that’s what I call it.’

  ‘It’ll be nice to have one of our children living in the same country as us for a change.’

  Shame he can’t leave his wife in Australia, Flappy thought. But she was careful not to say that out loud. Flappy was, above all else, a woman with exceedingly good manners. ‘It’s wonderful news,’ she exclaimed brightly, because if there was one thing Flappy was good at, it was playing the Glad Game when the Glad Game needed to be played. ‘Let’s go and have lunch,’ she suggested. ‘I’ve just discovered who has moved into Hollyberry House. Come and I’ll tell you all about them.’

  ‘Does the husband play golf?’ Kenneth asked hopefully, following her into the kitchen.

  ‘I would say not, darling. He looks like the sort of man who would be more at home in a fashionable bar in Soho with a dry Martini than on the third hole with a golf club. He’s going to be frightfully disappointed with Badley Compton. We’re not fashionable down here. Jim and Molly Price are.’ And Kenneth knew very well that fashionable was, according to his wife, ‘very common’.

  After lunch Persephone, Flappy’s twenty-eight-year-old personal assistant, returned from her lunch break, which she had taken on one of the garden benches, enjoying the early autumn sunshine and the sound of birds. Flappy had employed her at the end of August to lessen her load, because being all things to all people was hard for one woman to accomplish, even a woman like Flappy, who was a master at multitasking. Persephone was sweet-looking, with brown hair and brown eyes and a sprinkle of freckles over her nose. She was gentle and kind, efficient and honest, but most importantly she was discreet. Flappy abhorred gossip almost more than she abhorred anything, at least when it was about her – a teeny bit of gossip about other people was permitted when it was absolutely necessary. Persephone was not a gossip and that was one of the reasons Flappy warmed to her. She knew that whatever the girl heard or saw at Darnley would not be passed around the community. With Persephone she was safe. Hadn’t Persephone proved herself recently, after discovering Flappy in a romantic clinch with Charles Harvey-Smith at the Harvey-Smiths’ end of summer party? Indeed, Flappy knew she could count on Persephone to keep her mouth shut, when a shut mouth was required.

  ‘Right, Persephone, we have work to do,’ said Flappy, striding into the library where Persephone’s desk had been set up in front of the window.

  Persephone smiled. ‘You haven’t taken on anything else, have you, Flappy?’ she said, calling her boss by her first name. After said romantic clinch, Flappy had insisted they do away with all formality. She had confessed her affair to Persephone on the drive home from the party and in so doing had raised her status from PA to confidante. With her daughters in Canada and Australia and therefore unavailable to share her trials, Flappy was very happy to share them with Persephone.

  ‘I have. A teeny little something, but nothing you and I can’t handle. After all, we’re an unbeatable team, aren’t we? I’m going to throw a New Year ball.’

  ‘Goodness, what a wonderful idea!’

  Flappy was pleased that Persephone shared her enthusiasm, but not surprised. That was another reason she had taken her on. Persephone had a refreshing ‘can do’ attitude, just like Flappy herself. An admirable quality. One of Flappy’s finest. ‘It must be spectacular. Magical. The kind of ball that people talk about for years. The sort of event they tell their grandchildren about when they pick out the best moments of their lives.’

  ‘How exciting!’ Persephone gushed.

  Flappy narrowed her eyes. ‘We need a theme.’

  ‘Isn’t New Year itself a theme?’

  ‘We need something more original. Something beyond. It can’t just be New Year like everyone else’s New Year. We must add something unique.’ Flappy stilled her busy mind, as she always did when she needed to concentrate, and, lo, in popped a brilliant idea. ‘A masked ball,’ she exclaimed. ‘A Venetian fancy dress ball.’ She envisioned herself in a magnificent dress, inspired by the great Venetian painters of the Renaissance, and smiled with satisfaction. ‘Yes, un ballo in maschera,’ she said, because, among Flappy’s many other talents, was, of course, a gift for language. ‘Che meraviglia!’