At the end of the alley I was forced to halt abruptly, teetering, as a mother pushing a baby in a buggy along the pavement, almost wheeled over my toes. This gave Verbena the time she needed to yank open the door of her parked Porsche and slide into the front seat, muttering as she slammed the door after her. By the time I had crossed the street and reached the car she had already locked herself safely inside. I knocked on the side window, but she ignored me, revving in a way that warned me to keep my distance, and pulled away. Thwarted, I fumed at the pavement’s edge. I watched her drive off down the street, far too fast. As the car disappeared round the corner, I heard a sudden screech of brakes. No satisfying crump of metal on metal, though, just a near miss.

It was just as well she’d evaded me. A kerbside brawl was probably not wise. But she needn’t think she’d escaped me completely. One day, when I could no longer think of the incident without smouldering, I would pay Mrs Clarke a visit. Revenge, they say, is a dish best eaten cold. And I intended to enjoy every mouthful of mine.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Pat was not impressed with my attempt to make a Victorian panorama from two wooden clothes pegs and the case of the stuffed weasel, although I dressed the peg dolls carefully and painted little faces on them.

‘That one’s cross-eyed,’ she told me, peering at it through the glass, ‘and the other one looks simple.’

I accepted this withering criticism of my creative efforts without affront. ‘I’m sure you could do a better job.’

‘This case is a bit tatty.’

‘It was all I had. Look, it’s just the idea I’m showing you, Pat,’ I explained. ‘I thought you might be able to do something with it.’

‘Our Ken could make a better case than that.’

‘Great!’ I was beginning to feel impatient with Pat’s lack of enthusiasm. I’d started off the day feeling reasonably mellow, but my mood had been soured by a driver in a flashy car who’d nearly wiped me out, and the van full of dogs, by careering around a sharp bend on the back road into town. Technically, he might have been below the national limit but he was still driving at a speed only a reckless fool would attempt on such a blind corner. We missed crashing head-on because I swerved the van into the hedgerow, my halt accompanied by a lot of yelping from the back and the sound of dogs being flung about.