‘Oswald Honey,’ said Mellissa. ‘Best honey there is.’

‘Hi, Mellissa,’ I said using my non-policing voice. ‘I wonder if I could come up and use your library.’

‘Granddad’s asleep,’ she said.

‘I’ll be quiet,’ I said. ‘You won’t even know I’m there.’

‘Are you going to bring your friend?’

‘Who, Beverley?’

‘Of course Bev.’

‘If you want,’ I said.

‘Okay,’ said Mellissa. ‘Come over whenever you like.’

Service Delivery Option

11

Service Delivery Option

In some households you only have to turn up three times before you’re expected to make your own tea, draw up a chair in front of the telly and call the cat a bastard. The Oswalds’ wasn’t that kind of household, not least because they don’t have a telly, but at least Mellissa seemed almost pleased to see me – or more likely Beverley.

‘She’s a bit short of female company round here,’ Beverley had said as we drove up the steep lane to the Bee House. ‘There are certain topics she can’t discuss with her granddad.’

I’d asked her to see if she could find out who Mellissa’s parents were, but she made no promises – not even to tell me if she did find out. ‘Some things are private,’ she’d said. ‘Even from the police.’

Which explained why, when we arrived, I was peremptorily waved up the stairs to the study while Beverley and Mellissa hustled into the kitchen with cries of glee and a vague promise that refreshments might arrive at some point in the future. Up in the study, I carefully cleared space on the gateleg table and removed a stack of old Bee Craft magazines from the wood and leather desk chair. The cover of the topmost magazine was dark pink and showed a line drawing of a hive and almost abstract pictures of flowers in the bulbous ink style that I associate with Gerry Mulligan covers of the mid-sixties. I remember staring at the cover of Feelin’ Good for hours when I was twelve but that was not necessarily down to the Art Nouveau stylings of the design.