1 Edwina's Biscuits The doorbell rang, and Agnes Sharp abandoned the search for her false teeth, simultaneously pleased and annoyed. Pleased that she had even heard the doorbell--her ears hadn't really been playing along recently, and sometimes all she could hear was a high-pitched, nerve-jangling ringing, accompanied by a rushing sound. So, the doorbell was a welcome change. On the other hand, it would be quite embarrassing to open the door without the aforementioned false teeth, unclear and toothless. But the caller had to be gotten rid of before he had the idea of going snooping around in the garden--teeth or no teeth. "I'm coming! Juft a minute!" Agnes bellowed into the hall, then she sallied forth. Out of the room. Mind the threshold! And then the stairs. A step forward, a step down, then bring down the other foot. A vertigo-inducing moment without any sense of balance, a deep breath, then gather courage for the next step down. And so on. Twenty-six times. A minute, my foot! The doorbell rang again. Her hip grumbled. The doorbell rang once more. "Juft one moment, for God fake!" When she reached the first landing, a real rage had built up in her, towards the stairs, the caller, the renegade false teeth, but also her housemates. Why did she always get the difficult jobs? Like scaling the stairs. Or taking out the bins. Or . . . absolutely everything! Edwina would have made it down the stairs somewhat quicker, but she would of course have been useless at the door. Bernadette was sitting in her room crying her blind eyes out. At this time Marshall was mostly somewhere on the Internet, unreachable, connected to the computer as if by the umbilical cord. And you obviously couldn't expect Winston to attempt the descent without the stairlift. Why had nobody repaired the stupid stairlift? Then Agnes remembered that it had been her job to call for it to be repaired, but with her unreliable hearing and her aversion to the telephone she had kept putting it off. It was her own fault then, as so often seemed to be the case these days. The only scapegoat left was the caller, and her rage towards him was mounting. She had mastered the last step and was dragging herself to the front door with a calculated slowness accompanied by the doorbell's staccato chimes. Did they think she was deaf? What was the buffoon playing at? What did they even want at this time? And what time was it anyway? Agnes fumbled briefly with the latch, then threw the door open. She would have liked to give the caller a piece of her mind, but nothing came to her. "Yef?" she snapped. She didn't quite carry it off and got even more annoyed. "Err . . . Miss Sharp?" The caller peered rudely past her into the house. A bloody whippersnapper with officious glasses and a briefcase under his arm. This couldn't be a good sign. Agnes crossed her thin arms, while the whippersnapper switched on a winning smile, rather too late. "Miss Sharp, I have wonderful news for you!" He really shouldn't have said that. Up to now Agnes had simply planned to get rid of the troublemaker, but now she lost it. Wonderful news? Today of all days? It was too much! Despite her missing teeth she tried a friendly old-lady smile--with moderate success, as she gathered from the puzzled look on the sales rep's face. "Oh, for me? How lofely! Come frough to the lounge." He only had himself to blame! "Anofer Bifcuit?" Where on earth were her teeth? The whippersnapper silently shook his head. He had taken a single bite of his biscuit and since then had been sitting strangely tensely in the battered wingback chair, chewing. Agnes poured piss-yellow herbal tea into his cup and studied the brochure the intruder had pushed into her hand with feigned interest. The visitor put the half-eaten biscuit back on the plate--a cold clatter like stone on stone. Edwina's biscuits were generally even spurned by the mice, but for occasions like this they were priceless. "Do you liff on your own?" the whippersnapper asked with a mouth full. He didn't want to swallow or spit, so he was stuck. Agnes thought about Winston and sobbing Bernadette, about Edwina, who was probably trying to find her inner balance through yoga, about Marshall, and finally, about Lillith, and sighed deeply. The visitor nodded sympathetically. "What we offer if perfect for people like you. We manage your houfe, take care of renting it out. We take care of everyfing, whilft you fpend your golden funfet years at Lime Tree Court . . . He went quiet and fixed his gaze strangely past Agnes on the floor, where Hettie the tortoise was passing by with her usual elegance. And on her shell--the false teeth! Presumably they'd been travelling around the house by tortoise for quite a while, a disembodied, mobile grin. Exactly the kind of thing Marshall would find funny. Agnes leaned right forward, fishing for her false teeth and grabbed them. Hurrah! She quickly put the dentures into her mouth and beamed at the whippersnapper with rows of pristine teeth. "Golden sunset years, you said?" "Wifout finanfial worrief!" The sales rep gave in and stood up. "I'd freally luf to ftay and chat, but I . . ." "You're going already? What a shame. Are you sure you don't want another . . . ?" Agnes picked up another biscuit threateningly, but the whippersnapper was already on his way to the door, and a good thing that he was too. Because Lillith was lying out in the woodshed, a bullet in her head and a smile on her lips. It was going to be a tough day. They held their crisis meeting in the sunroom on the first floor. It was easiest for Winston that way. Agnes had prepared tea and got Edwina to take the teapot and cups upstairs. They had real biscuits out of a packet too. Agnes took an experimental bite--her dentures held firm--and looked around. Marshall was next to her, upright and sharp-eyed. Next to him Edwina was in one of her impossible yoga poses with a dreamy expression on her face. Winston just looked calm and sad in his wheelchair. Dignified, like Father Christmas. The scoundrel! How did he do it? Unlike Winston, Bernadette almost never seemed dignified. Instead she came across like a Mafia boss, not least because of her dark glasses. She had calmed down a bit, but it was the calm before the storm--or, better put, between two storms. With a downpour. To Agnes's right there was a gaping empty chair. "The engineer for the stairlift is coming tomorrow," she reported. After she had finally picked up the phone, it had been surprisingly easy to get the appointment. "Marshall has ordered the groceries for next week online. Loo roll too." Marshall gave her an encouraging smile. Another crisis averted. "And as regards the problem in the shed . . ." "She is not a problem!" interrupted Bernadette. "She's Lillith!" "Not anymore," said Agnes softly. "That is the problem." Bernadette made an unhappy sound. "It is warm for the time of year," Agnes continued. "We can't just do nothing . . ." "We can put her on the stairlift!" Edwina beamed. "On the stairlift, up she goes, upstairs. Into her bed. Peacefully in her sleep. Maybe she'll even recover! And if not . . . peacefully in her sleep!" "She is not going to recover," said Marshall decisively. "And as far as peacefully in her sleep goes . . ." "Indeed!" Bernadette puffed bitterly. "We could just call the police," suggested Winston. At heart, he was someone who liked order. "The police usually deal with such matters." "We could do that," said Agnes, "if we knew where the gun was. Without the gun . . ." Three pairs of eyes turned to look questioningly at Marshall. Bernadette's dark glasses reflected the light. Marshall seemed confused for a moment, then sheepish. "The gun . . . it was in the shed. I had it . . . and then I was in the thingummy . . . in the lounge, and . . . I must admit . . ." He attempted a military stance, but didn't pull it off completely. "We don't know where the gun is," Agnes repeated. "And now if the police come and find it--shall we say, somewhere in the house--it could look suspicious." Edwina's laugh rang out. Bernadette snorted. Winston nodded sagely. Nobody had anything useful to say. Typical. The high-pitched ringing started up in Agnes's ear. She used the acoustic intermezzo to think. How long could they wait before reporting Lillith's death? On the one hand, it was definitely an advantage to leave her in the shed for a while, especially in this heat. The more time that passed, the more difficult it would be for the police to make sense of it all. On the other hand, it could obviously seem suspicious if they kept Lillith's passing to themselves for too long. Sure, most of the people in the village had them down--completely unjustifiably--as a load of senile hippies, but at some point, even they had to notice that one of their housemates was missing. When exactly? After a day? Two days? Edwina said something. It wouldn't be anything sensible. Agnes drank a mouthful of tea and waited for the high-pitched ringing to go away. Bernadette took her sunglasses off her nose, got a tissue ready and waited for her next sobbing fit. Winston patted her knee to comfort her. Marshall said something to Agnes, and she acted like she understood him. An attentive look and a short but encouraging nod should do it. Then the ringing suddenly disappeared, and Agnes heard the word "umbrella," as Marshall looked at her expectantly. "Well, yes," said Agnes unsure. "Just an umbrella," Marshall repeated. "That's all. But it doesn't make much sense." "How could you!" hissed Bernadette. Her blind eyes stared into empty space. It had an unsettling effect. "Just like that. Without a goodbye, without . . . anything!" "With a goodbye, it wouldn't exactly have been a surprise, would it?" Agnes responded more sharply than she'd intended. Typical Bernadette, making a drama out of the whole thing. They had all agreed! It wasn't as if Lillith's sudden death wouldn't haunt her, quite the opposite, but sometimes you had to think practically. "We're all going to drink our tea," she said decisively. "And take our pills. And then we'll have a look." "For Lillith?" asked Edwina delightedly. "For the gun!" said Agnes. "Winston and Bernadette will look here on the first floor. In Marshall's room, obviously, but in all of the others too. Everywhere. Edwina and I will look on the ground floor, and Marshall will take care of the garden." She looked at a row of long faces. "Just like Easter!" she cried cheerily. "Use your head to save your wheels!" Winston said, and grinned. Excerpted from The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp by Leonie Swann All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
