Page 34 of Crazy Spooky Love

I stare at him. Who says stuff like that, really?

I’m reminded of my conversation with Marina, about Bazza and never meeting your heroes.

It’s a shame we didn’t also cover what to do when a man you think you can’t stand unexpectedly becomes your sex hero for five glorious but inappropriate minutes on your doorstep.

“It’s cherry lip gloss,” I say lamely, folding my arms over my chest. I’m aware that I’m one hot, open-mouthed kiss away from caving in, so my next words probably sound more hostile than they might have.

“Go away, Fletch, and don’t ever kiss me again, all right?

And for the record, no, I’m not interested in disappointing chipolata-sex.

Not with you, or the Dalai Lama, or even with Thor. ”

Also for the record, the last one was a lie. And alarmingly, it seems that the first one might have been too.

He snort-laughs and heads away, down the cobbled alley.

“You’re seriously weird, Bittersweet.”

I watch him leave, bathed as he is in the harvest-gold evening sunlight, and I can only agree. I am seriously, seriously sodding weird. I must be to let myself get kissed breathless by Fletcher Gunn for the price of a lime-green pooper-scooper.

I’m going to take my alarm clock to the charity shop.

I no longer have any need for it, because Lestat licks every inch of my face at 6:00 a.m. every morning to let me know he requires a pee and his breakfast. I had naively expected a dog to fit into my life, not that I would need to reshape my existence around his.

In quite a few ways Lestat is an undemanding houseguest; he thankfully seems to like walking even less than I do and he’s not one of those dogs who constantly shoves a slimy, saliva-coated tennis ball in your hand.

For both of these things, I’m grateful. However, I’m less enamored by the fact that he has clearly been pampered and allowed to run amok, because he’s one demanding brute of a taskmaster.

He asks for what he wants politely just once and then waits for a maximum of five minutes before he exacts revenge for being ignored. I can almost hear his thoughts.

Don’t take me out for a quick piddle by 6:05 a.m. ?

No sweat, Melody, I’ll just mosey on out into the lounge and pee on the rug.

Don’t ensure I have a fresh bowl of kibble by 6:15 a.m. ?

Hey, that’s cool. I’ll just find something else to eat while I wait, girlfriend.

A banana still in its skin? Delicious. Your slippers?

A gastronomic treat. A cork from a wine bottle?

Shredded and ingested with pleasure, Melody, and a fine vintage it was too.

He’s like a tiny gangster. I have to keep him happy or else he flips, but as long as things go the way he wants them, we can both live in peace.

It doesn’t bother me too much on a weekday because I’m up anyway, but today is Saturday and my bed is warm, and I changed my sheets yesterday so the quilt still has that “you’re actually sleeping in a warm, sunny meadow” feel about it.

I don’t want to open my eyes; I feel as if they’re glued together.

I don’t want to go and shiver outside while Lestat paces up and down the alley like an impatient furry general choosing his spot.

I ignore him and pretend that his tongue in my eye socket isn’t bothering me.

I try, but it’s futile because we both know that I’m going to give in.

I bought new slippers yesterday, fancy knitted boots with fur inside, and I like them enough to sleep with them under my pillow.

He knows it, of course. You don’t get to be a Mafia boss without knowing everything that’s going down in your manor, and at 6:05 a.m. I feel one of the boots start to slowly slide out from beneath my head.

It’s enough. It’s a direct threat. “Get up, or the slipper cops it.” I open my eyes and there he is, eyeballing me with the pompom of the boot locked firmly between his jaws.

I bare my teeth and growl at him, but he just sits there. I think he’s counting down in his head.

“Fine,” I grumble. “I’ll do it, but afterward I’m getting back in this bed for probably the entire weekend and my slippers are allowed to live, do you understand me?”

He waits until my feet have actually hit the floor before he relinquishes his death-grip on the pompom, laying it down in theatrical slow motion.

“Why, thank you, you’re so kind,” I tell him, hoping he’s sophisticated enough to understand the nuances of sarcasm. I stick my feet inside the bed-warmed slippers and wriggle my toes, then follow his furry little butt out of the bedroom, resigned to my fate as his human.

Half an hour later, I’m back in bed with a huge mug of coffee and Agnes Scarborough’s diary from 1920.

I’m wearing my Marigolds again because I can’t be bothered to go down to the office for a latex pair and I’m in my furry boots—please God, don’t let there be a fire, or else Fletcher Gunn will have a field day when they carry my charred body out; he’ll have me down as some kinky fetishist before the fire’s even extinguished.

We’ve worked our way through Agnes’s diaries, and even though it’s been a riveting personal account of life during the First World War, we’ve yet to discover anything of real significance to the case.

I now know that like most men of their age, both Isaac and Lloyd fought for their king and country, and that Isaac was decorated for gallantry shortly afterward.

Agnes knew of this, yet she never acknowledged her awareness of his bravery to Isaac himself.

She observed her estranged son from a distance, although it’s clear that she privately kept tabs on him.

Even her diary entries about him are abstract—factual, stripped of maternal emotion.

But they are there, nonetheless, which indicates that he was on her mind even if she didn’t allow herself the luxury of writing about him in any form other than bald fact.

Maybe that’s why I am even more surprised by the entry at the end of June 1920.

“Charles Frederick delivered safely, Hull maternity hospital.” Next to it, she has written, “My first grandchild.”

I scour the diary for any further mention of the child, but there’s nothing.

Who is he, and more important, whose is he?

It is as if she was reporting the birth of a stranger, and she certainly didn’t break out the knitting needles.

She didn’t even break out the sherry. It can’t possibly be Lloyd’s son, because her diary is peppered with mentions of Lloyd’s upcoming wedding to his fiancée, Maud.

All of this leads me to the only possible conclusion, and a new chunk of the puzzle that I need to slot into place somehow.

Isaac had a son.