[Brenda & Effie 03] - Conjugal Rites Page 2

  ‘Something Mrs Claus is holding at the Christmas Hotel. We’re getting the spillover guests up at the Hotel Miramar. I wondered if you had any staying with you.’

  Brenda dreaded to think what kind of affair it was that Mrs Claus was putting on. ‘Any what?’ she asked.

  ‘The convention is for people who . . . dress up. As . . . things.’

  ‘What kind of things?’

  Robert pulled a face. ‘I’m not sure what you’d call them.’

  ‘Goodness. No, I don’t think I’ve got any of those booked in. When is it?’

  ‘This weekend. We’re swarming with them up at the Miramar. I’ve seen some very funny sights, going about in their skin-tight Lycra and their masks.’

  Brenda sighed. ‘I still haven’t got over the last Goth weekend.’

  ‘I think this weekend is going to be even weirder than that.’

  Brenda clicked her fingers. ‘Maybe that’s what Effie’s up to.’

  Robert settled back on the green bobbly armchair and said musingly: ‘The Night Owls.’

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘You said the waitress said something about The Night Owls.’

  ‘She did. Familiar, is it?’

  He frowned very deeply. Endearingly, Brenda thought. Then he said, ‘It rings a bell. Somehow . . . The Night Owls . . .’

  Everyone Listens

  Robert was a love.

  Brenda still felt like she and Effie had let him down somewhat over that terrible affair with his poor Aunt Jessie. There was nothing they could have done to stop her turning into a primitive apewoman-zombie-type thing last spring. And then, to compound matters, Brenda’s gentleman friend of the time had shot Robert’s aunt in the head and . . . Well, suffice to say it was an awful do all round.

  She thought that Robert understood, though. He knew that Brenda and Effie were steeped up to their eyebrows in funny goings-on here in Whitby. Often quite satanic and insalubrious goings-on.

  Brenda still had a strange wave of foreboding going right through her the following afternoon. She nipped down to the grocery store on the ground floor of her guest house. Owners: Leena and Raf. Both very obliging and friendly - and very, very nosy. Leena, of all people, would surely know what the Night Owls were.

  The shop was swarming as usual with a thousand aromas: fenugreek, coriander, garam masala. Wooden boxes were stacked perilously in each of the aisles, and that very busy Bollywood music was playing over the speakers as Leena watched a movie on the closed-circuit TV.

  Brenda leaned over the counter to ask her a few questions. Leena looked at her, amazed.

  ‘You mean you’ve never heard of it?’

  Brenda stammered, ‘I thought it was maybe a weird secret society or something . . . Hang on! You mean, you have heard of them?’

  ‘Of course!’ Leena grinned with triumph. Any excuse to show off. ‘I’ve even been on the programme!’

  Now Brenda didn’t know what she was talking about. ‘Programme?’

  But Leena was yelling into the back room, where her husband was busy with his pricing gun. ‘Raf, listen to this! Brenda hasn’t heard of The Night Owls . . .’

  He gave a short laugh. ‘Where’s she been?’

  Brenda cried out impatiently: ‘Tell me what it is!’

  Leena sighed and tutted, loving the moment. She carefully unfolded a copy of the local paper, The Willing Spirit, and opened it to the radio listings page.

  ‘Here, look.’

  ‘Whitby FM? I never listen to that . . .’

  ‘Look carefully. From eleven p.m. till six a.m. every night of the week.’

  Brenda peered down the page, following Leena’s finger. My eyes are getting worse, she thought. And then she saw the title. Ah. There it was. The Night Owls.

  Leena stared at her. ‘Are you saying you’re never tuned in?’

  ‘Never even heard of it. Should I have?’

  ‘But . . . everyone listens! Everyone!’

  Now Raf came out of the back room, dusting his hands. He looked as amazed - and as tired, Brenda noted - as his wife as he said, ‘We’ve been up all night, every night for the past three weeks.’

  ‘You do both look a bit worn out,’ Brenda said. ‘I just thought you were working too hard.’

  Leena smirked. ‘And so does Effie. She looks tired all the time too, doesn’t she?’

  Raf flourished his pricing gun airily. ‘So do loads of people in Whitby just lately. Haven’t you noticed?’

  Brenda gasped. ‘Now that you mention it . . . yes, they do. I thought there was maybe a bug going round. Me, I tend to be impervious to stuff like that.’

  ‘Everyone is staying up all night,’ Leena said. ‘Listening to their trannies in bed.’

  Raf put in, ‘She means wireless radios, rather than cross-dressing friends, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’ Leena rolled her eyes.

  ‘But what is it? What is this show?’ Brenda was still none the wiser.

  ‘You must listen!’ said Leena. ‘You must tune in!’

  Brenda started squinting at the tiny print of the radio listings again. ‘It doesn’t say much about it here, except . . . Oh.’

  ‘Problem?’

  A horrible queasy feeling was going through Brenda at that moment. ‘The host,’ she said thickly. ‘Mr Danby.’

  ‘So?’ Leena expertly started folding The Willing Spirit back up.

  Brenda found herself actually shuddering as she explained why her blood was suddenly running cold. ‘It’s a name I know of old. I hope it’s not the same smarmy, wicked old man.’

  Leena looked at her dreamily. ‘Oh, he’s wonderful. He’s ever so good at putting his guests at their ease.’

  ‘He would be,’ said Brenda, narrowing her eyes.

  ‘I think you should listen and judge for yourself.’

  ‘I will,’ Brenda said, stern with sudden resolve. ‘And while I’m here, I’ll have a box of spicy tea, please.’

  Cod Almighty

  At first it almost sounded innocuous. Just a radio talk show. Just everyone in town listening all night to some folk blethering on. But once Brenda knew the truth, after her visit to Leena and Raf’s shop, she started looking more carefully at the denizens of her adopted town. That day as she went about her usual business she took careful note of the faces around her, and they were indeed etched with fatigue. They were worn and wan. Haggard with concentration.

  What was being said on this late-night show? What was so fascinating and compelling as to keep everyone up all night?

  The name Mr Danby didn’t inspire much confidence in her. Not after their last run-in. That dapper, evil little charlatan with his shiny comb-over and his twinkly eyes, and that insinuating purr of his . . .

  That night, when Brenda and Effie went for a fish supper, Brenda decided to tackle her friend on the subject of The Night Owls. They were at their favourite restaurant, the very modestly priced Cod Almighty, bang on the harbour front.

  ‘I never mentioned it to you, Brenda, simply because I didn’t think it seemed important, that’s all.’

  Brenda gave the menu a cursory glance. ‘Hmmm . . . I think I’ll have whitebait.’

  ‘You always have whitebait. I don’t know why you even bother reading the menu.’

  ‘Followed by a crème de menthe knickerbocker glory. You’re a bit tetchy this evening. Behind on your sleep?’

  ‘As it happens, I am.’

  Brenda shook her head. ‘I never thought you would be taken in by a fad like this.’

  ‘A fad?’ Effie’s eyebrows were as high up her forehead as they could get.

  ‘That’s what it is, isn’t it?’ Now Brenda was folding and pleating her napkin.

  ‘It’s a very interesting show,’ Effie said. ‘People talk about all kinds of things. There’s no set agenda. The DJ gets them saying all sorts of fascinating nonsense. Secrets. Surprising things.’

  ‘Does he now?’

  ‘You will have to listen in.’ Effie gazed levelly
at Brenda.

  Brenda burst out: ‘But Effie . . . Mr Danby! Didn’t that ring any alarm bells for you?’

  Now Effie lowered her voice. She looked almost furtive for a moment. ‘Well, maybe at first . . . but he’s all right really. He’s very good at what he does on that show.’

  ‘What about when he opened that beauty parlour last autumn, eh? The Deadly Boutique. What about that? Promising to take decades off the age of all those foolish, gullible women who flocked there to have him experiment on them.’

  ‘I know! I was one of those foolish women.’

  Brenda wafted her napkin. ‘Well, he was up to no good, wasn’t he?’

  ‘He’s changed his ways,’ Effie said. ‘I’m sure of it.’

  Brenda wasn’t having it. The smell of everyone else’s dinner was making her feel hungry, and when she was hungry she became less tactful. ‘Look what he did to poor Jessie! He sucked all the life out of her. Turned her into something from the dawn of time. That’s where all of poor Jessie’s problems began, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Look, Brenda, what harm can he do simply hosting a phone-in show?’

  ‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this. He should be locked up!’

  ‘Just because he ran a dodgy salon for a while . . .’

  Brenda stared open-mouthed at her friend. ‘Don’t you remember the night he trapped me and you down there? When he locked me in his Deadly Machine and had a go at regressing me right back? And how we had to have an almighty punch-up, just to get away with our lives?’

  Effie leaned in. ‘Ssssh, Brenda. You’re raising your voice. Do you want everyone to overhear about the scrapes we get ourselves into?’

  ‘I don’t care. I don’t have anything to hide.’

  ‘Oh, you don’t, do you?’ Effie ostentatiously rearranged her silverware and gave Brenda a significant look.

  ‘Hmm. Well, obviously I do have quite a lot to hide. My true nature and so on. But you know what I mean.’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean, Brenda. I rather think you’re overreacting to this whole business. It’s only a phone-in. It’s only a bit of fun! Now, shush up. Here comes the waitress to take our order.’

  Brenda Tunes In

  Brenda knew Effie was wrong. It wasn’t just a bit of fun. She knew there was something more to this. But she didn’t push the point just yet.

  Later that night, tired and replete, their heads swimming with vinegary fumes and crème de menthe, they crossed back over the harbour bridge and wound their way through the streets to home, waving goodbye outside Effie’s tatty junk shop.

  Brenda let herself in to her own place and was quiet as could be, going up the side staircase, thinking that some of her current guests might already be abed. Mr Timperley, booked into room number three for a full week, was rather old and fragile-looking. He didn’t want to hear his landlady galumphing about after a night on the town.

  In her gorgeous, sumptuous attic rooms she soon made herself comfortable with a pot of spicy tea and a little fire going. She had a fiddle with her battered old radio, tuning it in to the local station.

  There were some moments of whining and buzzing static, and then she got a voice that was indistinct at first, but still chilling in its familiarity.

  It was twenty past eleven and his show had already begun. Brenda sat back in the bobbly green armchair to listen, cradling her mug of tea. She was tuned in to The Night Owls and ready to hear what it was that had put her friend Effie - and much of the rest of the town - under such a strange spell.

  ‘Well, my friends,’ Mr Danby was saying as the signal sharpened into absolute clarity, ‘as ever, I have no idea what it is we will be talking about between now and the early hours. We have midnight and all the dark hours before dawn to get through first. Don’t you just love that thought? That we will be here together all that time, and we can talk about anything we like. Anything at all that occurs to us. Let us hope there will be some surprises coming our way before morning breaks over the North Sea . . .’

  He’s so slimy, Brenda thought crossly. Really, if I didn’t have to, if I didn’t feel compelled to, I certainly wouldn’t stay up like this, listening to him going on.

  Now Mr Danby was getting ready to welcome his first caller of the evening.

  ‘Gloria’s waving to me from the control room. Line two . . . Here we are. Good evening . . . Sheila, is it?’

  A tremulously soft, feminine voice joined Mr Danby on the programme. Brenda’s eyes widened as she listened in. ‘That’s right, Mr Danby. I’m a first-timer on The Night Owls tonight. I’ve never phoned in before, but I’ve listened for weeks, every night. I think it’s a fantastic show. I love your way of talking to people.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Mr Danby modestly. ‘I just give them a little respect and listen to their woes and all their funny little stories, Sheila. It’s surprising how grateful people can be. We are so used to being neglected and unheard, aren’t we? Someone listening, just listening at the other end . . . well, that can be a wonderful thing, can’t it?’

  ‘It can indeed, Mr Danby,’ Sheila warbled.

  Sheila, what are you doing? Brenda thought. How can you take him seriously? He’s so smarmy. Brenda felt that she could happily throttle him.

  ‘And what is it you would like to talk about this evening, Sheila?’

  ‘Oooh, I’m quite nervous, actually. I’ve never . . .’

  ‘Just you take your time, my dear.’

  Brenda reflected that it wasn’t at all like the formidable Sheila Manchu, glamorous owner of the Hotel Miramar, to sound as nervous as this. What was the matter with her? Brenda was used to seeing Sheila wafting about in something clingy and being the centre of attention. Why was she going all daft with Danby?

  ‘All right, it’s like this,’ said Sheila breathily. ‘I own a hotel in a rather select part of Whitby. It caters for a younger and perhaps slightly racier crowd than do some of the old-people-type hotels out on the sea front. We have a nightclub in our basement and barbecues in the beer garden and all manner of exciting attractions . . .’

  ‘Sounds like an advert, Sheila.’

  ‘Oh, that’s not what I meant, Mr Danby. I never phoned in to blow my own trumpet. What I’m really calling about is another hotel. The Christmas Hotel, right on the Royal Crescent, on the cliffs overlooking the harbour. That’s one of these supposedly respectable places, crowded with old-age pensioners.’

  ‘I know it very well, my dear,’ simpered Mr Danby. ‘When she was in better health, my poor old mother used to go there often for a Christmas knees-up.’

  ‘Because it’s Christmas every day at the Christmas Hotel. Yes, I know.’ Sheila sighed huskily. ‘And it’s run by that terrible harridan Mrs Claus. Her with her ruddy cheeks and broken veins and getting pushed around in a Bath chair by her staff of willing boys all dressed as elves. Well, what I’ve got to tell you all tonight is that she is pure evil. Do you know what she puts in the meat pies on pie and peas supper nights?’ Sheila’s voice had turned rather shrill by the end of this. Mr Danby felt he had to interrupt.

  ‘Erm . . . you do realise that what you’re saying might be defamatory, don’t you, Sheila?’

  ‘Of course I do,’ she snapped.

  ‘Oh, good. Carry on, then.’

  ‘Dead human bodies,’ Sheila said, with the utmost relish. ‘That’s what she puts in the pies. She has people murdered. Even some of her own elves who escape from her control. She butchers them and serves them in pies to her ancient guests.’

  ‘That’s very interesting,’ said Mr Danby. ‘And she’s your biggest rival, would you say, as a hotelier?’

  ‘That’s not why I’m making this public. I’m saying it because she needs to be stopped. She has a stranglehold on the media here in Whitby. You may know she owns the local paper, The Willing Spirit. Plus the entertainment supplement The Flesh is Weak. She even seems to have the police force on her side and in her pocket. I thought your show would be a good way of letting the whole to
wn know—’

  ‘That she’s evil? Well, you’ve certainly managed to alert the town to your views on the impressive Mrs Claus. But don’t you fear for your safety, Sheila?’

  ‘Why no. What can she do to me?’

  Mr Danby gave a very dark little chuckle. ‘I imagine she can do quite a lot.’

  Brenda realised at this point that she was clutching both arms of her chair in shock. What was Sheila playing at? How could she suddenly be so indiscreet? Brenda, of course, had no time for Mrs Claus at all, but she would never have dreamed of casting aspersions around the place like that. It seemed like a very unwise thing to do. Mrs Claus was indeed powerful in this small town.

  Now Mr Danby was saying, ‘Next up this evening we’ve got . . . well, well. On line one, it’s Mrs Claus . . .’

  A harsh voice boomed out of the wireless. ‘Yes, and I’ll have your listeners know that Sheila Manchu is talking out of her hat. That blowsy old drunk, what does she know? She can talk anyway. She was married to a criminal for all those years. A master criminal from London. So that hotel she’s got, she got that through blood money, you see . . .’

  ‘Oh dear,’ sighed Mr Danby. ‘You ladies are pretty riled up tonight.’

  Mrs Claus went on in her stentorian tones: ‘And Sheila needn’t think she can do me down and take away my business. She’s just jealous because I’m hostessing the Vintage Costumed Hero Ball this weekend.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ put in Mr Danby. ‘I’ve heard about this. Do tell, Mrs Claus, is it true that this weekend will see the biggest gathering of retired costumed superheroes ever in the world?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know about that, Mr Danby. But I do know they are hard work to look after. I’ve got ninety-four pensioners running about my establishment, and all of them have some kind of superpower. All of them in costume. It’s an unholy ruckus, it is. I wish I’d never accepted the booking. And another thing . . .’

  And so it went on. Brenda was thinking furiously as Mrs Claus rambled on. She was followed by another Whitby local, and then another. Each had their axe to grind and most had peculiar things to say about fellow residents. With a curious candour and a worrying lack of discretion, Mr Danby’s callers went murmuring and railing through the night. What could be making them talk like this? Saying things they would never dream of saying in the daytime or to people’s actual faces?