Back at the shop, Rafe leaves me to paint while he goes next door to get lunch. He’s able to remain human as long as he stays within a twenty-metre radius of me, which thankfully includes Celeste’s bakery.
He’s gone a long time. I’m just about to mount a rescue mission when he bounds into the shop, holding a bag of warm pies, a couple of cream doughnuts, and a heavy-looking shopping bag.
“So I have good news, gooder news, and thebestnews.” He rubs his hands together. “The good news is that Celeste had beef and Guinness pies today. The gooder news is that I borrowed her phone and called the council about your food hygiene and alcohol exam. The exams are administered here in the village, at the community hall. They’re booked up months in advance. The next date available is in November.”
“How is that gooder news? That’s months away. I won’t be able to open until I’ve passed.” I slump. “I never shouldhave done this.”
“I haven’t got to the best news part,” Rafe grins wickedly. “It turns out someone pulled out of tomorrow’s test. So I said we’d take the slot. You could be framing your very own alcohol license this time tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yeah.” He plonks a heavy book of regulations down on the desk. “Celeste had this lying under her counter. That’s the test material. It should be easy.”
“Rafe, I can’t sit a test tomorrow! There’s no way I’ll learn everything in that book in one night.”
“Oh ye of little faith.” Rafe flips open the first page. “We’d better get started.”
VII
The Bees
Buzzz. Buzzzzzzz buzz buzz.
We circle circle circle the big law man. His fingers smell sickly sweet from the caramel slice he had for lunch. Caramel made from the nectar of our friends. We don’t like him, this Big Law Man Nectar Eater. He frightens Mamma, and we don’t like men who frighten Mamma.
He’s sitting in his Shiny Moving Seed Pod on the circles that spin-spin-spin. Only now they’re not spinning because he’s stopped on the edge of the woods. The woods where we come for delicious foxgloves and bluebells. He thinks that Mean Warrick is here.
We don’t like Mean Warrick, either. We’re happy that he won’t be coming home.
“This case has me absolutely stumped, Wilson.” Big Law Man Nectar Eater removes his hat and scratches his hairline. “The CCTV footage clearly shows the car going into the woods, but it never comes out again. Why can’t we find it? The woods aren’t that big.”
They’re big. We buzz around his head.They’re so big, filled with delicious things. You’ll never find Mean Warrick or his Shiny Moving Seed Pod. Never never never.
“We’re still looking,” the woman says. We call her Sour Face Clematis Hair, because of her wispy short hair that’s difficult for us to hide in. She’s pacing back and forth, back and forth, heedless to the daisies she crushes underfoot. She’s staring at one of those colourful rectangles. Mamma uses one of these sometimes, mostly to talk to Mean Warrick while he’s away. She points it at us when we find delicious flowers, and we rumble our wings for her because it makes hersmile, and we love it when Mamma smiles her rare, beautiful smiles. “It’s here somewhere, I know it is. A car can’t just disappear.”
“I don’t think he’s in the woods. I think he snuck through, maybe on one of the smaller roads where the footage isn’t as good, and he’s gone off to Ibiza with the mistress.”
Sour Face Clematis Hair isn’t listening to his valid and very correct, extremely correct theory. “Maybe we missed it down one of the banks. We can—oh,shit. Guv, I’ve found something.”
She hands Big Law Man Nectar Eater the little rectangle. She swats at us as we buzz closer so we can see. We don’t like the swatting, although it’s good for the littlest of us to learn how to duck and dodge. We have to be close close close because Mamma’s on the little rectangle, only it’s not really Mamma. It doesn’t smell like her and she’s tiny, almost the size of us.
Mamma would smile if she knew we were here. We wave our antennae at her.Hello Mamma! We’re protecting you!
On the screen, we see a moving image of Mean Warrick’s Shiny Moving Seed Pod entering the woods. We think it’s a memory, because we know that happened a few days ago. Sour Face Clematis Hair swipes her finger over the picture of Mamma, and the memory flows backwards, and now it’s another tree, another part of the woods, the bad part where the wasps live, and there is a figure walking out of the woods, and we’re there, too, swarming all around.
It’s us, it’s us! We’re in the tiny rectangle!
“This is from one of the other cameras,” Sour Face Clematis Hair says. “The figure blends in with the foliage, so I didn’t notice them before. Doesn’t that look like the same green jacket Warrick Abernathy is wearing in the car?”
Big Law Man Nectar Eater leans in, so close, so close, his nose nearly on the rectangle. “I suppose it could be. It’s the same colour, although we know how these cameras sometimes show odd colours.”
“That’s the same jacket. Only it’s nothisjacket,” Sour Face Clematis Hair says. “It’s the wife’s jacket. I saw it on the coat rack when we were there. You remember what the neighbours said about him? How he controlled her, how he didn’t let her have friends, howhe made her quit her market stall so she would stay at home and wait on him. I think she got sick of being the meek little housewife and offed him, and she drove the car into the woods with him in the trunk and disposed of it somehow, and this is her walking out.”
“If that’s true, where’s the car?” Big Law Man Nectar Eater taps the rectangle. “This isn’t clear enough. It could be any random hiker. And their skin looks darker.”
Not darker, not darker. That’s us. We’re swarming all around so that you can’t see the truth, even in memories.
“I’m telling you, we need to look at the wife. She’s acting so strange. She doesn’t seem upset at all. She’s opened a shop! It doesn’t make sense to me.”
