Death at the Anchorage (A Kipper Cottage Cozy Mystery Book 4) by Jan Durham

Author:Jan Durham [Durham, Jan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Inkubator Books
Published: 2022-11-12T16:00:00+00:00

14

The next morning, Liz took delivery of the new tiles for Gull’s bathroom. The delivery driver was in a high bad humour at having to reverse all the way down Henrietta Street because there was nowhere to turn round. It was a cul-de-sac that ended abruptly in the sea, thanks to a landslide a few years before that had swept away the cottages at the end of the terrace. Liz knew was only a matter of time before Kipper and Gull went the same way, but it didn’t worry her too much. She’d be long gone by then.

She eyed the huge flat-bed truck with the mechanical arm that was idling in front of her door. It was blocking the street entirely.

‘I did tell your office they would have to make the delivery with a van rather than a truck,’ she said to the unimpressed driver.

‘Aye, well, they didn’t tell me that, did they?’ He thrust the paperwork at Liz to sign. ‘Where do you want the pallet?’

‘Pallet?’

‘The wooden pallet your goods are on.’

‘Oh. I don’t really want a pallet as well.’

The driver shrugged. ‘That’s the way they come.’ He asked her to stand back and then remotely controlled the crane to lower the pallet of tiles in front of Liz’s doorstep. Then he simply drove off, leaving her high and dry with a huge pallet almost blocking her doorway.

Liz sighed. Niall was at work, so she had no choice but to start moving the tiles herself.

It took ages. Once she’d freed the tiles from the plastic strapping them to the pallet, she had to take them upstairs to the bathroom, one box at a time. It only took her a couple of trips to regret she’d decided to tile the walls completely, rather than just halfway up. By the time the bathroom was stacked with boxes, there was barely room to get to the toilet and shower, but she supposed it was better than having them piled in the living room or kitchen. It would be inconvenient until the tiler arrived, but she and Niall were used to inconvenience.

She’d just taken the last box up, when she heard someone call out from downstairs.

‘Hello? Liz?’

Yip, yip, yip!

She dumped the box and staggered back down stairs.

To her surprise, it was Irwin, Iris’s son, peering over the pallet through the open door into the kitchen. Nelson wagged his tail at him.

‘You’ll have to climb over that, Irwin, if you want to come in. Sorry.’

He picked his way over the wood, being careful not to mark his shiny brogues. He was immaculate, as always, in a shirt and tie and Fair Isle jumper.

‘When did you get back?’ asked Liz. She dropped into a chair, her legs weak from her exertions.

‘Last night,’ he said.

‘Was it a good conference?’

‘Very good, thank you. There were some excellent lectures on green burials.’ Irwin worked at the local undertakers in Sandsend. He was in his fifties and, having never married, lived on his own in a tiny but stylish flat on the West Cliff.

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