Down in the Garden: DEATH IS BUT A HEARTBEAT AWAY (DI Bethany Smith Book 2) by Emmy Ellis

Author:Emmy Ellis [Ellis, Emmy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-07-31T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

“Get the foot spa, twat face.” Auntie Angelica pointed at him, her fat finger wobbling.

He had to do this every Friday night. She said her feet ached after a long week standing behind the cheese counter in Tesco, serving ‘rude bastards’, and having her feet relaxed would set her up for a good weekend.

James was eleven, and he knew what it was like to have sore feet. It happened every time he stood in the garden for hours on end.

He scuttled into the kitchen and pulled the spa out of a cupboard. It was easy to carry it empty but a tad heavy once it was full. He took it into the living room, plugged it in, then returned to the kitchen to turn the tap on so the water got warm. He filled a bucket and staggered back to her, struggling from the weight of it, almost slopping some on her chunky bare calf. A worm-like vein stuck out of it, blue and wavy. Maybe that had happened because of her being static behind the cheese counter.

“Watch it, dickwad, you’re going to spill that!”

She clipped him round the ear, and he teetered, his heart beating fast at his thought of losing even just a drop. Thankfully, he managed to stay upright and poured the water into the spa.

“What about the Radox bath salts?” she said, staring at the clear water.

He’d forgotten to add those.

“Sorry.”

A quick dart into the kitchen for the Radox she kept under the sink, and the mistake had been fixed. He swished the water so the granules dissolved, then switched the spa on. She sank her feet into the blue, bubbling depths and sighed.

“You have some uses.” She leant her head back and closed her eyes. “Piss off now and make the dumplings. If you spill the flour again…”

He didn’t need to be told what that would mean.

Careful in the kitchen, he made the dumplings and managed to keep the worktop relatively clean. He popped them in the casserole dish which had been on low in the oven all day, then whacked the heat up higher. He’d made the stew this morning before school. No praise for being able to follow the recipe in her big old dog-eared cookbook. Nothing except to tell him to add more salt and pepper, because ‘No one likes an unseasoned stew, you stupid bloody moron.’

They’d be done by the time she’d finished with the spa. Another thirty minutes. He set the kitchen timer so he wasn’t late going in there to dry her feet.

He tidied up the kitchen for a while then laid the table, quietly, so as not to disturb her. If he did, he’d have no dinner again, spending the evening either in the garden or the shed.

Auntie Angelica had brought something home with her today, a clear plastic box like a fish tank, a blue lid on top with a light underneath. Inside were bits of bark like you had in garden borders plus a rock, a little earthenware cat bowl beside it.

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