Lenny Marks Gets Away With Murder by Kerryn Mayne

Author:Kerryn Mayne [Mayne, Kerryn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781761048050
Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia

CHAPTER 27

It was just past midday when Lenny and Malcolm reached the familiar frontage of McKnight’s, the baskets swinging happily in the wind, as if they were hammocks for Lilliputians. The chalkboard-black of Malcolm’s coat seemed the opposite of camouflage and she was worried they wouldn’t make it home without being spotted. She could only hope Jase and Hoodie weren’t adept at surveillance. She was loath to underestimate them.

Underestimate: determinate, interested, remediates, terminated

McKnight’s hadn’t been her destination on purpose, but it was where they’d ended up. She felt relief at the sight of the store and Cordelia parked out the front.

Ned would help. He was fond of Malcolm and already knew of his dubious origins.

Lenny tied Malcolm’s lead to the bike rack beside the store, checked for suspicious characters and raced inside. She asked for Ned as soon as she walked in, not wanting to leave Malcolm alone for too long.

‘He’s not here,’ Deb said from the front counter, a spark of interest igniting behind her wire-rimmed spectacles. She was inclined to gossip, Lenny could tell.

‘But Cordelia is out the front,’ she said.

‘Who?’

‘His van,’ Lenny clarified, annoyed at Deb’s vagueness.

‘It’s the delivery van, love.’

‘Do you know when he will be back?’ she asked. ‘Will it be today?’

‘No, he’s over at the Montrose store. Mr McKnight put him in charge there.’

As if the very mention of his name had summoned him, Mr McKnight appeared.

‘She’s looking for Ned, not you, Ed,’ Deb said, emitting a grunting laugh as she spoke. Lenny must have missed the joke.

She had a particular opinion of people who named their children after themselves; it suggested a lack of creativity and a sense of grandiosity. It would also make sorting the mail difficult.

‘He’s not here, darl,’ Ed said.

‘I told her that,’ said Deb.

‘He’s managing the Montrose store, I needed him in charge over there.’

‘I told her that too,’ Deb piped up.

‘But he doesn’t want to run a grocery store,’ Lenny said, without pausing to consider that perhaps Ned didn’t want Ed to know this.

‘I think he’s played board games in the spare room for long enough, little lady.’

Deb and Ed laughed as if they were sharing an uproarious joke, although Deb’s guffaw morphed into a hearty smoker’s cough that petered out into sputtering. Lenny drew back, making a mental note not to purchase any of the items from the register point of sale.

‘But he loves it,’ Lenny said.

‘If we could all do what we loved I’d be sailing a yacht on the Barrier Reef with an esky full of Crownies. Life isn’t that simple though, is it?’ Ed said.

Deb rasped another laugh.

No, she supposed it was not. Nor was it her place to meddle in an arrangement between father and son. And yet Ned’s father stomping all over his son’s ambitions was intolerable. She wanted to push over the boxes of Coco Pops that stood tall beside her (thirty per cent off this week); she wanted to throw one of the half-price tins of spaghetti at Ed and tell him to stop being an oppressive bully.

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