Ruined Boys by Peter Robins

Author:Peter Robins
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3, epub
ISBN: 9780952078104
Publisher: Trouser Press
Published: 1993-01-14T13:00:00+00:00

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By three in the afternoon, Miss Frowst’s mood was in harmony with the cloudless sky. Her household chores completed, she stood in the communal kitchen humming a fragment of Don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me, and sipping a warm cordial for her dyspepsia. The quarterly interest on her investments had arrived during the week. She was wearing almost all of it in the form of a new frock from Mode that had just opened a new branch in Lokkerbury. As she was debating the arrangement of lobelia and aubretia in her window boxes, she heard the chug-chug of something motorised spluttering to a halt. With surprising agility, she nipped to the landing window. It seemed a bit early for Marigold, from Balderstones Kennels, to be arriving on her motor-bike for a nice, long chat. It was. Miss Frowst saw her neighbour, Alan Griffiths, parking what she called one of those scooter contraptions that were popping up like mushrooms around so many of the nicer avenues.

She nipped as quietly as she could back to the kitchen, careful to skip over the sprung floorboard.

—What a popular young man you are, Mr Griffiths. Three telephone calls for you while you were out Now, let me see. The first was quite a young voice. Upton, I think he said…

Alan was trying to steady his nerves. Naturally, he was elated that he’d managed to drive his Vespa back from the showroom and arrive in one piece. All the same, he was rather glad to have both feet on terra firma again.

—That’s the police photographer, Miss Frowst…

—Ah, your young cousin, I think you said. Well, he’ll phone again. And then there was … you know, I’m sure he did say Viscount Learning of Notters, but it wasn’t a very good line. Was he ringing from his club? A lot of gentlemen seemed to be laughing in the background. Is Viscount Learning related to you?

—Not a close relationship, Miss Frowst. Is he ringing back?

—He didn’t say. Now, the last caller had what I’d call a very cultivated voice. Wouldn’t give a name. A military gentleman, perhaps?… I did offer to take a message.

—Very kind of you. I must just pop upstairs. Don’t let me detain you. If you’re not using the phone, I must give my father a call.

Miss Frowst loitered as Alan ran to the top landing.

—Not ill, is he?… Your father?

—One hundred per cent recovery. Wasn’t lycanthropy at all. Wrong pills they’d been giving him. Hair started growing between his teeth…

Miss Frowst found Alan a very perplexing young man. She couldn’t, as she’d told Marigold, place him. He hadn’t the deference one expected of a town hall clerk but, on the other hand, he wasn’t quite top drawer. His sense of humour bewildered her. Miss Frowst sighed. She feared things would never return to those settled days when she’d been a very senior officer in the Women’s Royal Naval Service, and Marigold had been her fresh-faced assistant.

The phone rang. Alan

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