Rambling

by Renita D'Silva

There’s nothing quite like finding a body propped up against a dog waste bin to put one off rambling forever.

I was just about to suggest a break to snack on the energy drinks and cereal bars (fortified with extra protein) that I’d tucked into my backpack (the exercise would nullify the calories). We’d barely started but I was exhausted already, my breath coming in wheezing gasps, and beside me, Sue was the same. So I was relieved to have an excuse to stop for a moment, gather my wits about me.

I squinted at the man propped against the bin, head lolling on his chest. Something familiar about him – I must have seen him out and about, by the Oddbins most likely.

If I’m ever that inebriated, please stop me from resting against a dog waste bin. Surely he could have chosen one of the hundreds of trees around here for his forty winks?’ I said.

But Sue, instead of coming back with a quip as usual, was white as a meringue. Her mouth open but no words emerging.
I had prepared for every eventuality – my backpack was three quarters full of food, the rest given over to every conceivable item of first aid, but I had not accounted for Sue having a heart attack from the unaccustomed exertion.

I whipped my phone out, ready to call 999.

‘My friend,’ I prepared to say, ‘had a heart attack while rambling.’

There was something noble about it. At least we hadn’t keeled over while eating cake — let’s face it, it could just as well have been Sue calling the ambulance for me — which is what we did much of the time when we were together (I had some cake in my backpack).

‘Katy,’ Sue whispered, grabbing my hand, her nails digging into my flesh. ‘He’s dead.’

She was talking. Not a heart attack then. Phew.

Then as her words sunk in…

‘Dead?’

‘Our poor Dave!’

Ah, that’s why he seemed familiar. Mystery solved. I didn’t recognise him because of the pallor…

And then Sue’s words echoing in my head.

Dead.

I bent over and relieved myself of the four slices of toast with peanut butter and strawberry jam that I’d had that morning before we set off. (I’d looked up a running website and it recommended eating plenty of carbs before a workout for energy – granted it was for runners doing 10k and not ramblers looking to do a leisurely 1.5, but still…)

As I retched, my stomach emptying while I tried to digest what Sue had just told me, wondering what Dave was doing here, a part of me was thinking, Well, I must have lost at least half a pound, if not more, from the shock and the expelled toast.

Rambling has helped already…

***

‘So, let me get this straight,’ the detective looked us up and down, ‘you’re both ex-wives of Dave?’

‘Yes. Here, have a try. Coffee and Walnut. I baked it this morning.’

We were in my kitchen reviving ourselves with buttermilk scones, cake, and chamomile tea after the rather rude shock when the detective came calling.

‘You bake a lot?’ The detective asked, helping himself to a large slice.

I looked over at Sue. She shrugged. She didn’t know where this was going either.
‘

A fair bit.’ I said eventually

‘Dave was poisoned. We found remains of banana muffins in his stomach. They’d been laced with cyanide.’

Sue gasped. She’d taken this much harder than me. Being his second wife, she’d known Dave more recently and been with him longer (eighteen months to my twelve) before they parted ways. ‘His favourite.’ She sniffled.

‘Well, I didn’t bake them, if that’s what you’re implying.’ I said, archly.

‘So, you’re both Dave’s ex-wives,’ the detective repeated. ‘And you’re best friends.’

‘When she agreed to marry Dave,’ I said, nodding at Sue, who was now blowing very loudly into a tissue, ‘she came to check me out. I saw her trying to peer in the French windows and invited her in.’

‘Without knowing who she was?’

‘Oh I knew alright. Dave has a type. Small, round, blonde, partial to cake – although I didn’t know this last bit when I invited her in, of course. I offered Sue my almond slices and we bonded over them. We got on better with each other than either of us had with Dave.’

‘So how did you find the body?’

‘We told you, we’d decided to try rambling after it was advertised by whatshername, that celebrity who lost three stone. She said it was the scenic route to weight loss. We couldn’t take the discipline required with diets. We did Slimming World and ended up with more syns than sense.’

‘Same with Weight Watchers,’ Sue agreed, wetly, scrunching up the tissue.‘We used up all the weekly points in a day.’

‘That celebrity – I can’t remember her name, something beginning with D – said that with rambling, she could eat what she wanted and still lose weight. That decided us.’

‘And did Dave know about this?’

‘Why would he? He’s our ex-husband.’

‘Although I might have told him when he came to pick Izzy.’ Sue said.

‘Your daughter?

‘Our dog. We share her.’

‘Ok.’ The detective made a note in his book, although what he needed with Izzy I couldn’t say. ‘So who else knew?’ He was looking at me.

‘Well we didn’t keep it a secret. I posted on Instagram and Facebook.’ I don’t know why I sounded defensive.

‘And I might have tweeted about it,’ Sue pitched in.

‘I see.’ The detective sounded so forlorn and defeated as he stroked his beard, which, like the rest of him was small and straggly, that I decided to throw him a bone.

‘Dave’s new wife, Janine, made a bitchy comment.’

He perked up as I’d known he would.

‘She’s about a stone lighter than us, although I don’t know why that gives her licence to lord it over us. She’s still overweight.’ Sue snorted.

‘So she knew about you taking up rambling.’ The detective looked thoughtful as he once again stroked his pathetic excuse for a beard. I suppose he thought it added gravitas, the poor deluded soul.

‘She said we’d be panting like dogs.’ Sue sounded just as outraged as she had when she first saw the comment on her feed.

‘Which, she mused, would suit as we’d look like dogs’ dinner.’ I added. ‘I wonder how long she took to come up with that.

She’s not very creative, has to resort to cliches for her quips. I suppose she thought she was being clever.’

The detective did not bite. Instead, he changed tack. Perhaps he was cleverer than his ratty beard and person suggested…

‘Dave left half his considerable assets to his wife, the rest to be divided equally between the two of you.’

‘Did he? That’s kind.’ I said, pleasantly shocked and feeling slightly guilty that I wasn’t more upset by his death. I reached for a slice of cake to offset the remorse. All those people who fork shell loads to see a psychologist – or is it a psychiatrist? – or go on those mindfulness sessions that are all the fad, well, I say they should try cake instead. Much cheaper and tasty in the bargain.

‘He was in the process of changing his will, cutting you all out, leaving it all to charity.’

‘Was he?’ From both Sue and I at once.

‘He didn’t get around to it – he was killed before then,’ the detective said, his gaze suddenly sharp as he took us both in.

I didn’t like it. It made me uncomfortable. I bit into a scone and chewed thoughtfully. ‘It’s obvious,’ I declared, ‘Janine must have found out about the will and killed our Dave in a fit of pique and made it seem like we did.’

Sue turned to me, nodding vehemently, ‘Didn’t I tell you, Katy, the moment I set eyes on her that she was a crafty so and so?’

The detective cut into our excited exclamations. ‘It could just as well have been the two of you.’

‘Come now!’ Sue looked shocked. She’s my friend and all but she’s not the brightest pea in the pod. (I know I’m mixing my sayings or what have you. But well, this is not the easiest time, so you’ll just have to excuse me!)

Why else did Sue think the detective was here, picking our brains instead of at the cake? He’d only eaten one slice so far (it was the biggest one but even so); it was my best effort, melt in the mouth, even if I say so myself.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘it could have been but it wasn’t us. You’ll just have to take our word for it.’

‘And why is that?’

‘I’m allergic to bananas.So I couldn’t have made the banana muffins.’ I said.

‘And I don’t have bananas in the house.’ Sue chimed in.

‘Why?’

‘Izzy once ate a whole banana, skin and all and almost choked. We nearly lost her. It was…’ Sue was overcome. She twisted the tissue in her hands. Then, rallying, ‘After that I will not have bananas in my house.’

‘Well, thank you, you’ve been most kind.’ The detective stood, pocketing his notebook. ‘I might be back, in the next couple of days, to go over your statements.’ He paused, then, ‘You don’t suppose I could take a slice of cake for later? It’s the best I’ve ever tasted.’

The detective never did come back, although I baked a carrot cake the following day and spiced cinnamon muffins the day after that and they both were better than even I had expected. Turns out shock and upset are conducive to baking. I learn something every day.

A few days later, Janine was arrested.

Sue and I met up to discuss this turn of events. After a comprehensive anti-Janine bitching session, we agreed that rambling was too strenuous and stressful, never mind the health benefits.

‘What if we come across another body?’ I said.

Sue stopped chewing. ‘We won’t, I don’t think.’ She eyed me shrewdly. ‘Unless there’s someone else you want out of the way.’

The treacle buns we’d been enjoying were suddenly tasteless in my mouth. A shame as they were sticky and gooey, exploding with honeyed sweetness.

But even treacle buns can’t help when you’re being accused of murder by your best friend. Perhaps she was not as dozy as I’d supposed after all.

Nevertheless, I took another bite and coolly met her gaze. ‘What exactly are you implying, Sue?’

‘Stop it, Katy. I know what you did. I saw the hives on your hands from handling the bananas. The swollen eyes and runny nose. You said it was hay fever but the pollen count was ridiculously low that morning. And your shortness of breath – too pronounced for it to be from just the walk. We hadn’t even walked that far!’

I swallowed, the bun sticking in my throat.

‘Why, Katy? Dave wasn’t that bad.’

‘He could be cruel, you know that.’

‘But…’

I couldn’t stand for her defending Dave, pretending he’d been whiter than white. ‘You know my lifelong dream has been to open a cake shop.’

‘Katy’s Cakes. You’d be amazing too.’

The pity in her voice got me. I stood up straight and, ignoring the voice in my head asking me to shush, told her what I’d done.’When the bank refused my request for loan yet again, I swallowed my pride and went to Dave. He agreed that the venture sounded great, and he even went so far as to admit my cakes would sell, but when I asked for investment, he laughed in my face.’ I felt the rush of anger claiming me again like it had that fateful day. I reached for a treacle bun and stuffed the whole thing in my mouth. The sweetness calmed me enough to continue. ‘I pleaded, cajoled. I was desperate. He laughed at me. And do you know what he said: “Over my dead body.”’

Sue gasped.

It was a relief to get it out, after all the secrecy. I felt two stone lighter. ‘What are you going to do?’ I asked and there might have been the hint of a threat in my voice for Sue went green – she seemed to be choking on my treacle buns, a first!

‘She’s not. I am.’ The detective was in my kitchen all of a sudden, his excuse for a beard even sorrier than last time, his eyes sharp and cold, flashing like my cooking knives. ‘Ms Huddersley, you’re under arrest for…’

‘Here,’ I said, pushing my best side forward, ‘have a treacle bun. Delicious and I can guarantee, no trace of cyanide…’