Lavender and Haddock

Lavender and Haddock (first part of chapter 1)

Text and cover illustrations copyright 2014 Mike Williams

SODDEN-ON-THE-BOG

If you drive north through Derbyshire with your foot pressed firmly down on the pedal, the scenery will suddenly change. Large gaps will start to appear in the tidy gritstone walls, the air will get noticeably thin and if you wait long enough, the occasional hang glider will fall from the sky only to be pounced upon by half-starved sheep or locals desperate for conversation. You will have reached Grimspittle moor – a blank on the map marked 'Here be Germs'. The Romans had lasted there for three weeks, the Danes for less, and if historians are to be believed even Bonny Prince Charlie turned back in disgust after drinking a pint of green ale in 'The Lamb and Liver Fluke.' For it was neither the mud nor poor tactics that put paid to him at Culloden, merely a lack of dock leaves and privacy.

A few miles further north and you will have arrived at the infamous Grimspittle reservoir; a large expanse of thick brown water on which the occasional coot or mallard may squawk in surprise then disappear forever beneath the surface. Anglers have been known to drop their sandwiches and run away in fear from their catch while only the bravest of divers dare to dip their fins and risk being mistaken for a large black pudding. These are haunted waters where less than a hundred years ago stood a proud but isolated village called Sodden-on-the-Bog. During long hot summers when the water level falls, it is possible to see the cracked and bent spire of the village church. In drier years where only a greasy pool remains in the centre, the ruins of a large manor house can be seen in the sun-baked mud. There are even reports of strange tracks in the silt, as though a large creature with tentacles had dragged itself out of the building to the shallow waters nearby. It is rumoured even that the museum in Buxton holds a collection of plaster casts of the same, but try asking one of the attendants. They will shrug their shoulders and usher you towards a boring vase in the corner that Romans used to spit in. It is as though Miss Arabella Pike had not existed at all.

Miss Arabella Pike was a mystery. No one in Sodden could remember how long she had lived in the manor house nor what she had done in the past to have amassed what was commonly talked about in the tap room of 'The Lamb and Liver Fluke' as a 'fair bit of brass and no mistake'. To be fair to the villagers they left her well alone. She was courteous, rich and prompt in payment, not qualities shared by many. Who wouldn't forgive her the occasional eccentricity, her monocle or her cigars? There was also the question of her pet – a subject of much speculation ever since Bad Phlegm the Burglar had dropped his trousers in court and pointing to the teeth marks on his leg, had demanded compensation or at least some ointment. Although no one had set eyes on the animal, it was the considered opinion of many, including the postman, that she had rescued it from a zoo – most probably after the creature had eaten its way through half the Serengeti with a couple of Keepers thrown in for pudding. One can imagine therefore the interest in the village when it was discovered Miss Pike had a sister, a twin sister at that, who not only dressed the same in tweeds and sensible shoes, but lived close by in the mill town of Frogwallop.

'I could have sworn it were Miss Pike if I'd not seen 'em together,' the landlord of 'The Lamb and Liver Fluke', George Stubbins, recounted to his regular customers. 'As alike as two peas in a pod they were, with Miss Pike ordering t'other one about with the shopping. And that's another thing,' he continued to his eager audience. 'You should've seen what they carried out from the butchers, a great big side of beef. All that for the two of them? I don't think so. I bet it were for the pet.'

At this information, a few of the men at the bar cast worried glances at each other. The postman began to shake so much that his beer splashed in all directions, and a swarthy looking stranger in a striped jersey threw his bag out the window and gave himself up to the police.