Happy Holidays and Bob and Shirley preview

Dear Wonderful Readers,

Happy Holidays to you all and hope you're getting ready for festive fun and family arguments. So far, our family arguments have included:

1. When should the outdoor Christmas lights go off? 9pm or 10pm?

2. Green Spontex sponges - is the green bit the top or the bottom?

3. Are gingerbread flavour Oreo's actually nice?

Please tell me what you all argue about. I'd love to know I'm not alone :)

I'm writing the Bob and Shirley's Guide to Murder series right now, and having loads of fun imagining how Bob and Shirley would handle Christmas lights / argue over turkey size etc. 

Bob and Shirley isn't available yet, but here's a sneak preview of the first chapter:

Bob and Shirley's Guide to Murder - Chapter One

Shirley

Murder?

In our quiet, little English village?

Great Oakley is a place of hanging baskets, tearooms and riverside walks. We’ve won ‘Britain’s safest village’ 10 years running. I keep three pound coins, a box of toffees and a bottle of Peptol-Bismol on my dashboard at all times, and I’ve never needed to lock my car.

So, no. I do not think Bevvy Hogg was murdered.

Certainly, she was disliked. Bevvy ran the local Waist Watchers group, yet came to our pub for fish and chips, treacle tart and a bottle of Chardonnay every Friday. She enjoyed our roast on a Sunday too, which includes three large slices of beef or lamb, buttered carrots, cauliflower cheese, a giant Yorkshire pudding and a generous pile of crispy roast potatoes.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I have no judgment about Bevvy’s eating habits or her weight. We like hearty meals here at the Goose and Gander.

Our main customers are American tourists like yourself and elderly walkers wanting big portions, real ale and large-print menus. That’s why our meat pie slices are so large that they hang off the plate. But Bevvy lectured her Waist Watchers members about saturated fat and alcohol, whilst regularly eating deep-fried fish and chips and swigging prosecco.

Nobody likes a hypocrite. But that doesn’t mean she was murdered. It was just all very odd.

Especially the weight loss.

Bob

Bevvy Hogg? Oh yes. Suspicious circumstances, for sure. The oddest of which being … well, she’d lost a lot of weight.

I don’t wish to be impolite, but Bevvy was on the larger side. Especially for a slimming coach. In fact, I’m fairly certain she was clinically obese. But the day we found her, she was much slimmer than usual.

Which is very odd, isn’t it? Bevvy struggled with weight the whole time we knew her. Well, perhaps not struggled. Because she didn’t try very hard. But she always wanted to be a few dress sizes smaller. So to be found dramatically slimmer the day she died …

All very strange.

Obviously, I have nothing against larger ladies. My wife, Shirley, treats an all-inclusive buffet like a personal eating challenge, and she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. But Bevvy was one of those overweight women who wanted to look like Audrey Hepburn. She often burst into tears after a few glasses of wine because her neck was too fat for pearls.

I would occasionally steer Bevvy towards our lighter offerings. Vodka and slimline tonic. Delicious local strawberries with a dash of Suffolk honey. But ultimately, Bevvy preferred fried food baskets, meat pies, roast dinners, syrup puddings, wine, gin and prosecco. Sometimes, all in the same sitting.

Bevvy seemed to think that if she hadn’t cooked the food herself, it didn’t contain calories. Classic denial.

Did I mention it was me who found the body?

Shirley

Bob found her. Bevvy, I mean. At 6am on Sunday morning.

The poor woman was face down on the flagstones in our pub garden with an empty treacle tart plate beside her.

Bob always starts his day early. He’s up at dawn tending to his vegetables. Then he’ll jet-wash the patio, clean the parasols, trim the lawn edges with manicure scissors, weed the flower beds, fill the bird feeders and put out water for Cyril the fox.

Bob keeps himself fit. He’d look like a hunky Dr Who if he didn’t cut his own hair with nail scissors and wear high-vis clothing. And don’t get me started on his woolly bobble hat. I call it his instant idiot hat. It’s especially bad when he wears it abroad. We become an immediate target for pickpockets.

Bob was very calm about finding a dead body in the garden. Once he’d attempted mouth-to-mouth, he got his gardening clipboard and made notes for the paramedics and the police. He noted ‘weight loss’ as the most remarkable thing.

Bevvy was overweight the whole time we’ve known her. That’s why everyone called her Big Bevvy. Yet her body was several dress sizes smaller than usual. And the weight loss must have been recent. Bevvy’s backside knocked over a wine bottle during the pub quiz only a week before.

Bob had two more observations.

First, Bevvy had taken her cardigan off and was showing her bare arms.

Well, I gasped at that. It might not sound odd to you, but Bevvy never showed her arms in public. I won’t say why out of respect for the dead. But let’s just say she had her reasons.

Second, Bob observed a strange, yellow mark on the patio, which he noted as ‘unidentified’.

After Bob took Bevvy’s vitals, he called the emergency services. But since Bevvy was already dead, well … the paramedics were in no hurry.

Bob

I didn’t notice Bevvy at first, because she was on the patio. And I’d gone straight to my tomatoes. They’re coming up well this year, and I wanted to harvest a few bags for our Ploughman’s lunch.

Have you tried our Ploughman’s yet? It’s the best in Suffolk and comes with a large wedge of Suffolk Blue, Guinness cheddar, a selection of home-made pickles, tomatoes from our garden and two slices of freshly baked bread.

As I headed to the shed for my secateurs, I saw Bevvy. She was face down on the patio, looking rather blue in colour. There was a broken plate nearby and an unusual, bright-yellow streak on the flagstones. Bevvy’s beige cardigan seemed like it had been flung off in a hurry and hung damp with morning dew from a garden table.

I could tell Bevvy was dead. And also, that she was a lot thinner than usual. The way her dress draped over her body … well, I don’t mean to be ungentlemanly, but it showed her frame very clearly.

Bevvy wore those big, billowy floral dresses in summer. You know the sort where the skirt goes all the way to the ankles, like a patterned tent? Good for church and ladylike lunches. I imagine those dresses feel very cool and comfortable, especially if you’re carrying extra weight.

Shirley hates outfits like that. She likes to have her cleavage on display at all times. I do hope she covers up a little for the memorial service.

Yes, we serve coffee. We have a barista machine. A pot of tea? Certainly. We drink it with milk in England because the tea is just that bit stronger over here. We also serve it with biscuits, which I believe you call cookies?

I’ll get Shirley to serve you. She has strong opinions about how tea should be made.

Shirley

A proper English tea is made with milk. And it’s important to put the milk in after the hot water, otherwise the hot water cooks the milk. When Bob and I were first married, he used to put the milk in first. It was our first post-marriage argument. Luckily, I managed to educate him, and he’s made proper tea ever since.

Bob

I’ve made Shirley countless cups of tea, and I always put the milk in first.

She never notices.

Thank you for reading and being part of my reader family.

Huge love,

Suzy xx