Keeping Mum. Kate Lawson

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      ‘Exactly.’

      ‘What do you mean exactly?’

      ‘Well, if you knew him you could hardly spy on him, could you? He’d get suspicious, but this is fine. You know Andy well enough to recognise him in a crowd or pick him out in a bar, but not well enough for him to come rushing over or, worse still, go rushing off.’ As she spoke Fiona flicked Cass’s collar up and fluffed the wig so it looked a little more tousled.

      ‘There we are,’ she said. ‘That’s absolutely perfect.’

      ‘It’s not perfect. Remember the sixth leavers do? Vamps and tramps? You made me wear a corset and nearly got us both arrested?’

      Fiona sniffed. ‘You always say that, but it was fine. I told the policeman we weren’t soliciting.’

      Cass nodded. ‘Uh-huh—well all I need now are the fishnets.’

      ‘Don’t be so silly,’ said Fiona. ‘You look great.’

      Cass wasn’t convinced.

      From an overstuffed chair out on the landing, Mungo the resident ginger tom and Buster, Cass’s matching mongrel, watched proceedings with interest. They didn’t look convinced either.

      ‘It’s not like I’m asking you to bug him or anything,’ protested Fiona into what was proving quite a tricky silence. ‘All you have to do is watch, take a few photos and possibly notes, and let me know exactly what he is up to. And with who…’ Fiona paused. ‘I know he’s up to something.’ But if Fiona was hoping that Cass was going to leap into the breach, she was sadly mistaken.

      ‘I wouldn’t ask, Cass, but I can’t afford a private detective and I don’t know what else to do. Does your mobile phone have a camera with a zoom lens?’ Fiona asked, as she buttoned Cass into the trench coat.

      This wasn’t exactly how Cass had imagined the evening going at all. She’d been thinking more in terms of a DVD, a bottle of wine and a takeaway, along with a bit of girlie chat, while the cat and dog mugged them for prawns.

      Cass had known Fiona since they were eleven years old, and at school together—which in some ways felt like yesterday and in others a lifetime ago. After sixth form they had drifted apart, separated by college, boys, careers. And then a couple of years ago, Cass had had a phone call out of the blue:

      ‘Cass, this is Fee, just wanted to let you know we’re moving back to the area—isn’t that great? God, I’m so excited, maybe we could catch up sometime? I feel a bit like salmon coming home to spawn.’

      Which was probably too much information. It obviously hadn’t occurred to Fiona that Cass wouldn’t remember who she was, not that Cass had forgotten—who could forget someone like Fiona?

      Time smoothes away the raw edges of memory and Cass had forgotten a lot of things about Fee. What Cass had forgotten was that when she was on a mission, Fiona could be a grade A pain in the arse. These last two years of having Fee back in her life had brought all those annoying little qualities to light in glorious Technicolor. They hadn’t spoken very much in the years since leaving school but in that first conversation it all came flooding back.

      ‘When I saw this job in the paper I said to Andy it was fate. I can’t remember if you met Andy—he comes from Cambridge. You’ll have to come to dinner sometime once we’ve settled in. He can still commute; I know it’s a bit of a drag but we’ll get real quality of life in Norfolk. Or at least I will, he’ll be spending most of his life on the train,’ she giggled. ‘And I’ve found this great house. In Barwell Road? Those really lovely old Edwardian houses overlooking the park—four bedrooms, big bay windows…It’s going to be just perfect. I mean we want kids and London’s no place for a family, at least not for a country girl like me. So what are you up to these days?’ It had taken Fiona the best part of twenty minutes to get around to asking Cass anything about her life.

      ‘Working mostly, you know I bought a shop? And bringing the boys up.’

      ‘God, there’s you nearly done and me just starting,’ Fee had said. ‘Doesn’t that make you feel old?’

      Cass hadn’t known how to answer that and so instead said, ‘Oh, and I sing in a choir.’ It had been a throwaway line.

      ‘Really?’ said Fiona. ‘You know I’ve always wanted to join a choir. Remember when we used to sing in the school choir? God—that was such a giggle.’

      Which was why Fiona, the week after she moved in, had turned up to join Cass at Mrs Althorpe’s All Stars—Beckthorn’s community choir, which was a lot sexier and loads more fun than it sounded. When she saw Fiona waving and hurrying over to her, Cass groaned and wished she’d kept her mouth shut. Two years on and she hadn’t changed her mind.

      ‘God,’ Fiona had said, as she slipped in alongside Cass. ‘Isn’t this great? Just like the good old days.’

      Cass hadn’t said anything.

      As a lady bass and occasional tenor, Cass did a lot of well-synchronised do-be-do-be-doooos, dms, and finger snapping that made up the heartbeat of the doo-wop and blues numbers the band was famous for.

      Originally Cass had joined the choir because she couldn’t get a place on the garden design course, hated aerobics, and had always wanted to sing. She’d also thought it might be a good place to meet men, which it was—although as it turned out almost all of them were well over 50 and mad as haddock. It was fun though, because there was no need to be anything other than yourself with them.

      For the choir’s performances, which took place everywhere from church halls to street corners, the All Stars wore full evening dress, men in black tie and occasionally tails, the women shimmying and swaying in gowns of every colour under the sun, all glitzy and glamorous and very over the top with lots of diamante, feathers, sequins, tiaras and an ocean of bugle beads. It certainly beat workout Lycra into a cocked hat.

      After Tuesday evening rehearsal, the choir traditionally went on to the pub. Which was how Cass and Fiona came to find themselves squeezed into the end of a pew behind a long table in the snug bar of the Old Grey Whippet, alongside Ray, Phil and Welsh Alf, whose voice came straight from the heart of the Rhondda—which didn’t quite compensate for the fact that he often forgot the tune and occasionally the words—and Norman, who only came because his wife had an evening class across the road on Tuesday nights and didn’t drive.

      Cass hadn’t intended to sing bass when she joined. But when she signed up there’d only been one man, Welsh Alf, and so, Alan—their musical director—had suggested that some of the female altos sing the bass parts an octave higher. (Which at that point meant nothing to Cass, who hadn’t sung a note anywhere other than in the bath since leaving Beckthorn County High.)

      Four and a half years on, there were half a dozen men and around the same number of women in the bass section, with a sprinkling of men in the tenors and of course Gordon in the sopranos, who sang falsetto, plucked his eyebrows and occasionally wore blue eyeliner, although he was the exception rather than the rule.

      Her only real gripe was that while the sopranos got the tune and the altos had the harmony, the tenors grabbed the twiddly bits, and so nine times out of ten all the basses got were the notes left over and they didn’t always make much sense musically. There certainly wasn’t much in the way of a catchy little tune to hum while making toast.

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