Battle Plan
And so it was that Sybil arrived at my home by taxi the next day armed with what appeared to be a large suitcase and a carpetbag.
As the taxi disappeared, she was left standing in the road looking somewhat terrifying. She wore her ‘intimidation power suit’ as she called it. Dating back to the 1980s, it was black with huge, padded shoulders which made her look even larger than usual. She had a black trilby on her head. She was also wearing platform boots which gave her an extra two inches to her already tall 5-foot 10-inch figure. Dark impenetrable glasses with thick rims finished the outfit. I had the feeling I was in the presence of a large black hooded crow of doom that had just emerged from a horror film.
Once inside my home, she opened the suitcase and produced a fussy floral dress, a hat draped in artificial fruit and flowers, and a pair of half-glasses with no frames and a grey curly wig.
‘Here Miss Marple. Put this on,” she demanded. ‘I still have a dressing up box with many costumes from my days on the stage.’
Doing as I was told, I was not about to argue with a large black hooded crow of doom, I looked at myself in the mirror. I did indeed look like the innocent old lady that was Miss Marple.
‘There is obviously a plan,’ I said. ‘Are we playing parts in a drama of some kind?’
‘You could say,’ said Sybil. ‘We are about to “do a number” on the headmaster as you suggested.
‘By the way, thank you so much for the extra rum baba. I ate it while you were preoccupied.’
‘So that’s where it went!’ I said crossly. ‘Must admit I could not remember eating it.’
Then, opening the carpetbag slightly, I added ‘What’s in here?’
She slammed it shut. ‘You will find out soon enough!’ she said.
But she hadn’t been quick enough to stop me seeing that the bag contained, amongst other things, a large saucepan.
‘Are we going to cook the headmaster some porridge?’ I asked.
‘It is a weapon of mass destruction,’ was all she replied.
I cottoned on. ‘Can I hit him over the head with it Sybil? Do let me, I am after all the injured party!’
‘No Nellie,’ she replied emphatically. ‘I know you, you would feel sorry for him and not hit him hard enough. And anyway, I have the height to do it properly.’
‘Won’t it hurt though?’ I asked.
‘Only if I get my thumb in the way,’ answered Sybil.
She had a point there. However, I had discovered there had been skulduggery and the public had only found out by accident what was going on, and the planning notices which should have been put up had been mysteriously missing. Never put up in the first place. I was feeling angry enough to overcome any feelings of pity for the headmaster.
‘Perhaps if there is a chance for another go?’ I requested. ‘I have always wanted to hit someone over the head with either a frying pan or saucepan. It must be such a wonderful noise – a sort of boing-oing-oing echoing away into the distance.’
Sybil looked at me over the top of her dark glasses. ‘You must be annoyed,’ she said. ‘I never heard you express such violence in all the years I have known you. Anyway, I shall do the deed properly the first time. I doubt it will need a second go…’
‘We can take a shortcut through the woods,’ I said, ‘using my gate which will not be in operation much longer if this wretched man has his way.’
‘I think that a good idea,’ said Sybil. ‘We will attack from behind. Catch him unawares.’
‘Do we have an appointment with him?’ I asked.
‘Are you daft, Nellie?’ snorted Sybil. ‘I have never made an appointment with a headmaster in my life. Even when I was teaching during my resting periods between acting. The last headmaster that upset me… Well, put it this way. I left him with his ears stapled to the wall.’
I looked at my dear old friend with great admiration. ‘You do have a way with people,’ I said.
‘You could put it like that,’ sniffed Sybil drawing herself up to her now towering height.
‘Should I wear platform shoes?’ I asked, ‘so that I can look intimidating too?’
‘You are not meant to look intimidating, Nellie,’ said Sybil. ‘Your part is that of a slightly eccentric, harmless and dithery old lady. Be yourself really,’ she said with a half-smile.
‘We will be playing “good cop bad cop”. You of course will be the “good cop”. We will assault him with questions and facts to bring him to his knees, and then I will strike the final blow!’
‘I hope it won’t be that final,’ I said. ‘I don’t fancy being had up for murder. Even my lovely foxes aren’t worth it! Or the badger, or the European…’
‘Tree bumblebees,’ finished Sybil. ‘I don’t need you to go through the list again.’
I felt a bit hurt; she really did not understand my relationship with wildlife.
‘Just wear something truly eccentric on your feet,’ she said. ‘What about those iridescent pink trainers you got in TKMaxx the other day?’
‘I’ve just thought of something else,’ I said. ‘Here. Wear one of these.’
I handed her my lanyard and ID for Hospital Radio and put on a spare one for myself. ‘No-one will bother to read what it says. The fact we have a lanyard will be enough.’