The Mysteries of Brambly Hollow

plates of them with dried bread. It’s strange, but although I was only about three at the time, I remember it so vividly, probably because they made me feel so sick.”
    “Why would Elsa make you do that?” Meli registered a tiny trickle of excitement in her guts, recalling the plate with its slice of bread and pickled onion Elsa used to keep in the Transit. It seemed that now Elsa was gone, people were more prepared to talk about her.
    Dean opened the DVD case, and removed the disc, his complexion returning to normal now. “It was Finn’s favourite,” he told them both. Rising to his feet, Dean popped the disc into the players drawer.
    So, another mystery solved. Meli had quite a few notes to add to her records. This was getting easy.
    “What are you going to watch?” Meli asked as she handed them their lunches.
    “The Evil Dead,” Dean replied, holding up the case to show her the cover.
    “That’s an oldie, isn’t it?”
    “Yes, but it’s one of my favourites, and Cass hasn’t seen it before.”
    “Mind if I join you while I have lunch?” Why on earth am I asking their permission, Meli questioned herself? She shouldn’t feel uncomfortable in her own living room. She tried to shake away the gooseberry feeling. This boyfriend thing would take some getting used to.
    Cassie kind of scowled at her. Not a full frontal ‘oh mum, get lost, we want some privacy’, but close, while Dean shrugged, “Not at all,” the dimpled smile he had arrived with was back on his face.
    The film began to roll, and although Meli was staring at the screen as she ate her ham sandwich, the images reflected in her eyes were superimposed with her own broody musings. She was thinking about the Countess and her accident. Was it just one of those unfortunate things, or was there something suspicious about it? Could Elsa have caused the accident somehow? Get rid of the opposition? That would give two people a motive to murder Elsa: the Countess and Bill. Although why wait all these years before seeking revenge? No, that couldn’t be it. And what about Mrs. Barber? She also had a motive, but again it seemed beyond reason to wait so long. Could anyone be that patient? Then again, if Elsa hadn’t had anything to do with the Countesses accident, the only other suspect was Mrs. Barber. The plot seemed to revolve around the three women and their embittered relationships with Dastardly Bill Barber.

    “What the hell is this?” Cal’s cheeks reflected the ruddy red of the dying sun through the window as he burst into the bedroom, where Meli was preparing for bed.
    He was waving a note pad in front of him. It was instantly recognisable.
    “Oh, that,” she mumbled, her own cheeks colouring guiltily.
    “Yes, this,” holding it steady, he flipped back the first several pages. “Suspects in Elsa’s murder,” he read the heading before glancing up at her briefly to check she was paying attention. “Mrs. B, who’s husband was having an affair with Elsa, and with the Countess. Or could it be, oh yes,” his eyes narrowed as he struggled to read her scrawled writing. “Bill. Bill’s the next suspect. His motive could be revenge for the car accident that confined the Countess to a wheelchair.” His eyebrows had risen so high they could have been mistaken for horns. “What is this rubbish?” He slapped the pages with the back of a large hand.
    Meli instantly clambered onto the saddle of her high horse. “What is it to do with you? Those are my private notes. You had no right to read them.” Why was he so angry?
    “But who said that Elsa was murdered? Certainly none of the experts, like the Police or the Coroner. Accidental was the word I believe they used.” His blue eyes flashed at her.
    She swallowed. Unable to meet his condemning gaze, she dipped her eyes, and regarded the A4 pad that was hanging precariously from the tips of his fingers, the first dozen or so pages flopping unnaturally backwards, the glue struggling to hold everything together. She had to concede that certain halfwits, in this case namely Cal, could wrongly deduce from her notes that she was under the impression that Elsa had been the victim of a murder, and fail to comprehend that her notes were simply an accumulation of interesting facts and deductions. “The notes don’t mean anything,” she explained, trying to put it in the simplest of terms that even he might understand. “They’re just like, well just like dawdling, only using words, not