The Q Files: Danger at Lichthorpe. By Mogmother
Scrabbletales is a new game invented by Mogmother and Optimist on the Run on 19/11/2017. It works like this...
Play a game of Scrabble (proper rules or not...) Record all the words used. Use all the words in a short story.
Mogmother then wondered what to do with her stories once she’d got them... Puzzle caches, of course!
Having created the Boy Named Q series in Shropshire, Mogmother then went on to write another series.
The cache is at: N52 (score for word meaning to go soft+ Q's surname + word for a British snake+ word for a fake alarm; word meaning to be unhappy+1, word beginning with Q +word meaning dirty + word beginning with J) W 002 (score for word describing layers of shelves; word for type of map - word for way of cooking mackerel, score for Jeremiah's surname.)
[where ‘word’ is mentioned, this refers to words from the original Scrabble game, not extra ones added to make up the story. However, some of the names were too useful to leave out...! Ignore the possibility of Double Word Scores and Triple Letter Scores etcetera: just add up the letters.]
Chapter 1
(words: mope, tiers, grimy, tang, mated, odd, tithe, hoax, lovely, fact, yawns, wife, souse, mantle, rule, so, boo, blet, jet, at, fair, cede, quag, onions, viper, naga, wakes, head, dig, ruin, age (ir))
THE smartly-dressed man looked around the forecourt of Carlisle station, squinting into the sleet, and turned to go back into the building.
‘Jimmy!’ A voice called, from behind a waiting taxi.
He turned and saw a tall bespectacled youth waving at him. He frowned. Camouflage trousers, wellington boots, the ruin of a green waxed jacket, an odd knitted scarf and on his head a navy trapper hat with earflaps…It couldn't possibly be Q.
‘Jimmy! Over here!’ The voice was definitely familiar. He went to investigate.
‘Come on, I’ve already been here more than twenty minutes, ‘cos the train was late-‘ Quentin Hammurabi Mortmain shook hands with him quickly and hurried back to the Landrover. ‘Hop in-‘
Glad to get out of the sleet, the smartly-dressed man obediently hopped, fumbling for the seatbelt as the engine juddered into life, his case sharing the foot-well with a quag of wet newspaper, straw and gravel. There was a tang of paraffin in the air. Something slid from one side of the back to the other as Hammurabi cornered.
‘Always carry a spade.’ He explained. ‘Never know when you might need it. And I got two sacks of sheep nuts… What was your journey like, James? -Sorry I called you Jimmy, but I didn’t know who was listening.’
‘Well, the plane put down at Glasgow because of the problems further south. Bomb hoax on a jet- I told you that when I rang you. And you very kindly agreed to put me up, and I caught a train which left Glasgow ten minutes late and got progressively later… Thanks for fetching me.’
‘You couldn’t have walked it.’ Hammurabi said, stating the fact. ‘Not even if you’d got a taxi to the village. Not in those clothes… Have you got anything warmer with you?’
‘Not much. If I’d not been delayed in Belfast I’d’ve been back in London two days ago…’
Hammurabi said nothing for a few minutes. The sleet was horizontal and they were forced to wait in a layby while a bus crawled past in the opposite direction. Hammurabi waved at the bus and someone waved back.
‘That’s the butcher’s wife. Works nights.’ The young man selected an even lower gear. ‘And it’s snow now, not sleet… Good thing we brought the sheep in this morning.’
‘You have sheep?’
‘The Mater does. Twelve Shetland ewes. They’re in the home field with the goat. At least they aren’t due to lamb till she gets back, and the goat doesn’t need milking: we ought to get her mated, but I’ve not got round to organising it…’
‘Your mother’s away?’ James was making conversation.
‘Oh yes, she never misses it. Improvers’ Bridge, at Harrogate.’ He grinned. ‘It’s the First Rule of Lichthorpe: lambing- and everything else- must cede to the really important things in her life, like Bridge… Do you play at all?’
James admitted that he found it rather tame.
His host grinned again. ‘Same here. If I did anything involving ‘bridge’ it’d have to be abseiling or something – you ski, don’t you? I think the Pater’s skis are still in the attics somewhere… I hope we get a decent mantle of snow over the fields, we usually do, and I like to be here for it if I can, especially after Grimsdyke had his knee done…’
‘Grimsdyke?’
‘Jeremiah’s been with the family for sixty years. Taught me a lot… It was just him and Mrs. O. for years-‘ Hammurabi stopped and went to open a gate, climbed back in and continued. ‘-And then his cousin’s son turned up one day, looking for work…’ He stopped again and closed the gate. ‘We’d had new people before, but they’d mope about and complain about how far it was to a Macdonald’s… or fall foul of the Naga or Viper… Jason looked like another of that sort, but -I ran checks on him myself, before the official ones, and he’s genuine. Yawns without covering his mouth, but he wakes early and works hard, and he’s grateful to have a job… Minimum wage, alas, but they get accommodation and meals… Mostly involving apples at the moment; they’ve all started to blet at once. You’re not vegetarian, are you?’
James said firmly that he wasn’t, and if there were further gates he was happy to get out and open them.
‘You’d be better driving, while I do the gates.’ Hammurabi cornered sharply and the spade slid across the floor again. ‘The combinations for the padlocks are related to the field areas on the tithe map. Swap places when I stop- there’s two more. Can’t trust the cattle-grids when it’s coming down this fast… Darn, I meant to get milk in Carlisle. Oh well, I got her the onions and a couple of mackerel to souse, so she should be pleased about that. We’ll cope…’
Hammurabi took the wheel again after the third gate, and soon a large building loomed out of the swirling whiteness.
‘Welcome to Lichthorpe Grange.’ He swung the vehicle expertly under an archway, then into a building. ‘This is it… Don’t worry about the feed sacks for now, let’s get indoors.’
Not sure what that meant, James collected his case and followed the young man across the courtyard to a doorway.
The door closed behind them and he realised how loud the wind had been outside. It was a bleak, bare room, with a stone-flagged floor, tiers of empty shelves and a large fridge-freezer decorated with magnets. Hammurabi kicked off his boots and scuffed into trainers.
‘Oh, don’t worry about the floors.’ He said quickly, seeing James undoing his shoelaces. His breath misted in the cold air. ‘Mrs. O. won’t mind, this once. D’you want tea or coffee? We’ve got ordinary tea as well as Earl Grey, and Lapsang Souchong, which I prefer, but cafes don’t ever seem to do that…’
Pleasantly surprised, James followed him into a huge warm kitchen where two women were preparing food, and said that he’d have Lapsang Souchong, thank you very much-
‘Who’re you, then?’ the elder woman demanded, peering at him suspiciously.
‘This is James. One of my colleagues.-I told you he was coming, that’s why I went to Carlisle! James, this is our cook, Mrs. Owthwaite. And this is Freya.’
James glanced briefly at Freya and gained an impression of a lovely girl with fair hair who looked as though she couldn’t say boo to a goose, but Mrs. Owthwaite was asking questions.
‘So what do you do, then, Mr. James?’
He spread a deprecating hand. ‘Mortmain designs things and repairs things… I’m one of the people who use what he designs and repairs. He’s produced some very impressive work…’
The old woman sniffed. ‘You talk London.’ She glowered at him with the knife in her hand: she was gutting the mackerel. ‘You don’t need to talk London here. We don’t.’
Hammurabi pulled a face. ‘Oh, give the poor bloke a chance! He’s been being polite to clients all last week… Where are Jeremiah and Jason?’
‘Jason’s checking the fences and Jeremiah’s been trying to monitor the gates.’ Freya lifted the kettle off the range. ‘I’ll call him down, now you’re here-‘
‘No, I’ll do it.’ Hammurabi went over to a rocker-switch and tapped out a brief message. There was an answering series of buzzes and by the time they were seated at a corner of the big scrubbed wooden table Jeremiah Grimsdyke had joined them, a craggy elderly man in grimy overalls, with fierce eyebrows and big gnarled hands.
‘It’s coming down fast now.’ He announced, when they had been introduced. ‘And it’s powder, so it’ll drift… Did you get that feed?’
Hammurabi nodded. ‘It’s in the Landrover… I’ll just show James the housekeeping -‘
‘Take your time.’ Jeremiah had his own pot of tea, which he was sharing with the women. ‘Can’t hurry a good brew…’
FTF 2 Nosy Parkers FTF